Dreamcast Widescreen Hacks

It is very game dependant, there are plenty of games that renders everything in the widescreen area (and beyond), while others will clip geometry outside te 4:3 area.

I guess it depends on how the game calculates the frustum planes.

Dead or Alive for instance (among many others) will render everything on screen no matter how wide you make de fov, while others like Half life or Quake 3 will clip from the first pixel outside the 4:3 area.

Here is an example, of Nullcd's buit in widescreen hack vs the CB-AR codes posted here, both running on the same emulator.





Notice how once the hack is applied the game will render everything on screen, its like if it calculates the frustum planes from one of the values whe have changed.

That's not the case with other games.



Few examples of games running in 21:9 with these hacks, and everything is rendered.

 

Sorry Espirral, I meant making the 16:9 size fit the screen, I wasn't referring to clipping.
I'm noticing on Shenmue with both the widescreen and no clipping cheats on that there is still a left and right border, slightly thicker on the left hand side.

I'm sure this was mentioned earlier in the topic and it may have to do with how the DC outputs its video signal.

 

That's the video signal, correct. The DC outputs some additional data to the left and right of the 'visible' area when connected via VGA, so if you're on a display wider than 4x3 aspect you'll see it. Some TVs have options to manually adjust this, changing the horizontal centering and scale, but if yours does not then this doesn't help. Mine has those options, but unfortunately it can't push the video all the way to the left.

I suspect that there might be ways to get a bit more control over the video. Sturmwind has video options that let you manually move its visible area all the way to the left or right, but I'm not sure how that actually works.

 

Ah, so its not something that we could compensate for by adding making a slightly altered VGA widescreen code so it fills a 16:9 display? If it is, whats the best way to modify the codes (if there's a replicatable way to apply a change across the known codes)?

Also Shenmue's no clipping code still produces some clipping at the sides of objects (such as street lamps or the items in Tomato) but people don't clip. Is this normal on hardware/for the code in general?

 

I don't think it's possible, but I'm not certain. Does anyone know of any DC games with a stretch feature that changes the scale of the video output? I know Sturmwind can move it around the entire visible area, but not scale it. If there's some kind of evidence that it's possible (a game that does it) then maybe I could research how to get other games to do it. But as far as I know, it's not possible. It IS possible to change the border color to something other than black, the boot animation does that and there are SDK calls for it. But I don't know of any game doing that either.

 

Any chance of a compilation of all these? I plan on making a VMU save with all of them then a Dreamexplorer CDI so others can just install it to a VMU.

 

I would be interested in working with you on this

The save could be uploaded to http://dreampipe.net or particularly http://dreampipe.net/dpwww/upload , allowing others to obtain the save without needing to go out, buy some CD-Rs and burn it just for one ~4kb VMS file. I understand many people do not have online setups, but if you play Dreamcast still you really should be joining all of us online. That's where the fun is imo :-D

 

Actually, yes, it is completely patched to have more responsive controls as well. Most people can tell you and, I am sure you also know yourself how bad the controls were for the original. They made the game much more precise. It is quite literally the ultimate version of the game to have, and this now means that it kicks the HD ports ass since it is now widescreen. Hell, even emulating this version in HD on PC would be superior to the HD port. Why they didn't port this version instead of the original European version I will never know.

 

Yea I bought this game just to get a decent rip out there. While Pavlik did a great job with their work polishing the turd Stone Arts released. I admit the MP3 repack version was a great way of improving what was out there without having the original disc of GDI dump. And the 99min rip I did has all the language files that are missing from all other rips as well as the semi-useless Dream Passport is patched but with DreamCall out it may not be as useless. I had a birch of a time with the protection but in the end nothing was ripped and only the audio was taken from 44k stereo to 32k stereo and the rest still in tact. The only "downfall" is it required a 99min disc but they are easy enough to get.


EDIT

But reading your snippet you posted I wonder if I can make it all English audio instead of Japanese just for fun? I have two of the "standard" variants as before I got De La I rocked the Euro version in preference in music over the US version but I have that as well for collecting and such.

 

Hmm... Gotta try this, although I played European version many times and never had any problem with controls or anything..

 

I would love you forever if you actually do this.

There is a compilation on Sega Retro (link), but it seems to have been last updated in February.

There's another list on ElOtroLado (link), I don't know if it has any which SR doesn't though.

 

I've actually tried to compare the controls side by side and never once did I feel a difference.
The controls were not bad, they just took patience to get used to.

 

Well, when they say it is easier to pick up, the only way I could imagine they would do that was to make the controls more accurate. I heard from other places this was the case but can't find the link now. The main problem with the game is that the controls are really floaty.

 

Has anyone figured out Ecco? I've just got the PAL version and want to try it in widescreen.

 

Nope

A little bit offtopic, but Reshade works with Demul 5.82, so you can inject SSAO, DOF, and a ton of postprocessing effects into Shenmue+the WS codes the game looks gorgeous.

 

This is a quick test, the effects a overdone, so it is easier to notice.

 

It says something like that @ Wikipedia and segaretro.
But I've yet to experience any actual difference..

For a moment there I thought you did that on the Dreamcast.

 

Awesome work with all the widescreen codes
Is there any chance for a F355 Challenge Widescreen Code For PAL-VGA ?

 

It's weird F355 Challenge allows for widescreen via composite but not VGA.

Has a code been found for MDK2 (PAL)?

 

I have a request.

Can anyone find code for House of the dead 2 sega naomi? not dreamcast version.