During the week, Pete released a bunch of new GPU plugins to improve the performance of various PSX emulators.

Pete's OGL/D3D Plugin 1.76

 

Ok, some of the new 1.76 plugin features I have described in the OGL2  version file (OGL2 V2.07):

* floating point fps limit value

* y sprite mirroring (thanx to smf)

* fixed psx gpu blending mode (thanx to softm)

* fast forward key

* I've added a "pause" key, if you have to do a break, and you don't want to quit the emu (my other gpu plugins already had this option)

* I've noticed the "G4 polygon cache" special game fix (for FF9) was a bit overdone. Should be better now.

 

 

 

Pete's OGL2 Plugin 2.07

 

* Some users wanted the possibility to enter a floating point value as framerate limitation. Ok, done (doesn't make much sense, imho, but it will not hurt as well... my personal advice: use the "auto-detect  limitation value" option whenever it is possible).

* softm reported on my messageboard, that one of the PSX blending modes looked different in my plugins, compared to the real PSX. You will notice the difference only in a few games (softm found Diablo, Legend of Mana and Castlevania), but nevertheless I've fixed this glitch.

* In some games the "Flicker-Fix border" option (needed in combination with the fullscreen shader option) actually didn't fix flickering borders. That's fixed.

* Many users requested a "fast forward" key, which deactivates the frame limitation while pressed (to skip boring parts of a game). I've added this feature, you have to configure it in the "GPU key configuration" (hint: look for a small "..." button in the main config window).

* smf of MAMEdev found a new psx gpu feature: y sprite mirroring.  With his help (thanx for the small psx demo!) I could add this psx gpu capability to my plugins.  Don't ask me if a console psx game will use such a mirroring (I've never noticed it), but who knows... there are many psx games out there

* ShadX and guest® created all kind of interesting and nice looking OGL2 fullscreen shaders, which can be found in the shader forum on my messageboard. With version 2.07, even better shaders can be made:  I've added the possibility to access own textures (stored as tga files), which can be used as look-up-tables, for example. If you want to know how to use this multi-texture option, I've put two small shader demos on my web site as well. Happy shading.

 

 

 

P.E.Op.S. Soft Plugin 1.17

 

* MxC added HQ2X, HQ3X and Scale3X display filters to the Windows version.

* smf of the MAME team found a new capability of the PSX gpu: sprite Y mirroring. I've added this to the P.E.Op.S. gpu, big thanx to smf for sharing this info (and for coding a small psx demo showing this feature)

* softm informed me on my messageboard that one of the transparency modes seems to be wrong in some games (Diablo, Legend of Mana, Castlevania).  I've repaired that, now it will look fine.

* Sometimes small (wrong) texture distortions happened in the soft gpu.  That's caused by internal precision issues, when the plugin is drawing quads using two triangles (needed to get the PSX g-shading right).  I've made a special game fix (0x200), now users can decide if they want a correct g-shading (fix activated) or textures without distortions (fix deactivated).

* The frame limit value is now a floating point number, so you can set (for example) "50.1" as limit. Dunno why, but many users requested this...anyway, my advice: use the "auto-detect limit" option whenever it's possible

As mentioned above, there are a number of new Pixel Shaders available. You can get them here.

»» Official Site

»» OpenGL GPU plugin

»» Windows GPU plugin

»» Soft GPU plugin [1Emulation Server]

Credits: News - Files - Changelog (thanks to NGemu)

Aldo has updated his Plugins Pack, which contains over 90 plugins in one file.

The Whinecube site has been updated with this bit of news:

I've uploaded six new screenshots, showing off BAM3K, which is now fully playable, less sound. There are a few bugs left to fix. When that's done I plan to make a new release of WhineCube.

You can see the screenshots mentioned in the update at the official site.

»» Official Site: http://whinecube.emulation64.com/

RomCenter is software to help organise your roms. Version 2.70 (final) has been released.

This version of romcenter doesn't use the registry anymore. Your current romcenter settings will be lost with this version. Fortunately, Wanderer wrote an add-on utility for transferring RomCenter's settings from registry to INI. You can find it on this page: http://www.wandereronline.info/wanderer/index.html

 

When uninstalling this version of romcenter, it will clean old registry keys : 'HKCU/software/romcenter' and 'HKCU/software/romcenter2'

 

 

What's new

 

RomCenter 2.70 bios & merged

New:

- New resource (bios) management code. This fix some bugs in latest mame versions

- Display bios and merged files with a colored background in database node

- Display bios rom if used by a game.

- Fix 'browse folder' on windows me

- Remove folder refresh on shell operations

- Fix 'duplicate(0)' bug

- Display number of resources in database

- Remove count of resources in games and clone (count is consistent with mame now)

- Fix some file status bugs

- Allow crc and rom name search

- Fix sometimes incomplete repair of some files

- New Datutil version with mame xml support

- New zip dll version

- Clrmame pro datafile support (through Datutil)

- Registry replaced by ini file

- Mame Sublist are automatically extracted when creating mame datafile.

 

Fixed:

- Fix 'index out of bound' when duplicates entries in datafile

- Fix troubles with '[]' in config.ini

- Don't report in miss report games wich just miss roms in their bios.

- Fix error when merging a zip with a corrupted zip.

- Fix bad file extension calculation when format is (x.x).xx

- Don't automatically connect internet when entering datafile manager (click refresh button)

- Fix Cancel button in datafile manager web download

- Fix Path overflow in inifile when a lot of rompaths are loaded

- Fix renaming of roms inside mamezipped games

- Fix webdatafile (you can specify a proxy in the ini file)

- Wider datafile combo box

- Zip datafiles imported from mame

- Remember the mame folder when importing datafile

- Fixed a bug creating a crash during a fix operation.

»» Official Site

»» Download it Now! [1Emulation Server]

Credits: News - File - Changelog

Wednesday, 15 June, 2005 16:30

 

New SEGA Saturn game released:

WinterSports Eins for Saturn enters the C4 - 2005 Saturn coding contest:

 

Finally WinterSports Eins returns to the SEGA Saturn. The game development initially was started for SEGA Saturn and was later expanded to SDL platforms. Being short on time with the GBAX closing date, the GP32 version was released first.

 

WinterSports Eins for SEGA Saturn comes as multiregion (region free) ISO CD image that can be burned on CD-R or CD-RW. Use it on your Saturn videogame console either via applying the swap trick or using a modchip. Works on emulators, too.

 

Note: Publishing in-game screenshots of this game is STRICTLY PROHIBITED!

For more information, visit the Official Site!

Credits: News, via Tuxedo News