deSPIRIA DreamRecomp

deSPIRIA (Dreamcast) on dream-recomp

Play Atlus's deSPIRIA (Sega Dreamcast, 2000) as a native Windows program, in English, using dream-recomp by phobos665, an experimental Dreamcast static recompiler, and the deSPIRIA Translation Initiative's English fan translation.

dream-recomp translates the game's SH-4 program into C++ ahead of time and compiles it; the graphics and sound hardware are emulated, and the console BIOS is replaced, so no BIOS is needed. This kit adds the fixes deSPIRIA needs, its tuned configuration, and a launcher.

You need your own game. This kit contains no game data, no translation files and no dream-recomp build. On first launch it downloads dream-recomp's public source and a portable compiler, and builds deSPIRIA on your PC from your own disc. The compiled game stays on your PC.

What works

• The title screen and menus, the developer logo and the opening movies with sound, and New Game into the opening story. Tested by the kit author through the opening; not a playthrough.
• Full speed on a 15 W Intel i7-1355U laptop with integrated graphics.
• Saves go to a memory card file, saves\vmu-a1.bin in your data folder, outside the app folder.
• Keyboard and SDL-compatible controllers.

This is early: expect rough edges, and keep a copy of your memory card.

What you need

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with a Vulkan-capable GPU (any recent Intel, AMD or NVIDIA).
• deSPIRIA (Japan), T14402M, dumped from your own disc as a GDI image (.gdi plus its track files).
• The English patch applied to it. Run the translation team's patcher on your disc first and keep the .gdi it writes. Any of its battle-speed settings works (Original, Brisk, Swift); the kit author tested Brisk. The patch translates Chapter 1's story; menus, items and maps are English throughout.
• About 3 GB of free space and an internet connection for the first launch.

Install

Quiver Launcher: add deSPIRIA from the catalog and press Play.

By hand: extract the release zip anywhere and run deSPIRIA.exe.

On first launch a setup window opens:

1. It asks for your English-patched .gdi and checks it is deSPIRIA with the English patch.
2. It downloads the build tools into tools\ in the data folder: a portable clang (llvm-mingw), CMake, Ninja, Python, SDL3 and the Vulkan headers, about 1 GB unpacked. Every download is pinned and checked.
3. It downloads dream-recomp at a fixed commit (51a148c), adds this kit's fixes and the deSPIRIA configuration, translates your disc's program and compiles it. That takes about 5 to 15 minutes.
4. The game starts. Later launches start straight away.

To choose a different disc, run deSPIRIA.exe --setup. To rebuild, run deSPIRIA.exe --rebuild.

Controls

Dreamcast	Keyboard
D-pad	Arrow keys
A / B / X / Y	Z / X / A / S
Start	Enter
L / R triggers	Q / W

F1 (or a controller's select button) opens the screen for changing the bindings. F10 shows the frame rate, F12 saves a screenshot, Esc quits.

The game draws at the Dreamcast's 640x480 and is scaled to the window, which keeps it at full speed on integrated graphics. On a faster GPU, deSPIRIA.exe --scale 2 (up to 4) draws at a higher resolution.

Where your files live

%LOCALAPPDATA%\deSPIRIA-DreamRecomp:

saves\vmu-a1.bin	your memory card
game\	the built game and the path to your disc
tools\, build\	build tools and the build; safe to delete (setup fetches them again)
setup.log, game\game.log, launcher.log	logs

A file named portable.txt beside deSPIRIA.exe keeps all of this in the app folder instead.

What this kit changes in dream-recomp

All fixes are in kit\overlay, applied over dream-recomp 51a148c:

• Sound: 32-bit stores to the sound chip's registers now count as 16-bit stores, as the hardware does. deSPIRIA's sound driver keys notes on with 32-bit stores and was silent.
• Movies: stride textures keep their size for texture coordinates and take only their row spacing from TEXT_CONTROL, and textures the game rewrites in place are re-read each frame. Movies were smeared and froze.
• Windows builds copy the DLLs a program needs next to it.
• Shaders: precompiled shader headers are used when glslc is not installed, so no Vulkan SDK is needed.

The deSPIRIA configuration (kit\game\despiria_en.toml.in) leaves three functions to dream-recomp's interpreter because their translations misbehave: two crash the game, and the third, the thread library's context switch, starves the movie player. Those are workarounds for translator defects, documented in the file.

Credits and license

• dream-recomp by phobos665, GPL-2.0.
• The English translation is the deSPIRIA Translation Initiative's work; this kit contains none of it and only checks that it is applied.
• deSPIRIA is © Atlus 2000. This project is not affiliated with Atlus or Sega.

This kit is GPL-2.0 (see LICENSE), like dream-recomp, whose files it contains in modified form.

Development disclosure: this kit was put together with the help of an AI coding assistant.