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News from May 2002 | |
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Thursday, May 30th, 2002
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NeoPop v0.31 Released
NeoPop is a newer NeoGeo Pocket Color emulator that's been updated to v0.31. Here's what's new:
- Made some improvements to the timer emulation, supporting all of the timers now in a limited capacity.
- Emulated CPU flags for a large number of instructions. This has been the primary reason for any jumps in compatibility.
- Added several new instructions and fixed some more. Also raising compatibility a bit.
- Fixed the EXTS instruction which was clearing the remaining data instead of preserving it after extension.
- Fixed the interuppt level register again, I hope for good now.
- Improvised a sprite priority hack to make "Fatal Fury" display the players, but I'm not sure this is correct - it shouldn't affect other games, so i'll leave it in for now.
- Improved games:
- Dive Alert (starts to play intro)
- Bikkuriman 2000 (runs intro and almost starts!)
- KOF-R2 (shows the intro but isn't playable, title screen doesn't work)
- Neo Baccarat, Neo Twenty One (will start now)
- Pac-Man (black title screen - but game starts if you press a button)
- Sonic (Shows title screen, unplayable though)
Download it from the Console Emulators section.
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Wednesday, May 29th, 2002
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Raine v0.35b Released
The arcade emulator Raine was updated to v0.35b. Here's what's new:
- -gameinfo does not crash anymore !
- SCI and few other games which used the 2610b sound emulation do not crash anymore neither
- Fixed some more default eeproms for taito f3 games
- Elevator action 2, dariusg and dariusgx were patched so that they start faster and automatically reset when needed (when you exit service mode, or when the eeprom is regenerated).
- Elevator action 2 can now be run in 16bpp
- Removed more debug messages from bakraid (!)
- Mustang is not a clone of raiden, sorry !
Download it from the Arcade Emulators section.
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Monday, May 27th, 2002
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X-Arcade Giveaway!
The Arcade Trivia Game has given away several Dreamcast systems and just last month an XBox! Now it's time for the next round. This time we're giving away
an X-Arcade courtesy of Xgaming, Inc. All you need to do is test your skill at identifying
arcade games. Get 10 correct and enter for a chance to win the X-Arcade. The more times you play, the better your chances are to win! Click on the image or
the above link to play.
Nebula v2.15a Released
Nebula is a CPS-2, NeoGeo & NeoGeoCD emulator that's been updated to v2.15a. Here's what's new:
PGM
- Fixed Knights of valour missing platform and bridges in some stages.
- Some rom renamings. To match mame names
- sango1 -> kov
- sango1_5 -> kov115
- sango1_9 -> kovplus
- orlegend -> orlegend (the same)
- orleg112 -> orlegnde
- orleg12e -> orlegndc
- Fixed china and taiwan regions swapped in KOV
- Added Knights of Valour and Knights of Valour Plus (see KOVROMS.TXT for the correct roms CRC and sizes).
- Special thanks to BillyJr for his help to get this game running.
- Added Sound emulation. Well, it's not complete emulation, but it's enough go get sounds working. Only SFX works and some sounds may be wrong.
- Added region switch to orlegend and kov
- Fixed orlegend crashes.
- NOTE: PGM games have a very wide resolution so double size modes (scanlines and most image enhancement modes) require resolutions higher than 800x600 to work properly with no stretch.
NEOGEO
- Fixed savage reign V2 rom CRC
- Added Sengoku3 and Zupapa neogeo drivers.
GENERAL
- PGM resolution is very wide, so if it's cut in the screen, play a bit with stretch options till you can get it fitting.
- Fixed netplay crashing with Konami and PGM games.
Download it from the Arcade Emulators section.
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Saturday, May 25th, 2002
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1964 v0.8.3 Released
The open source Nintendo 64 emulator 1964 was updated to v0.8.3. Here's what's new:
Emu Core:
- Game save fixes. All native saves will be saved to file when the native save happens, no longer at the end of the game. This will prevent game saves from being lost if emulator crashes
- Supports copyright protected games Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life 3. Supports ExciteBike64
- Bug fix: Cannot load savestate, ITLB error
- Bug fix: Audio disappears when loading a state
- EEPROM now using formal name as 4KB, 16KB instead of 2KB, 4KB 7. VI timing fixes
Cheat Codes Related:
- 1964 emu core fully supports all gameshark codes, just like real gameshark pak
- Bug fix: Cheat code country code
Plugins:
- Zilmar RSP LLE plugin integration, please copy Zilmar's RSP LLE plugin to 1964's plugin directory in order to use it.
- JPEG decompression via RSP LLE plugin
- Supports Jabo's DirectSound pluign by using Zilmar RSP LLE plugin
- Ready to support futher Netplay plugin
GUI:
- Command line argument support and optional file extension association via Windows Explorer 1964 [-f] [-v video_plugin_filename] [-a audio_plugin_filename] [-c controller_plugin_filename] [-r directory] [-g rom_full_filename]
- Bug fix: Statusbar flickers in full screen
- Bug fix: GUI window coorodinates keep increasing after 1964 is closed
- Bug fix: Game sorting in rom browser
- Right-clicking on rom list header brings up popup menu
- User can choose game name to display in the rom browser (internal game name, alternative game name or game filename)
- More rom info columns are supported in rom list, right click on list header to select columns
- Screen saver disabled if game is playing
- Mouse pointer disabled in full screen mode
Download it from the Nintendo 64 section.
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Friday, May 24th, 2002
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MAME WIP for May 22nd-24th
MAME WIP news for May 22nd through the 24th:
- 2002-05-24: Bryan McPhail sent in a driver for Desert Assault. Zsolt Vasvari added support for the lamps in Gorf. Stephane Humbert fixed DIP switch settings in Condor and Grand Striker. Aaron Giles fixed another crash bug in the new artwork functions.
- 2002-05-23: Zsolt Vasvari added Mr. Kougar to the Scramble driver, and he added Condor to the Phoenix driver, which is basically a version of Phoenix running on Z80 instead of I8085, and it has a time limit. Zsolt Vasvari also fixed the button artwork in Space War. Aaron Giles fixed yet another load of bugs in the new artwork functions, and he added support for blit-time rotation which may or may not speed up some games, but it will at the very least make it easier to write custom drawing routines. David Haywood sent in a very preliminary driver for SNK's Main Event, which works otherwise but there is no graphics or sound emulation. David Haywood also sent in a bare bones driver for the Tecmo 68k system, but it doesn't work at all due to unemulated protection. Nathan Woods fixed a crash in the command line parameters.
- 2002-05-22: Stephane Humbert fixed the DIP switches and inputs in Storm Blade, and Brian A. Troha fixed the screen size in it. Bryan McPhail integrated Shiriru's updates to the Taito F3 driver which adds better graphics priority emulation and better alpha blending. Farfetch'd sent in a driver for Grand Striker, which works fine except the playfield graphics and priorities are not yet correct. Kale submitted a fix for the interrupt system in Iga Ninjyutsuden. MASH added various clone ROM sets to several drivers.
Check out the screen shots at the above links.
Raine32 v0.35a Released
The big bad arcade emulator Raine was updated to v0.35a. Download it from the Arcade Emulators section.
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Thursday, May 23rd, 2002
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ClrMamePro v2.64b Released
The MAME ROM maanger ClrMamePro was updated to v2.64b. Here's what's new:
- fixed: profiler subfolder mess (2.64b)
- misc: fixdatfile generator includes baddumps as well (2.64b)
- added: fixdatfile generator (Scanresults->Save...) Will create a datfile (...rebuilder use only..) from the currently shown missing roms. (2.64a)
- added: invert selection button in the settings window. (2.64a)
- misc: some needed profiler-refreshs added. (2.64a)
- misc: profiler speed up. No more automatic rescan when re-entering.
- misc: rewrote the receive-data routine. No more console window... time & bytes display & speedup
- misc: rebuilder speed up for bios roms
- misc: rebuilder create destination folder keeps original name (uppercase/lowercase)
- misc: better dir2dat progressinfo update
- misc: possible log-/fastscanfile subfolders are automatically created
- misc: re-arranged scan-results popupmenu
- added: scan-results menu entry: copy to clipboard...nice for downloadmanagers which monitor the clipboard :)
Download it from the ROMs Files section.
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Monday, May 20th, 2002
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Retrogaming Times #57
Summer is upon us and the classic game scene is heating up! Check out
Retrogaming Times for all the happenings in the classic game scene! Here is
the highlights of this month's issue:
- A Look Back at Phillyclassic 3.
- News on classic game shows - CCAG, MAGFest and the Midwest Classic Show.
- Classic Star Wars reviews
- A whole lot more!
Check out the always fun and free newsletter at the above link.
As for metallik
Oh, and as for meatlick, maybe if he's spend less time pissing on his boyfriend, he'd have more time to spend on emulation where HE also posted exactly 4 posts
in 7 days... haha. Funny how those in a glass house like to throw rocks first =)
MAME WIP for May 15th-19th
MAME WIP news for May 15th through the 19th:
- 2002-05-19: David Haywood sent in a very preliminary driver for Super Slams, which is playable and has sound, but graphics aren't yet entirely correctly emulated. Aaron Giles added a Gravitar prototype to the Black Widow driver. Nicola Salmoria cleaned up the bare bones Halley's Comet driver, but did not progress any further.
- 2002-05-18: Stefan Jokisch sent in a driver for Orbit. Aaron Giles fixed yet another pile of bugs that were caused by the artwork updates. Brian A. Troha fixed the CPU frequency in Survival Arts. MASH added clone ROMs to Mach Rider, Mega Zone and Stratovox.
- 2002-05-17: Aaron Giles fixed several bugs that were caused by the artwork updates. Zsolt Vasvari removed the use of plot_pixel2 which cleans up a few things, and he fixed a few other things in the 8080bw driver. David Haywood fixed the scrolling in Battle Cross and added sound. MASH added clone ROMs to S.P.Y. and Super Basketball.
- 2002-05-16: David Haywood sent in a preliminary driver for Battle Cross, but it has no sound and graphics aren't correct. Stephane Humbert fixed the controls in it. Aaron Giles sent in a massive update to the artwork system, which is now much more flexible and easier to use. Quench updated the toaplan1 driver with a few fixes and additions. Nicola Salmoria sent in a driver for Dog-Fight, but color PROMs are missing.
- 2002-05-15: Stephane Humbert fixed inputs and DIP switches in the Metro, Pac Man and Volfied drivers. Zsolt Vasvari cleaned up the Berzerk driver, and fixed the optical joystick inputs in Exterminator. MASH added Birdie King to the Birdie King 2 driver. David Haywood fixed a few color problems in Toffy and others. Lawrence Gold sent a few patches that fix warnings with GCC 3.1. SUZ fixed screen refresh rates in a few drivers. MASH added a clone ROM to Baraduke.
Check out the screen shots at the above links. P.S. David Haywood is my hero.
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Tuesday, May 14th, 2002
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Sony Scared of the XBox
CNN reported that Sony has reduced the price of the PS2 to $199 and the PS1 to $49. Analysts say this means that Sony is feeling the heat from the XBox and is
running scared: "If Sony goes to $199, it will show that they're really, really concerned about Microsoft," P.J. McNealy, research director at GardnerG2.
CNN also reports that the GameCube is now at disadvantage. It doesn't support DVD playback, has a miniscule software library (smaller than the XBox), and now
there isn't much of a price advantage with the PS2 at the same price and the XBox expected to be priced at $249. This is the beginning of the long painful end
to the PlayStation and, I for one, won't miss it. The GameCube was designed for failure with it's slow fuzzy graphics, no DVD playback, and kiddy games. The
only thing keeping it alive is the kiddy Pokemon crowd.
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Saturday, May 11th, 2002
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CyberStella v1.2 Released
CyberStella is an Atari 2600 emulator now converted to Windows by the author. It appears the author has a new spark of interest in developing for Stella.
Download it from the Console Emulators section.
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Tuesday, May 7th, 2002
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AdvanceMAME v0.60.0 Released
The enhanced version of MAME (AdvanceMAME) was updated to v0.60.0. It includes its usual enhancements with a MAME v0.60 core. Download it
from the M.A.M.E. section.
VirtuaNES v0.55 Released
The Nintendo NES emulator VirtuaNES was updated to v0.55. Here's what's new:
- Correct behavior of a frequency low register of a triangle wave.
- Noise corrects that enters it in playback/standstill in a NSF player mode to some extent.
Download it from the Console Emulators section.
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Monday, May 6th, 2002
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ePSXe v1.5.2 Released
The Sony PlayStation emulator ePSXe was updated to v1.5.2 and it includes the following:
- Fixed a bug which got into 1.5.2 regarding several gte flags (Porsche Challenge, Tomb Raider).
- Partially rewrote the CD-Rom decoder, now it doesn't need custom flags in order to run various games any more.
- Moved the subchannel read options to it's own window in the CD-Rom configuration. Also added a new subchannel reading mode, which works with various LG 852x cdrom drives.
- Fixed a bug in the internal SPU plugin, which has been there since v1.5.0! It caused sound effects to repeat and several games to freeze (BOF series, Soul Blade).
- Added support for the Nero ISO format (.nrg).
- Massive changes to the SIO emulation. It should have better timing now and the F4 trick shouldn't be necessary that often any more. "SIO irq always on" has been removed from the GUI, but you can still turn it on using the F4 key. (affects Silent Hill esp, Track & Field, Metalslugx, NFS5 PAL, Rapshody ...)
- Fixed a bug in the internal ISO reading routines, which prevented some of the last sectors to be accessed.
- As the Chrono Cross trick isn't necessary any more, we have assigned a new trick to the F7 key, for the Xenogears dreams sequence: Press this key at the beginning of the scene, and once again after the end ;)
- Fixes to the CD-Rom decoder and the core, which made some more games playable like, for example, Theards of Fate, NBA Basketball 2000, Legend of Mana, Rebelt Assault 2, Tekken 2, MegamanX series, Jackie Chan US, Michelin Rally Masters, Transformers Beast of Wars ...
Download it from the Sony PlayStation (PSX) section.
Is It Just Me?
Is it just me or does this image look like something else? After reading the caption, it's a picture of Cristie Kerr kissing the trophy for
winning the LPGA event a couple weekends ago. That was not the first thing that came to my mind but it's probably just me.
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Friday, May 3rd, 2002
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Final Burn v0.517 Released
Yet another release for this emulator that has been canceled many times. Here's what's new in the last few releases:
v0.517
- In the last version one of the maths chip changes brought back an old bug with the After Burner II landing on Stage 5, but I've fixed this now so After Burner II and Thunder Blade both play fine now.
v0.516
- Doh - was missing two Cpu Y program roms. G-Loc runs a tiny bit better now (still no tilt or line sprites though of course).
- Fixed address range on maths chip (Thunderblade random collisions) Many thanks to Olivier for the info.
v0.515
- Added a bit of road emulation to Thunderblade, but it's unfinished and doesn't work in After Burner yet.
- Added Royal Ascot 2 driver. Note it doesn't get past the memory check, and it's not really a playable game anyway (it's a gambling game thing).
- Switched DDSOM to European (parent) set
- Fixed road palette on Out Run (e.g. stage 2B)
- Simplified After Burner hardware cpu emulation slightly.
Download it from the Arcade Emulators section.
CatVer.ini v0.60 Released
An updated CatVer.ini file was released to be in-line with the latest MAME build. The CatVer.ini can be used with the Arcade@Home
front-end as well as other front-ends and MameLang32. Download it from the Front-Ends section.
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Wednesday, May 1st, 2002
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MAME v0.60 Released!
The "big one" was updated! Here's what's new:
These drivers have improved GRAPHICS:
- Fixed disappearing enemies in later levels of Batsugun. [Kale]
These drivers have improved SOUND:
- Improved Irem GA20 emulation, used by M92 games. [Acho A. Tang]
Other drivers changes:
- Fixed several problems in Kiki KaiKai. [Acho A. Tang]
- Fixed colors in Wec Le Mans and wrong graphics in Hot Chase. [Acho A. Tang]
- Several fixes to Psikyo games. [Paul Priest, David Haywood]
- Several fixes to nemesis.c. [Hau]
Changes to the main program:
- Support for external configuration files for special controllers; this replaces the -hotrod and -hotrodse options. See ctrl.txt for the detailed explanation. [Ron Fries]
- Complete rewrite of the cheat engine. [Ian Patterson]
Source:
- New function memory_set_unmap_value(), to specify the value returned when an unmapped memory address is read. [Aaron Giles]
- Fixes to Y8950 sample playback. [Acho A. Tang]
- Complete rewrite of YM3812/YM3526/Y8950 emulation, verified on the real chip. [Jarek Burczynski]
- osd_opl_control() and osd_opl_write() removed; direct access to the SoundBlaster OPL chip is no longer useful.
New games supported:
- Judge Dredd [Aaron Giles]
- Primal Rage [Aaron Giles]
- Road Riot's Revenge [Aaron Giles]
- World Class Bowling [Aaron Giles]
- Tactician [Nicola Salmoria, Stephane Humbert]
- The Masters of Kin [Nicola Salmoria]
- IQ Block [Nicola Salmoria, Ernesto Corvi]
- Taxi Driver [Nicola Salmoria]
- Block Gal [Angelo Salese]
- Drag Race [Stefan Jokisch]
- Pool Shark [Stefan Jokisch]
- The Outfoxies [Phil Stroffolino]
- Oriental Legend [ElSemi, David Haywood]
- News [David Haywood]
- Shadow Force [David Haywood]
- The Legend of Silk Road [David Haywood, Stephane Humbert, R.Belmont]
- Miss Bubble 2 [David Haywood]
- Black Heart [from Raine]
- Mustang [from Raine]
- Many Bloc [David Haywood, Stephan Humbert]
- Xyonix [David Haywood, Stephan Humbert, Nicola Salmoria]
- Hyper Pacman [David Haywood, Stephan Humbert]
- Mille Miglia 2: Great 1000 Miles Rally [David Haywood, Stephan Humbert]
- Formation Z [Acho A. Tang]
- Tank Busters [Jarek Burczynski]
- Hyper Duel [E. Watanabe]
New clones supported:
- Pengo (bootleg)
- Bone Crusher (= Knuckle Joe)
- Fighter & Attacker (= F/A)
- Knuckle Heads (World)
- Hero in the Castle of Doom (Donkey Kong conversion)
- Blood Storm (v1.10)
- Fighting Golf (set 2)
- Clowns (rev 1)
- Magic Worm (= Centipede)
- Hot Shots Tennis (V1.0)
- Strata Bowling (V1)
- Pirate Pete (= Jungle King)
- Street Fighter (prototype)
- Nebulas Ray (World)
- Gun Bird (World)
- Bubble Symphony (Europe)
- Space Invaders '95 (US)
- C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa (World)
- R-Type Leo (World)
- Dragon Punch (= Sports Match)
Download it from the M.A.M.E. section.
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