Dreamcast Emulation

[Weltall]

Anyone ever use emulators on their Dreamcasts?

You can find them at http://www.dcemulation.com

So far I've used both an NES and SNES emulator, the NES one works great, the SNES one is really good too, but some games run a bit slow. All in all though, it's great to be able to play the games on a TV, and not sit at a computer screen.

[Dark Lord Neo]

That's what an s-video out on your video card is for

[Weltall]

Originally posted by Dark Lord Neo
That's what an s-video out on your video card is for

If you have an S-video jack on your TV, or an S-out on your card, of which I have neither.

Besides, I've never met a PC controller that didn't suck in some major way. The DC control works amazingly well for SNES games.

[Dark Lord Neo]

Originally posted by Weltall
If you have an S-video jack on your TV, or an S-out on your card, of which I have neither.

Besides, I've never met a PC controller that didn't suck in some major way. The DC control works amazingly well for SNES games.

It came with a cable for plugging an AV jack into it too

[Weltall]

Well, of course your PC would have to be right next to your TV anyway. Stop changing the subject!

[Dark Lord Neo]

Actually you could have a 30 foot av cable

Anyways, I tried a DC emulator at a friends once, but he had a bad emulator or somthing because the NES games were running at around 10FPS

[Weltall]

Originally posted by Dark Lord Neo
Actually you could have a 30 foot av cable

Anyways, I tried a DC emulator at a friends once, but he had a bad emulator or somthing because the NES games were running at around 10FPS

A 30 foot AV cable? Okay... except my speakers would be by the PC, and I'd need several USB extensions for the controller... and I'd still have to get up to change games.

NesterDC runs NES games perfectly on Dreamcast. I dunno about the others.

[OB1]

I have NesterDC and it's awesome. Metroid on Nester DC actually looks a lot better than the one in Metroid Prime. Not only is the sound and picture much, much sharper, but you actually get more screen information.

[Dark Lord Neo]

I have an earphone jack to av converter too, plus another extension cable

[Weltall]

Originally posted by Dark Lord Neo
I have an earphone jack to av converter too, plus another extension cable

But, how will you change games or save states?

[A Black Falcon]

I'd think it would be better to just play them on PC... though I guess if you really want to play them on a TV and don't have a videocard that has TV-Out, it would be something to try... but still, yeah, how do you deal with savestates, etc? Seems tough on any console except for the X-Box, which is easier due to its builtin harddrive...

[Weltall]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
I'd think it would be better to just play them on PC... though I guess if you really want to play them on a TV and don't have a videocard that has TV-Out, it would be something to try... but still, yeah, how do you deal with savestates, etc? Seems tough on any console except for the X-Box, which is easier due to its builtin harddrive...

Save states are files of insignificant size. Both NesterDC and DreamSNES save files right to the VMU.

[Dark Lord Neo]

Wireless keyboard

[Weltall]

Originally posted by Dark Lord Neo
Wireless keyboard

And how will you see what you're typing? Strategically placed mirrors?

[OB1]

NES and SNES emulators are crap on PC monitors because of their high resolution. I don't want to be playing Secret of Mana on a GBA-sized screen, so my only option is to connect my PC to my TV screen.

[A Black Falcon]

While I'd certainly agree that NES doesn't look too good on PC (and I'd add GB/C/A to that... playing Game Boy on a computer screen just isn't NEARLY as good as it is on a real game boy...), IMO SNES/Genesis looks just fine.

[OB1]

It looks fine it you want to play it in a tiny little box on your computer screen. If you blow the image up it won't look like it does on a tv screen because of the computer monitor's high resolution. It will look extremely blocky because these games were meant to be played on a low resolution tv screen.

[A Black Falcon]

I don't think SNES/Genesis looks that bad... I don't have a lot of experience with them on a TV, but I have some and the games don't look very different... a little worse, sure, but not a whole lot of a difference. NES looks not too good, and doesn't seem to do fullscreen that well (there always seem to be black bars around it), but its playable... definitely not as good as on TV, sure. But better than nothing... and for me, its the only way to play most any of these games so I won't complain much.

[OB1]

Oh I can definitely tell the difference. If you blow up the image to fit even half of the screen everything gets extremely pixelated because of the high resolution of the monitor. You'd think that that would make it look better, but it doesn't.

[A Black Falcon]

Its no fun to play console games in windows, though (well, except for gameboy which doesn't do too well on PC, period)... fullscreen may be more pixellated, but its better than playing in a partscreen window...

[Weltall]

Originally posted by OB1
It looks fine it you want to play it in a tiny little box on your computer screen. If you blow the image up it won't look like it does on a tv screen because of the computer monitor's high resolution. It will look extremely blocky because these games were meant to be played on a low resolution tv screen.

some PC Emulators have options to change that. ZSNES for example will let you interpolate the screen to kinda fuzz it out a bit.

[OB1]

Hmm, I've got to try that then.

[A Black Falcon]

I run ZSNES in 1024x764 Super 2xSai hi-res mode... no interpolation or scanlines. Scanlines look awful! As for interpolation, what does that do? Doesn't it make it look fuzzier a little? Why would you want that?

[OB1]

You want it to look like it would on a tv, otherwise you get an extremely blocky picture.

[Weltall]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
I run ZSNES in 1024x764 Super 2xSai hi-res mode... no interpolation or scanlines. Scanlines look awful! As for interpolation, what does that do? Doesn't it make it look fuzzier a little? Why would you want that?

I don't bother with scanlines, but I like having it looking TV-ish, as that was how it was meant to be played. If you sit close to the screen, that will bug you a bit, but I have a 19'' monitor and an 8 foot controller cord, so I sit back a few feet and recline.