January 25, 2006 - Mednafen 0.4.5 Released

Mednafen finally compiles AND works on Mac OS/X on PowerPC, and big-endian platforms in general. Woohoo.

 

0.4.5:

* drivers/opengl.cpp now includes the GL header files AFTER the header file that eventually loads config.h is included to fix compilation on Mac OS X.

* Redefined SFEND from { 0 } to { 0, 0, 0}, and fixed older code to use the SFEND macro, to fix crashing on OSX and possibly other platforms when saving or loading states.

* Reduced SDL's buffer size when using the SDL sound driver(used on MacOSX).

* Restructured and merged some of the sections in the autoconf script.  Note to future self:  I noted that it seems if the first instance of PKG_CHECK_MODULES() is in a statement that doesn't evaluate, any other PKG_CHECK_MODULES() statements will fail.  I don't know if this is a bug in autoconf, or a misunderstanding on my part.

* Removed the largely unused ESD sound driver from compilation, as it is mostly unsuitable for use in Mednafen.

* Also removed the jack driver, as it was unfinished, and couldn't be used anyway.

* PCE:  Fixed CD-DA playback from "WAV" audio files on big-endian platforms.

* Fixed a compilation problem on big-endian CPUs by adding appropriate type-casts in psf.cpp.

 

0.4.4:

* Modified the GBA code to not use many INLINEd functions in arm.cpp.  This greatly reduces RAM and CPU usage during compilation, and should have only a negligible impact on performance(and might even improve performance on cache-starved systems).

* Fixed a compilation problem on non-x86 and non-PPC platforms in the NES emulation code.

>> Get it HERE

Jan. 25, 2006 - JEmu2 version 2.1 released!

The following was added/fixed:

I fixed the AY-3-8910 emulation (missing noise channel and I/O ports), fixing the sound in all MSX games and many Arcade games using this chip. For example, the sound in 1942 is now perfect.

Fixed the gunsmoke arcade driver.

I also solved a problem in the MSX VDP emulation, which fixed the colors during boot-up sequences of the Konami games. I added support for online high scores in 6 MSX games (The Nemesis series, Salamander, Parodius and Penguin Adventure).

Last but not least, I started adding support for MSX2, but I've got a long way to go until I can show something complete. I'm starting with rudimentary support for just SCREEN 5 because that is what most games use.

>> Get it HERE

0.103u4

---------

 

MAMETesters Bugs Fixed

---------------------------

xevious083gre [MASH]

 

Source Changes

------------------

Intel i386/i486/Pentium update: [Nathan Woods]

- Fixed A20 mask implementation

- Added A20 mask to debugger translate callback

- Implemented Pentium opcode CMPXCHG8B

- Fixed XADD, and added support for the 8 and 16 bit variants

 

Fixed Top Shooter sprites. Game still not playable. [Tomasz Slanina]

 

Changed debug view property code to pass property values as unions rather than void pointers, in order to appease compilers that whine about strict aliasing. [Nathan Woods]

 

Fixed resource allocation issue with bitmaps in the Windows code and

MESS. [Nathan Woods]

 

Removed a number of unnecessary video_stop and machine_stop routines.[Atari Ace]

 

Converted a few more exit() calls to osd_die(). [Oliver Stoneberg]

 

Fixed inputs on Ninja Spirit and the Sega System 16b driver to match the JAMMA button ordering. [Corrado Tomaselli]

 

Fixes to the Hyperstone core: [Pierpaolo Prazzoli]

- Removed nested delays

- Don't allow software opcodes to be executed in a delay slot

 

Added/changed the following discrete modules: [Derrick Renaud]

- DISCRETE_WAVELOG - easy way to log discrete nodes as a.wav file to compare against scope waveforms.

- DISCRETE_OUTPUT - added a final gain parameter to get it to 16 bit wav level.  (The old VOL setting was disabled after the last sound re-write.)

 

Fixed graphics banking in 8751-based Altered Beast sets. [David Haywood]

 

Fixed some bad gfx in kdynastg when levels start. [Pierpaolo Prazzoli]

 

Decrypted graphics in Darkmist and Panic Road. [Nicola Salmoria]

 

Added stream_set_sample_rate() call, and converted the TMS5110, TMS5220,ES5505/6, BSMT2000, AY8910, POKEY, TIA, Sega PCM/Multi-PCM, SN76496,OKIM6295, and YMZ280B sound cores to output at their native sample rates, allowing the core sound system to perform over/re-sampling to the output rate. [Aaron Giles]

 

Moved CHD file access routines to fileio.c. [Aaron Giles]

 

Added assert macro to mamecore.h. [Aaron Giles]

 

 

New games added or promoted from NOT_WORKING status

------------------------------------------------------------------

Laser Battle/Lazarian [Pierpaolo Prazzoli]

Cat and Mouse [Pierpaolo Prazzoli]

KlonDike+ [Pierpaolo Prazzoli]

Alien Arena

Crowns Golf in Hawaii [Aaron Giles]

 

New clones added

--------------------

Joust (Solid Green Label) [Reznor007]

Space Intruder (Japan) [Tomasz Slanina, Guru]

 

New games marked as GAME_NOT_WORKING

--------------------------------------------------

Galaxia [David Haywood]

http://mamedev.org/source.html

Derivative Builds:

MAME32qa

MAMEplus

MAME32FX

Mame32plus Special

Mame32Hp4

Dats:

MAMEinfo.dat

Notes:

MAME Plus! 0.103u4

2006-01-26

* fixed cpu clockscale function. changed maximum overclock rate up to 400% for backfire.

* updated K054539. now it does't have reverb buffer margin.

* fixed low-res configuration for neogeo games, thanks Yoi

* fixed gui option handling code.

Updated to MAME 0.103u4 - MAME32 0.103

 

- Added full screen mode to PlayChoice10 single monitor BIOS.

- Disabled second monitor display in Backfire!

Source

GCEmu

Duddie and Tratax of the PSEmu fame started to code a Gamecube emulator in  June 2004. A year later they asked me to improve the graphic plugin of "GCEmu", and, well, I did it... to a certain degree

 

Ah, but the development stopped somehow six months ago (we all were busy with other stuff), so the decision was made to release the emulator in its current state. The release was planned for mid-December 2005, ahem, yeah, now it's late January 2006, just another sign of the overall lazyness

 

 

What can you expect from GCEmu? Let me quote Tratax's readme:

 

 

"GCEmu is a very incomplete emulator for the Nintendo Gamecube.

It uses recompilation techniques and some other tricks to achieve a reasonable speed. Although emulation is very incomplete, this emulation shows that 'it can be done' and can be done at a decent speed.

 

Where Dolphin Emu shows that the emulation can be done, GCEmu shows that it can be done at speed. This is because the different focus. Where the Dolphin guys hate to do cpu emulation (especially recompilers) this is exactly what I (Tratax) have been playing with since PSEmu.

 

It was made using Visual Studio C++ using pure C code and a few bits of assembler."

 

 

I've uploaded the GCEmu binaries and sources (including the gx plugin sources and some dsp reverse engineering infos from Duddie) in one big archive to a Sourceforge project. The binaries are MS-Windows only, and you will need a fast system with a pixel shader 2.0 capable gfx card to run the emu. 

 

And keep in mind: glitches, crashes and other lovely emu troubles are to be expected when you are trying to run GC games in GCEmu. That's just the way it is.

Visit the GCEmu project page HERE for downloads.