So much for me playing Crysis tonight -_-.....anywho, Makaron has a new test release for people to play around with. Alot of internal changes have taken place inside the emulation core. Here is the blog post:
Here is Makaron Test 9
for your pleasure. There are lots of internal changes, but nothing
revolutionary - so don't expect it to be much better/faster compared to
earlier versions. From user point of view, it's almost the same as T8.
Quite frankly the only reason I'm releasing it is to test some new
stuff inside. For example, it's only thanks to user input that I found
the NVidia FX series cards bug so fast (and actually it affected all
cards, just that FX couldn't cope with it at all).
There are also
people out there who simply have to test anything new that is released,
because they love emulating stuff. So this is like a small gift for
them, to enjoy for few moments before the novelty wears off :)
Like
I said, there are tons of small (and not so small) internal changes to
the emulation engine. Some of this stuff is so new it wasn't even
tested much yet, so expect bugs. If you find a game that doesn't work
now and it used to, please drop me a note - I'd like to find and fix
the regressions first.
I won't go into much detail, but here's a list of things I consider interesting enough to explain a bit:
Dynamic Z-buffer range compression
This
is a new method of dealing with overblown Z/W values. Most of the work
is done in vertex shader so there should be no noticable speed impact.
I mean, if there is then your graphics card was too slow to begin with
and this is just another drop in the bucket.
Now I can handle
geometry more like PVR2 does, which is good because this allows proper
shadow casting. Very much like NANs, infinities are now detected and
handled CPU-side - so far it appears to work as expected. All this and
no Z-precision issuses, not that I'm aware of at least. Unless there's
a game out there making a real use of 32-bit floating point HDR in
Z-buffer this might just be THE solution :)
Note: There are games
that still do not render properly due to other bugs, also this does
nothing to cure transparency/ordering problems.
Shader Model 2 is now default
Makaron
will now use VS 2.0 and PS 2.x (x being 0, a or b - where available),
and fall back to 1.1/1.4 if it has to. What's more, I might be dropping
SM1 support sometime in future. There are so many problems with it...
I've had VS 1.1 break geometry which VS 2.0 handled just fine. And let
me remind you again that palletized textures filtering is disabled on
PS 1.4 beacuse it's too primitive for that kind of processing.
It's
also about features that older cards do not have - like multiple render
targets, or floating-point type surfaces. The Z compression code is
considerably shorter compiled for 2.0 profile than it is for 1.1 by the
way. Funny thing though, even if SM3 code is shorter it actually
executes slower on most cards. That and the bugs I found in the drivers
made me choose SM2 as the best perfomer.
Texture caching fixed
At
least I hope it is :) Makaron MT version should no longer crash so much
or trash textures. That does mean the single-threaded version will be a
bit slower though - it's a tradeoff I've made to allow for proper
locking. Some bugs still remain, mostly to be seen in Soul Calibur, but
that's another story.
Shadows now work
Well, most of the
time, and so are enabled by default. There are several ways it can be
done - so far I was unable to come up with one method capable of
handling all cases. Maybe there isn't one... Well, for now you can
switch between different algorithms - you'll need to do that for Crazy
Taxi series at least.
You really should be using multiple-core
system for Makaron, mind you - this is the target PC I'm aiming for.
SH4 speed is very important, but once you can do rendering in parallel
most games will happily run full-speed on as little as 70-100MIPS.
Seeing as AthlonXP clocked at 2000MHz is just below the required
minimum, I'd say any mid-level X2 or C2D system will do fine.
The
known bugs you will surely ecounter are mostly in AICA (sound module)
code. The volume levels are still wrong - not sure why, I made the
tables up to the specs. And yet PCM range often exceeds 16-bit, causing
major distortions even if clipped. Also, ARM speed has been reduced to
1.5MIPS - this should make Soul Reaver happy. This is not exactly
correct either, and will probably break some other games... I'll keep
looking for a better solution.
As usuall, if there are any
silly-yet-critical bugs discovered, I'll fix them right away. Other
ones will have to wait for next "major" release :P
WARNING! Be careful not to overwrite your VMU or INI files when moving to T9!
» Download Makaron Test 9 here
» Visit the Makaron blog
lxdream is a new Sega Dreamcast emulator for Linux. Version 0.8.1 sports a few fixes, with the additions of fullscreen output and GDI disc image format.
Changes since 0.8:
Fix configure script to abort if it doesn’t find a required library (eg, libGL.so or libz.so)
Add checks to the configure script for linux/cdrom.h, and avoid building the CD-Rom driver if it’s not found.
Add preliminary support for nulldc-style gdi images
Implement gdrom mode select command (mostly stub)
Fix some non-64bit-safe code
Fix the maple 0Ă—00000700 issue
Quick quote from nkeynes:
"I wasn’t originally planning to do a point release, but it’s
probably worth fixing a few issues that were reported on the forums
(mostly configure / portability related). Plus you get full-screen and
GDI image support thrown in for free too!
I’d be interested to know how this fares on x86-based *BSD systems
if anyone wants to test it out - hopefully it should be possible to at
least build it now."
New quick fix release for nullDC. A couple of bugs have been fixed, there's a new aica plugin & some other minor fixes.
Changes Since 1.0.0 BETA 1.5:
Old chanka aica code restored
Elsemi code moved to ElsemiAICA,replaced all chanka code with nullAICA parts & fixed the timing bugs.
nullPVR requires sm2.0 or fallbacks Fixed Function
Relaxed the debug check on invalid loops (fixes nullAICA crashes on DOA2LE, possibly elsewere too)
nullExtDev no longer requires winpcap when not emulating anything :)
Version changed to 1.0.0 beta 1.6
PowerVR AA mode now works properly (omikron half screen problems, possibly others)
Notes:
- You'll need the latest directX redistributable to run nullDC as well as the latest VisualC++ runtimes. You can find DirectX here (Web Installer) or here (Offline Installer), the VisualC++ runtimes HERE, and winpcap HERE (if you want to try the bba emulation code ;) )
- Before running the emulator make sure that you have the necessary Dreamcast BIOS and Flash files dumped from your Dreamcast. The BIOS must be named "dc_boot.bin" and the Flash must be named "dc_flash.bin". Both files must be placed in the "Data" directory which is in the location where you installed the emulator.
- also look ReadMe_beta1.txt and ReadMe_beta1_5.txt
- the _mmu version has mmu emulation when used in intepreter mode
- Before running the emulator make sure that you have the necessary Dreamcast BIOS and Flash files dumped from your Dreamcast. The BIOS must be named "dc_boot.bin" and the Flash must be named "dc_flash.bin". Both files must be placed in the "Data" directory which is in the location where you installed the emulator.
- Sound Is Broken
- We don't know if something else apart from sound is broken in this version.
- Gamepads are (supposedly) supported. Note: Only tested on XBOX/XBOX360 controllers and the Dreamcast<->PC adapter that lev| donated ( http://www.ztnetstore.com/index.php?ref=51 if you want to get one :) ).
- Joystick/n works ONLY with joysticks, use old [winhook] for keyboard
- null
- also look ReadMe_old.txt
- the _mmu version has mmu emulation when used in intepreter mode
Thanks to cyclonmaster for reporting this on our forums. lxdream is a new Sega Dreamcast emulator for Linux. Here's what the author, nkeynes, had to say about this first major release:
With the work done in the last month both for performance and usability, it seems worthwhile to release a new version. And since this version is actually (hopefully) useable by people who aren’t me, lxdream now has a real version number rather than a milestone. W00t!
Download it and enjoy. And of course, let me know how it goes.
Note: Please do not report rendering problems at this stage - there are many known bugs and unimplemented features, and it’s looking like the whole rendering stage may need to be rewritten for the next version.
Changes
Implement more user-friendly GD-Rom changer (closes off #31)
Add recent GD-Rom image tracking
Fix for CDI images with more than 1 track per session
Save render buffers as part of the save state (issue #34)
Show preview screenshot in save state open dialog
Remove gnome dependency (now just depends on GTK 2.0+)
Since the NG emulation scene is a bit slow on news right now, I bugged drk||Razi to find out some new details on one of the hottest dreamcast emulator out there right now, nullDC. A new version with some nice changes is on it's way, so we'll take a quick preview on the things to come.
First off, let's take a quick look at some of the features and fixes included in this upcoming version:
Hz Selection Support for PAL Games Added. (nullPVR/Chanka PVR)
Mouse & Keyboard emulation added.
Image Reader can patch GD-Rom region at runtime, to allow .gdi images from all regions to boot.
Image Reader can swap CD/GD-ROMs.
nullDC can now set the DC's region (JAP/EUR/USA), broadcast type (NTSC/PAL/PAL_M/PAL_N) and cable type (VGA/TV(RGB)/TV(VBS)).
Speed optimizations.
New Maple (Input) plugin with Gamepad support.
Fixes for the following games: Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Dino Crisis, Timestalkers, Dead or Alive 2 (LE), Virtua Fighter 3, Fighting Vipers, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Shuffle and many others ...
As you can see, the developers have spent quite some time into developing some cool things - you can find a full list with all changes over in this thread over at Emuforums. Here are some screenshots (thanks CK) which show the great progress:
Now the usual question is - when can you expect a new release? The good news is that, even though no date has been set yet, the release is pretty close (we're talking about weeks, not months any more) - we'll of course keep you updated here on NGEmu should there be any news on this!
For those that have been following this thread know about this new Dreamcast emulator. It has been in development for quite some time now but finally made a first public release.
Unfortunatly, i'm not fluent in whatever language the website is in so I do not have a changelog at this time.
Over in the nullDC (DreamCast Emulator) forums, ZeZu has made a request for help towards the nullDC project:
If any wish to help out the nullDC project, by any means, we will keep a list of things we could use / use help with here.
Skill sets:
Translators, Japanese to English, more later
Developers, Anyone with a lot of knowledge of PIC16x
Donations:
Hardware:
Any hardware related to Dreamcast/Atomiswave/Naomi/Naomi2/HIKARU
Arcade Motherboards, Game Carts/GDROMS, IO Boards, Jamma Harnesses, Control Panels, Lightguns, compatible EPROMs. Just about anything will help us here.
Monetary:
Anyone wishing to donate cash:
All funds will be used accordingly for the project only, to buy hardware we will need to reverse unknown aspects of it. (Compatible EPROMs for Naomi bootrom is one example).
Please contact ZeZu or drkIIRaziel via a PM on this board for paypal informations or physical mailing address.
ZeZu has stated the following is currently very high on their list of priorities, and if anyone can help, please contact them immediately!
The PDF Files on this page: index Could use a proper translation. The file JVST_VER3R.pdf is the best starting point, It contains the most technical data on the JVS Specification.
We can provide FTP space for the file to be uploaded, or an email address for upload.
drkIIRaziel has announced the nullDC v1.0.0 Public Beta 1 release over in this thread! nullDC is a brand new DreamCast emulator that has been in development for some time, offering great speed and compatibility!
The official site and forums are not currently online, but drkIIRaziel notes that they will be online within the week, so stay tuned for further news.
As an additional note, READ the included readme file, BEFORE asking any questions!
» Grab the setup file: here (Recommended, includes all required runtimes)
drkIIRaziel has posted in this thread - six videos demonstrating nullDC (A currently WIP Dreamcast emulator) playing a variety of games. Videos are recorded real time, so what you see is what you get!
Games Demonstrated:
102 Dalmations
Dave Mirra
Head Hunter
Gauntlet Legends
Grandia 2
Jet Grind Radio
Check out the thread for the videos and comments or head here to check out drkIIRaziel's YouTube profile!
Stay tuned to the official nullDC forums hosted here on NGemu for further news and updates!
A new emulator for the sega dreamcast has been released recently called DEmul. This emulator, developed by a team from russia, has already been started back in 2004 by it's main programmer Wind but canceled when Chankast got released. However, after development on Chankast came to end end, the authors picked up the emu again and now it's available to the public.
Don't get fooled by the low version number, this emulator already is quite impresive as in compatibility and speed: Featuring a dynrec compiler for better speeds or a interpreter mode for higher compatibility, it's one of the best emulators out there. To achive these goals, it uses a new plugin system which will be added to our site later on.
Now go ahead and give the emulator a try by downloading it from our new DEmul section. Screenshots and more informations on this emulator will be added later so keep checking. Oh right, big thanks to Luengo for this news item!
Some of you might still remember this announcement from early this year talking about a new dreamcast emulator called nullDC. Now, half a year later, we're happy to bring you a status update on this emulator today with some screenshots showing the great progress which has been made.
But let's start with some real facts directly from the authors this time: The authors are ZeZu, known from the never released Icarus project, and drk||Raziel. The emu, unlike mentioned in some other news posts, will not be open source. It uses plugins for emulating video / sound / input and gdrom functionality, so other authors will be able to contribute to the project easily.
During the development, the authors decided to set compatibility above speed. This resulted in a nice compatibility, but requires better hardware to emulate the games at full speed (an Athlon64 3000+ with a GeForce 6600 produces great results). As you can see on the screenshots, games such as Dead or Alive 2LE and Toy Commander are already playable and compatibility becomes better every day.
Watch this space for further informations on this emulator. A release date hasn't been set but shouldn't be too far away any more; don't ask for a specific date please.
» You can find more screenshots in our new nullDC gallery.
» Big thanks to drk|Raziel and Refraction for their help with this news post!
SNES4ALL is a Snes9x port for the Dreamcast made by Chui. Earlier this week, he released Alpha One and since than has fixed a few issues. Here's the changelog for Alpha Two :
» Thanks to Cid Highwind for the news
» Grab SNES4ALL Alpha Two right here on NGEmu
» If your a fan of the Sega Dreamcast like I am, check out Chui's website for more emulators for the DC.
[Update by Bobbi] Seems some kid had fun again creating some fake screenshots. If you are interrested why this has to be fake, read the comments in this thread. NINcast64 is not a working project. [/End of Update]
A great day for all dreamcast lovers: Scherzo has released his updated
NesterDC version simply called NesterDC SE! This NES emulator for the
DC is based on the previous 7.1 version of NesterDC, but features some
great new features and better compatibility. Here's a list of features
in this great new version:
Fullspeed emulation on 99.9% of games
The most compatible Nester based emulator on any platform including PC
Various game related images by which you can use to browse the ROM libary
Configurable stereo separation of each NES sound channel
An NSF player
Insanely configurable controllers
Full screen sretched and pixel-for-pixel video modes
Built in Game Genie codes for many games
Full color instruction manuals for many games
User definable "favorites" lists
Zipped ROMs
Multiple save state slots (with the first slot being backwards compatible)
VS games correctly work
Ability to enter your own personal notes about a game and save these notes on your VMU
Thanks to Cid, we also have some very interresting informations should
you plan to burn the emulator - check out
this thread
for more informations.
Cid
informed us about a great project for all NES and Dreamcast lovers, who are
waiting for NesterDC SE to be released soon. DCEvolution created a new
image for the dreamcast featuring lots of cool content - take a look yourself:
Background info on the NES, it's homebrew scene and more
32 original classic NES TV commercials
57 MP3 tracks, including five complete records
230 NES Music ROMs featuring original compositions & remixes
NesterDC v6.0 (by Takayama Fumihiko)
FSL menu theme selector & six different menu themes to choose
And last but not least: over 180 free roms are included!
The image is pretty heavy (324 MB) but according to Cid, seems to be
worth while playing. You can get the image and more informations about
this great project at the official homepage.
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