Picodrive 1.20

[notaz]

After some messing around with noiz2sa got back to my main project, mostly to implement missing stuff. Still no scaling/rotation chip support, but most other stuff is there now. Will do the gfx chip next, and then only the hard stuff will be left (timing problems and various bugs).

So this version has a good compatibility boost, which now should exceed 50% mark. Here are some games which can be made to work now (including some FMV ones, I mostly used this wishlist for testing):

• Adventures of Willy Beamish
• Final fight
• Heart of the alien
• Lunar 2 - eternal blue (textboxes fixed)
• Night trap
• Sewer shark

There is a new ultra-slow option called "better sync", which is similar to "Perfect synchro" in Gens. So all testers should try that if game doesn't boot. For example Popful mail and Vay needs it to boot, but after start that option can be disabled and they seem to run fine (at least their very beginning does). Report any hanging/glitchy games to me, so I can look at them.

Complete changelog:

• Fixed a long-standing problem in audio mixing code which caused slight distortions at lower sample rates.
• Changed the way 920 and 940 communicates (again), should be more reliable and give slight performance increase.
• Some optimizations in audio mixing code.
• Some menu changes (background added, smaller font in ROM browser, savestate loader now can select slots).
• 1M mode DMA transfers implemented (used by FMV games like Night Trap and Sewer Shark).
• Games now can run code from WORD RAM in 1M mode (fixes Adventures of Willy Beamish).
• "Cell arrange" address mapping is now emulated (Heart of the alien).
• "Color numeric operation" is now emulated (text in Lunar 2, Silpheed intro graphics).
• "Better sync" option added (prevents some games from hanging).
• Savestates now go into their own directory (but may still be loaded from the working dir)

download

Edit: Added quick cheat support, see here
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Notes to self:

• Audio desyncs (timer problems?): HotA, Snatcher intro
• Hangs (at startup?), "better sync" doesn't help: Road avenger, Terminator, Sol Feace, Cobra Command, Dune, Megarace, Rise of the Dragon, Dark Wizard, Third World War
• Sound dies: Popful mail, Maddog McCree
• Graphic corruption: Jaguar XJ220, Batman games (needs scaling/rotation chip?)

 

[thumpgun]

great work man,,, this emulator is going to be 1 of the best and must haves on the gp2x...

 

[BobBorakovitz]

awesome!!! thanks for the motivation to finally finish my dpad so i can play some willy beamish and hopefully road avenger on the go

 

[Rivroner]

Impressive
Thank you NOTAZ.

 

[Goemon4]

Awsome, Thanks man, ima test HotA now!!!

 

[CABBAGES]

I was just about to goto sleep but na im goin to go and try a load of mega cd games now got no work tomorrow anyway coz i got teh drs to go to. I will try road avenger first

 

[Goemon4]

Yeah thanks, HotA works/runs great at 235Mhz! i came across one problem tho, when i went to restart HotA it seemed to freeze (it would restart, i could go back to the menu, but the game wouldnt run), jut thought i should report it... but still thanks!

found another problem, the sound seems to be off for HotA (im rly noticing it in the cutscenes/FMV's) but in gameplay it seems fine

 

[CABBAGES]

how do you get the option "better sync" ?

Road avenger dosnt work but i havent tryed that better sync option.

Dragons lair works great works even better on 16 bit

Edit : found the better sync option its in the mega cd optrions



Edit: So far i have tried 5 games that didnt work in the previous version.

Dragons lair :- Seems just about perfect on 16bit accurate !!

Final fight :- seems great too but not trye dit much.

Terminator:- Wont load at all but it did get past the sega logo which im sure it stuck on in the previous version.

Who Shot Johnny Rock:- Its working quite good i think. Its a fmv game it gets a bit jumpy sometimes but it is playable

ROAD AVENGER :- dosnt work tryed better sync too still didnt work.


I will probably make some videos before i sleep or maybe tomorrow

 

[shinneri]

Thank you for fixing the text in Lunar 2! I'll try this now.

Donation should be on its way sometime soon. It's way overdue.

 

[SpaceJellyfish]

How hard would it be to add GameGenie code capability?

 

[CABBAGES]

Just tryed a few more games.

Fatal fury special:- It works now

Heart of the alien :- Its working great but i think some music is working ? or was there no music at the start ?

Mortal kombat:- It starts and you can hear the music and see the fmv video in 16 bit but its quite jumpy and then after the fmv it gos blank .

NBA Jam:- Works now

Samurai showdown:- It works now in this version

Sol Feace :- Still dosnt work

Shadow of the beast 2:- Seems to work fine but everytime someone gos to talk it freezes . Was it like that in the real game ? Also need to use 16 bit or it looks a bit messed up.

Sensible Soccer :- Works now but you need to put better sync on first then put it back off.

Slam city with scottie pippen :- Need to put better sync on then off again for it to work. Its an fmv game and is a bit jumpy but is still playable I remember actually having the demo for this on my megacd years ago

 

[Shadowsithe]

Popful Mail's gameplay is fine, and the FMV video's okay, but the FMV audio is off? Or is it just me. I may have corrupted my download so I'm not 100% sure.

 

[GameGod]

Thanks for all your hard work Notaz!

Who Shot Johnny Rock chops (badly) every few seconds, but at least it actually runs now.

Maddog McCree almost works too, although the sound dies after the "American Laser Games" intro. (The sound just keeps stuttering the same sound...)

PicoDrive still rocks!

 

[shinra]

shilpheed works, no noticeable gfx bugs!!! but cause the game uses PCM all the time it frezzes for a second every time at fixed periods(sound plays well). Popful mail works wonderfull but the sound in FMV crashes and only a weird loop can be heared.

even with those bugs it's an awesome release !!!

silpheed has the same freze bug even with the pcm off

Even worse, silpheed frezzes copmpletly some times and it needs to have the better sync option "on" all the time

 

[stormyandcold]

Stunning progress

Thanks Notaz!

 

[murak]

Wow, I´m really impressed! This is turning out greate!

 

[Aryn]

Notaz, you are a genius! You have definitely proven naysayers like myself wrong with your progress so far, as a GP2X user and a former fan of the Sega CD I thank you for your efforts.

 

[PokeParadox]

grats, I'll test this (briefly) tonight.

 

[imhotep]

Thanks so much. Yippeeeeee!

 

[DynaMight]

Just tried Night Trap, Had to enable better sync to get it past the first screen, then change it back to get it past the next screen but after that I got into the actual game. However it crashed after a few minutes when I was trying to load up the first 'bad guy' scene. Had to reset the console. Havent tried it any further yet. When it ran, it was pretty much 60FPS, although the videos were a little choppy.