Difference between revisions of "Flycast"

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(Page for flycast, fork of reicast which has standalone builds and an libretro core; shouldn't be longer relevated to an subsection in reicast due to the amount of differences and that it is no longer associated to reicast.)
 
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==Overview==
 
==Overview==
 +
Flycast requires an GPU that supports at least OpenGL 3.0 or Open GL ES 2.0. A Dreamcast BIOS file is optional but NAOMI and Atomiswave BIOS files are required. It has support for almost all Dreamcast games, including compatibility with Windows CE games, as well as almost all NAOMI and Atomiswave games; using either .DAT/BIN and .LST files (which were needed for reicast/NullDC NAOMI), or using the latest MAME ROMs. On top of that, it has support for the following features:
  
===Unemulated Features===
+
*Emulating standard Dreamcast controllers, Keyboard, Mouse, Light-Gun (with your mouse), Twin Sticks, and even the ASCII Mission Stick
Regarding arcade games on the '''NAOMI 2''' machine (One of the latter variants of original NAOMI), [https://github.com/libretro/reicast-emulator/issues/136#issuecomment-427379382 someone] commented in a compatibility list page at reicast's GitHub repository in early October, 2018 (With edits):
+
*Emulating two expansion sockets per controller (VMU, Purupuru/Rumble Pack, or Microphone)
<blockquote><nowiki />
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*Widescreen (Rendering outside of screen)
''Naomi2 will require ELAN T&L chip emulation. In Naomi2, display lists is input to ELAN as matherials, light sources, models, transformation matrices, etc; so, not like Dreamcast Tile Accelerator format.
+
*Resolution and Texture Upscaling
''You may open [[DEmul]]'s gpuDX11.dll using some PE resource editor, find there the PVR2_VSH (vertex shader file) which is mostly consisted of ELAN simulation."''
+
*Frame Skipping
</blockquote>
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*Dump textures and load custom textures
 +
*Support for HLE BIOS (note that it's recommended to use a real BIOS)
 +
*Automatically configured to be able to connect to Dreamcast Live fan servers for the games supported
 +
*High compatibility and high performance
 +
*Widescreen Game Hack (Auto-applying codes/patches to certain games to do Widescreen instead of using the hack)
 +
*Auto-configured connecting to Dreamcast Live servers for games that are supported
 +
*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, etc)
  
 
==Libretro core==
 
==Libretro core==
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*[[Shaders_and_Filters#Smoothing_shaders|xBRZ]] texture upscaling
 
*[[Shaders_and_Filters#Smoothing_shaders|xBRZ]] texture upscaling
 
*[https://www.libretro.com/index.php/reicast-libretro-updates-26-7-2018/ 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.)
 
*[https://www.libretro.com/index.php/reicast-libretro-updates-26-7-2018/ 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.)
 
===Supported platforms===
 
*Sega Dreamcast
 
*Sega NAOMI and Atomiswave arcades ([https://github.com/libretro/reicast-emulator/issues/136 NAOMI compatibility list] [OIT])
 
:- Supports both .DAT/.LST legacy ROMs, and latest MAME ROMs
 
  
 
[[Category:Emulators]]
 
[[Category:Emulators]]

Revision as of 15:40, 24 March 2020

flycast
Flycast.png
Developer(s) flyinghead
Latest version 09c439b
Active Yes
Platform(s) Android, Linux, Windows, Mac OSX
Emulates Dreamcast, SEGA NAOMI, Atomiswave, Windows CE
Website Site
License GNU GPLv2
Source code https://github.com/flyinghead/flycast GitHub]

flycast is an open-source Dreamcast emulator produced currently for Android, Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. It is an fork based off reicast, existing Dreamcast emulator for Windows, Linux and Android, respectively.

Downloads

Windows Linux macOS Android Dev builds

Overview

Flycast requires an GPU that supports at least OpenGL 3.0 or Open GL ES 2.0. A Dreamcast BIOS file is optional but NAOMI and Atomiswave BIOS files are required. It has support for almost all Dreamcast games, including compatibility with Windows CE games, as well as almost all NAOMI and Atomiswave games; using either .DAT/BIN and .LST files (which were needed for reicast/NullDC NAOMI), or using the latest MAME ROMs. On top of that, it 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)
  • Automatically configured to be able to connect to Dreamcast Live fan servers for the games supported
  • High compatibility and high performance
  • Widescreen Game Hack (Auto-applying codes/patches to certain games to do Widescreen instead of using the hack)
  • Auto-configured connecting to Dreamcast Live servers for games that are supported
  • 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, etc)

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

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