Dreamcast Emulation From PC To Android

Today I like to talk about one of my favorite systems, the Sega Dreamcast and to help some of you out when it comes to playing these wonderful games on your PC or Android device.

First, let’s get a little bit of history on this wonderful Sega system. The Sega Dreamcast was released on November 27, 1998, in Japan, September 9, 1999, in North America, and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first entry in the sixth generation of video game consoles, preceding the PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox. The Dreamcast is Sega’s final home console, marking the end of the company’s 18 years in the console market.

Although the system experienced a short lifespan and limited third-party support, reviewers have considered the Dreamcast ahead of its time. Its game library contains many titles considered creative and innovative, including Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio and Shenmue, as well as high-quality ports from Sega’s NAOMI arcade system board. The Dreamcast was also the first console to include a built-in modem for Internet support and online play.

I for one own 2 Dreamcast’s but I do love to play on the go and one of the only ways I have found to play on the go is Reicast – Dreamcast emulator.

Now some people have had some trouble running this app and its not that surprising the set up can be a bit tricky but here is the setup from the creators.

**Setup**
– Create a folder named “reicast”, and then a folder named “data” inside it. Put the bios (dc_boot.bin & dc_flash.bin) inside the data folder. Windows sometimes hides the file extention, so the filename might look like “dc_boot” on the windows explorer.

– Create a folder anywhere you want, and put the Dreamcast games in there. Reicast currently supports .gdi, .chd (v4), and .cdi disc formats, but .cdi is discouraged due to problematic compatibility.

– Open reicast and selet the “reicast” folder you created as system path.

– In order to save your game-play progress you will first need to format the memory cards. In order to do this you need to start the program, select the “boot bios” option, go to the “file” option, select the memory cards and then select the “delete all” option.

– Finally use the game navigator to locate your games. You can also setup a game path if you want to default to a specific folder.

– For further support & general questions, ask in http://forums.reicast.com/index.php?board=1.0

**Recommended specs**
– Cpu: Cortex-A9, Dualcore, 1.2ghz
– Gpu: Adreno, Tegra K1 or Mali400 gpus
– At least 512mb ram

Now I will tell you if you follow the setup the way they say it does work well even though not all will be playable but the ones that do play well enough for emulator that is still being worked on.

You can grab yourself a copy at Google play here.

Now for the PC side of this coin i have found one of the best out there is nullDC here’s what they have to say.

nullDC was a Sega Dreamcast emulator for win86 and is now archived at github (https://github.com/skmp/nulldc)

Work is now done on reicast (https://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator), and while nullDC is still a better choice for Dreamcast emulation on windows/x86 reicast is where future development is. Come and help us!

Cheers,

~skmp, aka drk||Raziel

At the time of writing this they have stopped working on this yet it is one of the only i have found to play at speed and without to many issues and is still my first pick when i go to play on my PC.
If you go here you can find a bit of helpful info to make your Dreamcast PC exp all it can be.

I hope this has helped a little and if you have any questions feel free to ask me here or on twitter riddle43 I’ll do my best to help with what i can.

As always thanks for reading and keep doing it for the love of the game.

Thanks to drkIIRaziel, Mr.PsyMan, and gigaherz, for all your hard work on nullDC,

and thanks to The Reicast team for there continued work on this project.