flycast

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{{Infobox emulator |title = flycast |logo = Flycast.png |version = 734514c |active = Yes |platform = Android, Linux, Windows, Mac OSX |target = Dreamcast, SEGA NAOMI, Atomiswave, Windows CE |developer = flyinghead |website = Site |source = GitHub |license = GNU GPLv2 } flycast is an open-source Dreamcast emulator currently available for Android, Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows. 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

Windows Linux macOS Android Dev builds

Overview

Flycast requires a GPU that supports OpenGL 3.0 or OpenGL ES 2.0. A Dreamcast BIOS file is optional, but NAOMI and Atomiswave BIOS files are required. It has support for almost all Dreamcast, Windows CE, NAOMI and Atomiswave 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)
  • 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