Bulding a Home Theater PC that can emulate dreamcast?

[ZenErik]

Maybe an odd question, but why do yu want this? A Dreamcast can be had for 20 - 30 dollars and its real easy to burn CDs if you want to try before you buy.

I've actually toyed with the idea of the past of just building an emu box to play as many consoles as possible. For me it's about space-saving. I could still collect the games, but I wouldn't need to leave a bunch of consoles hooked up to play them.

Pretty much what I was going for. In my case, though, I'm more worried about the console breaking down (my PS2 is already having problems reading even DVDs, not just CDs).

Here's a video of my kid playing Dragonball Z Budokai 3 on PCSX2:

http://youtu.be/Kvm8Wfe8IYY

Sounds like your laser lens needs some adjustment. Not breaking down at all. Just needs a little tweaking.

[noiseredux]

so what kind of specs do you need to get PS2 games to run well on a PC?

and what disc-based systems are emulated well on a PC? I know PS1 and Saturn are. Oh and Sega CD.

Dolphin only works with ISO's, not real discs, right?

Is there an XBox emu for PC? How about Turbo-CD?

[ZenErik]

I haven't found a good Saturn emulator. What is it? I'd like to try Panzer Dragoon Saga before I decide whether to buy..

[noiseredux]

I haven't found a good Saturn emulator. What is it? I'd like to try Panzer Dragoon Saga before I decide whether to buy..

racketboy.com/retro/sega/saturn/2009/04/ssf-a-nearly-perfect-sega-saturn-emulator.html

never tried myself.

[neilencio]

so what kind of specs do you need to get PS2 games to run well on a PC?

I can only give out a recommendation based on what kind of hardware I have, and the games I own:

I got an e5200 (dual core 2.5 ghz, wolfdale core) and a core2duo e8400 (dual core 3 ghz), both rigs have a gt 240 and 4 gigs of ram (using win7 64 bit). And the games I have are

Dragonball Z Budokai 3 Greatest Hits - Fullspeed on the e8400, only gets 30-40 fps on the e5200
Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3- fullspeed on the e8400, fullspeed on the e5200 if I bump down the internal resolution to native (authentic jaggies!). Also, both rigs can't handle the game in split-screen 2 player
Tekken 5 - Horribly slow/stuttery on both (I get around 20-30 fps).
Naruto Ultimate Ninja 3 - fullspeed on both
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 4 - fullspeed on both
WWE Smackdown VS Raw 2007 - fullspeed on the e8400, around 50+ on the e5200. Less than 40 fps on the e5200 during royal rumble when there's more than 4 people in the ring.
WWE Smackdown: Here comes the Pain - fullspeed on both
Bleach Blade Battlers 2nd - Horribly slow/stuttery on both (some scenes get single digit fps).
Final Fantasy X - fullspeed on both
Marvel VS Capcom 2 - fullspeed on both
Warriors Orochi 2 - fullspeed on both (e5200 needs native res to run well), I get slowdown, but the kind of slowdown that's present even on the real console
Shining Force EXA - fullspeed on both (e5200 needs native res)
Kingdom Hearts 2 - fullspeed on both
Disgaea - fullspeed on both
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland - graphics glitchs and horribly slow on both.

Note, I never fiddle with the speedhacks that lower the system clock nor the one that steals vu cycles, since it breaks some games and I never actually notice any speedup. Sure, the FPS goes up but it frameskips all over the place.

Also, the e8400 has a huge advantage, since it has sse4, which GSDX can take advantage of. And of course, Win7 is recommended as GSDX takes advantage of DX11 for speed and accuracy. I think the bigger L2 cache also plays a role.

and what disc-based systems are emulated well on a PC? I know PS1 and Saturn are. Oh and Sega CD.

Dolphin only works with ISO's, not real discs, right?

yup, Dolphin only works on ISOs. (it's why I can never try Dolphin well. I don't download ISOs since I have a slow ISP and very little patience to wait for a huge download)

Wii discs are not readable/can't be ripped by most drives (IIRC, there's a specific drive that can rip wii discs, it's an LG, I think)

3DO is already emulated by FreeDO, but I wouldn't call it "well". I only ever tried yuu yuu hakusho and a naughty FMV game. Had no problems with the FMV one, but the hakusho game had graphics and sound glitches. It's also a very crappy game (a shame, considering how the genesis managed to do a Yuu Yuu Hakusho game that's the exact opposite of crappy)

Is there an XBox emu for PC? How about Turbo-CD?

Magic Engine and Hugo both support turbo CD, there's an xbox emu in the works but development is very slow and very few people are interested.

[fastbilly1]

so what kind of specs do you need to get PS2 games to run well on a PC?

and what disc-based systems are emulated well on a PC? I know PS1 and Saturn are. Oh and Sega CD.

Dolphin only works with ISO's, not real discs, right?

Is there an XBox emu for PC? How about Turbo-CD?

I can answer some of those:
- Turbo CD - Magic Engine, I believe that Mednafen does aswell
- Dolphin does not run real discs - unless it was just added
- Xbox emulator - CXBX:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4b0hS2RLUA

As for specs, I do not know the low end. My gaming computer is a quadcore Q6600 (2.6ghz), 4 gigs of ram, and a 9600gt and it plays PSCX2 decently (need a new GPU for it to run well).

[shateredsoul]

I had a long reply, closed the tab by accident =/ to summarize

1. Doing it not just for dreamcast, but to have a home theater system
2. Yes, for nerdy fun too
3. I'm downsizing, i have 2 dreamcasts, trying to sell them.. don't hate me

someone recommended the following

(He went a little higher end so he could push out SBS 3D .. which this build does perfectly, according to him)
[cpu] Intel Core I3-2100 3.1GHz LGA-1155 Dual-Core 65W ($123 + $0)
[mobo] MSI H61M-E33 (B3) LGA-1155 Micro-ATX ($70 + $0)
[gpu] ASUS GeForce GT520 1GB DDR3 64-bit Fanless Low Profile ($60 + $0)
[case] SILVERSTONE ML03B Micro-ATX ($60 + $0)
[psu] Antec EarthWatts 380W ATX12V ($40 + $0)
Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066
Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV125-S2/30GB 2.5" 30GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)


oh and by the wya,

SSF emulator works well for Saturn games, you have to mount cd images with another program or use real discs though =/

[fastbilly1]

SSF emulator works well for Saturn games, you have to mount cd images with another program or use real discs though =/

Mounting Disc Images is not that hard and can be done easily with free software. The only issue will be if you are planning on using a frontend for your box and no mouse/keyboard.

Speaking of which, how do you plan on controlling it?

[neilencio]

I use shortcuts pointing to batch files for SSF, so that I don't have to load and unload ISOs everytime (especially since I only have 5 actual Saturn games, it's not much trouble to leave images of them on the disk).


e.g.

I got a Sonic R shortcut on the desktop (with its own Sonic icon) pointing to a bat file that contains the ff:

C:
cd\
cd progra~2
cd magiciso
miso NULL -umnt 1
miso NULL -mnt g: "d:\emulators\roms\saturn\sonicr.mds"
cd\
d:
cd\
cd emulators\saturn\saturn
SSF

If I want to add another disk image, I just copy the bat file and change the filename in the iso that's being mounted. It's also no problem for the front end I use to load the bat files (basically, I use cmd.exe as the emulator, and register *.bat files as its supported filetype)

[noiseredux]

you guys lost me. But if I were to ever build something like this, I'd want to use actual retail discs.