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The '''[[wikipedia:Sega Dreamcast|Sega Dreamcast]]''' is a sixth-generation console released by [[wikipedia:Sega|Sega]] on November 27, 1998 , in Japan and later on September 9, 1999 , in NA. It retailed for {{Inflation|USD|199.99|1999}}.

More To go more in -depth, it had a Hitachi SH-4 RISC CPU at 200 MHz with 16 MB MBs of RAM and 8 MB MBs of VRAM. Additionally, on the graphic side, the console came with a PowerVR2 GPU at 100 MHz, which theoretically was capable of pushing 3 million polygons/second on-screen. The audio system had a 2 MB MBs of audio RAM, which complemented a powerful 67 MHz Yamaha AICA sound processor, with a 32-bit ARM7 RISC CPU core. The audio chip could generate 64 voices with PCM or ADPCM codec and provided ten times the performance of the [[Sega Saturn emulators|Saturn's]] sound system.

Also, Microsoft collabourated collaborated on the Dreamcast's development, and this partnership would continue later with the [[Xbox emulators|Xbox]]. What came out of this was the possibility for games to be developed for an optimized version of '''Windows CE''' (with DirectX) on each disc. However, Windows CE wasn't mandatory to use, and most developers opted for SEGA's development tools instead out of convenience. Even in major emulators, this aspect isn't implemented well.

A few years later, a successor of the NAOMI board was released in 2001, called [https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_NAOMI_2 NAOMI 2]. It was a bit more powerful than it's its predecessor, having one more Hitachi SH-4 CPU and another PowerVR 2 GPU.

:Can run a lot of games at great speed on a mid-end PC , and it's open-source, however. However, it's no longer being developed , and the more recent forks have improved upon it.

:Eventually, nullDC's author forked his own project into reicast, with the main objective to widen platform availability to smartphones and tablets. While wider availability is generally a good thing, this resulted in cutting accuracy corners from the nullDC codebase to achieve the speed goals necessary to run on these platforms. Advancements in mobile hardware should have led to the removal of such "hacks"; however , lack of developer resources and interest led to long delays in Reicast development, and the codebase remained virtually untouched for years before the RetroArch team began working with it as part of a "Reicast core", later named Flycast.

:Fork of reicast available as a standalone emulator and as a [[libretro]] core. Libretro collaborators, primarily [https://github.com/flyinghead/reicast-emulator flyinghead], dramatically improved Reicast in areas such as graphics, input, system clock, and Dreamcast VMU. Atomiswave and NAOMI SH-4-based arcade systems have also been added to great fanfare<ref group=N name="flycastnaomi">https://github.com/libretro/flycast/issues/136</ref>, along with support for MAME's popular CHD format. Even full MMU support, which is needed to run WinCEWindows CE-based games such as "''Armada"'', "''Half-Life" '', and "''SEGA Rally Championship 2", ''. It has recently been tackled through an experimental branch (anyone following Dreamcast emulation over the years understands what a tough nut this is to crack). Aside from some audio stuttering issues in games such as "Looney Toons Space Race" and "Resident Evil: Code Veronica", this is a highly compatible and accurate emulator. Most Windows CE games run at low performance.

;[[redream]]: Multi-platform and easy to use, but it's closed-source. Compatible with [https://redream.io/compatibility +96% of the Dreamcast library (as of Q1 2022)], . It has a good user interface, is easy to set up, and can run without a BIOS. Runs on [https://youtu.be/rywLHa1i9yk?t=529 low-end machines] provided that they support OpenGL 3.1. There's a payware premium version that provides high-definition rendering and additional slots for save states.

:Windows-only and closed-source. Used to be the go-to emulator. It supports Windows CE games, but in general, they generally run worse than standard Dreamcast titles. It's also more resource-intensive than other emulators. As of 2022 , you´re better off with Flycast or redream for Dreamcast emulation as they are multi-platform and have higher compatibility with Windows CE games, having . Having said that , [[DEmul]] is still highly recommended for [https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Sega_NAOMI_and_variants#Emulators SEGA NAOMI and variants].