0.81u4 2004/04/08 [#176 - David Haywood]
----------------------------------------


New Games Supported or Promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING Status
------------------------------------------------------------
Danchi de Hanafuoda [thanks to Runik/Saturnin]
Ghostlop (prototype)
Groove On Fight [Mariusz Wojcieszek]
Othello Shiyouyo [Mariusz Wojcieszek]
Super Rider [Aaron Giles]

New Clones Supported or Promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING Status
-------------------------------------------------------------
Driving Force (Galaxian hardware, bootleg) [Pierpaolo Prazzoli]
Snow Bros (set 4) [Fabrice Arzeno]

New Non-Working Games / Clones Supported
----------------------------------------
Densya De Go (1, 1ex, 2, 2ex) [Guru]
Landing Gear [David Haywood]
Lord of Gun [David Haywood] (some sort of protection?)
Side by Side (1 & 2) [Guru]


Source changes:
---------------
- Hyperstone CPU core fixes [Pierpaolo Prazzoli]:
  * Added addressing of next byte if in load / store instructions using;
  * Displacement Address Mode PC is used as register destination;
  * Added local registers wrap around modulo 64;
  * Added trap instructions to the dasm;
  * Added some debug info when high global registers are written;
  * Fixed some wrong format in the dasm;
  * Changed reset to act as an exception, as the doc claims (before it crashed if reset was used as an exception).
- "Killer Instinct" fixes [Aaron Giles]:
  * Cleaned up memory maps;
  * Found second bitmap page, fixing a bunch of video problems and romoving the egregious hack I had in there before;
  * Fixed sound reset and initialization;
  * All diagnostics pass;
  * Fixed coinage DIP switches;
  * Added 2 alternate ROM sets for each game; fixes: (kinst067gre2) and (kinst072gre).
- MIPS DRC fixes [Aaron Giles]: Fixes an edge case where a memory access like:

  lw  r3,$0(r0)
  
  would leave the stack in a funny state and lead to a crash; fixes (kinst067red). Instructions of the form:

  ld r10,0(r10)
  
  would load the low word into r10 first, and then use the modified r10 (plus). Fixes the sky graphics in several of the (kinst2) levels. 
- ZN Improvements: 24-bit rendering support for "Judge Dredd" [smf].
- Updates to the (jalmah) driver [Angelo Salese]: (kakumei) and (kakumei2) now boot but neither are playable due to protection.
- Misc updates [Nathan Woods]:
  * Fixes the afore mentioned problem with x86drc.c;
  * Adds in a new (windows only) mode for opening files whereby files can be opened for read/write, but changes are not actually not written to the original file but rather to a temporary file. This trick is used by the MESS testing facility so that tests do not mutate the images they operate on;
  * Small cleanups;
  * Replaces a #ifdef MESS/#else/#endif combo with a usage of the APPNAME macro.
- SPI / 386 updates [Ville Linde]:
  * (raidnfgt) now runs normally and correctly through attract mode and gameplay, modulo the encrypted graphics. Still kinda mesmerizing;
  * (viperp1) starts to boot now, but doesn't get very far;
  * Hooked up the Z80 bankswitching, so sound started playing in some games (notably "Raiden Fighters") [R. Belmont].
- Various ST-V updates: Fixes sprites in groovef which is now playable, adds some RBG0 scrolling which greatly improves background graphics in (cotton2), (cottonbm), (grdforce) and (othellos) [Mariusz Wojcieszek].
- Debugger fixes: This is a quick attempt to make the debugger more useable with the new memory system. The masking of addresses and data should now be working properly again [Aaron Giles].
- Also, you can go to any memory window and type 'P' to view program address space, or 'T' to view data address space [David Haywood.
- OSD 'NO EXECUTE' Support [Aaron Giles]: This patch introduces two new OSD functions:

  osd_alloc_executable();
  osd_free_executable();

  * For most platforms, these can just map to malloc and free. However, starting with WinXP SP2, if you are running on a processor that supports the
  NO_EXECUTE bit (currently only 64-bit AMD chips), standard user-mode memory allocations won't allow you to put code in them and execute it.
  * Since this is exactly what x86drc.c does, I've added the two functions above. On Windows, these map to calling VirtualAlloc and VirtualFree, which allow you to specify the read/write/execute states of the pages thus allocated.
- "Lethal Justice" and "Egg Venture" cleanups [Aaron Giles]:
  * Merged memory maps;
  * Fixed video size in "Egg Venture" to correct flicker;
  * Switched to VIDEO_RGB_DIRECT;
  * Removed unnecessary ROM regions and memcpy'ing.
- Rockola cleanups/fixes [Curt Coder]:
  * "Fantasy", "Nibbler" and "Pioneer Balloon";
  * Correct CPU frequency from schematics;
  * Hooked up SN76477 sound for BOMB effect;
  * Merged memory maps;
  * Cleaned up driver a bit;
  * Fixed DIPs;
  * Enabled debug inputs.