After being down for about a a few weeks or so, the Dreamcast Download section is back up. Unfortunately the recent back up was lost during the recent downtime, so we had to restore it from an old back up.... 09/2006, nearly a year out of date
So, we are looking for some volunteers to help update the download section. If your interested please reply via comments.
Come, we go with another one of my experiments. Following with the tendencies to send balls and to finish with the real estate speculation and of bricks, I leave this alpha you 0,1 of my new game for Dreamcast.
In this case he is something rare, a clone of the Puzzle Bubble. It works perfectly with pad, and the balls with the button and of joy go off (green). As vereis players can play two!!!!. Also it supports Keyboard.
I do not even have sound and we can change the graphs to him and everything what it is wanted, I wait for your contributions as far as design and that sounds we can put to him. I beforehand thank for to the beta testers, works with emus
Here's my latest incarnation of IP.BIN Writer. This time around there's a lot of big changes...
- fixed a rare problem with MR logos not getting fully extracted
- changes made in 0.1.4a now work, sorry about that
- lots of little costmetic bugs and improvements
- rare "Could not read sector" errors minimized
- displaying MR logos also, export to: PNG, BMP, JPG, GIF, TIFF
- drag and drop support
- first instance is reused
- improved CD image implementation
- adding\removing MR logos in CD images
- previous MRs in IP.BIN are now removed before adding new MR logos
- calculating CRCs begining with zero bugfix
We today announce the relaunch and new direction for our former Apple site that covered all things Apple. Today we go back to our Console Scene roots and with the emergence of whats going to be a very strong Homebrew scene for the Apple iPhone we will be covering every bit of news and releases for the Apple Iphone.
In the last week we have seen releases of a Nes emulator and also of a port of Doom to the Iphone, even better today it emerged that a MAME Arcade emulator is being worked on for the Iphone.
Ckemu posted this news about NullDC the Dreamcast Emulator for WIndows:
Work on nullDC (A Dreamcast emulator for Windows) has been steadily progressing recently.
Modifier Volumes (modvols) have been implemented, giving many games shadows which where originally missing. Notable games effected include Dead or Alive 2 (LE), Crazy Taxi, Soul Calibur and Sonic Adventure 2, yes folks, King Boom Boo now shows up when he's a shadow!
Clipping has been worked on to, Ikaruga now has its borders, Sonic Adventure 2's split screen mode now works correctly (along with many other split screen games), Dynamite Cop's portaits screen displays the background, rather than a mess of portraits and Soul Calibur's VS screens now behave correctly.
Last but not least, Render to Texture (rtt) has had some work done to it! Silent Scope now displays cross hairs whilst playing, Crazy taxi's pause menu is no longer just a black screen, and various effects used in Dead or Alive 2 (LE) are now rendered!
Please note this is still on going WIP, and none of the above features are complete yet.
Its now mid August 2007 and time for a new State of the Homebrew Scene for the latter of this year.
Because we are the only dedicated Homebrew Network on the web covering just about all scenes (and if not then we will ) I feel its a good time to give a low down on each scene.
First off though lets remind all that Homebrew is not the same as warez. (Please Read Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft)
Also I would like to point out that each scene owes its life to the many hardware and software hackers who discover the exploits we come to enjoy so much today, they are then followed by the many worldwide coders who make the Homebrew scene a free and enjoyable place to hang out and make friends etc.
Apples new touch screen mobile phone has in the last week or two exploded onto the homebrew scene with multiple releases each day. Already we have had Nes Emulators and ports of Doom and projects such as the Arcade emulator MAME will bring masses to this new homebrew Scene. The Phone isnt on a worldwide release yet but the possibilities of a mainstream homebrew scene are staring at us . Short term future looks very interesting.
The Xbox360 still only relies on Microsofts XNA (Basically an Official Homebrew Dev from MS). The only downer to XNA is that its not a mainstream solution. We have seen some games and emulators for it but with Microsoft pulling the strings you will be limited as to what you will see. Hacking on the Xbox seems to be limited to just the firmware and sadly the ability to play backed up games. As of writing there's no news of the killer Homebrew breakthrough we all want and the recent modchip raids will make it harder still for an exploit to be found. The best way to move on is for a softmod exploit for Homebrew to be released. In the short term the only Homebrew your going to see for the 360 is XNA.
Sony played a blinder by giving the ability to install Linux onto the PS3, sadly though Linux is really only used by coders and the more hardcore user, we have already had some games that use linux to boot but because of size limitations its not feasible in the long run, a 50MB release for a small game certainly isn't what we all want. Only last week a new exploit was found on the latest PS3 firmware but we are going to have to wait to see if Homebrew will eventually arise from it. In the short term it looks like your stuck with linux.
Nintendos Wii console is already an emulation fans dream, the ability to play N64, Snes, Nes, Gamecube, Megadrive and PC Engine on this console make it a killer buy and recently Neogeo and MSX games have been announced to be arriving soon on the Virtual Console.
Now that's all very well but Nintendo last week in one firmware update killed the ability to load the Freeloader and SD Media Launcher. The only chance you have of playing Gamecube Homebrew on the Wii now is via a Modchip and with the raids on modchip suppliers last week this is a very dodgy area. Nintendo with every firmware update are closing the doors to exploits and that in turn closes the door to Homebrew. The short term future for Wii only Homebrew is that if you want emulators your going to have to use the Virtual Console or have a Modchip installed and wait for an exploit. Sadly it looks like a long wait.
The PSP Homebrew Scene is still the biggest mainstream noticed Homebrew scene of any generation, we now have homebrew support up to 2 behind Sonys Latest firmware. Custom Firmwares now give you full speed PSX Emulation and the community continues to pump out game after game. Nintendo 64 emulation gets closer to that elusive full speed and even last week a Nintendo DS Emulator was released for the PSP. Recent highlights include PSPTube which enables those of you with an Homebrew PSP to watch Youtube Videos on your PSP direct from the Net. The release of the PSPSlim aka PSP2000 in September with the additional 32mb of ram could mean even better ports of games and emulators. The hacking scene of the PSP at this time is the best in the whole Homebrew scene. The short term and long term future of PSP Homebrew continues to look great.
The GP2X is a console that was made for Homebrew fans and coders, it has a worldwide base of people coding Emulators and Games for it and with 2x200mhz cpu's and 64megs ram it sure can deliver the goods. Recent developments for the GP2X include excellent GBA and PSX Emulators, both emulators are showing what this linux based console can do.
Because the GP2X was made with Homebrew in mind its future is secured as long as its fanbase want to see it go on and with one of the most hardcore followers amongst them expect this console to be here in years to come.
The worlds biggest selling console at this time and the console that gives the most varied amount of games and applications in the Homebrew Scene. Remember that all you need to run Homebrew on your DS is the is the Console itself (obviously), and a Flash Cart.
The amount of DS Homebrew games and apps released is staggering and so many push the system in new ways that its an exciting homebrew scene to watch. As with the PSP and GP2X the future of the DS for homebrew looks very solid, if you haven't tried homebrew yet then your missing out majorly. Also With the DS you can also play the many hundreds of excellent GBA Homebrew Releases.
To get Homebrew on the Gamecube you can use the SD Load Method, the Gamecube scene recently because of the ability to play on Wii also has seen updates of many emulators and new ports like Quake. Nintendos killing of support for the SD Load Method on the Wii will hurt this scene but the fact that the Gamecube is so powerful and with a console that doesn't require modding means you have a great future if coders work on the system, projects ongoing at the moment include a port of Cave Story and even a Nintendo 64 emulator for the Gamecube. Short Term future is the best for years for this console.
The Dreamcast continues to live on as the only mainstream console that plays homebrew out of the box (apart from a few later consoles). The Homebrew scene continues to churn out releases and they are all quality releases too. More and More Commercial Homebrew is arriving on the console now and that's great news for new developers to show their tools on Sega's Last console. The future of the Dreamcast will continue to shine because of the hardcore fans and coders who support this console over the many years.
The GP32 is the younger brother of the GP2X, the GP32 has a homebrew scene is very stagnant these days with only a few releases this year, it does have a fantastic catalogue of releases for the system but the future looks to be bleak at best.
The GBA has a console has very few games being released these days but for homebrew users there are still some excellent gems being released. The back catalogue has some of the very best commercial quality homebrew games ever created and those with a DS and a Slot 2 flashcart should try out the many excellent releases. Because you can play GBA Homebrew on the DS it means that the GBA scene will continue to attract massive interest in the years to come.
The Gizmondo whilst being a commercial failure despite being a very powerful handheld had the makings of a great homebrew scene but the last 4 months have seen next to no new releases and the future looks very bleak apart from a few dedicated fans.
The most powerful console for the last generation of consoles has a massive range of full speed emulators and ported games for it, The best way to get homebrew to run is with the fitting of a Xbox Modchip, the shame about the Xbox scene is that 99% of the homebrew released is made with the Official SDK, so that means no sites can legally host the releases, at one time there were multiple releases on a daily basis but now its slowed to a trickle, the Xbox really needs the creation of a Legal SDK so that it entices more coders to release projects on the powerful console. If your after full speed emulation then this is the homebrew console to get.
The homebrew scene for the Nokia seems to have died a death, most likely because Nokia killed the console but it has quite a few decent emulators for it but the long-term future looks very grim, emulation on mobile phones isnt very easy to understand even if you are a pro in the scene.
Here's a console much like the Nintendo DS with its Touch Screen but its also a Pocket PC type device so you get the best of both worlds, the homebrew scene for this console has dried up massively since Tapwave gave up, it does boast some great emulators and games though so if your after a homebrew console and a pocket PC device then this is for you
The PS2 Homebrew scene despite being a powerful console and the biggest selling non handheld console of recent years has never really thrived, it has around 30 releases for it similar to the Gamecube, but the long term prospects don't look great. A modchip is the best way to get homebrew working on this console.
The worlds most popular music player in time could be a real contender for mini games and emulation of simple systems, so far it does have some homebrew for it but controls are never going to be easy for it, because of the constant changing of hardware its unlikely to have a strong homebrew following. Best to stick to music
The Sega Saturn is another console for which youll need a modchip for, via a coder named Rockin-B the Saturn has a site with nearly 100 homebrew releases and although its never going to be a massive scene its great to see the console still getting some loving.
I hope I haven't bored you too much but there's some opinions and facts about homebrew across the systems, if your looking for a killer handheld homebrew scene then PSP, Nintendo DS or GP2X should be your focus.
Those looking for a Console based scene then the Dreamcast or Xbox and also the Gamecube, Should be your port of call.
Of the next gen consoles only the 360 with the XNA enviroment is progressing at the moment.
Within the next week or so im going to post an article detailing the very best releases so far in every scene and this is where the whole DCEmu Community comes in, i want to compile the very best releases for each scene.
It doesnt matter if the release is a Game, Emulator, Demo or application/hack. If you are submitting what you consider the best please post a mini review and any details such as homepage and release date/ screenshots.
With that in Mind please post your top 5 releases for the Dreamcast Scene.
Its been less than two months, yet there's already a new release of Yabause. Today, the Yabause team released Yabause 0.8.6 for all platforms that it supports (Dreamcast included). This version is a bugfix release, and really doesn't include any new Dreamcast-related optimizations.
As for general fixes, there was a change to the 68k core to make it so that the emulator doesn't crash if for some reason a game jumps to an invalid address. There were also a few fixes in the VDP1 core, most importantly however was a fix for a bug that caused local coordinate commands not to be executed.
RedSpotGames, the publishers of the NeoGeo / Dreamcast game 'Last hope' are to be publishing 2 new games in the first quarter of 2008!!! This console just wont give up.
With the opening up of specially made Dreamcast development kits, the console that just wouldn't die is showing just how much life it really has left in the little system. It may be getting dated now, but for independent developers, the options the Dreamcast opens up are endless.
RedSpotGames, publishers of the recently released NG: Dev.Team's Last Hope for the NEO GEO and Sega Dreamcast, have announced their intentions to show off two new games for Sega's console at the Leipzig Games Convention.
The first title is Dalforce, a vertical shooter with 11 levels and a 4 player mode. The publishers promise a unique scoring system, intense bullet patterns, and huge bosses. No further details are given at this time, but we should get the first screens and perhaps a video or two this weekend when the game is shown off.
The second Dreamcast game being showcased by the company at Leipzig is Wind and Water Puzzle Battles developed by Yuan Works. This is a port of the GP2X Arcade/Action/Puzzle game that is available for pre-order at the game's official GP2X site here (the GP2X version will also be showcased at Leipzig as well). According to RedSpotGames, the Dreamcast port will feature a 4 player mode (as opposed to the GP2X 2 players) and exclusive secret characters.
Both of the games will be released in the first quarter 2008. There is no word yet on the pricing or distribution sources for the two titles. For more information on RedSpotGames, their official website is currently in the process of being updated here.
Translated news of the latest WIP from the Dreamcast Emu for Windows called Makaron:
At the end I have convened and I have hit once more time again of GD-ROM emulation. There was heavily but now Makaron has left on simple again, but if necessary has attendance of image write about which earlier GDI.
From this version it is possible to configure the emulation of region to EU/USA/JP. Thus, I search for images BIOS and from consoles on USA FLASH and japan! It circulates be it for network that certain domestic alteration of european version, with often break down (disable) usage else Chankastem problems are with them -. As you have it divide certain image of ROM it in noble purpose -! Otherwise, I will search enforced < self-service store >, that can expire
Certainly let's there will be example of superiority of image on pirates ( affectation not cut contents disc ) GDI Record of Lodoss War.
Pirate puts ( Makarona and not only on program ) loading, which does not act without attendance of hand memory on correctly SH4. But it walks " original " ślicznie":
So, from this moment if something will act from GDI, but from pirate not, it will sound on solution my standard answer this problem " but well, hard " :]
Hi all, any of you who are regular visitors to the DCEmu Homebrew Network will have noticed a lot of downtime lately, starting off with a few hours here and there to 2 days offline then onto the near 7 days offline and since then several times of several hours of downtime including today with a near 8 hours offline.
Me and Martin have been pulling our hair out and were convinced of an hardware fault but the server techs said nothing was wrong but finally today they admitted that the Hard Drive which hosts DCEmu had a problem and its been replaced.
So finally after whats been a rough month or so with numerous downtimes i can finally say we are back and the server has been optimised as much as can be to ensure no more downtimes even in the event of mega amounts of visitors to DCEmu, the uploading system is fully working also.
This is a very important time for Homebrew with breakthroughs in all sectors and never before has homebrew been so mainstream and in the public eye and DCEmu will be there to bring you all the homebrew news and releases.
Thanks as always to Martin for being there and kicking some German booty to ensure the server is working again. (pity the lads failed last night eh)
and remember DCEmu has its own Chatroom on efnet #dcemu where we hang about and talk about all manner of stuff :P.
An Awesome DVD released today traces the history of gaming and is a must see for any fans of gaming, heres the details:
track listing
Duck Hunt for NES
X-Men for Sega Genesis
Joust for Playstation
Sega GT for Dreamcast
Yar's Revenge for Atari 2600
Frogger for Atari 2600
SeaMan for Dreamcast
Missile Command for Playstation
Perfect Dark for Nintendo N64
Alien for Atari 2600
description
"Classic Game Room" was the first classic video game review show on the Internet in 1999 and 2000. It returns as a feature-length comedy film about the triumphant story of online success, failure, obscurity, resurrection and success again!
The legendary show was produced in the early days of online video by Mark Bussler and David Crosson at an Internet startup with one camera, a green screen and $50 budgets. The show was objective, entertaining and obnoxious with beer-drinking, bottle-throwing, joystick-slinging, car-crashing classic game reviews. A cult following developed and the reviews kept coming, but how long could it last until the money ran out?
Features the original raucous reviews of Duck Hunt for NES, Alien for Atari 2600, X-Men for Sega Genesis, Sega GT for Dreamcast, Joust and Missile Command for Playstation, Frogger for Atari 2600, SeaMan for Dreamcast, Perfect Dark for Nintendo 64 and Yars' Revenge for Atari 2600.
Cryptic Allusion said they will be releasing Donk, their next commercial homebrew game, in the end of the year. Before, the game was going to be released in september.
From the link:
I know this isn't something you wanted to read (hear?), but we are going to push Donk's release out to a bit closer to the end of the year. The reason for this is that we do NOT want to release a half-assed port of the original game, and if we push for our first release date (which was supposed to be at NWCGE at the end of September), I'm afraid we will. The new date will be released as soon as we reschedule everything, but it will come out this year. Lucky for you lot, there isn't much left of this year!
So, I apologize that we're missing our original release date, but then again I don't apologize, because we're not going to let something get released that sucks. I hope you all understand!
On August 16th 2007, Sierra terminated all online services for Maximum Pool. This includes the dedicated servers (rooms) as well as the master server. Maximum Pool was the last Dreamcast Online game that had an undetermined future. We were confident a server would eventually be released, since the existence of a emulated Maximum Pool room server was known. Since Maximum Pool's official online services were terminated, the software needed to keep Maximum Pool online forever has finally been released to the public.
Longtime PC Maximum Pool Player "Tino" over at PAuth.com community has finally released the room software needed to play Maximum Pool online. This is Sierra's official Room Server application. So it is important to note this is NOT software that was reverse engineered / emulated. It is software that was acquired in years past by the PC community, and is just now being made public.
If you will recall a few summers ago, Maximum Pool's network functions were fixed, via a simple Hex edit to the game save. The game uses the save to store IP addresses for Rooms or Master Lists. If you want to play Maximum Pool online on the Dreamcast again, all you have to do is host the room server on your PC, have the necessary ports open on your router, and use a HEX editor application on your PC to add your IP address to the game save. It is as simple as that.
So, while the game is now officially offline, this really is a time for celebration. All of the online games we have right now are currently online forever. Speaking of Online Forever (A term first coined by this community years back as we began to strive for salvaging our favorite online games), PAuth.com has also adopted the terminology in their quest to rebuild the PC Maximum Pool community. I feel really good about this because this term is empowering, and encourages others to salvage the network functionality for their favorite online games.
I would also like to announce that OC will indeed be hosting a dedicated Maximum Pool room for Dreamcast users. I should have more news on this soon. As an aside to all of this, remember that OC is a hardware centric website, and we strive to only discuss playing online with Dreamcast game consoles. However if you are looking to add IP's for PC Maximum Pool Rooms to your Game Save, please hit up PAuth.com for more details.
Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that Cryptic Allusion has created it's first podcast, with (hopefully) many more to come! It was built with the intention of bolstering the indie game scene for both developers and players. The 2nd episode will be going up tomorrow or Friday morning. Check it out on iTunes (do a search in the store for "Cryptic Allusion"; we're the only thing that pops up) or stop by our forums at the following link: http://www.cagames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=836
Let us know what you think (on the Cryptic Allusion forums) after you've listened. We can always use the feedback.
) I feel its a good time to give a low down on each scene.
