Dreamcast and Saturn emulation on a CRT finally up to snuff :D

[Escape-To-88]

I've got a lush streacom case (looks like a slimline hifi amp) that will house a micro ATX. Might use that. Looking at putting a Ryzen 5 in there. Need to check that the passive copper pipe cooling system will be sufficient though

Ooh they look lovely and are rather pricey! Which one do you have? Worth mentioning a Ryzen won't be suitable for Dolphin and PS2 emulation

[Brad]

FC5. Was stupid expensive but once I'd seen it I couldn't bring myself to buy some cheap plastic silver crap and have it.in the living room.

It currently has an AMD motherboard with a built-in CPU and is just a cd ripper. What a waste!

Ryzen no good for dolphin and PS2 emu? Please elaborate if you have time mate. Don't want to limit myself.

[Escape-To-88]

You'd be better off checking out the individual forums but pretty certain you can't get full speed on AMD processors. It's something to do with how both of those emulators access the cores. I'm pretty certain that's especially true of dolphin.

[Sketcz]

I didn't fancy paying £400-500 for a Rhea/Phoebe modded Saturn and the guy who flogs the chips is a real dingle-berry

What's wrong with the guy who sells them? I bought a RHEA and the process was easy and without problem.

Has he pulled a Roseanne online or something? Just curious.

Also that pricing is a bit steep. I think I paid like... A hundred or so for my RHEA? I bought it with a new batch. And a basic Saturn you can find for cheap at various places. I used a thrift store system.

Thanks for the vid. I've been emulating DC on my massive Witcher 3 gaming rig, but nice to see it running on cheaper systems.

[Escape-To-88]

What's wrong with the guy who sells them? I bought a RHEA and the process was easy and without problem.

Has he pulled a Roseanne online or something? Just curious.

Also that pricing is a bit steep. I think I paid like... A hundred or so for my RHEA? I bought it with a new batch. And a basic Saturn you can find for cheap at various places. I used a thrift store system.

Thanks for the vid. I've been emulating DC on my massive Witcher 3 gaming rig, but nice to see it running on cheaper systems.

I've also been emulating DC etc on my rather large gaming rig! Was keen to see what I could do on the CRT native res side of things. You can actually knock up one fairly easily on a mini-ITX or slim mini-itx build.

It's essentially now impossible to get one. Apparently he doesn't always fulfil orders even if you get in with in the nanosecond window orders open. He won't take emails, you can't contact him etc. etc. Essentially just a giant ball ache and seems to randomly post these rants on his site. I'm certain it was all much simpler many moons ago. Had a chance then and missed it. The order window is pretty much 30 minutes at a certain global time zone which he decides upon, and then seems to change - it's very annoying, make more irritating (of course) by the people who are clearly buying to re-sell and have clocked on people pay well over £300 for these.

[Solar]

You'd be better off checking out the individual forums but pretty certain you can't get full speed on AMD processors. It's something to do with how both of those emulators access the cores. I'm pretty certain that's especially true of dolphin.

Using Vulkan or dx12 in Dolphin with a Ryzen is on par with Intel now, if not better.
They only had problems with dx9, 10, 11 and opengl.

Edit: looks like dx12 was discontinued in Dolphin, not very surprising since they are the same API anyway.

[Sketcz]

I've also been emulating DC etc on my rather large gaming rig! Was keen to see what I could do on the CRT native res side of things.

It's essentially now impossible to get one. it's very annoying, make more irritating (of course) by the people who are clearly buying to re-sell and have clocked on people pay well over £300 for these.

Whoa! I bought mine like... a few years back. I have vague recollections of emailing, being told when it would be available, maybe getting an update email? I might even have just paid in advance to be put on his list. Easy, much more so than the PSIO device I bought, where I had to hit refresh like a madman in the 5 minute window where they were in stock. Got one, and seconds later they were out of stock.

These solid state solutions are obviously popular. I fail to understand why the creators don't upscale production big time. They demand is clearly rampant.

PS1 and Saturn look best on CRT, in native resolution, but for DC, GC, and Wii, I could never go back to SD. Upscaled and smoothed they look gorgeous. Replayed Toy Commander on emulation, and it was even better than I remembered. (If you try it and the sound is broken, you need to get it from an alternate source - the TC sound works just fine!)

[Escape-To-88]

Whoa! I bought mine like... a few years back. I have vague recollections of emailing, being told when it would be available, maybe getting an update email? I might even have just paid in advance to be put on his list. Easy, much more so than the PSIO device I bought, where I had to hit refresh like a madman in the 5 minute window where they were in stock. Got one, and seconds later they were out of stock.

These solid state solutions are obviously popular. I fail to understand why the creators don't upscale production big time. They demand is clearly rampant.

PS1 and Saturn look best on CRT, in native resolution, but for DC, GC, and Wii, I could never go back to SD. Upscaled and smoothed they look gorgeous. Replayed Toy Commander on emulation, and it was even better than I remembered. (If you try it and the sound is broken, you need to get it from an alternate source - the TC sound works just fine!)

For Dreamcast I find 480i is pretty decent on a CRT - looks better than on an LCD! But you can up the internal res even on a CRT. For me the PS2 stuff looks amazing at 5x and higher resolutions on a PC, even more so with the GC/Wii stuff, the latter I now struggle to use a real console for. At 2K I'd say it almost blows the Switch out of the water. All my PS2 is used for really is the lightgun games on CRT If they could get those working on PCSX2 with a proper gun solution not sure I'd need that anymore.