"# HUGE News in Flycast Improvements!
To make this readable for everyone (since too long and people complain, but not detailed enough and people ask questions), I'm organizing everything in separate paragraphs so you can choose what to read. There have been epic updates for multiplayer, Mali GPU rendering, and much more. Let's start with the biggest news, which will allow many users to enjoy something never before possible. Flycast gets updated every couple days, and these updates are very often big, and add new features, or improve features. Many emulators release updates and it's "Random Bug Fixes" and that is not what happenes over at Flycast. https://flyinghead.github.io/flycast-builds/ is all you need, and all you have to do, is extract, and place Flycast where your current Flycast instance is (PRO TIP: I rename old version FlycastBKP" just in case the 1 in a million I want to go back, I still have it) and now all your settings and every thing remains, super easy. Do it often, It is worth it, and only takes 30 total seconds.
MALI GPUS GET PER PIXEL SUPPORT!
YES! I know, it's FINALLY possible! Dreamcast's Per Pixel sorting mode, the most accurate and required for many games to render exacly as it should, has never worked properly on MALI GPUs in any Dreamcast emulator. Today we see Mali GPUs in LOADS of portable devices like phones, micro computers, tablets, and much more. Due to the lack of Vulkan PER PIXEL support in Mali's drivers, depending on the specific MALI GPU in your device, you could experience missing textures, blank screens, or weird graphical glitches. This is ironic because Per Pixel is required in many games to NOT have graphical glitches and missing textures.
Per Pixel is much harder on the system and requires a lot more power to perform. The majority of games on Per Triangle render just fine, or close enough that aside from an occasional clip or other very minor gfx glitches, but it is more than fine for most people. Unfortunately though, many games use special effects and render characters with translucent polygons that can be shadowed, and many other special effects requiring Per Pixel to avoid issues. If you don't want Sonic's blue head clipping through the white of his eyes, or need Jet Set Radio to render characters properly, or Speed Devils to show your headlights in-game at night, PP is required. Well, for MALI GPUs, which are being used more every day due to their great price-to-performance ratio, has left many Dreamcast emulation users to deal with only Per Triangle or Per Strip.. until today!
Before now, if you had a Mali GPU and wanted to render Per Pixel for ANY Dreamcast emulator, it couldn't be done. Now, Flycast once again breaks the mold and has made it possible to enjoy Per Pixel sorting on your MALI GPUs with no issues! There are a few things to note when using Per Pixel thou. You might be able to hit 6X resolution on Per Triangle, but PP being much more accurate requires much more power, so you might only reach 3x-4x reslution in PP versus 6x+ on Per Triangle. In theory, you should play at Per Pixel for the most accurate and perfect reproduction of every game, unless limited by your hardware—then you can sacrifice accuracy for higher resolutions/frame rates using Per Triangle because this allows much weaker devices to still be able to play, even if it's not perfect. Now MALI GPU users no longer have to sacrifice that "perfectly accurate" emulation you can achieve 99.9% of the time with Per Pixel sorting, and can for the first time enjoy PP on their devices. Currently its on the DEV branch on the https://flyinghead.github.io/flycast-builds/, but should be updated on the dev branch of the Google Play Store release very soon. If you use GPS, just ensure your enrolled in the beta track, which can be done by visiting the GPS page for Flycast, scroll down and hit BETA TRACK, and then wait a few minutes and refresh and you can then hit "UPDATE" at the top of the page, and that is all yo need to do to switch over to the Beta track, to get the Dev releases and stay up to date with out you doing anything!
4 Player Local SplitScreen Gaming With Users Around The World!
Have you ever wished you could enjoy split-screen Dreamcast games with friends from around the world? Well, now you can! With Arkadyzja, you can play any game that runs in Flycast, including arcade games from Naomi 1 & 2, Atomiswave, and System SP—but now you can enjoy all of those with 4 PLAYERS! You haven't experienced tennis until you've played Virtua Tennis with 4 players. The newer and very active Arkadyzja has rolled out some INSANE updates, and with a whole new display system overhaul, you can enjoy playing any Flycast or DuckStation (PS1) games with your friends with 4-player support! Always free, it allows superior connection over other methods of playing local split-screen across the globe!
You Can Use A Real DC Controller, VMU, and Rumble Pack On Flycast!
Yes, you heard that right. Now you can plug your DC controller with VMU and Rumble right into Flycast, and get it to work EXACTLY as it would on a Dreamcast. You can even save/load games from one to the other! The saves are identical, so you can play on your DC, save to the VMU, plug into your Flycast instance, and load up that file. I'm very proud to say I've been a big help to this project specifically. You can read more about it elsewhere, and for just a few dollars and minimal skills (or just buy one of our premade ones), you can get your DreamPicoPort set up to use any Dreamcast controller (yes, any DC controller). For the first time ever, you can save your favorite VMU mini-games from Flycast right to your VMU!
DCnet Allowing Dreamcast And Flycast Users To Play Native Online Games Together!
With the latest addition of Speed Devils, marking the first time in 20+ years that you can play Speed Devils Online, you can now play on your real DC with Flycast users! All you need to do is get DreamPi running so you can connect your DC to the internet, and BAM! https://dreamcastlive.net/dreampi-tutorial/
Currently for Flycast, the following games are working on DCnet:
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4x4 Evolution
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Aero Dancing F - Todoroki Tsubasa no Hatsu Hikou
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Aero Dancing i
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Aero Dancing i Jikai Saku Made Matemasen
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ChuChu Rocket
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Daytona USA
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Dee Dee Planet
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Golf Shiyou Yo 2
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Hundred Swords
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Internet Game Pack
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Monaco Racing Simulation 2
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NBA 2K1
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NBA 2K2
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NCAA 2K2
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NFL 2K1
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NFL 2K2
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Ooga Booga
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PBA Bowling 2001
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Planet Ring
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POD: Speedzone
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Sega Tetris
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Speed Devils Online
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StarLancer
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Toy Racer
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World Series Baseball 2K2
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Worms World Party
With a new server added for DCnet, playing with users all over the world now gives you much better PING results for smoother gameplay. While Flycast has always been able to access online gaming features that existed, the fact that you needed basically a perfect setup to play made many users unable to participate. There are MANY connection requirements, NAT and PORT FORWARDING and many other things that were just a pain, whereas DCnet will even play over open WiFi connections with no network-side setup!
Possible Future Improvements
These aren't guaranteed as they must get final approval from the boss himself, but in the next week or two, there will be some big changes to the cosmetic end of Flycast submitted for approval. Due to the emulator being open source, users can submit fixes, changes, and improvements, which—pending approval from the legend himself, Flyinghead—can go live.
A new "themes" system is being built and nearly ready for submission. This would give 5 themes initially for users to apply and change the appearance of the UI for Flycast. Users will have access to light, dark, high contrast, and a few fun themes to make your experience suit your needs.
There's also a Multi Button Bind system being finished up for submission, allowing you to finally map button combos! With the new addition of The DreamPicoPort, and companies remaking Dreamcast controllers for PC use, being able to bind multi-button mappings allows these controllers to run extra emulation commands like fast forward, save and load state, restart, and much more. Additionally, a super easy-to-use custom boxart implementation is being worked on. If approved, it would take seconds at most to change boxart in your library, which is VERY useful if the database used for cover art has low quality or missing images, even for arcade and homebrew games.
While none of these features are promised to make it through the approval process, it shows what a great community can accomplish when working together. It's exciting to watch what new features come to Flycast. Updates arrive every few days with new features, fixes, and performance improvements. If you've had issues in the past, now is the time to try again, especially if you have a device with a MALI GPU.