Tell me about Dreamcast...

[figoagogo]

Just bought a Dreamcast of Ebay... I have few questions

Are the fans normally quite loud - the one I bought is loud
What is the best output I can get - S-Video/RGB/VGA?*
*If using VGA are light guns compatible with LCD monitors?

Fianally one of the discs the guy sent my wont load, its badly scratched - do you think one of those DiscDr cleaning products will fix the disc - never had to use one before cause non of my DVDs/CD/GAMES have any marks on them

 

[unique]

Just bought a Dreamcast of Ebay... I have few questions

Are the fans normally quite loud - the one I bought is loud
What is the best output I can get - S-Video/RGB/VGA?*
*If using VGA are light guns compatible with LCD monitors?

Fianally one of the discs the guy sent my wont load, its badly scratched - do you think one of those DiscDr cleaning products will fix the disc - never had to use one before cause non of my DVDs/CD/GAMES have any marks on them

the fan aint quite, it sounds like a vacum cleaner strapped aboard the plane about to lift off at the start of top gun

you can get rgb scart leads and a vga lead, obviously these will be better than svideo. i just ordered a vga lead from the states this week

http://www.jandaman.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=DC

thats the link courtesy of "davidgilmour" from the forums

 

[Tejstar]

Yep go for VGA, the graphics with this mode rival some current gen games. Oh and congrats on the purchase, the DC is one of my favorite consoles.

 

[CAS FAN]

Yes one of the only downsides of the DC is it's fan noise and noisy GD Rom drive.

I run mine via VGA through my PJ - the only thing is that some games don't run in VGA which is a pain.

As far as I know there's no DC compatible gun that works on an LCD screen. There's a gun designed for the likes of the PS2 & X-Box which can be used on any screen (uses a sensor placed on top of the screen to track the gun) but I don't think that this is DC compatible.

 

[Colgate7110]

Yes one of the only downsides of the DC is it's fan noise and noisy GD Rom drive.

The other downside then being that the batteries in the VMUs last precisely six seconds after fitting them

Seriously though mattrixdesign2, the fans are loud on the DC. I don't know whether it's just a bad fan or the casing design but I seem to remember it being a fairly annoying noise!

As for the video output, while the guys are recommending VGA, don't be put off by the quality of the RGB signal - I ran that into my TV and it was brilliant too. Perhaps not as good as a VGA signal, but a number of the games kicked the PS2 into touch... If you have the RGB lead just now, you'd be as well trying it before spending the cash on the VGA lead which could be spent on games instead in the meantime. The visuals on some of the DC games were spectacular and I'm not sure if you own any other consoles (i.e. don't want to knock your games knowledge) but a lot of us Xbox PGR fans had our first taste of the series as Metropolis Street Racer/MSR on the DC.

Cheers,

Colin

 

[CAS FAN]

Indeed MSR was a lovely looking game for it's time and it blew everything else away on release!

F355 was also a fave of mine and that too had great graphics. It strived to be pretty realistic and was quite hard with the aids turned off.

Shenmue 1 & 2 are both gorgeous games with deep and enjoyable gameplay. The stories just suck you in along side the almost living and breathing environments. You really have empathy with the characters in these games as well and I can't rate them highly enough.

Virtua Tennis 1&2 - better than the PS2 versions IMO and both worth checking out!

Crazy Taxi 1 & 2 - another couple of great, fun games that you can always stick on for a quick addictive blast!

Headhunter - a pretty good 3rd person adventure - reminds me a lot of the PS2 GTA games although I prefer the graphics on this.

Power Stone 1 & 2 - both excellent with PS2 being the best of the 2. PS2 is fairly rare but it's one of my fave ever DC games!

Daytona USA - fantastic conversion of the coin op which adds some new tracks and glorious, fast, smooth & detailled graphics. My fave version of this classic game!

Anyway my apologies for straying off topic there for a second.

I would say that the disc doctor should work as long as they are just surface scratches and nothing too deep.

 

[Thekop]

The Dreamcast was my first venture on the net, especially with playing Quake 3 Arena on-line. Truly awesome. It was way ahead of its time ( for a console ) But how it failed was one of the biggest mysteries of all time - in my view.
I've still got mine, with a mouse/keyboard and a few gamesl

Did any one here go on the Sega-Europe forum site ?

 

[AML]

The DC was also easy to hack!

I remember when a UK dreamcast mag released an issue with a disk that enabled you to play any game on any DC.

You put the disk in, let the DC run it, then take it out and put in another game. very easy!

I have a Jp DC and played US and UK games on it.
I remember that mag being pulled off the shelves, but not till I bought a couple!!

Still have those disks somewhere!

One other thing I love about the DC is that FPS on it like "Quake" allowed for the DC's keyboard and mouse to be used.

I still cant beleive that todays newest consoles force us to use pads to play FPS when they could so easely allow Keyboard/mouse conectivity.

 

[unique]

The DC was also easy to hack!

I remember when a UK dreamcast mag released an issue with a disk that enabled you to play any game on any DC.

You put the disk in, let the DC run it, then take it out and put in another game. very easy!

I have a Jp DC and played US and UK games on it.
I remember that mag being pulled off the shelves, but not till I bought a couple!!

Still have those disks somewhere!

One other thing I love about the DC is that FPS on it like "Quake" allowed for the DC's keyboard and mouse to be used.

I still cant beleive that todays newest consoles force us to use pads to play FPS when they could so easely allow Keyboard/mouse conectivity.

there were plenty sites at the time where u could download the bootdisc and other utilities to play vcd/mp3 and all sorts of emulators. with a bit of googling you might find they are still around. i only had dialup at the time but still managed to DL the stuff as the files were tiny. it was great that you didnt have to chip the hardware

and quake was cool on keyboard and mouse. i never gamed online tho

i just ordered a DC to VGA cable at the weekend so i can use the vga socket on my plasma, i was quite surprised you could still get stuff for it. you can get a DC second hand for less than £20 in gamestation and places like that. well worth it as the games are also around £5 second hand

 

[Tejstar]

The other downside then being that the batteries in the VMUs last precisely six seconds after fitting them

But if you keep the VMU's in the controller then they'll last longer!

 

[CrispyXUK]

Games can be hacked to run via VGA, check out dcforums.net

 

[drskhaled]

My DC's about to croke, boohoo. It resets after 10 minutes of play..ahh well. If i can be bothered at some point i'll give it a clean.
Yes the fan is noisey (funny really considering it had some kind of liquid cooling system i think). The vmu battery was abysmal, still worked plugged in but useless for mini games (actually sonic was the only game i had with seperate vmu minigames (chao pet game i think, never got to play itt as my battery ran out).
I sometime wonder why DC failed, guess they couldn't shake off the saturns failings. Shame really as the dc really addressed all the failings of the saturn, better design, graphics, interface, internet and innovative controller, as well as classic games. A rare case of where a top console which for so many reasons shouldd have ruled, flopped. A sad ending to sega's console history.

 

[Tejstar]

A sad ending to sega's console history.

Everything comes to an end at some point. At least Sega finished on a glorious high.

 

[CAS FAN]

Sega didn't die or lose out really. Instead they took the very prudent business decision to focus their business on what they do best - making games. The reason that I bought Sega consoles was purely because of their games. How good the console was didn't even come into it (which is why I find it odd today when people start getting excited over FLOPs and the like and saying that they are going to buy a certain console based on performance. Still that's another thread.) and infact their consoles were never the best made or even the most powerful. The SNES was more advanced than the Megadrive and better built but I still preferred the Megadrive games (only just though as I liked the SNES a lot too).

I spent my youth playing mainly Sega games in the arcades (Outrun, Afterburner, Power Drift, Super Hang On, Thunderbird, Galaxy Force2, Daytona, Crackdown, Sega Rally, Golden Axe etc.) and being able to play pretty good reproductions of these games at home was a bid draw for me!

Sega are alive and well still making classic games (Condemed for the 360 is looking great as we speak) and I think that they made the right move. I personally feel that Nintendo's strengths lie in making games as well, however they have also been very influential in the design of consoles over the years (much more so than Sega) so i'd say that they do have a lot to offer the console industry. It will be interesting to see if they follow Sega's path or keep fighting for market share against MS & Sony.