slim writes "This site has the first tools I've seen for homebrew development on the Sega Dreamcast VMU -- file specs, firmware specs, an assembler, a disassembler and an emulator, as well as source code for a Tetris clone. The VMU is the Dreamcast's memory-card-come-mini-gameboy gadget."
Re:how do you connect to a PC?
by
slim
·
· Score: 3
The go-between between a VMU and a Dreamcast is the joypad cable (the VMU slots into the joypad). The go-between between a PC and a DC is... the Internet, via the bundled modem. --
I'm afraid I don't have a whole lot of technical know-how when it comes to hardware systems. Would this allow you to create a Dreamcast-compatible system?
Erm, all it allows you to do is to write software for the memory card. The Dreamcast memory card has a little processor on board, an LCD screen and a some buttons, so you can run mini-applications on it.
I suppose the specs these guys have worked out would help you clone the VMU if you wanted to. --
check this site out, saw it a week ago
by
harhar
·
· Score: 2
-- $var = <STDIN>
$var =~ s/\\$//;
this is slashchomp
Re:check this site out, saw it a week ago
by
slim
·
· Score: 2
Yup, but the only tool on there is Dream Animator, which ain't a "proper" development tool, unless you also count Macromedia Director as a proper development tool. The docs are pretty good though. --
But if history is any indicator just being able to hack a console dosen't mean people will. Look at the Playstation. Sure there are loads of people putting mod chips in and copying games but there are also serious hacker possibilities there too.
A quick search through the web will turn up a bunch of places with libraries and tools for writing your own PSX games. Yet all I've seen from that is a few weak tetris clones, a half-finished vertical scrolling shooter (I.E. Galaxan) and a bunch of worthless demos that do little more than brag that they managed to compile something for the Playstation.
So just because the tools are out there dosen't mean the geeks will embrace. I'm still waiting for the first console to be open enough to truly attract the hacks. Personally I'm hoping the PSXII will be well enough documented quickly enough that we get independant creations going quick.
The trouble is, writing a console game nowadays is an enormous task. With the PS2 coming along, games companies are having to double and treble the size of a team, just to create the more detailed models, etc.
On the other side of the coin, the average Gameboy title takes 6 person-months to complete. That's well within the resources of a hobbyist. Look for Gameboy hacks instead of PS hacks, and you'll find a whole load of interesting stuff. The Dreamcast VMU is less complex than a Gameboy: projects will by necessity be small, and therefore plentiful. --
Personally I'm hoping the PSXII will be well enough documented quickly enough that we get independant creations going quick.
I think you're forgetting what a challenge it is to make games today. Most major game budgets run in the millions, and can have 20-30 people working on them for over a year. I just can't see any one person making a game of that calibre. This is why you see cheezy tetris clones.
As for the PSII, well, I've heard reports of major companies saying that programming for it is gonna be a bitch, so to any hobbists out there wanting to hack away on it and provide something useful, all I have to say is "good luck".
Other Dreamcast development
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3
DC hacking may have a few dissimilarities from PSX hacking.
DC has a slightly lower "technology" point of entry.
DC's API makes a greater attempt to be similar to desktop gfx development, than PSX (given in PSX debut time-frame, there are fewer desktops besides niche SGI to be x-platform with).
DC has more x-platform (from desktop to DC) titles.
Early attempts can be unauthorized hack ports from desktop. hax0rs who already did the work on desktop version can leverage the R&D (mostly submission of random hex value:) ) and try their luck on DC version.
After critical mass of DC hack of desktop port, the hacking community can grow and turn DC native.
// OpenGL support
Would like to see greater and wider OGL support on DC.
DC's internal architecture is relatively suited to function-to-function match of low level (non-HW TnL) OGL.
Corrinne Yu 3D Game Engine Programmer
Hebrew Development for the Dreamcast VMU?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
So are the documents in yiddish or something?
Does the VMU/Dreamcast plug have some sort of sheath?
NOTE: I don't mean anything at all by this. It's just a play on words.
...at the work these people do to figure out the internals of the console. Determining what the registers in a custom graphics/sound/CD-ROM VLSI chip cannot be all that easy. It's not like this information is up on the Sony/Nintendo/Sega web site--they won't tell you that bit 0 of register 5 in chip U2 is the VBI flag, let alone how it's mapped on the address bus. These guys disassemble code, look at hardware, probe--hell, I don't even know how half of it gets figured out--but they do, and they deserve some props.
Hardware hacking has always been, for me, one of the most exciting aspects of computers, and has been an integral part since day one. Stuff like this blows me away.
Speaking of cheesy Tetris clones...
by
Mr+Z
·
· Score: 4
I just finished my own cheesy Tetris clone for the Intellivision! I guess I've made my rite of passage.
BTW, if anyone's interested, I have an Intellivision-compatible Software Development Kit as well. :-)
Knee jerk reaction off the top ideas
by
n0b0dy
·
· Score: 2
1.Corewars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2.Beowulf cluster of these little guys 3.Palm sized version of George Orwell's 1984 4.
-n0b0dy
Obligatory Pedantic Grammar Post
by
generic-man
·
· Score: 2
From the Slashdot blurb:
The VMU is the Dreamcast's memory-card-come-mini-gameboy gadget.
Disregarding the error in representing "Game Boy" as two capitalized words, the word "come" isn't used here. The word "cum" (stop giggling) is used to connect two nouns.
Strangely enough, Webster's doesn't even display that "other" meaning when you search for "cum".
The still-alive-and-kicking-ass 2D genre is not as easily digitized. While Pulstar, Sokyugurentai, Septerra Core and others show that you can achieve magical results with pre-rendered 3D graphics in a 2D engine, some are not. I'd like to see someone try to 3D model or digitize an average KoF background and characters, or the graphics for Metal Slug 2/X. And you're only talking about graphics. Sound effects and music are digital, yes, but it still takes a good amount of skill to produce audio that doesn't sound like someone making mouth noises into a cheap microphone. Or to produce a soundtrack that can get the heart pumping, then break it in two.
-- --
Re:how do you connect to a PC?
by
rappybaby
·
· Score: 3
There are 3rd party memory cards that are capable of being hooked up to a computer. One can hook this up to his computer and download games or whatever and then hook up the memory card to his VMU and copy them over.
Re:OT: resp to too many people to make games
by
brumby
·
· Score: 2
Resp to several posts of it takes too many people, game-making not for the masses, hobbyist anymore.
One of the recurring debates on one of our internal mailing lists (at *mutter* games house) is how essential the technology is to the game-play. The fancier the tech, the more resources you need to develop for it though.
I wonder how many games projects fizzle out because they're attempting to produce Quake 4.9 with half a dozen people on weekends, instead of looking into something like an RPG with a real background. (I've worked on a pre-alpha version of an adventure style game with scanned pencil sketches and stick figures for graphics, and had it quite playable before we started putting in real, filmed graphics.)
My opinion on this is that the tech gives you more choices for the game-play, but you don't need to use all of it, to have a fun game. Maybe a dev kit for a small device like this will get a lot more use, just because there will be far less work involved in trying out a game idea.
Then again, I've been known to have the reflection of the dawn light stop me from playing NetHack on a vt220 so I guess that shows my minimum spec for having fun.:-)
Re:OT: resp to too many people to make games
by
slim
·
· Score: 2
Part of the problem is that when people come up with Tetris clones, they get whinged at -- somehow they're supposed to develop sprawling RPGs, FPSs or action-adventure games.
My favourite Playstation game is Super Puzzle Fighter: basically a very polished Puyo-puyo clone, with slightly different rules.
That's a project that a small hobbyist group might have a general stab at, and get a good prototype going in a couple of months.
Of course, coding a game like that is the easy bit. Inventing the play mechanics, balancing the various characters, drawing those gorgeous, gorgeous graphics, writing that catchy music: that's the tricky bit. --
Slashdot Mirror
The go-between between a VMU and a Dreamcast is the joypad cable (the VMU slots into the joypad). The go-between between a PC and a DC is... the Internet, via the bundled modem.
--
Finally, after all these years someone has created a competitor for the C64. Maybe It can also drive my Lego Mindstorms :-)
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I'm afraid I don't have a whole lot of technical know-how when it comes to hardware systems. Would this allow you to create a Dreamcast-compatible system?
Erm, all it allows you to do is to write software for the memory card. The Dreamcast memory card has a little processor on board, an LCD screen and a some buttons, so you can run mini-applications on it.
I suppose the specs these guys have worked out would help you clone the VMU if you wanted to.
--
http://www.consoledev.com/dcdev/
$var = <STDIN>
$var =~ s/\\$//;
this is slashchomp
But if history is any indicator just being able to hack a console dosen't mean people will. Look at the Playstation. Sure there are loads of people putting mod chips in and copying games but there are also serious hacker possibilities there too.
A quick search through the web will turn up a bunch of places with libraries and tools for writing your own PSX games. Yet all I've seen from that is a few weak tetris clones, a half-finished vertical scrolling shooter (I.E. Galaxan) and a bunch of worthless demos that do little more than brag that they managed to compile something for the Playstation.
So just because the tools are out there dosen't mean the geeks will embrace. I'm still waiting for the first console to be open enough to truly attract the hacks. Personally I'm hoping the PSXII will be well enough documented quickly enough that we get independant creations going quick.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
http://www.booyaka.com/
// lower point of entry
:) ) and try their luck on DC version.
DC hacking may have a few dissimilarities from PSX hacking.
DC has a slightly lower "technology" point of entry.
DC's API makes a greater attempt to be similar to desktop gfx development, than PSX (given in PSX debut time-frame, there are fewer desktops besides niche SGI to be x-platform with).
DC has more x-platform (from desktop to DC) titles.
Early attempts can be unauthorized hack ports from desktop. hax0rs who already did the work on desktop version can leverage the R&D (mostly submission of random hex value
After critical mass of DC hack of desktop port, the hacking community can grow and turn DC native.
// OpenGL support
Would like to see greater and wider OGL support on DC.
DC's internal architecture is relatively suited to function-to-function match of low level (non-HW TnL) OGL.
Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
So are the documents in yiddish or something?
Does the VMU/Dreamcast plug have some sort of sheath?
NOTE: I don't mean anything at all by this. It's just a play on words.
...at the work these people do to figure out the internals of the console. Determining what the registers in a custom graphics/sound/CD-ROM VLSI chip cannot be all that easy. It's not like this information is up on the Sony/Nintendo/Sega web site--they won't tell you that bit 0 of register 5 in chip U2 is the VBI flag, let alone how it's mapped on the address bus. These guys disassemble code, look at hardware, probe--hell, I don't even know how half of it gets figured out--but they do, and they deserve some props.
Hardware hacking has always been, for me, one of the most exciting aspects of computers, and has been an integral part since day one. Stuff like this blows me away.
I just finished my own cheesy Tetris clone for the Intellivision! I guess I've made my rite of passage.
BTW, if anyone's interested, I have an Intellivision-compatible Software Development Kit as well. :-)
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
1.Corewars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2.Beowulf cluster of these little guys
3.Palm sized version of George Orwell's 1984
4.
-n0b0dy
From the Slashdot blurb:
The VMU is the Dreamcast's memory-card-come-mini-gameboy gadget.
Disregarding the error in representing "Game Boy" as two capitalized words, the word "come" isn't used here. The word "cum" (stop giggling) is used to connect two nouns.
Strangely enough, Webster's doesn't even display that "other" meaning when you search for "cum".
For more information, click here.
The still-alive-and-kicking-ass 2D genre is not as easily digitized. While Pulstar, Sokyugurentai, Septerra Core and others show that you can achieve magical results with pre-rendered 3D graphics in a 2D engine, some are not. I'd like to see someone try to 3D model or digitize an average KoF background and characters, or the graphics for Metal Slug 2/X.
And you're only talking about graphics. Sound effects and music are digital, yes, but it still takes a good amount of skill to produce audio that doesn't sound like someone making mouth noises into a cheap microphone. Or to produce a soundtrack that can get the heart pumping, then break it in two.
--
There are 3rd party memory cards that are capable of being hooked up to a computer. One can hook this up to his computer and download games or whatever and then hook up the memory card to his VMU and copy them over.
One of the recurring debates on one of our internal mailing lists (at *mutter* games house) is how essential the technology is to the game-play. The fancier the tech, the more resources you need to develop for it though.
I wonder how many games projects fizzle out because they're attempting to produce Quake 4.9 with half a dozen people on weekends, instead of looking into something like an RPG with a real background. (I've worked on a pre-alpha version of an adventure style game with scanned pencil sketches and stick figures for graphics, and had it quite playable before we started putting in real, filmed graphics.)
My opinion on this is that the tech gives you more choices for the game-play, but you don't need to use all of it, to have a fun game. Maybe a dev kit for a small device like this will get a lot more use, just because there will be far less work involved in trying out a game idea.
Then again, I've been known to have the reflection of the dawn light stop me from playing NetHack on a vt220 so I guess that shows my minimum spec for having fun. :-)
Part of the problem is that when people come up with Tetris clones, they get whinged at -- somehow they're supposed to develop sprawling RPGs, FPSs or action-adventure games.
My favourite Playstation game is Super Puzzle Fighter: basically a very polished Puyo-puyo clone, with slightly different rules.
That's a project that a small hobbyist group might have a general stab at, and get a good prototype going in a couple of months.
Of course, coding a game like that is the easy bit. Inventing the play mechanics, balancing the various characters, drawing those gorgeous, gorgeous graphics, writing that catchy music: that's the tricky bit.
--