0.34b4 1998/10/04 [#049 - Nicola Salmoria] ------------------------------------------ New Games Added --------------- (alpine) Alpine Ski (set 1) [John Butler] (1) (arkanoi2) Arkanoid - Revenge of DOH (World) [Luca Elia, Mirko Buffoni] (armwrest) Arm Wrestling [Nicola Salmoria] (captcomm) Captain Commando (World) [Paul Leaman] (dduxbl) Dynamite Dux (bootleg) [Phil Stroffolino] (dotron) Discs of Tron (Upright) [Nicola Salmoria] (2) (doubledr) Double Dragon (Neo Geo) [Santeri Saarimaa, Atila Mert] (eswatbl) E-Swat (bootleg) [Phil Stroffolino] (exprraid) Express Raider [Ernesto Corvi] (1) (formatz) Formation Z [Nicola Salmoria] (3) (kchamp) Karate Champ [Ernesto Corvi] (mahretsu) Mahjong Kyo Retsuden [Apollo69] (mrtnt) Mr. TNT [Brad Oliver] (neobombe) Neo Bomberman [Nicola Salmoria] (rockmanj) Rockman - The Power Battle (Japan) [Paul Leaman] (sonicwi2) Aero Fighters 2 [Santeri Saarimaa, Atila Mert] (tigerh) Tiger Heli (set 1) [Nicola Salmoria] (tokio) Tokio / Scramble Formation (US) [Marcelo de G. Malheiros, Fredrik Sjostedt] (1) (tron) Tron (set 1) [Nicola Salmoria] (turbo) Turbo [Alex Pasadyn, Howie Cohen, Frank Palazzolo] (5) (tws96) Tecmo World Soccer 96 [Santeri Saarimaa] (wb3bl) Wonder Boy Monster Lair (bootleg) [Phil Stroffolino] (wrestwar) Wrestle War [Phil Stroffolino] New Clones Added ---------------- (1942b) 1942 (set 3) [Nicola Salmoria] (alpinea) Alpine Ski (set 2) [John Butler] (1) (bionicc2) Bionic Commando (US set 2) [Nicola Salmoria] (commandu) Commando (US) [Nicola Salmoria] (cop01a) Cop 01 (set 2) [Nicola Salmoria] (exprraib) Express Raider (bootleg) [Ernesto Corvi] (1) (gngt) Ghosts'n Goblins (US) [Nicola Salmoria] (silkwrm2) Silkworm (set 2) [Nicola Salmoria] (tigerh2) Tiger Heli (set 2) [Nicola Salmoria] (4) (tigerhb1) Tiger Heli (bootleg 1) [Nicola Salmoria] (4) (tigerhb2) Tiger Heli (bootleg 2) [Nicola Salmoria] (4) (tokiob) Tokio / Scramble Formation (bootleg) [Marcelo de G. Malheiros, Fredrik Sjostedt] (1) (turboa) Turbo (encrypted set 1) [Alex Pasadyn, Howie Cohen, Frank Palazzolo] (5) (turbob) Turbo (encrypted set 2) [Alex Pasadyn, Howie Cohen, Frank Palazzolo] (5) (vangrdce) Vanguard (Centuri) [Nicola Salmoria] (vulgus2) Vulgus (set 2) [Nicola Salmoria] New Games Marked Not Working ---------------------------- (alexkidd) Alex Kidd (bootleg) [Phil Stroffolino] (astormbl) Alien Storm (bootleg) [Phil Stroffolino] (aurail) Aurail (bootleg) [Phil Stroffolino] (fantzone) Fantasy Zone [Phil Stroffolino] (fpointbl) Flash Point (bootleg) [Phil Stroffolino] (hwchamp) Heavyweight Champ [Phil Stroffolino] (mjleague) Major League [Phil Stroffolino] (quartet2) Quartet II [Phil Stroffolino] (sdi) SDI [Phil Stroffolino] (timescan) Time Scanner [Phil Stroffolino] (tturfbl) Tough Turf (bootleg) [Phil Stroffolino] Notes: ------ (1): Two sets merged. (2): Merged; the other, which is the Environmental, is now called (dotrone). (3): Merged with Aeroboto. (4): Four sets merged, only 2 work. (5): Preliminary; three sets merged. These drivers have improved GRAPHICS: ------------------------------------- - Pleiads colors might be correct now [Nicola Salmoria]. - Accurate colors in Strategy X [Gerald Vanderick]. - Preliminary backdrop support in Discs of Tron. The background image must be called ARTWORK/DOTRON.PNG [Mathis Rosenhauer, Brandon Kirkpatrick]. These drivers have new or improved SOUND: ----------------------------------------- - Fixed sound pitch and tempo in Donkey Kong [Mirko Buffoni]. - Improved music tempo in Slap Fight [Sebastien Chevalier]. - Improved Cop 01 (tempo is still wrong) [Nicola Salmoria]. - Sound in all of the working System 16 games [Phil Stroffolino]. - Emulation of the Astrocade sound chip (Gorf, Wizard of Wor, etc.) [Frank Palazzolo]. - Improved speech in Gorf. It now plays speech 100% accurately except for the missing samples [Kevin Bales]. These drivers have HIGH SCORE support: -------------------------------------- - Nemesis [Dani Portillo]. - Terra Cresta and Rastan [Juan Carlos Lorente]. Other drivers changes: ---------------------- - Fixed hang on level 7 of Discs of Tron [Jim Thevenot]. - Fixed Blasto [Juergen Buchmueller]. - Fixed controls in Stinger [Miguel Figueiredo]. Changes to the main program: ---------------------------- - Switched to CRC-32 for file integrity checks. The old custom checksums are no longer used [John Butler, Bernd Wiebelt]. - When using zipped files, ROMs are automatically retrieved even if they don't have the expected name (provided they have the correct CRC-32, of course). You'll never have to rename files any more (though you might have to rename zips ;-) [Nicola Salmoria]. - [DOS] New command -listcrc. It lists the CRC-32 for all the supported ROMs. 00000000 means that the ROM is known to be bad [Nicola Salmoria]. - Some improvements to the cheat system [Stephane Humbert]. - Fixed bug in the 68000 interrupt handling which causes 'Rastan Saga' to not boot correctly [Brad Oliver]. - [DOS] Experimental profiler. To enable it, use the -profiler parameter; then, hit Left Shift + F11 to show the results on screen. I don't know how accurate the figures are; the "Sound" figure is certainly underestimated for sound chip emulators which don't use streams.c (it is computed under the CPU playing the sound instead that under Sound). Note that the sum of the percentages is much less than 100%. This is in part due to portions of the code which are not profiled, but is also caused by the massive overhead of calling uclock() (which happens very often when sound is playing) [Nicola Salmoria]. Source changes: --------------- - New streams.c to abstract audio streams. This makes them easier to use and more efficient. osd_play_streamed_sample() should now be considered a private function and should not be used in new code [Nicola Salmoria]. - Completed the transition to CRC32 checksums [John Butler, Bernd Weibelt]. - Fixed bug in the I8039 external interrupt handling [Dan Boris]. - New file types for osd_fopen(): OSD_FILETYPE_STATE and OSD_FILETYPE_ARTWORK [Nicola Salmoria]. NeoGeo MAME support: -------------------- This beta contains a major update to the NeoGeo driver. It is still far fromerfect but has many improvements over the previous version. This is still very much a 'work-in-progress' driver with many known problems. Hopefully these problems will be fixed soon. How to: You need a zip file called neogeo.zip in your rompath. It should contain at least two files [Nicola Salmoria]: neo-geo.rom (128k) ng-sfix.rom (128k) There should also be two other roms which are not yet used by MAME, they _will_ be used in future versions of this driver so do not delete them. You also need to place the game zip in your rompath. If you do not know what 8 character filename the NeoGeo game you want to play has you can type: mame -listclones neogeo That will list the 8 character zip names of all currently supported games. - Many graphics improvements: * 'Missing tiles' in games such as Puzzle Bobble are fixed. * Scaling is improved, but still not perfect. Full screen zooms tend to break (eg, Thrash Rally, Art of Fighting). * 'Japan/Europe/USA' territory selection in DIP switch menu. * Start & coin key positions are moved to their 'standard' MAME positions * Coin inputs work, freeplay is no longer the default. * Soft DIP switches are fully emulated and saved per game, the files are saved to the hiscore directory for now. * Custom drawgfx routine in place. This is slower than the previous MAME release but allows the graphics to be drawn from their native data. This allows: * MEMORY REQUIREMENTS APPROXIMATELY HALVED! And also quicker loading time. * If you experience a 'black screen' for a few seconds after loading it is because the 'pen usage' arrays are being calculated. MAME NeoGeo uses a compressed palette system to give the full NeoGeo 12 bit colour on an 8 bit display. (This is nothing new, almost every other MAME driver for high colour games works in the same way, by choosing only the colours that are actually displayed at any one time). Although this gives better quality it actually takes around 10-15% of the processor time each frame. * There is no 'black screen' at the end of each games demo. All games now behave as per the arcade version and cycle to the 'NeoGeo logo' screen. Notes on soft DIP switches: You can access these from pressing F2 (self test) or setting the test mode DIP switch and resetting the virtual machine. Both soft dips and cabinet settings are saved for each game. If, for some reason, you experience strange gameplay (NOT graphics glitches), the soft dips may have become corrupt (this _is_ still a beta release!), to clear them you can wipe the file in the hiscore directory for the game OR go into the hardware test and select the 'clear backup ram' option (recommended). * Emulation of soft dips fixed many problems games had in previous versions, for example, the game timers being set low in games such as KOTM and Art of Fighting are fixed. Almost all 'gameplay' issues are fixed by this. * Sidenote: The 'blood bios' is not needed, nor supported. All games affected by the blood bios actually have the 'blood' option in their soft dip options. It can be turned on & off there without having to use a special bios. In fact any non-standard bios may not work at this point. * Due to the much decreased memory requirements large games such as Karnov's Revenge now work. - What isn't fixed? * 'New' games such as Metal Slug, Pulstar, Shock Troopers do not work, either due to protection or bankswitching used in these games (information needed!). * The animation in the 'rain' scenes of Karnov's Revenge does not animate! * As mentioned before, full screen zooms are not correct. * The MVS memory card is not supported. * ...probably many other small bugs too. - And finally: Q: Why don't you MAME guys do something original instead of doing something that's already done? A: Tell that to a Mac/Arm/Amiga owner! Q: It's a bit slow... A: The custom graphics draw routine will be improved soon! It was felt that the slowdown was merited due to the advantages of halving memory usage.