What's new for version 5.00 BETA 1 (13/Mar/2006)

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- Major CPU core rebuilding, now using cycle precision timing.

- Opcode 3Ch emulated (NOP6) for our playing needs.

- Major APU timing, output and core fixes, much more accurate and clean.

- Major PPU timing fix, pass OK through test ROMs.

- Optional sound quirk emulation.

- Sprites 0 and 1 behaviour fixed (Tatakai no Banka works).

- Better 2004h sprite reading emulation (no flickering in Micro Machines).

- Fixed screen rendering when disabled (Micro Machines).

- Fixed DMC clocking, making FireHawk game to work properly.

- Fixed VRC6 sound output, now using fully signed waves (much better).

- Several fixes in order to improve emulation performance.

- Disabled save or loading states during movie playback.

- Disabled joypad keypresses like up+down or left+right (Zelda 2).

- Fixed a bug reading the config file, no more blanks at end of strings.

- Changed joypad buttons assignment in the config file, fixing stupid errors.

- Fixed many GUI problems, including dumping and file saving.

- New savestate block added: PTB0 (PPU timing block).

- Fixed a bug in the savestate [MPR block], plus added an extra block for APU.

- Updated RSx revision id, now only revision 2 are loadable/supported.

- Illegal opcodes are simply skipped, instead of quitting to OS.

- Added mouse gameplay support!

- Added command line support.

- Added 'stretched to 640x480 non-scanlined' blitter.

- Added new 'Options' GUI item, so you can configure inputs, sound, blitter and directories!

- Config file reworked, fixing a few minor bugs.

- Frames per second (FPS) display added.

- A couple of hidden annoyances has been fixed.

- Mapper 4 (MMC3) disabled due to bad IRQ counter working (to be fixed).

- Broken trainer support (to be fixed).

- Other minor fixes and improvements that I don't remember...

>> Get it HERE.

Digg is reporting that a website is implying that we (Stardock) want Galactic Civilizations II to be pirated. Absolutely not! Of course we DO NOT want our game to be pirated. We're a small company, every lost sale hurts us.

This got started because sales reports on Galactic Civilizations II have been much higher than anticipated. We've now outsold the first Galactic Civilizations in North America in the first 10 days. Last week we were apparently the #1 PC game at Walmart.

Naturally, some peple have taken the conclusion that because we don't have copy protection on our game, that we invite piracy. That is not the case, we simply think there are other ways to stop piracy than CD checks, strict DRM, etc.

What we do is provide a serial # that users can choose to enter when they install and use that unique serial # to download free and frequent updates.

Our license allows you to install the game onto as many machines that you own that you want as long as only one copy is being used at once. How many sales are lost because people want to have a game on their laptop and desktop and don't want to drag CDs around so choose not to buy the game?

Our company also makes utility software. We've been around a long time -- 14 years now. Our software gets pirated. We don't like it but piracy is a fact of life. The question isn't about eliminating it, it's about reducing it and trying to make sure that people who would buy your product buy it instead of steal it.

Our primary weapon to fight piracy is through rewarding customers through convenient, frequent, free updates.

If you make it easy for users to buy and make full use of your product or service legitimately then we believe that you'll gain more users from that convenience than you'll lose from piracy.

We realize that some people or companies might feel threatened at any evidence that implies that draconian DRM schemes or CD copy protection may not make that big of a difference in sales.

For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary.

All software is pirated, there's no way around it. We've been making software for over 10 years. We don't like our software being pirated. Like I said, every lost sales has an impact on us. But there are other ways to reduce it than through draconian copy protection systems.

Incidentally, the site that Starforce's forum admin linked to "prove" how much our software was being pirated we visited, followed the instructions on the site to get our game removed and the links were removed within a couple of hours. We'll continue to follow-up with them.

A StarForce admin posts a link on their offical fourms. (Image Proof)

GalCiv2 Forum (Forum post where this artical came from)

Digg's inaccurate interpreation to what the developers said

Recently Protection Technology, the parent company that creates the StarForce Protection scheme for various companies including Ubisoft, Digital Jesters, Codemasters, and Egosoft, has come under fire recently for it's rather protection schemes, malware and empty threats to various communities.

StarForce has sent an apology for posting the opposing website posted in the above image.

No English changelog.

>> Get it HERE

Commodore Plus/4 emulator

New Yape release 12/03/2006

 

Yape 0.65 is out, with a handful of new features and a usual bunch of bugfixes. A long requested feature, symbolic keymapping, has also been added this time. It basically allows you to map the emulated plus/4 keyboard to your own PC's keyboard layout disregarding whichever input locale you are using (well at least I hope so ). Here's a full lowdown of what's been changed this time:

 

* disk write support for 1581 emulation

* optional symbolic keymapping

* save screenshots as GIF (now default)

* fixed a sync problem on dual core AMD based machines

* fixed a glitch in decimal mode of ARR (thanks to V.Lidovski)

* fixed a memory corruption when loading a D64 as PRG (an abuse)

* some additional bugfixes

 

To activate symbolic keymapping, go to: Input setup->Input method and select 'Symbolic keymap'.

>> Get it HERE.