Seibu Cup Soccer Tobe! Polystars The music in G-Darius
I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, but who knows?
"Note to Noobs:
We are glad to help you but simply posting that something does not work is not going to lead to you getting help. The more information you can supply defining your problem, the less likely it will be that you will get smart-alec replies.
i really like this game below so while we brave the hail and snow i pray to the mame god in the sky and ask of him before i die to one day play this game again it used to work (in 2010)
My biggest hope is to get the vector effects perfected. Esp for the laser blasts in Asteroids. I also hope to get the SFIII games emulated perfectly. They're very close to perfect, but I'd love it if they fixed the few minor graphical bugs
Windows 11 64 bit OS
Intel Core i7-10700
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB
32GB DDR4 RAM
> i really like this game below > so while we brave the hail and snow > i pray to the mame god in the sky > and ask of him before i die > to one day play this game again > it used to work (in 2010) > > http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=5428
I'm pretty sure I fixed this when I added the new clone a release or two back...
> Might as well get this thread started. > > I hope that the following are emulated: > > Seibu Cup Soccer
I think one day it will all fall into place and just click, not sure when tho...
> Tobe! Polystars
Um.. yeah, me too, the problem is we know there's a much better driver than the one we have, and nobody really wants to step on toes or repeat work.
> The music in G-Darius
didn't we emulate that LAST year? it might not be 100%, but it's something..
> > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, but > who knows?
yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an approach for them now.
> > Might as well get this thread started. > > > > I hope that the following are emulated: > > > > Seibu Cup Soccer > > I think one day it will all fall into place and just click, not sure when tho... > > > Tobe! Polystars > > Um.. yeah, me too, the problem is we know there's a much better driver than the one > we have, and nobody really wants to step on toes or repeat work. > > > The music in G-Darius > > didn't we emulate that LAST year? it might not be 100%, but it's something.. > > > > > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, but > > who knows? > > yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver > pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an > approach for them now.
If I remember correctly, the music was still partially off-key, but that was awhile go.
"Note to Noobs:
We are glad to help you but simply posting that something does not work is not going to lead to you getting help. The more information you can supply defining your problem, the less likely it will be that you will get smart-alec replies.
As if it wasn't obvious, Star Rider to be finally emulated. This game was one of the main reasons I got into emulation some 15+ years ago and it still remains elusive.
It has got to be the oldest game where pretty much everything needed to emulate it has been available for years but the will or want from those smart enough to do it just doesn't exist.
I know Philip Bennett had a WIP driver but as far as I know he never submitted anything. Matt Ownby has done quite a bit of work lately to add it to Dexter as can be seen at his blog:
- MEGASYS1 driver rewrite, Ninja Kazan working again. - VIC-II cycle-exact emulation for C64 in MESS. - TOAPLAN1 sound emulation for Vimana, Ghox, Fire Shark (I know, this probably will never happen)
> > .... one day play this game again > > it used to work (in 2010) > > > > http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=5428 > > I'm pretty sure I fixed this when I added the new clone a release or two back...
thank you Haze i just tested with mame 168 and the bug is fixed!
My wishlist for MAME: Correct dump/decap of the "bad dump" I/O MCU for Suzuka 8 Hours and Suzuka 8 Hours 2 Fixing any remaining graphics, sound and input bugs with both games Decapping the DSP chips from Star Wars Arcade, properly emulating the DSP chips in question and otherwise fixing any remaining issues with these games Emulating the music hardware for Star Wars Trilogy (and indeed all the missing things but the music specifically) Complete save state support for The New Zealand Story (assuming there is anything missing that is) Fixing any remaining glitches with Namco System 22 (is that invincible helicopter in Time Crisis fixed yet? Emulation of the hardware for Konami Keyboardmania (and the necessary support to let me use an actual music keyboard as an input device Pong-style gate level simulation of Computer Space
And on the MESS side: Emulation of more non-traditional devices (I wonder how hard it would be to bring the MAME ARM core up to the level it would need to be to emulate devices like the Motorola RAZR V3 and phones of a similar vintage...) Accurate Nintendo 64 emulation that can play every official title without any hacks, ROM patches, HLE or anything else. Emulation of the Yamaha Electone electronic organs (again with support for real music keyboards as input
> > Tobe! Polystars > > Um.. yeah, me too, the problem is we know there's a much better driver than the one > we have, and nobody really wants to step on toes or repeat work.
Given that Uncle Phil has a bad case of Real Life Syndrome at the moment, I think it's basically going to have to be redone in any case.
Re: 2015 Is Almost Over: What Do You Guys Expect/Hope For in Mame/Mess?
[Re: Envisaged0ne]
#347725 - 12/03/15 02:48 PM Attachment: asteroid.zip 3 KB (8 downloads)
> My biggest hope is to get the vector effects perfected. Esp for the laser blasts in > Asteroids.
I am pretty sure, that there will be more updates for vector-games . Sadly for the laser blasts, we have to wait for better and affordable monitors for everyone. Monitors that support 32-bit floating RGB color space.
Better laser blasts are not possible without being hack-ish, but i attached you my asteroid.ini, exchange paths accordingly, should look nice, especially on a CRT .
- Jaleco Saint Dragon (mega system 1) - MCU dumped/decapped and properly emulated. Also I would like to see some little bugs corrected in this game to make it perfect. Save state support would be nice as well
- Taito Tokio - MCU dumped/decapped and included into this driver, so the original Tokio would become playable and free of bugs.
- Karate Champ (bootleg) - I would love to have the bootleg board with altered dialogs emulated in MAME. Hopefully this board will be found and dumped.
- Save state support in D.D. Crew (system18)
- Pit-Fighter (Rev. 9) - Fix some bugs that cause vertical gaps in the background scenes and the Ty intro bug that occurs randomly, where the screen displays some garbage for a very brief moment.
- Sega Mega Play Bio-Hazard Battle (mp_bio) - "Continue" bug fixed so we can add coins to keep playing.
> > Might as well get this thread started. > > > > I hope that the following are emulated: > > > > Seibu Cup Soccer > > I think one day it will all fall into place and just click, not sure when tho... > > > Tobe! Polystars > > Um.. yeah, me too, the problem is we know there's a much better driver than the one > we have, and nobody really wants to step on toes or repeat work. > > > The music in G-Darius > > didn't we emulate that LAST year? it might not be 100%, but it's something.. > > > > > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, but > > who knows? > > yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver > pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an > approach for them now.
Guru updated his page recently with some decapping news that worth reading. It seems that we can hope for something next year in this subject. Of course, if you want a particular chip to be decapped/photographed soon, you may have to spend some money yourself. Otherwise, have a seat and waaaait.
Right now I'm looking for a Jaleco Saint Dragon PCB and a Taito Tokio PCB to buy and have both of them dumped and their MCUs decapped. But the big challenge here is to find these rare boards!
> > > Might as well get this thread started. > > > > > > I hope that the following are emulated: > > > > > > Seibu Cup Soccer > > > > I think one day it will all fall into place and just click, not sure when tho... > > > > > Tobe! Polystars > > > > Um.. yeah, me too, the problem is we know there's a much better driver than the one > > we have, and nobody really wants to step on toes or repeat work. > > > > > The music in G-Darius > > > > didn't we emulate that LAST year? it might not be 100%, but it's something.. > > > > > > > > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, > but > > > who knows? > > > > yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver > > pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an > > approach for them now. > > Guru updated his page recently with some decapping news that worth reading. It seems > that we can hope for something next year in this subject. Of course, if you want a > particular chip to be decapped/photographed soon, you may have to spend some money > yourself. Otherwise, have a seat and waaaait. >
and I'll believe it when I see it, the last thing we need is another over-hyped under delivering scheme, the previous one burned such an unbelievable number of bridges I'm surprised anybody has any confidence in us at all now (there's a fair bit of stuff you haven't seen emulated due to people still being pissed off over that and we really should be offering a deep apology) I would take anything said on Guru's page with a pinch of salt, we're even having to apologise all over the place for his behavior, it's becoming a full time job.
Decapping is not a magic solution, unles the parts are MASK parts it guarantees nothing, even MASK parts can be tricky if they're modern. For anything else you're basically depending on there being a read mechanism, having the right adapter, and being able to locate and disable whatever read protection is in the chip, by no means an easy task. Not all chips have read mechanisms, and some are truly custom so you won't find an adapter to read them.
So far, even with a guy who was considered one of the most knowledgeable in the field, all we got were simple mask rom cases, and chips where the deprotect bits were well documented, even then we got a lot of bad dumps and things that needed to be hand fixed. The guys actually doing the best decap work (but again only covering MASK rom cases where decapping is a viable solution) have mostly been working on decapping stuff for the MESS side of the project, quietly, without any real hype.
> Right now I'm looking for a Jaleco Saint Dragon PCB and a Taito Tokio PCB to buy and > have both of them dumped and their MCUs decapped. But the big challenge here is to > find these rare boards!
Tokio should be ok, the Jaleco MCUs I've not heard anything suggesting we can deal with.
What about 10-bit monitors ? I bought a 4K resolution monitor with 10-bit color support a couple months ago. And I have the 10-bit output color depth enabled and full RGB output enabled in nVidia drivers v358.91.
> What about 10-bit monitors ? I bought a 4K resolution monitor with 10-bit color > support a couple months ago. > And I have the 10-bit output color depth enabled and full RGB output enabled in > nVidia drivers v358.91.
that is nice for you, but who else have such a setup? you think it is common?
> that is nice for you, but who else have such a setup? you think it is common?
Pretty much all AMD and Nvidia GPUs for the last 2-3 years support 10 bits per component. (AMD FireGL workstation cards started supporting it in 2008, and Nvidia Quadro workstation cards in 2009; it's a bit more recent than that in consumer parts). Monitors are more problematic, but 4K TV has been standardized on wide-gamut and HDR so I expect 4K computer monitors to follow suit.
> > > Might as well get this thread started. > > > > > > I hope that the following are emulated: > > > > > > Seibu Cup Soccer > > > > I think one day it will all fall into place and just click, not sure when tho... > > > > > Tobe! Polystars > > > > Um.. yeah, me too, the problem is we know there's a much better driver than the one > > we have, and nobody really wants to step on toes or repeat work. > > > > > The music in G-Darius > > > > didn't we emulate that LAST year? it might not be 100%, but it's something.. > > > > > > > > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, > but > > > who knows? > > > > yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver > > pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an > > approach for them now. > > Guru updated his page recently with some decapping news that worth reading. It seems > that we can hope for something next year in this subject. Of course, if you want a > particular chip to be decapped/photographed soon, you may have to spend some money > yourself. Otherwise, have a seat and waaaait. >
Link? I know how to get to his site, but what page in particular there are you referring to?
Also, for the sake of this thread, I also forgot wanting to see Tatakae! Big Fighter emulated, but that chip got screwed over by that Tarnovsky guy.
"Note to Noobs:
We are glad to help you but simply posting that something does not work is not going to lead to you getting help. The more information you can supply defining your problem, the less likely it will be that you will get smart-alec replies.
I know the complexity of the Seibu Cop Prot so i dont say this lightly but Tad's Heated Barrel is more or less there it would be nice to see it reach 100% playable status maybe 2016 will be the year.
I'd like to see work/improvements in the Atari machines...800, 2600, 5200, 7800, XE Game System & Jaguar. Support for .atx images, additions to their software lists, etc.
> I'd like to see work/improvements in the Atari machines...800, 2600, 5200, 7800, XE > Game System & Jaguar. Support for .atx images, additions to their software lists, > etc.
indeed it is nice to WORK on a 4k display, but i still didnt see any in most post production houses and not to speak of 4k with HDR. I think you underestimate the file-sizes that HDR produces, especially for movie content. IMHO HDR will be available and interesting earliest in two years for consumers.
> > > > Might as well get this thread started. > > > > > > > > I hope that the following are emulated: > > > > > > > > Seibu Cup Soccer > > > > > > I think one day it will all fall into place and just click, not sure when tho... > > > > > > > Tobe! Polystars > > > > > > Um.. yeah, me too, the problem is we know there's a much better driver than the > one > > > we have, and nobody really wants to step on toes or repeat work. > > > > > > > The music in G-Darius > > > > > > didn't we emulate that LAST year? it might not be 100%, but it's something.. > > > > > > > > > > > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, > > but > > > > who knows? > > > > > > yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver > > > pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an > > > approach for them now. > > > > Guru updated his page recently with some decapping news that worth reading. It > seems > > that we can hope for something next year in this subject. Of course, if you want a > > particular chip to be decapped/photographed soon, you may have to spend some money > > yourself. Otherwise, have a seat and waaaait. > > > > Link?
If any of you guys know someone with a decent knowledge of the Atari 8-bit internals that might be interested in picking up the driver and making it sing, we'd love to hear from them. We've finally gotten Pernod to start overhauling the BBC Micro and friends, so the Atari 8-bit is probably the most-neglected 6502 machine left.
> indeed it is nice to WORK on a 4k display, but i still didnt see any in most post > production houses and not to speak of 4k with HDR. I think you underestimate the > file-sizes that HDR produces, especially for movie content. IMHO HDR will be > available and interesting earliest in two years for consumers.
Actually most 4k TVs now on sale support HDR, it's just not clear if it's going to be compatible with the HDR standard in use on 4k Blu-Ray (which has been ratified and should start appearing summer 2016-ish). Basically we're going to have 2 generations of HDTVs that might not be able to display the final standard. Firmware upgrades may be able to save some of these sets; we'll see.
The new Blu-ray standard at the end of 2015 will support HDR, also streaming providers like Netflix and Amazon said that they will support HDR in the near future, as all the new series will be recorded with HDR support. But the thing is, when will all of this, become a standard for normal consumers and how it will affect the consumers. I dont think that most of the people will consider HDR a "must have" as it is already the same with 4k. In my circle of friends, nobody is into 4k or bother with buying it, just because its 4k and things will only get cheaper, if people will buy it.
> > - Improved PC AT 386 / 486 emulation > > I 2nd this, plus 586 > > Is it possible yet to get a LAN game of Doom working on the 486 driver? Was Doom the > first LAN based PC game?
No, there were plenty of games with LAN support long before Doom came out. e.g. Sopwith (a very basic 2D plane flying game) supported LAN play over IPX/SPX IIRC. Before this, lots of games - like Firepower, a 2D top down tank game - supported connection via the serial port (not LAN, but still a very basic / very limited network).
However, Doom was the game that made every man, woman, and their dog run out and buy, borrow, or scrounge network cards, cables, etc.
And, IIRC, I think Doom was the first game that supported 4 players at once in a LAN game.
My friends and I hosted and took part in many dozens of LAN parties at each others houses. Great fun. Happy days.
> I don't come to your house and shit diarrhea into your carpet.
Well except for that one time, but you were really drunk, so I let it slide. Why you gotta bring up bad memories? Man, that rug really tied the room together.
And I thought I was the only one who liked Suzuka 8 Hours If I ever win lotto or something and set up my own arcade, a Suzuka 8 Hours is one of the cabs I would put in it
> > Might as well get this thread started. > > > > I hope that the following are emulated: > > > > Seibu Cup Soccer > > I think one day it will all fall into place and just click, not sure when tho... > > > Tobe! Polystars > > Um.. yeah, me too, the problem is we know there's a much better driver than the one > we have, and nobody really wants to step on toes or repeat work. > > > The music in G-Darius > > didn't we emulate that LAST year? it might not be 100%, but it's something.. > > > > > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, but > > who knows? > > yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver > pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an > approach for them now.
Well, all I know for sure is that if Raiden II can finally be emulated after 15+ years, Toaplan sound chips must have a weakness that can be exploited to finally get the data from them. This also assumes a reputable decapper can be found...
> Well, all I know for sure is that if Raiden II can finally be emulated after 15+ > years, Toaplan sound chips must have a weakness that can be exploited to finally get > the data from them. This also assumes a reputable decapper can be found...
you do know that these things are about as equivalent of saying 'if we find a universal cure for cancer we'll surely be able to discover how to walk through walls')
> > Well, all I know for sure is that if Raiden II can finally be emulated after 15+ > > years, Toaplan sound chips must have a weakness that can be exploited to finally > get > > the data from them. This also assumes a reputable decapper can be found... > > you do know that these things are about as equivalent of saying 'if we find a > universal cure for cancer we'll surely be able to discover how to walk through > walls')
My point was is that if there's a will, there's a way. I was trying to be polite, but for some reason, you took what I said the wrong way.
> > > Well, all I know for sure is that if Raiden II can finally be emulated after 15+ > > > years, Toaplan sound chips must have a weakness that can be exploited to finally > > get > > > the data from them. This also assumes a reputable decapper can be found... > > > > you do know that these things are about as equivalent of saying 'if we find a > > universal cure for cancer we'll surely be able to discover how to walk through > > walls') > > My point was is that if there's a will, there's a way. I was trying to be polite, but > for some reason, you took what I said the wrong way. > > Such hostility really wasn't warranted.
my point isn't hostile, I just believe yours to be incredibly naive, much like the "if there's a will, there's a way" line you're using right now; that simply isn't true, never has been, never will be. I even attempted to make it humorous to avoid it being interpreted that way ('Envisaged0ne' seems to get this?)
there's zero indication right now that the Toaplan MCUs can be done, and Raiden 2 was an *entirely* different challenge. The Toaplan 2 stuff requires without any doubt, the original code from the original hardware if sound is to be properly emulated, it's not something we can just make up by staring at the code for longer until something clicks.
my only purpose is to educate, and prevent the spread of wrong ideas.
At least for the last few Toaplan games without sound there is the Samples Option which the offical MAME Release doesn't support i guess you could add the code required and compile your own build.The Samples are good you wont notice the difference.
There's been so much swearing, flying off the handle, and ugly behaviour on these forums - especially towards new posters who don't know us yet - and this behaviour seems to be getting worse.
I'd like to see some people taking everything they read with a big pinch of salt, ignoring things that make them mad, replying calmly when their blood is boiling, and to stop feeding the trolls.
> > > Well, all I know for sure is that if Raiden II can finally be emulated after 15+ > > > years, Toaplan sound chips must have a weakness that can be exploited to finally > > get > > > the data from them. This also assumes a reputable decapper can be found... > > > > you do know that these things are about as equivalent of saying 'if we find a > > universal cure for cancer we'll surely be able to discover how to walk through > > walls') > > My point was is that if there's a will, there's a way. I was trying to be polite, but > for some reason, you took what I said the wrong way. > > Such hostility really wasn't warranted.
There's not a gram of hostility in Hazes reply to you. Somehow you decided to take offense instead of laughing at it. It is painfully true for those who care about these things, but still a funny as hell way to put it.
> > +1 on the Atari 8 bit. > > If any of you guys know someone with a decent knowledge of the Atari 8-bit internals > that might be interested in picking up the driver and making it sing, we'd love to > hear from them. We've finally gotten Pernod to start overhauling the BBC Micro and > friends, so the Atari 8-bit is probably the most-neglected 6502 machine left.
I wish I did know someone who has knowledge in this system. Crap I would even hire them.
Fixed sound for Gradius, Salamander, and Mario Bros. BGFX Renderer get fully implemented and become the mainline. More complete Lua-scripting A complete overhaul of the MAME documentation.
I think that's really about it. I think BGFX has a real shot at happening, but the rest of that.. well, we'll see. As for the documentation, it'd take a real lunatic to take on that kind of job...
> i am expecting in 2016 to be playable the following games > > afterburner series > ---------------------- > sega Strike Fighter > Sky Target > > and also > > Zarya Vostoka sequel to Intrepid > operation tiger (operation wolf 4) > > and world rally 2
Santa Claus is coming earlier this year (at least for You) - Sega Strike Fighter is playable in Demul. - Sky Target is playable in Modeler. - Zarja Vostoka : From StrategyWiki... However if you copy the four missing GFX/audio ROM files from that Intrepid romset into its folder (which come up as "NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN"), then start up the game, you shall be able to see its attract sequence, and partially be able to play it. - World Rally 2 is (sort of) playable, besides "not working" tab.
For Operation Tiger, AFAIK no dev works on driver (driver in MAME is formal ?!) Is there any video capture (or even a single photo) of that arcade machine ?
> For Operation Tiger, AFAIK no dev works on driver (driver in MAME is formal ?!) Is > there any video capture (or even a single photo) of that arcade machine ?
It has a DSP with internal ROM. Not really possible to emulate right now (except maybe full HLE?)
> For Operation Tiger, AFAIK no dev works on driver (driver in MAME is formal ?!) Is > there any video capture (or even a single photo) of that arcade machine ?
> > For Operation Tiger, AFAIK no dev works on driver (driver in MAME is formal ?!) Is > > there any video capture (or even a single photo) of that arcade machine ? > > It has a DSP with internal ROM. Not really possible to emulate right now (except > maybe full HLE?)
Actually, strike that. I just found the DSP code, it was just "misplaced" :P Doesn't completely rule out internal ROM, but at least there's something to work with now.
((I didn't know what any of this stuff was, but surfacially 4k....))
Bottom line
Most experts I've spoken to, on both the content side and the TV side, are excited about HDR and WCG. 4K itself didn't have anyone in those camps that excited. The common refrain was "More pixels are cool, but better pixels would be amazing."
Though breathlessly claimed as the next-generation TV evolution, 4K was anything but. Now, with HDR and WCG, we're looking at the promised evolution, and it should be a brighter and more colorful one.
hehehehehehn. A-nywaaays..... I took it neutrally. It takes three clicks. And now you know.
OR - you could use UIFX. Which is geared toward what you want, and it's being maintained. I haven't bothered with regular UI for several years - except insofar as when I play .104, cos it's all set up.
1. maybe more PEPlus entries for PE Plus system being supported. 2. Kee Games Quiz Show (now that 8-track question tapes are accounted for). 3. any type of discrete update including adding more roms as documentation placement files if need be from non-cpu pcbs and pcbs with roms not yet dumped get dumped.
4. any unique games like Arcadia's Rockford or some early 1980s Taito video games.
5. handheld games on MESS side....especially Mattel Electronics handheld games and MB Microvision being updated to eventually be in working state.
6. And on DICE side...maybe Digital Games Model 474 pong clone...the one player versus machine opponent is the ultimate pong challenge imo. --
number 1: maybe more PEPlus entries for PE Plus system - still going strong
number 3: any type of discrete update - good progress this year such as audio improvements (Irem games as an example) and also Breakout being added including netlist now able to use internal artwork layout support.
number 4: any unique games like Arcadia's Rockford or some early 1980s Taito video games. - Monkey Magic comes to mind for old era games being added in 2015 along with Sega's Car Hunt dual game. A few more games now improved or now working also come to mind such as Taito Top Landing now playable or Harem having improved sounds.
number 5: handheld games on MESS side....especially Mattel Electronics handheld games - lots of additions now working, but still some challenges for dealing with Mattel Electronics handheld games.
Anticipating for next year (2016),
1. PE Plus still going strong with more additions.
2. Some more discrete/netlist updates. And hopefully another non-cpu game being supported?
3. more handheld games being supported...and that may include some Mattel Electronics handheld games.
4. maybe a few more games being found and added, but I expect it will be more improvements and updates to 1980s era games instead of games being added.
> Might as well get this thread started. > > I hope that the following are emulated: > > Seibu Cup Soccer > Tobe! Polystars > The music in G-Darius > > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, but > who knows?
Fix the colors and video emulation in the nes and snes drivers.
> > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, but > > who knows? > > yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver > pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an > approach for them now.
So, would de-capping not be part of a potential solution for those games? I remember trojaning has also worked on some games, but then again, that's no guarantee, either.
-I'm hoping we will see at least one more discrete game next along with sounds in silent games. I hope long term Couriersud will get to the point where others can contribute (as he has stated).
-More laserdisc games supported. I was excited when we first saw MAME's emulation of Cube Quest. I will just hope for a definitive capture of the discs at this point. Star Rider is the one I would love to see. I don't care about DL/SA as at is a legal mess.
-M1- a new incarnation of RB's cool little program. Ultimate geek software that shouldn't be abandoned.
> > > I'm not holding out much hope for the decapping of Toaplan sound chips, though, > but > > > who knows? > > > > yeah, I wouldn't hold much hope either, I'd love to close the book on that driver > > pretty much for good, but I don't think anybody even has the first idea of an > > approach for them now. > > So, would de-capping not be part of a potential solution for those games? I remember > trojaning has also worked on some games, but then again, that's no guarantee, either.
decapping might not help unless they're MASK parts (or if not, we know where the read protect bit is in the chip, and can turn it off without damaging the rest of the data, and have an adapter capable of reading out the data, assuming the read mechanism hasn't been completely disabled in them)
trojaning is unlikely to be an option, it relies on being able to get the CPU to run your own code from external RAM/ROM, but the way the Toaplan games are set up they don't appear ever attempt to execute code from external ROM/RAM, maybe there's a way to glitch them into doing so, but again, such techniques are not known / documented for this type of chip AFAIK, once you're running external code many MCUs also lock out reading from the internal area, or re-enabling it.
> - more progress on discrete parts emulation (there was great progress recently) >
yeah, hopefully those who understand this will continue to put in the work, it's an important area of MAME, not always popular when it brings drivers to their knees performance-wise, but we can't hide from it forever.
yeah, would be nice to see progress in this area unlocked again, the way things were done before hasn't helped us, too many things others weren't able to reproduce / do for themselves. There were people who wanted to get on board with this in the past and couldn't because the software / exact instructions etc. weren't available to them, I'd view this as one of the darker parts of MAME history.
> - proper mcu dump/emulation of sound in toaplan games > - proper mcu dump for Bonze Adventure >
already discussed, would be nice, can't see happening.
> - fixes for megasys1 driver (it's nicely going) >
mostly low hanging stuff at the moment tho, there's still something fundamentally wrong with the driver we're not understanding.
perfection will request extensive tests... there's a chance somebody will pick them up and improve them again, but it's really at the point where everything needs hardware verifying.
> - sound in Sky Destroyer >
I think this is another MCU issue, although in this case I think the MCUs only pass along command packets etc. so might be doable with a simple simulation.
> - mcu dump for Tokyo >
given the MCU type is known to have exploits I'd pencil this under possible.
> -emulation of Akai Katana (is it old enough ?) >
all the Cave games are old enough, even the latest one, although given the history we might hold off that even if it was dumped. I'm quite surprised the AK games didn't surface around Halloween tho.
so.. I guess (and I might convert this into a full blog post at some point) I should share some of what I hope to see.
First of all, for many home systems we need far tighter control of the emulated system, things like waitstates, ability to stall a CPU until data is ready, knowing the exact execution order of things in MAME, right now, especially with pluggable devices it's not really clear in what order things will be executed etc.
If we want to emulate CPUs acting as ROM emulators (the Atari 2600 Harmony cart for example) as actual CPUS, properly, then we need something like that (it will be slow, basically perfect syncing of a very fast ARM) but I'd like to see it. That's an extreme, we also need it for things like the ZX Spectrum if we want to aim for anywhere near decent compatibility, it might amaze you when there are so many Spectrum emulators around but those were built from the ground up with such considerations, MAME was not, and we're seeing it increasingly needed.
I'd also like to see a way to untie the OSD updates from the emulation updates, right now they're heavily tied together, if a game isn't hitting 100% speed the interface also runs slow, and with increasingly complex emulation targets this makes things difficult. Similar issues also mean that we can't have games with multiple screens where the screens run at different refresh rates (and therefore have their own vblanks at different times) don't work properly, I've had to hack around that to get Race Drivin' Panorama running, because the side screens run at entirely different resolutions and refresh rates to the main screen.
Progress on the fruit machines would be good to see too. A lot of the existing standalone emulators are Windows specific, this means that MAME has a huge potential userbase for these things on non-windows platforms if we start to make progress, and many of them are ideal for touch screen operation (tablets etc.) as we can map physical buttons on the machine to the emulation using layout files etc. In order to survive and thrive MAME needs to reach out to audiences like this, give possibilities to users where they didn't exist before. Some of this will of course need a better / more friendly artwork system, and work putting in towards alt targets such as Android.
Driver-wise, there are a couple of specific things that still bug me.
The Sega protection used by Decathlete and Dead or Alive (although not for much in the latter case, just a string check) - this is one of the few (only?) Sega compression (and maybe encryption) chips we haven't figured out yet, it's something Huffman based, it even uploads nice ordered dictionary tables based on how frequent each byte of data is, but I haven't managed to figure out the scheme. Of course the ST-V emulation REALLY needs a rewrite (even with correct GFX Decathlete would be too slow to play) and the Model 2 isn't much better, but having the protection out of the way would be good.
Gunpey is similar to the above, a compression scheme we don't understand.
Cool Riders audio, considering the amount of work the rest of the driver was it's a shame the audio has remained so badly emulated.
Gaelco Snowboard Championship - this doesn't use the Dallas, but instead has an encryption device, this is pretty much next on my todo list, Charles has picked up a PCB and I'm going to work with him on getting the needed data, should be something like the encryption used on Squash, which we cracked.
PGM titles, Puzzle Star and Photo Y2k2 still need attention, trojans, attempts to extract internal ROMs etc. I need to revisit them at some point, Puzzle Star didn't like any of my trojan attempts, seems everything is bounds checked, so might end up just needing a good simulation. Photo Y2k2 I haven't probed yet.
ARM / I86 / SH4 recompilers. Not sure how much they will actually help (or if infact they'll end up hindering things because of some of the inherent inaccuracies a recompiler brings) but if we are going to make headway with a number of systems we'll need these.
Documentation / emulation of a number of mobile phones etc. Again we're not really covering this area well, things like the nGage are viable emulation targets (actually emulating the system, not just running hacked game files) unfortunately real documentation and bios roms for many of these are VERY rare, often it's only possible to find update files, and the situation for games is worse, often just loose files. There are a number of toys etc. I'd group in here, I started an ArCompact core for the Leapster a year or two ago, but ended up sidetracked when some stuff didn't make sense, I'd like to see that continued.
Power Drift Link version, Shoutime dumped it, but it's been a pain to get running, I think it might need 2 units emulated, although before that we need to make sense of the network Z80, and what it's trying to do / what the main 68k expects it to do. I'm not really interested in it for the Link capabilities, but because it's a unique version of the game with modified courses, something of a hidden secret.
Improvements to the Mega System 32 emulation, F1 Super Battle also, but that's going to take somebody figuring out the extra maths hardware and simulating it. For the base MS32 our priorities are all over the place, many palette effects don't work, it's left me stumped every time I've looked at it tho so I'm not optimistic.
The Hyper Neogeo has also been slow to make progress on, I'd like to see more people involved in improving it.
The usual MCU decaps / Taito C-Chip etc. would be good, but I'm not optimsitic on those at all, it's entirely out of my hands.
Obviously accuracy improvements to all the staple systems we emulate are welcome, would be nice to have NES and Gameboy+clones without the jittery scanline problems we have now due to timing issues, full coverage of mappers etc. and emulation of the clone machines that enhanced the hardware.
A community supporting MAME rather than working against it would also be brilliant, maybe community is the wrong word (for there are communities that do support MAME) but I'm seeing more and more people trying to take advantage of the situation we find ourselves in, realising that they can charge stupid amounts for PCBs and pricing us out of the market, or withholding information because certain members of the team have acted like asses at one point or another. We're going to end up looking back on these years as a sad time for the preservation effort if people continue to go down this path of favouring personal fortune over helping out the project; it used to only be a problem with certain groups (NeoGeo collectors etc.) but the mentality is spreading.
There are a couple of other odd drivers that have remained problematic for years, things like Beauty Block, Mazer Blazer, I did an article a year or two back looking at some of then, and while to be honest, even once emulated I'll probably never give them another look, it would be good to finally be able to say 'case closed' on them.
In terms of things I'd like to see show up? More Deco Cassettes, anything else where time is really running out for them, some of the stuff Shoutime has picked up, A decap of the Bubble System MCU so we can many program a custom one and dump the bubble memory properly, as right now even if we were to emulate it the whole thing would be pretty much HLE just copying game data into RAM rather than any attempt to emulate the magnetic memory system and the MCU that controls it. I strongly suspect some of these are lost causes at this point tho.
Project-wise, if we could get the re-licensing fully sorted out that would be handy, we might be able to offer MAME as a viable alternative to the dogshit certain companies are pumping out, we're a much more mature project now, so being in a position where we can license out our code makes a lot more sense than it did 10 years ago when MAME was seen as more of a toy.
> -M1- a new incarnation of RB's cool little program. Ultimate geek software that > shouldn't be abandoned.
It's on my to-do list, following a couple of pending MAME updates that will affect it (OG's planned audio streaming rework that has a ticket on Github now, for instance).
Also, the thing I'm doing at my day job means I won't be doing a lot of emulation in 2016. Or at least not the first 8-9 months.
Don't be surprised if Akai Katana pops up on Steam in the next year. Mushi did better than predicted, so I'm thinking it's likely Cave will be bringing the rest of their 360 archives over. That may actually save the emulation of the arcade boards entirely, though not in the way you're likely thinking.
It'll stop people from pestering the codemonkeys to the point they get annoyed and stop wanting to even look at the Cave stuff.
> ARM / I86 / SH4 recompilers. Not sure how much they will actually help (or if infact > they'll end up hindering things because of some of the inherent inaccuracies a > recompiler brings) but if we are going to make headway with a number of systems we'll > need these.
I'm pretty sure x86 recompiler would be a 1000% quality of life improvement to Samuele
yeah, would be nice to see progress in this area unlocked again, the way things were done before hasn't helped us, too many things others weren't able to reproduce / do for themselves. There were people who wanted to get on board with this in the past and couldn't because the software / exact instructions etc. weren't available to them, I'd view this as one of the darker parts of MAME history.
What a shame, I didn't know there was a dark back story. I thought the method to preserve the discs information was agreed upon.
IIRC, Microsoft's Direct Show was being used to encode the additional data.
Reading posts in the past it seemed as if the emulation part wasn't that difficult (correct me if I'm wrong)
I hope it is not a "capture" sticking point for MAME. LD is one of the last great frontiers for MAME and the discs just keep degrading.
Matt O's work had me excited that we might see Star Rider emulated in MAME. I've read it has really quirky hardware.
> > My friends and I hosted and took part in many dozens of LAN parties at each others > > houses. Great fun. Happy days. > > Yes, did that too many times over. Great times! > > We had a simple token ring LAN with 4 players, playing Doom 2, Duke Nukem, C&C & > Descent 2 (and Starcraft later).
YES YES. All those great games and others (Rise of the Triad, etc).
I was so gutted when I first saw C&C - it was the game that I was meant to develop - a game just like it had been stewing in my brain for several years (data model, designs, and prototype were done - the sounds, etc were in hand - I was just waiting on someone to do the graphics / art for me .... grrrrr .... ).
Friends and I used to play C&C ALL the time - more often that Doom / Doom 2 even - and it was always three against one - my 3 friends against me - and it was extremely rare that I lost. All with our PCs setup in the same room. Laughing our heads off, them screaming with outrage when I beat them again, all the while with the music turned up loud and a big feast of mexican food or pizza waiting for us when we finally took a break from the game.
Loved that game. Still do.
I've still got a filing cabinet drawer half-full of the old BNC connectors, terminators, and BNC and other cables - a crucial part of our home networks. Once we had a LAN and were missing a terminator, and no shops open at the time to buy one within 100+ miles. So, I always took loads of spares from then on. Even though I haven't used the BNC stuff in the last 20 years, I've never been able to throw them out.
I already have original game on XBox360 so probably at that price they offering Mushi I won't be interested. I just would like to play on my CRT TV just like any other arcade game.
> > ARM / I86 / SH4 recompilers. Not sure how much they will actually help (or if > infact > > they'll end up hindering things because of some of the inherent inaccuracies a > > recompiler brings) but if we are going to make headway with a number of systems > we'll > > need these. > > I'm pretty sure x86 recompiler would be a 1000% quality of life improvement to > Samuele
If we got our licensing sorted out we could probably borrow qemu's ARM and x86/x64 recompilers.
> Oh, what a pity > Someone should help shoutime with dumping. He obviously have not a spare time.
He really doesn't have much spare time, and I'm not sure that there would be anyone with his qualifications to stand in his shoes. The guy is involved in some things quite a lot bigger than any of us individual folks. Knowing his situation (without getting into specifics), I'm not going to hold his lack of time for dumping things against him. Suffice it to say that he's a solid dude who's really good at obtaining things for historical preservation in the long term, it just might take some time for everything to be dumped. As they say, patience is a virtue.
> What a shame, I didn't know there was a dark back story. I thought the method to > preserve the discs information was agreed upon. > > IIRC, Microsoft's Direct Show was being used to encode the additional data. > > Reading posts in the past it seemed as if the emulation part wasn't that difficult > (correct me if I'm wrong) > > I hope it is not a "capture" sticking point for MAME. LD is one of the last great > frontiers for MAME and the discs just keep degrading.
Unfortunately, that seems to be exactly what it is, and it's not going to be until other devs get off their respective asses and realize that there's no such thing as "perfect" that we'll be able to see these sorts of games in MAME. Personally, I'm pretty tired of the argument that we have to have everything bit-perfect, given the fact that laserdiscs are inherently analog. Yes, we certainly want the auxiliary information for each frame, but that's one hell of a gulf between "what MAMEdev at large seems to want" and "what's viable to dump for the average person". I may be on the dev mailing list, but I'm more than happy to call out bullshit when I see it, and I think that the current situation with laserdiscs qualifies as such. We're sitting here, twiddling our thumbs, while these discs rot away in whatever storage unit they've been slung into, waiting for some idealistic level of perfection that will never come. I say fuck that, let's get this stuff into MAME sooner, rather than later.
I just keep thinking it would be a better capture now, with a decent method rather then waiting 10 years for the Pope sanctioned way.
Besides just like roms be found/updated. The captures could always be replaced if/when someone wants to do it the "perfect" way. If it is even a viable disc at that point.
>I say fuck that, let's get this stuff into MAME sooner, rather than later.