Friday, October 31st 2003 - Last updated @ 23:40 EST
Mame WIP - More Mame WIP updates have been posted.
2003-10-28: smf fixed some random crashes in Soul Edge (VER.A only). David Haywood fixed the controls in the ST-V driver, making Mausuke no Ojama the World and Puyo Puyo Sun fully playable, but Puyo Puyo Sun is extremely slow.
2003-10-27: R. Belmont fixed the ST-V crash that happened with -nosound. Howard Casto submitted some more input port fixes to various drivers. Stefan Jokisch added Space Attack / Head On to the vicdual driver
2003-10-26: Olivier Galibert rewrote the RF5C68 sound chip emulation. Nathan Woods sent another patch that integrates some MESS specific fileio functionality. David Haywood fixed Xain'd Sleena from locking up in the attract mode. Pierpaolo Prazzoli and MooglyGuy fixed some problems in the Hyperstone CPU core
Spectaculator v5.3 - Spectaculator, the Windows based Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator has been updated. Changes are;
Spectaculator can now replay Speccy Tour 2003 RZX files created by Fuse or MacFuse. As there is no snapshot information in these files, you will be prompted to locate the correct one on your hard disk.
Fixed a small problem on Win9x and Me machines which could cause corrupted RZX files to be produced when in tournament mode.
Titanium Rhapsody - Behold Titanium Rhapsody. It's not emulation releated but it is good for a smile.
- Griking
One Ring to rule them all - Replay Magazine has an article about Stern's upcoming Lord of the Rings pinball. The picture was removed from the original link, but this one has a different picture of the game/flyer with Gary Stern. This machine is looking VERY nice. Hopefully one will be on test in Chicago real soon.
- metallik
Wednesday, October 29th 2003 - Last updated @ 16:48 EST
Project Tempest v.82 - The Atari Jaguar emulator, Project Tempest has been updated. Changes include;
Joystick support.
Loading homebrewn binary files.
ROM directory names with spaces are now supported.
Retrogaming Times #74 - The October issue of the Retrogaming Times has been released for your viewing pleasure. Articles featured in this issue include;
Tuesday, October 28th 2003 - Last updated @ 13:54 EST
First pics of LOTR - Saw this article mentioned on rec.games.pinball - it has the first pictures of Stern's new Lord of the Rings pinball machine. No shots of the playfield yet, but the cabinet and backglass look very nice.
- metallik
Sunday, October 26th 2003 - Last updated @ 20:43 EST
Mame v.0.76u1 - Haze has released a Mame v0.76 to v0.76u1 update. Changes in this update can be viewed here
- Griking
EmuLoader 4.0 - A new version of EmuLoader has been released. The primary change seems to be that it will no longer support the DOS version of Mame anymore. Complete changes are;
Fixes:
Games sorting bug if the first letter was in lower caps
A few memory leaks
Changes:
Updated FMOD component to v3.70 (core fixes and new DLL)
Games .zip files are no longer scanned when creating a new games list
Bios Set list is loaded automatically (from file "biosset.ini")
The bios entry in "mame.ini" needs to contain the name of the bios. Numbers are no longer supported by the frontend (see item #3)
Merged "MAME Default Options" and "Game Custom Options" screens into one :)
Bios list in "MAME Options" screen is updated to meet main screen's list (mouse right-click to access the menu)
"Delete gamename.zip" and "Delete Audio File gamename.mp3" items were moved to the new "Delete Selected" group menu item ("Games" main menu and popup menu)
Language files are now in the main screen's main menu "Advanced Tools" / "Language" menu item
Language filenames can have any name you want now (as it was before)
Removed:
Component "zTreeView"
Component "Text Fader"
Component "GIF Image" (for animated gifs)
"Game Custom Options" screen (see changes for more info)
DOS MAME deleted features: (EL will only support WinMAME from now on... sorry) Default Options, Custom Game Options, Create Games List, Refresh Games, Audit Games, etc
Folder "dosgamecfg"
The entire Languages Selection screen
Animated flags for languages
Optimizations:
Create games list feature
Languages selection
MAME options (default options and custom game options)
New Additions:
File "biosset.ini" with all the "bios sets" of all games with bios. This file is now generated automatically when you create a new games list
File "bios.ini" with the contents of the now obsolete "gclonebios.ini" file, which is now created automatically every time you create a new games list
New options to delete MAME configuration files. ("Games" main menu and popup menu):
- Delete Config File (for gamename.cfg files)
- Delete NVRAM File (for gamename.nv files)
- Delete Hi-Score File (for gamename.hi files)
- Delete Input File (for gamename.inp files)
- Delete Save State File (for gamename.sta files)
Added a new entry in the language file, "Version Information" section. This entry must be used, if you want your language to have a description in the selection list
- Description
Mame Wip - Another Mame WIP update has been posted.
2003-10-25: Olivier Galibert fixed the pitch (again) in the SegaPCM sound core and fixed some bug that was triggered by Power Drift trying to play out-of-range samples. Stefan Jokisch sent in a driver for Super Speed Race. David Haywood fixed the sprite colors in Shienryu. R. Belmont added ElSemi's SCSP sound chip emulator to the ST-V driver, but the sound and music only works properly in Shienryu.
2003-10-24: BUT submitted a preliminary driver for Thunder Ceptor II, it's working but background graphics aren't emulated. Aaron Giles added another two dozen new clones to miscellaneous Atari drivers and about 40 to the polygon games. Pierpaolo Prazzoli added Asterock, an Asteroids clone to the Asteroids driver. David Haywood sent in another ST-V update that improves graphics emulation and fixes the colors in Baku Baku Animal. Jarek Burczynski added Cosmo to the 8080bw driver and emulated the background/foreground graphics and DAC sound in Heli Fire.
2003-10-23: David Haywood sent in an update to the ST-V driver, making Baku Baku Animal playable. Leon van Rooij sent in an update to the Windows Direct3D code, fixing a bug that caused a black screen in rotated ST-V games. Aaron Giles sent in an Atari System 2 driver update with two dozen new clones. smf sent in a small update to the Namco System 11 driver cleaning up things. Curt Coder converted Zaxxon to use tilemaps in the foreground graphics layer, and corrected the CPU speed in it. Brian A. Troha added the proper initialization to the term2la1 driver.
2003-10-22: smf sent in another update to the Namco System 11 driver, improving the MDEC decoding and enabling Soul Edge (Ver. A) since it seems to work fine.
2003-10-21: Aaron Giles sent in an updated Atari System 1 driver with many new clones and fixed multiplexed sprites in Road Runner. Chris Hardy added the US version of Perfect Soldiers called Superior Soldiers to the Irem M-92 driver. Pierpaolo Prazzoli added Sky Raiders, a bootleg of Uni War S, to the Galaxian driver.
Atari 8-bit Ethernet - All you Atari 8-bit fans out there may want to check out Chris Martin's website. He's currently working on a Atati 8-bit enthernet cartridge which allows access to web browsing, Telnet and email via an ethernet card that plugs into your cartridge slot.
- Griking
VirtuaNES Update - A new version of VirtuaNES, the Windows based Nintendo emulator has been released. Changes are;
Add an option to do a pause of an emulation at active time of a launcher. Note: Add "ActivePause=1" to a [Launcher] section of INI.
Add Mapper200,201,202.
Support POV and SLIDER of a joystick.
Correct Mapper4.
Correct Mapper189.
Correct that tape/barcode was strange. Note: Enbugging was carried out from 0.85.
Saturday, October 25th 2003 - Last updated @ 15:55 EST
xmame/xmess-0.76.1 - xmame/xmess-0.76.1 is now available. Thanks to all who contributed to this release. Changes:
Everything from MAME 0.76 and MESS CVS.
The I/O section of the xmess manpage should be more up-to-date.
Linux input devices that support absolute X/Y events -- lightguns, tablets, and touchpads -- can now be treated as lightguns. See LIGHTGUN_ABS_EVENT in the makefile. (Ben Collins)
Added Opteron/Athlon64 as a CPU option in the makefile. (Caleb Shay)
Added a LOW_MEM option to the makefile that prevents a memory explosion when compiling such files as x11_window.c with GCC 2.x. (NetBSD pkgsrc tree)
A leading '.' on a path now causes xmess to treat it as absolute. This allows xmess.x11 nes -cart ./zelda.zip to work.
Set options.mess_printf_output so that xmess spits out more informative error messages, e.g., when it's unable to load an image.
The -list-dsp-plugins / -ldp and -list-mixer-plugins / -lmp commands now cause the program to exit with a return value of 0.
Friday, October 24th 2003 - Last updated @ 08:35 EST
RomManager updated - DirkPitt dropped me a line mentioning that RomManager has been updated to v4.10. Changes are listed on the homepage. RomManager is a ROM management utility (who woulda thought?) similar to CLrMamePro, except this one doesn't delete your ROMS... (right Bogy?? haha j/k :)
- metallik
Wednesday, October 22nd 2003 - Last updated @ 22:39 EST
Lord of the Rings Pinball - Fantasy geeks rejoice, it's now official: Stern Pinball's next machine will be Lord of the Rings. Stern's press release can be found over at this article on Pinball News, along with a few photos of some 'incriminating' boxes that spilled the beans a few days early for folks touring the factory (for those not in the hobby, speculation and rumors of the "next game" always run rampant, along with efforts to pry information from the production managers). Stern's previous game The Simpsons Pinball Party was critically acclaimed and helped prove Stern is capable of producing games comparable to the late Williams and Bally. This new LotR game looks VERY promising, and I am greatly looking forward to checking it out. For those pinball fans in the Chicago area, keep an eye on rec.games.pinball to find out when and where test games will show up on location.
- metallik
ST-V WIP - Updated. Thanks to Haze for the news.
- chris
Cxbx 0.7.9-Pre4-Trace - Cxbx, the open source Xbox emulator, has been updated to 0.7.9-Pre4-Trace.
- MetaFox
KC85 Emulator 0.3.7 - KC85 Emulator, the open source emulator for the KC85 computer, has been updated to 0.3.7.
- MetaFox
ASpectrum 0.1.6.2 - ASpectrum, the open-source Spectrum emulator, has been updated to 0.1.6.2.
- MetaFox
SainT 1.40 - SainT, the Atari ST emulator, has been updated to 1.40.
- MetaFox
AdvanceMAME 0.76.0 - AdvanceMAME, the build of MAME with multiple options has been updated to 0.76.0.
- MetaFox
Hercules 2003-10-22 - A new daily code snapshot for the IBM mainframe computer emulator, Hercules, has been released.
- MetaFox
Smoothmame 0.76 - Smoothmame has been updated to 0.76 in i686 and athlon optimized builds.
- MetaFox
Monday, October 20th 2003 - Last updated @ 22:11 EST
Satourne WiP - Another Satourne WIP has been released but honestly I have no clue what it says. Perhaps someone in our forums can translate it for us.
- Griking
HUGE Mame WIP Update - The Mame WIP page has been updated today. TONS of updates and pictures this time.
2003-10-20: smf sent in a major update to the Namco System 11 driver, making Tekken, Tekken 2, Xevious 3D/G and Prime Goal EX work. Nathan Woods sent in another small patch that improves some MESS-specific functionality.
2003-10-19: James Bright submitted a modification to the -listxml function to also list the memory maps of the driver. Olivier Galibert added LDTASK, STTASK and ABSF opcodes to the V60 CPU core.
2003-10-18: Milan Koci added the US version of Strider 2 to the ZN driver, but it's not working.
2003-10-17: Aaron Giles added a few new Gauntlet, Gauntlet 2 and Vindicators Part II ROM sets, and cleaned up the drivers. Barry Harris fixed some of the recently added Street Fighter 2 bootlegs so that they work now.
2003-10-16: R. Belmont sent in a driver for Bishi Bashi Champ Mini Game Senshuken, it's playable with sound but some graphics are wrong possibly due to a bad ROM. Pierpaolo Prazzoli fixed Vs. Super Xevious and Vs. Freedom Force in the VSNES driver. David Haywood fixed a DMA problem in the SH-2 CPU core that caused broken tile graphics in Shienryu, so Shienryu is now mostly playable although some sprite colors are off.
2003-10-15: Olivier Galibert fixed some bugs in the SH-2 DMA thanks to information from sthief.
2003-10-14: Peter Rittwage submitted an addition of Q*bert test ROMs. David Haywood added the correct ROMs to Gorkans
2003-10-13: Aaron Giles fixed the CPU speedup in Area 51 / Maximum Force Duo R3000 version, and fixed the timer problems for good (hopefully). Jarek Burczynski added sound to Mogura Desse. Pierpaolo Prazzoli sent in a preliminary driver for Pro Yakyuu Nyuudan Test Tryout, it's not working too well yet. Olivier Galibert added a hack to get correct music in Sol Divide.
2003-10-12: Tomasz Slanina sent in a driver for Gorkans, it's working except graphics are bad because graphics ROMs are missing. Tomasz Slanina also added sprites, tile banking, sound and colors to Main Event (SNK), and sent in a very preliminary driver for Whizz which only works up to the title screen. David Haywood added Route X, a Route 16 bootleg. Nathan Woods sent in another patch fixing some small things. Olivier Galibert and Aaron Giles fixed more bugs in the timer system and SH-2 CPU core. R. Belmont fixed the sample banking in Air Combat. El Condor submitted a fix for DIP switches in Dragonball Z.
2003-10-11: Pierpaolo Prazzoli and Mike Coates added Dodgem to the zac2650 driver. Phil Stroffolino sent in an update to the Namco System 22 driver, adding gouraud shading. David Haywood added various non-working Street Fighter 2 bootlegs to the CPS-1 driver. Brian A. Troha added the European BIOS to the ST-V driver. David Haywood updated insideoutboy's old Marine Date driver to compile, but it's not completely working yet. R. Belmont adjusted the Flower tempo.
2003-10-10: Aaron Giles sent in another update to the timer system, fixing Exterminator and the Atari polygon games. Stefan Jokisch added controls to Sundance, making it playable. Tomasz Slanina sent in a driver for Lady Frog. Nathan Woods fixed the REP CMPSW instruction in the i86 CPU core and added the ability to customize disassemblies in the drivers.
2003-10-09: sedn fixed the Super Chase sample ROM loading. Stefan Jokisch sent in an update to the Canyon Bomber driver, fixing sprite positions and adding the language ROM.
2003-10-08: Nathan Woods fixed a screenshot handling bug that affected Space Invaders and moved some MESS specific code around. Tomasz Slanina fixed the screen orientation in Dorachan and added some tiny fixes to KO Punch and Cabaret, but they're still not working. Curt Coder submitted fixed inputs to Hanaroku and cocktail mode fixes to the Shoot Out driver. kobat fixed another bug that was in the V60 CPU core.
2003-10-07: Lawrence Gold sent in a patch that makes the usage of inline functions more consistent. Aaron Giles added another early version of Gravitar called Lunar Battle, a few international Cloak & Dagger versions, a newer version of the Atari licensed Dig Dug and another set of Tempest. Aaron Giles also fixed the V60 CPU core that was causing problems in Outrunners and other games.
2003-10-06: Brian A. Troha updated various drivers with documentation and DIP switch fixes. Aaron Giles cleaned up the Food Fight driver and added a few clones to it. Stefan Jokisch added Sub Hunter, a clone of Depthcharge, to the vicdual driver. Roman Scherzer fixed a small crash bug in the harddisk writing functions.
2003-10-05: Smitdogg and Dave Widel added Touchdown Fever 2 to the SNK driver.
SMS Plus - A new and "experimental" build of SMS Plus has been released. SMS Plus is a DOS based Sega Master system emulator.
- Griking
Dolphin Update - More progress is being reported on Dolphin, the up and coming Gamecube emulator. Emulation64 has posted a bunch of new screenshots of the emulator running various games.
- Griking
VirtuaNES v0.85d - The NES emulator VirtuaNEs has been updated again. Changes this time are;
Add VS Mach Rider(Japan, Fighting Course) to VS-Unisystem.
Atari Retro Announced - Atari Retro is a soon to be released commercial Atari 2600 emulator for Palm handhelds. The emulator will run actual Atari roms and is officially branded and licensed in collaboration with Atari. Some titles announced already are; Adventure, Asteroids, Breakout, Centipede, Missile Command, Pong, Yars Revenge, and more.
- Griking
Go Go NGAGE! - Nokia's new handheld game system/phone/PDA may become one of the biggest flops in videogame history if initial sales figures hold up. According to this article, less than 5000 units were sold in the United States during the first week of availability. This compares to half a million Game Boy Advance units sold during the first week of its availability. Thanks to Sinistar for the article.
- metallik
Sunday, October 19th 2003 - Last updated @ 00:00 EST
More MAME - Hot on the heels of 0.75, the MAME team has released MAME 0.76. This release contains more bugfixes, especially concerning Yamaha-based sound circuitry. ST-V and SH-2 emulation has also been improved. Follow the usual drill: whatsnew is here and the goods are here.
- metallik
Wednesday, October 15th 2003 - Last updated @ 22:45 EST
NEStopia v1.08 - My favority NES emulator NEStopia was updated on Monday and I just noticed it. Changes in this release (and there's a bunch of them) are;
Added a launcher.
Added support for drag-drop files.
Added some more options in the preferences dialog.
Changed so that relative paths are preserved.
Fixed mapper 1, glitches gone in "Air Fortress".
Fixed mapper 4, sound in "Startropics" & "Startropics 2 - Zoda's Revenge" works (MMC6B games which differs from MMC3).
Fixed mapper 10, "Fire Emblem" plus others work.
Fixed mapper 18, "Toukon Club" plus others work (minor glitches though).
Fixed mapper 19, "Family Circuit '91" and "Wagan Land 3" plus others work.
Fixed mapper 23, all valid versions of "Akumajou Special - Boku Dracula Kun" should now work.
Fixed mapper 32, "Ai Sensei no Oshiete - Watashi no Hoshi" and "Major League" works.
Fixed mapper 33, glitches gone in "Captain Saver".
Fixed mapper 51, "11-in-one Ball Games" works again.
Fixed mapper 58, "Study and Game 32-in-1" works.
Fixed mapper 60, "Reset Based 4-in-1" works.
Fixed mapper 62, "Super 700-in-1" works.
Fixed mapper 68, "Maharaja" works.
Fixed mapper 70, less glitches in "Gegege no Kitarou 2 - Youkai Gundan no Chousen".
Fixed mapper 82, glitches gone in "Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium 3" plus others.
DOSBox v0.60 - A new version of DOSbox has been released today. DOSBox is a DOS emulator for many different platforms such as Windows, Linux, MacOSX and more. Changes in this release are;
Added basic 386 protected mode support.
Added FPU emulation.
Added a virtual modem to dial to TCP sockets, still somewhat bugged.
Added VESA VBE 2.0 support for 256 color modes.
Added SB PRO 2.0 support.
Added internal DPMI host to handle some problematic games.
Added some support for tandy video mode.
Added some shell enhancements like tab-completion.
Added better support for CD drives, better audio playing and cd labels.
Added several features to the debugger.
Changed memory system for future page mapping support.
Changed large piece of VGA emulation core to handle
future changes for hercules and full cga,tandy emulation.
Changed DMA for better accuracy.
Changed Tandy 3-voice emulation to use MAME's sn76496 code.
Fixed several bugs in directory caching code.
Fixed bugs in PIT and real time clock for better timing.
Fixed some issues with the console screen on windows.
Fixed several issues with the internal mouse driver.
Fixed bugs with files being opened multiple times, still not perfect but better.
Fixed a load of small other bugs that i've forgotten with these long delays between releases
Sunday, October 12th 2003 - Last updated @ 20:50 EST
New MAME - Mame 0.75 has been released today. This one contains lots of bugfixes, and is definitly worth grabbing. Snag it at the usual place. Check the whatsnew here.
- metallik
Saturday, October 11th 2003 - Last updated @ 21:20 EST
VirtuaNES Updates - Two quick bugfixing updates for VirtuaNES have been released. Updates were;
0.85b
Corrects Mapper20(FDS).
Corrects that an effect sound doesn't sound in Sangokushi2(KOEI version).
0.85a
Corrects an indication of FPS.
Corrects screen simulation of Mother.
Corrects a bug of version information DIALOG.
- Griking
Thursday, October 9th 2003 - Last updated @ 21:40 EST
VirtuaNES v0.85 - VirtuaNES, the Windows based Famicon/NES emulator has been updated. Changes are;
Addition:
Add file name representation in an emulation to a window title bar.
Add starting and an option starting a launcher simultaneously.
Add a quick load / save. Note) Choose a slot directly, and there is load / save.
Add a pallet edit function.
Add a bank changing function to a turbo file.
Add various graphics filter functions. (required MMX)
Add the option that does Sleep of an option of "Sync drawing" in activity to graphic setting DIALOG.
Add the option that resolution except 4:3 can choose in a full screen.
Add VS-Unisystem.
Add automatic distinction of NTSC/PAL to a NSF player mode.
Add Mapper12.
Change:
Change internal surface drawing process. Note) May be accelerate, and may become heavy.:)
Change it so that there is monochromatic / background color modification in a line unit. Note) Because a pallet isn't enough with a 8bit color, can't reproduce a color precisely. Please use more than 16bit color if possible.
Change an approach of interrupt handling.
Change it to set a PAL mode automatically when a file name includes "(E)".
Change it so that a snapshot can make even PNG. Note) Please choose it in Emulator setting DIALOG.
Change it so that there is a multiple selection in a launcher list.
Change it not to update a list after Folder setting of a launcher. Note) Because a complement was able to save a list.
Revision:
Correct fault of action at the time of focus movement.
Correct malfunction of a triangular wave.
Correct a mapper in various ways.
Correct the bug that isn't saved after header editing with a launcher.
When choosing file on WAVE recording / tape operation / movie and extension is omitted, correct so that extension may be attached.
The major dinkvar.cpp file split has been completed
you no longer need to specify a -fontdir option to the game. This will be taken automatically as 'fonts' in the current directory.
- MetaFox
Tuesday, October 7th 2003 - Last updated @ 09:12 EST
Arcade Flyers - A bunch of new and updated arcade flyers have been added to the Arcade Flyer Archive.
- Griking
Retrogaming Radio - The October edition of Retrogaming Radio has been released. Retrogaming Radio is a "MP3 show all about classic gaming - interviews, news, hardware and software reviews, flashbacks, editorial rants".
- Griking
Saturday, October 4th 2003 - Last updated @ 00:00 EST
Gest v0.80 - A new Gest update has been released today. Changes in the latest version of this Gameboy emulator are;
Reset automatically when user changes to another GB type
Added 'Halt on unknown opcode' option
Added 'soft reset' feature
Don't resize window unless changed to SGB mode
Fixed graphics trash in border when uploading border in many SGB games
Removed 'Force GBC' option as it isn't needed anymore
Thursday, October 2nd 2003 - Last updated @ 21:54 EST
Retrogaming Times #73 - The September issue of the excellent retrogaming newsletter, Retrogaming Times has finally been released. But better late than never. This issue features among other things;
PinMame v1.30 - A new version of Visual PinMame has been released today. Pinmame is an excellent multi-pinball machine emulator\simulator based on the Mame source code. Changes in this release are;
Updated Visual PinMAME to 1.30 release of PinMAME Source Code.
Please see "whatsnew.txt" for PinMAME version 1.30 enhancements!
Fixed the bug in the VPM-Setup-Program where the "Test" feature crashed under w9x
Default synclevel is now 0 since many people are getting newer faster computers.
Rom Aliasing: Older romset names will internally be converted to new romset names for backward compatibility
