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Sega Dreamcast - Appreciation and Emulation Thread

O

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
Mzo said:
Vastly different and inferioir.

Changed from fighting game to party game where the board is more likely to kill you than any opponent.
Click to expand...

don't you think power stone is better suited to a party game anyway? no block and all
 
B

Birbo

Member
oneida said:
Had a hard time choosing between VOOT for $10 or Toy Commander for $10. ended up passing on VOOT since I have it for XBLA.
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I adore Toy Commander. Wish it would get an HD remake or sequel. I can't even seem to get it to work properly with an emulator; controller never recognizes. :(
 
T

televator

Member
My body and soul say YASSSSSSS! The wallet says... Maybe. My brain says there could be some crazy all in one mod like the Hi-Def NES in the future. Fuck.
 
E

emb

Member
I finally grabbed Toy Commander in the past day or two. Doubted it would be that good, but the first couple of levels have already been fairly enjoyable, and I imagine it only gets better.
 
T

televator

Member
Yeah all sales are final on the GDEMU. Even on defective units, the best he can do is limites repair. After the headache I had with the Mega EverDrive, I think I'll pass. Bummer.
 
K

KC-Slater

Member
televator said:
Yeah all sales are final on the GDEMU. Even on defective units, the best he can do is limites repair. After the headache I had with the Mega EverDrive, I think I'll pass. Bummer.
Click to expand...

Considering you're installing it yourself, in your own hardware, I don't think it's unreasonable that he would not refund one's money after purchase. That being said, I have one, and have experienced zero issues with it. The dude who makes/sells them is pretty hands-on with the community, especially with regards to answering questions and providing support.
 
K

KC-Slater

Member
Dereck said:
Whoever is purchasing that GDEMU that posts in this thread, please, please post impressions.
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I've posted about it several times in the past. I own the GDEMU as well as the RHEA for the Sega Saturn. Both work amazingly well, with the GDEMU being a bit slicker due to the fact that you can use a menu to browse/load your games collection.

Installation is simple, and doesn't involve any soldering, just a screwdriver. It takes under 10 minutes to get up and running. Every title I have tried has been compatible, and games that are outside of your region can have their images tweaked before being loaded on to your SD card to run on your system. (NTSC-U to NTSC-J, for example.)

Anecdotally, I find the system is quieter and typically loads faster, but I don't have any benchmarks to support this. It just feels that way. (I have 2 Dreamcasts, one modded, and one OEM.)
 
B

Boomshaw

Banned
Hi guys. I was wondering if anyone can reccommend a good VGA to HD converter box (VGA to HDMI) for the dreamcast in the UK. Bought one from amazon for about £12 and while it give me sound and picture, the picture gives me subtle black vertical lines down the screen. The original VGA picture is superior. I know Adam Koralik recommended a good one, but that seems to not exist anymore and its in the states too.

Any help much appreciated.
 
S

Sixfortyfive

He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Boomshaw said:
Hi guys. I was wondering if anyone can reccommend a good VGA to HD converter box (VGA to HDMI) for the dreamcast in the UK. Bought one from amazon for about £12 and while it give me sound and picture, the picture gives me subtle black vertical lines down the screen. The original VGA picture is superior. I know Adam Koralik recommended a good one, but that seems to not exist anymore and its in the states too.

Any help much appreciated.
Click to expand...

1) Try VGA-to-component transcoders instead of VGA-to-HDMI. HDMI converters tend to mess up the Dreamcast's horizontal resolution, which may be causing the artifacts you're seeing. Unfortunately, these converters may also be difficult to find now. I personally use an Audio Authority 9A60A.

2) Never take Adam Koralik's advice on A/V equipment without extensive verification from people who actually know what they're talking about.
 
B

Boomshaw

Banned
Sixfortyfive said:
1) Try VGA-to-component transcoders instead of VGA-to-HDMI. HDMI converters tend to mess up the Dreamcast's horizontal resolution, which may be causing the artifacts you're seeing. Unfortunately, these converters may also be difficult to find now. I personally use an Audio Authority 9A60A.

2) Never take Adam Koralik's advice on A/V equipment without extensive verification from people who actually know what they're talking about.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the advice. I have seen this on amazon uk, is that what your talking about? I never considered component, but if it gives me a far superior picture than this shitty hdmi converter does, then I'm all in.
 
S

Sixfortyfive

He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I can't vouch for any specific model other than the one I've bought. In general, you want to be looking for something that just transcodes the color space from VGA (RGBHV) to component (YPbPr), and you do NOT want it to scale the image.

The Dreamcast VGA's signal is a 720x480 frame (NTSC video standard), but with only a 640x480 picture drawn inside it (actual VGA resolution). It has black bars on the left and right, leaving a 4:3 picture inside if you're displaying square pixels. On a CRT computer monitor, this is all fine. You just adjust the monitor's display so that the picture fills the entire screen, without any scaling concerns.

But on a flat-screen or a digital upscaler, this can get messy. Lots of HDTVs and converters assume that a 480p signal coming from a VGA source is a 640x480 picture inside a 640x480 frame, and they scale it as such. So, this messes up the Dreamcast's signal by squashing the image horizontally, and you can't undo all the damage after that.

A simple transcoder should just change the color space and leave all of the rest of that stuff alone.
 
B

Boomshaw

Banned
I think I'm following you. Man I cannot find any of them out there other than the one you use. But it would cost be like £100 for one of them. I cant afford it. If I were to go for the box I mentioned above, and it turned out to be a scaler, what negatives would I expect to see?

Thanks for all your help. Last time I buy a TV without VGA connection lol.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Sixfortyfive said:
I can't vouch for any specific model other than the one I've bought. In general, you want to be looking for something that just transcodes the color space from VGA (RGBHV) to component (YPbPr), and you do NOT want it to scale the image.

The Dreamcast VGA's signal is a 720x480 frame (NTSC video standard), but with only a 640x480 picture drawn inside it (actual VGA resolution). It has black bars on the left and right, leaving a 4:3 picture inside if you're displaying square pixels. On a CRT computer monitor, this is all fine. You just adjust the monitor's display so that the picture fills the entire screen, without any scaling concerns.

But on a flat-screen or a digital upscaler, this can get messy. Lots of HDTVs and converters assume that a 480p signal coming from a VGA source is a 640x480 picture inside a 640x480 frame, and they scale it as such. So, this messes up the Dreamcast's signal by squashing the image horizontally, and you can't undo all the damage after that.

A simple transcoder should just change the color space and leave all of the rest of that stuff alone.
Click to expand...
OHHHH. So *that's* what happens! I always wondered why VGA looked like arse on all the TV displays I used it on. I suspect there's a stretch option that would probably fix that, now I think of it.
 
O

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
I'll fire up the Dreamcast later instead of restarting Yakuza 2. Here are the games I will be playing.

COeWhG2WsAAuQox.jpg
.


Except Fighting Vipers 2, since I still can't get that to display through VGA TT_____TT
 
C

Coda

Member
I'm thinking back to the first time I played the Dreamcast. It was at a friend's of my family who we used to go on snowboarding/ski trips with. We went to their house one night and one of them had just gotten it. We played Sonic Adventure and Ready 2 Rumble for hours and I just knew I needed to get a Dreamcast after that night.
 
E

emb

Member
Made a point to pick up a Dreamcast game today since it's 9/9 and all.

So is Plasma Sword any good? <.<

I hadn't heard of it before, but a quick search made it sound cool, and I liked the name/cover enough. Edit: Tried it out and it seems pretty cool. It's like a wacky Capcom Soul Calibur (of course not as good though).
 
Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Actually kinda surprised there's no happy birthday thread. The Dreamcast is the only system that gets those consistently.
 
O

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
PS2 didn't get a whole lot of sega games but it got some goooood ones

anyone ever play blood will tell?
 
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