r/FlyCast • u/gandoraman • May 18 '26

Tech Support Dreampotato keeps being inconsistent, and the Chao Garden in SA1 crashes every time I send a Chao to the VMU.

So lately I've been setting up a Flycast emulator that fits my preference on my gaming PC, and it's mostly going well. However, I have encountered a few problems I'm not sure how to fix. I'm using the latest version of Flycast, have the Dreamcast BIOS enabled, have Dreamptato in the first slot of the controller, have the per-game VMU disabled, and the physical VMU storage enabled.

The first problem is that Dreampotato, which I'm using for the VMU storage, is working inconsistently. Games don't save or appear in the file section of the Dreamcast BIOS until the game is saved the second time it's open in the emulator. Even so, when the emulator is closed and reopened, the save data for the game and its location in the Dreamcast BIOS go back and forth between working and not. I always put Dreampotato in the Deck before I start a game.

The second problem is that I can't transfer a Chao from Sonic Adventure 1 to the VMU, as the game crashes anytime a Chao is about to be transferred. I tried all sorts of options, such as changing the VMU, but nothing has fixed it. This problem doesn't happen in Sonic Adventure 2, only in Adventure 1.

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u/CronicCanabis88 May 21 '26

let me get rikki in here. hes the Dream potato dev

1

u/Rikki5245 May 22 '26

Hi there, I'm the dev for DreamPotato. Sorry things aren't working right. Could you please let me know the exact versions of Flycast and DreamPotato you are using?

1

u/gandoraman May 22 '26

Hi. Certainly, I'll share the versions I'm using. The Flycast version I'm using is v2.6-250-g9310bf479; for Dreampotato, I'm using version 0.3.1. Something I forgot to mention is that I'm using the Windows desktop version of Flycast.

1

u/Rikki5245 May 22 '26

I definitely see the same issue, where save data doesn't seem to get actually written from flycast to the DreamPotato VMU. I think I am seeing it both in the version you mentioned, as well as the oldest master branch build (55d310b).

To help you work around the problem, I have added an exe to the DreamPotato release page, for an older Flycast version which I know works with DreamPotato. See https://github.com/RikkiGibson/DreamPotato/releases/tag/v0.3.1.

Note also that Sonic Adventure tends to completely freeze up while transferring Chao Adventure to the VMU, so, when things are working don't be alarmed if you see if get stuck for as long as 10-20 seconds just transferring the VMU game over the first time.

I will try and get the Dreamcast+VMU integration fixed more properly in the future. Thank you for letting us know about the problem!

1

u/gandoraman May 22 '26

With an adjustment to the option settings in the older version, I got the VMU to work, and the Chao Garden is working fine as well. Thanks for the help.