I was Wondering when there will be a new Build Release

[cisco2009]

Well i don't really know where i should post this but anyways i picked here but i would like too know when there will be a new Release v0.9.9 ? Ive been using DreamSNES for a couple of weeks now and i love it, it seems its one of the Best emulaters out for SNES and I've done Google search is and they all tell everyone to use DreamSNES its the best witch i played a lot of good games I've really Enjoyed and really pleased but everyone knows there's problems on games like doom and Mario RPG and some other ones, its been about 2002 since there's been the release of v0.9.8 and were now in 2009 and i know them problems can be fixed and make more games work better yes i know you can do the change the settings and that i never really noticed much of a difference but yeah i would really love too see this program even get a lot better also

[OneThirty8]

DreamSNES is no longer being developed. You might try SuperFamiCast. I don't know if those particular games are better/worse, but if I recall correctly the few SNES games that I played a lot worked fine in both emulators.

[Stryfe]

SuperFamicast gives you more flexibility as to where you want to take the performance compromise. You can raise the frameskip, lower the sound quality, or both. It also allows for disabling of graphics layers, so if the game doesn't rely on it, you can disable 1 or maybe 2 for some speed.

It's too bad that the DreamSNES developers never releases the full source to their masterpiece, because in all likelihood now, we'll never see a better SNES emu. The DC is getting quite old now, and 7 years (+) is a long time between releases.

[Nico0020]

There is also SNES4ALL but I think development for that is on hold right now.

[Mekanaizer]

cisco2009@

I recommend you to use all versions of each of the DC snes emus.
Why?
SuperFamicast for example has a bit more compatibility with version 1. v2 has more options for speed up but it doesn't disable sound completely as the sound CPU emulation is not disabled only sound output is. So v1 is faster with sound disabled.
DreamSNES here too there are compatibility issues between versions.
Almost the same as above goes for the SNES4ALL I guess. (untested)

In other words the best SNES emu for DC is the group of every single version of each emu.
Build a SBI disc with all the SNES emus and there versions.

EDIT:
DreamSNES versions: v0.91, v0.92, v0.93, v0.94, v0.95, v0.96, v0.97 and v0.98
SuperFamicast versions: v1 and v2
SNES4ALL versions: alpha, alpha2 and alpha3

Things I remember for the DreamSNES days:
v0.94 there were some save problems reported not saving.
v0.95 has save problems, saves deleted at random case and not saving.
Versions 0.95 and up uses a SH asm CPU core. So 0.94 and down use C.
Don't use 0.95 (and up) to load older versions saves they will be damaged and vice-versa.
There is yet a version of DreamSNES that will not run on PAL TVs (v0.96 I guess).
NOTE: official VMU recommended.
viewforum.php?f=30

SuperFamicast v1 is done in C, but v2 uses DreamSNES latest (at the time) SH asm CPU core.
See its issues above.

Never tested SNES4ALL sorry no reports.

[cisco2009]

k cool all give it a try thanks

[AuroEdge]

I never got the DreamSNES team. Were their intentions to show that a great SNES emu was possible and leave it at that? Maybe they got as much out of it as possible but if that were the case they would've designated the release as v1.0? Oh well, to be honest I wouldn't use it anyways .

[Christuserloeser]

They kinda lost interest I think. I remember that when Scherzo contacted them for the source code, Peter Bortas mentioned that they made some minor changes after the 0.9.8 release but never got around releasing the next version.

What I think happened was that they expected more of a speed boost from porting the CPU core to SH4 and got utterly dissapointed by the little improvement they got. Unlike with NeoGeo and Mega Drive / Genesis, the CPU is the weakest component in the Super Nintendo. Porting the SPU to SH4 or ARM would have been the much better choice.


Either way, Marcus Comstedt is still around working on the Dreamcast port of SCUMMVM

[Nico0020]

They kinda lost interest I think. I remember that when Scherzo contacted them for the source code, Peter Bortas mentioned that they made some minor changes after the 0.9.8 release but never got around releasing the next version.

What I think happened was that they expected more of a speed boost from porting the CPU core to SH4 and got utterly dissapointed by the little improvement they got. Unlike with NeoGeo and Mega Drive / Genesis, the CPU is the weakest component in the Super Nintendo. Porting the SPU to SH4 or ARM would have been the much better choice.

I think I remember reading about that. Would have still liked to have seen the release, though it probably would have sent flames through the tubes for not increasing the speed at all.

On a side note: I read a post at Dcemu.co.uk (I think by u Christuserloeser?) stating that if you used the PAL roms you would see better performance in games due to something involving the 50/60Hz in those games? Does this work for most the games that were pretty close to fullspeed? I haven't burned DreamSNES in years but would like to do so if this is true.

[Christuserloeser]

Actually I posted about it here first: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=83113

- The most significant difference is caused by the combination of emulating PAL games and setting DreamSNES to PAL-50 which only works on a PAL Dreamcast and PAL TV as far as I know. I remember being pretty dissapointed when I noticed that DSNES wouldn't allow me to switch to 50Hz when booting in VGA.

Still, the EU versions of games like Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country or Super Mario All-Stars with sound set to Mono should run pretty good even in 60Hz (still not as good as on real hardware though).

[Stryfe]

The DC just doesn't have enough power to run a full speed SNES emulator, even one without the special chips support.

Get a hold of one of the very expensive programmable SNES carts, and you can play the roms on a real system.

[park]

The DC just doesn't have enough power to run a full speed SNES emulator, even one without the special chips support.

Get a hold of one of the very expensive programmable SNES carts, and you can play the roms on a real system.

So with enough time it would have been able to emulate the ps1 but its not powerful enough to emulate the snes?Thats a bit strange.

[Chilly Willy]

The DC just doesn't have enough power to run a full speed SNES emulator, even one without the special chips support.

Get a hold of one of the very expensive programmable SNES carts, and you can play the roms on a real system.

So with enough time it would have been able to emulate the ps1 but its not powerful enough to emulate the snes?Thats a bit strange.

There's three things at work here: first, the video in those old consoles are a real bear to emulate; you've got cell graphics, multiple planes, hardware sprites, and special modes. By contrast, a PS1 has plain bitmapped graphics. Second, you've got a sound processor on top of the other stuff to emulate. Finally, nearly every game worth emulating on the SNES uses an accelerator chip of some kind; they're usually a kind of DSP that's running at close to 20 MHz, and in the end, it's that accelerator that slows down the emulation... unless you make an assembly based DR core for the accelerator chip. Given the DC is only 200 MHz, you really need the whole thing in assembly to have a good chance at running games full speed. It's like the SNES/Genesis emulators of the late 90's meant for 200-400 MHz P2's - 95% assembly and 5% C.

[Ex-Cyber]

Finally, nearly every game worth emulating on the SNES uses an accelerator chip of some kind

Relatively few SNES games use accelerator chips, and there are maybe a dozen well-regarded games that use them.

[Chilly Willy]

Finally, nearly every game worth emulating on the SNES uses an accelerator chip of some kind

Relatively few SNES games use accelerator chips, and there are maybe a dozen well-regarded games that use them.

I think it's more than you're thinking.

[Ex-Cyber]

Finally, nearly every game worth emulating on the SNES uses an accelerator chip of some kind

Relatively few SNES games use accelerator chips, and there are maybe a dozen well-regarded games that use them.

I think it's more than you're thinking.

I'm thinking of (off the top of my head):

Pilotwings
Super Mario Kart
Star Fox
Yoshi's Island
Kirby Super Star
Kirby's Dream Land 3
Super Mario RPG
Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension
Gokujyou Parodius
Star Ocean
Far East of Eden Zero
Mega Man X2
Mega Man X3

That's obviously not every game using an accelerator chip, but it's pretty much every one for which I can remember seeing multiple people express desire to play it on an emulator for more than the sheer novelty value of seeing it run (cf. Doom, Street Fighter Alpha 2). There are many more SNES classics that don't use a chip.

[Quzar]

Only a little over 70 games in total used the various expansion chips. Most are NOT classics.

As for the PS vs SNES emulation issues, the much bigger issue is that playstation emulation can be done at a much higher abstraction level, and a lot of work may be offloaded to the Dreamcast's 3D processor, as opposed to 2D stuff which has to be done mostly by the main processor. Kind of like old voodoo-requiring N64 emulators.

[Chilly Willy]

As for the PS vs SNES emulation issues, the much bigger issue is that playstation emulation can be done at a much higher abstraction level, and a lot of work may be offloaded to the Dreamcast's 3D processor, as opposed to 2D stuff which has to be done mostly by the main processor. Kind of like old voodoo-requiring N64 emulators.

True - like I said above, the 2D graphics in the SNES are a rather significant burden on the emulator, mainly because of how dissimilar they are to modern framebuffer/VDP displays.

[Stryfe]

So with enough time it would have been able to emulate the ps1 but its not powerful enough to emulate the snes?Thats a bit strange.

I don' think it's just as simple as the processing power, special effects, capabilities difference that makes it impossible. It's the dissimilarity between the types of hardware. The playstations hardware would be more similar to the DC's hardware, no matter how different, then the SNES's compared to the DC.

There's also the fact that Bleemcast! was actually more of an interpreter, vs DreamSNES or the like being emulators.

[Christuserloeser]

There's also the fact that Bleemcast! was actually more of an interpreter, vs DreamSNES or the like being emulators.

I never understood the difference...

I don' think it's just as simple as the processing power, special effects, capabilities difference that makes it impossible. It's the dissimilarity between the types of hardware.

That probably explains a part of the difference, yes, but there's also other, perhaps more important factors - like the difference in expertise in regards to programming: Rand Linden was a professional programmer for almost a decade before working on Bleemcast (DOOM on SNES is one of his earlier works), while the DSNES team were students when they started working on DSNES.
Bleem was written from the ground up [for PC] while DSNES is a port of somebody elses code.
Bleemcast likely is 100% SH4 and ARM assembler while DSNES is ~95% C code.