A new problem...

[Mike Labine]

I have a new problem in Chankast (sigh...)

 

I try to run Resident Evil: Code Veronica from Daemon Tools v4.something. When it loads, it has a gray trapezoid with a gray spiral on top of it. The spiral spins out, and then a window pops up that is titled "ioControl" and says "Error."

Please, how can I fix this?

(Sorry for having so many questions...)

[Agozer]

Don't use Chankast, use nullDC. Chankast's CD-ROM plugins are shady at best, hence why many people get those errors.

[Mike Labine]

Then is there a program to cheat in NullDC?

 

Edit: Never mind, I found one, but it says on the download site: "is a german version, have no time for a engl. version. if you need a engl. version, then use chankastcheater and rename "nullDC_100b1.exe" to "chankast.exe", works too." Am I supposed to rename the nullDC program? That doesn't sound like a good idea...

 

Edit EDIT: Okay... I can't even get that far... whenever I load the game, the thing crashes. I did the dc_boot.bin and dc_flash.bin things, but whenever I load RE: Code Veronica, it crashes... It says in the console a lot about errors and "system control regs." The error is apparently in dc\mem\sb.cpp. Which I can't find.

Edited November 8, 2007 by Mike Labine

[Agozer]

The error message refers to a file in the source code, which naturally, you can't find (unless of course, the nullDC devs put the source code up for grabs and you actually understand enough about raw code to make something out of it).

 

I say try renaming the nullDC executable to Chankast.exe, since the developer of the cheat program says that it should work that way, too. It's not like the program is going to blow up your computer just because you were experimenting with stuff.

[Mike Labine]

Is there any way to fix the bug?

[Agozer]

Dose the BIOS work fine? (start the emulator without an image)

 

If the BIOS doesn't boot properly, the bug isn't in the game or the emulator, but rather in your BIOS files or computer specs? Also, I hope you are using the latest Beta version of nullDC (i.e. 1.0.0 BETA 1.6).

[Mike Labine]

Well, I changed the plugins, and at least it loads, but the game is really wierd and buggy, the screen just flashes different colors...

[Agozer]

What are your computers specs like?

[Mike Labine]

I actually use a laptop, so I have no idea... They're not too bad, I assume I would be able to play a dremcast game... Also, the colors only flash during the opening sequence. When the in-game graphics load, they are very jagged polygons.

Edited November 8, 2007 by Mike Labine

[Agozer]

Your graphics chip is most likely the culprit. What make/model is that chip?

[Mike Labine]

How should I check?

Also, it still says the errors on the console about the system control regs.

[Agozer]

Start --> Run, type dxdiag, press Enter. Check the Display tab in the program that runs.

[Mike Labine]

Intel 945GM? Is that what I'm looking for?

[Agozer]

Yes, and it's pretty much what I feared you would say. To put it bluntly, Intels's chips are by far the worst integrated chips you can have. Sure, it plays PC games relatively well, but as soon as you move to emulation, problems start piling up.

 

Having said that, you won't get any Dreamcast emulator working properly with that hardware without resorting to a dirty trick or two. The Intel chips fail at Dreamcast emulation because they do not support a graphics technique called Transform&Lighting in hardware.

 

The only thing you can do is to google a program called 3DAnalyze and enable "emulate hardware T&L caps". Then run the DC emulator and the game. I can't say if this helps, but according to other reports, this is the only way to make Dreamcast emulators show you more than just a mess of colorful shapes.

[Mike Labine]

If I was supposed to select the nullDC exe as the file in 3D-Analyze, then it's not working...