If you thought the PS Vita couldn’t get any better, here’s something for you.
Developers Rinnegatamante and Bythos have released Flycast 1.0 for the PS Vita, a port of Flyinghead’s Dreamcast emulator of the same name. It’s been a while since we last mentioned Flycast, specifically when Rinnegatamante released an alpha build almost 2 years ago. With this 1.0 release, 50% of tested games so far are playable. The developers showcase Sonic Adventure running at a respectable 20-25 FPS on the PS Vita (video below).
The release is caught in some minor drama, as some beta testers had apparently leaked a beta earlier than its intended release. As a consequence Rinnegatamante has stated he will not be working on this emulator any further. This isn’t to say the emulator won’t receive any additional updates, but these most likely won’t be coming from Rinne.
What is Flycast for PS Vita
Flycast is a multi-platform Sega Dreamcast, Naomi, Naomi 2, and Atomiswave emulator derived from reicast.
This PS Vita Port is a fork made by Rinnegatamante and Bythos.
With some optimizations, some games reach a playable state, such as Sonic Adventure and Shenmue being showcased in the videos below. The compatibility list currently gives about 50% of tested games as playable or better, which is pretty great. (Shenmue isn’t considered as playable in the compatibility list, although it does look close from the video)
Among playable games with Flycast Vita are popular titles such as Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Phantasy Star Online, Jet Set Radio, Ikaruga, Skies of Arcadia, Street fighter 3 3rd Strike, Metropolis Street Racer, Resident Evil code Veronica, The house of the Dead 2, Power Stone 2, Sonic Adventure (1 & 2), and many more.
What’s new in Flycast 1.0
From the changelog:
- Updated to latest upstream version.
- Moved to standalone version of the emulator.
- Now SMC modes are offered as option (Self Modifying Code Checks).
- Added an option to adjust downclock ratio.
- Implemented NVMEM support.
- Implemented exception handlers. (Faster texture updates code path and faster dynarec code path).
- Added possibility to swap between GLES2 (Simple) and GLES3 based shaders.
- Added support for multiple mountpoints for roms and cheats (ux0, uma0, imc0, xmc0).
- Added optional NEON support in DynaRec.
- Moved to kubridge usage for DynaRec implementation.
- Updated to latest vitaGL version.
Download FlyCast, Dreamcast Emulator for PS Vita
You can download Flycast from the developer’s github here.
The developers share some tips and tweaks to get the best out of the emulator, over at this thread on psx-place (you’ll also find an insanely long credits list there, in case you were wondering how many people it takes to help on such a project). Please note that given the nature of the emulated console, you shouldn’t expect perfect emulation.
Installation Process
- Install kubridge and FdFix by copying kubridge.skprx and fd_fix.skprx to your taiHEN plugins folder (usually ux0:tai) and adding two entries to your config.txt under *KERNEL. [NOTE: You need to update kubridge if you had it already installed for previously released Android ports].
- Install libshacccg.suprx, if you don’t have it already, by following this guide.
- Install Flycast.vpk using VitaShell.
- (Optional but strongly recommended) Dump your own DC bios and place it inside ux0:data/flycast/data.
Source: VitaDB
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