I'm kinda new to Dreamcast emulation, but can my computer run nulldc, specifically Sonic Adventure 2? Because when I tried, it has all these weird lines blocking my view, and the draw distance AND fps is horrible. BTW SA1 works fine.

I have a WinXP with:
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.40GHz
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000

Help!java script:emoticon(':o', 'smid_15')


P.S: My parents wouldn't let me buy a dreamcast if I wanted to, and it would be sort of a waste.

How much RAM?

In DC emulation for some reason, Sonic Adventure 2 is always almost up there with MvC2. It turned out to be one of the most disappointing gaming experiences of my life. Good luck with it though!

How do I check RAM? Also, I think the problem may lie in the fact i have to use the chankast video plugin and sound plugin. i tried the nulldc plugins, but the emulator crashed with a generic windows error.

Right Click My Computer - - > Properties

480 Mb of ram. I have no games installed, but a few small other emulators.

I think that should be sufficient.

Yet it won't let me use the nulldc plugins, only chankast. Like i said, a windows error comes up and the emulator crashes.

Edit: Is that whats causing the lines?

Are you using a page file? Control Panel >> System >> Advanced >> Advanced >> Virtual Memory.

I don't see a system icon in the control panel.

Edit: NVM, it says 720 MB.

Edit2: Hello? anybody there? Sorry if I'm being rude.

Yes, you are being rude. This isn't IRC, have some patience.

The amount of RAM you have or what kind of a video card you have do not play such a big role, at least not as big as your CPU. That is, you don't have to have huge amounts of RAM or the latest and greatest graphics card to be able to use emulators just fine.

Emulation of any system is heavily dependent on CPU speed. The graphics card simply provides and output for the graphics and does little else. RAM usually just needed to store the required amount of texture data.

Having said all this however, your graphics card is the culprit is you have weird lines, as it's teetering on the line of what's considered below minimum requirements and nearly worthless for emulating complex 3D hardware. Why? The GeForce4 MX 4000 is basically a GeForce2 with a slightly enhanced feature set, and a GeForce2 is definitely below any perceived minimum requirements for Dreamcast emulation. The only thing you can do is to update your graphics card drivers and hope for the best, I wouldn't be holding my breath if I were you, though.

Hmm, sorry. Anyway, thank you very much. But i find this strange since my computer runs Project 64 and ePSXe perfectly.

Different hardware that is more complex than the aforementioned two.

But then again, I could be wrong, maybe it's your drivers that are borked and after a driver update everything will work fine. It's also worth noting that Dreamcast emulation, especially in terms of graphics, is far from perfect. So this can also amount to graphical flaws in certain games.

Well, I updated, but it didn't work. So I think the problem is that the emulator will only work with the chankast plugin. Whenever I try to use the nulldc plugin, it crashes with a windows errror. Something about a syscall.bin, I think. That, and the emulator runs other games, especially Sonic Adventure 1 and Soul Calibur. Not only that, but Sonic Adventure 2 is on the compatibility list for Nulldc, and its supposed to run pretty well. So maybe the Nulldc plugin works better?

Edit: Nvm, I got it working.

What did you do to get it working? I'm running into the same prob with NullDC 1.0.3 crashing when I try to run a game, using the NullPVR Graphics plugin. I can get NullDC 1.0.0 beta 1.6 to work. But when trying to run Sonic 2, I get the weird lines throughout the screen. All other games play fine.

I'm running Win XP w/2 GB RAM. Dual CPU 2.2 Ghz. The graphics card is a Intel G33 w/256. I made sure it has all the latest updated drivers.

that poster is long gone from these boards.

Well I figured it out. I had to buy a new graphics card. Damn Intel Chipsets. Can't support anything