Chankast Alpha 0.1 Released

Chanka or Chankast the very highly anticipated Dreamcast Emulator for Windows has been released. :)[br][br]The Emulator itself comes in 3 flavours, a normal alpha, new gfx and a capcom hack download.[br][br]Info from the official Site [br][br] Chankast is an advanced SEGA DREAMCAST emulator for x86 platforms.[br][br]This project started 3 months ago, it's a joint venture between baktery, unai and garrofi. It hasn't been easy, a lot of hours and headaches, but we think it's time to release an alpha version. We hope you will be surprise, you can play commercial games at a decent speed with a 2ghz CPU. Chankast is a very fast emulator with no hle parts.[br][br]We haven't done this emulator to promote piracy, it's a tribute to the great DC.[br][br]The emulator is far from perfect, expect new releases with more speed, better graphics, better sound, and more compatibility :) [br][br]Download from Here

[Modified 05/29/04 14:56:13 by DCEmu_Newsposter]

Fantastic News :)

games need to be selfboot and support the VGA cable

Also, WinCE games do not work... so don't waste ur time trying to boot those

Hmmm.

Windows XP SP1
AMD 2000XP+
32mB Savage DDR GFX
etc etc

And not able to get Chanka to run anything ???

How disappointed am I :-[

But I will try each new release

Good work Chanka Team

Wow! Very very nice first release! Just tested it on Sonic Adventure, and only has a few flaws!

I am just going to try it on my desktop PC too.

which is

Windows XP SP1
Direct X 9.0b
AMD 2000+ XP
64mb nVidia GF3

And see if its a Graphics card thing !!

wouldnt be surprised at all as this savage is rubbish on my laptop ;D

Cool, Will have to dump my bios so and give it a run again some homebrew

It simply crashes my machine. As soon as i hit Init or whatever. (im using the newgfx version)

Windows XP SP1
Dual Athlon 2200+ MPs
1GB DDR ECC ram
ATI 9800 XT

Also, can someone elaborate as to the differences between the three releases?

Thanks for posting im curious to see what the lowest spec machine is that will run Chankast

For the EMU to work, do you have to dump the bios from the DC or no? I'm curious if the dump has to become a hybrid of your PC hardware and the DC's?

Thanks!

i think there might be some cd-drive issues.
after the blue swirl the cd is spinning and the cpu usage is full, then it crashes.

im using an athlon xp 1800+ with a radeon 9000 and 256MB of ram.
also i used windows xp and the cd/dvd drives i tried are a LG DRD8160B and a MSI MS-8340

my dumps are good, some people reported they got some game to run after using my tool to dump their files.

[quote author=speud link=board=DCPCEmu;num=1085834201;start=0#13 date=05/29/04 at 20:41:22]i think there might be some cd-drive issues[/quote]

Definately there are cd drive issues...

when i'm running Capcom vs Snk 2, the game runs almost full speed once its cached files off the drive, and only really slows down once it has pull data off the cd again for splash screens, menus and voices....
One can hope they release a version where you can run the games off CD images like some of the PSX emu's do.
this would eliminate such slowdowns, but i expect they dont want to go down this route for piracy reasons.

you CAN run the emulator with a CD image. what you need to do is mount the image with a program like Daemon Tools, which creates a virtual CD-Rom on your hard drive. for all intents & purposes the PC sees it as a CD-Rom, and shows it in your "My Computer" folder. then you will need to restart the emulator and select the "new" CD-Rom in the options.

i noticed that games were slowing down when they needed to access the CD, and came to the same conclusion as you: the slowdowns should be reduced by running the games from the hard drive. and it does help. it does not solve the problem completely, but it is much less dire.

All of this happens becasue never read the posts and the news. All that Chankast can do was perfectly explained days ago... heheeee it's here !!!! Great for Chanka Team.

I having a problem running the three Chankast emulator please some one help me out..

My specs:

1GHz Athlon processor
200 Mhz fron side bus
256 SDRAM
Nvidia G-force 4 64MB

I got this EROOR message when I am loading either one of the three emulators. '' your cpu doesn't support SSE''. please help me and explains what's SSE?
I known my PC do not meet the speed of the chankast specs yet .. but why do I have the error message?

For those whom help me I thanks in advanced..

ran expendable on this emulator,runs great,i think full speed.i have a p4 2.4ghz,512mb ram,128mb geforce 5200 video card.hardly any choppiness

[quote author=john007 link=board=DCPCEmu;num=1085834201;start=15#17 date=05/30/04 at 05:47:21]I having a problem running the three Chankast emulator please some one help me out..

My specs: Â*

1GHz Athlon processor
200 Mhz fron side bus
256 SDRAM
Nvidia G-force 4 Â*64MB

I got this EROOR message when I am loading either one of the three emulators. '' your cpu doesn't support SSE''. Â*please help me and explains what's SSE?
I known my PC do not meet the speed of the chankast specs yet .. but why do I have the error message?

For those whom help me I thanks in advanced..
[/quote]

I also get the "your cpu doesn't support SSE" error. Â*

My pc: Â*1.4 ghz Athlon, 512mb pc 2100 ddr, 128mb Radeon 9800, Santa Cruz (sound card).

I'm sure the Athlon has SSE instructions (or something similar) and I see other Athlon users able to use the emu. Â*

edit: mmm... guess Athlon T-birds don't have SSE instructions. Eh.. I was planning on upgrading my cpu around august (to an athlon xp 2500+ or greater).. guess I'll have to wait until then. Looking forward to trying this out.

Need help with this file cd_rom.dll in each of the three emulators has one. it's the file the same? so do I still need the other two? or deletes the other 2 and keep one is enough?

In each folder has one cd_rom.dll --- for example---

chankast_alpha_capcom_hack (cd_rom.dll)

chankast_alpha (cd_rom.dll)

chankast_alpha_new_gfx (cd_rom.dll)
-----------------------------------------------------------
If I am planning to put in one folder called Chankast Emulators I keep the three applications of course but the cd_rom.dll will overwritted. It's ok to do so??
Or I need to put in three seperated folders each with a cd_rom.dll?

Any suggestions thanks alot..

all cd_rom.dll files are identical!! u can do what you thought :)

How come I hit Configure Controls and NOTHIGN pops up... I can't play.. PLEASE help

HI, i can't get a game to run. The emu loads fine.

when i click init the audio player bios thingy comes up. i have a self boot game mounted using daemon but when i go into the bios menu and click Play but it just says Please Insert Game Disc.

any ideas what i am doing wrong?

got chanka running great, problem is the bios keeps reseting as far as time/date and language. another thing is to get it to speed up i have to resize the window. if not it only goes bout 8fps.

system specs:
3ghz p4 231X13
512MB RAM
9800xt 418/371

wonderful job! how bout fullscreen tho?

also can u explain technical differences between the different releases?

i have a problem with it when ever i double click on the chankast_alpha.exe program i get an error wessage that says: this application failed to start because d3d9.dll was not found. what is that file?

the is a file in directx 9. so u have dx9 installed?

are there any command parameters for chankast so i can set it up in myhtpc?

Wow :o , Great first release, Worked first time on my pc, no problems.

Windows Xp Pro
Pentium 4 3ghz
Geforce 5600
784 ddr ram (i think)

Keep up the good work.

I have the Bios, I am not violating the rules....

taken out due to flaming - Christuserloeser

Hello, i know im new here but i was desperate to help out you guys :) I researched on the errors you've encountered and here are the answers :)

1- I click 'Init' and the program freezes.

The BIOS you have dumped/downloaded is bad. Try redumping/downloading it again. The BIOS should be 2,048KB (I have seen 4MB and other sized BIOS' - these do not work).

2- I start up the emu, and when I try to run something, it just keeps taking me to the time setup screen.

You havn't dumped/downloaded the dc_flash.bin file. Although the dreamcast/emulator creates one, it does not seem to work (this could probably be fixed in future releases). Delete the one you have already and dump/download it again. The dc_flash.bin file determines your dreamcasts region so it will affect the swirls colour.

3- I try to load a game and get the following message:
This game does not support the AV cable that is currently connected to the main console. Turn off the power and replace the AV cable

The game isn't VGA compatable. Skies of Arcadia by echelon released the PAL (european) version of the game, which ISN'T VGA compatable. Try to rip the NTSC version of the game (USA/JAP) as that is VGA compatable.

This goes for any game that does not support VGA at boot (including Soul Calibur, although that is VGA compatable).

4- SSE Error when I tried to start it.

Unfortunatly, you need a better computer to run chankast. I think it's your processors limitations, but its definatly your hardware that can't run the emulator. Sorry :(

5- MMU Error when I try to boot.

I'm guessing you're trying to play homebrew games (or the few games that use MMU). MMU is a memory mapping system used in a few games and homebrew. Unfortunatly Chankast does not support this system yet. Future releases will probably fix that.

These are the problems I've encountered and they are how I fixed them (I have also tried my dreamcast on a VGA screen so I know about that AV error). Also another thing. I wouldn't use the graphics hack version of the game:
Explained:

Normal version: I recommend you use this one if you want to run most things properly.

Capcom Hack version: Only use this version when playing Marvel vs Capcom/2, as that's what it was meant for (i think). If a capcom game doesn't work in the normal version, try it in the capcom hack.

New GFX version: This one just brings out sprites in games and makes all 3D models solid (not transparent). A perfect example is in the dreamcast bios itself. The controller, vmu, music note and clock are supposed to be slightly transparent. But because the writing everywhere use sprites, they are either transparent (which is a bug that needs to be fixed) or simply 'not there.' Even 2D games shouldn't be run with this as it creates an 'invisible box' around the sprite, and makes anything behind it invisible too.

Hope this helps most of the questions here, any other errors just post them here and i'll try my best :)

hmm... well how about fullscreen then?

dont think there is a full screen yet

[quote author=vipor231 link=board=DCPCEmu;num=1085834201;start=30#31 date=05/31/04 at 23:43:40]dont think there is a full screen yet[/quote]

that just doesn't make sence

Great emulator! I just tried it last night with capcom vs snk 2. Yeah something not right with the menu and sometimes the game exits on me. But good job!!!

My PC spec:
XP 2400+
512M RAM
Win XP Pro
GeForce FX5200
I use alcohol 120% for the virtual drive.

Can someone teach me how to capture screenshot in Chankast?

[quote author=Alboma link=board=DCPCEmu;num=1085834201;start=30#33 date=06/01/04 at 02:22:01]Great emulator! I just tried it last night with capcom vs snk 2. Yeah something not right with the menu and sometimes the game exits on me. But good job!!!

My PC spec:
XP 2400+
512M RAM
Win XP Pro
GeForce FX5200
I use alcohol 120% for the virtual drive.

Can someone teach me how to capture screenshot in Chankast?
[/quote]Hit the Alt and Print Screen keys.

Now, open the image in MSPaint, or an image program of your choice, and hit the Control and V keys (paste the image to the program).

Now save the image, and you're done.

you can also use a program for that job.Hypersnap DX
you can find it here: http://www.hyperionics.com/