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Dreamcast News - The Latest in Emulation and Homebrew is a News and downloads site for Sega Dreamcast, Sega Saturn and Vintage Sega Consoles like the Megadrive, Master System and 32X, We have all the latest emulators, hack, homebrew, commercial games and all the downloads on this site, the latest homebrew and releases, Part of the
DCEmu Homebrew & Gaming Network.
THE LATEST NEWS BELOW
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December 15th, 2014, 20:47 Posted By: wraggster
This is a short explanation on how to install Rhea V3 properly – I’ll try to make it into a permanent page later on but for now this will have to do. Note: This is meant for people getting their Rheas soon, comments will most likely be ignored.
Installation is easy but not as trivial as with GDEMU. You’ll need some wit and technical skills (nothing fancy though) and a soldering iron. Disconnect your Saturn, unscrew and remove the upper cover. Disconnect and remove the drive. It can be lifted a bit, I found it makes it easier to remove the flat cable that way, but be aware there might a thick wire or piece of copper foil screwed on top to provide better ground connection. Carefully disconnect that first (you’ll need a fine Philips head screwdriver).
You will need to locate +5V power supply spot on the motherboard and solder a wire there to provide power for Rhea. Unfortunately the connector is difficult to source and the original power cable is tad bit short anyway. Better yet route 2 wires, 5V and ground, but GND is somewhat optional as there are a few connections through the flat cable and that should be enough. I’m not providing any pictures as to where to tap into 5V on the motherboard – this is on purpose. I don’t have good photos of all possible motherboard variants, and I want you to check that yourself using a volt meter. Best solder the wire on the opposite side of the PSU connector (or even PSU itself) but be aware it’s harder to do as there is plenty of copper to take the heat away and that makes soldering a bit more difficult. Rhea doesn’t draw much, maybe 250mA with the card, so it’s not all that critical.
Rhea V3 PCB is clearly marked with what goes where when it comes to power supply, you have 4 holes: 2 upper ones are 5V, 2 lower ones are ground. You just need to solder to one of each. You can also install pins and make a connector if you wish for easier removal. See the bottom left corner of this photo:
I need to point out that Rhea can also be powered from external PSU (like wall cube or something), just make sure it’s got clean 5V output. Obviously that will need 2 wires. The nice thing about this setup is you can swap Rhea much easier and there’s no need to solder to the Saturn motherboard. It’s up to you though. In case of external PSU it needs to be plugged in first before you power on Saturn, and you can safely switch Saturn on/off for short durations while keeping Rhea powered. You can for example add/remove the 4MB cart during that time. Rhea, as long as it’s powered, will keep the selected image.
If you have a copper GND foil (or a wire), as seen on the photo, remove it. It’s held down by a single screw. There is a risk it will come into contact with the voltage regulator on the back of Rhea’s PCB and cause a short. I keep it in my unit but then again I understand the risks of being careless 
The photo above also shows how to connect the attached flat cable. Note it goes into Rhea conductor-side down. This is the reverse of most drives and it’s also on purpuse. The connector is much closer to front now and you can user either the cable provided, or the original one:
Just bend it in the middle (but don’t flatten it, no need for that, there’s plenty of room inside Saturn). Note that the original cable has clear ends, unlike the one I’ve attached. The connector on Rhea is a ZIF, it needs to be opened by pulling the latch, the cable inserted, and then secured by pushing the latch back (which actually does require some force but not much). Make sure the cable is all the way in. Same for the motherboard side.
In case your Saturn model has the motherboard connection near the right side (rather than near the front) the procedure is the same, just twist the cable to make it fit. The plastic supports are optional but highly recommended, I’ve included 2 and you can mount one (especially near the button) or both.
The FW is being worked on, the one in the units is already outdated and has known issues with some games (missing or cut short CDDA). You’ll get upgrades once I’m satisfied with the results.
Lastly, if there is anything unclear, ask me first. By email.
https://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/12/...-three-and-up/
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December 15th, 2014, 20:46 Posted By: wraggster
The parts I needed for GDEMU have now arrived but I’m already a week behind schedule, and I still have to actually make and test the devices so that’s going to be another week at best. Shipping anything during that time is pretty much guaranteed to take much longer than usual to arrive due to general Xmas shopping spree, in fact you’ll be lucky to get your GDEMU in 2014 still. What’s more, it turns out I will be away from home, visiting family. That means <del>no games will be played</del>, er, I mean no GDEMUs will be made anyway during holiday.
Very sorry about this but at this point there’s simply nothing I can do.
I should be able to deliver the early Rheas though, I have one fully assembled (but not yet even programmed) and the rest should be ready in few days if there are no problem with the first unit.
The gold on black looks nice, doesn’t it? I might go that route for some of the last GDEMUs as well.
https://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/12/...h-ho-heigh-ho/
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November 26th, 2014, 23:44 Posted By: wraggster
Sega peeks into its storied past this week with the Humble Sega Bundle, a pay-what-you-want collection featuring a handful of classics adapted from the Saturn and Dreamcast eras.
Pay any amount for the bundle and you'll get the surreal score-attack action gameNights Into Dreams, kart racer Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, and the Dreamcast Collection, which includes PC versions of Sonic Adventure, Sega Bass Fishing, Crazy Taxi, and Space Channel 5 Part 2.
The package also offers Total War: Rome II's "Caesar in Gaul" expansion and the Miles' Tactic DLC for Football Manager 2015. Beat the bundle's average purchase price (currently $3.68) and you'll unlock Empire: Total War, Company of Heroes 2 - The Western Front Armies: Oberkommando West, and additional games that will be revealed as the bundle enters its final week.
Total War: Shogun 2 - Fall of the Samurai is up for grabs as a $12 incentive, and you can also get an exclusive Dreamcast-themed t-shirt with a purchase of $50 or more. The Humble Sega Bundle will be available through December 9.
http://www.humblebundle.com/
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November 17th, 2014, 00:34 Posted By: wraggster
It's been a while, but we are back to present to you the next issue in the Official Sega Saturn Magazine set.
We start of with a fantastic sequel to an arcade classic that sadly didn't make it out of Japan on the Saturn: Elevator Action Returns. Now, let's continue to the second consecutive OSSM feature for Manx TT, as well as a great feature on Mass Destruction. Our final feature is for the somewhat obscure arcade fighting game by Capcom: Red Earth. But that is not all! We also have a look at not one, but two interviews in this issue. The first one is with Lobotomy Software about Duke Nukem 3D and the second one talks with Tetsuya Mizuguchi
http://www.outofprintarchive.com/cat...ne/OSSM18.html
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November 16th, 2014, 23:44 Posted By: wraggster
As some of you already noticed preorders for GDEMU are open again. I did it quietly this time to not have my mailbox overloaded. I still have more units coming but be aware that the waiting time is already about 4-5 weeks by now so you’re unlikely to get it before Xmas. That being said, the early bird gets the worm so get ‘em while supply lasts
Rhea on the other hand is running a bit late, the MCU change means I need to rewrite some code and do a lot of testing. Still not sure if v2 will be good enough for sale but keep your fingers crossed. Oh, and I recently purchased a VCD/MPEG addon card to test compatibility – I know it’s not exactly frequently used and I don’t expect problems, but I’d like to be sure.
PCE is also deep in the woods, I had to restart proto PCB design on this project as well due to lessons learned from Saturn. In fact I’m going to do a simplified version first that will plug into a dev board (which in turn is getting upgraded from ARM7TDMI to CortexM4 next week) – it’ll be easier to work with, I don’t need it to be very portable yet.
Lastly I’m also getting a Mega Drive / Genesis + CD addon to look at the internals. This is completly on-the-side project with next to zero time assigned to it so please don’t expect any results soon. I won’t lie though, I like playing with new toys more than soldering all those GDEMUs :P This is something to keep me busy during December holidays, assuming I won’t be swamped with other work.
To sum up, you better hope I can keep my resolve not to play Civ:BE
http://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/11/1...-gift-factory/
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November 10th, 2014, 02:19 Posted By: wraggster
I’m busy with stuff so not much to report. I had to restart Rhea PCB design as I’ve decided to try a different MCU – it’s a bit more expensive but has more RAM and smaller package, both of which are useful for this project.
This is Rhea V1.5, it’s not pretty but works great so far:
Obviously it was never intended to be permanently installed inside Saturn (though I guess it could be with some glue gun help).
There have been some questions about that so let me make this clear: Rhea is not going to be faster than original Saturn drive. Maybe a bit due to almost instantaneous media seeking but that’s it. Unlike Dreamcast where data bus is faster than drive, Saturn is limited by its serial protocol – which is set to exactly 2x speed and that can’t be changed.
http://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/circuit-breaker/
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October 30th, 2014, 23:20 Posted By: wraggster
The following is an extract from Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works, a documentary art book written by the Guardian’s Games Editor Keith Stuart and produced in collaboration with Sega of Japan. It’s published by Read Only Memory, and is out now.
***
It was the first week of September 1990 when the commercials hit American TV. The Sega Genesis had been out in the country for a year, quietly building a fan base with slick arcade conversions like Altered Beast and Golden Axe. With its 16-bit credentials stamped on its casing like a muscle-car badge, it was the most powerful console on the market, and had the potential to reshape gaming in its own, sleek image. But first it would have to defeat the competition. And that meant having to take out Nintendo.
But Nintendo was Goliath. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was the biggest game console on the planet. Thirty million American households owned one and they were so prevalent that the word ‘Nintendo’ was synonymous with the medium. You didn’t play video games … you played Nintendo. Sega was nowhere. Its Master System – designed to compete with the NES – had barely made a dent. ‘We officially claimed that Sega had 10% market share and that Nintendo had 90%,’ recalls Shinobu Toyoda, who joined Sega of America in 1989 as executive vice president, having been hand-picked by Sega president Hayao Nakayama to be second in command. ‘The truth was, Nintendo had 94% market share with their NES system. Sega had only six.’
But Nintendo’s dominance didn’t deter Michael Katz. The president of Sega of America harboured grand ambitions. He’d been approached by founder and chairman David Rosen to establish the company’s corporate presence in America, where it had barely 40 employees – most of them in marketing and customer support. There was no real autonomy, no identity. Taking up his new position a month after the US launch of the Genesis, Katz set his sights on grabbing half the console market share … as a minimum. The battleground had to be North America.
‘We had to create awareness, to make a noise and grab attention. After all, we had nothing to lose – by then we had a 2% share of the market! But I had to fight with David Rosen and the ad agency and instruct them to do competitive commercials. They were showing me all these storyboards and concepts that had nothing to do with Nintendo. I learned that it was considered inappropriate in Japan to do competitive advertising – to publicly tear down a competitor. But the rule of thumb in consumer marketing is that if you’re number two and less well known, but you have better features, you go after your rival.’
http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/10/30/s...s-console-wars
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October 28th, 2014, 00:12 Posted By: wraggster
via http://www.emucr.com/
Reicast Git (2014/10/24) is compiled. reicast is a multi-platform Dreamcast emulator. The project is currently in Alpha, usability, performance and stability issues are to be expected. Cortex-A9 dualcore, 1ghz+ is the minimum hardware for decent speeds.
Reicast Git Changelog:
* Merge branch 'skmp/gl3.1'
* Isolate GLES, add DESKTOPGL option to core.mk
* Update gitignore
https://www.sendspace.com/file/b4msgj
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October 27th, 2014, 23:55 Posted By: wraggster
via http://www.emucr.com/
Yabause SVN r3253 is compiled. Yabause is a Sega Saturn Emulator(SS Emulator) for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.Yabause support booting games using Saturn cds or iso files.
Yabause SVN Changelog:
r3253
-Added Stunner/Virtua Gun emulation
-Revised Mouse emulation on QT port, added sensitivity setting
-Added some doxygen stuff for future documentation purposes
-A few other small tweaks/fixes
https://www.sendspace.com/file/t4zbpx
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October 14th, 2014, 23:20 Posted By: wraggster
I’ve been getting more and more emails from people who bought and tested 64GB+ cards. It occured to me that rather than having to retype this every time I should just make a public post.
Yes, I know SDXC cards work. If formatted to FAT32 that is, preferably with SD Formatter. However, GDEMU was not designed with that in mind and while it seems to work for most people, for some it just might not. I cannot test every brand and model of SD cards, and there are some that don’t behave nicely (like the Transcend Class 10’s) and there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t want people buying expensive high-capacity cards only to learn they don’t work well, or at all. Therefore the official support ends with 32GB SDHC cards and it’ll stay that way. If you feel lucky and want to try something bigger, you’re on your own.
Obviously for bigger cards the current limit of 64 folders is too low. I’m going to skip the usual rant on design choices I’ve made – you want the limit to be 99+, you can get it. For a price. Right now GDEMU does a prescan of the card folders and can gracefully skip holes in numbering. With more folders both the prescan and the storage of results get too costly, so will have to go. Scanning on keypress would introduce too much lag with many folders, so basically it would become a dumb “try N+1, wrap back to 1 if it doesn’t exist”.
USB support, long filenames, breakfast making – not coming in foreseeable future. Don’t bug me about it.
http://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/road-to-hell/
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October 14th, 2014, 23:19 Posted By: wraggster
via http://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/cool-features/
Thanks to people who provided fresh, good dumps, I was able to test few things on Rhea.
First, CD+G playback works now. If the Saturn DAC is as abuse forgiving on all console models as it is on my VA0 there shouldn’t be any issues. And here’s how this stuff looks (the graphics and text comes from the CD being played):
Since Rhea is capable of clean subcode output, the bug where the player background would dissapear on non +G discs should not happen either.
Second, I’ve added region auto-patching and it works well. Thus, for Saturn, this will be an option available via INI file (so you can easily force all games to the region of your console). There’s also the idea of adding another solder point to Rhea, which could be connected to the lifted pin of the chip controlling 50/60Hz. This would allow automatic switching. Just an idea for now but I like it.
Third, I’ve run quite a few games already and haven’t had any issues. Which bodes well for the next HW revision. I think I’m going to make a dozen or so 20-pin only models for those interested, the 21-pin version will require proper testing first.
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October 14th, 2014, 23:18 Posted By: wraggster
via http://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/saturn-rings/
After some initial issues Rhea has been upgraded to V1.5 and works pretty stable now. As in boots everything I throw at it. Which brings me to subject at hand: Many of the existing images of Saturn CD-ROMs are pretty poor.
I’m going to have to put a line somewhere because I don’t want users to complain about the device not working properly when the problem is with the dump itself. Only certain formats will be supported, and as always I urge you to make your own dumps. It’s not that complicated, Saturn discs can be read on a normal PC drive – no special hardware needed.
Supported formats:
CDI – Preferred. Needs to be either RAW or (optional) RAW+SUB format. CDIs include pregaps (index 0 parts of the tracks) by default which is good.
MDS/MDF – I’ve just added preliminary support for this format. The only few images I have are in RAW+SUB format, but just RAW should be fine as well.
BIN – Only for single track images, needs RAW sectors. Since I haven’t seen a single track game yet I don’t think this one will be of much use – perhaps for homebrew.
I’m looking at CCD/IMG format now, I might add some limited support for that as well since it’s popular. Please note that having the dump in supported format doesn’t yet mean it will definitelly work – the file format is one thing, and the quality of what’s actually inside is another.
Not supported:
CUE – Anything that depends on CUE will not work. I’m not even talking about ISO+MP3 tracks, which are the worst, but the whole format in general. There are many ad-hoc extensions to the so-called standard CUE, and the tracks can be multiple files, single file, RAW or MODE1, even compressed via MP3 or FLAC, or converted to WAVE instead of raw audio data. Single file “pregaps” are just zero-filled space even for data tracks. And to add insult to injury the MSF address of each track is always +2 seconds, pregap or not, because it was more funny this way.
Some CUE based dumps can be converted to a more sane format and will work. I’ve tested it by mounting the image in Daemon Tools Lite and re-ripping it with DiscJuggler to CDI. For some reason DJ doesn’t see WinCDEmu virtual drives, so that’s why DT. That’s just one possible option, and obviously if the dump was bad to begin with this will not produce a working image. But might be worth a try if your disc is damaged and unreadable and CUE is all you’ve got.
It’s always best to stick to properly made dumps, even if these need to be converted you know the data is good. I can’t guarantee correct operation otherwise.
Last thing – turns out the 21-pin Saturn drives come in at least 3 versions, with some rather important differences between them. While the idea is to be able to support all models, so far Rhea can only emulate 20-pin drives. That raises 2 questions:
Would any of you be interested in buying an earlier, 20-pin only model, or do you want to wait for a more final version. This will still take weeks at best mind you, assuming I can make a universal emulator at all.
There’s going to be some soldering involved – at least to connect 5V power supply (so 2 wires) since every drive has a different connector for that and it’s not economical to add all of these. Not to mention you’d be limited by the length of original wires. With the differences between 20- and 21-pin drives I will also need some form of easy configuration (auto-detection not really feasible), I was thinking solder pads that can be connected (or left open) via a small solder ball. Easy, but somewhat permanent. Proper jumpers are another option but this needs more space, PCB height, and I think would only be useful for people who have just 1 Rhea but several different Saturns. A hindrace and potential source of problems if the jumpers loose good contact due to age for everyone else.
What do you think?
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October 5th, 2014, 23:39 Posted By: wraggster
via http://www.emucr.com/
Yabause SVN r3252 is compiled. Yabause is a Sega Saturn Emulator(SS Emulator) for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.Yabause support booting games using Saturn cds or iso files.
Yabause SVN Changelog:
r3252
Fixed Special Color Calculation mode 2
When Special Color Calculation mode, aka "per dot color calculation",
the transparency is based on "color code" not color.
Thanks vbt for reporting the bug and providing a demo to test it.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/93uzbh
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October 5th, 2014, 23:04 Posted By: wraggster
via http://www.emucr.com/
GearSystem Git (2014/10/05) is complied. GearSystem is a Sega Master System / Game Gear emulator written in C++ that runs on iOS, Raspberry Pi, Mac, Windows and Linux. The main focus of this emulator is readability of source code with very high compatibility.
Features:
- Highly accurate Z80 core.
- Multi-Mapper support: SEGA, Codemasters, and ROM only cartridges.
- External RAM support with save files.
- Automatic region detection: NTSC-JAP, NTSC-USA, PAL-EUR.
- SMS2 only 224 mode support.
- Internal database for rom detection.
- Sound emulation using SDL Audio and Sms_Snd_Emu library.
- Integrated disassembler. It can dump the full disassembled memory to a text file or access it in real time.
- Compressed rom support (ZIP deflate).
- Multi platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Raspberry Pi and iOS.
GearSystem Git changelog:
* fixed a bug deleting old downloaded roms
* added ability to play iTunes music while running
* new interface for resetting audio
https://www.sendspace.com/file/nfuxmm
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October 5th, 2014, 21:31 Posted By: wraggster
So this is Rhea V1, the Saturn ODE prototype, playing Yello – Pocket Universe on my TV:
At the moment playing audio is all it does as I haven’t gotten around to implement protection emulation yet. I’m in no hurry, this is a prototype and it’s main purpose is to test how stuff works, what I can and cannot do.
Saturns use 2 different drive types: 20- and 21-pin ones. Even though it looks like a small difference, the protocol is actually quite different for both models. This prototype has only 20-pin connector but the design was meant to handle both formats with just once MCU and no external logic chips like FPGAs or PLDs. If it works that way at all that is, but so far it’s very promising.
Just so that we are clear on this: V1 is not for sale, and in general not quite fully functional yet. All questions about the final product, it’s timing and price, will be ignored. It’ll come when it’s ready.
http://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/enter-rhea/
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September 26th, 2014, 22:09 Posted By: wraggster
For those who know me know ive been a fan of emulation for 20 years or more, the reason i started a videogames website was purely because i like to play emulators of old consoles on a single device.
Recently the homebrew/emulation scene has been stagnant, no real breakthroughs means that the best way is to buy a device that is made for emulation fans like myself, i reviewed the JXD S7300 Android Tablet and for a fan like me i loved it. The Android tablet was for me perfect, the mixing of old style controls and touchscreen inside an Android OS and with Gamecenter X you could download games onto your console with no messing around, the console/tablet game with Android/N64/Megadrive/Arcade/GBA and Nes Emulators with games built in, beyond awesome.
But JXD since then have brought out a new and improved JXD S7800b Gaming Tablet which features PS1, MAME, Dreamcast, N64, NeoGeo, Atari, NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour, Gameboy Advance, SEGA Master System, SEGA Mega Drive, CPS1, CPS2, Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum Emulation to name just a few, am i salivating ?, hell yes.
The JXD S7800b Gaming Tablet has a 7" 1280x800 IPS 5 Point Multi-Touch Capacitive Screen, RockChip RK3188 QuadCore 1.8GHz CPU - 2GB DDR3 RAM - 8GB Memory, Network Wi-Fi(802.11 b/g/n), External Ethernet，3G with Dongle and runs Android 4.2.2 Jellybean OS.
So this Android Tablet runs one of the latest versions of the Android OS plus comes built in with all them emulators and you can do what you would expect from a normal Android Tablet.
If i can snag one for review ill put it through its paces but for now check out the JXD S7800B at Funstock in the UK
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