why dont either of the two gpu ihvs team up with sega to make a dreamcast replicator?

Anarchist420

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Feb 13, 2010
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it would put the compute feature of GK110 to one of the best uses yet, wouldn't it?... they could replicate the graphics on the CUDA cores, and then use the CPU for replication of everything else (AVX should be sufficient but if not then AVX2 would definitely be sufficient)... hyper-Q would come in quite handy there and if nvidia made it a cuda only app, then cuda would take off more; they could also even build on the replication by offering full trilinear and properly rotated grid AA (all the consoles of the generation which the dreamcast was the first of have terrible texture shimmering and edge aliasing). conversely, amd could do something similar with their higher end parts and make it run only on mantle.

the problem with all the dreamcast emulators is that all of them use hardware rasterization. nulldc hasnt been updated forever and demul is terribly inaccurate and doesnt even run windows ce games.
 

DominionSeraph

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Jul 22, 2009
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Why would they? Dreamcast is dead. That there's a niche for pirated ROMs doesn't mean that an proper emulator is going to create a resurgence of interest that would usher in a second age of Dreamcast gaming with people plunking down real money for games from last century.

The real question for you is, if the free software movement is the answer to everything, where's their perfect emulator? Why didn't a fully-developed and supported solution magically appear at the very moment that someone had a desire for such a thing? You know these cards support OpenGL, right? So there's no excuse.
 
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Zenoth

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Jan 29, 2005
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I wouldn't see the usefulness, nor would the time, money and resources to do it be justifiable. You could just buy yourself a not-too-old CRT TV, component video cables, a Dreamcast console, one or two controllers and of course Dreamcast games, on eBay or something. It'd be cheaper that way, faster to achieve. And wouldn't need to be checked, or re/coded/compiled for compatibility and/or emulation accuracy, along with other shenanigans in the event that it'd have to be emulated via nowadays technologies.

The only thing I can see being... plausible/feasible (technically anyway) in some very wild dreams regarding "bringing back Dreamcast games/gaming" to the current market would be if... IF (imagine a capital ' i ' the size of Mount Everest) Sega themselves do a 180º turn, comes back to the hardware race, release a Dreamcast 2 and makes it backwards compatible with original Dreamcast games running on higher screen resolution as an extra. Now THAT would be nice.
 

Anarchist420

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If it's so easy and everybody wants it, why haven't [/i]you[/i] done it yet, OP?
because my iq is in the 60 range and not everyone wants it either (even though some dreamcast exclusives were timeless masterpieces).

the dreamcast was the First of the Last Good Generation and the Last Sega Console, simply the Grover Cleveland of video gaming because "Grover Cleveland was the Last Good Democrat and the Last President of the Jeffersonian Tradition". and thinking of either brings tears to my eyes, because they are set in stone as the last of the good.
 
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Cerb

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Aug 26, 2000
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The few people I know into the Dreamcast have a Dreamcast. They have proven durable and serviceable. When their numbers sufficiently dwindle, we'll either see modern copies made (such as with the NES, SNES, and GBA), a near-perfect or perfect emulator (like the NES, SNES, GB, and GBC), or both. The funky optical drive will probably end up being the death knell for those left, once they get too old.

Given the hardware that's known, it wouldn't be too hard to reverse-engineer what isn't necessarily known 100%, such as all the internal workings of the GPU (especially since it was the same GPU available in PCs, so, someone can dig around for some Kyros and tinker on AGP-era PCs). So, it really shouldn't take as much work as say, the SNES, or PSX, to finalize emulation. Performance should also end up fine if someone did a brand new one, since everybody's got dynarecs down petty well, these days, and the SH-4 uses a very simple ISA.

The N64 emus, FI, have gradually gotten a bit better, over time, as those consoles have started dying out. I don't know anyone who's original still works.
 

Maximilian

Lifer
Feb 8, 2004
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it would put the compute feature of GK110 to one of the best uses yet, wouldn't it?... they could replicate the graphics on the CUDA cores, and then use the CPU for replication of everything else (AVX should be sufficient but if not then AVX2 would definitely be sufficient)... hyper-Q would come in quite handy there and if nvidia made it a cuda only app, then cuda would take off more; they could also even build on the replication by offering full trilinear and properly rotated grid AA (all the consoles of the generation which the dreamcast was the first of have terrible texture shimmering and edge aliasing). conversely, amd could do something similar with their higher end parts and make it run only on mantle.

the problem with all the dreamcast emulators is that all of them use hardware rasterization. nulldc hasnt been updated forever and demul is terribly inaccurate and doesnt even run windows ce games.

Where do you get these batshit crazy ideas from?
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
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I don't think the millions of man hours necessary to build such an emulator, the first stream processor only graphics engine (something Intel tried to do on its predecessor to Phi and failed) seems unnecessarily wasteful of human capital when people can just buy a console and play the game natively.
 

Soundmanred

Lifer
Oct 26, 2006
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Where do you get these batshit crazy ideas from?

That question just kind of answers itself, doesn't it?
:)

There are LOTS of perfectly working Dreamcast consoles and accessories out there, and you don't even have to chip them or anything.