is there one at all?
is the wii capible of one?
are our sd cards large enough for one?

I think so, use Google skills.
Yes.
Yes.

Quote
kydo
is there one at all?
is the wii capible of one?
are our sd cards large enough for one?

1.For PC, yes, search for nullDC (mature) or DEmul (new)
2.No, search for "PS2 emulator" in this forum. The same reasons for PS2 not being possible to emulate on Wii, apply to DC.
3.It doesn't matter at all. (DC discs have around 1GB)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2009 06:08PM by DanielHueho.

Dream cast disk are dvds right? i don't know because Ive never had a dream cast

Yes I don't think Wii would have the HP to run a dreamcast emulator. Here's the minimum requirements from one of the better PC emulators:

* Pentium 4 with at least 1.6 Ghz
* 256 MB Ram
* Windows XP or 2003 (It won't work under any other Windows)
* Latest DirectX
* Powerful Graphic Card such as Nvidia or Ati
* DC Bios (use search engines to find it)


As for the disk's. Wikipedia does mention that DVD's were technically supported but never released for the system. So the main format would be a CD.

Yes technically it would be possible to make one. But it would be totally unplayable. Unfortunatally Wii is not a very powerful system.

Dreamcast uses GD-ROM discs. These are strange 1GB discs. I don't think that the DC can read DVDs, but it will take CDs.

Interestingly, it will also run burned CD games (edited to shrink them to CD-size) without modification. Does that count as a violation? I wouldn't exactly describe that as "supporting backups", but feel free to delete my post. I will, for my part, post the obligatory "omg why you delete mi post baackups is legalae" message in the feedback forum.

Ooh!!! DC Emulation, right up my alley...

Yep, DC disks are GD-Roms, which are technically modified CD-ROMs with 2 tracks. The TOC(Table of Contents) and a DATA track. These both occupy the cd, which is the GD-ROM. Now in the case of emulation, because this is a disc based game console, you need to dump a BIOS file. (I am not trying to violate the rules. I am merely sharing info.) Once you have dumped a BIOS, you then need to dump the games. How is this done? Either through a home-built serial cable or through the ultra-rare BBA adapter. Once these two have been acquired, you merely need a fast pc with a good graphics card.

To me, though, I fully believe the Wii is capable of DC emulation. Why? Well, I'll share with you the dreamcast's technical specs:

+32mb Internal Ram
+400mhz CPU
+8/16/32mb Graphics CPU(I don't remember exactly which, but I am aiming at 32mb...)

Now, knowing this, the Wii should be fully capable of running the games. However, we need to wait and see if we can pull N64 emulation/homebrew before we even think about DC. I'll take it even further. We need to at least try the DC's predecessor, Sega Saturn, or even the PS1.

See, if you burn the disc right, the DC reads a CD-R perfectly fine. I don't believe the DC ever supported DVDs, though it could have been possible.

Let me know if you want any more info on DC homebrew and emulation, because I was learning about it a while back...

Quote
slyfox299
+32mb Internal Ram
+400mhz CPU
+8/16/32mb Graphics CPU(I don't remember exactly which, but I am aiming at 32mb...)

These specs are similar to the GC. There's no way in hell the Wii could run a GC emulator at decent speeds (GC mode does not count, it's not emulation). Just because a system is more powerful than another does not mean it can emulate that system.

The Wii can of course emulate the DC, technically speaking, but not in any practical sense.

why would we want a GC emulator on the wii?

Quote
aujakev
why would we want a GC emulator on the wii?

Of course we don't. Now please put your glasses again.

Mod, delete this post, please. :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2009 07:43PM by WaxyPumpkin72.

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Wasn't a mistake. He compared the GC specs with the DC specs. Since Wii absolutely can't emulate the GC, the logic says the console can't emulate DC as well.

LOL, oops, sorry. :P

I need to pay closer attentions. All i saw was GC and DC in the same sentence, i wasn't paying attention to the context. Sorry.

No he didn't. His point was that DC specs are similar to GC specs, yet the Wii could not emulate GC well, and therefore, could not emulate DC well.

And he pointed out that GC mode is not emulation. It is hardware emulation (i.e. the wii has all GC hardware, with added bits, so it just locks the extra bits and uses the GC stuff in GC mode). For software emulation, the emulating console must be 3 or 4 times more powerful than the original console, because it must run the game AND a program emulating the setup of the original console, rather than just run the game like the original console. If you want emulation with extra features (cheats, real-time saving, etc.), you need even more powerful.

So in summary, there is no way the DC could be emulated WELL on Wii. It MAYBE could be emulated, but not very well.

Wow, I've been away for two days and I'm being attacked. Lucky the post was deleted before I read it, or I'd have been hounding you night and day with waves of indignation, Waxy ;)

Thanks to the people who had faith in me.

Incidentally, it should be pointed out that the emulated system's complexity affects things as well. For example, the Sega Saturn has some frightening two-CPU setup which confounded developers back in the day - that system requires even more power to emulate, and is also much harder to reverse engineer, despite being less powerful than the GC or DC. You should search for an image of the motherboard - it's vast.

Finally, if you want completely accurate emulation of even so humble a system as the SNES, you need masses of power. Look up bsnes on Wikipedia - it aims for absolute precision in its emulation, over and above compatibility, and requires a damn good PC to run. I'm happy with SNES9x ;)

Just out of curiosity, how fast did the psp homebrew dreamcast emulator run?

Quote
Arikado
Just out of curiosity, how fast did the psp homebrew dreamcast emulator run?

www.psp-hacks.com

Maybe someone knows that nulldc has just become open source (couple of days ago) and after that I started "googling" looking for some more when I found this log document:

[pastie.org]

Does it mean that drkIIRaziel has actually been working on a wii port?

I'm still a bit confused about nulldc/nulldce projects but I guess nulldce is the one we should keep an eye on.

Where did you get those specs from? The Dreamcast has a 200 mhz CPU, 16 mb RAM and 8 mb VRAM. It came with a built in modem, making it the first system to be "online ready" out of the box, beating the Xbox by two years. There was also a VGA cable available for it, making it the first game console to output in 480p resolution.

The GD-ROM format is something of a "hack" on the CD-ROM format, they use the the same spiral width, but the pits are placed more densely. The format was also used in Naomi, Triforce and Chihiro (arcade systems based on Dreamcast, GameCube and Xbox) The Dreamcast cannot read DVDs and a DVD drive cannot read GD-ROMs.

There was DVD add-on planned, but it was never released (it would have required a separate drive, similar to the HD-DVD player for Xbox 360)

Wow well now the Sega Saturn & Playstation & N64 are being emulated & doing well. I wonder now if that's enough to try a Dreamcast emulator.