31 replies to this topic

[Ze_ro]

I never really got into emulators on the Dreamcast, since it seemed rather hit or miss, and I didn't want to waste a CD burning a SNES emulator that might work, or might be too slow to be usable... but now that some of them are somewhat mature, I was wondering if people had any comments on the usability of some of them. Specifically, how are NesterDC, Stella DC, DreamSNES, and Mame ports?

A friend of mine claims Nester is essentially perfect... Is this the general concensus? No slowdown or anything I assume?

Last I checked, DreamSNES still had some speed problems. Have these been worked out at all?

Are any of the Mame ports worthwhile? I don't expect to play Mortal Kombat or anything, just a game of Pac-Man, Moon Patrol, or Berzerk would be great though. Are many games supported? Are many of them full speed?

--Zero

[NE146]

OK, from my experience...

Best emus for Dreamcast are

NES - yes it's practically perfect w/ a great interface
5200/Atari 8-bit - Ditto.. some issues here and there but few and far between mainly dealing with specific game idiosyncracies. Otherwise, just about perfect.
SMS/Gamegear - Excellent. Only flaw is no saving.. so no RPG's..unless you sit there and play them in one sitting But for your avg everyday SMS game, it's great.
Gameboy/GBC - Another excellent emulator.. if you're into playing gameboy games on the boob tube. I guess you could play the Zeldas
Colecovision - Damn good. Requires some easily adjustable tweaks (like the speed throttle). But works great once you're done

So So emus and their flaws:

Stella - Last I checked some games worked great (Adventure). Others had a problem with speed and running too slow and too fast depending on what was going on.. I forget how the sound quality was however..
SNES - almost good.. but emulation is too slow. You're better off with the xbox. Not worth it imho. But "it works" so try it if you want.
Genesis - Gameplay is spot on.. but oh the sound! prepare for delayed tunes and sound effects, lots of "boings".. it really throws you off. I suppose you could turn the sound off and just play the games..but still!
Mame - It's so so. Good luck getting it to work and make sure you have the right romsets (and who knows what those are these days). If you do get it running, only a few select games run it seems and it's pretty much a crapshoot figuring out which. Pacman, Make Trax/Crush Roller work great but a little of the screen gets cut off.

..And that's about all I can remember for now. It's been a couple of months though for me so the 'so so' emulators may have changed or gotten better. These days I only use the Dreamcast for Atari 5200/8-bit emulation and everything else has since migrated to the Xbox.

[shep]

Unfortuanetly for us nonXbox owners, the SNES emulation is slow, but NES is awesome, much better than sitting in front of a computer screen.

[panamajoe]

NE146 said:

OK, from my experience...

Genesis - Gameplay is spot on.. but oh the sound! prepare for delayed tunes and sound effects, lots of "boings".. it really throws you off. I suppose you could turn the sound off and just play the games..but still!

the SNES Emulator has improved alot, it´s now near perfect and well worth the download. you can even play the Donkey Kong Series and it has a save option!

the legit Genesis Emu still isn´t that great, but if you keep an eye on the scene you MIGHT find an Sega Ripoff called SegaGen. It´s perfect, every rom works great ... it´s illegal though...

[PuddWakkr]

Anyone ever use the TG16 emu for the DC? I have one for my Xbox but never did get it for the DC. Just wondering how it played.
http://www.megagames...emulators.shtml

[Ze_ro]

NE146 said:

5200/Atari 8-bit - Ditto.. some issues here and there but few and far between mainly dealing with specific game idiosyncracies. Otherwise, just about perfect.

How well does this control though? I mean, you have no number pad for 5200 games... do you just hold R and hit up for 8 or something? At the very least, you get a decent analog stick I guess

Speaking of 8-bit emulation, has anyone tried the C64 emulators? I have a keyboard, which I would assume it uses?

panamajoe said:

the SNES Emulator has improved alot, it´s now near perfect and well worth the download.

Is it running full speed? If not, then I'd rather just use my computer or my actual SNES... I would imagine that games using special chips (Mario Kart, Starfox, Street Fighter Alpha 2) would have speed troubles, but if I can play a good game of Mario World without slowdown, that would be worthwhile.

By the way, I've gone through making burned games self-boot before, so I know a decent amount of what's going on when the Dreamcast reads discs... but is there any way to stick multiple emulators on a single disc? Like, make a disc with both GameGear/SMS and Gameboy emulators on it? Is this what this program is meant to do? It may sound silly, but I hate to "waste" CD space by only putting 100 megs of data on it.

Also, has anyone tried much of the homebrew Dreamcast games like the ones over here? Most of them look kinda cheesy... are there any worth the trouble?

--Zero

[shep]

Its not full speed yet, some games work close to it, but a lot are still choppy....

[NE146]

Ze_ro said:

NE146 said:

5200/Atari 8-bit - Ditto.. some issues here and there but few and far between mainly dealing with specific game idiosyncracies. Otherwise, just about perfect.

How well does this control though? I mean, you have no number pad for 5200 games... do you just hold R and hit up for 8 or something? At the very least, you get a decent analog stick I guess

Well it's funny.. you basically press the right trigger, and the game goes into this graphic chart of the 5200 key pad. You move the cursor to the key you want to press (start, pause, reset, number keys, #, *) press the button, then the game comes back on! This is the same for the atari 8-bit except in this case, a full blown keyboard comes up. It sort of gives you a nice pause in the game as well I guess

I think if you have a Dreamcast keyboard hooked up, that works as well. I know for a fact it works for the 8-bit games.. as I've played Zork on it a couple of times. I never thought to try it for the 5200 games however...

By the way, you'll find a couple of 5200 games are still wonky due to the control. The ones that come to mind are Gorf, Pengo, and Galaxian. The problem is easily solved however, by simply playing the 8-bit version or even better, playing the ported 5200 version by Glenn(?) the 5200 man!

Also, I know what you're saying about multiple cd's.. but you gotta figure, is it really worth the hassle? Say... the MOST you should pay for a pack of 50 cd's is $15 right. So that's 30 cents a cd. And of course with all the sales and discounts these days, it's not hard to find a deal where you pay much less than $15 for 50 cds. So even at it's highest price (30 cents), I think it's low enough to go ahead and burn away a single emulator + roms on a single cd That's just my opinion.. By the way the latest batch of cd's I bought breaks down to less than 19 cents a cd

[Nukey Shay]

panamajoe said:

the legit Genesis Emu still isn´t that great, but if you keep an eye on the scene you MIGHT find an Sega Ripoff called SegaGen. It´s perfect, every rom works great   ... it´s illegal though...

Illegal? Why is that? You would think it's no more illegal than the roms themselves. SegaGen here:
http://hyperion.spac...mulex/dcps.html

[Ze_ro]

NE146 said:

The problem is easily solved however, by simply playing the 8-bit version or even better, playing the ported 5200 version by Glenn(?) the 5200 man!

5200 versions ported from the 8-bit? That's odd... are the 8-bit versions better or something?

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Also, I know what you're saying about multiple cd's.. but you gotta figure, is it really worth the hassle?

You're probably right... but it's the principle of it! Ah well, I'll probably just use seperate CD's anyways...

--Zero

[NE146]

Ze_ro said:

5200 versions ported from the 8-bit? That's odd... are the 8-bit versions better or something?

No I meant.. you know how the 5200 versions were ported by "Glenn the 5200 man" so that 8-bit users can play them? (via diskette I guess) That's what I'm talking about. But from my experience, there's pretty much no difference from the 5200 version and the 8-bit version. But it works out for the emus because for example, 5200 Pengo doesn't work due to the control. But the 8-bit version does. And so does the 8-bit 5200 version version.

Here are pics of the regular 8-bit Pengo, and the "ported" 5200 Pengo to the 8bit.

Attached Thumbnails

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[Nukey Shay]

Wouldn't the control be the same between playing an emulated 800 on the DC and playing an emulated 5200 on the DC? Both use the DC's controller.

And Pengo already existed on the 800 (AtariSoft)

[NE146]

Nukey Shay said:

And Pengo already existed on the 800 (AtariSoft)

Right. That's the first pic.

We got 3 versions. 5200, Atarisoft's 8-bit version, then the ported 5200 version (don't ask me why it was done). I'm not showing the 5200 version above.

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Wouldn't the control be the same between playing an emulated 800 on the DC and playing an emulated 5200 on the DC?  Both use the DC's controller.

Yes they both use the DC's controller obviously. But when playing some 5200 games on the Dreamcast emulator, the controls don't work properly. (I assume because of the analog control) Again, this happens in 5200 Galaxian, 5200 Gorf, 5200 Pengo. For example, in Pengo and Gorf, when you play the 5200 version and try to move, your ship/pengo will jump a screen length away depending on what direction you push

But again, this is no problem. Simply play the 8-bit version of the game (i.e. Atarisoft Pengo) or the ported 5200 version (Glenn the 5200 man). It doesn't really matter. The important thing is on both the controls WORK (I assume because they were programmed to get good old digital inputs)

Maybe I made it sound too complicated... but the easy simple bottom line is: 5200 version don't work in your emulator? Play the 8-bit version.

[Nukey Shay]

Interesting...I wonder why they didn't alter the emulated 5200 controller to behave digitally on-screen?

[Ze_ro]

Well, after ruining two discs, I now have a working Nester disc... and it's pretty excellent! I'll have to try out the 5200/800 emulator next...

--Zero

[holygrailvideogames.com]

The Colecovision emulator is terrific on the DC.

[Spartus]

I don't have any emulators, but I have been thinking emulators for my NES games. Where do you guys get yours? Do you make them on your own or do you buy them online someplace? Do you have to use a boot disc to get them to work? I would really like to pack up my NES and put it away and have everything on CD's.

[MegaManFan]

Is it my imagination NE, or does the 8 bit version of Pac-Man look a little better than the 5200 version?

[DeV0]

Not really an emulation?? Someone did an excellent port of quake for the DC,, So i guess thats sought of emulating a PC.

[Nukey Shay]

That's a thought...emulating a DC on the PC emulating a PC. Those high-end systems might make those old Dos classics playable again.

[Ze_ro]

Spartus said:

I don't have any emulators, but I have been thinking emulators for my NES games. Where do you guys get yours? Do you make them on your own or do you buy them online someplace? Do you have to use a boot disc to get them to work?

So far, my main resource has been DCEmulation. Pretty much all the files you need are there (minus the roms of course), as well as lots of tutorials and such. I doubt you can buy them online at all... that would be quite illegal, since all this is copyrighted and such.

As for boot discs, I was able to make my NesterDC disc self-boot. However, I did it all in Unix, so I can't really say how to do it using Nero or Discjuggler or anything. Take a look at the above link and you'll find lots of self-boot utilities, although I haven't tried any of them. Be prepared to make some coasters before you get the hang of it.

--Zero

[Ze_ro]

NE126: Some questions about the 800/5200 emulator before I burn a disc...
[list]In the atari800.cfg file, it has a line for a file called atariosa.rom, which I can't seem to find... is this required? Or is atariosb.rom a newer version?
[*]5200 roms go in /roms and Atari 800 disks go in /disks... from what I've read, you HAVE to have .bin extensions on roms and .atr extensions on disk images, correct? Will the emulator fail to load a game if it's missing the extension? (I took all the .nes extensions off my Nester disc so that things looked better)
[*]Is there a limit on filename length? I enabled RockRidge extensions on my Nester disk, so I had filenames over 32 characters that showed up fine. I assume that Atari800 would work the same. What about spaces in filenames?
[*]Is there a limit on the number of files in a directory? Nester was limited to 1024 per directory, but let you use sub-directories... can Atari800 handle sub-directories?
[*]Do Atari 800 disks self-boot? That is, if I insert a disk image within the emulator, and then reboot the emulator, will the game run automatically, or do I have to type a command to get it to start? (I've been using C64 emulators long enough that this isn't a big deal, I just need to know what to type)
[*]Any really good Atari 800 games that I should look for that I might not have heard of? Obviously I plan on getting anything that I've heard of, but if there are any obscure gems that are really good, I'd love to give them a try.[list]

Thanks for all your help! My dirty, finicky Nintendo can now resume sitting and gathering dust.

Oh, and by the way... does Nester not work with Legend of Zelda 2, or do I just have a bad rom?

--Zero

[NE146]

Ze_ro said:

Oh, and by the way... does Nester not work with Legend of Zelda 2, or do I just have a bad rom?

You have a bad rom

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In the atari800.cfg file, it has a line for a file called atariosa.rom, which I can't seem to find... is this required? Or is atariosb.rom a newer version?

I don't have that file either and it works fine so I wouldn't worry about it. The only files I have in there are 5200.R0M, ATARIBAS.ROM, ATARIOSB.ROM, and ATARIXL.ROM

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5200 roms go in /roms and Atari 800 disks go in /disks...

Right. And if you have .exe files (like Berzerk.exe) or what have you, those go in /Files

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you HAVE to have .bin extensions on roms and .atr extensions on disk images, correct? Will the emulator fail to load a game if it's missing the extension?

I left mine on. But heck, you could give it a shot.. they're your cd's Personally I'd leave the extensions on.

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Is there a limit on filename length? I enabled RockRidge extensions on my Nester disk, so I had filenames over 32 characters that showed up fine. I assume that Atari800 would work the same. What about spaces in filenames?

With the 4000+ Atari disk images I had, I left all my filenames as is and they seem to work fine. As far as spaces, whenever I burn a DC cd, spaces in filenames automagically get replaced with an underscore. I have no idea when in the process this happens. But basically I use dir2boot.exe to create a Diskjuggler file from my directories, burn w/ Diskjuggler, and voila. I don't know if your process will do that as well (or if it's even necessary)

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but let you use sub-directories... can Atari800 handle sub-directories?

Yes. As long as the root directories remain named /DISKS, /FILES, AND /ROMS you can have any named subdirectories beneath them

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Is there a limit on the number of files in a directory? Nester was limited to 1024 per directory

I have no idea. But on my end purely for browsing purposes, I broke up my disk image set into groups of 800, and I had a seperate directory for Megadisks and 8bit carts (all under DISKS)

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Do Atari 800 disks self-boot? That is, if I insert a disk image within the emulator, and then reboot the emulator, will the game run automatically, or do I have to type a command to get it to start?

You don't reboot the emulator.. you "cold boot" the virtual Atari If you burn it you'll see what I mean. It's an option in the menu Basically the process for 8bit games is 1) load disk 2) cold boot from the menu, 3) play game. I attached a couple of text files below that tell you how to work the emu which might answer your question better.

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Any really good Atari 800 games that I should look for that I might not have heard of? Obviously I plan on getting anything that I've heard of, but if there are any obscure gems that are really good, I'd love to give them a try.

Here's a good thread that might help http://www.atariage....opic.php?t=3442 Personally, I dig playing Atari Donkey Kong on the emulator as well as stuff like Lode Runner. By the way, a lot of the 8bit games would be much more appreciated if you got your self a $4.00 Dreamcast keyboard (hello Infocom!)

Attached Files

•  ataridc_control_instructions.zip   2.18K   23 downloads

[NE146]

MegaManFan said:

Is it my imagination NE, or does the 8 bit version of Pac-Man look a little better than the 5200 version?

I dunno about that but I do know that some of them SOUND better! Did you try out Pacman (Atari 82).atr? It's the image that I keep saying has the much closer to the arcade "pacman eating dots" sound than the 5200 version did! Check it out. Wocka wocka wocka!

Pacman (Atari 82 alt).atr: has the same sounds as the 5200. But it also has the attract mode showing the ghosts names. I doubt it has the intermissions though.

Fun stuff

[panamajoe]

Nukey Shay said:

panamajoe said:

the legit Genesis Emu still isn´t that great, but if you keep an eye on the scene you MIGHT find an Sega Ripoff called SegaGen. It´s perfect, every rom works great   ... it´s illegal though...

Illegal? Why is that? You would think it's no more illegal than the roms themselves. SegaGen here:http://hyperion.spaceports.com/~emulex/dcps.html

well, it IS illegal because SegaGen is an SegaSmashPack rip off, which was (and is) sold by Sega... it´s not an homebrew!
but, hey, thanks for the link!