0.37 BETA 1

These drivers have improved GRAPHICS:
-------------------------------------

- Background in Exerion. [Aaron Giles]

- Artwork support in Space Encounters. [Zsolt Vasvari]

- Fixed sprite colors in the MCR2 games, however overlapping sprites are still
  wrong. [Aaron Giles]

- Fixed colors and stars in the Astrocade games (Gorf, Wizard of Wor, etc.).
  [Nicola Salmoria]

- Fixed front layer in Turbo Force. [Nicola Salmoria]

- Fixed colors in Lupin III. [Zsolt Vasvari]


These drivers have improved SOUND:
----------------------------------

- Emulated saucer sound in Space Invaders - sample no longer used (the other
  samples are still required). [Zsolt Vasvari]

- Completed sound in Splash. [Manuel Abadia]

- Samples support in Got-Ya. [Zsolt Vasvari]

- Sound in Berlin Wall. [Luca Elia]


Changes to the main program:
----------------------------

- Support for 24-bit artwork. [Mathis Rosenhauer]


Source:
-------

- Support for a priority buffer, updated by tilemap.c, which can be used to
  draw sprites using the new function pdrawgfx(). This allowed to fix many
  tile/sprite priority bugs e.g. in Ajax, Lightning Thunder, Simpsons,
  Vendetta, Punk Shot, Gradius III and others.
  [Phil Stroffolino, Nicola Salmoria]

- Change the API for tilemap_mark_tile_dirty() and the get_tile_info hooks,
  now a single parameter tile_index is used instead of (col,row). A function
  passed to tilemap_create() does the (col,row)->tile_index mapping, two
  standard functions are provided for the common cases.
  All drivers have been converted to the new API except for namcos2.c, which
  is therefore broken at the moment. [Phil Stroffolino]

- New GAME_UNEMULATED_PROTECTION flag.

- 6803/63701 external port writes no longer set to 1 the bits that are set as
  inputs in the DDR register. Instead, they are set to the value returned by a
  read from the port. [Tatsuyuki Satoh]

- Updated all memory handlers to the new READ_HANDLER()/WRITE_HANDLER() macro
  declarations. The old "function(int offset,int data)" style must not be used
  anymore.


New games supported:
--------------------

Air Duel [Nicola Salmoria]
Pound for Pound [Nicola Salmoria]
Rabio Lepus / Rabbit Punch [Aaron Giles]
Super Volleyball [Aaron Giles]
Funky Fish [Zsolt Vasvari]
Mr. Jong / Crazy Blocks [Takahiro Nogi]
Karate Blazers [Nicola Salmoria]
Spinal Breakers [Nicola Salmoria]
Thundercade [Luca Elia]
Twin Eagle [Luca Elia]
DownTown [Luca Elia]
U.S. Classic [Luca Elia]
Arbalester [Luca Elia]
Meta Fox [Luca Elia]
Zing Zing Zip [Luca Elia]
War of Aero [Luca Elia]


New clones supported:
---------------------

Ninja Ryukenden (= Ninja Gaiden)
Spy Hunter 2 (revision 2)
R-Type (Japan)
Dyger (set 2)
