DreamCPC Released

Post by **Quzar** » Sat May 28, 2005 1:57 pm

JMD has just released his port of Win-CPC called DreamCPC.
This is a fullspeed Amstrad CPC emulator for the Dreamcast.

Some of the features are:

Fullspeed with sound
Support for the Dreamcast Keyboard
Reads from amstrad disk format and zips
Has auto program loading
Screen Adjust
Keys mappable
Includes two games for the system
Works in Chankast

The emulator's menu has 5 icons:
- The Disk Icon opens games and launches them
- The Keyboard Icon opens up a key mapper
- The Dreamcast Icon opens options
- The Question Mark Icon opens info and has the reset in it
- The Joystick Icon returns to the emulator

The official download is HERE but requires that you join the site.

I have mirrored it Here temporarily. As soon as anyone can provide a mirror (dcemulation or dcemu.co.uk) I will take this down.

Two more mirrors: http://www.emuhelp.com/index.php?op=mod ... &emuid=306

http://jm1200.ifrance.com/jm1200/DreamCPCalpha.zip

Hawq · Post by **Hawq** » Sat May 28, 2005 2:23 pm

Well cant do much about a local mirror but theres one over at Emuhelp now

JMD · Post by **JMD** » Sat May 28, 2005 3:17 pm

Thanks a lot for the news and the miroring
I add one here : http://jm1200.ifrance.com/jm1200/DreamCPCalpha.zip

Have fun whith the emu

doragasu · Post by **doragasu** » Sat May 28, 2005 4:49 pm

OMG!!! Time to take off the dust of my DC. I've always loved Amstrad CPC computers, I'm really going to enjoy this.

Thanks a lot JMD!!!

Syd · Post by **Syd** » Sat May 28, 2005 5:51 pm

The CPC was out a bit before my time. Can anyone give a brief history lesson and note some of the best games?

Hawq · Post by **Hawq** » Sun May 29, 2005 5:16 am

The CPC was Amstrads answer to the Spectrum & C64, unlike the Speccy & like the C64 it had full colour for games so no colour clash (shame as I liked that about the Speccy). It came in either 64k or 128k versions & had a built in disk drive, 3 inch type later found on the Spectrum +3 as Amstrad had taken over sinclair by then, or tape drive (depending on which model you got). Theres a bit more info on this old 8bit computer here not sure about the best games on it as I had a Spectrum myself but CPC game reviews should give a good idea of what to try

Hobbes T Tiger · Post by **Hobbes T Tiger** » Sun May 29, 2005 11:00 am

Excuse me for a moment... Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh
hhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

How long have I waited for this?

I am officially the most patient man in DC emulation!

zyloj · Post by **zyloj** » Sun May 29, 2005 1:21 pm

Fantastic! Now we can continue the "wars" we made with other platform users about what computer was better: spectrum, cpc, msx or c64

LyingWake · Post by **LyingWake** » Sun May 29, 2005 6:38 pm

I've mirrored it at Consolevision. Raw files and SBI up (thanks M@jk).

Salamander2 · Post by **Salamander2** » Sun May 29, 2005 7:05 pm

GREAT emu.

still waiting for:

1)MSX2+
2)PC98
3)X68000

are there ay limitations of the speccy emu?
ive burned it with 2000 roms, and the cd does not boot...

Coagulus · Post by **Coagulus** » Mon May 30, 2005 4:56 am

Yay! I never thought a CPC emu would actually happen (in a useable form)! Seems to happen a lot lately with ST, Amiga, Neo Geo CD, GBA, Genesis etc... what's gonna be next I wonder!

rondc · Post by **rondc** » Mon May 30, 2005 7:01 am

amazing job, keep on working. you have made lots of people very happy with Your emu

impetus · Post by **impetus** » Mon May 30, 2005 10:53 am

quzar: I don't mind at all if you leave the mirror up.

doragasu · Post by **doragasu** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 3:43 pm

Finally I had some time to test it (Exams keep me pretty busy ATM). Here is my feedback:

I have tested Camelot Warriors, Profanation, La Abad?a del Crimen and Cybernoid. All of them worked but:
1.- The emu doesn't run fullspeed. Most games were about 40 out of 50 fps. Some of them like Cybernoid had great slowdons in some places.
2.- The sound is awful. It's extremely far from perfect. It sounds really bad and losses some sounds (for example in Camelot Warriors I got music but no SFX).
3.- The emu has some problems with software reset. When you use the "Reset CPC", a lot of times you get noise in the audio.

NOTE I have tested the emu through Coder's Cable. I don't know if maybe burning it to a CD can make it fullspeed.

Excepting for the issues I wrote up here, the emu is great. I hope I get some more time to make more testing and enjoy it. Thanks JMD, and I hope you improve sound

doragasu · Post by **doragasu** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 9:34 am

I have done some more tests:
- Zynaps: Works good
- Robocop: Works, but pretty slow (about 36 fps) and with an annoying flashing border.
- Prince of Persia: Works good but has a corrupted graphics from 3/4 of the screen to the end.

JMD · Post by **JMD** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:48 am

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your feed back

I will have a look to all theses pbm.

doragasu · Post by **doragasu** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 3:53 pm

JMD wrote:Hi,

Thanks a lot for your feed back
I will have a look to all theses pbm.

Thanks to you for this port.

And if anyone is looking for reviews and/or downloads of CPC games, be sure to check CPC Game Reviews, this page has most CPC games reviewed and available for downloading. It has also a tutorial on how to load games and some more things.

Other web where you can find a lot of stuff is this

If you download some games, be sure to get the disk images (.DSK) as tape images aren't supported by this emu.

Enjoy!

Smiles · Post by **Smiles** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 3:55 pm

The same graphical corruption that happens with Prince of Persia also happens with Karateka.

The software seems stretched to fill the entire screen. Is there an option to keep the image pixel perfect, even if it displays the image in a windowed like screen?

doragasu · Post by **doragasu** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 4:39 pm

I have burned it to a CD to test if the fails I was having were or not due to the coder's cable, but with the CD it has the same fails, and speed is also the same (it's not fullspeed).

Another fail I have seen is related to the interface. When I open a zipfile, load a game and I want later to change the directory, if I clic in the left list of directories, then both the left and the right lists gets empty and I have to reboot my DC to load a new game.

Eiji · Post by **Eiji** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 6:22 pm

The Amstrad CPC was my first home computer so this emulator has a special place for me.

Thank you JMD for bringing this glorious computer to the Dreamcast and I can only hope it gets better but for a 'alpha' release its amazing.