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The Dreamcast emulator Flycast has made some amazing progress lately

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In a post on the official Libretro website, the team notes that open source Dreamcast emulation with Flycast (a fork of Reicast) has progress along tremendously.

Thanks to all the work that has gone into it, you will no longer need an external Dreamcast BIOS which is a pretty big milestone for such an emulator and will make it a lot easier to setup and use with the RetroArch front-end.

Flyinghead, the main person working on Flycast plans to merge the regular and Windows CE versions into one version making things even easier to play with. They said that lots of the work done for the Windows CE version will benefit all of the games run through it.

To sum up what Flycast is able to do they mention it can run Sega Naomi games, Windows CE games, no limitations on savestates and internal resolutions, actual modem support, built-in zero configuration online multiplayer support, 32bit and 64bit support for x86 and ARM.

They ended it by noting that "real CD-ROM support" may even come soon, to run "CD-R based backup discs".

You can read the full post here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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12 comments
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ElectricPrism Aug 14, 2019
Incredible achievement! Proud of those that put in the hard work and this community for making such cool stuff.
Desum Aug 14, 2019
So is Flycast outpacing Raicast? We don't want proprietary emulators becoming a thing again btw, so I hope either outpaces Redream.


Last edited by Desum on 15 August 2019 at 3:47 pm UTC
Cyril Aug 15, 2019
I never tested a Dreamcast emulator yet...
This is great news indeed but why they did forked it in the first place?

As mentioned on the Github's Reicast page:

QuoteIf you are interested into further porting/adapting/whatever, please do not fork off.
We hate that. Really.

Let's try to keep everything under a single project :)

So it seems among the many DC emulators, Flycast is the best Linux open source solution right now?
sergioandvar Aug 15, 2019
Quoting: CyrilI never tested a Dreamcast emulator yet...
This is great news indeed but why they did forked it in the first place?

As mentioned on the Github's Reicast page:

QuoteIf you are interested into further porting/adapting/whatever, please do not fork off.
We hate that. Really.

Let's try to keep everything under a single project :)

So it seems among the many DC emulators, Flycast is the best Linux open source solution right now?

Redream is a good emulator but I think it's closed source. I have not had any problems and it's really easy to use.
Desum Aug 15, 2019
Redream was open and then went closed source. I'd really rather not encourage any potential trend with closed source emulators, so I'll stick to Raicast/Flycast.
legluondunet Aug 15, 2019
I follow Flyinghead and Retroarch team work from several years now, their work are incredible.
And they always gave support to Linux gamers, that's why I support them on Patreon.
Dodongo_King Sep 13, 2019
Just to be clear, most of the progress mentioned in this article isn't actually work made by Flyinghead or anyone related to the RetroArch project, but copy pasted from many other sources that they don't credit:
- HLE bios came from the older (still open source) Redream repository
- Most of the WinCE support came from the older nullDC repository (the project that became Reicast, by the same developer)

If you look into the code, you can actually see code being simply copied from other sources as well, also without being credited. Btw, the "CD-Project" is a joke, it's just running games that always worked directly from CD-ROMs in other emulators and using this as marketing material (because this is more important to RetroArch than any actual preservation, as they don't even document the code they copied from other sources). For the Dreamcast is even more of a joke, as you can't use GD-ROMs without a specic drive and using CDIs is pretty much the worse format for any retail game (and this is what Flycast supports...).


Last edited by Dodongo_King on 13 September 2019 at 9:03 am UTC
Liam Dawe Sep 13, 2019
Quoting: Dodongo_KingJust to be clear, most of the progress mentioned in this article isn't actually work made by Flyinghead or anyone related to the RetroArch project, but copy pasted from many other sources that they don't credit:
- HLE bios came from the older (still open source) Redream repository
- Most of the WinCE support came from the older nullDC repository (the project that became Reicast, by the same developer)

If you look into the code, you can actually see code being simply copied from other sources as well, also without being credited. Btw, the "CD-Project" is a joke, it's just running games that always worked directly from CD-ROMs in other emulador and using this as marketing material (because this is more important to RetroArch than any actual preservation, as they don't even document the code they copied from other sources). For the Dreamcast is even more of a joke, as you can't use GD-ROMs without a specic drive and using CDIs is pretty much the worse format for any retail game (and this is what Flycast supports...).
All well and good saying all that but you've not provided a single bit to back up any of what you say.
Dodongo_King Sep 13, 2019
I'm glad you've asked Liam:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/cptd03/flycast_90_compatibility_with_hle_bios_opensource/
Their own post has proof from where the HLE bios was copied from
Liam Dawe Sep 13, 2019
Quoting: Dodongo_KingI'm glad you've asked Liam:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/cptd03/flycast_90_compatibility_with_hle_bios_opensource/
Their own post has proof from where the HLE bios was copied from
Interesting, some clear copy/pastes there and they claim they give credit in-source when they do it in a comment but they don't seem to be doing so. That's such a shame for such a big project.
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