Don't know if anyone else had this problem. But I returned my first copy of the SADX PC Version, and got another one, same thing happened again... ...it needs both the installation disc and the 2nd disc in at the same time otherwise it accuses you of having a pirate copy. And then you have both discs in, it plays for so long then automatically rebotts your PC. So you may need to odwnload some kind of "no cd patch" in order to get around that. Like I said though, not sure if anyone else had that problem, but I had that issue with my copy of the PC version. Bought it in a deal with Quake Gold a few years ago.
Theres just....nngh, I refuse to play Sonic Adventure with a keyboard. If you only want to use a 360 controller and don't care for widescreen (Which the original game never supported) and want it as pure as possible, get nullDC and play that way, or by my devil's advocate choice, get the Steam version. Of course if you want to try to expand the game, or with the most support simply because it has been out longer, the original PC release.
I haven't had any luck with JoyToKey on SADX because it recognizes both the generated keyboard key and the actual joystick button being pressed at the same time, so it ends up doing two things at once. Also, I would be willing to try to fix 360 controllers, but I don't have one, and I'm not getting one just to make a patch for one game. Maybe if somebody could look at the controller data in RAM and tell me what it reports the Camera X and Y as, I could figure out something...
If you consider the Steam version, it has alot of problems, but other than the resolution, the other problems are fixable. First, the configuration tool doesn't work without the player manually creating the necessary registry entry (I already contacted SEGA's support on how to fix this months ago, but they're as useless as always, even when someone provides them a fix, they still don't patch the game). I posted on the Steam forums how to fix the configuration tool, if you do go for the inferior Steam version - http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2190387 The Steam version does have some good things, it plays at 60fps (the 2004 version plays at 50fps), and it supports XInput controllers (XBox 360 controller and others based on it). It's a pitty that the game resolution is just 640x480, if it supported higher resolutions properly, not only it would have looked better than now, it would have been possible to force anti-aliasing through the graphics card drivers (at least on AMD/ATI cards, currently it's possible to force AA at 640x480 only). Another thing, the Steam version might have occasional framerate drops (I don't know if this happens to everyone though), these happen when the processor core clock is lowered due to energy saving features. This only started happening after SEGA patched the game to fix some saving issues (the only patch they released for SADX on Steam), but it's easily fixed by just using the original executable from the Steam version (the saving issues that the original exe had are fixed by running the configuration tool once after the registry fix): http://www.mediafire.com/?n63abwawj0e4wdw There's also some problems with certain sound effects being too loud, or, in the chao garden, the swimming sound effect starting when an animal enters the water and never stopping until the player exits the garden. This issue, I don't know if it only happens to me (haven't seen anyone complain about this in the Steam forums), but I edited some sound effects to be quieter, and removed the more annoying ones (I only removed a machinery SE from Twinkle Park and the swimming SE from the Chao garden, and edited a few other SE from Twinkle Park, Twinkle Circuit and Hot Shelter): http://www.mediafire.com/?xlb75p2h3r3c46d
I just played through Final Egg with Fraps' FPS counter, it averaged about 55fps, going as high as 62fps and as low as 25fps. Maybe you had the framerate setting set to 50fps. The Steam version gives me a completely black window.
You know, maybe someday SEGA will make patches that will fix a few things and put the game in widescreen. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I haven't played the 2004 version in a really long time (it's been years since I played it), I thought it played at 50fps, but you're right, just tried it and it played at ~62fps. Haha, yeah, they won't even fix the online mode in the PC version of Generations, which is a recent game, let alone fix stuff from an old game, even if it was re-released recently.
No, I had this problem too. It's a total fucking joke, it means I now can't install using the disc because my new computer doesn't have two drives. I don't see the point of it. But I never had a problem with rebooting.
Oh, about that black window issue with the Steam version, there have been other users in the Steam forums who reported that issue, but there's no known fix for that. I guess you could try stuff like installing more recent graphics drivers, or installing more recent DirectX, Visual C++ 2005, 2008, 2010 and .NET Framework runtimes, but it's likely this won't work.
I never had any issues with my copy, since for some reason the US version has no copy protection. I already have those, since I'm a C# developer writing a level editor using Direct3D. And I'm pretty sure there are no newer drivers for my graphics card from 2007.
This must be some sort of bug, because this happened to me all the time when I was still using Windows XP. The only way I was able to fix it was to have Windows Media Player running while SADX was, and the framerate shot straight up to 60. This also happens to me every so often here on Windows 7, and fixing it works similarly to what I did on XP, just with my "AMD Vision Engine Control Center", specifically in the video -> color section. Only like, 2 other people I knew indirectly had the issue, and nobody knew how to definitively fix it. I have NO IDEA.
While the resolution seems awful for the Steam port, I have no idea what people mean by 'terrible console port'. They made the game run at a constant 60 fps - that seems better to me! I remember the DX versions on GC and PC having worse frame rates than the DC game.
Another solution would be play SADX in the GC/Wii dolphin emulator. You get widescreen in 1920x1080 and can use your own controller. If your computer can't handle that then you probably should just upgrade or a get a new computer. Peronsally I've lately been playing Sonic Adventure 1998 NTSC-J release with an NTSC-J Dreamcast. Using the VGA adapter makes that worth it.
I grab a Dreamcast emulator if setup of one wasn't so irrating and not very user-friendly, but what you do to extract GD-ROMs anyway, aaagggghhh... The original PC version is crap to me, the steam version doesn't sound much better. I wasn't impressed with the GameCube release. Sonic Adventure is great with a VGA box as long as the monitor isn't a peice of crap (like some that do the stretchies with no adjustments for this). A VGA switchbox would be nice, so I didn't have to fight with monitor cables at my computer desk. HQ CRTs were great back then.
Well I mean if it changes it it changes it. I'm a little bit surprised stuff like the cut chao content are sitting in the exe instead of some external files but I've never studied the game's structure like you all so I wouldn't have any earthly idea
For nullDC: Throw bios into the data folder, start emulator, configure controls (Options -> Maple -> Port A -> Config keys). Doesn't allow joystick input? Change the maple plugin to one that does. Then you're pretty much ready to go. There are of course, some PowerVR tweaks you can do to improve the visual glitchiness a little, but other than that, I'm not seeing where you're going here... If you mean like, dumping your own Dreamcast games, there are many ways to do that, but they require some additional hardware. From my understanding, you either need a BBA for your Dreamcast, or an SD card reader (for your Dreamcast) so you can dump games onto that (along with the software to run on the Dreamcast).
