Chankast

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Chankast

The GUI of Chankast
Developer:	Chankast Utilities
Latest release:	Alpha 0.25 / July 7, 2004
OS:	Windows 2000 and XP
Use:	Emulator
Website:	Chanka.org

Chankast is a freeware Sega Dreamcast emulator for Microsoft Windows. It is the first Dreamcast emulator to successfully run commercial games. The emulation speed varies depending on which system the emulator is run. The first release was on May 29, 2004. The current version, Alpha 0.25, is the last release from the team to date, and the last show of activity from Chankast Utilities. Using Chankast, commercial games can be played at a decent speed with a 2 GHz CPU.

[edit] Version history

Alpha 0.10 (first release, May 29, 2004)

Emulation of several commercial games

Alpha 0.2 (June 12, 2004)

GFX core capable of games like Shenmue 1&2 and Soul Calibur
Compatibility for Dead or Alive 2, Virtual On and others
Support for PAD plugins

Alpha 0.2a (June 12, 2004)

Vga/NTSC bug fixed
Control pad input fixed
Video rendering bug that caused games to crash fixed

Alpha "WIP" (June 17, 2004)

Full screen implemented
Compatibility for Windows 2000
NAOMI Virtua Striker no longer causes crashes

Alpha 0.25 (July 7 2004)

Full screen for multiple resolutions added
CPU core bugs fixed
LCD CMU support
LCD VMU emulation
Rumble pack emulation
Control and CD plugin support
ASPI driver (Windows 2000) support
Command line support

'Beta' 0.25.7 (September 4, 2004) [Hack, Spanish only version, shows Beta 0.25.7 in the titlebar, Alpha 0.25.6 on credits]

Minimum requirements changed
Overall speed improvement
NOTE: No changelog was provided, so the above are what users had noticed in this version.

This 'beta' was in fact a hacked version of the 0.25 Alpha with some added features, such as 'Cheat' and 'SpeedPig'. An unfortunate trade-off to the addition of these features was program instability. The hack known as Chankast Utilities is available as a separate patch that can be applied to the latest Chankast alpha.

Another recently released mod known as 'Chankast EX' is available as a joystick plugin for Chankast. It adds some bugfixes to several games, making them fully playable.