DVD on Dreamcast

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 2:35 pm

Wasn't the DC-DVD supposed to have a DreamCast on a chip, or was that another project all together? There were rumors that Majesto (or Majestic? I can't remeber), the ones that made the blue Game Gear, were going to use the chips in Dreamcasts they made. I wonder if they finished the design for the DCOAC, and if any prototypes are out in the wild.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 2:58 pm

That was a whole other project. As for the DOAC all the news that I've found was just the October annoucement about it. Of that news they said they would be done by the first quarter of this year. If anyone were able to get ahold of it they might be able to design a PCB so that A/V, power, controllers, and CD-rom could be attached.

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 7:03 pm

I don't feel like making a new thread, so I'll ask my question here.

On version 2 DCs, there is no reading of CD-Rs, but if you put in the CD-rom drive, you can't read CD-Rs, but not GDs. So, did anyone ever try making a DC emulator for the CD-v2-DC? So you could have a CD-rom V2, and play DC roms on it? It'd be a cool solution to that V2 hassle.

Unidentified Assilant · Sun Apr 17, 2005 3:16 am

That would be cool, do Version 2 Dreamcasts look any different?

Alchemist · Post by **Alchemist** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 7:14 am

soundwave wrote:I don't feel like making a new thread, so I'll ask my question here.

On version 2 DCs, there is no reading of CD-Rs, but if you put in the CD-rom drive, you can't read CD-Rs, but not GDs. So, did anyone ever try making a DC emulator for the CD-v2-DC? So you could have a CD-rom V2, and play DC roms on it? It'd be a cool solution to that V2 hassle.

It's not a standard IDE connector inside, so you'd have to figure out a wiring technique, but I suppose it'd be possible to replace the GD-ROM unit and code the emulator to make use of a new CD-ROM drive.

tom61 wrote:Wasn't the DC-DVD supposed to have a DreamCast on a chip, or was that another project all together?

DC on a chip was kind of done last year - http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 467,00.asp
but I have my doubts as to whether it would actually be DC compatible. I'd guess it's mostly for fancy vending/pachinko machines and the like, or basic arcade games.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 8:00 am

Really the DOAC was ment for arcade machines. Also its highly possible that it is compatable as the CPU core is a SH-4 and the video core is the VR chip that the Dreamcast used. And one note, though at the end of the article they did mention that they use the Dreamcast as a comparison. Though I dont see how hard it will be to make one if its using the same hardware.

And I keep getting the idea from you Alchemist that you think the Dreamcast is slow. Its running a 64bit CPU type RISC. Yeah it will run slow if you give it code from say a pentium. But its not that far in raw number crunching behind say the Xbox.

Alchemist · Post by **Alchemist** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 10:59 am

So far I've generally commented on how software for the DC is slow. I stick by that, largely for the reason you pointed out - the software has often been ported from x86 code, so it's not generally well optimised.

I stated above that I thought that the DC-DVD thing would probably use a hardware decoder, this was based on the problems I saw my own DC have with basic VCD playback using a commercial VCD boot disc. If it was having such trouble with a low-resolution MPEG-1 stream I can't imagine it faring too well on the higher resolution MPEG-2 found in DVDs.