GTA 3 (Alpha) For Dreamcast Released - Runs on Native Hardware

That's wild. There's a universe out there where this was a reality.
 

Wow, they fixed so many of the glitches previously seen, even the HUD seems to work now and there are next to no artifacts, it'd probably be able to release in this state in retail back then. Looking forward to seeing how far they can take it/optimize it in the future of course, but a great first release.
Noice, solid improvement from previously seen versions, though it's of course far from perfect and still an early release. Dudes playing it here on real hw.


Deserves a thread to see folks that said it's impossible/only DVD can stream/it'd have no lights/effects/transparencies/it'd look like Crazy Taxi claim they always said it's viable with downgrades as it was once in dev for DC, even though they decried that former Rockstar lead tech saying it's possible.
 
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Wow, they fixed so many of the glitches previously seen, even the HUD seems to work now and there are next to no artifacts, it'd probably be able to release in this state in retail back then. Looking forward to seeing how far they can take it/optimize it in the future of course, but a great first release.
they could release it in a state where you cant play it on a disc?
 
I think Sega fans think if they port enough games to old systems to prove the systems are just as capable then history will change and Sega will still be making consoles.
Or people think porting either newer games or games never meant to be on the hardware like Sonic to the SNES or FF7 to the Sega Saturn is interesting and a showcase of the programmers skill and untapped power of older systems

its not that deep bro
 
I think Sega fans think if they port enough games to old systems to prove the systems are just as capable then history will change and Sega will still be making consoles.
People like to tinker with stuff, and the Dreamcast has a very vocal and dedicated fanbase even if it was a mess of a console (not saying quality wise as the Dreamcast was way ahead of the times, and has some great games).

GTA3 was on Xbox and it didn't change history.
Nothin on Xbox changed history besides Halo.
 
When it comes to laughing at those who said the port was impossible, wow Dreamcast wins but when we point out the flaws, the game cannot be criticized because it is homebrew.

So what will it be like when I say all the points where the graphics are inferior?
 
When it comes to laughing at those who said the port was impossible, wow Dreamcast wins but when we point out the flaws, the game cannot be criticized because it is homebrew.

So what will it be like when I say all the points where the graphics are inferior?
This was your fine critique:

You're more than welcome to add to it, otherwise we're just going to say that it's a dumb comment.
 
Always nice to see the Dreamcast still gets new software in 2024
GTA3 was on Xbox and it didn't change history.
It did at least give us more detailed car models/textures, which were better than the original PC version. And was the first console release to support custom music.
 
GTA3 was on Xbox and it didn't change history.
It did actually, next time there was an exclusive Sony made sure its contract couldn't be worked around by releasing games on Xbox under a different name 😂

That's how we got the gta collection on Xbox and not the single games, as Sony had the exclusive rights to those.
 

Weird, i´m playing it on my actual DC through SD Serial Port (which causes some slowdowns due to slower reading speed than GD Emu) and i´m not seeing 10 fps. Did you test on your actual console? Or are you giving your "opinion" as a fact based on YouTube videos?


When it comes to laughing at those who said the port was impossible, wow Dreamcast wins but when we point out the flaws, the game cannot be criticized because it is homebrew.

So what will it be like when I say all the points where the graphics are inferior?

Facts: port is possible, we are right now having fun with it. So the ones who said it wanst were WRONG.

- It doest change the fact it´s something fan made, without budget, without official support, etc. So, just the fact that they managed DC to at least run it it´s way impressive, but now they are taking it very close to an actual retail level...Which is beyond imagination! It has flaws compared with the OG PS2 version, of course! Don´t you see this isnt an official release, it´s made bay fans, GTA III was built on the first place around PS2 capabilities.... and somehow this port managed to shut mouths around here?
 
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Weird, i´m playing it on my actual DC through SD Serial Port (which causes some slowdowns due to slower reading speed than GD Emu) and i´m not seeing 10 fps. Did you test on your actual console? Or are you giving your "opinion" as a fact based on YouTube videos?




Facts: port is possible, we are right now having fun with it. So the ones who said it wanst were WRONG.

- It doest change the fact it´s something fan made, without budget, without official support, etc. So, just the fact that they managed DC to at least run it it´s way impressive, but now they are taking it very close to an actual retail level...Which is beyond imagination! It has flaws compared with the OG PS2 version, of course! Don´t you see this isnt an official release, it´s made bay fans, GTA III was built on the first place around PS2 capabilities.... and somehow this port managed to shut mouths around here?
Also is worth noting that this is a PC port not PS2, that means higher poly for some characters and cars plus more stuff on the streets like, quite a lot...
 
There is no frame rate counter, but the game seems to be running at around 10-15 fps in its current state.



I wonder if they can improve the framerate a little bit more to match the PS2 version (18-30fps).
 
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Any reason why this was seen as 'the impossible port'?. mean while Dreamcast was still alive, it shared many of the same games as PS2, and sometimes even ran or looked better on Dreamcast.
Plus GTA 3 was hardly a looker, even for the time.
 
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Any reason why this was seen as 'the impossible port'?. mean while Dreamcast was still alive, it shared many of the same games as PS2, and sometimes even ran or looked better on Dreamcast.
Plus GTA 3 was hardly a looker, even for the time.

From what I can understand. Rockstar made a tech demo for GTAIII on the Dreamcast right after they released GTA2 for the Dreamcast. But later on, Rockstar made a statement that a GTAIII port was impossible on the DC hardware because of system requirement limitations. So, GTAIII has always kind of been seen as an 'impossible port' for the console based on that information alone.

Edit, this is from a former Rockstar developer who worked on GTAIII:

 
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Everyone comparing to PS2 but the best version was on Xbox...

Although in fairness Rockstar had an extra year of cooking after MS gave them a check.
 
I mean it chugs along and runs kinda poorly but so impresssive. I'm assuming the PS2 was much more powerful than the DC for 3D games whereas DC was more powerful for 2D games? I know DC had more VRAM
 
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These are fun. I played Half-Life on Dreamcast and it sucked due to loading but it was still cool to see it with the VMU.

From what I understand GearBox does have a far more complete version of Half-Life 1 for the Dreamcast than the version that was leaked a long time ago. I remember playing the Dreamcast version on real hardware back in the day. It was pretty impressive for the DC hardware.

Blue Shift was originally planned as exclusive content for the Dreamcast port, and the HD model pack that came bundled with Blue Shift was designed for the Dreamcast version of the game. Sierra cancelled the Dreamcast port right around the time Sega announced the discontinuation of the Dreamcast, and Blue Shift and the HD Model pack was ported over to the PC.

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I also still have my original GOTY copy of HL1 for the PC. I originally played the PC game on a Windows 98SE PC with a Pentium Celeron 466MHz CPU and 128MB of SDRAM and a Geforce 256 card with 32MB of VRAM, and to be honest, the loaded was not great back then wither, with each section taking about a two or four minutes to load from a spinning-disc HDD drive.

 
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Nothin on Xbox changed history besides Halo.

XBLA was a groundbreaking when it was first unveiled for the original Xbox. Though granted, XBLA wasn't fully realized as an online service until the 360. But it did start on the OG Xbox. The Xbox was the first console to come bundled with a internal harddrive and an Ethernet connection. Those two features were a big deal for the time.
 
It did at least give us more detailed car models/textures, which were better than the original PC version.
These improved car models/reflections were also implemented in PS2 San Andreas (which is also a bigger, more complex looking open world on top of that). So there could be improved versions of GTA III and Vice City on PS2 if they wanted.
 
Comparison with Xbox. It's difficult to estimate the frame rate without a fps counter, but the animation crawl so much that it's probably running at 10-15fps.

 
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I mean it chugs along and runs kinda poorly but so impresssive. I'm assuming the PS2 was much more powerful than the DC for 3D games whereas DC was more powerful for 2D games? I know DC had more VRAM
Sony PS2 specs:
  • Original release date: March 2000 (Japan)
  • 64bit/ 128bit MIPS III R5900 based CPU @ 294-299MHz
  • 32MB main system memory with 4MB VRAM, 2MB audio RAM
  • Custom 128bit graphics synthesizer clocked at 147.456 MHz
  • SPU2 audio processor (the successor to the SPU in the PS1)
  • 4-speed DVD-ROM drive (4.7 GB single layer or 8+GB dual layer)

Sega Dreamcast specs:
  • Original release date: November 1998 (Japan)
  • 32bit Hitachi SH4 @ 200MHz
  • 16MB main system memory with 8MB VRAM, 2MB Audio RAM
  • 128bit NEC PowerVR2 clocked at 100MHz
  • Yamaha audio processor @ 67MHz with an ARM7
  • GD-ROM drive (discs can hold 1GB of Data)
The PS2 does have a generally higher clocked CPU with double the system memory of the Dreamcast. I think the PS2 GPU can display more polygons overall than the Dreamcast. But the Dreamcast GPU is still quite competent. For a 1998 console, the Dreamcast was quite powerful. The 8MB GPU cache was certainly one of its strong points. The textures in early DC games like Sonic Adventure looked incredible. Textures didn't have that monochromatic look like the PS2. But CPU and GPU tech was advancing so rapidly that the PS2 does outpace it. But then again, the Xbox was released in 2001, and has a 733MHz custom Pentium III copermine and a Geforce 3 tier GPU with 64MB's of system memory. On paper it mogs the PS2 and Gamecube.

Pretty sure the Xbox port generally runs at a rock solid 30fps (480p), while the PS2 port runs anywhere from 18-30FPS (I don't know the internal resolution). The Dreamcast homebrew is still an alpha. But as said above, probably hits 20fps max (480i, and maybe 480p with VGA).

EDIT: see the post above mine for a comparison between the current DC homebrew build and the Xbox version.
 
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Comparison with Xbox. It's difficult to estimate the frame rate without a fps counter, but the animation crawl so much that it's probably running at 10-15fps.


No, it is running around 20'ish fps on average, I don't know how people keeps saying it runs at 10 fps.. it can hit that number just like the ps2 did btw.

Oh and to put things into perspecitve...

This is the same decomp "running" on ps2....

 
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