New to homebrew/emulaters

[dc.hack]

I'm new to homebrew/emulaters. Can someone explain what this is, including what an image is and everything else. Thanks!

[Christuserloeser]

Emulators are programs that simulate other hardware - e.g. make your Dreamcast think it's a NeoGeo or PlayStation.

Homebrew is software made by amateur programmers. That includes games, apps, etc.

In most cases emulators are done by amateur programmers in their spare time (exceptions: Bleem!cast, Nintendo Wii, etc.). That doesn't mean they are amateurish done, but it does mean that developing needs more time than a professional team would need.


Images are copies of a precompiled disc.

Similar to your HDD they need a certain structure. In this case boot sector 'IP.BIN' and actual Dreamcast program 1ST_READ.BIN plus everything else you or whoever has put on it.

You download an image and burn it with the proper program, e.g. Nero, DiscJuggler, Alcohol120% or BootDreams.

BootDreams also creates images - and it's freeware!

The standard format for Dreamcast images is DiscJuggler's *.CDI format. This format can be burned with DiscJuggler itself, Alcohol120% or BootDreams.

Nero doesn't understand this format.


A while back I wrote a tutorial on how to create and burn these images in a few minutes:

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=21631


Clicking on the 'scenedicate' link in my sig will give you a good example of a Dreamcast image.

You can also download a load of images at http://www.dcevolution.net

[dc.hack]

So an image is the files you burn, which the DC can run?

[Christuserloeser]

Yep.


*.CDI images are the files that are ready to burn with a burning program.

Plain files are the program and data files itself, and images contain the plain files.