For years, Grand Theft Auto 3 was a missed opportunity for Dreamcast, having been developed for it but eventually cancelled due to the demise of the last SEGA system.
Years later, dedicated fans have painstakingly ported GTA 3 for the Dreamcast, so fans can rectify the past!
Earlier this year, Twitter user Stefanos Kronilios posted a GIF showing a glitchy GTA III menu.
Many were confused on what it could be, but it was later revealed Stefanos was indeed working on a port of Grand Theft Auto III for the Dreamcast!
Over the year, the Dreamcast port slowly improved, with a sizable progress jump shown off by The SEGAGuys back in August:
Finally as a late Christmas gift, Frogbull, Stefanos, and Falco Girgis have released what they refer to as an Alpha build, but feels more like a complete version over on https://dca3.net/
While there are still a few audio glitches and places in need of improvement, the game is very playable and can be played to completion on the Dreamcast!
To get the game compiled to run on Dreamcast, you need to own a copy of GTA 3 on PC to create the .CDI image. The guide to compile the image can be found here.
Also be sure to check out the latest SEGAGuys’ video on the release of GTA III on Dreamcast:
Big thanks to the following people for making this a reality:
Frogbull: https://x.com/Frogbull55
skmp: https://x.com/Poiitidis
Falco Girgis: https://x.com/falco_girgis
This is a wonderful port and the graphics are stunning. I tried it with my Dreamcast ( USB-GDROM ) and I have many crashes, I can’t play more than 10 minutes without a crash. Perhaps I should try with gdmu instead to see if there is less crashes
It’s been about a year or so I commented on a video, it was Omikron: The Nomad Soul, and a few people were talking if the DC could handle GTA3, due to its GD-ROM limited storage space and even the console specs.
I remember saying that clearly, this game could have run on the DC, even its sequels, up to GTASA, if the adaptation was done right, meaning, compression codecs and optimizations needed.
I don’t understand how some people said it was impossible, as the only thing impossible is what our minds limit us to believe.
Could the PS1, the Saturn, or the N64 run GTA3? Yes! They could, properly designed software, taking into account the target hardware can make “miracles” happen. Would they look like the 6th gen versions? Absolutely not! Even among each 5th gen consoles, each would look different from one another, imagine Driver 2 for the Saturn or the N64.
At some point, a few technicians from the past said the color TV was an impossibility, or that CPUs would never get pass the 1mhz mark…