News (6/14)

 

Racin' Force I've been running some tests on Racin' Force, a Konami System GX game that uses voxels to generate a 3D playfield. It's an interesting combination of new and old hardware, the PSAC2 chip from earlier games generates a 2D ROZ layer which selects data from a color map and height map. This is used by the PSAC4 chip to render voxels to a framebuffer. An additional list of per-scanline camera data is provided as the PSAC4 knows nothing about the rotation parameters the PSAC2 applied to the color map and height map. Priority is specified for each voxel drawn so sprites can move in front of and behind specific parts of the landscape.

 

A limitation of this setup is that dropped pixels in the PSAC2 output result in missing voxel columns which makes landscape structures look flickery. However at 60 frames per second the results are extremely impressive. Consider how few custom ICs were needed to do this compared to the 3D hardware some arcade games used in 1993. For games with simple terrain such as Racin' Force and Konami's Open Golf Championship, the decision to use voxel graphics was well suited to their graphical needs and a cost-effective choice.

 

I made a low-quality video of the game in action. No controls are wired up, so the car is out of control after the attract sequence.

• Racin' Force footage
  

Of particular interest are the sloped curves on the racetrack, and the tunnel which has both a floor and ceiling made out of voxels. The PSAC4 chip has a lot of different drawing settings which have to get figured out. I've documented the PSAC2 registers and will tackle the PSAC4 next.

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R. Belmont has updated his MAME WIP page with some stuff on Nestopia.

NEStopia 1.40 status report A few screenshots to show some new features. NEStopia's always had great video filters, what happens when I raid ZiNc for audio filters?

 

 

 

And what's that "Extras" tab? 1.37 didn't have that?

 

 

A word about "preferred system": if a ROM matches more than one region, it hints to NEStopia how to play it. And just like in Windows, the Russian Dendy Famiclone is now supported including it's unique quirks.

 

Also, automatic soft-patching is now available. Put a .ips or .ups patch in the same directory as the ROM and NEStopia on Linux will pick it up and apply it automatically. If you have multiple games in an archive, put the patch outside the archive and name it after the game rather than the archive itself, then it works.

 

Here's proof: I've loaded up Akumajou Special - Boku Dracula-kun (basically "Castlevania Special: I'm Kid Dracula!") and put Kitsune Sniper's translation .ips patch in the same directory. Here's what happens with no further action on my part:

 

 

 

Nice, huh? A few more things to come and then you can play with this too.

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"Phoinix is the name of a Nintendo GameboyTM emulator for the Palm Computing® Platform"

I think this is the changelog:

2008-06-14

 

The new version v.1.4.2 is available: triggered by a user request the direction control via the pen was enhanced.

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Script PC is a IBM PC (286, 386, 486, 586 and XT) and Spectrum 48k Emulator for Windows.

- supported 256 and 504 Mb HDD images;

- added support of VME to CPU P5/86;

- more correct KBC i8042 emulation;

- some VGA fixes(aspect and offset);

- greatly improved x86 CPU emulation;

- some VGA fixes;

- improved CASE in scripts;

- added two recommended ("Best") x86-configs to simplify emulator usage: fast real (with binary BIOSes) and slower virtual (with scripted BIOSes - not complete yet, because scripted VGA BIOS is under development сurrently);

- added support of Z80-configs to debug console (disassembling etc.);

- added support of some BIOS-es (PC/5150, Phoenix-386);

- fixed couple of bugs in emulation kernel (synchronization etc.);

- fixed some broken script error messages (now show correct scipt name);

- some fixing and cleanup in scripts of several devices and in virtual BIOS.

Thanks to our affiliate, AEP-Emulation, for the news!