is 2.2 even possible on dreamcast?

[yuki53]

i understand the dreamcast already has a pretty much unplayable and old port of srb2 1.09, but would it be possible for 2.2 to be ported to the dreamcast in an actual playable and complete form? i really think that the dreamcast is the perfect console for srb2 to be on. what im curious about is if the existing port poorly ran because of the hardware it was on or if the port just wasnt optimized enough or whatever. but i really was curious of the possibility of a modern dreamcast port of srb2

 

[SilverVortex]

unless 2.2 suddenly becomes super duper optimized, i doubt it. 2.2 barely runs on the switch, which is a couple of generations higher.

 

[Morphized]

Well the Dreamcast runs a really old version of Windows Compact Edition. This means that it can rely on Win32 libraries for certain programs. So the problem becomes not the parts in the hardware, but the amount of RAM required to run the game. If 2.2 can run on about 20MB of RAM, it shouldn't be a problem. Of course, that assumes that Windows CE can run on 8MB and the SRB2 devs can somehow incorporate graphics RAM into main memory.

 

[wdryan10229]

or hell, can 2.1 be ported to dreamcast, or the saturn even?

 

[supermayropros]

or hell, can 2.1 be ported to dreamcast, or the saturn even?

No

 

[VanillaSRB2]

No, Final Demo barely run on Saturn, I doubt 2.1 can even be handled by Dreamcast!

 

[Chimes]

The ancient SRB2 ports to Dreamcast were made at a time when the SRB2 scene and Dreamcast scenes were very different beasts compared to today. Enthusiasm? Newcomers? What's that? We cool kids don't need any of that! /j

If given enough (and I do mean enough) tweaking, optimization, and poking with the Dreamcast and its various eccentricities, I believe SRB2 2.2 could run on the Dreamcast. The only thing that hasn't shown up is the port itself; when it comes to Sega ports of any kind coders and planners alike freeze in horror. It just hasn't been done yet.

 

[Bluelight343]

unless 2.2 suddenly becomes super duper optimized, i doubt it. 2.2 barely runs on the switch, which is a couple of generations higher.

Tbf probably one of the reasons srb2 doesn't run all that well on the switch is because about every CPU, no matter the architecture, ARM64 or x86_64 all have been aiming to have better multi-core performance and have left single-core performance behind, specially notable on lower end devices, like an android device using something like a Snapdragon 460(aka my phone), the CPU is quite decent doing any task that can use the 8 cores efficiently but it struggles with srb2 as it's ancient code can't use more CPU cores or threads, I assume something similar happens with the switch.