Questions for Dreamcast owners

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Classicgamer
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Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

I'm toying with the idea of picking up one of the cheap Dreamcasts off eBay while they are still cheap but I have questions....

First, is it worth it from a game library point of view for someone who already has a PS2? I missed the PS2 / Dreamcast era the first time round as it happened when I was at college where I temporarily lost all interest in gaming to focus on the persuit of vagina....

What's the deal with region locking? I saw that, with early models, they can run our "legally made backups" with no hardware mods. Just some disc patching. Does that apply to Japanese titles too or can you only use backups of US titles on a US Dreamcast?

There seems to be two options for SD card readers. Either spend $500 on a "name brand" one from here or spend $65 on one from China. Is anyone here using one? If so, which one did you go for and how is it for loading times (compared to disc)?

Consoles that come with a vga cable cost at least double the price but there are eBay sellers in spain offering DC VGA cables for $12-$15. Does the DC need some kind of adapter to output 480p through a vga cable?
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garrz32
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by garrz32 »

Not sure where you finding these SD readers for $500 ( ebay I presume) Here is the link for the site, the price is €130
https://gdemu.wordpress.com/ordering/ordering-gdemu/

GDEMU is compatbile with VA1 model Dreamcasts from all regions, VA2 model is not compatible. Mating GDEMU with VA0 model mainboard is possible but will cause permanent damage to the device.

The Chinese ones are OK but you can't update the firmware. You get what you pay for :D
Classicgamer
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

garrz32 wrote:Not sure where you finding these SD readers for $500 ( ebay I presume) Here is the link for the site, the price is €130
https://gdemu.wordpress.com/ordering/ordering-gdemu/

GDEMU is compatbile with VA1 model Dreamcasts from all regions, VA2 model is not compatible. Mating GDEMU with VA0 model mainboard is possible but will cause permanent damage to the device.

The Chinese ones are OK but you can't update the firmware. You get what you pay for :D
Thanks. 130 euros is a little easier to swallow, if there are enough DC games to make it worth it. With the price of the Saturn versions, there is a large question mark on that...

Maybe the DC is worth buying just for the Naomi ports which I like and are not well emulated yet.
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garrz32
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by garrz32 »

Classicgamer wrote:
Thanks. 130 euros is a little easier to swallow, if there are enough DC games to make it worth it. With the price of the Saturn versions, there is a large question mark on that...

Maybe the DC is worth buying just for the Naomi ports which I like and are not well emulated yet.
It's not my console of choice if am honest but there are some awesome games I loved, Power Stone 2 for the win. Youtube the titles you fancy to get some idea before you shell out your cash.
nmalinoski
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by nmalinoski »

Classicgamer wrote:First, is it worth it from a game library point of view for someone who already has a PS2? I missed the PS2 / Dreamcast era the first time round as it happened when I was at college where I temporarily lost all interest in gaming to focus on the persuit of vagina....
There's a lot of tradeoffs. I don't think I can list everything, but I can give you a few examples.

Overall, as far as image quality and hardware support, I believe the Dreamcast has way more native support for 480p than the PS2, and tricking normally-480i-only DC games into 480p is simple if you have something like a Toro box or a GDEMU with GDMenu, which gives you probably 99% game coverage for 480p (and the last handful of games that don't support RGB or actually don't normally support 480p can be handled by modified disc images and a GDEMU). On top of that, while the Dreamcast has no capability of outputting YPbPr like the PS2 can, it doesn't have to deal with any RGsB nonsense.

As for the games, you'll find some exclusives, like House of the Dead 2, Samba de Amigo, Sega GT, Shenmue 1 and 2, Sonic Shuffle, Soulcalibur, Virtua Fighter 3, Virtua Tennis; faithful arcade ports, like GigaWing 1 and 2; cross-plats that also appeared on the PS2, like Quake III Arena, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Rez, Seaman, Typing of the Dead, Space Channel 5; and, due to its release prior to any other 6th-gen console, cross-plats from the previous generation, like Gauntlet Legends, Hydro Thunder, Re-Volt, Resident Evil 2 and 3, Test Drive 6, V-Rally 2, Worms World Party, and Worms Armageddon.

In the case of the cross-plats on both the Dreamcast and PS2, there are some tradeoffs between versions. Regarding Space Channel 5, North America and Europe only got Part 2 on the PS2. Rez on the Dreamcast supports the Dreamcast mouse for gameplay (unadvertised feature), where the PS2 version does not support mice; but the PS2 version works with the Trance Vibrator. The PS2 version of Typing of the Dead has more content, and can use USB keyboards instead of proprietary Dreamcast keyboards; but it was only released in Japan. And I'm pretty sure none of the PS2 versions of these games will run at 480p.
Classicgamer wrote:What's the deal with region locking? I saw that, with early models, they can run our "legally made backups" with no hardware mods. Just some disc patching. Does that apply to Japanese titles too or can you only use backups of US titles on a US Dreamcast?
The backups in that context are rips of the original GD-ROMs, and, in cases where the game itself exceeds the size of a CD, concessions have been made, like recompressing audio at a far lower bitrate or eliminating FMVs. These boot by taking advantage of the MIL-CD spec, supported by VA1 (and I think VA0) consoles, which was used for a particular format of Karaoke discs popular in Japan (of course). This MIL-CD support can be abused in order to load arbitrary code, and it works to boot any region game on any region console, but it requires significantly more work by the GD-ROM drive to function, eventually resulting in an arguably early death of the GD-ROM.
Classicgamer wrote:There seems to be two options for SD card readers. Either spend $500 on a "name brand" one from here or spend $65 on one from China. Is anyone here using one? If so, which one did you go for and how is it for loading times (compared to disc)?
I'm using a GDEMU (Which, by the way, are going on sale again this Saturday, Dec. 8, at 5am EST/10:00 UTC). I bought an official one several months back, and I had a compatible drive bay tray printed up and shipped to me. It cost me 130 EUR shipped, which worked out to ~$156 at the time. In addition to supporting the creator (which I know is not for everyone), one small advantage of buying an original is that it will come with an appropriate mounting screw, which is needed to properly secure the GDEMU whether or not you use a drive bay tray, where the clones only come with plastic standoffs (so you risk the ODE board popping out if your console gets jostled).

I believe it was the latest board revision, 5.5, that was cloned by Chinese manufacturers, and is available somewhere between $60 and $90, or whatever price you were looking at; I haven't been keeping up. As far as I can tell, they work fine, but it's believed that they'll brick if you try to apply a firmware update (which, to my knowledge, there hasn't been any since the clone boards became available).

In order to maintain compatibility, the GDEMU was designed to transfer data at the same speeds as the original GD-ROM drives; however, seek times and read errors are effectively eliminated, resulting in noticeably reduced load times.
Classicgamer wrote:Consoles that come with a vga cable cost at least double the price but there are eBay sellers in spain offering DC VGA cables for $12-$15. Does the DC need some kind of adapter to output 480p through a vga cable?
You do kind of need an adapter to get 480p output. Most often you'll find breakout boxes ("VGA boxes"), but you can also find plain VGA cables, and there's at least one producer making a SCART cable with an embedded sync combiner that will convert the 480p RGBHV from the console to 480p RGBS. The Behar Bros. Toro is also capable of outputting 480p RGBS over SCART.

As far as breakout boxes go, those produced by Behar Bros. are regarded as the best that's out there at the moment, and I believe the only aftermarket cable producer currently making decent straight Dreamcast VGA cables is thefoo.83 on eBay. (Has RGC released theirs yet?) You will want to steer clear of any Tomee or unbranded cables; anything that cheap is going to be entirely unshielded and both look and sound like crap.

When deciding on a VGA cable or breakout box, you'll want to make sure you get one with a mode switch (most boxes have them, but not so much the cables). That switch controls whether the system outputs 15kHz RGBS or 31kHz RGBHV, and can be used for tricking normally-480i-only games into outputting 480p. The cheap cables won't have this switch and will be entirely useless for affected games, unless you have something like a GDEMU that can force 480p on these titles (but then they're still crappy cables).
thebigcheese
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by thebigcheese »

It could just be that I have no real nostalgia for the PS2, but I prefer the Dreamcast, no contest. Don't really have any nostalgia for that, either, since I only got into it a couple years ago, but the fact that nearly everything runs at 480p is a huge plus. It plays burned games (if you have the right revision) with basically no fuss and there are a lot of great games for it.
Classicgamer
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

nmalinoski wrote:
Classicgamer wrote:First, is it worth it from a game library point of view for someone who already has a PS2? I missed the PS2 / Dreamcast era the first time round as it happened when I was at college where I temporarily lost all interest in gaming to focus on the persuit of vagina....
There's a lot of tradeoffs. I don't think I can list everything, but I can give you a few examples.

Overall, as far as image quality and hardware support, I believe the Dreamcast has way more native support for 480p than the PS2, and tricking normally-480i-only DC games into 480p is simple if you have something like a Toro box or a GDEMU with GDMenu, which gives you probably 99% game coverage for 480p (and the last handful of games that don't support RGB or actually don't normally support 480p can be handled by modified disc images and a GDEMU). On top of that, while the Dreamcast has no capability of outputting YPbPr like the PS2 can, it doesn't have to deal with any RGsB nonsense.

As for the games, you'll find some exclusives, like House of the Dead 2, Samba de Amigo, Sega GT, Shenmue 1 and 2, Sonic Shuffle, Soulcalibur, Virtua Fighter 3, Virtua Tennis; faithful arcade ports, like GigaWing 1 and 2; cross-plats that also appeared on the PS2, like Quake III Arena, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Rez, Seaman, Typing of the Dead, Space Channel 5; and, due to its release prior to any other 6th-gen console, cross-plats from the previous generation, like Gauntlet Legends, Hydro Thunder, Re-Volt, Resident Evil 2 and 3, Test Drive 6, V-Rally 2, Worms World Party, and Worms Armageddon.

In the case of the cross-plats on both the Dreamcast and PS2, there are some tradeoffs between versions. Regarding Space Channel 5, North America and Europe only got Part 2 on the PS2. Rez on the Dreamcast supports the Dreamcast mouse for gameplay (unadvertised feature), where the PS2 version does not support mice; but the PS2 version works with the Trance Vibrator. The PS2 version of Typing of the Dead has more content, and can use USB keyboards instead of proprietary Dreamcast keyboards; but it was only released in Japan. And I'm pretty sure none of the PS2 versions of these games will run at 480p.
Classicgamer wrote:What's the deal with region locking? I saw that, with early models, they can run our "legally made backups" with no hardware mods. Just some disc patching. Does that apply to Japanese titles too or can you only use backups of US titles on a US Dreamcast?
The backups in that context are rips of the original GD-ROMs, and, in cases where the game itself exceeds the size of a CD, concessions have been made, like recompressing audio at a far lower bitrate or eliminating FMVs. These boot by taking advantage of the MIL-CD spec, supported by VA1 (and I think VA0) consoles, which was used for a particular format of Karaoke discs popular in Japan (of course). This MIL-CD support can be abused in order to load arbitrary code, and it works to boot any region game on any region console, but it requires significantly more work by the GD-ROM drive to function, eventually resulting in an arguably early death of the GD-ROM.
Classicgamer wrote:There seems to be two options for SD card readers. Either spend $500 on a "name brand" one from here or spend $65 on one from China. Is anyone here using one? If so, which one did you go for and how is it for loading times (compared to disc)?
I'm using a GDEMU (Which, by the way, are going on sale again this Saturday, Dec. 8, at 5am EST/10:00 UTC). I bought an official one several months back, and I had a compatible drive bay tray printed up and shipped to me. It cost me 130 EUR shipped, which worked out to ~$156 at the time. In addition to supporting the creator (which I know is not for everyone), one small advantage of buying an original is that it will come with an appropriate mounting screw, which is needed to properly secure the GDEMU whether or not you use a drive bay tray, where the clones only come with plastic standoffs (so you risk the ODE board popping out if your console gets jostled).

I believe it was the latest board revision, 5.5, that was cloned by Chinese manufacturers, and is available somewhere between $60 and $90, or whatever price you were looking at; I haven't been keeping up. As far as I can tell, they work fine, but it's believed that they'll brick if you try to apply a firmware update (which, to my knowledge, there hasn't been any since the clone boards became available).

In order to maintain compatibility, the GDEMU was designed to transfer data at the same speeds as the original GD-ROM drives; however, seek times and read errors are effectively eliminated, resulting in noticeably reduced load times.
Classicgamer wrote:Consoles that come with a vga cable cost at least double the price but there are eBay sellers in spain offering DC VGA cables for $12-$15. Does the DC need some kind of adapter to output 480p through a vga cable?
You do kind of need an adapter to get 480p output. Most often you'll find breakout boxes ("VGA boxes"), but you can also find plain VGA cables, and there's at least one producer making a SCART cable with an embedded sync combiner that will convert the 480p RGBHV from the console to 480p RGBS. The Behar Bros. Toro is also capable of outputting 480p RGBS over SCART.

As far as breakout boxes go, those produced by Behar Bros. are regarded as the best that's out there at the moment, and I believe the only aftermarket cable producer currently making decent straight Dreamcast VGA cables is thefoo.83 on eBay. (Has RGC released theirs yet?) You will want to steer clear of any Tomee or unbranded cables; anything that cheap is going to be entirely unshielded and both look and sound like crap.

When deciding on a VGA cable or breakout box, you'll want to make sure you get one with a mode switch (most boxes have them, but not so much the cables). That switch controls whether the system outputs 15kHz RGBS or 31kHz RGBHV, and can be used for tricking normally-480i-only games into outputting 480p. The cheap cables won't have this switch and will be entirely useless for affected games, unless you have something like a GDEMU that can force 480p on these titles (but then they're still crappy cables).
Thank you so much. Great info.

I do like House of the Dead games. I used to have the series on the Wii but that used the Wii remote instead of a real light gun.

For me, the PS2 was worth buying just for the Time Crisis games. Playing them with a real light gun is pure joy. I'm going to give the Dreamcast a try. For the $40 people are asking for them (delivered), it's not much risk. Plus, based on your info, the DC solves many of my issues with the PS2 being stuck in 480i for key Naomi games.
Classicgamer
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

thebigcheese wrote:It could just be that I have no real nostalgia for the PS2, but I prefer the Dreamcast, no contest. Don't really have any nostalgia for that, either, since I only got into it a couple years ago, but the fact that nearly everything runs at 480p is a huge plus. It plays burned games (if you have the right revision) with basically no fuss and there are a lot of great games for it.
I have no nostalgia for either either as I never owned them when I was a kid. I went from PS1 to nothing until the PS3 and Wii.

As it turns out though, the PS2 is the best machine ever for home light gun games which is why I bought it. Running backups (love that euphemism) is super easy. You just spend $10 on a free mcboot card and then download a free disc patcher. For some reason it is easier for me to find "legally made backups" to download (safely) for the PS2. I haven't found a good dc source yet.

They are cheap enough to buy both at the moment so no point in choosing one over the other. I suspect I'll find different reasons to use both.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Fudoh »

Owning and using a Dreamcast will make you cry about the hundreds of 480i-titles on the PS2. DC is a great system, both in terms of its library and its technical ability (480p RGBHV for most games).
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Revolver Ocelot »

In Retroperspective the Dreamcast was the better gaming machine than the PS2. At least for me. Was not my opinion back then though I have to admit. I was blinded by the Sony Marketing Power so I really though the PS2 was better. And then Girls were more intersting than than gaming for the next couple years. So the PS2 Gen is a lost gen for me concerning gaming because I did not gamed that much. This only changed again with the ps3 area.

But now back to the DC. One of the biggest advantages off the Dreamcast is the great Image quality with VGA and even with R GB scart. Dreamcast Games aged much better than the PS2 stuff. It is still a pleasure today to play Dreamcast games today on a modern TV. Unlike the PS2 stuff. PS2 stuff looks just horrible.

Also muli plattform games like Code Veronica looks much better on the DC than on the PS2. Only drawback of Code Veronica is, that we never got the Complete Version in the West.

I cannot recommend the Dreamcast enough. it is a awesome machine.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by FinalBaton »

I'd say go for it. Dreamcast is a cheap and cheerful pickup now. an extremely clean 480p for pretty much all games (compat must be like 98% including games you can trick with the switch on VGA boxes) and you can just burn all games for the system on CD-R and pop them in.

There are great games of all genres on the machine. Multiplats : I actually prefer to play Code Veronica(looks better) Grandia 2(looks better) and Skies of Arcadia(sound better) on DC. And having multiplats(not just talking about the ones above) at 480p(whereas they are probably 480i on ps2) is very handy.

If you like fighting games, you will lick your chops at what the DC has to offer. And playing with either an arcade stick, or a Saturn pad via the Total Control 3 adapter, is pure joy.

House of the Dead 2 is gonna be a real winner for you since you like lightgun games.

Exclusives : Powerstone(great multiplayer arcade arena fighter), Jet Grind Radio(gorgeous and very fun) and Dynamite Cop(super ridiculous but pure arcade fun) are good times, amongst many others.


Overall a very cool, quirky system. what's not to like? And for $40(including all of the games for the system)? no brainer
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thebigcheese
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by thebigcheese »

Classicgamer wrote:I do like House of the Dead games. I used to have the series on the Wii but that used the Wii remote instead of a real light gun.

For me, the PS2 was worth buying just for the Time Crisis games. Playing them with a real light gun is pure joy. I'm going to give the Dreamcast a try. For the $40 people are asking for them (delivered), it's not much risk. Plus, based on your info, the DC solves many of my issues with the PS2 being stuck in 480i for key Naomi games.
Truthfully I prefer the Wii versions of House of the Dead. Partly because I can never seem to get my copy of House of the Dead 2 to work properly, but mostly because the Wiimote is so much more accurate than a light gun and less prone to issues/failures. Wish more old light gun games had Wii ports...
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

thebigcheese wrote:
Classicgamer wrote:I do like House of the Dead games. I used to have the series on the Wii but that used the Wii remote instead of a real light gun.

For me, the PS2 was worth buying just for the Time Crisis games. Playing them with a real light gun is pure joy. I'm going to give the Dreamcast a try. For the $40 people are asking for them (delivered), it's not much risk. Plus, based on your info, the DC solves many of my issues with the PS2 being stuck in 480i for key Naomi games.
Truthfully I prefer the Wii versions of House of the Dead. Partly because I can never seem to get my copy of House of the Dead 2 to work properly, but mostly because the Wiimote is so much more accurate than a light gun and less prone to issues/failures. Wish more old light gun games had Wii ports...
I never found that to be the case. I still have my Wii and the official Namco Guncon 2 guns kick it's ass for accuracy.

With a Wii remote and other IR solutions like the Aimtrak, you really need crosshairs on screen at all times as they are not accurate enough for line of site shooting like you can with a light gun. HOD on the Wii is fun but it feels more like playing with a mouse tucked inside a plastic gun.

As with any arcade gun, you have to choose a good one. There is a world of difference between the official Namco guns and all the 3rd party ones I have tried.

All the PS2 and Dreamcast guns made by Cybergun are garbage. You can't even calibrate them properly.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

Revolver Ocelot wrote:In Retroperspective the Dreamcast was the better gaming machine than the PS2. At least for me. Was not my opinion back then though I have to admit. I was blinded by the Sony Marketing Power so I really though the PS2 was better. And then Girls were more intersting than than gaming for the next couple years. So the PS2 Gen is a lost gen for me concerning gaming because I did not gamed that much. This only changed again with the ps3 area.

But now back to the DC. One of the biggest advantages off the Dreamcast is the great Image quality with VGA and even with R GB scart. Dreamcast Games aged much better than the PS2 stuff. It is still a pleasure today to play Dreamcast games today on a modern TV. Unlike the PS2 stuff. PS2 stuff looks just horrible.

Also muli plattform games like Code Veronica looks much better on the DC than on the PS2. Only drawback of Code Veronica is, that we never got the Complete Version in the West.

I cannot recommend the Dreamcast enough. it is a awesome machine.
The issue with the Dreamcast at the time was never the quality of the hardware. It was that people had lost trust in Sega after getting burned with the Sega CD, 32x and Saturn.

People favored the PS2 for the same reason they liked the SNES. Sony supported their consoles for an appropriate amount of time, offered backwards compatability and made an effort to lock in key titles like the Time Crisis series. The PS2 has a larger catalog of great games and better peripheral (like racing wheels with force feedback).

Also, Sega had a nack for poor timing and missing the boat. The idea of basing the Dreamcast on real arcade hardware would have been great, 5 years earlier, when people still went to arcades. But they starting losing their appeal once home consoles caught up.

Now, through a retro gaming lens, the Dreamcast looks more appealing as it's still the best way to play Naomi games as they are not well emulated yet and buying real Naomi hardware is expensive and a pain the ass.

I am going to buy one. Being able to play 480p Naomi games in 480p is reason enough. Native resolution and refresh rates are important to me.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by FinalBaton »

Important to note that the awesome official Dreamcast Gun (Hkt-7807) is incompatible with NTSC-U software. So make sure to burn the japanese versions of those lightgun games
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Syntax »

Id love to find a way to patch those games or use an AR code to bypass the check.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by thebigcheese »

Classicgamer wrote:I never found that to be the case. I still have my Wii and the official Namco Guncon 2 guns kick it's ass for accuracy.

With a Wii remote and other IR solutions like the Aimtrak, you really need crosshairs on screen at all times as they are not accurate enough for line of site shooting like you can with a light gun. HOD on the Wii is fun but it feels more like playing with a mouse tucked inside a plastic gun.

As with any arcade gun, you have to choose a good one. There is a world of difference between the official Namco guns and all the 3rd party ones I have tried.

All the PS2 and Dreamcast guns made by Cybergun are garbage. You can't even calibrate them properly.
The crosshairs are exactly why I find it to be more accurate. I can actually figure out where I am aiming. Line of sight aiming is a crapshoot. With the gun I have (a MadCatz, I think? I picked one that is supposed to be good), it's like... if I move my eye relative to the gun at all, suddenly everything is off and there is no way to tell. Or maybe I just tilt the gun ever so slightly. The amount that it moves given how far I am from the TV does not even approach reality. Meanwhile, with a Wiimote I know exactly where I am aiming at all times. To each their own, I suppose.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by FinalBaton »

Syntax wrote:Id love to find a way to patch those games or use an AR code to bypass the check.
Always wondered if it was possible to do so via these means. That'd be amazing stuff!
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Syntax
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Syntax »

FinalBaton wrote:
Syntax wrote:Id love to find a way to patch those games or use an AR code to bypass the check.
Always wondered if it was possible to do so via these means. That'd be amazing stuff!

Its absolutely possible, its just the NA games that run a check to see what gun is plugged in.

If i knew what I was doing id search the games code for the jap guns codename and go from there.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

thebigcheese wrote:
Classicgamer wrote:I never found that to be the case. I still have my Wii and the official Namco Guncon 2 guns kick it's ass for accuracy.

With a Wii remote and other IR solutions like the Aimtrak, you really need crosshairs on screen at all times as they are not accurate enough for line of site shooting like you can with a light gun. HOD on the Wii is fun but it feels more like playing with a mouse tucked inside a plastic gun.

As with any arcade gun, you have to choose a good one. There is a world of difference between the official Namco guns and all the 3rd party ones I have tried.

All the PS2 and Dreamcast guns made by Cybergun are garbage. You can't even calibrate them properly.
The crosshairs are exactly why I find it to be more accurate. I can actually figure out where I am aiming. Line of sight aiming is a crapshoot. With the gun I have (a MadCatz, I think? I picked one that is supposed to be good), it's like... if I move my eye relative to the gun at all, suddenly everything is off and there is no way to tell. Or maybe I just tilt the gun ever so slightly. The amount that it moves given how far I am from the TV does not even approach reality. Meanwhile, with a Wiimote I know exactly where I am aiming at all times. To each their own, I suppose.
That issue is with your light gun, not light gun technology. As I said, most 3rd party guns are horrible. I tried a bunch.

Having a crosshair on screen is not increasing the accuracy of the gun. It is just compensating for the lack of accuracy. With a good light gun, you can use it without crosshairs on games that didn't have crosshairs in the arcade like Time Crisis and still have crosshairs on screen for games that did.

I think that a lot of issues with 3rd party light guns could be solved by switching out the sensor and lens for the ones from the official Namco Guncon 2's. The difference is enormous.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

FinalBaton wrote:Important to note that the awesome official Dreamcast Gun (Hkt-7807) is incompatible with NTSC-U software. So make sure to burn the japanese versions of those lightgun games
Does that mean there is no decent light gun available that works on an American Dreamcast?

Is it better to buy a Japanese Dreamcast then?
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by NoAffinity »

If you're a capcom fanboy like me, the DC is hands down the better choice, simply for DC's 480p vs PS2's 480i, on all titles available on both platforms.

PS2's 480i looks really good in certain applications, but imho, fighting games isn't one of them.
thebigcheese
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by thebigcheese »

Classicgamer wrote:That issue is with your light gun, not light gun technology. As I said, most 3rd party guns are horrible. I tried a bunch.

Having a crosshair on screen is not increasing the accuracy of the gun. It is just compensating for the lack of accuracy. With a good light gun, you can use it without crosshairs on games that didn't have crosshairs in the arcade like Time Crisis and still have crosshairs on screen for games that did.

I think that a lot of issues with 3rd party light guns could be solved by switching out the sensor and lens for the ones from the official Namco Guncon 2's. The difference is enormous.
I... don't think that's the case, but the point I am arguing is the end result. I can hit things more accurately with a wiimote than with a lightgun. Or a real gun, for that matter, so it's not necessarily anything to do with the lightgun. Further, if it is really that picky about which specific gun I'm using (and probably which TV, and which this or that...), then I think I rest my case here. The experience is far more consistent with a wiimote. And anyway, the wiimote is quite accurate IMO, having used it for many shooting games. Never once had an issue hitting what I wanted to hit and ultimately that is what matters in a shooting game.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by FinalBaton »

Classicgamer wrote:Does that mean there is no decent light gun available that works on an American Dreamcast?

Is it better to buy a Japanese Dreamcast then?
the official gun works on the US Dreamcast. It's the US games that lock out it's use.

If you use japanese burned games on a US dreamcast, then the official gun will work.

there are other third party guns of course, and those will work on US games.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

Ok order placed.

American Dreamcast Mark 1 with controller, cords and 1 game for $37 delivered.

VGA box (with tv / pc switch) $40. Typical....

Now the search for a passable DC joystick for Marvel vs Capcom 2, and a decent light gun of course.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Classicgamer »

Fudoh wrote:Owning and using a Dreamcast will make you cry about the hundreds of 480i-titles on the PS2. DC is a great system, both in terms of its library and its technical ability (480p RGBHV for most games).
I'm curious, what monitor do you use for 480p Dreamcast? It sounds like you have a lot of monitors and 480p has wide compatability.

Do you use your 4:3 480p plasma or a CRT.... or.... do you use one of your upscalers?
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Fudoh »

DC is currently hooked up to a 42" Sony LCD using a VGA to component transcoder. The Sony does a 1:2 mapping of the vertical columns while scaling the 480p lines to 1080p. This results in a little narrower aspect ratio than you would usually want, but it's an ultra sharp rendition due to the 1:2 mapping on the horizontal. Looks really good and without the need for an OSSC or anything similar.

You have pay a little attention to the DC's output timing. Using a CRT is non-critital of course, but if you use a VGA input on a digital display you have to make sure it applies the right sampling rate. If you don't, you can lose some horizontal resolution which makes the picture more fuzzy and can cause scaling artefacts.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Revolver Ocelot »

Classicgamer wrote:
Revolver Ocelot wrote:In Retroperspective the Dreamcast was the better gaming machine than the PS2. At least for me. Was not my opinion back then though I have to admit. I was blinded by the Sony Marketing Power so I really though the PS2 was better. And then Girls were more intersting than than gaming for the next couple years. So the PS2 Gen is a lost gen for me concerning gaming because I did not gamed that much. This only changed again with the ps3 area.

But now back to the DC. One of the biggest advantages off the Dreamcast is the great Image quality with VGA and even with R GB scart. Dreamcast Games aged much better than the PS2 stuff. It is still a pleasure today to play Dreamcast games today on a modern TV. Unlike the PS2 stuff. PS2 stuff looks just horrible.

Also muli plattform games like Code Veronica looks much better on the DC than on the PS2. Only drawback of Code Veronica is, that we never got the Complete Version in the West.

I cannot recommend the Dreamcast enough. it is a awesome machine.
The issue with the Dreamcast at the time was never the quality of the hardware. It was that people had lost trust in Sega after getting burned with the Sega CD, 32x and Saturn.

People favored the PS2 for the same reason they liked the SNES. Sony supported their consoles for an appropriate amount of time, offered backwards compatability and made an effort to lock in key titles like the Time Crisis series. The PS2 has a larger catalog of great games and better peripheral (like racing wheels with force feedback).

Also, Sega had a nack for poor timing and missing the boat. The idea of basing the Dreamcast on real arcade hardware would have been great, 5 years earlier, when people still went to arcades. But they starting losing their appeal once home consoles caught up.

Now, through a retro gaming lens, the Dreamcast looks more appealing as it's still the best way to play Naomi games as they are not well emulated yet and buying real Naomi hardware is expensive and a pain the ass.

I am going to buy one. Being able to play 480p Naomi games in 480p is reason enough. Native resolution and refresh rates are important to me.

Yes just go for it. It is worth it for sure.

It is a matter of taste if you like the Dreamcast and the PS2 more. The DC has more memorable games for me and I still enjoy playing it today. It i s also quite easy to set up for use at a modern TV. Unlike the PS2 where it is really hard to use it on a 4k TV set.

I am still looking for a decent solution.

That is the 480i and 480p problematic I guess. Maybe it easier for modern displays to make a good 480p image unlike 480i which just looks wrong.

Even the FM could not solve this problem for my PS2.
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by FinalBaton »

Last christmas I brought my dreamcast to my old folk's to play some Street Fighter with my brother. They have an older HD LCD (between 2006 and 2010 I believe). I hooked up the DC directly to the set's VGA input. The picture was dang good. Way better than the ps2, which I had also brought with me. No comparison(of course, 480i is way harder to pull off).

DC seems to generally look pretty good when hooked up directly to modern flat panel TVs. Which is very convenient.
-FM Synth & Black Metal-
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Re: Questions for Dreamcast owners

Post by Dochartaigh »

Classicgamer wrote:Does that mean there is no decent light gun available that works on an American Dreamcast?
These are the 'official' (licensed at least) USA Dreamcast light guns, by Mad Catz:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MadCatz-Sega-D ... :rk:3:pf:0

My two seem to be high quality and work perfectly. I'm not a fan of the grip angle (being a real gun, and light gun aficionado), but they go where the crosshairs are aimed which is what they're supposed to do. They work on a SD CRT, AND a 480p monitor (I play them on my multiformat BVM and PVM's).



Also, I saw House of the Dead 2 mentioned a couple times - that's unlockable on the OG Xbox House of the Dead III, fyi (which Xbox has HotD 3 as well - which is tons of fun by itself).
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