Hello SEGA fans, it’s James the SEGAHolic of The SEGAGuys, and while we’re only four days into 2025, the homebrew community simply refuses to take a break.
We covered jnmartin84’s Doom 64 on the Sega Dreamcast early last month, with a new build that introduced dynamic lighting and bump mapping, but he’s back with yet more enhancements, both in the games performance and the level of content.
Performance-wise, the game now has an uncapped frame rate, which, according to jnmartin’s GitHub release notes, is 60FPS for the majority of the game.
However it’s the content that takes this port to the next level, with the inclusion of the Lost Levels, an official expansion included with the 2020 Steam version by Nightdive Studios that continues the campaign story, as well as Doom Episode 1: “Knee Deep in the Dead.”
For those who haven’t heard of Knee-Deep in the Dead, it’s a fan mod for Doom 64 CE that recreates the iconic opening stages of classic Doom, but with enhanced visuals and some gameplay tweaks.
So let’s recap exactly what the Dreamcast version of Doom 64 does, because the development cycle on this has been relentless and shows the incredible capabilities of the KallistiOS SDK:
- 16 simultaneous dynamic lights onscreen.
- Bump mapped environments and weapons.
- Geometry tessellation.
- Mouse and keyboard support.
- VMU support.
- Dual analogue controller support.
- VMU icons showing damage.
- 60FPS performance.
- Steam-exclusive content, The Lost Levels.
- Doom Episode 1: Knee-Deep in the Dead.
An exhaustive and quite frankly impressive list, making the Dreamcast version arguably the best console version to play … and I say that fine well knowing the game is on modern day consoles and is downloadable on Xbox Game Pass.
And just look at the footage, it looks and plays brilliantly, and the controls are intuitive even on a stock Dreamcast controller. It’s a remarkable piece of homebrew content, at a time when the Dreamcast scene is on absolute fire with the recent release of skmp’s Grand Theft Auto 3 … which you can also see in action on our channel.
It’s incredible to see visual features either under-used or not used at all in the Dreamcast’s life, such as bump mapping, and it’s exciting to see where Dreamcast homebrew development is going after years of Indie releases which, with the greatest of respect, didn’t push the console or offer anything we hadn’t seen before.
For years Dreamcast owners have insisted that the console had untapped potential, stunted by discontinuation before developers had the chance to fully dig into the hardware or push it to its limit. When a console gets into it’s fourth or fifth year, you normally see what it’s truly capable of, and we were denied that with the Dreamcast, but now, thanks to the homebrew community we’re starting to see that potential realised.
Full instructions on how to compile your build are available on jnmartin’s GitHub page and as always, no links to compiled builds will be provided. I get that it’s frustrating not to be provided with ready to play CDIs, but if we want to continue seeing homebrew of this quality on Dreamcast, we have to ensure we respect the developers wishes and keep things on the right side legally.
As Doom 64 on Dreamcast nears completion, I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the latest build, and until next time we’ll see YOU on the SEGA side!
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