How Dreamcast Works?

Dreamcast has been around for more than a decade, yet it still creates some of the excitement that it generated when it was introduced in 1999. When it was put on the market by Sega, gamers and tech fanatics recognized it as having great specifications and game choices. The company used some interesting advertising techniques to get the word out as well.

Sega has been in the gaming market for nearly 30 years, rivaling Nintendo along the way. The company was responsible for giving the home-game players a system that rushed to the lead in the technology race. Before Dreamcast came out, Sega had fallen behind Sony in the tech battle.

Some of the keys to Dreamcast’s success were: the Hitachi 64-bit processor; bus and clock speed; graphic capabilities; sound processing; and storage capacity. Instructions and processing were quicker and more efficient than previous systems. One custom computer chip was used to take care of tasks that were previously handled by distinct chips.

In addition, a process called alpha blending was used, with 8 bits each assigned to distinct colors. A specific type of texture mapping was used to give objects more detail as the player “moved” closer to that object. Custom texture is accomplished through a multi-step process.

After a disc is inserted into the console, data goes to the random-access memory (including the initialization sequence). Video and audio parts come from the CD itself, while other information comes from read-only memory. Action is coordinated by the PowerVR chip. The Dreamcast console had a modem that enabled online play.

Interactivity was possible with the controller, with a standard version containing 11 buttons and a joystick (analog). Buttons could be programmed for specific actions. The buttons were simply switches that opened or closed a circuit. The signal is sent to the Dreamcast console and the processing unit starts the activity that corresponds to the button pressed on the controller. Similar contacts are made with the directional pad, but the joystick and trigger have magnets that produce the contact, with resistance level varying according to pressure and proximity to sensors.

Dreamcast used a dedicated optical disc that held 1.2 gigabytes of data/information. Operating systems were either Windows CE or Sega’s own Dreamcast operating system.

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