Dreamcast Issues (Chankast)

[XularusXIII]

Okay, so, as far as Dreamcast goes, I've tried Chankast, and no dice. I have DAEMON Tools Lite, latest version. I have not downloaded any other version because they're only free for 20 or so days.

Problem 1 - BIOS

I've downloaded the BIOS .zip from the site, but I don't know what half of the files are or where to put them. I assumed they just went in the ChanKast folder and put 'em in there. Had to rename DC - BIOS and DC - Flash to dc_bios and dc_flash. I don't know if it's working properly, but it did stop saying it couldn't read "dc_bios.bin". However, I still don't know what to do with DC - BIOS (All), DC - Flash (All), DC - VMS BIOS (full), DC - Utopia Loader V1.1 (Though from what I've read on here this one's a self-booting program), or DC - Utopia Loader V1.1.nrg, all of which were also in the BIOS package.

Problem 2 - Games in Pieces

I've downloaded only one game, so I'm not sure if they are all like this, but Resident Evil: CODE Veronica for the Dreamcast is in pieces once you extract it, leaving me lost and confused. I don't know if that's the reason I'm getting the audio CD screen or not, but it seems quite possible that it's the cause. That, or the disc is not set to self-boot, which brings us to...

Problem 3 - Self-Booting

How does this work? How do I tell if my disc image is set to self-boot? How do I make my disc-image self-bootable? Does my game HAVE to self-boot to play?

Problem 4 - No Startup Text?

So far I've gotten the startup to respond to gamepad inputs. However, I have no way to tell what I am doing, as there is no text where I am pretty sure there should be. How do I fix this? There's also the fact that left/right is up/down, and vice versa, though I may have simply input the controls incorrectly.

[Zorlon]

DTools Lite is all you need and is fully featured more than enough for emulation, though generally a specific version was advised for the now very old very outdated Chankast

Prob1

Just get yourself NullDC instead it's more up to date and compatible

NullDC does require a slight different Bios Set though

Prob2

Resident Evil: CODE Veronica will bug out near the end making it impossible to complete in Chankast, I remember having to hack a save for someone a few years back for them to be able to play it out until the end

Games in a split archieve should only be extracted via the first file only, all other parts are automaticly read, if the split files end rar/r01/r02 ect then extract via the rar file

I would use 7-zip as much as possible but anything it can't handle correctly then use winrar to extract

Prob3

If you are not too hot with PC stuffs avoid trying to make a selfboot it's not an easy process

You can tell if a game is selfboot aka Mil-CD by looking at the structure of the CD Image and if it has 2 or more sessions then it will be selfbooting, you can do that by mounting it in Daemon Tools, then use ISObuster to read the drive

Prob4

Just get NullDC instead Chankast was ok in it's time but is completely taken over by NullDC

[XularusXIII]

If the files are named recvd1.part01, recvd1.part02, etc. (They're still .rar files), will extracting only the first file still work?

Does emuparadise have the BIOS set required for nullDC?

[Zorlon]

actually there a generic split archieve 7-zip unually makes those or a file split after archiving, 7-zip has a beter chence of extracting those correctly though, winrar has a good chance of messing it up

winrar files tend to be named *.rar,*.r00,*.r01,*.r02,*.r03,ect

Bioses

Thats got both sets of bioses in it one is for NullDC think in the data folder, the other ones are Chankast ones

[XularusXIII]

Okay, so, I got nullDC and used the BIOS you linked me to, got another game to try (Sonic Adventure), and now I keep getting this error http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...ji-d420ka3.jpg . If you're wondering, I got the same error on the nommu version after I read that you should use that version instead. The manual presents some possibilities, such as:

- If the application or some of the plugins fail to start showing an error message you might not have the required runtimes
and DirectX version installed. Go get them (links are on the Requirements section on the top of this document).

- If the emulator fails to start with an opcode error message on the console then you either don't have correct BIOS and Flash
files or the emulator is not compatible with the game you try. Try using the MMU version on interpreter mode to see if the
game runs that way. (What is and opcode error message?)

However, the first of these does not seem to be the case, as the application does start, just not the games. I do not know about the second one, as I have no idea what an opcode error message is.

[Zorlon]

Opcode messages say Opcode error in them, so you will know if you get one

P.S. have you tried the emu just booting the bios yet

Also you are running the CD Image directly

P.P.S. I don't actually emulate this system as I own 2 perfectly working Dreamcasts myself, so only limited help here

[XularusXIII]

Is just booting the BIOS booting with no disc? Also, I'm just going to file>normal boot>game file name. If that is booting directly, then yes, I am.

[Zorlon]

yeah booting the bios is booting with no disc and is worth doing to make sure the emu is working

[XularusXIII]

Ah. Well, I've done that and it didn't work. Which probably means I didn't config the BIOS correctly. Exactly where do you put the BIOS files, if you know where.

[Slacker Magician]

For NullDC, BIOS should be located in the data folder.

[Zorlon]

extract what I linked into the Null DC folder it should create a data folder with the bios files already in the data folder, the bios files outside the data folder are Chankast bios files