News Archive: January 2002

Thursday, January 31, 2002

SCUMMVM Port Posted by Stalin @ 20:08
Mark Thomas is porting SCUMMVM to the Dreamcast. Currently it only runs the Day of the Tentacle demo. For a preview version visit his site.

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

Version 0.1.8 of DC Fighter released Posted by sp00nz @ 19:45
Another version of this great new upcoming game has been released. Here's a clip from the site:

added stamina to slow down rapid moves, added LookAt routine for viewing. ready to put in truer 3d locations; so dont be alarmed if the floor doesnt move anymore.

Sounds good to me.

You can grab it at

Jimbo's site

Update: Version 0.1.9 has now also been released! New in this release are "true 3d positioning, and working walls" =)

Sunday, January 27, 2002

TODC Posted by CyRUS64 @ 21:51
Pcn has released his TO7/70 emulator for the DC. If you don't know what the T07/70 is then check out this link for an overview of the system.
Thanks to pcn for informing me of this release.

Links:
Local Downloads
Official Site

V 0.2 of Dreamcast Media Player released Posted by sp00nz @ 19:59
The new version of the divx player has been released. Here's a list of enhancements

- Enhanced graphical interface with zoom possibilities, use of joypad
- Possibility for developers to use the codecs (see related licence)

There are no speed improvements yet and still no sound.

To download this player head over to

Thenesis

Saturday, January 26, 2002

Sayten's sources released. Posted by sp00nz @ 4:35
Sayten has decided to move on from Dreamcast development and has released his sources. To grab them head over to Console Vision's Forums.

Console Vision Forums

Friday, January 25, 2002

build_script Version 0.2 Posted by Stalin @ 22:20
I have updated my build_script. http://stalin.thegypsy.com/bscript.shtml

New in version 0.2:

ARM building fixed.
New variables: gcc_site and newlib_site
New arguments: download, extract, build_sh4, and build_arm
wget detection

NesterDC Posted by CyRUS64 @ 4:12
NesterDC-pre4 has been released by Takayama Fumihiko.
Here's what's new:
+ Fullscreen support.
+ FDS sound support.
+ Some speedups.
+ Now uses a "queue based" system for sending to the TA.
+ Bottom blank bar bug fixed

Links:
Official Site

Thursday, January 24, 2002

OpenDivX Player tested... Posted by TheGypsy @ 13:58
Most people were having trouble getting the test/beta version of the recently released OpenDivX Player to actually work. This lead some (including myself, actually) to think that it was simply a hoax. Well, after some more testing and test videos, I did get it to actually work properly decoding a 320x224 15fps OpenDivX file. Apparently, my earlier tests were using videos with resolutions that it did not like. In any case, I just wanted to note that I had confirmed that the player actually does work. Of course, it is an early beta still. There is no audio decoding, it plays on only 25% of the screen, and so on.

But, DivX fans (which does not include me, as most of you know) should have something a bit more usable soon -- although, regardless, it is still a low-resolution player. But, for some of you, it's better than nothing probably.

- John...

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Yet Another Build Script Posted by Stalin @ 7:01
Yep, that is correct. I jumped on the bandwaggon an wrote a bash script to download and build the gcc/g++ tool chain for the Dreamcast. Give it a shot you might like it: http://stalin.thegypsy.com

Monday, January 21, 2002

Updates Posted by CyRUS64 @ 14:44
DCFighting has had a couple of more releases up to version 1.5. The author now deems this version to now be "a minimally playable game". You can download it from the Developer Tools page or visit jimbo's page for more information and a couple of screenshots of it in action.
The divx player released yesterday, has also had an updated release which fixes some problems with playing certain types of divx files. If you happen to try this out and get it working, feel free to report back your opinion of the speed / display quality etc.
You can also download this new version from the Developer Tools page.

Sunday, January 20, 2002

Dreamcast Divx player... Posted by CyRUS64 @ 21:07
Some of you have probably read about the work-in-progress port of the PocketPC divx player to the dreamcast in this thread here. That project is legitimate but is in the early stages of development.

Anyhow, to my surpise I was today emailed an early version of a little DivX player which the authors hopes should interest some people... This is a seperate project to the PocketPC divx port. Here is some info about this release:

"Originally, this was intended to be a test program for a PC media player. It plays only OpenDivX files with no sound, but the following decoders will be implemented (and optimized) soon:
Mpeg audio layer 123, AC3, OggVorbis, DivX (M****S*** DivX), Mpeg video 1&2. We have used various free source codes (OpenDivX, MpegLib, ...) to understand how each codec works but EACH CODEC HAS BEEN TOTALLY REWRITTEN, so don't ask for sources...
There are still some performance issues. Currently, only some routines have been optimized and the iDCT is not one of them. You can find some ASM routines (under GPL) with this demo, but the other routines are proprietary.
Note that we give also the iDCT routine that we have begun to optimize in ASM, hoping that someone will help us to do it (this is the harder routine and we don't have much time to play with it currently)."

Also note that this player has been made using the legal KallistiOS, and parts of the source code have been released under the GPL license.

Links:
Local Download
Thenesis Homepage

Saturday, January 19, 2002

DCFighting Posted by CyRUS64 @ 17:17
Jimbo has released version 0.1.0 of his Fighting game for the dreamcast. It's currently available in source / elf / unscrambled+scrambled binary form, but if anyone wants to make a self-boot dj/nrg image for it, then feel free to send it in and i'll put it up for those without dev environments set up.

Update: Another couple of versions have been released today also, and it is now upto version 0.1.3. Recent improvements include 2-player support, and certain 'interaction' code between the fighters.

Links:
Local Downloads
Jimbo's site

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

Paletted Textures example Posted by CyRUS64 @ 3:24
Jim Ursetto has released a paletted textures example using kos. Here's some info on it Jim posted to the dcdev list:
"I was interested in playing around with paletted textures, but the only example I found was Marcus' tatest, written before KOS came about. As such, it does everything from scratch. So, I studied tatest and the powervr docs and cobbled together a new example that uses KOS, with a bitof code that augments KOS's limited support for paletted textures."
You can get the example from here.

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

IP.BIN Replacement Posted by LiENUS @ 5:00
Well I finally got around to packaging this up. I have created a replacement for both #1 and #2 bootstraps in this new IP.BIN package, and as before full source is included. A Local Download is available, if you test it with something other than what I've tested please email me at calberty@home.com and tell me if it works/doesnt.

Monday, January 14, 2002

Dreamcast PLIB Posted by CyRUS64 @ 12:43
Peter Hatch has sent in a partial port of PLIB to the dreamcast.
It requires C++, and it is recommended to extract it into your KOS directory (it'll untar to /addons/libdcplib). You'll need a Dreamcast compiling environment that can handle C++, and a recent
version of KOS with C++ support such as KOS 1.1.6.
The following has been ported:
UL - Utility Library - Only error handling functions
SG - Simple Geometry Library - wholly ported
FNT - Font Library - wholly ported utilizing TA.

It also has an example demo included in the package. It has been released under LGPL with one exception. Please read the license / readme for more details.

Links:
Local Download

DC Lan Adapter Posted by ss_teven @ 11:12
Last week I compiled a list of sites that sell the DC Lan Adapter (not the DC Broadband Adapter), just incase you dont visit the forums, and are still in search for one, here they are...

Goldenshop - $ TBA
Game Choice Club - $49USD (New stock)
Paradise Online Shop - 89,95 EUR (roughly $80USD)
Games Tech - $52USD (New stock)
Madeira Games - Ł59 (roughly $85USD).

I do not work for these companies - or any advertising firm, they were all found by using a generic search via Google. I can not be held responsible for the actions of these Video Game Importers/Exporters.

Converted prices are subject to vary as they were converted using todays stock exchange rates at XE.com. You can still purchase the Broadband Adapter at Lik-Sang and TwoCom.

KallistiOS v1.1.6 Posted by ss_teven @ 10:51
Dan Potter has released another version of his libray-based OS, KallistiOS v1.1.6. The most promising advances in this release include C++ support, 768xXXX resolution modes, and the inclusion of zlib/pnglib.

Links:
Local Downloads
Release notes.
Sourceforge.

Sunday, January 13, 2002

Fake GypPlay release(s)... Posted by TheGypsy @ 21:26
There have, unfortunately, been some fake GypPlay releases floating around. If anyone sees anything such as "GypPlay v2.5: Boston Edition" or "GypPlay v2.3: IRC Edition" or anything by "UltraDev Studios", just remember that they are just releases put out by immature "kiddies" who have nothing better to do than steal my work, change the images around, and then release it as their own. There are no improvements or enhancements. I can't believe how rude and obnoxious some of these fools are. Oh well -- it's really a shame that these 12-year-olds can't learn to code instead of just stealing other projects as their own...

- John...

Saturday, January 12, 2002

Forums... Posted by TheGypsy @ 2:06
The forums were down for a few hours today due to some temporary disk issues. I have corrected those issues and they are back -- sorry for the down time.

- John...

Monday, January 7, 2002

Ready-to-burn images for dcload-ip-la 1.0.3 released... Posted by TheGypsy @ 19:53
I have just finished and put up ready-to-burn Nero5 and DiscJuggler3 images of dcload-ip-la (Dan Potter's HIT-0300 LAN Adapter patches for adk's dcload-ip). They are available with IP set to 0.0.0.0 for arp or 192.168.0.4 for static.

You can find them in the Developer Tools section.

Thanks again, Dan! (Plus an extra thanks for adk for dcload, of course!)

- John...

Dan is the Man! Posted by TheGypsy @ 1:26
Dan Potter just announced that he already has the HIT-0300 LAN Adapters working with dcload-ip! Great job, Dan!

You can get the source diffs here. I'll have ready-to-burn images available tomorrow.

- John...

Sunday, January 6, 2002

DC Lan Adaptor Posted by CyRUS64 @ 12:26
Dan Potter has done it again ;). Straight from Cryptic Allusion:

"The much cooler news is that I have successfully cracked the "Lan Adapter" (HIT-0300) and have created a test program which responds to pings to the DC. Shouldn't be much effort to get this worked into dc-load-ip and a lot of dev'rs should be happy. =) Comments are at the top of the source file, please let me know if it doesn't work with yours."

lan_adapter.zip (source)
lan_adapter.elf (precompiled elf)

Upload this to the dc via serial cable using dc-load or marcus' serial slave.

I'll try and test this today since I managed to get one of the HIT-0300s recently.

Also the KOS cvs now has C++ support, and includes a C++ example, and Dan recommends everyone upgrades to GCC 3.0.3 =)

Oh, and check out Cryptic Allusion.

Friday, January 4, 2002

Wolf3d / Spear of Destiny Posted by CyRUS64 @ 22:40
Crt0 has updated his site with new Wolfenstein 3d binaries that can play Wolf3d demo/full and Spear of Destiny demo/full version games. He has also fixed the control issues, and this version is now playable with the keyboard or controller.

Link:
Local Downloads
Offsite Link

Thursday, January 3, 2002

3d test Posted by CyRUS64 @ 18:02
c99koder has released a little 3d test program he has written. Here is some info:
"I've been messing around with 3d while on vacation, and have put together a little demo using KGL. It's a 3d room you can walk around in using the d-pad. You can also use the X and B buttons to strafe, and Y and A to look up / down. "

Links:
Local Downloads
Offsite Link

Ghettoplay Vorbis Posted by CyRUS64 @ 17:52
The newly released RC3 sources of the Xiph Ogg/Vorbis en/decoder have been successfully implemented into sndoggvorbis, and Thorsten Titze has released a Discjuggler 3.5 image of the new build of Ghettoplay Vorbis. He also states that the "new library sources will be submitted to Dan Potter this week or the coming weekend for inclusion in the latest KOS."

Links:
Local Downloads
Hangar-eleven