Atari ST emulator

2.11

* Bug fix for raw floppy mode support on some machines

* -floppy option now reset ST and starts emulator automatically (press F12 to go back to menu)

 

2.10

* RAW Floppy support! Boot your fave game or demo directly using your good old floppy! Use "-floppy" command line option

* Small fix in movie file extension warning (always use .avi)

* speeded the fast-forward mode (press right control key during emulation)

* Dirext9 version

* STE DAC sound volume boost

* STE DAC Master Volume support added!

* removing DirectX dynamic texture support flag (seems to be a bit faster)

* fixed breakpoint red marker in debugger mode (use "-debug")

* centered sound debug gfx

* remove window resizing possibility

* fix a crash when a directx screen saver activate while saint is running

* More faster speedup mode (even in fullscreen) (keep the right CONTROL key pressed)

>> Get it HERE.

Dreamcast emulator

1) T10 might be a bit slower than T9 series. It'll most likely affect only low-end systems as there isn't really much of a difference (if any) on my E6600.

2) WinCE games usually crash when emulation speed drops below certain treshold. In other words, if you got fast system you should get stable performance.

3) Due to changes in GD-DMA code loading times are back. It's considered normal behaviour since this is how Dreamcast works. Thanks to those changes compatibility has improved and following titles should now boot and work:

- all Dream Preview discs

- original MIL-CDs

- Street Fighter Zero 3

- SEGA Tetris Online

- Tetris 4D

4) CD-DA (audio tracks) will play, but still use the older method of fetching data. This might cause Makaron to crash but it's very unlikely as data reads and playing audio are mutually exclusive tasks.

5) There are some minor changes in full-screen setup code (the debug window will be hidden and not forcibly refreshed). No 16:x aspect ratios yet.

6) Changes to sorting/drawing code broke shadows in Virtua Fighter 3tb. I'm not planning on fixing that anytime soon though, as it would break many other things. Late T9 versions have this problem too, by the way.

7) Makaron now disables screen saver when run. It's only going to be a problem if it crashes, as it might not re-enable it on exit. Just so you know.

If you manually enable MMU the recompiler will not switch to address translation mode until it's actually requested, so there's no speed penalty in BIOS and most games. Some however (like Ikaruga) use only partial translation and this can be emulated without full-blown MMU support. It'll work either way but will be a lot slower with MMU enabled. Some WinCE games are automatically recognized (this works only for GD images) and MMU will be turned on when necessary. In short: keep it off unless Makaron complains about it.

 

UPDATE: Few more notes:

 

There were some last-minute cleanups in the code, I hope I didn't break anything

- MT version is the one I actively develop, the other is just dumbed down not to support threading. Not tested much so your mileage may vary.

- As always, make sure you backup your own INI files if you want to keep them. For GDROM.ini though you should comment out the GDMT setting, or choose one of the following:

-1 is immediate mode. This will block emulator and allow the read to complete. In short: worst performance, but should always work. This is also the default mode for non-MT version.

0 is deferred mode. The read still blocks, just not right away but rather outside SH4 main loop. It might provide smoother emulation (if it works at all

1 is threaded mode. Disk reads are scheduled to separate thread for another core/CPU to take care of. Best speed, smooth emulation, should now work with every game. This is the default for MT version.

- Threaded mode can't be selected for non-MT version of Makaron - deferred method will be used instead. This limitation was introduced on purpose, and might be lifted in future. Note that unless you have multiple cores/CPUs it will work just like deferred mode anyway.

>> Get it HERE.

DS emulator

3D rendering was completely rewritten using GLSL in this version, on systems supported you'll get better 3D display output. In order to run this emulator your system need to support OpenGL 2.0 or above. Sound is still not emulated yet.

 

Here are the details of this update:

- New 3D display engine using GLSL

- Video capture

- 2d background mosiac effect

- RTC

- NDS firmware settings

- Other emulator bug fixes

>> Get it HERE.

MSX emulator

Changes from RuMSX V0.40 to V0.41

 

Important: RuMSX v0.41 has a new installer! Therefore it is required to uninstall an older version of RuMSX before installing the new version. You can uninstall RuMSX through the Control-Panel. Select "Software" and "RuMSX" to uninstall.

 

- Installer now supports the Windows XP "Open With" feature. This is different to prior versions, where only "RuMSX" and "Disk-Manager" could share the file-extensions. Now potential problems on Windows XP and existing problems on Windows Vista are resolved in changing this behavior.

- Windows 95 / Windows NT 4 is no longer supported, new minimum requirement is Windows 98 / Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 4

- Disk drive letters have been assigned incorrectly for rare configurations (e.g. HB-F1XDJ) where the Disk-ROM was located in an expanded slot with secondary slot-id different than 3. E.g. FILES accessed drive "C:" instead of "A:" (this bug was new since RuMSX v0.31)

- Added "CAS" motor indicator (in addition to FDD, HDD, CD)

- Added "Preview" support for .RuMSX save-state files

- Some interlaced modes were not rendered correctly

- Fully implemented scanline interrupt handling "F1 Spirit 3D special", "Golvelious 2", "Bombaman" and many more games are working now!

- Fixed incomplete detection of 5th/9th sprite, so WAVES.ROM does also work now!

- Fixed behavior of VDP TransferReady flag, so "Andorogynus" does no longer have defective graphics

- Fixed Printer-emulation: subscript is now correct, printing with resolutions > 300dpi is better sized

- Added display of print-progress to statusbar (at least for emulated MSX/Epson printers)

- Fixed problems when RuMSX is started for the 1st time (MSX2: logo rendered incorrectly, ...)

- Default-directory for print-file and debug-output file is no longer %TEMP%, "%TMP% or C:\ but "My MSX" or "My Documents"

- Fixed autodetection of "64 in 1" ROM, which was unfortunately ignored in the ROM-database.

- Corrected floppy-emulation to MSX Disk-BIOS semantic (all memory-aras except page 1 are unchanged during PHYDIO)

- Keyboard click is now shorter (better match to real MSX)

- Options "Use OPLL" and "Use multimedia timer" are now selected by default

- Removed several hardcoded english texts (startup, shutdown, disk properties, ...)

- Added option to remember last used Joystick

- Many fixes to the configuration editor:

-- Configurations with an "Unknown" locale were not correctly saved in prior versions;

-- Configuration is handled readonly if no change-permissions are given (Vista/XP/2000/NT4);

-- Readonly-configurations are displayed with disabled controls;

-- New configurations will be saved into "My MSX\MSX computers\RuMSX configurations" (if available);

-- New configurations are automatically added to the list and selected by default

- No "Choose configuration" (initial) in case of read SaveState or Preview

- Supplemental SETUP.EXE is now fully supporting Windows Vista

- A lot of internal changes for WIN64 compatibility

- Added italian localization (translation incomplete in this release)

- Added support for "Playball" samples. If available they should be provided as samples\playball\playball_*.wav files in the RuMSX folder.

- Warning for overriding sensitive data applies to Win95/98/ME only (volume tracking driver) and is therefore displayed on such systems only!

- Moved documentation of R800 extensions from the WebPage into the manuals, where it should be persisted.

- Added SPLITROM.exe command-line utility

- Added disclaimer as requested by BAZIX - MSX logo policy

- BugFix: number of CPU cycles per screen-refresh was reversed for 50Hz and 60Hz (noticable with NEMESIS1)

- Known bug: Interrupt timed games such as "Nemesis1" might accidentally speed up for some duration. Workaround: see "Known Problems" in RuMSX-help.

>> Get it HERE.