On 1998, january 31st, raine 0.06 was released !

So this version marks the 11th birthday of raine...

It also finally marks the end of the 0.50 version after 2 years of development since I released the 1st beta. Ok I didn't work only on it for 2 years, I did quite a lot of other things, but 2 years is still a very long time (but it was expected, you can't get rid of the library raine was based upon without a few problems...).

 

Part of the reason for the change from 0.50 to 0.51 is also that it adds 203 clones in 1 time ! These are the cps1/cps2 clones from mame. Some people have asked for them for very long, and even if I was not very motivated at first, I finally became curious about some of these clones, and it gave me the opportunity to look into the very interesting job on the video pals for this driver in mame. It has allowed me to slightly improve the video emulation in cps1/cps2, see the details of the changes in the changelog.

Also since the 0.50 version is now over, I thought it was a good time to finally add a dialog to be able to change the rom directories without having to edit the config file finally, and you can now choose an unlimited number of rom directories (a very old request from a friend !).

 

* Upgrade cps1 & cps2 romsets to finally be compatible with mame (I took the 0.129 sources). In the process I adapted the video config to use the amazing work they did in dumping all these video chips which were the causes of all the kludges which have been in the cps1/cps2 emulation during all these years. So in clear there is a possibility that some drivers are broken, because I can't test them all obviously, but I'll try

my best to avoid obvious bugs.

- It's around 210 more clones to play with

- this time the game genre is taken from maws instead of being "misc" everywhere (for cps1 & cps2)

- Use less ram for most drivers

- emulation slightly faster for cps1 sprites, and slightly better for cps2 (I don't really call this bug fixes, but...).

* If you tried to use the gui to rotate the screen in the middle of playing then you were very likely to get a crash if the game used priority bitmaps (like all cps1/cps2 games !!!). It's fixed now, you can rotate the screen whenever you want, the priority bitmap will survive !

* Various bugs fixed for the console again...

* When switching to fullscreen and you have not asked to set the video mode from the game resolution in the gui, the resolution taken is now the desktop's resolution. It makes much more sense than switching a 22'' lcd screen to 640x480 just because the window size was 640x480 and we switched to fullscreen. Also when returning from fullscreen the previous size of the window is correctly restored even if you restarted raine before returning to windowed mode.

* You can now compile raine from a 64 bit environment. Actually it is very easy to do, and I should have done it earlier, it's just about using the -m32 gcc switch. Just make sure you have the 32 bit version of all the libraries needed. I just updated the guide about how to compile raine. The detection is now automatic, you just have to launch make without parameters.

* Finally add a dialog to configure the rom directories, you can access it from Change Game/Options (1st line of the game list). By the way, rom directories become unlimited. A friend of mine asked this feature about 2 years ago... Oh well he didn't know I had planned to rewrite completely the gui before doing that !

* GUI : try to choose a better font size when displaying dialogs

* cheats : if there are no cheats for the current game, and there are some for the parent, then load the cheats of the parent. It allows to have cheats for the 210 new clones, and it's very likely that they will be all correct (and anyway it's better than nothing !).

* Raine and neoraine finally share the same makefile. To compile neoraine, you must uncomment the line "NEO=1" at the top of the makefile, or you can type as before "make -f makefile.neocd" which now includes the normal makefile.

* Misc bugs fixed, for example a memory leak in the taito f3 sound emulation was suddenly found because the link order made it to crash the program.

>> Get it HERE.

Version 2.1 (February 1, 2009) - "Keep 'em coming!"

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OK, so six months have passed yet again - amazing how time flies.

Despite the fact that all major manufaturers are emulated by now, there's still enough to do to iron out all of the bugs and inaccuracies.

 

From time to time a few new games show up unexpectedly, like the new batch coming in from tecnopinball.org in January: three new Juegos Populares games, also Inder Atleta, and another oddball: Videodens "Break".

Some special greetings go to the makers of that invaluable resource site!

 

Despite the fact there is NO manual or schematics drawing to work with yet, we managed to get Break working somehow - Spanish manufacturers were pretty much fixated on the Z80 cpu and the AY-8910 sound chip, so it wasn't all that hard really...

 

Jac van Ham, a rare Dutch manufacturer, joins the club with a game called "Escape", adding a new CPU (TMS9980-A) to our core at the same time.

 

Some people contributed by providing new dumps for known bad roms as well:

David Seidman finally managed to get good reads off Black Sheep Squadron.

Jerry Clause re-read the U6 speech rom on Flash Gordon's vocalizer set, so the hissing and stuttering is gone now.

 

Thanks to all our contributors, especially to Inkochnito for locating some very hard to find roms over and over again all those years! What would we do without you? -- Hmm, a lot more vacation, I guess (just kidding)!

 

On the emulation side of it, sound was improved for Bally games using the old "Sounds Plus" sound board, so it plays a few more sounds now.

Also, Gottlieb System 80B had another issue with melody playing at game start which wasn't supposed to happen at all.

In the same vein, Jokerz, Pool Sharks, and Blackwater 100 had their sound startup issues corrected, meaning that BW100's sound is finally working BTW.

 

Well, that's basically it. So enjoy our latest feat, and "keep 'em coming!"

 

Changes:

 

*** CORE/CPU ***

Fixed a bug for Bally-51 Sounds Plus

Fixed sound issues on Gottlieb System 80B

Fixed Blackwater 100 sound startup

Fixed startup sound for Jokerz / Pool Sharks

Corrected Playmatic Last Lap, game works now

Better working Bally 68701 prototype games

Added TMS9980-A cpu support

 

*** ROM SUPPORT ***

Added Bally Party Zone L-3 [ipdb.org]

Added WMS Banzai Run G-3 (German) [ipdb.org]

Added Juegos Populares: Featon, Petaco, Aqualand [tecnopinball.org]

Added Jac van Ham Escape [inkochnito / Ronald Knor]

Added Videodens Break (NVRAM not working yet) [tecnopinball.org]

Added Inder Atleta [tecnopinball.org]

Added Flash Gordon Prototype rev. 2 (working) [pinballjail]

Corrected checksums for Bally Flash Gordon (vocalizer sound) [Jerry Clause]

Corrected checksums for Astro Black Sheep Squadron [David Seidman]

>> Get it HERE.

GB/GBC emulator for mobile phones

Version 2.2 - 1 Feb 2009 (source, MeBoyBuilder.jar)

 

- Improved speed of writes to graphics memory

- Improved screen redraw syncing, especially for Advanced Graphics mode

- Improved speed of doubled sprites (8x16 pixel) by drawing one large image instead of two small

- Improved speed of decoding images in Advanced Graphics mode

- Tweaked the sprite drawing loop to be slightly faster and better reflect the order sprites should be drawn, especially in Gameboy Color games

- Simple Graphics mode now crops images that have transparent borders

- Simple Graphics detects solid images, and creates Images without alpha channel

- Tweaked decoding of images when scaling the screen to 75%

- Fixed flicker when the LCD screen was turned off

- Fixed bug when decoding Gameboy Color palettes (Pokemon trading card game starts now)

- Fixed HDMA bug when interrupts are disabled (Donkey Kong Country starts now)

- Fixed speed-switch bug where read-only bits could be written to (Conker's Pocket Tales starts now)

- Tweaked handling of cart-RAM (hopefully improving compatibility, but it's hard to tell)

- Emulation is now paused when setting keys

>> Get it HERE.

TG16 / PCE emulator

2009/01/31 2.00 released

+ This time, the development environment became "Visual C++". An attached source file is for "Visual C++". (The compilation method etc. was described at this file (Readme.txt) ahead. I described the input delay problem, too.)

+ Please let me do a talk important here. The source code in the part that I wrote might be not beautiful. It is a little shameful in reality. However, I think that "The source of the emulator has been opened to the public" is important. Because the transplant(Windows 7 and more, Mac and Linux, .etc) and development can be continued for a long time from now on. Even if I cannot develop Ootake, development might continue even for hundreds of years in the platform of the age. If the game of the masterpiece of "PC Engine(TG16)" has been played in those days, I am glad. It is energy that I develop Ootake.

+ There is a meaning of "Emulator that has opened the source to the public" there. Personally, I want to support "Emulator that has opened the source to the public" in emulators other than "PC Engine", too.

I think that it will be connected with the best result (The one to which the reproduction level is high and easy-to-use is completed, and development continues) in the future.

+ Though it is not certain whether to have considered this, many people support Ootake. This version v2.00 was able to be released thanks to them. Thank you really.

Hereafter, it is a change point of v2.00.

- It corresponded to Windows "DirectX 9.0c", and drawing by "Direct3D" became possible. In a lot of PC environments, I think that "Display Image Quality", "Display Speed (load reduction to the personal computer)", "Tone Quality of a built-in sound (stability of the tempo and the tone reproduction)", and "Input Reaction Speed of the JoyPad" improved.

Improvement of "Display Image Quality"...

The quality of bi-liner filtering (jaggy is made unremarkable) processing has improved by using Direct3D. Moreover, in "Windows Vista", the filter processing became possible, and it corresponded to "Aero", too.

Improvement of "Display Speed"...

A personal computer not fast might have come to work in some measure comfortably. Especially, the effect might be large in the personal computer equipped with the video chips other than made by NVIDIA(2D is originally high-speed).

Improvement of "Tone Quality"...

Accuracy by which the timing of 1/60 seconds is measured has improved by using Direct3D. As a result, processing of a built-in sound approaches the axis of the time of a real machine, and, it became a tone near real machine more.

Improvement of "Input Reaction Speed"...

A detailed setting was done, and it stuck to the limit of one frame more.

 

- On the option screen of the start ("Option" button under the left after Ootake starts), some set items were added. Moreover, "Light(Fast)" button and "Default" button were set up.

* If your personal computer is not fast, push "Light(Fast)" button. Afterwards, push "SET" button. Then, operation becomes light(fast) set. However, the screen might flicker when scrolling because it is not V-Sync(vertical synchronization). Therefore, set only the item of "V-Sync" (the 3rd from top) to "V-Sync 60Hz (Beauty,Default)" after pushing "Light(Fast)" button if it is possible.

- "Direct3D" and "DirectDraw" menu were added to "Setting->Screen" menu. When "DirectDraw" is selected, it becomes the same drawing as the old version (v1.69 former). Moreover, the detail of each drawing method can be set. Please see the manual (Open it from "Info" menu) for details of a set item.

- "PC Power Saving" setting of "Setting" menu was abolished. Because it entered the best CPU use state in default.

- The speed and timing were brought close to a real machine more. In "World Stadium" and "World Stadium '91", when the ball hits the bat, the problem that one frame screen has fallen into disorder (generated by a recent version) was solved. I think that it approached a real machine by the timing of operation in a lot of other games.

- The stability of the CD-ROM access processing has been improved.

- Additionally, a detailed part has been improved and corrected.

 

2009/02/01 2.01 released

- In the personal computer environment without the runtime component of "Visual C++ 2008", it operated. (Other content doesn't have the change from v2.00.)

>> Get it HERE.