Kega Fusion 3.6 released

[Robert]

Fusion is a Sega SG1000, SC3000, Master System, Game Gear, Genesis/Megadrive, SVP, Pico, SegaCD/MegaCD and 32X emulator for Win9x/ME/2000/XP/Vista.

 

Well it's been a long time. Lots of really bad things have happened, often working on Kega felt like the last thing I wanted to be doing.

 

Still. Work on it I did. Lots of changes and additions over the last two years, most of which I've forgotten about again, but here's the stuff I can remember:

 

* Fixed Sound/Timing Issue with Fahrenheit SCD/32X.

 

* Fixed a typo which corrupted a register in the YM2612 SSG/EG section.

 

* Removed a few pieces of test code that were not supposed to be left in, and affected timing of various things under certain conditions.

 

* LOTS of behind-the-scenes fixes and improvements, which I've totally forgotten, but you will notice them and remind me at some point

 

* Rewrote controller code, should fix problems with some USB controllers.

 

* Rewrote Menacer emulation which made it easier to add Konami Justifier emulation. Just the first Justifier is emulated for now. You'll definitely want to calibrate it in games that use it.

 

* Added SegaCD SaveStates that actually, you know, work.

 

* Added support for more games that use custom SRAM, and fixed some that were already emulated, but got broken at some point.

 

* Added support for all unlicensed Genesis games that I know of.

 

* Added support for the Sega Virtua Processor (SVP). Thanks to the reverse engineering work by the amazing Tasco Deluxe, and the proof of concept emulator by Notaz, I was able to write and debug my ASM core for this in just two days.

 

* Removed some filtering in YM2612 SuperHQ mode (you won't actually notice) and instead added a "Filter" option to the sound menu. This filter is very close to that in a real Model 1 Genesis/MegaDrive. Most people will want to leave this off (me included) but I know some people wanted it.

 

* Removed 11025Hz option. It was causing me problems, doesn't work well on most newish hardware, and sucked anyway.

 

* Added preliminary Sega Pico support. There's a lot more I plan to do with this. For now, just load as a Genesis ROM. Mouse is required for Pico, along with the following controls: START switches between StoryWare and trackpad, B is the pico red button, A and C turn pages, and U/D/L/R are, well, U/D/L/R.

 

* Added ability to create 128K SegaCD RAM carts to keep SpinelSun happy

 

* Added two controller sharing options for Netplay. Everybody can now share controller one, or all controllers. The latter isn't very useful, but why not.

 

* Added "Nearest Multiple" option to the Video Menu. The various Aspect modes do what they have always done when this option is enabled, but now when it is disabled, they will allow non-multiple stretching while still keeping the aspect ratio correct.

 

* Added "Use NTSC Aspect" option to the Video Menu. This used to be done automatically under certain conditions, now you have full control.

 

* Added Pause Emulation feature.

 

* Added Frame Advance feature.

 

* Added No Frame Skipping feature. You should pretty much ignore this and let Kega do what is best. But it does also trigger a special case mode when you have VSync enabled, and you hit Fast Forward. Normally, VSync is ignored during Fast Forward, or else Fast Forward wouldn't actually do very much. With No Frame Skipping enabled, it will still do VSyncs. This might be useful to you if your video mode is running at some odd refresh rate. Note that the sound could well sound awful if you do this.

 

* Added AVI Logging using custom Kega Game Video 1 lossless codec. This is needed because logging RAW video causes poor performance even on highend machines, and using any of the available codecs either doesn't compress well enough to fix that, or does compress well enough, but can't keep up with 60fps, so you get poor performance either way. The codec is able to use hints from the emulator to aid in compression, allowing pretty good compression while taking very little CPU time. The codec to allow you to play back and convert the files is included in the archive, and can be installed via right clicking on the INI file and telling the OS to continue with the install. Tested on XP and Vista64, should work fine on 9x and Vista32.

 

Note that these AVI files are not really meant to be shared as they are, it's just a way for you to log video without horrible laggy gameplay. Convert them to Xvid or something using the excellent VirtualDub program (Google it.) I'll open up this codec sometime later incase it's useful for other purposes/programs.

 

* Disabled BIOS use where possible during Netplay games, to prevent out of sync errors when people had different combinations of BIOS/NO BIOS/Different BIOS.

 

* Netplay Games should now automatically change your country code to that of the host.

 

* Added Fast 32X Timing option. This is mainly for development. If you don't know what this is for, leave it disabled.

 

* Added CartBoot option, which is enabled via INI file only. Again, if you don't know what this is for, leave it disabled.

 

* Kega Fusion now runs beautifully under Vista.

 

Kega Fusion was already more accurate than any other emulator, this time around, thanks to various internal tweaks, and removing of left-over test code, it SHOULD be more accurate than ever before

 

I don't think I broke anything, but there have been some very big changes and I have changed machines and build environments twice since the last version, so it's entirely possible. Please let me know if I have.

 

I'll just add here that several people assumed Kega was 'dead' because I hadn't updated it for a long time. Rest assured, this is not the case. Nothing is 'dead' unless I say otherwise. I may well have some problems, or even other projects, that take all my time. But just like Arnie, I'll be back.

 

Gotta go, busy busy busy...

>> Get it HERE.

[Agozer]

It's been a long time since the 3.51 was released. Great to see Kega still being worked on.