Sega Dreamcast

...We were heroes of the Sega world, having owned near enough all the consoles they have ever released and all the Sonic games ever conceived by the Sega game boffins.

Sega has always had a soft spot in my heart, with their Master Systems and Mega Drive consoles selling by the bucket load in the 80's you'd think they would have it easy. Tch tch, a darn shame Nintendo were around to steal their thunder.

Now this comes along, ...
...the Playstation's already dated graphics. Sega released the first ever 128bit console into the market a few months before the Sony Playstation 2 hoping to get a head start on the competition. Although a 128bit console like the other next generation machines such as the XBOX, production was halted early (6-8 months after it was released believe it or not) and software support died completely due to Sony's Playstation 2 hogging the limelight rendering ... more

"My gosh is that is that a Dreamcast in your bag or are you just pleased to see me?"

My mate has always been exaggerative when it came to me bringing old consoles over to his for us to play some vintage classic games. We were heroes of the Sega world, having owned near enough all the consoles they have ever released and all the Sonic games ever conceived by the Sega game boffins.

Sega has always had a soft spot in my heart, with their Master Systems and Mega Drive consoles selling by the bucket load in the 80's you'd think they would have it easy. Tch tch, a darn shame Nintendo were around to steal their thunder.

Now this comes along, Sega's most ambitious project ever in the form of a 128bit console that delivered for the first time 'clear, sharp, realistic 3D graphics on your television'. And yes it did, compared to the Playstation this was a welcome change to the Playstation's already dated graphics. Sega released the first ever 128bit console into the market a few months before the Sony Playstation 2 hoping to get a head start on the competition. Although a 128bit console like the other next generation machines such as the XBOX, production was halted early (6-8 months after it was released believe it or not) and software support died completely due to Sony's Playstation 2 hogging the limelight rendering this console obsolete. Because of this, I class it as a vintage console out of the territory of the other 128bit hitters.

The Dreamcast was Sega's last attempt at the console industry and are now solely software based, writing games for other systems after losing alot of money on their gamble with their ill-fated machine. But before it died, the Dreamcast had a few fantastic games made for it and it's graphical prowess is still rather good even by today's standards.

At first view this console is a little white box thing with a flip-lid to place games into it's disc drive and 4 ports on the front for the control pads. To be honest I don't know what to make of it, be it pleasing to the eye or as ugly as a toasted frog, my mind isn't made up. All I know is that I don't find it detesting, but it doesn't really catch my attention, pretty much an average looker. The symbol used for the Dreamcast is a swirly blue thing and frankly that's a nasty symbol for any machine.

The console is rather heavy, only beaten by the XBOX in that aspect. However it is only slightly bigger than a Gamecube. This gives me the impression there must be some seriously packed up hardware inside this bread bin.

So far only average looking, won't turn any heads but does it pack a punch underneath that white gown?

Processor: 200Mhz
This console uses the 128-Bit Hitachi SuperH4 processor. This processor type is usually used for personal digital assistants such as the Compaq IPAQ series. Hitachi updated it and made it faster for the Dreamcast to run it's games. At 200MHz you don't have to guess that it is no match for the other next generation 128bit consoles.

RAM: 16MB
Having only 16MB of RAM does seem like a bottleneck, however the Dreamcast seemed to manage fine with it and had some top notch games utilise it with little or no slow down. Based on standard DRAM technology (used for PCs at the time) it is cheap but cheerful!

Graphics: NEC/Videologic PowerVR2 8MB
Sega asked Videologic if they could use their graphics chip for the Dreamcast to power the 3D games that would run on it. At the time there were two competing graphics companies Videologic and 3DFX. Their fastest graphics chips were the PowerVR2 (for Videologic) and VooDoo2 (for 3DFX). They were evenly matched, but Sega plumped for Videologic because manufacturing with them was cheaper.

Audio: Yamaha Super Intelligent Sound 2MB
The sound chip was provided by Yamaha and it provided 64 channels of audio, 3D audio support and CD quality sound. The sound reproduction by the Dreamcast is of very high quality thanks to this chip, and it can even support Dolby Surround.

CD speed: 12x
Although it can read CDs perfectly well, the Dreamcast used an entirely new type of disc media in an attempt to stamp out software piracy that plagued Sony's Playstation 1. They worked with Yamaha to create the GD-ROM (GD stands for gigabyte disc) which stores 1,200MB of data rather than the 650MB of ordinary CDs. However the protection provided by this media was overcome within the first week of the console's release in Hong Kong and pirated games were being released on bog standard CDs for the public to buy.

Modem: 33.6kbps
The Dreamcast comes with a built-in 33.6kbps modem to connect to the internet through the standard telephone line for multiplayer games. However, our American cousins were gifted with the faster 56kbps modems so it makes one think what's so special about them that they get a better modem than us? Although no match for broadband, Sega's internet connection was surprisingly fast compared to the standard dial-up services we used on our PCs.

Operating System: Windows CE
Yup, it uses the same operating system as the palmtop computers at the time. The CE stands for compact edition.

A pretty modest specification, but then again it is one of the first 128bit consoles ever released and is old in comparison to the others. But that does not mean this console will go down without a fight. To test the console I will run 2 games on it which I personally find to be some of the best games on it before it was put to death by Sega.

Setting up the console is easy for veterans of console gaming such as I. For those new to the console scene it is still a very easy task as the manual shows the instructions step by step very clearly.

Game 1: Resident Evil Code Veronica
One of the main reasons I purchased a Dreamcast, the newest Resident Evil game was going to be released on the Dreamcast so I had to buy myself the console for gratifying Zombie slaying galore! The graphics are very nice, smoother in places than the Playstation 2 in actual fact with no jagged effects when objects are tilted at an angle. Although alot of the environment graphical effects look dated by today's standards such as the fake fire effects, the main 3D models of the characters and the zombies are very nicely animated. They do, unfortunately, have a lower polygon count than the games we are used to with the current 128bit systems (you can see the edges of some blocks that make up the characters). The characters look fantastic from individual hairs fluttering in the wind as you run to the zombies dragging themselves over the floor with bits of themselves rubbing off.

Sound and music to the game is very clear and distinguishable from the object it is trying to reproduce. The realistic sounds of the machinery grinding away to the footsteps of enemies skipping along is no problem for the Yamaha sound chip. It practically laughs at the tasks given to it. However I could only get stereo effect on my sound system so I cannot comment if the surround sound experience is any good.

Game 2: Sonic Adventure 2
The other reason I purchase the Dreamcast was because of the Sonic franchise. This game is very very fast, even with the graphics looking so colourful and so many things onscreen at the same time, Sonic just zooms right though them all with no slowdown whatsoever, taking the graphics chip into overdrive. Sonic looks great in 3D mode, the sand and water effects are simply breath taking. But the you only begin to have a graphics feast when you are in the jungle levels of the game, the levels are massive and very fast but there are so many 3D things being rendered and looking so lushious you wonder how the Dreamcast is managing to keeping up with it's 16MB of RAM and 200MHz processor. The only problem I think is that the landscape isn't drawn until it's within a certain range of Sonic. This definately is a sign of it's limitations as an old console.

The audio effects are more or less the same as Resident Evil, very clear and very realistic with no hiss or static in sight (sight is metaphorically speaking of course!) Again I cannot comment on the surround sound capabilities, either the games do not support it or the Dreamcast doesn't like my sound setup.

Well I do think the games speak for the console, it is a very capable machine although obsolete and seen as an old man in the gaming industry. Besides the fact that the hardware is lacking, there are a few other little problems. The control pad is rather big and is a rather ugly beast. It's light yes and the buttons are easy to reach, but it is poorly designed in terms of aesthetics and the cable is coming out of the control pad at the wrong end (instead of at the top it's trailing out at the bottom). The memory card used for it is very annoying as well. Called the VMU (visual memory unit) it's like a mini gaming device looking like a very small Gameboy, but the batteries don't last long enough for you to do anything with it. To add insult to injury the batteries aren't rechargable, the memory card requires CR2032 watch batteries. And with the batteries dead, it always goes BEEEEP when you plug it into the control pad to access it's contents. Lastly you can only access the internet with the special DreamKey disc that loads up an internet browser for you to go online. Although rather fast and easy to use, typing with the software keyboard is a nightmare and downloading files onto the puny 256KB memory card isn't very realistic. Not only is it low on storage space but how are you going to get that data from the memory card onto your PC?

This console can be had for around £20 on EBAY, it all depends on how lucky you are when you are bidding on it. With it out of production this is one of the few places you can get your hands on one. The games for it are very cheap now, the most expensive is £10, the cheapest I've seen them for were at £3 per game. A bargain! Overall great value for money.

A great console that didn't receive the recognition it deserved, this is a fine console to own for it's vintage value. In future it may be worth much more when you have collectors hunting for these ever-so-hard-to-get machines. It has a couple of problems, but the pros out weigh the cons and I personally would own one just in case that collector would happen to knock on my door someday!

Bonus:
Did you know Sega also worked in secret with the processor and graphics rivals of their Dreamcast consoles? Codenamed 'Black Belt' this other Dreamcast had an IBM PowerPC 603e processor and 3Dfx Voodoo2 graphics. Only later on when they discovered the Dreamcast codenamed 'Dural' with the features in this review was cheaper to manufacture did they stick with it instead.

Sega used the Dreamcast's internal design for their arcade machines at the time. Named 'Naomi' the Dreamcast's board used for arcade machines were exactly the same as the Dreamcast except it had double the system RAM and double the graphics RAM. You could use the memory card for the Dreamcast to upload your high scores onto the arcade machine if you had the same game at home.

Later on it was replaced with 'Naomi 2', with changes of the graphics chip to a PowerVR CLX2 (much faster and more powerful than the PowerVR2) and gifted with 64MB graphics RAM.

There was a Playstation 1 emulator for the Dreamcast called Bleemcast, it allowed owners of the Playstation 1 games to play it on the Dreamcast with better graphics and loading speed. The problem was that you needed to buy individual packs for a specific set of games i.e. one disc would be for RPGs and another would be for Action games. Each pack costed £30 each and frankly in my opinion it wasn't worth it. 

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