0.35b1 1999/01/07 [#057 - Nicola Salmoria] ------------------------------------------ Note: the configuration save format has changed. You may just as well delete all of the cfg/*.cfg files, since they won't be loaded. Old .inp files will not work either. The good news is that the default key assignments can now be modified, so you don't have to change them for all the games. The code is a quick hack put together in fifteen minutes, but it's bettern than nothing. It will be improved in future versions. New games supported: -------------------- Atari Football [Mike Balfour, Patrick Lawrence, Brad Oliver] Battle Lane Vol. 5 (preliminary) [Paul Leaman] Mariner [Zsolt Vasvari] Pocket Gal [Bryan McPhail] Rolling Thunder [Jimmy Hamm, Phil Stroffolino, Ernesto Corvi] Turtle Ship [Victor Trucco] New clones supported: --------------------- Black Dragon (bootleg, hacked) [Nicola Salmoria] Burger Time (DECO set 1) [Nicola Salmoria] Carnival (cocktail) [Nicola Salmoria] City Connection (set 2) [Thierry Lescot] Crazy Kong (Orca bootleg) [David Winter] Exciting Soccer (alternate music) [Thierry Lescot] Gate of Doom (set 2) [Thierry Lescot] Pac Man (Hearts) [a zillion people] Sector Zone (= Seicross) [Nicola Salmoria] Sly Spy (set 1) [Nicola Salmoria] Wild Fang (= Tecmo Knight) [Thierry Lescot] Zig Zag (Dig Dug hardware) [Nathan Barber] Changed ROM sets: ----------------- - Added missing PROMs to 'Black Tiger'. - Replaced 'Super Punch Out' with a good set. These drivers have improved GRAPHICS: ------------------------------------- - Accurate colors in 'Spelunker II' [Nicola Salmoria]. - Added a kludge to avoid leftover sprites in 'Rally-X' [Larry Bank]. - Fixed 'Heiankyo Alien' colors [Zsolt Vasvari]. - Fixed missing background behind the three towers in 'Metal Slug' level 1. Fixed missing line in the tank's shot in 'Metal Slug' intro [Nicola Salmoria]. - Fixed NeoGeo palette - it's 5 bits per gun, not 4. Of course this makes the reduction to 256 colors even more difficult. 16-bit video modes will be supported in a later version [Nicola Salmoria]. - Fixed 'Psychic 5' and Toki title screens [Jarek Parchanski]. - Fixed the Swimmer side panel background color [Gary Walton]. - Proper support of the playfiled/sprite priority and palette system in 'Return of the Jedi' [Nicola Salmoria]. These drivers have new or improved SOUND: ----------------------------------------- - Added PCM samples to 'Ninja Kid II' [Jarek Parchanski]. - Added the 007232 to 'TMNT'. Another sound chip is still missing to get 100% sound [Howie Cohen]. - Fixed shoot sound in 'Juno First' [Nicola Salmoria]. - Partial sound in 'The Real Ghostbusters'. The YM203 doesn't seem to work correctly [Nicola Salmoria]. - Sound in 'Psycho-Nics Oscar' [Nicola Salmoria]. These drivers have HIGH SCORE support: -------------------------------------- - Lizard Wizard [M.C. Silvius]. - Road Fighter, Iron Horse [Howie Cohen]. - Space Tactics [Zsolt Vasvari]. Other drivers changes: ---------------------- - Analog joystick support in 'Sinistar' and 'Blaster' [Nicola Salmoria]. - Fixed two players games in 'Phoenix', and the protection in Pleiads (which made game resets not work) [Zsolt Vasvari]. - Hacked the protection in 'Super Sidekicks' [Battlepriest]. - Worked out the 'Super Punch Out' protection [Tatsuyuki Satoh, Ernesto Corvi]. Source changes: --------------- - [DOS] "vmame" modes 320x480 and 400x600, which speed up scanlined VESA modes for some games and graphic cards which support these resolutions. Currently, these modes will not be autodetected, that is, the commandline options "-320x480" or "-400x600" have to be used [Nicola Salmoria, Michael Cunnanan]. - [DOS] For cosmetical reasons, added support for VESA3, which can be selected by putting "vesamode=vesa3" into mame.cfg. It is highly unlikely that you'll get any speed improvement [Bernd Wiebelt]. - [DOS] Implemented auto frameskip. It dynamically adjusts the frameskip setting to display the maximum possible frames without dropping below 100% speed. It is on by default; to turn it off, specify an explicit frameskip value, e.g. "-frameskip 0". Autoframeskip only works well if your machine is fast enough to run the game at 100% speed. If it isn't, you had better use a fixed frameskip. NOTE: you must delete mame.cfg (or manually change the line "frameskip = 0" to "frameskip = auto") for the auto frameskip to become the default [Nicola Salmoria]. - [DOS] Joysticks are now selected by a symbolic name (e.g. "-joystick wingex" for Wingman Extreme) instead of a number. For the list of names, look into readme.txt. Numbers are still supported, but may not be in future releases. SNES gamepads on parallel ports are supported now, provided you have some additional hardware (the "official" Snespad-Support site is http://snespad.emulationworld.com) [Bernd Wiebelt]. - [DOS] Now compiled with Allegro 3.1. Unfortunately the standard allegro.h doesn't compile with the pedantic compiler setup we are using, you'll have to use the provided fixed version instead [Bernd Wiebelt]. - [DOS] Widened the frameskip range. It now is 0-11, meaning the number of frames to skip out of 12. For example, if the game normally runs at 60 fps, "-frameskip 2" will make it run at 50 fps, and "-frameskip 6" at 30 fps. Also, if a frame takes more than the allotted time to display, the lost time can be recovered in the following frames. Moreover, improved the way audio streams are handled, so they stay more in sync with the video. There should never be any more audio breakups EVER (as long as your system can keep the game running at 100% speed). All of these changes together mean that it is now possible to run at much higher frame rates than before (if your system is fast enough) [Nicola Salmoria]. - Added a horrible dirty hack to allow opcode encryption on CPUs other than the main one. It's really ugly and needs a rewrite, but it's enough to get sound in Pocket Gal and The Real Ghostbusters [Nicola Salmoria]. - Exported info_cpu_name(), info_sound_name() and other similar functions from info.c so they can be used by usrintf.c and by anyone else who needs them [Nicola Salmoria]. - Fixed several bugs in the I86 emulator [Juergen Buchmueller]. - Frame skipping is entirely handled by the OS dependant code. osd_skip_this_frame() no longer has the "recommend" parameter. Also, replaced osd_update_display() and osd_update_audio() with the single osd_update_video_and_audio(). IMPORTANT: osd_update_video_and_audio() is called *every frame* by the main core. It's its responsability to know whether the frame has to be skipped. osd_skip_this_frame() is used by the main core only to know if it can avoid calling drv->vh_update() [Nicola Salmoria]. - Konami 007232 sound chip emulator. This is used by TMNT [Hiromitsu Shioya]. - New CPU interrupt system. The functions cpu_set_irq_line() and cpu_set_nmi_line() can be used to precisely control the status of the CPU physical lines, instead of using the limited control granted by cpu_cause_interrupt() [Juergen Buchmueller]. - New function cpu_getcurrentframe() which returns the number of the video frame currently being played. It can be used by drivers to control effects which spawn over multiple frames (e.g. blinking) without using static internal counter (which would require a custom interrupt handler to avoid problems when the game is paused) [Nicola Salmoria]. - New Z80 emulator [Juergen Buchmueller]. - Support for the Namco System 1 sound system [Ernesto Corvi]. - The driver input ports are now 16 bit. This allows for higher resolution analog inputs (Arkanoid 2). Also, the 68000 based games no longer have to read and mix two 8 bit ports to get a 16 bit value [Brad Oliver].