Chankast Help - Which set up is better Daemon tools or Alcohol120?

[Timoe]

I'm having some troubles setting up Chankast on my cab computer.  Granted I have only spent a limited amount of time on this.

I used chankast almost a year ago and was able to launch 2 or 3 games from within Mamewah using Daemon tools.  I seem to remember there being some kind of limitation with Daemon though.

Like only 5 or 6 images could be mounted or show up in my games list.  This limitation might have been my imagination.  SO I thought I would try Alcohol120.

Well in the few months since I had it working I have forgotten how to set up chankast with a FE.  Anyone out there care to write up a simple how to step by step?

(I will search for this)

On to the main question:

Is there a preference when using CHankast for either Daemon Tools or Alcohol120%?

Thank you

[Timoe]

btw, I'm using MALA as a front end

[Howard_Casto]

check the wiki... i've written a wrapper just for chankast and it supports both virtual cd types

personally I prefer alcohol... it seems to work better for me

[Timoe]

Thanks Howard.  I have the wrapper and currently I am trying to get it to work with Alcohol120.

I have searched the Board and the Wiki.  There is no tutorial or simple step by step

Thats probably a good idea.  Someday someone whos articulate and has experience setting up a particularly difficult emulator should add a simple "how to"for each emu to the wiki.

[Howard_Casto]

Yes there is, it's called the "readme.txt" and it's included with the wrapper. 

[Timoe]

I read it and it was helpful, thank you.  I wish there was one for the zinc wrapper.

[unclet]

Also, there is a very good chankast launcher application from "headkaze" which allows many input parameters to be provided in the interface..... very powerful. 

http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=752

[Howard_Casto]

His does the same as mine only mine supports a120 as well. 

[Timoe]

It would be cool if some people with a free moment could write up simple start up how to's for the more difficult emulators like Chankast and or Daphne


sorta like what UncleT did for the easy Mala set up.


it worked like a charm from me and eliminated that frustration

[Howard_Casto]

we have... consult the wikki

[unclet]

I configured Chankast but never was able to get the games working, so I removed it.  It was configured correctly because the games started, but the graphics did not display fully and was unplayable.  People told me that since I was using onboard video (rather than some type of good TV card), then Chankast most likely did not interface properly. 

Anyway, I will try to tell you what I did from memory to set up MALA.....

1) Downloaded "Daemon Tools" from the internet and installed it into the "C:\Program Files\DaemonTools\" directory.  Note: I did not install into the suggested directory of "C:\Program Files\D-Tools\"

2) Downloaded the "ChankastAlpha025.zip" emulator and installed it into the "C:\Emulators\Programs\chankast\" directory.  I went to the chankast site (http://www.chanka.org/), clicked on "Chankast", clicked on "Downloads" and downloaded version "Alpha 0.25"

3) I placed any BIOS files (found on the internet) required by the emulator into the "C:\Emulators\Programs\chankast\" directory as well.
   
4) Downloaded headkaze's "Chankast Launcher v1.3" (I think I got it from here --> http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=752) and UNZIP'd it into the same "C:\Emulators\Programs\chankast\" directory.   Note: I do not believe you need to place it in the same directory, but I thought it was a nice place to keep it.

5) Placed all of my Sega Dreamcast CD files (ie: NRG file extensions for me) into my "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Sega Dreamcast\" directory.

6) Downloaded the "Sega Dreamcast" MameWah layout from jcrouse's CPViewer site and unzipped it into the following directory:

"C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Sega Dreamcast\(all layout files go here)"

7) Downloaded the "MalaLayoutConverter" from the MALA website and used it to convert the MameWah layout into a Mala layout.  The resulting MLL file (ie: MALA layout file) should be saved as the following:

"C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Sega Dreamcast.mll"

NOTE: If you do not understand how to do Step6 and 7, then read my original post --> http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55305.msg542291#msg542291

8 ) Start MALA.EXE, right click and select Options to open Options Menu

9) Under "Other Emu Config" tab click the NEW button and defined a new emulator called "Sega Dreamcast" and click OK

10) Under the "Basics" subtab, set the "Executable" to be the following:

"C:\Emulators\Programs\chankast\chankast_launch.exe"

11) Under the "Basics" subtab, set the "Rom Path" to be the following:

"C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Sega Dreamcast\"

12) Under the "Basics" subtab, I confirmed the "Rom Extension" which was listed was NRG (this was filled in for me by Mala)

13) Under the "Execution" tab, I set the "Command Line" to be the following:

-daemon "C:\Program Files\DaemonTools\daemon.exe" 0 "%path%\%rom%.%ext%" -fullscreen -drive F -ntsc -showstats -unmount -region usa

Note: Mala has been updated to include this command line setting ..... so instead of typing in all that stuff, you can simply click on the "Presets" button, select "Emulator Presets", select "Sega", select "Sega Dreamcast (Chankast)" and it should fill in the "Command Line" for you.

14) Under the "Options" subtab, I set the "Snaps" to be the following directory:

"C:\Emulators\Screenshots\Sega Dreamcast\"

15) Click OK button to close and exit the options menu

16)  Right click on the mouse and select "Select Emulator" and choose "Sega Dreamcast".  You should see the layout image displayed without any games listed yet.   

17) Right click on the mouse and select "Refresh game list" and this should produce the gamelist for you.

18) Scroll to a game, select it and play.....



VARIOUS NOTES:

a) Make sure you test that starting the "chankast_launch.exe" application works properly via the command line within a "command prompt" window before configuring MALA.  This will guarantee you have all the settings you want configured correctly. 

For example: chankast_launch -daemon "C:\Program Files\DaemonTools\daemon.exe" 0 "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Sega Dreamcast\(game).NRG" -fullscreen -drive F -ntsc -showstats -unmount -region usa

b) The command line settings mentioned above are the settings which worked for me .... you may need to alter them a bit perhaps.   For instance, I wanted Daemon Tools to mount the CD image to drive "F" .... you might want to mount to a different drive letter.  I installed Daemon Tools into a "DaemonTools" directory .... you might want to install it into a different directory...... etc... etc...

c) I never tried Howard's wrapper, so that wrapper might have more benefits so you might want to give it a try.  Howard does some pretty cool stuff.

FINALLY, I attached a screenshot showing all the options available in the chankast launcher application, so you will be able to see what all the options I used actually mean... and why "I" used them.
 

[loadman]

UncleT

You so Sh*t all over that M$ Paperclip for helpful info!

You have to document your work seriously!

[smalltownguy]

Old thread bump, sorry.

Has anyone ever gotten either one of these wrappers working on 64bit system with chankast? I can't seem to get daemon tools working properly on my 64 bit XP setup.

I successfully had it working with my XP 32bit setup, but not 64bit. Anyone get this working?

[Howard_Casto]

Considering the thread is approaching 6 years old it is most likey that either deamon tools or chankast itself is no longer compatable with the wrapper.  Sorry.

If it isn't that, right-click on the wrapper, and select "run as administrator" in the options for that exe.