Trying to emulate Genesis on Dreamcast

[Torr]

Long story short, I've downloaded many Sega Genesis emulators for the Dreamcast, including the newest version of GENS4ALL which, from what I've looked up, is the "best" Genesis emulator for the Dreamcast EVAR [sic]; but even THAT emulates games at such a slow framerate it's not even CLOSE to acceptable, despite what ANY review for it states. I know that unlike a PC I can't blame my "system" for the discrepency in MY experiences with it versus the average reviewer because (as far as I know) all Dreamcasts are the same.

Why do SO many people tout this as being the ultimate Sega Genesis Emulator for the Dreamcast when it can't even play Last Battle at a decent framerate, and THAT is a SLOOOW game.

 

Inversely, my biggest question; Why could the emulator embedded into Sega Smash Pack (while having TERRIBLE sound emulation and some MAJOR glitching during the later levels of VectorMan) play Sega Genesis games (SONIC No Less) at a PERFECT framerate? We're 15 years into the future since then, why can't there be any emulator for the Dreamcast that emulates the Sega Genesis as well as Sega Smash Pack did but with improved sound (and whatever caused Vectorman to glitch so bad.... but forget Vectorman... i don't even like that game that much...)

[Keatah]

I don't know. But you can certainly blame the Dreamcast. It is woefully underpowered, unlike the PC. Proper emulation in today's day and age means nothing less than a 6th generation i7. Hate to say it bub, but if you want to do emulation, toss the dreamcast and go PC.

 

That doesn't answer your question like you'd want it to. But it will set you straight.

[omegadot]

Segagen, if I recall it's name a decade ago, did cause a bit of a rift in the community back then. At the time it was currently commercial in the smash pack and people wanted to use it over the available solutions that weren't pirated. That probably didn't help.

 

I don't ever recall the Dreamcast being a very good emulation console outside of the relative convenience for kids with low skill.

[CapitanClassic]

There are multiple emulators for Genesis on the Dreamcast, but none that claim full framerate with sound (some claim full framerate without sound).

 

The truth is that emulating a 7 MHz processor probably requires a processor that is hundreds or a thousand times faster. (Dreamcast is 200 MHz, only 30x faster.) From my understanding, emulating sound properly is very difficult.)

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator

[Keatah]

Back in the the early days of emulation my ol' 486DX2-50 was just managing to emulate some arcade games and the VCS. All within 1-4MHz.

[Flojomojo]

I recall GENS running at full speed with perfect sound on the modest PC I had back then, probably a 400mhz Athlon. I think the Dreamcast could have done it with enough optimization.

 

Sega has done sub-par emulator projects before. Their original attempts at Genesis games on the iPhone were similarly flawed.

[skosh]

It most likely boils down to how the emulation was coded. A great example from back in the day is Retrocade vs MAME. Retrocade had assembly cores and was highly optimized while MAME was written in C and portable. The difference in speed was quite large. So I"d say that the homebrew efforts based on open source tools are probably written in C while the emulator in the Sega Smash pack is probably highly optimzed in assembly or someone dynamically recompiled it so its even faster.

 

There was also a proof of concept dynamic recompiler Genesis emu back in the day whose name now escapes me but could run Sonic full speed on very modest hardware. Perhaps Keetah recalls the name of this emu.

[Torr]

...A great example from back in the day is Retrocade vs MAME...

 

Good Answer

 

I remember emulating a few arcade games on my 486DX/66MHz with Retrocade (which had that AWESOME loading graphic) while still being unable to emulate VCS or Sega Genesis games at proper framerate.

 

Just an example of wasted potential as far as I'm concerned.

Because the Sega Genesis itself was TRYING to emulate such systems of old and failing miserably right out of the gate!!!

 

I love you SEGA, because you madesome awesome arcade games... but why make such a pisspoor attempt at bringing them home???

 

*Edit: I had a few beers... not sure if this makes sense

If it does.... cool

If it doesn't... I'm drunk

Edited January 8, 2016 by Torr

[philyso]

We're 15 years into the future since then, why can't there be any emulator for the Dreamcast that emulates the Sega Genesis as well as Sega Smash Pack did but with improved sound (and whatever caused Vectorman to glitch so bad.... but forget Vectorman... i don't even like that game that much...)

1) Because accurate FM sound emulation is actually one of the most complex and therefore CPU taxing part of Genesis emulation. Sega Smash Pack is fast because the emulation was optimized, which always comes down to sacrifice with accuracy, causing bugs in games not initially meant to be used with it or poor sound emulation.

 

2) Because Dreamcast homebrew development is long dead and you can't sanely expect people dedicating 15 years of their life on a dead system or suddenly come up to start coding on a 15-years old console, especially when more powerful systems like XBox, Gamecube and Wii have been since hacked and are much more able to run full speed AND accurate Genesis emulation.

Edited January 10, 2016 by philyso

[Janus]

Seems like an odd project

[PhoenixMoonPatrol]

Use to emulate Genesis and Mame on the DC and it was almost always woefully slow, or the games would crash once you started fiddlling in the menus. About the only thing that ran ok was Nester and those Streets of Rage packs that had CastleVania and Megaman themed sprite designs. Actually I still have all that stuff archived on my externals since I'm abit of a pack rat.

Edited March 2, 2016 by PhoenixMoonPatrol

[firebug]

I would recommend getting a Raspberry Pi 2 and installing Lakka on it. I've got it running Vectrex, 2600, 7800, Lynx, PC-Engine, GB/C, GBA, NES, SNES, Genesis/32X, PS1, and PSP. All of them are very playable! The N64 Emulator doesn't play games very well on the Rpi2; it's very laggy. But for less than $50, the Rpi2 is well worth it!

Edited March 6, 2016 by firebug