Sega Saturn, Dreamcast Emulators

[Jedirampage]

Hey guys

I'm currently building my first cabinents and i was wonderig are there any emulators for either the Dreamcast or Sega Saturn?

[SGT]

For the Dreamcast you have two options:

Nulldc is discussed here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=65606.0

and

Chankast can be found here:
http://chanka.emulatronia.com/

Not sure about the Sega Saturn.  You should check out Project64 which is a Nintendo 64 emulator.  Works real well if you download the non-free version:
http://www.pj64-emu.com/

[Jedirampage]

N64 would be great but i dont really have the space to add the extra buttons to match an N64 controller

[SGT]

N64 would be great but i dont really have the space to add the extra buttons to match an N64 controller

Yeah, most of the games I like don't use all the buttons on the controller.  Some people have console controllers that they pull out of their cabinet instead of using the control panel.

[youki]

For Saturn, there are Saturnin ,   SSF  , Satourne  and another one i think.

If you try plug'n play modules of my front end (AtomicFe) , there is one module that uses Chankast for the Dreamcast, and Another one that uses SSF for the Saturn.

[Jedirampage]

I'm using GameEX for my Front end, does anybody know what works good with that?  in regarads to N64, DC, and Sega Saturn emulators

[Frosty]

Dreamcasts are cheap--I'd just go and buy one.  And connecting a DC to a cabinet /arcade monitor/control panel is easy....

[SGT]

Dreamcasts are cheap--I'd just go and buy one.  And connecting a DC to a cabinet /arcade monitor/control panel is easy....

Kinda takes away from the cabinet experience when you have to change the CDs instead of automatically using a cd image.

[Jedirampage]

I agree, hence the reason i wish to emulate.  Plus that and there are very few games for DC that i would actually want to play in my cabinent (Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Street Fighter 3).  I already own a Dreamcast, but as stated above changing Cd's would really not help the experience.

[Jedirampage]

Also does in regards to the actual games.  Are they roms in the traditional sense?  Or do i have to pull the files from actual Dreamcast CD's/GD's games?

[Nologic]

Okay a massively late reply but what the hell.

Okay with Crankcast you can only boot CDI CD disc images.

With nullDC you can boot CDI CD disc images along with whats called a GDI...which is typically raw data tracks pulled off a GD-ROM (DC disc) and linked to by a ascii text file.

The primary difference between CDI's & GDI's is that CDI's can be played on an actual DC, but at the price of many of the games having down sampled assets....now GDI's nothing has been down sampled...but currently there is no way to burn them to disc...and even if there was it would require 99min CDR's and several games would still be to big to be burned.

So for emulation you would want GDI's if possible...for an actual DC, you would want CDI's as they are the only thing you can really burn at this point.

hmm... should bring up another point...CDI's typically range in size from 40mb to 700mb, where GDI's range between 1gig and 1.2gig

[Dariusz]

Is there an DC Emu which supports the original (or CDI) CD thru the use of the PC CD or DVD drive?

Dariusz

[unclet]

Are any of the Sega Saturn emulators "good enough" to run full games yet and full speed without problems? 

Seems like a lot of games are from Japan(J).  Was the Sega Saturn console mostly used for Japanese games?

What are the homepage links of the Saturnin, SSF and Satourne  emulators?

Does anyone have any of these emulators on their cabinet?  If so, hwo do they run games?

Are there any problems with the emulators when running? 

Is configuring them a pain or is it easy?

Must you download plugins for different games and all that nonsense to make a game work? 

[squirrellydw]

try here

http://www.emulator-zone.com/

[SavannahLion]

but currently there is no way to burn them to disc...and even if there was it would require 99min CDR's and several games would still be to big to be burned.

A little surprising since there's a project out there hacking out custom firmware for certain model CDR/W drives. You'd think someone would figure out how to modify the drive routine from CLV to CAV for a burn.... Or am I doing the capacity math wrong on that one?

[Dariusz]

Is anyone able to assist me with the following question?

'Is there an DC Emu which supports the original (or CDI) CD thru the use of the PC CD or DVD drive?'

Thanks,

Dariusz

[RyoriNoTetsujin]

'Is there an DC Emu which supports the original (or CDI) CD thru the use of the PC CD or DVD drive?'

Sadly, at least for original DC games, the short answer is No.  It's almost certain that will never be possible.  "Original" DC games are not on CD-Rom discs, but are on GD-Rom discs, which is essentially a proprietary format unreadable by current CD or DVD-rom drives.  Both Nologic (and SavannahLion) referred to this fact in a previous post.

The disc images that are available (regardless of format, cdi, gdi, etc.) have been burned through tedious and arcane methodologies of acquiring the data streamed from an original DC GD-rom drive (meaning, I don't know how to do it. )  The sad part is that, now that Sega has ceased servicing of GD-Rom drives... "once they're gone, they're gone."

[Nologic]

Dariusz -

Yes & No, both current DC Emu's will run original or CDI burns from CD\DVD drives...there is an issue with original disc's tho...only certain drives will work, and most require altered firmware...so in a nut shell no to originals.
unclet -

1. Yes SSF is good enough to run most games perfectly fine, provided you have a system fairly modern.
2. Japan typically has more games for any given system, post NES.
3. squirrellydw gots you hooked up.
4. I personally run SSF, but not on a cab, but HTPC and I use GameEx as a frontend tho they should work fine with any other FE out there.
5. Yeah wives tend to ---smurf--- about things not getting done around the house, kids bug you that its their turn to play...
6. Generally speaking most are fairly easy to get setup.
7. hmm no not really.

SavannahLion -

Well I've dumped 100 of my games thus far and I have a small handful that are 1.2gigs of data. I'm no expert in this area...so really can't comment.

[SavannahLion]

Oh yeah, gotta mention this.

Sweet! Someone else who likes AMA!

I spent months trying to create a high rez image of Cheshire for a T-Shirt I wanted printed up.

[Dariusz]

SavannahLion,

Thank you for the information. Further to your answer to my question, which DC Emu would you consider best running the original Dreamcast CD’s, and would you know which CD/DVD drives are supported, and which drives out of those which do support the original Dreamcast CD, which ones do and do not require the firmware to be updated, and lastly, has the firmware been developed by the Emulator programmers, or is the firmware just an improvement over the previous firmware on the drive provided by the original drive manufacturers?

Does anyone use the original Dreamcast CDs in their emulator, and how do you fine it?

Thanks,

Dariusz

[SavannahLion]

    

Woah there. Don't grasp at my straws.

I never said that there's a firmware hack that modifies a CD drive to read GD's. I merely stated that it's interesting no one actually attempted to. There is (or at least was) a a couple of projects that modified firmware for specific drive models to do very specific things.  None of it was for GD reading/burning capabilities however.

I'm not even sure where the firmware hack projects are located. Those links are on a computer in repair. A google search turns up one that I remember, but is useless for this purpose.

I don't know enough about the GD drive or how the actual firmware works in a CD drive to really solidify the idea. This is what I do know.

There is a NetBSD project that successfully attached a HDD to the DC accessible under NetBSD. But as you can see on this page, it is in addition to, not instead of the GD-ROM. But of interest is the fact there is a driver that can utilize the GD drive in some kind of capacity. This would be the first area I would start with.

The second area I would look into is some information by sknkwrks (DEAD LINK). Digging around, I found what was on that page. Sknkwrks apparently found the chip manufacturer and data sheet for the controller chip on at least one GD-ROM board revision. If the data sheet has enough information and one could reverse engineer the cable and the protocol between DC and GD, some possibilities might open up. I wouldn't bother banking on hacking existing firmware on a CD drive to read GD discs though, it's too much work for a very narrow selection of hardware.

Obviously, this isn't an easy or desirable project to take on, otherwise it would've already been solved. The DC fanbase is just too small to really justify the amount of time and research into tackling a project of this complexity. Unless the right combination of fanboy, desire, knowledge, time, and OTS hardware meet together at the right time, the DC will be doomed to extinction as the GD drives eventually fail. DC might just go the way of the unplayable DIVXor the Laser Discs.

To answer your emulator related question. I'm sorry, I don't use, nor have, a DC emulator of any kind so I can't even offer any reliable suggestions. I do own a select few DC games, but no DC. Which I could offer more for you about this. 

[Nologic]

SavannahLion -

Yeah AMA was cool and Cheshire just looks badass in that game.

Dariusz -

Personally I'd say nullDC is the best in every aspect currently.

As for what drives & other such info here are a few links:
http://emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=25684
http://stc.hacking-cult.org/gd-rom_stuff/

I have a few other links, but I think over all you'll find it to much of a pain in the ass.

The firmware in some cases was altered by people looking to dump thier GD-ROMs in order to preserve them...tho its really expensive to buy GD-ROM burners and disc's.

In all likely hood you'll find no one using actual disc's at this point...but who knows. All I can say is that I haven't & likely won't.

[SavannahLion]

The firmware in some cases was altered by people looking to dump thier GD-ROMs in order to preserve them...tho its really expensive to buy GD-ROM burners and disc's.

That's interesting. In all the time I've searched for modified firmware, I've never actually come across this bit of information.

What grabs my interest even more is how damn sketchy everything is. Lots of speculation but hardly anybody with the proper resources methodically dissecting the hardware.

Meh.