Raine 0.95.5 : big cps2 update !

[Tux]

... and some last words about this bug :

actually the reason why I couldn't reproduce it is simply because in my saved settings the profiler display is almost always enabled (the 3rd one, the one with % numbers), that's the f11 key, and this key would have fixed the green screen bug too if you had used it because by default it uses opengl text, and so it calls glColor to set the color of the text to white, this time it's normal behavior since the text is monochrome, the non standard behavior is for color pixels of the game bitmap. It works also for the f1 key (reset) because you get some texts at the bottom of the screen to tell about the cpu(s) being reseted, and so it calls glColor too...

So if you had had a simple profile display enabled in your settings you would probably never have seen this bug, but yeah most of the time you install to a new dir so it's back to default settings all the time...

Everything is solved !

[mer-curious]

Hello Tux! I'm so glad you could finally fix this crazy bug! Considering the time we had lived with it, I think you were really fast in fixing it this time!

Anyway, it was then worth it installing the new Windows version in my friend's laptop and bumping this thread again with an update in my testings.

Thanks again for your motivation in this work and also for the patience in providing the details about it.

 

5 hours ago, Tux said:

which means just 1 more function called when the "play game" option is selected, almost nothing.

Just to be sure, it will also work correctly if we simply use the ESC key to return to the game, and not just the "Play game" menu option, right?

 

1 hour ago, Tux said:

It works also for the f1 key (reset) because you get some texts at the bottom of the screen to tell about the cpu(s) being reseted, and so it calls glColor too...

Interestingly, if you trigger the green screen bug and reload the game by using the Recents or Most Played lists, it will also fix the bug even if there are no white messages displayed at the screen (at least I can't see them... 🤔).

 

Now I have two requests for a new upcoming Raine release:

1) I'd like to ask you to add support for the Samurai Showdown 2 Perfect Edition romset. It's a hack of the original Samurai Showdown 2 with some (perhaps many) improvements. It's currently in version 1.8 as you see in this commit:

https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/commit/3a422761de5f5ceb85d51d7cd0a14a462e292655

Perhaps the authors will make more adjustments to the game, but then we could simply provide the new roms, right?

You can find the romset already updated here:

https://archive.org/details/fbnarcade-fullnonmerged

 

2) Finally, I've noticed that we can't reload the game by clicking on it in the Game Selection list. This is only possible if we use the Recents or the Most Played lists. Would it be possible to enable the reload function to the normal list too?

I felt the need for that when I was testing the green screen bug in Art of Fighting 3 and tried to reload the game by clicking on it in the Game selection list. I'm not sure why, but maybe this was the most intuitive path I found to reload the game, and then I found that only the Recents and Most played lists would work for that, which I found curious...

Anyway, it's not really something necessary but just an alternative for the "hard reset" function I guess, and perhaps a more intuitive way to use for this function. But if it's too complicated, just let it for another time.

 

That's it for this very long post. Thank you again for your time! 😃

Edited January 4, 2024 by mer-curious

[Tux]

3 hours ago, mer-curious said:

Hello Tux! I'm so glad you could finally fix this crazy bug! Considering the time we had lived with it, I think you were really fast in fixing it this time!

Anyway, it was then worth it installing the new Windows version in my friend's laptop and bumping this thread again with an update in my testings.

Thanks again for your motivation in this work and also for the patience in providing the details about it.

Err I disagree here, I think the previous workaround was enough. The reason why it was fast this time was simply because I was finally able to reproduce it, previously I had to make a fix blindly.

And also I found that you deserved to know all about it considering the time you spent on it !

3 hours ago, mer-curious said:

Just to be sure, it will also work correctly if we simply use the ESC key to return to the game, and not just the "Play game" menu option, right?

Of course

3 hours ago, mer-curious said:

Interestingly, if you trigger the green screen bug and reload the game by using the Recents or Most Played lists, it will also fix the bug even if there are no white messages displayed at the screen (at least I can't see them... 🤔).

Any use of a colored line in the gui would make it to go away, as any key using the overlay gui (f2, f3, f4 and the layer keys if they are used by the current driver).

3 hours ago, mer-curious said:

Now I have two requests for a new upcoming Raine release:

1) I'd like to ask you to add support for the Samurai Showdown 2 Perfect Edition romset. It's a hack of the original Samurai Showdown 2 with some (perhaps many) improvements. It's currently in version 1.8 as you see in this commit:

https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/commit/3a422761de5f5ceb85d51d7cd0a14a462e292655

Perhaps the authors will make more adjustments to the game, but then we could simply provide the new roms, right?

You can find the romset already updated here:

https://archive.org/details/fbnarcade-fullnonmerged

Remember ? I am retired !

Plus you are dreaming here, the last commit you show in fbneo is from december 2023, but internet archive is notoriously slow to update its romsets, the dates of the files you are linking to are from april 2023 (click "show all").

If you find where this romset is coming from and how we can get reliable updates, I will consider it.

3 hours ago, mer-curious said:

2) Finally, I've noticed that we can't reload the game by clicking on it in the Game Selection list. This is only possible if we use the Recents or the Most Played lists. Would it be possible to enable the reload function to the normal list too?

I felt the need for that when I was testing the green screen bug in Art of Fighting 3 and tried to reload the game by clicking on it in the Game selection list. I'm not sure why, but maybe this was the most intuitive path I found to reload the game, and then I found that only the Recents and Most played lists would work for that, which I found curious...

Anyway, it's not really something necessary but just an alternative for the "hard reset" function I guess, and perhaps a more intuitive way to use for this function. But if it's too complicated, just let it for another time.

 

That's it for this very long post. Thank you again for your time! 😃

It's actually the other way around, I just forgot to add a test to check that we don't try to load the same game when accessing these lists of games, and this test is already present for the main list of games. I should add it yeah... !

And so you'll just have to either press f1 or load another game 1st, or quit and reload.

[mer-curious]

20 hours ago, Tux said:

Err I disagree here, I think the previous workaround was enough. The reason why it was fast this time was simply because I was finally able to reproduce it, previously I had to make a fix blindly.

And also I found that you deserved to know all about it considering the time you spent on it !

Ah, OK. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you had already reproduced it before.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to fix it definitely now!

 

20 hours ago, Tux said:

Any use of a colored line in the gui would make it to go away, as any key using the overlay gui (f2, f3, f4 and the layer keys if they are used by the current driver).

Ok, I understand now. 👍

 

20 hours ago, Tux said:

Remember ? I am retired !

😅

 

20 hours ago, Tux said:

Plus you are dreaming here, the last commit you show in fbneo is from december 2023, but internet archive is notoriously slow to update its romsets, the dates of the files you are linking to are from april 2023 (click "show all").

If you find where this romset is coming from and how we can get reliable updates, I will consider it.

Good news: the romset in archive.org is indeed updated, as you see in the CRC comparison below:

You have to click on "ZIP" in archive.org and look for the individual romset to download it.

According to the uploader, it is maintained updated, as you read here:

 

I also found in Google a site called Retroroms with a series of "FBNeo sooner" threads in which one of the authors of this mod shares the new rom files, as you see here:

source: https://www.retroroms.info/forum/topic/FBNeo-sooner-1-0-0-3.46001.htm

This site also has a downloads section with lists of roms based on emulators, and there is also a list for Raine.

Finally, I messaged the authors in GitHub to see whether there is an "official" site for the game. But at least we know now that all these popular places have updated files.

 

20 hours ago, Tux said:

It's actually the other way around, I just forgot to add a test to check that we don't try to load the same game when accessing these lists of games, and this test is already present for the main list of games. I should add it yeah... !

And so you'll just have to either press f1 or load another game 1st, or quit and reload.

Ok. I just found it more intuitive to just go there in the game list and try reloading the game by clicking on it. I think some other emulators like FBNeo allow the user to do this too.

Perhaps you could add a message such as "Game already running. Reload? Yes / No" when clicking on a game already running and let the user decide to reset it?

Anyway, just an idea I had when using this function through the Recents list recently.

Thank you so much again for your time.

Edited January 5, 2024 by mer-curious

[Tux]

Ok, you convinced me, but it's not one of these basic clones we had lately, this one adds a new mapping for the rom, it's not mapped as the others, so I'll need to look into it in more detail...

Congratulations for the motivation though !

Ok, it was not so complex finally, the neogeo system is full of hacks, the mapping of the code rom is :

from 0 to 0xfffff normal basic mapping for 0x100000 bytes

then if the size is > 0x100000 you get something more

0x200000 to 0x2fffff rom bank and then if there is a write in the 16 last bytes of this region (which is rom so the writes are supposed to be ignored), then it's supposed to be a bankswitch based on the byte written to be able to access any address > 0x200000

This one uses the mapping at 0x200000 but not the bankswitch and its size is > 0x200000

it adds a new area which was unused so far :

0x900000 - 0x9fffff code rom starting at 0x200000 !

I tested it, it seems to work, assuming the code doesn't try to access any address beyond the end of its rom it should be ok, it seems good for the small test I did. I'll post a binary later, you won it. You should take a look at the git log for adding this rom, it's not so hard to do, except here I added the mapping for 0x900000 plus a new define rom ROM_END instead of copying lines all the time... So that you'll be able to add your own clones later !

 

[mer-curious]

17 hours ago, Tux said:

Ok, you convinced me, but it's not one of these basic clones we had lately, this one adds a new mapping for the rom, it's not mapped as the others, so I'll need to look into it in more detail...

Thank you Tux for your work in adding this rom. I didn't expect it would need any especial programming rather than allowing Raine to see the new driver. Hopefully it didn't give you so much work. 🙏

I tried it here one turn until the final boss and it's working pretty normally. The sound associations also work for this clone, I just had to add a new entry in games.cfg with the same associations from the original samsho2.

Thank you again for this.

 

17 hours ago, Tux said:

You should take a look at the git log for adding this rom, it's not so hard to do, except here I added the mapping for 0x900000 plus a new define rom ROM_END instead of copying lines all the time... So that you'll be able to add your own clones later !

Yes, I took a look at the code added and I guess I understood most of what you did, but perhaps I would still need a hand of yours if possibly adding a new "version 1.9" of this hack in the future...

By the way, in line 1265 there is a typo:

We have "samsho5pe" after the /, when it was supposed to be "samsho2pe", no?

Anyway, this probably won't affect the game emulation, right?

Thank you so much again for your time and work. 👍

[Tux]

4 hours ago, mer-curious said:

Thank you Tux for your work in adding this rom. I didn't expect it would need any especial programming rather than allowing Raine to see the new driver. Hopefully it didn't give you so much work. 🙏

I tried it here one turn until the final boss and it's working pretty normally. The sound associations also work for this clone, I just had to add a new entry in games.cfg with the same associations from the original samsho2.

Thank you again for this.

Don't worry, that makes it interesting !

4 hours ago, mer-curious said:

Yes, I took a look at the code added and I guess I understood most of what you did, but perhaps I would still need a hand of yours if possibly adding a new "version 1.9" of this hack in the future...

By the way, in line 1265 there is a typo:

We have "samsho5pe" after the /, when it was supposed to be "samsho2pe", no?

Anyway, this probably won't affect the game emulation, right?

Thank you so much again for your time and work. 👍

Yeah it's a comment, it's harmless, but it just shows I had a quick look at samsho5pf just before adding this clone !

I fixed it here. At least it shows you had a look at the code, good, and thanks for that !

Except that, the main part is :

Quote

    LOAD_SW16( CPU1, "063-p1pe.p1",     0, 0x100000, 0xf63e163d ),
    LOAD_SW16( CPU1, "063-p2pe.sp2",    0x100000, 0x100000, 0xffc16c11 ),
    LOAD_SW16( CPU1, "063-p3pe.p3",     0x200000, 0x020000, 0xedffbd8a ),

LOAD_SW16 is the way to load the rom, it's often the case for a 68000 code rom, the bytes are swapped compared to an intel cpu, and you have to use LOAD_SW16 instead of LOAD, it shows in the console when using the dump command, but anyway. Then CPU1, it's the 68000. The name of the rom, then its offset, apparently fbneo doesn't have any offset, which must make some romsets a little awkward to write because there are all kinds of oddities in the arcade roms and everything is not always in 1 block. That's probably the hard part for you here, you have to count manually the offset, 0 for the 1st one, then add the sizes of what has been loaded so far : 0x100000, then 0x200000. Then the size, and finally the crc.

Then the CLNEI line which says it's a clone of samsho2 and gives the long name, the company (I left SNK here, but actually it's a hack, so I just replaced it with HACK instead), year and type of game.

Then you need the DRV( smasho2pe ) line in drivers.h to declare the driver, and that's all, your driver can be accessed and played, assuming it doesn't do anything funny like this one which used a new rom mapping.

[mer-curious]

2 hours ago, Tux said:

Yeah it's a comment, it's harmless, but it just shows I had a quick look at samsho5pf just before adding this clone !

I fixed it here. At least it shows you had a look at the code, good, and thanks for that !

Hello Tux! I'm glad I could help you in some way.

By the way, you changed the company name for "Hack", but I guess it is "Bear". At least this is what FBNeo calls it, as you see below:

This is also what we see when we load the game, in the title screen:

Anyway, not too important but just a detail I noticed.

As for the instructions on how to add a new rom, I'll read it more carefully later looking at the code. But I still think I would need a hand in doing that, especially for these more different rom hacks.

Thanks again for your work!

[Tux]

Well I don't know any "Bear", it's probably the group name author of the hack, if you want to create a new company entry for Bear when you add a new one, go on. For now Hack will do...

[Robert]

I finally got to add this game to HBmame 0.245.19, but a later version 2.0 - the odd memory mapping already existed for several other games for example samsho2sp, so no issue to add this one as well. I listed Bear as the author.

[Tux]

Yeah well I don't know where the 2.0 rom is, and I don't even want to look for it anyway for now, it's very late after the party here. About the author's name it would probably have been better to have strings but we have int constants here, I guess antiriad chose this to optimize space thinking that since raine started mainly as a taito emulator there wouldn't be much change in the company name... it made sense at the time, raine grew a lot since then !

 

[mer-curious]

On 5/24/2024 at 4:12 PM, Tux said:

Yeah well I don't know where the 2.0 rom is, and I don't even want to look for it anyway for now, it's very late after the party here. About the author's name it would probably have been better to have strings but we have int constants here, I guess antiriad chose this to optimize space thinking that since raine started mainly as a taito emulator there wouldn't be much change in the company name... it made sense at the time, raine grew a lot since then !

Hello Tux! There are always some Raine users out there to make a new party eventually!

If you may allow me, here is the link to the new CRC files for version 2.0 of samsho2pe:

https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/commit/2de30f6da250a0dcea8c8b85293daeeab108207e

And as expected it is updated in the FBNeo full romset in archive.org:

If you may decide to update the romset in the code it will avoid the "wrong CRC" warning I reported in the other thread some months ago.

Thank you so much for considering this request.

Edited June 13, 2024 by mer-curious

[Tux]

Yeah you could do it on git, but since you don't compile of course it wouldn't be super convenient...

Ok, it reminded me that the finalburn roms are on internet archive too, so I got my update from there, crcs updated and tested, finally... !