Emulators on Dreamcast

dacatpeeler

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Hey guys I am trying to find out all I can on using emulators on my dreamcast. Any info or first hand experience anyone has would be great to hear. I just want to be able to try as much stuff as I can as well as play some of my old favorites and right now I just don't have the cash to get machines so I thought maybe this would be a fun project to try and get going while I have some spare time. Thanks in advance for any advice you have. - Josh
 
I've been away from that scene for years now... the site I used to go to has been offline for several years, and the archive is pretty old. I have no idea where you'd go nowadays to find the most updated DC emulation stuff.
 
While I love my Dreamcast, I would never use it for emulating games from other systems.

I have an original Xbox that does that and so much more. Better and faster than my poor Dreamcast could ever do it. With the Xbox you have better controllers, faster CPU, better graphics, and a large hard drive to store everything on. No disks to mess with or burn. Everything is done by file transfer.

If you want to know about modded Xboxes, just ask. I've built 20+ in the last five years.
 
I have an original Xbox that does that and so much more. Better and faster than my poor Dreamcast could ever do it. With the Xbox you have better controllers, faster CPU, better graphics, and a large hard drive to store everything on. No disks to mess with or burn. Everything is done by file transfer.

If you want to know about modded Xboxes, just ask. I've built 20+ in the last five years.
I would agree with you, but his original post indicated that he wasn't interested in spending money on additional systems. So unless he already has an old Xbox sitting around, this is moot.

Now, if he wasn't aware of emulation on the xbox but does have one, then yeah, that's the better route to go and he should start a new thread :D
 
I would agree with you, but his original post indicated that he wasn't interested in spending money on additional systems. So unless he already has an old Xbox sitting around, this is moot.

Now, if he wasn't aware of emulation on the xbox but does have one, then yeah, that's the better route to go and he should start a new thread :D

I am not against spending some money to be able to try a lot of different stuff I just cant afford to be buying machines that I am not SURE I am going to enjoy. I also really wanted to kinda sit back and learn a little more before I get a project cab or something because to me fixing the stuff up is half the fun so I would rather do that than pay for a fully restored game. I would love to hear more about using the Xbox if you guys don't mind explaining it to the noob. Hell one of my brothers may even still have an Xbox around as we have all been console gamers forever.
 
OK, let me make sure we are on the same page here. You were talking about emulating other game systems on your Dreamcast, right?

On the original Xbox you can install emulators for MAME, Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, 400 and 800 computers, NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy Advance, Sega Genesis, Colecovision, Intellivision, and even Vectrex. There are a few more, but I've never gotten around to messing with them. I just installed the ones I wanted to play the most.

To start with you have to mod an Xbox. This can be done two different ways. One is a soft mod where you change the bios of the xbox and then can add a larger hard drive to store things on if you want.

The other way is to physically install a chip that modds the Xbox. I prefer this way of doing it. Its ten times easier to install a new hard drive or upgrade one in the future. Not to mention if you have an Xbox with a bad bios, this can bring it back from the dead. The chips I use are DuoX2. A simple chip that costs around $20 and does require really good soldering skills to install.

I also like to put XBMC on the Xbox. Xbox media center allows you to store movies, music, pictures, and games on your Xbox. I have most of my music stored in MP3s on my Xbox upstairs and when I have friends over, I use it as a jukebox. It has really great ever changing graphics the are fun to watch. It works really well for most MAME games, you can even play three and four player games on it.

You can also stream music and movies to your Xbox from your computer, though I have never needed to use this feature myself.

Most of the ones I have built have hard drives bigger than 40GB. My Halo Edition Xbox has a 300GB HD, so it stores a bunch of games and about 20GBs of my MP3s.

I hope this answers your questions about modded Xboxes. Here's some pics.
 

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Thanks a lot guys it sounds like the xbox is the way to go. Robo thanks for the info and I will probably pm you to talk a bit more here shortly if you don't mind.
 
The Xbox is really the way to go but if you don't have the money to swing for one I know there are EMU's out there for the DC.
I looked over what I have on EMU's for my DC, I have an NES one called Dream NES, A MAME one, a NEO GEO one, a SNES one, and pretty sure I have a Genesis/Master System one that I believe handles Game Gear as well, not quite as well versed as the Xbox but these are disc run and run well for the platform it's on imo.
 
If you're only looking to run older stuff (16-bit & earlier) the DC works really well. Swapping discs is a nuisance, but if you're short of cash it'll do the job.

Lots of emulators available here:
http://dcemulation.org/?title=Emulators


You can also add an SD card reader to the Dreamcast and run a bunch of emulators/homebrew directly from a memory card with Dreamshell. There are a few variations available, but this one is decent:

http://dc-sd.com/

If you want to spend extra cash, an xbox can emulate some larger neo geo and MAME games that DC can't handle, offer more storage, better multimedia playback, and a fancier menu system. But the DC is cheaper... and if you're only going to connect one console the DC has a much better library for arcade style gaming.
 
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The Xbox is really the way to go but if you don't have the money to swing for one I know there are EMU's out there for the DC.
I looked over what I have on EMU's for my DC, I have an NES one called Dream NES, A MAME one, a NEO GEO one, a SNES one, and pretty sure I have a Genesis/Master System one that I believe handles Game Gear as well, not quite as well versed as the Xbox but these are disc run and run well for the platform it's on imo.

Would those be somthing you would be willing to burn and sell me to get going while I work on making an xbox happen? I have just about every console but the original xbox. Probably a dumb question but why not just use my new 360?
 
I was never personally impressed with any of the DC emulators or apps I tried. Always seemed like more of a "it can be done" thing with that system. Using a disc-only system like that (crap load times and data transfer rate) for such an application seems far from ideal, and while the system is powerful the emulators were never really optimized all that great from what I saw.

Besides you're just going to hasten the death of the aging GD-ROM reader in the console.
 
Modding an old Xbox won't get you banned from Xbox Live :p

Ah very good to know and now that you mention it I do remember hearing that. Guess I am on the lookout for an old xbox. I don't have the best soldering skills yet either so I might as well just buy the box already modded and ready to go! I will pm Robo first but if any one else has one or knows of a good source to start looking I would appreciate the help.
 
Ah very good to know and now that you mention it I do remember hearing that. Guess I am on the lookout for an old xbox. I don't have the best soldering skills yet either so I might as well just buy the box already modded and ready to go! I will pm Robo first but if any one else has one or knows of a good source to start looking I would appreciate the help.

I'd say best places to look for one already modded are pawn shops and craigslist? I believe eBay doesn't allow sales of modded consoles. I also wouldn't go into a used games store asking for a modded console, they tend to frown on that sort of thing :D

If you can't find one already modded, it's very easy to do the soft mod yourself. I'm by no means an expert on modding, and I was able to do mine in a matter of minutes.
You just have to have an "action replay" and one of the following Xbox games: Mechassault ,Tom Clancy Splinter Cell 1, or 007 Agent Under Fire(oh and an Original Xbox)

Just google "softmod Xbox." There are instructions on how to do so all over the web.

Once the Xbox is soft modded, look for, download and burn the "Big Ass Emulator disc" It has a ton of emulators already configured for Xbox. Throw the disc into the xbox and play.
 
I'd say best places to look for one already modded are pawn shops and craigslist? I believe eBay doesn't allow sales of modded consoles. I also wouldn't go into a used games store asking for a modded console, they tend to frown on that sort of thing :D

If you can't find one already modded, it's very easy to do the soft mod yourself. I'm by no means an expert on modding, and I was able to do mine in a matter of minutes.
You just have to have an "action replay" and one of the following Xbox games: Mechassault ,Tom Clancy Splinter Cell 1, or 007 Agent Under Fire(oh and an Original Xbox)

Just google "softmod Xbox." There are instructions on how to do so all over the web.

Once the Xbox is soft modded, look for, download and burn the "Big Ass Emulator disc" It has a ton of emulators already configured for Xbox. Throw the disc into the xbox and play.
My local craigslist is a joke I can't even read/understand the ads for that stuff. Also the downloading and burning discs is sort of an issue for me at this point. I was really hopeing to find someone on here with decent reputation I could buy from so I know I am getting something that works. Thanks for the info in case I do attempt to do it myself though.
 
Do you have a price range you need to stay in? I'll keep an eye out for ya, they do come up for sale around here from time to time. If I come across one, I'll let you know.
 
I'd say best places to look for one already modded are pawn shops and craigslist? I believe eBay doesn't allow sales of modded consoles. I also wouldn't go into a used games store asking for a modded console, they tend to frown on that sort of thing :D

If you can't find one already modded, it's very easy to do the soft mod yourself. I'm by no means an expert on modding, and I was able to do mine in a matter of minutes.
You just have to have an "action replay" and one of the following Xbox games: Mechassault ,Tom Clancy Splinter Cell 1, or 007 Agent Under Fire(oh and an Original Xbox)

Just google "softmod Xbox." There are instructions on how to do so all over the web.

Once the Xbox is soft modded, look for, download and burn the "Big Ass Emulator disc" It has a ton of emulators already configured for Xbox. Throw the disc into the xbox and play.

I think the best place to get one is from someone who builds them, like me :)

What emulators are available on the "Big Ass Emulator disc" ?
 
I think the best place to get one is from someone who builds them, like me :)

What emulators are available on the "Big Ass Emulator disc" ?
Fair enough, I didn't know if anyone here was still making them. :D

There's a few different Big Ass Emulator discs out there, but the one I'm currently using I know has the 2600, NES, SNES, Genesis, Master System, Turbo Grafix 16, Colecovision, Intellivision, Atari 5200, MSX, MSX2, Wonderswan, and Lynx.
There's at least 3 different versions of it all with different emulators and games on them. It's nice because there isn't any configuration needed, you can just throw in the disc and play.
 
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