GBA emulator for Dreamcast?

[Rand Linden]

The DC is more than powerful enough, but it takes a lot of work -- and a simple "port" isn't going to cut it.

Most people are interested in GBA emulation on DC just to avoid paying for the hardware -- It's refreshing to hear that you're not in that group.

[scottlc]

With PCs, optimisation is not such a big deal but for Dreamcast, all available resources have to be used to their full potential. Rand here coded a PS emu which runs MGS fullspeed with screen smoothing. It is a shame that Bleem could never be. Blame Sony. I'm sure that Rand would rather leave it in the past though.

[Chrono Archangel]

Originally Posted by Rand Linden

It's refreshing to hear that you're not in that group.

thx. maybe its better that a gba emulator for dreamcast isnt beeing worked on. lately i see alot of people buying dcs just to play emulation on it or to play illegal copies of games.

[scottlc]

I heard that playing CD games (even homebrew) damages your drive motor and causes random reboots. I now have random reboots.

[Rand Linden]

Yes, make no mistake: Piracy killed the DC faster than Sega ever could have on their own.

It's unfortunate, because the DC was really a great platform for a whole variety of reasons.

Re: CD games -- the illegal CDR copies can work the CD unit much more than a GD was designed to -- which, in turn, can cause the sleds to wear down faster.

Stuff which loads totally resident and doesn't access tons and tons of files is "nicer" to the hardware.

Any mechanical system will wear itself down over time -- the DC is no exception.

Random reboots could be that the DC's power supply needs to be reseated, or your drive door switch is starting to fail.

I'm sure if you look around on DC-related boards, there's a whole bunch of suggestions to fix the problem.

Rand.

[TerrorShocked]

Take from Rand... He is by far one of the most expierenced emulator authors around and a top notch programmer.

As for GBA emulation on DC, it simply is not worth it. I doubt anyone is going to spend so much time doing a full throttle port of something such as Visual Boy advance and get barely worth it results.

Regarding CDrs damaging your Dreamcast.... if you do it enough it might do so. Note that I said enough.. It will not bork out on you if you just use homebrew stuff everynow and then... It takes extensive use for you to damage your motor.

[thunderwolf318]

i beleave that some one will release one with thin the next 1/2 year. but this is only a gess.

[Chrono Archangel]

i doubt since no one seems interested. if someone would of wanted to make one it would of been worked on about 1/2 year ago

[scottlc]

I noticed that BleemCast stops spinning the disc as soon as it loads whereas most homebrew software keeps the disc spinning.

[Rand Linden]

Originally Posted by scott_uk5

I noticed that BleemCast stops spinning the disc as soon as it loads whereas most homebrew software keeps the disc spinning.

That's true :-)

Rand.

[scottlc]

I did find the problem after opening up my Dreamcast. I just cleaned the six pins connecting the power board and the main board gave them a little push to get a better connection. Good job with BleemCast Rand, it plays flawlessly and hasn't crashed on me yet. Lik Sang still have stock of BleemCast MGS.

[Rand Linden]

Glad I could help with fixing your DC (the power supply issue was one that happened personally a few times)...

...and thanks for the kudos re: b!DC

Rand.

[scottlc]

Rand, is there any way of using Action Replay codes for MGS on BleemCast using the DC version of Action Replay?

[Rand Linden]

Sorry, can't help you there.

Rand.