Flycast

Flycast

Developer(s)	flyinghead
Latest version	2.3 [+]
Active	Yes
Platform(s)	Windows Linux macOS Android iOS Nintendo Switch Xbox One PS Vita
Emulates	Dreamcast NAOMI NAOMI 2 GD-Rom models Sega System SP Atomiswave Windows CE
Compatibility	Almost all Dreamcast, Windows CE, NAOMI, NAOMI 2 and Atomiswave games
Website	Site
Support ($)	PayPal
License	GNU GPLv2
Source code	GitHub

Flycast is a free and open-source Dreamcast emulator currently available for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS and Nintendo Switch. It is a fork of reicast - another Dreamcast emulator for Windows, Linux and Android. It has a work-in-progress wiki available here, complete with guides and information about various features.

Downloads

	CI Builds
	Flatpak nightly binary via Flathub

Overview

Flycast requires a GPU that supports OpenGL 3.0 or OpenGL ES 2.0. A Dreamcast BIOS file is optional, but NAOMI, NAOMI 2 and Atomiswave BIOS files are required. It has support for almost all Dreamcast, NAOMI, NAOMI 2, NAOMI/NAOMI2 GD-Rom, Sega SystemSP, Atomiswave and Windows CE games. It also has support for the following features:

• Emulating standard Dreamcast controllers, Keyboard, Mouse, Light-Gun (with your mouse), Twin Sticks, and even the ASCII Mission Stick
• Emulating two expansion sockets per controller (VMU, Purupuru/Rumble Pack, or Microphone)
• Widescreen (Rendering outside of screen)
• Resolution and Texture Upscaling
• Frame Skipping
• Dump textures and load custom textures
• Support for HLE BIOS (note that it's recommended to use a real BIOS)
• High compatibility and high performance
• Widescreen Game Hack (Auto-applying codes/patches to certain games to do Widescreen instead of using the hack)
• Compatible with NAOMI games that use analog sticks (Monkey Ball, Gun Survivor 2) and trackball (Outtrigger)
• VMU Support for compatible NAOMI games (Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper, Virtual-On,F355twin and 2, etc)
• flycast's NAOMI arcade Compatibility list
• SH4 under/overclock option
• 32 MB RAM option
• Emulation of Printers (F355 Deluxe variants, Touch de Uno)
• Card emulation (VF4, Initial D, Club Kart 2001, Mushiking)

Netplay

• Networked Dreamcast & NAOMI games are supported natively with Dreamcast Live configured by default for supported games.
• Local multiplayer netplay support available in the Flycast Dojo fork. Peer-to-peer, delay-based and rollback netcode with spectating available. 2 Players only. Featured as a part of Fightcade.
• For Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon & DX, a custom fork of Flycast and private game server is maintained here.

Libretro core

Two reicast cores on libretro called reicast OIT and reicast regular were introduced in June 2018 that replace the original core. These cores backport changes from flyinghead's fork that rework the rendering system. The regular core is compliant with OpenGL 3 and GLSL 1.30 in order to support mobile devices and mid-tier PCs. The OIT core supports a graphics feature of the Dreamcast called Order-Independent Transparency that can only be properly emulated using OpenGL 4.3 and later, so it's only available for Windows and Linux at the moment. The two reicast cores have been merged in one reicast libretro core in October 2018. In 2019 the core was first renamed to Beetle DC and a short while later Flycast, for licensing reasons.

Availability of versions

• Windows, macOS (Intel and ARM) and Linux (64-bit).
• Mobile devices (Android and iOS).
• Nintendo Switch.
• Xbox One.

Also in the works is the PS Vita release

Supported GPU features

• Tile clipping support
• Fogging support
• Volume modifier shadow support
• Multipass rendering (enabled by default for non-OIT)
• Render to texture buffer
• Log 2 depth buffer
• Order independent transparency (OIT only)
• Two-volume mode support (OIT only)
• Accumulation Pixel Buffer Size core option (OIT only. Can be set to 512MB, 1GB or 2GB, depending on how much VRAM your video card has. May help with correct output at higher resolutions.)
• 64-bit dynarec (Fixes Shenmue 1/2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Heavy Metal Geomatrix)
• Flat shading and bump-mapping
• Trilinear filtering (Video)
• Improved palette/YUV texture quality (Converts to 32-bit colors instead of RGB565; i.e. lossless quality of background textures in Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare and is equal to DEmul and redream.)
• Display VMU screens in-game (Positioning, opacity levels and sizing available. Can also show all 4 attached VMU screens at once.)
• Extra Depth Scaling (Fixes graphics in Samurai Shodown VI (NAOMI).)

Misc features and enhancements

• Analog trigger and digital trigger simulations (Analog controls also work on NAOMI)
• Fast GD-ROM Loading (Cuts down virtually all loading times in games)
• Improved ADPCM decoding (Audio)
• Floating point maths accuracy improvements (Fixed broken enemy AI in Soldier of Fortune)
• EEPROM saving/loading implemented (NAOMI)
• xBRZ texture upscaling
• Render to texture upscaling (Lets you set the upscaling factor to output whole screen at multiples of native resolution. Only affects games which render the screen to a texture, e.g. Dead or Alive 2 or Crazy Taxi. Results look amazing, ala what the xBRZ filter does to emulators for 2D-graphics consoles, e.g. SNES, GBA and etc.)

Forks

• Flycast Dojo: A fork of Flycast, with a focus on netplay features and replay.