[$threadinfo[title]]

[Dalthon]

new Dreamcast emulator!!
DEMUL - Sega Dreamcast Emulator for Windows (http://demul.emulation64.com)

[Borisz]

Runs awesome on my end:
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2291/dcemuawesomenx5.png

[Stezo2k]

Compatability looks quite high with this one :) i'll have to give this a try. cheers for the news

[Borisz]

OK, I managed to get it working. Appearantly it wont run if you have gamepads attached, I had to remove them from the Control Panel to ever run the emulator.

This emulator is very slow (20-40 fps in Ikaruga on my Athlon X2 3800+ using Dynarec), has quite a lot of glitches, and sound support is heavily broken. So far, its nowhere near as useful as Chankast. It has potential though, so it may surpass Chankast if it gets updated frequently.

[diablo2121]

I have a question about the keyboard mapping. What is X, Y, Z, and the S1 and S2 directions?

Also, try as hard as I might, I wasn't able to to receive such crystal-clearness in Shenmue as depicted here in their screenshots:

http://demul.emulation64.com/screenshots/demo/04_shenmue.jpg

[JKKDARK]

OK, I managed to get it working. Appearantly it wont run if you have gamepads attached, I had to remove them from the Control Panel to ever run the emulator.

This emulator is very slow (20-40 fps in Ikaruga on my Athlon X2 3800+ using Dynarec), has quite a lot of glitches, and sound support is heavily broken. So far, its nowhere near as useful as Chankast. It has potential though, so it may surpass Chankast if it gets updated frequently.

It's slow? I get 50+ FPS with my stupid computer (athlong 64 3200+, X600XT).

[Ploggy]

It may be slow but it plays sonic 2 with hardly any graphic glitches.
Much less than chankast.
I can see this emu having a very bright future.:drool:

[Agozer]

I agree with borisz that the emulator shows a lot of promise. The sound needs serious work. With Dynamic Recompiler enabled I'd say that the emulator runs as fast as Chankast.

Until the developers fix the sound, I'm sticking to Chankast though.

[Borisz]

I agree with borisz that the emulator shows a lot of promise. The sound needs serious work. With Dynamic Recompiler enabled I'd say that the emulator runs as fast as Chankast.

Uhm, Chankast runs at 100fps or more (in-game), this one cant even hit 60 outside the bios.

It's slow? I get 50+ FPS with my stupid computer (athlong 64 3200+, X600XT).
You have a much better videocard though.

[User X]

First of all, I congratulate the developers of DEmul to liven up to emulate the Dreamcast console. .
This first version obviously doesn't a wonder work ... but than emulator, of any other console in your first version, to worked good? Although he does not work well, but it is seen than this have a good nucleus.
Only we have to give him time to than one be doing making perfect, in order that DEmul be made one future big, like is it ePSXe, 1964, etc.

Only I give them a little tip to programming gentlemen, not hold Chankast 's error and allow the open source code...

Greetings and congratulations again.

[revl8er]

If I recall, the pSX emulator worked pretty good on its first version. Most emulators dont work great with their first versions though, so if they keep this emulator going then it could be the best in the future.

[RockmanForte]

You're right. It will. :)

[Flash]

:linux:

[RockmanForte]

:linux:

Is it run well ? Any gfx errors ? You need to tell us that! :):evil:

[cooliscool]

It's quite slow, even on my fairly decent computer.. but it runs those pesky echelon intros. ;p

[jairolas]

how i can load my dumped isos? :sombrero:

[Flash]

Is it run well ? Any gfx errors ? You need to tell us that! :):evil:

It runs quite well, but if you don't use ide-scsi you can't use real CDs, only images, you can't use joystick (only keyboard but it's not a Wine problem, it's emulator bug), and it's better to disable sound (in windows too :) )
Let's hope that DEmul won't be abandoned like Chankast.

[RockmanForte]

Ok, thanks. Joystick emulation or only keyboard for now ? :)

[Agozer]

Ok, thanks. Joystick emulation or only keyboard for now ? :)
Both.

[JKKDARK]

how i can load my dumped isos? :sombrero:

mount the image on daemon tools. Open the emulator, go to GDROM and select the correct drive.

[RockmanForte]

Both.

Thanks!

[Hawq]

Anyone got any hints on how to configure controls for this thing?, everytime i go to do so I get the error Borisz had, well if a pads plugged in that is, take the pad out I dont get the error but I cant configure the controls either it just wont let me do it, this of course prevents the emulator from starting to do its thing.

[Flash]

mount the image on daemon tools. Open the emulator, go to GDROM and select the correct drive.
Or select image plugin :)

[jairolas]

Oh, thank you very much, sonic adventures 2 runs about 30 fps and sound quality is good, nice emu! :sombrero:

A screenshot from SA2 by me =P

[fbff]

Anyone got any hints on how to configure controls for this thing?, everytime i go to do so I get the error Borisz had, well if a pads plugged in that is, take the pad out I dont get the error but I cant configure the controls either it just wont let me do it, this of course prevents the emulator from starting to do its thing.

I could configure it for keyboard controls after disabling all of my game controllers in the control panel and by checking the "Standard/Alternative" option within the Game Pad config of the emulator.

[CaH4e3]

Pad configuration Dialog can bind any button on keyboard or joypads to any desired action buttons. But you should realise, that "PORT" option in "Bios&Plugins" menu set up DC controller desired to be insterted to "console".

"Controller" it is generic DC PAD, use additional port options to set VMU/VMS memory or Rumble to desired Controller.
"Keyboard" option means you want to use DC Keyboard as controller and of course couldn't be used for many games as controller since it needn't binding it uses exact keyboard pressings as input...

[Hawq]

I could configure it for keyboard controls after disabling all of my game controllers in the control panel and by checking the "Standard/Alternative" option within the Game Pad config of the emulator.Strangely that worked today, very odd as the other day nothing worked, ah well at least it worked this time & its configured, thanks.

[sabrespectre]

The emulator runs very well, only the sound is bad. I take 40~50 fps in game (ikaruga). It's about 20% more slow than chankast. And i don't have any problem with joys. Mine work's perfect. I hope that good work continues...............:bouncy:

[gekidami]

this rocks, there may still be hope for DC emulation!!

I only tried 1 game, Chu Chu Rocket, perfect speed, only problem is the sound and some stuff on the menues have big black squares around them

PLEASE keep working on this emu, i think this is the only DC emulator left (i mean that hasnt been abandoned)

[bobablob]

Street Fighter III - Third Strike

Works pretty well. Need to enable a few checkmarks and set the TMU to 8:1 but it runs at about 55 FPS with the DirectX plugin, albeit with a few graphical issues. OpenGL looks a lot better but I can only pull about 33 FPS with it.

Really looking forward to seeing more from this emulator, as this first release is incredibly promising.

Thanks a lot guys, keep up the good work!

Ochen Xorosho!

[Leeloo]

First, great thanks to Demul Team for your work !

My first try was Under Defeat and it worked not so bad : i noticed only minor graphic glitches on smokes of explosions (like in Chankast), sounds are still imperfect, in-game saves with memory card work well...
=> you can add a green point for Under Defeat to the compatibility list :)

The only drawback is the speed, but it will not stay a problem, isn't it ? ;)

[Azimer]

Welcome. It's always a thrill to see new blood and new projects. :)

[RockmanForte]

GOod job on this project. I am not fan of dreamcast but I liked some games so keep up the good work. The next version will be improvement. PEACE OUT!

[fire_dragon]

For me it works fine (slow though cause of my poor CPU). 3 gamepads work well, one doesn't and gives the error mentioned before, when its unplugged everthing works well. Save State also works nicely, Shenmue got some music from time to time also, but chopped since I don't run fullspeed. You can also nicely play from CD, well not original CD (GD?) though, but the releases from before.

Finally there is light at the end of the tunnel ... in DC emulation :D

great work guys

[niebla]

The emu sounds prettyinteresting, but could you add support for psxpad??? i get the dinput error :(

[Paddy]

Hi .....

I beleave DEmul to be fake , i think it is a (broken) early source or possible hacked encrypted/decrypted binary taken from chankast.

This emulator has far too many similarities to the chankast emulator and
there are possible hints from the readme file that comes with it that SOURCE
is the main progression with DEmul and that prommises of source seem like
they are just round the corner (mabe because a broken source) is all they have and want someone with more knowledge to do something with it.

From looking at several dreamcast games running on DEmul i can see far too
many similarities to chankast that i find very strange and suspicious , but apart
from that i also see two very suspect signs that look like data loss if you were
to decrypt an emulator binary and recompile it.

The frame rate indicator on DEmul is ridiculously inaccurate and looks like
a poor atempt at such an easy peice of code , something that should be extremely
easy to do for someone with tallents in writing an emulator, also it looks more like
a plugin adaptation for a frame counter and the main reason a frame rate plugin would be soo inaccurate would be that it is running with broken code.

Sound emulation also suffers in a big way if you are to recompile something
that was already locked down and the sound emulation to me looks broken,not unemulated or prilimenary.The sound emulation at a glance is something you would beleave in and think was proof that this emulator is a true build but sound can also hold many secrets and is an easy sign that its either unemulated or simply broken.Also broken is the keymap layout and interface functions,this
added with the last two problems is certainly suspicious and does make me wonder.

From looking at the actual graphic display emulation ,its amazing how similar the bugs from early and late chankast builds are exactly the same on two supposedly completly different graphics plugins when dreamcast hardware shouldnt be hard to display and we are not talking N64 emulation here , were this simularity could be more understanded even tho this doesnt happen with n64 graphics plugins.

Finaly , looking at DEmul and the list of avilable user options, i can see functions that are identical to chankast's only worded differently ie ,the capcom hack,tmu timing and there are others.

I personaly dont want this to be true as i love sega dreamcast and i am a long time fan of emulation and really really want a dreamcast emulator,but i cant help that a few things need to be addressed and i really do hope i am completly wrong.


ps , Please accept my apologies if i am wrong , and i DO wish the DEmul team
my best wishes.

[smcd]

The "emulation binary" of chankast is not encrypted, so there'd be nothing to decrypt in the first place. Also, chankast didn't really have plugin support, which demul does. It doesn't appear to be a ripoff/hack of chankast. OK, so there are menu similarities... this occurs in nearly every emulator for any system (NES, SNES, etc).

[Paddy]

Have a look at casini version 4 , it now has plugin support with added d3d, open gl and even 3dfx voodoo plugin driver dll ssupport and lots of other enhancments but it is still a hack of giri giri and will never do anything more than giri giri.And (chankast has a binary) as do all emulators AND windows programs for that matter.

cheers

[ector]

I can tell you that the Dreamcast GFX chip has some peculiarities that are impossible/near impossible to do correctly on modern GPU:s, which leads to similar graphics glitches cropping up. I wrote the GFX plugin for Icarus (that never was released) and we had glitches that are very similar to what Chankast has, for example.

Frame rate counting and things like that in emulators can be very unreliable if the game doesn't use the hardware the way you expect..

I haven't even tried Demul yet, but I don't believe for a second that it's a ripoff of Chankast. Similar menu structures means nothing, Dolwin basically copied Dolphin's menus for example :)

EDIT: Tested it for a bit. This is not Chankast.

EDIT2: Also Paddy, reading your post again, your notions about decompiling "data loss" and stuff are completely ridiculous.

[Paddy]

hi ector !

That coming from you does settle me a bit as i know you have worked very hard
at dreamcast emulation and will know infinantly more about the dreamcast structure than most including me.

These are no more than fears i have about the current dreamcast emulation and DEmul , i do apologize to the DEmul team that i have these suspisions and wish them great sucess in emulating the dreamcast, i just think it right to voice my opinion on this and wondered if anyone else had thoughts about this.

cheers

(i would say my wording is pretty bad as i didnt state that these are fears nor did i generally ask what others thoughts were in regards to what i was thinking, also i shouldnt have said that i believe it to be a hoax or a fake.)

i hope in conclusion everyone see's that i am not here to blast the DEmul team nor anyone else, just wanted to know what others are thinking.

[CaH4e3]

Paddy wants to see sources to proof... ;) Nope, not this time. :) If you had try to recompile something disassembled, you had probably noticed that it is almost impossible if some data is "lost", even if your recompiled binary will executed it won't work... But full disassembling and converting into C source will take the one-two years of horrible work, same as writing emulator from scratch. ;)

[fire_dragon]

I use a 2 pad PSX to USB convertor and it works very well, no problems here, but I cannot plug in my old gameport Sidewinder pad, it will show the error.

[enekomh]

First of all, THANK YOU TEAM!!!
I've just tested Shenmue and it's working great!!! (Just posted some snaps on the screenshot thread).

By the way, have you planned including multi-core support? Now that they're expanding faster and faster games will take greater speed...

Thanks for all your hard work!!

[Ryuran]

First of all, THANK YOU TEAM!!!
I've just tested Shenmue and it's working great!!! (Just posted some snaps on the screenshot thread).

By the way, have you planned including multi-core support? Now that they're expanding faster and faster games will take greater speed...

Thanks for all your hard work!!

Judging by this first release, you won't need a multi-core CPU in order to play DC games in full speed :)

[madprofessor]

Pad configuration Dialog can bind any button on keyboard or joypads to any desired action buttons. But you should realise, that "PORT" option in "Bios&Plugins" menu set up DC controller desired to be insterted to "console".

"Controller" it is generic DC PAD, use additional port options to set VMU/VMS memory or Rumble to desired Controller.
"Keyboard" option means you want to use DC Keyboard as controller and of course couldn't be used for many games as controller since it needn't binding it uses exact keyboard pressings as input...

hey hey
i was confused too with that one. so you are saying that we select controller there and then configure it. I thought I had to specify keyboard as an input source for the emu to handle as a controller =]

i didn't post anything though as i did set key binds afterall i think i unplugged my keaboard and after reattaching it just worked :borg:

it could be a bit confusing this part so thanks for clarifying that :)

wonderfull release congrats again!

[enekomh]

Judging by this first release, you won't need a multi-core CPU in order to play DC games in full speed :)
No, I guess that if you have a CPU greater than 2.00 ghz you should be able to play games pretty well. I mean this because mine is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ with two cores each working at 2.00 ghz and it only takes advantage of one of them.

[masterchiefoo7]

outtrigger works at close to full speed! im a very happy man! excellent emulator! you did what chankast couldnt!

please work on joystick support though, because i guess my joypads arent compatable.

sound would be cool too.

but great job! totally awesome! to me, it looks like the emulator is almost done, minus a few glitches

[Ryuran]

outtrigger works at close to full speed! im a very happy man! excellent emulator! you did what chankast couldnt!

please work on joystick support though, because i guess my joypads arent compatable.

sound would be cool too.

but great job! totally awesome! to me, it looks like the emulator is almost done, minus a few glitches

Just use a little program called JoyToKey :)

[masterchiefoo7]

dude! sweet! thanks! i'll try that right away

[BT_XiaoXiao]

It's good work!

thanks!

[Borisz]

Have a look at casini version 4 , it now has plugin support with added d3d, open gl and even 3dfx voodoo plugin driver dll ssupport and lots of other enhancments but it is still a hack of giri giri and will never do anything more than giri giri.And (chankast has a binary) as do all emulators AND windows programs for that matter.

cheers
The cassini plugin support was just an extra menu that didnt really do anything.

[ChrisRetro]

They really need to address the controller issue, as it's one those things that puts me off using the emulator. Some of us use our PCs as games machines, and it's simply not convenient to keep removing the driver from the CP. Other emulators can do it, and others do it well where they too use direct_input.

And, where are the authors ? Are they going to disappear, much like the Chankast authors ?

What we don't want is another fine group of authors, disappearing, and never posting again. DEmul, looks too promising for them to suddenly vanish.

Sol, comeon DEmul guys, throws us mortals a carrot or two :) :cheers:

[Aftermath]

Hey, I keep having a problem with the PAD Plugin not loading, so when I try to run DEmul, I just get an error saying that it can't load. Then when it goes to the Configuration page with the different plugin options and controller options, the PADplugin drop-down menu is always blank. I tried saving the plugins to different folders, onto the main drive, but nothing is working.

When I first downloaded and installed the program it worked, but after I was running it to just see what it was like, I couldn't get the buttons to do anything and it was just kind of 'there' on the music part of the DC menu. Any way to fix this?

Also, I checked and I have Directx9 and DirectInput configured on my computer, although I don't have any gaming devices connected.

[FunKing]

Hi all!

On the Compatibility List (http://demul.emulation64.com/compat/), "Propeller Arena" is spelled wrong (it's listed as "Properell Arena"). Not only that, it says it was an ECHELON release, and that it works. Actually, it was not released by Echelon, but by DCP / BDMS (Belokk, DCP, Megalexxx). And it won't run on my machine (even though it runs on my DC)... :-(

Anyone got it working? If so, could you share the details of your configuration, release, etc.?

Thanks! :-)

[CaH4e3]

Yep, Megalex release, sorry, that "ECHELON" string in IP.BIN gets me mad. :)
1ST_READ.BIN
MD5: E26208686A90A006A51B51FE70F62B1E
Size: 2571400

It works fine for me on any config (gpuOGL, clock 128, DynaRec, gdrImage for example)...

[FunKing]

It works fine for me on any config (gpuOGL, clock 128, DynaRec, gdrImage for example)...
Thanks for the reply, CaH4e3! I have the same release (size and MD5), so I gave it another go. Now I understand better the problem: the emulator stops the game after some time and use a huge amount of swap. Using gdrImage instead of the gdrDemul at least let me play it for about a minute before it freeze (and until now, I didn't see the swap grow as before)...

[]s!

[T-Kimura]

firstly i'd like to thank the authors of this emulator..this emulator shows a lot of promise, it isn't as good as chankast yet but the potential is there. let's hope this project stays very active and one day we can at least get to a netplay point. i hope the developers work on the sound a bit, with the games i tried the sound is too garbled so i just disable it(i like the fact you can disable sound in this emu! also a plus.. chankast couldn't do that.)

[dirtbox]

I was hanging on for NullDC and this pops up!

It's a bit slow, but it's a great start! I'm glad you started working on it again.

Amazing work guys, big love.

[ieswk]

This emu is really good, the compatiblitly is great and the fps are REALLY good considering its a first version congrats team i look forward to your future releases

[JKKDARK]

Hi all!

On the Compatibility List (http://demul.emulation64.com/compat/), "Propeller Arena" is spelled wrong (it's listed as "Properell Arena"). Not only that, it says it was an ECHELON release, and that it works. Actually, it was not released by Echelon, but by DCP / BDMS (Belokk, DCP, Megalexxx). And it won't run on my machine (even though it runs on my DC)... :-(

Anyone got it working? If so, could you share the details of your configuration, release, etc.?

Thanks! :-)

Right, it isn't by Echelon. And this game doesn't work on DEmul.

[CaH4e3]

This game DOES work with demul... ;)
http://www.emutalk.net/demul/38944-demul-0-1-screenshots-thread-post367552.html#post367552

[JKKDARK]

This game DOES work with demul... ;)
http://www.emutalk.net/demul/38944-demul-0-1-screenshots-thread-post367552.html#post367552

that's echelon copy

[CaH4e3]

Read earlier posts carefully. There is no ECHELON release of PA, there is Megalex release and my image (the same CRC's as FunKing's ones) is working fine. I think problem with running out of virtual memory is in bugs in GPU texture caching... But I have no idea about when it occurs, while my laptop with 512Mb (384+128VRAM) works fine with it.

[powtrix]

what is the progress of demul project? wip or on vacation?

[JKKDARK]

Read earlier posts carefully. There is no ECHELON release of PA, there is Megalex release and my image (the same CRC's as FunKing's ones) is working fine. I think problem with running out of virtual memory is in bugs in GPU texture caching... But I have no idea about when it occurs, while my laptop with 512Mb (384+128VRAM) works fine with it.

Then I wonder why your screens say "FPS xx ECHELON PROPELLER ARENA"

[CaH4e3]

powtrix, most likely on vacation, since main coder unavailable now. But in near future I hope we could to do something with gpu and plugins stuff...

JKKDARK, I think they used some ECHELON's tools for making selfboot images.

[Riki]

I'd like to congratz the Demul staff, cause it would be a great doing for the emulation's to have a perfect dreamcast emulator. Never Give UP ! Cause chankast is halted for three years almost. and we need people with the will to do this emulator happens. It will ! I have just a problem... The rar file of Demul from the official site appears to be corrupted.. I couldn't extract any of the stuff in it. Go for it !

[Talas]

I would also like to thank the DEmul team. Spasiba! :-)

[powtrix]

opening the source the project will go to grow quickly imo

[-indecisive-]

you guys are awesome! keep up the work and thanks for giving life to dreamcast emulation again =]