[poll] Vote For Nulldc Dreamcast Emulator On Pandora!

[gaterooze]

Not many people who know what they're talking about said that DC would be impossible on Pandora, they just said that it would take a lot of work and not to expect miracles in terms of speed.

 

[Chip]

Not many people who know what they're talking about said that DC would be impossible on Pandora, they just said that it would take a lot of work and not to expect miracles in terms of speed.
Clarification: Nobody ever said it would be impossible for it to work at all. However, everybody who does know what they're talking about agrees that it will be a lot of work, and there is still no guarantee that it will ever be playable.

 

[Consequence_9]

My bad. What Gruso said was spot on. Didn't know you were one of the devs, just glanced at ur post count & figured 'oh great, another useless poll thread'. Don't get me wrong, I'm EXTREMELY excited about this project, and I previously offered to donate to 'raizel so i'll uphold that offer =] thanks for the paypal address, I'll send somethin to show my appreciation as soon as I can.

 

[Raz]

Well. I'm sure the creators of nullDC can do it

 

[Prometheus]

I was never a particularly big fan of the Dreamcast (I did own one, but it had very few games of interest to me), but you have my vote as I'm already finding this very interesting from a technological standpoint. (Thankyou for the short BeagleBoard demonstration, too, by the way.)

EDIT: My smiley is broken.

 

[ZeZu]

I certainly never said it was impossible, but I tend not to use that word in the first place. I also feel that it can be done at a reasonable speed, and I intend to prove anyone who disagrees wrong



I should point out that the email address corresponding to that paypal account is gone, we are using emudev.org now. The paypal account is fine, but if anyone tried to email the .com I wont get the email.

Edit: sorry for any confusion :
->
email address: ZeZu@emudev.org
paypal address: stef_mp@emudev.com
<-

To the people who have donated, please send me a pm and let me know who you are and if you want your name / handle mentioned ! (As in on these forums and in the about/thanks page on the pandora version of the emulator). And thanks again, even if they have no pandoras to spare .. maybe they can at least speed the process if I come up with the cash! (drkIIraziel has already paid for pre-order, and doesn't even have a beagleboard to test, is this possible to speed the process on getting his sent out?)

More screens/vids coming soon, good progress today

 

[dr0zaxx]

Since it's a smaller screen than that of a PC, the requirements for running a Dreamcast emulator should be lower right? Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[ZeZu]

Unfortunately, screen "size" has little to do with it, screen resolution "can" affect it, but at this point, its effect is negligible. The most important thing right now is squeezing ever bit of performance out of the poor ARM cortex-a8. Most specifically completing the recompiler : getting it to generate the smallest code to fit in cache the best, getting the fpu implementation running on neon, and regmapping.

 

[Pleng]

Unfortunately, screen "size" has little to do with it, screen resolution "can" affect it, but at this point, its effect is negligible. The most important thing right now is squeezing ever bit of performance out of the poor ARM cortex-a8. Most specifically completing the recompiler : getting it to generate the smallest code to fit in cache the best, getting the fpu implementation running on neon, and regmapping.

ZeZu

I am really interested in this project and as soon as my next student loan payment comes through I will see what I can rustle up.

I know you're busy dealing with the really important stuff now but I am wondering what your proposed solution to emulating the analogue trigger pads on the dreamcast would be? The only games I bought my dreamcast for were Daytona and Sega Rally and, apart from the odd quick bout of VF3, they're really the only games I'm interested in playing.

Pandora's hardware devs
Are the pins which connect L1 and L2 capable of sending analogue signals, if an appropriate mod was devised? If not would it be somehow possible to hack something up by using, for example, L1 and L2 shoulder pad connectors to connect a single device?

 

[jens.l]

I vote for you. Probably a complete Fullspeed Dremcast on the Pandora will I not await. But maybe in 2-3 years
we will see a new Pandora with the Hardware that can emulate the System.

The PSP2 will be probably not open for selfmade software. So we will probably never see emulators on it.

The Pandora will be for a very long time the only really Handheld for Homebrew.

Please give it a try, there are 10Millions Dreamcast Fans world wide.

Jens

 

[RajTakhar]

This is a worthy cause

NullDC works great on a PC - and if the original Devs are coding it - then we really all ought to get behind them and support them

I for one will be sending some cash over from my Paypal account today

It would be nice to think one of the early MK2/3 boards could be shipped over to them for testing purposes - the only problem being the difference in RAM

These guys should get one of the really early pre-production units - why? - because showing a console which is capable of dreamcast emulation (albeit not at huge speeds initially) will create A MASSIVE BUZZ AROUND THE PANDORA

Just think of all the people who want to play the Dreamcast games on a handheld - shit I better ISO ripping software again, I remember the injection process for Dreamcast titles using two apps.

There were some great games on this console - not just platform, racing, shooting, but also some unique shoot 'em ups which are still being released today.

As well as that Sega did develop a shed load of arcade titles using the Naomi hardware set which they only stopped producing for Last year - several years on from stopping production of the Dreamcast. Yes I did own a Dreamcast - it was one one of the portable units with an LCD screen on top of it, portable ish in the sense you could get it in a backpack, not the same as holding it in your hand.

Hopefully NullDC will eventually be playable at decent speed for some of the Sega Dreamcast titles - I'm behind it 100%

Yep and I have just sent a paypal payment to the devs!! as well

Hopefully we can see some videos of work in progress on Beagle board soon

 

[notaz]

I did similar poll a while ago too, and the results are quite easily predictable.

www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=40516

 

[javaJake]

I'm finding it funny that everyone's voting "yes" on the second poll, and I'm guessing it's because it doesn't cost them anything to say it.

The OS isn't quite done (AFAIK), and it's fairly minimal, so it would be nice if we could get more developers to make sure the base package is ready before it's released to the general public.

Besides, once the Pandora is released (within months, now) the developer boards will be (almost) useless.

 

[Balzac2m]

Pandora's hardware devs
Are the pins which connect L1 and L2 capable of sending analogue signals, if an appropriate mod was devised? If not would it be somehow possible to hack something up by using, for example, L1 and L2 shoulder pad connectors to connect a single device?

I agree that emulating the Dreamcast-Joypad would be fairly hard. There are lots of games which use the analogue shoulderbuttons, especially games where you handle something that moves (cars, bikes, airplanes). Anyone got an idea how to emulate it? I can't come up with a decent idea, the only analogue inputs are the sticks which can't really be used to replace the shoulderbuttons.

 

[valhalla]

I don't think that OP should give a pandora to the developers of something that may or may not be fully playable; they don't have unlimited resources and I believe that they should give priority to something that has better chances to work well.

Of course more software is always good, so if people are willing to donate for the developement it would be a solution.

 

[kaprikawn]

As soon as I saw the poll title I though NinjaMonkey was posting again Glad to see it is someone from whom posting this type of poll makes sense.

I would love to see the DC emulated and I'll look into donating some money when I get paid.

 

[RajTakhar]

I don't think that OP should give a pandora to the developers of something that may or may not be fully playable; they don't have unlimited resources and I believe that they should give priority to something that has better chances to work well.

Of course more software is always good, so if people are willing to donate for the developement it would be a solution.

MWeston has already stated that he thought that some of the original units are not being used by some of the devs

The NullDC emulator will be a killer app for the Pandora - no doubt something which will help the community as a whole with more and more new users attracted to the device

You are not going to getter a better chance of a Dreamcast emulator on the pandora - especially as the Pandora NullDC version is being coded by the original devs - which means a much quicker port and fine tuning process than someone trying to do it out of their own bat.

Have a look at the NullDC videos on YouTube - ok some are slow but some are fast - i'm sure these devs will come up with a decent speed emulator for Pandora which we can all enjoy.

I doubt any of us will give up a first batch panaora - BUT we can help by either making donations or helping with beta testing.

I'd rather see a pre-production Pandora sent to these guys for doing the initial code base checks than the press who will probably slate the Pandora for not having anything more to offer in terms of emulation than stuff already at the market - with handheld Dreamcast emulation, the Pandora will knock the socks of anything out there - so its a vicious circle of sorts.

As it stands - for those of who want a Pandora NullDC quickly we can either hope one of the pre-production units is passed over to ther Devs via ED or CraigX or the guys get enough money from community donations.

 

[Consequence_9]

I can't believe no one has mentioned how amazing it would be to see Rez on the panda. That & the unreleased Half-Life are two games I'd easily give money to aid in just the mere possibility of seeing one day. Not to mention the sonic games, Ikaruga, soul calibur & gundam: federation vs. zeon (jap. only) just to name a few. The Dreamcast is easily one of, if not my most favorite consoles ever. (Plus it'll be really nice to play games without the gd-rom grinding away ;D)

 

[Spirit]

The poll misses the option "I don't care.".

 

[Mithrildor]

I know this isnt the right topic. But could you guys make a n64 emu after porting nullDC?