PSVita News: Alpha build of Flycast port released allowing you to play some Dreamcast titles – 21 games currently considered Playable!
For quite some months, Rinnegatamante has been working on a Dreamcast emulator for the Vita despite the console being a 6th generation one like the PlayStation 2. Thankfully, these efforts have been reasonably successful and now, an alpha build of the Flycast emulator is out for the PSVita & PSTV!
What is Flycast? What about the PSVita port?
Flycast is a multi-platform Dreamcast emulator based upon reicast and is the base for Dreamcast emulation efforts on the Vita. Chosen due to the fact that it already runs quite well on ARM devices, Flycast received some modifications in order to work better on the PSVita considering its limited hardware.
These modifications include:
- Disabling the MMU due to the fact that VitaSDK does not have support for some required functions
- By disabling the MMU, some compatibility is sacrificed for better performance. Due to this, Rinnegatamante provides 3 binaries which have Self-Modifying code checks enabled to varying degrees (disabled, limited and full) as such checks depend on MMU functionality.
- VitaSDK is the SDK used to build the Flycast emulator for the Vita
- The Dreamcast’s SH4 core was downclocked to 40% of its original clockspeed
- The Flycast graphics renderer was re-written in order to fully utilise vitaGL’s capabilities thus improving performance
What games can I play using Flycast on the PSVita?
Thanks to community efforts, a compatibility list has been drawn up which allows one to check which games are playable. According to this list, which is currently made up of 102 games, there are 21 playable titles which include:
- Aqua GT
- Spiderman (2000)
- GigaWing & GigaWing 2
- Death Crimson
- Fist of the North Star
- Chu Chu Rocket
- Power Stone
- Grandia II
- Capcom vs SNK and Capcom vs SNK 2
- Mr Driller among other titles
Conclusion
You may download the alpha (PoC) build of Flycast for the PlayStation Vita by following the link below to its VitaDB link. To learn more about this Flycast port, its PSX-Place release thread can be consulted with a link to its game compatibility list also provided.
Flycast-vita VitaDB Page (download link): https://vitadb.rinnegatamante.it/#/info/605
Flcyast-vita PSX-Place Thread (more information): https://www.psx-place.com/threads/release-flycast-vita-dreamcast-emulator-for-psvita-pstv.32449/
Flycast-vita compatibility list: https://flycast.rinnegatamante.it/#
Rinnegatamante’s Patreon (donations): https://www.patreon.com/Rinnegatamante
Here we go again…
Tanx we waiting for ps2 on vita
Probably never gonna happend :/
Its not a time that we depend on.
Its a team, that we depend on.
With your good help, together we can make progress
go as fast as we want to
.
Welcome! 🙂
VITA LIVES, BABY
Vita is 7th gen not 6th. It only came out in 2012 and the ps2 is from 2001. Theres a teeeeny time difference there
Playstation vita 4ever people can be free! Thought this was impossible.
Only i have very small menu in game – not possible to see anything?