Nuove release: Ootake e SSF

Nuove release per questi fantastici emulatori.

Ootake 2.36
Sito ufficiale:
http://www.ouma.jp/ootake/

Elenco delle modifiche:
* Processing that took the timing of the sound playing has been improved (Optimized it to Win7 and Vista also) and sped up (Especially, at the Hu-Card games). I think that it became difficult to record the noise with a little buffer setting ("Setting->Audio->Buffer" menu), too. Therefore, when using it with Win7 and Vista, the size of the audio buffer of default was reduced.
* The setting of VideoSpeedUp and CpuSpeedUp ("Speed" menu) is not loaded by default at the time of the LoadState(or Resume). (This prepared for the case to mistake-push the speed change shortcut key([Home][End][Delete])).
* When "Load Speed at LoadState"("Speed" menu) is selected, the speed setting can be loaded(reflected) as much before v2.35.
* The stop timing of ADPCM sound source was brought close to the movement of a real machine. In "Dragon Slayer Eiyuu Densetsu", I think that the tone quality of the drum sound improved. In "Side Arms Special(CD)", the problem that the sound effect occasionally fell into disorder (generated from v2.29) was solved. In "Ramma 1/2", The problem that the noise occasionally mixed with BGM (generated from v2.29) was solved.
* The waiting time when the music track is played has been readjusted. With a high-speed personal computer environment, In "Snatcher" and "Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu 2", etc., the problem that had occasionally stopped was solved.
* The play processing of ADPCM sound source has been improved. In "Jantei Monogatari 3" and "Ys 3", the problem that the voice becomes interrupted( generated from v2.15) was solved.
* When "Jantei Monogatari 3" is started, a part of CD-ROM access processing becomes slowness near a real machine. The problem that the screen advanced early at the visual scene was solved.
* The speed and timing were brought close to the movement of a real machine. In the visual scene of "Jantei Monogatari 3", the problem that the screen fell into disorder momentarily was solved.
* When the Screenshot function is used at FullScreen, the bug that had not occasionally operated correctly was corrected.
* Additionally, a detailed part has been improved and corrected.

SSF 0.11 alpha R5
Sito ufficiale:
http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~phantasy/ssf/index.html

Elenco delle modifiche:
- Fixed VDP1 rendering.
- Fixed BIOS emulating processing.
- Fixed bug that displayed broken in the game to enable bi-interlaced.

Ootake 2.33

Ootake viene aggiornato così di frequente che quasi si fa fatica a stare dietro agli sviluppatori!
Ciò va tutto a vantaggio della fedeltà dell'emulazione di una così grande console, ovviamente.

L'ultima release, la 2.33 è stata pubblicata ieri, 1 Marzo.

Le modifiche di questa release:

- "CD-DA Delay Frame" was added to "Audio" menu. Whether how much display
delay of the liquid crystal display of the personal computer exists is
set. As a result, CD-DA(CD sound source) can be matched to graphic timing.
(Default = The play timing of CD-DA is delayed by two frames.)
Set it to 0 when you use the cathode-ray tube display without the display
delay oppositely.
- At the full-screen mode, when "Audio->Adjust CD-DA Plus 0.05Hz" was
selected, if the resolution of full-screen changes, the bug with a not
correct display of the selective state was corrected.
- When CD full installation ("CD-ROM->CD FullInstall" menu) is used, in the
game that the music play across two or more tracks exists (moai stage of
"Gradius II" etc.), the bug the track since the second is not played was
corrected.
- When the command line started, optional "/cd" for the CD-ROM start was
added.
- In the personal computer environment that removes the CD-ROM(DVD,BD)
drive, the bug not to be able to play with the file that installed (
"CD-ROM->CD FullInstall" menu) was corrected.
- Additionally, a detailed part has been improved and corrected.
+ The execution file for "Windows 98/Me" was opened to the public. The
operation test is not done. Please see "Readme98.txt" in the ZIP file
about details and notes, etc.



Download from Official Site

Ootake update

Del migliore emulatore PC-Engine disponibile non a pagamento, è stata rilasciata la versione 2.32 due giorni fa. Ootake è una produzione di altissima qualità, e se ciò non bastasse, ha anche il vantaggio di essere costantemente aggiornata dal realizzatore. Dunque, conviene controllare spesso il sito ufficiale.
http://www.ouma.jp/ootake/


Approfitto di questo post, per segnalare che l'emulatore richiede l'installazione di un software aggiuntivo per aprire le cartucce compresse nel formato .zip.
E' necessario scaricare questo programmino (link) reperibile a questo indirizzo (link).

Elenco delle modifiche di questa versione:

• \"Audio\" menu was added to the main screen (the fifth from the right). The tempo of CD-DA (CD sound source) and ADPCM sound source can be fine-tuned by \"Audio->Adjust CD-DA\" menu. In the game of the visual scene that long CD-DA played (Opening of \"Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu\" etc.), the problem that the sound shifts can be solved without cutting the V-Sync setting.
  *[Adjusting method]...Please confirm the frequency of the display with Ootake started. The confirm method of the frequency is different each the PC-display. It is thought that there are \"Information menu\" etc. and select it. Two kinds of frequencies of \"H\" and \"V\" are displayed. Select a value that is the closest to the frequency of the \"V\"(Vertical frequency) at this menu.
  [INDENT]-The frequency might not be able to be confirmed on the display of the notebook computer. In that case, please look for the best frequency feeling while watching the operation of the game to which the sound shifts (Note that there is a game to which the sound originally shifts with a real machine, too.). Decrease the frequency if the sound is early, and increase the frequency if the sound is delayed.
  - This setting is separately preserved respectively by the window mode and each resolution of the full-screen mode.[/INDENT]
• In CD full installation function (\"CD-ROM->CD FullInstall\" menu), the bug that the first voice track was not able to be taken correctly was corrected.
  * The game that cannot be correctly taken is displayed (on left-top of the screen), \"Bcdthe game name)\". In that case, please start the game from real CD-ROM again. And, please install again. When it was installed with v2.32(or more), it becomes a display of \"Fcdthe game name)\".
• The processing of playing CD-DA was corrected. In \"Cosmic Fantasy\", the problem that the tune was not occasionally played (generation from v2.29) was solved.
• The speed and timing were brought close to the movement of a real machine. In \"Silent Debuggers\", the problem that the status screen had shaken uncommonly (generated by v2.31) was solved. In the gambling scene of \"Youkai Douchuuki\", the problem that the screen has fallen into disorder by one frame (generated by v2.31) was solved.
• Additionally, a detailed part has been improved and corrected.

Ootake 2.10

Risale a due giorni fa l'ultima release di Ootake, ottimo emulatore PC-Engine, l'unico freeware e perfettamente funzionale.
Sito ufficiale:
http://www.ouma.jp/ootake/

Good News

Alcune ottime notizie.
Dopo un lungo periodo di inattività, il MAWS ha riaperto.
Per chi non lo sapesse, MAWS è la massima istituzione per quanto riguarda la catalogazione dei titoli supportati da MAME. La sua mancanza è stata davvero dura da sopportare.
Sito ufficiale:
http://maws.mameworld.info/maws/

Proprio durante la scrittura di questo post, sono venuto a conoscenza dell'ultima release dell'ottimo emulatore per PC-Engine: OOtake. Lo devo ancora provare, ma considerando le ottime prove passate, sono certo si tratterà di un eccellente aggiornamento.
Sito ufficiale:
http://www.ouma.jp/ootake/


ElSemi, altra massima istituzione in ambito emulazione, ha rilasciato una nuova fiammante versione dell'emulatore per Model 2 Sega. Il Model 2 è uno dei sistemi hardware arcade più importanti della storia: ospita classici senza tempo come Daytona USA, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, e tantissimi altri. L'emulazione è stupefacente: non ho notato difetti di sorta. E ora finalmente si può giocare a Virtua Fighter 2!


Elenco delle novità:
- Fixed TGP emulation bugs and added missing opcodes. Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop 2 are now
playable. There is still a bug with VF2 hair/body collisions, probably another TGP bug, but it's
quite hard to find...
- Fixed I960 bug that caused daytona invisible walls/holes in the road.
- Fixed timer bug that caused missing hair in Fighting vipers, tails in sonic and slow cars in
Sega Rally (although they still don't work properly).
- Added support for "return to neutral". Enable it with HoldGears=1 option in emulator.ini. This
setting will cause the emu to return to neutral when no gear button is pressed.
- Redone rasterizer color decoding and texture mapping. Now it works the same way the real hardware
does, performing all the same table lookups and calculations, so color should be accurate now. The
color decoding is now done at pixel shader level so you'll need a PS 2.0 capable video card in order
to run the emulator now.
- Fixed white borders in some transparent textures.
- Redone texture caching code. Improved dirty texture detection. Fixes wrong textures in some
games when a new texture overlaps partially with an existing one.
- Changed ManxTT sound roms to the Twin ones. The previous romset was using the Deluxe ones that
have 2 sound boards. Fixes the "japanese speech when braking" bug. Set the machine to Twin.
- Added 2 mice support for shooting games. Enable it with RawInput=1 in emulator.ini. Read some
other options there to tell the emu how to map a mouse to a player. When using RawInput the mouse
will be locked to the emulator window. In order to switch to another window, either press Alt to
bring the menu and unlock the mouse or use Alt-Tab to switch to another application.
- Fixed Alt key not activating the window menu.
- Fixed MB86235 bug when handling denormalized numbers that caused top skater and overrev lock the
emu sometimes.
- Fixed corrupt textures sometimes when loading a savestate
- Fixed frameskipping bug that caused some data not being updated in the TGP memory when
frameskipping (daytona windows not updating windows after entering/leaving the tunnel)
- Added an option to hide the crosshair in shooting games (DrawCross=0 in emulator.ini)
- Fixed Daytona to the maxx rom loading that caused wrong and missing graphics.
- Improved FM emulation support to the SCSP for some HOTD tunes requiring it.
- Fixed various bugs in the new MultiPCM sound emulation, causing some wrong loops and sounds.
- Fixed meshed transparencies size. Now they will scale to the selected resolution.
- Fixed specular highlights calculation.
- Added Daytona USA '93 edition and Daytona USA: GTX 2004.
- Added Rail Chase 2
- Added Virtua Cop 2
- Added Virtua Fighter 2, Rev A, Rev B and 2.1
- Added Sega Water Ski. The current sound rom dump seems to be bad so the game will run without
sound. This game will start in Japan region mode. To change the region, enter Test menu (F2) and
press the sequence up,up,down,down,service (f1),test (f2)
- Added Indianapolis 500 Rev A
- Changed romsets to match MAME as much as possible.

Sito ufficiale:
http://nebula.emulatronia.com/

L'emulazione è tecnicamente perfetta. Tuttavia l'emulatore, sul piano dell'interfaccia e delle opzioni, è ancora ad uno stato embrionale. Pertanto, risulta di estrema utilità un software esterno di configurazione realizzato da un altro programmatore, un certo Wesker.
http://www.speksnk.org/foro/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=68992


Dulcis in fundo, anche lo storico emulatore arcade Final Burn ha ricevuto un upgrade.
Ho provato brevemente questa nuova release, e sembra molto solida. Fra le aggiunte assai gradite bisogna segnalare l'opzione per abilitare il VSync, incomprensibilmente assente finora (e la sua mancanza si faceva decisamente sentire).

Ecco le novità:

• Moved Namco sound to it's own module and updated the Pac-Man driver [Barry]
• Added driver for Galaga [Barry]
• Added driver for Pass [iq_132]
• Added a hack to get Knights of Valour 2 Plus working [XingXing]
• Tidied up the SoftFX blitters [Barry]
  • Updated the Enhanced blitter to allow more filters
  • Added support to the ini file for long long integers to support the Enhanced blitter
  • Added hq2xS, hq3xS, hq2xBold, hq3xBold, EPXB and EPXC filters from SNES9X ReRecording
  • Added SuperEagle, 2xSaI, Super 2xSaI filters from VBA ReRecording
• Fixed issue with board roms in ClrMAME XML DAT generation [Barry]
• Changed ampersands in the ClrMAME XML DAT output to their HTML entity [Barry]
• Some updates to the Megadrive driver via the online generator [nj7, JackC, arturf]
• Fixed some rom sizes in non-working parents [Barry, pointed out by JackC]
• Fixed license2rtf.pl to allow hyphens in URLs [Barry]
• Matched all sets to MAME 0.129u6

Sito ufficiale:
http://www.barryharris.me.uk/article_view.php?id=140