Meka 0.61 --------- This version may or not have minor glitches on certain games (like, a single pixel or a single blinking row at the top or the bottom of the screen). Please DO report those glitches if you notice any. Thanks! - Moved 104 messages to MEKA.MSG, allowing for full localization of the menus. 99% of MEKA is now localizable. Updated the following languages: English, German, Redneck, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. - Improved Z80 core (timing and interrupt emulation bug). - Fixed Rise of the Robots (GG), MEKA being the first emulator to play it without glitches (and even without, it sucks! :) - Fixed most or all (?) glitches in Formula 1 (SMS) two-players mode (maybe not the right way yet). - Fixed Double Dragon (GG) which was not working since an update of the Z80 core (from fMSX) several version ago. - Country changes now immediately takes effects (no need to reset). - Tweaking interrupt emulation for SG-1000/SC-3000/SF-7000 and Coleco Vision drivers. Those changes should not affect anything. - Fixed 'Parallel' video blitter, odd frames were not updated when using the blitter with software 3-D Glasses mode enabled. - Fixed crash of SF-7000 driver when loading a corrupted floppy disk. - Fixed YM-2413 logging in VGM files (Register & Value were reversed!) - Updated SDSC Header support for version 1.01 (adding Author field). - Added Golden Axe theme by Death Adder. (uncomment to use in GUI) - Updated to Allegro WIP 3.9.39 and reapplied all custom patchs. Changed SideWinder autodetection process a bit. Hope it works! - Reduced executable. Meka 0.60 --------- - Improving timing in Z80 core. - Fixed voices that weren't ok (Alex Kidd: the Lost Stars..). Voices in many many games were tested, finally marked them as 'Ok' in the compatibility list. - Due to timing improvments, now Space Harrier [50 Hz version] has correct glitches (like on a real system) when running in NTSC mode. It is now configured to automatically use PAL/SECAM by default. - Removed the need of specific IPeriod setting for some Codemasters games, meaning that they will now run even if you delete MEKA.NAM. - Added sample accurate VGM logging, allowing to log voices. The option was previously grayed, it is activated now that all voices are Ok. - Updated to VGM version 1.01, to include original TV type information (NTSC or PAL/SECAM) in the file, allowing to play at a different rate. - Fixed minor sprite masking bug affecting scrolling games in certain conditions. Evander Holyfield Boxing (Game Gear) was affected. - Added support for Coleco Vision header/footer in order to load the newly released "Pac Man" and "Dig Dug" ROMs from CGE 2001. - Fixed a minor bug when loading an in-game savestate from the BIOS. - Fixed file loader sorting so that if present, ".." is always on top. - Added/fixed entrys to the checksum and compatibility lists. - Added two Sonic themes by H Hog. (uncomment to use in GUI) Meka 0.59b ---------- - Fixed vertical scanline counter emulation. - Fixed a minor hardware collision bug introduced in version 0.59. - Fixed usage of '%' in ROM comment field. - Changed message logging (with /LOG) to avoid cutting text in the file when it doesn't fit on the GUI message box. Meka 0.59 --------- - Various changes to the sound engine: - Fixed PSG Periodic Noise emulation (bass in some Marble Madness tunes, Daffy Duck in Hollywood, and few other games). Thanks Ziria and Maxim! - Added PAL/SECAM machines accurate base clock for PSG wave generation (pitch is around 1% off from NTSC machines). - Added VGM logging. VGM (for Video Game Music) is a new file format recently developed on S8-Dev with collaboration of Dave, Maxim and some other people. Maxim has wrote a WinAMP plugin already. Check out the newly created Music Section on SMS Power at http://www.smspower.org/music ! - Added PSG registers to the technical information window. - Fixed a very weird bug introduced in version 0.58, where a certain sprite configuration and positionning could screws up the whole emulator! This caused problems in Terminator 2: The Judgment Day and Ghouls'n Ghosts. - Added Korean mapper (9) emulation, as used by Dodgeball King. - Added Italian messages translations (by Andrea Ballandino). - Added German messages translations (by Tilman Hesse). - Fixed some Portuguˆs messages. - Fixed/added accentued characters in some Brasilian game names. - Added new "Mario Must Die" theme, with a nice handdrawn picture :-) - Added new entrys to the checksum and compatibility lists. - Fixed and improved various minor things. Meka 0.58c ---------- - Fixed the missing soundcard selection menu in some cases. - Added printing of SDSC Header informations when found. The SDSC Header has been defined and created by the SMS Power developement team (based on Eric Quinn's idea) for homebrewn programs. - Drawn Latin-Extended characters (Unicode 0080-00FF) in the big font. Accents are now usable everywhere in MEKA. Be sure to use accents from the Latin-Extended table (usually used by Windows programs, not DOS ones). - Added Spanish messages translations (by Antonio J. Bazalo). - Added Portuguˆs messages translations (by Rodrigo C. Rubio). - Added "WIP" (Work In Progress) parameter in language definition, to disable warnings and informations when the language is uncomplete. - Squashed one very minor flag bug in the browser when a ROM had an number after a space, at the end of its filename. Meka 0.58b ---------- - Fixed various minor bugs. - Fixed two scrolling emulation bugs in video mode 5. They did not affect any game, but for the sake of accuracy, better fixing them! - Added Dutch messages translations (by Mark van Tilburg) and Redneck messages translations (by Maxim, using Dialectizer). Fry mah hide! - Added /LOAD command line parameter, to start directly with a savestate loaded (so you can make yourself batchfile loading a certain state.) - Added several new entrys to the checksum and compatibility lists, and fixed some existing ones. Added an USA flag and set the flag to all SMS games only released in USA (Alf, King's Quest, Montezuma's Revenge). - Added one new happy theme from the french movie "Am‚lie Poulain". Meka 0.58 --------- Again, please report if you notice any bug/glitche with any game, that is not mentionned in the compatibility list. The VDP fix applied in this version is also a massive compatibility test, and I would like to know if it has any unexpected behavior on other games. So play, play, play! :) - Added PSG sound logging to WAV files, accessible from the Sound menu. - Rewrote messaging system, added localization support. Moved all messages to an external file, MEKA.MSG. You can now change 80% of the texts used in Meka, and translate it to the language of your choice. I am however NOT YET sure about how accents will work, since it depends on the font used. This feature required a pass on all existing code and so took plenty of time to do (10+ hours), I might have screwed a few messages during the change, so be sure to send me an e-mail if you notice anything unusual. - Implemented a VDP quirk found in Master System 2 but not Master System 1 or Game Gear, discovered by Charles Mac Donald (thanks Charles!). This one fixes Cosmic Spacehead *BUT* might screws up few other games. I did a bit of testing but couldn't do them all again, so please report if you notice anything unusual with another game. - Improved hardware sprite collision accuracy, fixed a bug in some cases where it was previously framerate dependant, and rewrote the whole code in assembly. - Changed initializations messages and some other messages. - Fixed an incorrect numbers of TV lines in PAL/SECAM TV emulation (due to a typo - thanks goes to cgfm2 for pointing me this stupid error!), allowing removal of a few custom MEKA.NAM parameters (Daffy Duck in Hollywood..). - Fixed the annoying bug that caused crashes on startup under DOS when sound was enabled. - Fixed a minor bug in Codemaster mapper emulation, that affected the checksum check of 'Drop Zone' (although the game worked). - Fixed crash when using a patch defined in MEKA.PAT that write outside of any existing data. - Added (very) quick and (very) dirty frame-per-frame advance by pressing ALT-F12. In fact, it will unpause the game then pause it back next frame. - Updated Colecovision compatibility list and added some product IDs, thanks to Tincho DJ. The current state with Colecovision games is: a mess :( Someone will lots of Colecovision knowledge would be very helpful to help sorting out all bad dumps, testing games and redumping others. Meka 0.57b ---------- Lots of fixes, for a total of twenty working hours. Please also note in documentation that *I HAVE MOVED HOUSE*, that is in case you planned to send something. - Various minor fixes and improvements. - Fixed startup delay (and sometimes crash) when autodetecting Sidewinders. - Fixed and improved the new dynamic palette handler, avoiding palettes overflow on some Game Gear games such as Sonic & Tails 2 / Triple Trouble, Sonic 1 or Deep Duck Trouble. The fourth level of Sonic 1 is however not yet perfect when both air and water are shown on screen. Thanks to ICEknight for pointing the bug out. - Made various clean and corrections to the main sound engine structure. It should not have broken anything, but please report if you notice something unusual. Noticable changes are that: - MEKA refuse to start if sound initialization has failed. - Sound is now muted while certain long operations are being processed. - Sound card type is not lost if you only disable sound. - An incorrect BLASTER environnement variable is now reported. - Added an algorithm to automatically detect certain mappers and select them when the ROM is unknown. - Fixed vertical scrolling emulation in certain special cases. - Fixed zoomed sprites in SMS/GG video mode. They were accidentally screwed up by a typo (!) in previous version, and affected Virtua Fighter Mini. - Fixed a bug with checksum handling. In some cases, ROMs with only a few different bytes were previously not recognized as different. - Fixed usage of the ';' key in the input system (now usable), previously the character was considered as beginning a comment in MEKA.INP. - Fullscreen messages are now correctly displayed when the current emulated system uses a resolution higher than your fullscreen resolution. - Fixed debugger breakpoint when loading a save state. - Added some new entrys to the checksum and compatibility lists, and fixed few existing ones. Added a french flag, currently used for games translated in french. Meka 0.57 --------- Note: I made lots of little sources changes in this version. Things have been tested, but in case you notice anything unusual, please contact me. - Rewrote dynamic palette handler, minimizing actual hardware palette changes, reducing snow and generally reducing flickering when games were abusing of palette changes (like the "Happy Birthday" demo, or some Game Gear games). Due to that change, Palette and Tile viewers are now slighty slower than before, but since they are not used for playing, it is fine. - Rewrote hardware sprites collision emulation a more accurate way, fixing Cheese Catastrophe (SMS) bonus catching. There was an easy way to get it to work, but technically speaking, it was not the right one. Instead I emulated the feature a better way so that theorically, any tricky uses of it should be working. Speed might have dropped of about 1 FPS on slow computers. (Thanks to nop.nop for the bug report.) - Added data dumping facilities for developers and hackers. You can now dump the following to a file: - RAM (raw or text hex/ascii) - VRAM (raw or text hex/ascii) - Palette (raw or text colors definitions) - Sprites (raw or text sprites definition) - VDP Regs (raw or text binary/hex) - OnBoard Memory (raw or text hew/ascii) Those functionnalities are available by starting MEKA with /DEBUG. - Added Sega Keyboard (SK-1100) hardware detection emulation. You can know use the emulated keyboard to play SG-1000 (and early SMS) games supporting it. - Added a 'none' value for joypad driver, to disable any kind of detection (as it may be slow on some computers). See MEKA.INP. - Battery backed RAM optional pages are now not saved when their content is null. - Optimized the technical information viewer that was previously too slow. Also made cosmetic changes to the informations shown. - Fixed error message that said MEKA was unable to write SaveRAM to write, while it did correctly. - Fixed savestate loading bug in some very specific cases when using a custom mapper. - Fixed sprite drawing in overscan video mode. - The selected tile in the tile viewer is now refreshed if modified. - Fixed PSG volume bug, where volumes 14 and 15 were actually the same. (thanks to Martin Konrad for noticing it) - Changed the 'palette_bright' option to a 'palette' option that can be either 'muted' or 'bright', the later being now the default, since many people suggested that it was better than the old default one. Also added a switch in the GUI options box to change it dynamically. - VSync is now automatically avoided if a speed faster than 70 hz is being used. So you can use a blitter with VSync enabled and still profit of accelerations if you want them sometimes (skip intros, etc..). - Partially rewrote popup menu code. Also hacked a bit to fixed the bug when more than 32 themes were enabled on the same time. - Added the usual amount of new themes and new database entries. - Added some new comments to the configuration file. - Converted all ASM code to NASM format, for better portability. - Ported MEKA to Windows. Cool. Meka 0.56 --------- - Added Sega Super Control Station emulation, codename SF-7000. The SF-7000 is a rare addon for the Sega Computer 3000, providing it with a 3" Floppy Disk Drive, 64 kbytes of RAM, a parallel printer port and a RS-232C port. The later two are only partially emulated as anyway there is no way to use the emulated connection (ex: for printing) yet. Many thanks goes to Marc Le Douarain for his help and dumps of his old disks, and Ulrich Cordes for the FDC-765 emulation (see documentation). I added in the documentation a paragraph about how to use SC-3000 and SF-7000 Basic software, as it is needed to load programs for the later. Also, I am still looking for a real SF-7000 and any softwares! - Added sprite flickering emulation in video mode 5 (SMS/GG), and interfaced so you can now enable it if you feel like playing shooters with invisible bullets. It is available in the VIDEO->FLICKERING menu. - MEKA is now ignoring those rarely present 64 bytes footers. - Fixed Ninja Gaiden (GG version) hand on intermission animation. - Fixed PAUSE button which was broken in version 0.55b. - Fixed blinking sides when a program was using text mode (Sega Basic, ..) with a border color different than black. - Fixed Sega Keyboard letters color. - Fixed /LOG command line option which was ignoring the given filename. - Added and fixed entrys in the compatibility and checksum lists. - Various minor changes - changed messages, fixed typos.. Meka 0.55b ---------- - Added configurable mouse speed values in the MEKA.INP file. - Fixed mouse under Windows NT / Windows 2000. Meka 0.55 --------- - Added builtin documentation, accessible from the "HELP" menu. - Entirely revamped the input system. I originally fixed Paddle Control emulation then noticed the problem I was having with Super Racing was due to a bug in the original game. I did not feel like adding a cheap hack and beside it was time to clean it up, I just needed a reason :) Inputs related changes you will notice are: - Added configuration tool, showing small pictures of peripherals being used (hope you like the pictures, as I spent a long time drawing them). This tool allows you to see currently available inputs sources, enable/disable them, and change their key/buttons mapping. No more dealing with obscure scancodes numbers (finally). To keep going with the MEKA tradition, every configuration bit is stored in a human-readable and manually editable file: MEKA.INP. You can access most of the functionnalities from under the interface but experienced users might want to check this file out. The new input system is high-level oriented and allows you to do many nice things like playing with two pads on the same time or mapping pause to a mouse button. Whatever you feel. - Any joypad/joystick corresponding to the driver selected in MEKA.INP should be automatically enabled on starting, and available for use. - Renamed left occurences of peripherals that were incorrectly named (Paddle Controller -> Paddle Control, Light Gun -> Light Phaser) - Improved Paddle Control emulation so that they will work in Japanese mode, and allowing Super Racing to detect a paddle when plugged on, instead of the regular joypad. - Fixed a precision bug in Paddle Control 2 emulation. - Added support for a second Sport Pad / Trackball. - Added digital input source emulation with the mouse, so basically you can play any joypad game with a mouse now. Expect being really frustrated with most games, but it is actually very cool for shooters and games where you do not have to do 'long' movements. Try R-Type. - Added 3-D Glasses emulation, with both software and hardware modes: - Software mode let you play 3-D games by showing only images of a choosen side (left or right). - Hardware mode supports REAL Sega 3-D Glasses connected on your PC through the communication port! See TECH.TXT for more informations about how to build a Sega 3-D Glasses adapter and enjoy a new dimension of videogaming :-) Warning: 3-D Glasses support through the COM port is still not in perfect stage, meaning that you may experience flickering. A blitter with VSync enabled is *strongly* recommended. Also stop playing every 30 minutes eyes you'll become blind :) - Tweaked VDP code for potentially more accurate side effect emulation. - Fixed sprite collisions in certain cases. The following Colecovision games are now perfectly playable: - Carnival (Bonus Level is ok) - Jumpman Junior (Ladders on level 3 are ok). - Pitfall 2 (No false hit on the third screen). - Venture. Thanks goes to the one who sent me a long e-mail about collision detection some months ago, but which I unfortunately lost and was then unable to answer. E-mail me if you are still around :) - Fixed hard pausing. You can now safely take screenshots after pausing with a message shown on the screen, as it will not be shown in the shot. - Fixed loading of very small ROMs, which affected Tic Tac Toe on Colecovision, and maybe your very own demos programs. - Implemented Antiriad's hack to Allegro - used in Raine - to permit usage of Sidewinders while their driver is loaded (not tested). Thanks! - Fixed the Eagle blitter which was not centered and showed garbage in some machines. Also fixed the default Eagle blitter configuration which limited speed to 30 FPS even on a very fast system. What a loss! By the way, Eagle does in fact looks nice with a few games. Try R-Type. - Slighty optimized memory accesses and tile refresh. - Changed the key to save screenshots from F12 to PrintScreen. If you are using Windows, be sure to configure the properties of your DOS box to enable the use of the PrintScreen key if you want to make screenshots. - Added F12 shortcut to hard pause emulation. - Added access to enabling/disable GUI Vertical Sync in the options box. - Fixed a bug that prevented Battery Backed RAM or EEPROM to be saved when freeing ROM. - Added a technical document (TECH.TXT) with basis informations about the systems, as well as the schematic for the 3-D Glasses adapter. - Reduced default FM writing delay, that should speed up the two games over-abusing of FM writes. Try R-Type title screen. - Added various name and checksum entries, and corrected many existing ones. Should have noted out all Game Gear games running in Master System mode, fixed some Colecovision names and date, and generally improved accuracy. Thanks goes to Maxim and Luke2 for their precious help! :) - Added Korean flag in the file loader and associated Super Tetris with it. There are still several Korean games to dump, however. - Fixed leap year calculation (for display of dates). - Fixed a crashing bug when passing too many parameters on command line. - Added the usual bunch of new GUI themes, and more pictures are available from the homepage. - Plenty of minor fixes here and here. Meka 0.54b ---------- - Made some very minor fixes. - Added two new themes (Deep Purple and Deep Brown). Meka 0.54 --------- - Updated to the documentation, improved many parts and added new things. Please read it! - Fixed invalid vertical sprite wrapping in video mode 2 (bug introduced in version 0.51, slighty affecting The Castle and maybe other games). - Added PSG wave synthesis sound rate setting in the configuration file. Rate is no more fixed to a weird value like in all previous versions, avoiding the clicks and noise with certains soundcards. You can also change the rate to the default values of 11025, 22050 and 44100 Hz from the GUI pop-up menus. - Added separate PSG channel enabling/disabling. Mainly useful for musicians who want to listen to different channels separately, but it is also very fun to disable some channels and play games with somewhat new musics :) - Fixed FM bug when hard pausing and unpausing in some games. - Addams Family, Operation Wolf and Sonic Blast now automatically run in PAL/Secam mode when NTSC is selected, due to the games having bugs in NTSC mode. - Fixed the badly positionned line of Hang On in Hang On / Safari Hunt. - If brutally forced to close (like when switching to a blitter using an invalid resolution), Meka now switch back to its starting directory. - Added screenshot filename template to the configuration file. You can now configure weither you want padding, short or long filenames, etc.. Also changed screenshot numbering starting value from 0 to 1. - Added "integer stretched" display of the themes background pictures (see MEKA.THM). - Added new themes, some of them using nice background pictures you are invited to download at http://www.smspower.org/meka/themes. Meka 0.53c ---------- Game Gear compatibility rate is now of 95.80%. It is the only unperfect system and that's mainly due to the lack of LCD screen persistence of vision emulation. - Kishin Douji Zenki very minor graphic bug was a bug in the game itself, not in Meka. Thanks goes to Adol brothers for their help on this one. - Added a patch to fix a bug in Walter Payton Football (in the game itself) preventing it to works on machines with a FM Chipset. - Fixed Wanted patch, I had accidentally commented a line out. - Fixed California Games 2 minor graphic bug when selecting the top left entry of the menu (screwed in version 0.52). Thanks Pieter! - Added new entries to checksum and compatibility list. Meka 0.53b ---------- I finally figured out what was the problem of the major slow down in some video modes when page flipping was enabled. Actually using page flipping need to force vertical synchronisation in most video modes, so enabling them both will make the program synchronise twice per frame to the vertical refresh, causing speed to be limited to about 30/35 FPS. The default blitter definition files now have Page Flipping modes enabled by mode, replacing the obsolote VSync modes. - Fixed a bug preventing files to appear in the file browser under DOS. - Added all known Colecovision dumps to the checksum/names list. Names are based on Cowering's GoodColeco utility. - Game name is now dynamically updated under the GUI is a country change affect the current name. - Fixed "Rise of the Robots" by forcing NTSC mode when it is not enabled. - Added a patch to fix a bug in Wanted (in the game itself) preventing it to works on machines with a FM Chipset. - Fixed a bug sometimes happening where disabling background layer display wouldn't work. - Added 5 new themes (commented by default). Meka 0.53 --------- Master System compatibility rate has now reached the perfect 100.00% assuming out of the 373 tested ROMs none was broken in a recent version. Something major have changed in this version and which might screw just about any game. So if you find anything unusual that might be a bug, please report it to me. As soon as possible I'll spend a week trying all games again. Enabling page flipping is known to cut down the speed by a factor of two. This is obviously a bug as page flipping should not affect performances so at the moment I suggest avoiding it and enabling VSync instead. As a side news, I have ported Meka to FreeBSD/NetBSD. It probably compiles under Linux also, and whenever I can get my hands on a computer running Windows applications at a correct speed, a Windows port will be worked on. - Fixed temporary sound bug when loading savestates in certains cases. - Added TV Type switch to change between NTSC and PAL/SECAM. - Improved tile viewer so that a click on a tile shows its number and the tile itself. Might be useful for developers and ROM hackers. - Improved file browser: added a "Reload Directory" button and a "Load Names" button to load full game names for all files. - Fixed Y's (SMS/J). - Added full TV Oekaki Graphic Board and Pen emulation, using mouse. Button 1 simulate a pen press and button 2 simulates the pen being away of the graphic board - when it is away you can use standard inputs. Now you will be able to draw with the emulator ^_^ Thanks to Toshi for sending out the Graphic Board. - Fixed GP Rider (GG) road corruption. - Fixed NBA Action (GG) abnormal flickering. - Fixed NBA Jam TE (GG, previously unknown bug) and Surfs Ninja (GG). - Fixed reset key in Sega Keyboard emulation. - Fixed Gear Game communication port emulation somewhat broken in previous version and which affected Pac Attack. - Fixed secret games left side of the screen bug in fullscreen mode. - Improved auto frame skipper synchronization to the choosen speed. - Compiled with the newest patched Seal Audio Library, improving overall sound quality (16-bit mode was somewhat useless in previous versions), and ALLOWING SOUND TO WORK ON SOUND BLASTER 128 SOUND CARDS, finally. A big thanks goes to whoever patched Seal for that. (I guess it is someone to the MAME team, but I am not sure.) - File browser now go in the root of drive if current directory is invalid. - Removed a broken line in the Meka.nam file causing Back to the Future 3 to show a black screen. - Added even more new entries in the compatibility and checksum lists. - Lot of sources changes and improvments. Meka 0.52 --------- Compatibility rates as of version 0.52: Master System: 99.72% (not perfect because of the Japanese version of Ys). Sega Game 1000: 100.00% Sega Computer 3000: 100.00% (excluding emulation of optional peripherals such as the Sega Printer) Game Gear: 95.03% (excluding gear-to-gear emulation used by certains two players games) - Fixed the minor glitches in: - Back to the Future 2 (black section flickering between the road and status bar) - Gangster Town (little line of skyblue pixels on the top of the car in the first scene) - Operation Wolf (minor graphic glitches on the top of the bottom bar when shooting) Tested Wonderboy in Monsterworld on a real system and confirmed the minor glitch when the menu is vertically scrolling is a bug in the game itself. Did some research about Ys (J/FM), with help from Toshi. It is not considered anymore as a bad dump. The bug happening in Meka also happens when using a real Game Gear or a Megadrive with an adapter. However the game show a perfect status bar on a Japanese Master System, so the bad behavior is considered as a bug of Meka, even if in the first place it is due to a bug in the game code taking advantage of an odd behavior of the Japanese Master System. Also: - Improved run-time TMS9918 video mode detection. - Fixed Hyper Pro Yakyuu 92 (GG). - Reduced flickers in NBA Action (GG). - Fixed freezing until a key is pressed when loading the Japanese BIOS. - Fixed yet another silly bug introduced in previous version and screwing some SC-3000 software such as the Sega Basic. - Added new entries to compatibility and checksum lists. Also redone SC-3000 list with names corrections for Japanese educational softwares. - Fixed potential VDP bug - wasn't affecting any games, but could have. - Implemented MAME Z80 CPU Core but did not enabled it in the public version as it doesnt bring anything better than Marat's core: they are on par, but MAME license is quite limiting. - Improved documentation inside of the MEKA.BLT file. - Fixed a bunch of minor bugs. Fixed handing of ROM smaller than eight kilobytes. Fixed empty entry creation in the VFN database. Fixed a bug in windows repositionning when changing resolution. - Reduced executable size. And also: - Added background picture caching for a faster switch to the GUI when a big image is used on background. - Added a bunch of new themes into the distribution package. Background pictures for some of the themes are available on a new site at http://www.emucamp.com/meka/themes - As of now the PICS/ directory should be considered as the one everyone have to use to share themes easily. You can still have your own themes pictures stored anyway, anyway. Meka 0.51 - OverClocked Edition ------------------------------- SG-1000 perfect compatibility rate is now of 100% - Added the possibility of adding a custom background picture in themes. Keyword to be used in MEKA.THM is "background_pic". Pictures need to be in PCX format and a maximum of 128 colors will be used. You can zoom, tile or center the picture using the appropriate keywords. - Added desktop saving. Active windows and their position are now saved and restored back when loading Meka. - Rewrote sprite engine for video modes 1/2/3, fixing the minor bug in Pitfall 2 (SG-1000) and Rockn'Bolt (SG-1000). Probably also fixed some Colecovision games. Added optional flickering emulation. Meka 0.50 --------- Master System perfect compatibility rate is now of 98.90% Games still causing problems are: Back to the Future 2 (black section flickering between the road and status bar) Gangster Town (little line of skyblue pixels on the top of the car in the first scene) Operation Wolf (minor graphic glitches on the top of the bottom bar when shooting) Wonderboy in Monsterworld (minor glitche on the menu vertical scrolling line when pressing pause) Found out that the bug in Aerial Assault was happening on a real system. So it's not considered as a bug anymore. Next step will be to improve Game Gear perfect compatibility rate (94% now). First, reparing bugs introduced in Meka 0.40: - Fixed accidentally left bug in SG-1000 interrupt emulation, fixing Championship Lode Runner and probably other games. - Fixed accidentally left minor scrolling bug in a few games (Castle of Illusion to name one. I forgot about the others). New stuff being: - Rewrote Light Phaser emulation. The following games are now playable: - Laser Ghost (Light Phaser is optional) - Missile Defense 3D - Operation Wolf - Shooting Gallery - Wanted - Improved various bit of emulation to fix the following games: - Robocop 3 (SMS): does not crash anymore when pausing. - Back to the Future 3 (SMS): have minor title screen bug fixed. - Sonic Drift 2 (GG): bottom of screen is correct now. - Out Run (GG): music now plays. - Added Game Gear vertical scrolling lock emulation (fixing Fray). - Added wide effective area emulation (2 Star Trek games on Game Gear). - Implemented better systems hardware differences to allow detection. Renaming Pit Pot (SMS) to the .SG extension and running it will now show a custom error screen! Thanks goes to Yujiro to the notice. - Slighty optimized Master System and Game Gear screen refresh. - Rewrote blitters handling system: - Added blitters definition file (MEKA.BLT) where you can configure fullscreen video modes drivers, resolution and effects, and create your own video modes this way. - Added "TV Mode" blitter that simulate accurates TV scanlines. - Added "Double" blitter. Nice uses of it are: - Doubling screen with 512x384 mode (getting true Fullscreen). - Doubling screen in a tweaked mode (Game Gear with big pixels). If you find any suitable mode for Game Gear other than the ones listed in the MEKA.BLT file, please tell me about it. - Added "Page Flipping" option to blitter (reducing flickers) - Included "Perfect" blitter definition with all best features enabled (512x384 resolution, TV Mode, Doubled Fullscreen, Page Flipping and Vertical Synchronisation) for people with *very* fast computer. - Removed hotkeys to enable/disable the Scanlines, Eagle and Parallel effects. They are now part of blitters configuration. The current blitter can be changed by pressing F1. - Rewrote frameskip handling system and added speed throttling. - F2 key now switch between standard and automatic frameskipping. - F3 decrease speed in automatic mode, else decrease frameskip. - F4 increase speed in automatic mode, else increase frameskip. - Added icons package from various contributors (see ICONS.ZIP). - Added Massage savegame converter. Rename a .MSD file in the Meka naming convention and it will be automatically converted when loading. You might in some cases experience sound or various other problems with certain games. The usual solution is to pause and unpause the game, else try to change screen/level. - Slighty improved voice emulation. - Rewrote drivers handling system. It is easier to maintain internally now. - Color related stuff: - Fixed potentiel palette problems with some video card/mode couples. - Revamped whole palette update handling (reducing snow). - Palette viewer now show no more than the correct number of colors in SG-1000/SC-3000/Coleco mode. - Fixed configuration file problem when using PSX and N64 joypads. - Added new games and product numbers to compatibility and checksum lists. - Added mouse button 2 shortcut to switch between the two Light Phasers. - Added some new GUI themes - uncomment in MEKA.THM file to use them. - Fixed file browser bug when overwriting recognized ROMs with unknown ones would keep the old, recognized name showing. - Fullscreen captures now ignore status message and filters/effects. - Made some structural optimisations, increasing speed of a few percents. - Fixed bug virtual longfile name self created list saving. - Fixed a screenshot naming bug with short ROM names. - Fixed rare crashing bug with the blood cursor GUI effect. - Sega Basic Level 3 Version 1.1 Japanese now works with a patch. - Reduced savegame size for SG-1000 and Colecovision systems. - Compiled with latest Allegro library, adding support for the following joysticks/pads drivers: - DB9 pads through parallel ports (allow to plug real SMS pads!) - PC Engine pads through parallel ports - Saturn pads with IF-SEGA interface cards for PC. Now Phantasy Star runs at 49 frame per seconds on my computer ! Meka 0.40 --------- Master System perfect compatibility rate is now of 97.78% Games still causing problems are: Aerial Assault (minor scrolling glitch on the beginning of a level) Back to the Future 3 (minor bug on title screen) Missile Defense 3D (buggy lightgun emulation) Operation Wolf (buggy lightgun emulation) Robocop 3 (pausing crashes the game) Shooting Gallery (buggy lightgun emulation) Wanted (buggy lightgun emulation) Wonderboy in Monsterworld (glitches when pressing pause) Game Gear perfect compatibility rate is 94.55% 17 games are still causing problems, including 5 which requires simulation of LCD screen visual persistance to produces transparency effect, 3 using an internal EEPROM to save custom teams, 2 having bad scrolling positions, and the 7 others: GP Rider (road distort itself after a moment) Kishin Douji Zenki (one line of clouds is not scrolling in fighting level) NBA Action (sprites flickering, might be the real game behavior) Out Run (no music for some reasons) RBI Baseball '94 (sprites not visible in top view, might be a bad dump) Sonic Blast / G-Sonic (micro title bug in US/Euro mode) Sonic Drift 2 (bottom line has a bad scrolling offset) Sega Game 1000 perfect compatibility rate is 97.40% Games still causing problems are: Pitfall 2 (minor glitch at the top when dying) Rockn' Bolt (sprite priorities bug on lift when starting) - Improved emulation on various point, fixing: - Altered Beast (SMS): title screen effect is now ok - Cool Spot (SMS): no more minor flickering - Evander Holyfield Boxing (GG): no more blue screen every odd frame - Global Gladiator (SMS): no more minor flickering - Gun Star Heroes (GG): no more glitches here and here - Hang On / Safari Hunt (SMS): fixed a bug preventing to start sometimes - Heavy Weight Champ (SMS): music play on introduction - Hurricanes (GG): no more blue screen every odd frame - Impossible Mission (SMS): room are showing properly when entering - NBA Jam (GG): playfield is ok - PGA Tour Golf (SMS): playfield is ok before game start - Legend of Illusion (SMS): does not hang anymore at the sunken ship stage - Out Run (GG): no more flickering - Orguss (SG-1000): no hang when exploding with the small robot - Safari Hunting (SG-1000): no hang when entering in the game area - Safari Race (SG-1000): better response of button on title screen - Shining Force 1 (GG): fixed random crashes - Shining Force 2 (GG): fixed random crashes - Shining Force 3 (GG): fixed random crashes - Speedball 2 (SMS): no more flickering - Sonic Drift (GG): now works perfectly - Sonic Drift 2 (GG): now works almost perfectly, minor bug on bottom - Terminator 2: Judgement Day (GG): no more blackout every odd frame - WWF Steel Cage Challenge (SMS): no more moving bug on barriers - Xenon 2 (SMS): no more flickering - Custom IPeriod values for Aerial Assault (SMS), Barcelona 92 (SMS), Gokuaku Doumei Dump Matsumoto (SMS) and Pro Wrestling (SMS) are not needed anymore due to improved emulation, and were removed. The only game left needing a custom IPeriod value is "Shadow of Beast" which sometimes crash on title screen with the default value. - Improved voice emulation, many games sound correct now (not all). - Updated to Allegro WIP in prevision to future improvments. In the meanwhile, the new version provides drivers for Gravis Grip, PSX and Nintendo 64 joypads, as well as better Sidewinder support (untested). - Rewrote hardware sprite collision emulation. Might break some games, please report if you discover anything unusual! - Improved Master System Sportpad controller emulation. Games are easier to play now, even if it is not perfect. - Improved default mapper emulation. - Added (buggy) EEPROM model 93c46 emulation. This chipset is used by three Game Gear baseball games to save custom teams and game progress. Pretty though one to emulate, but that's the only way to reach perfect emulation ^_^ - Added Rapid Fire emulation. - Improved video mode 2 emulation, fixing Cosmo Fighter 2 (Coleco). - Added video mode 3 emulation, used by two painting programs for the Colecovision, and very probably by many SC-3000 programs. - Definitively removed the snow effect that pissed everyone :-( I would have stopped on the 28 of December, anyway. Instead, added the "special=snow" parameter in the theme file, to create your own themes using that effect. - Added Christmas and Sunrise GUI themes. - Compatibility and checksum lists changes: - Added a bunch of new names. - Added new Game Gear Japanese games (thanks to Casiopea). - Differencied names for alternate versions (thanks to Luke). - Added product numbers for about 150 Japanese Game Gear games. - Added IPERIOD_SG1000_SC3000 setting in the configuration file. - Added a patch to fix the bug in Sport Pad Soccer which make it hang on systems without the FM chipset. - Fixed bad screen size bug in certain cases after freeing ROM. - Added improved filter for old configuration file. As the keyboard keycodes have changed in this version they cannot be imported. - Added /LOG command line parameters to log all messages to a file. - Rewrote message applet from scratch. It does not slow down anymore when the number of messages per second is too important (+1000). [sources changes] - Revamped mapper handling. - Revamped backed memory handling. Meka 0.32c ---------- (minor update - version number still the same in the executable) - Fixed a stupid little damned bug causing the program to crash under DOS. - Added IPERIOD_COLECO setting in the configuration file. Do not touch unless you know what it means! Meka 0.32b ---------- (minor update - version number still the same in the executable) - Fixed slodown bug when loading a non Coleco ROM after a Coleco ROM. - Fixed a bug preventing from switching the machine Off in certain cases. - Fixed a minor file browser bug (selection was lost when using mouse). - Added some new checksums for various hacks. - Added a new GUI theme. Meka 0.32 --------- - Fixed the following games: - Andre Agassi Tennis [SMS, GG] - Greendog [GG] (Sega logo now shake, it did not before) - Panzer Dragoon Mini [GG] - Pit Fighter [SMS] - Improved emulation in the following games: - PGA Tour Golf [SMS] (level presentation now scroll - buggy) - Sonic Spinball [SMS, GG] (lake in introduction now scroll - buggy) - Fixed a VDP bug introduced in 0.31 that affected Rescue Mission (and probably many other games, too). - Added .BIN extension in the file browser (for some Colecovision ROMs). - Fixed incorrect palette of Colecovision picture after freeing ROM. - Updated Colecovision compatibility list, Added a new GUI theme, Added checksum and names for a bunch of SMS hacks. - Improved debugger (still not for public consumption). Meka 0.31 --------- (YM-2413 emulation is disabled by default because of many people who do not know about the existence of that chipset and complain about the musics and sound effects not being the same as they used to hear. Now that you know about it, feel free to enable YM-2413 emulation yourself). - Updated various chapters of the documentation. Please read it! - Added ZIP files support. Also improved file handling in general. Warning: loading ZIP files which do not contains valid ROM images may crash the program when it comes to emulating a non Z80-code file. - Made some minor optimizations of screen refresh. - Fixed a bug that caused games not to run before being reseted when in Japanese mode with the BIOS enabled. - Fixed a bug which cause the START button to be randomly pressed just after loading a Game Gear savegame. - Added a patch to fix the bug in American Pro Football that make it hang on systems with the FM chipset. - Fixed too early palette setting when loading a SG-1000/SC-3000/Coleco game from the command line. - Added support for sprites both doubled and zoomed. - Added options box with various flags modifiable directly under the GUI: - Enable/disable startup BIOS logo. - Keep file browser open after loading game. - Switch to fullscreen mode after loading game (new option). - Enable/disable virtual long file names (new option). - Enable/disable messages in fullscreen mode. - Slighty improved dynamic palette system, fixing Moldorian and other games, until a better fix could be applied. - Added an option to show games product numbers. - Game comments are now displayed under the GUI, and a warning is given on known bad dumps. Any cool informations and comments that could be included in the default distribution are welcome. - Updated Colecovision support (finally): - Improved keypad emulation. Mapped # and * keys on the keyboard. Their corresponding keys are minus and equals, next to the 0. - Fixed garbage sound on the beginning of some games. - Improved interrupt emulation. - Fixed joypad emulation in some cases. - Added Colecovision picture in the graphical user interface. - Reorganized and cleaned various parts of the sources. Improved widgets and configuration file handling (no visible changes). - Updated compatibility and checksum lists with new entries. Added and fixed even more Japanese names. Added flags here and here. Meka 0.30 --------- - Hiroshi added a preliminary FM Voice Editor. - Fixed FM emulation bug in Wonderboy 2 / Monster World 1 / Monica 1. - FM writes are now delayed, and FM musics are now in better sync with PSG. - Hiroshi dumped the original Japanese Master System BIOS. Then I hacked and interfaced it to includes it in Meka. To watch the demo included in the Japanese SMS: change the machine country to Japanese, remove cartridge if any is loaded and switch the power ON. - Fixed a bug in VRAM access emulation (AX Battler sprites now works). - Improved dynamic palette system: - No more color bug in Itchy & Scratchy (GG) and Bust a Move (GG) - Less flickering in Space Harrier (GG) menu - Improved palette handling when a game quickly change the video mode in the middle of a frame, fixing Back to the Future 2 (SMS). - Fixed title screen bug in California Games 2 (SMS). - Fixed top screen flickering in Addams Family (SMS) - Fixed Pop Breaker (GG). I did introduce a bug just before releasing 0.10. - Fixed dirty first column when reseting some SG-1000 games. - Fixed dirty first column on badly programmed SMS games (Jurassic Park). - Improved file browser: - Added keyboard input (arrows, page up/down, home/end, letters) - Added little flags next to Japanese, Brasilian and Australian games. - Added a configuration switch to keep the browser open after loading. - Selected file is now kept after loading a game. - Rewrote some parts of the GUI engine (no visual changes). - Fixed a command line bug. - The pause/start button has been moved to the SPACE key for two reasons: first, some games use it as an action button, and secondly, when the file browser is open it would interfer with it because of the ENTER key. - Added patch to fix Sega logo color in the Ninja Gaiden bad dump. - Added tons of new entries to the checksum, name and compatibility lists. - Added 3 new GUI themes (uncomment manually or enable with WonderTheme). - A bunch of other minor fixes and improvements. Meka 0.20 --------- - Removed delays when accessing to soundblaster hardware registers, resulting in a 20 frame per seconds speedup in R-Type, and no more slowdowns in Wonderboy 3 with YM2413 emulation enabled. If you have problems with this version, try setting the value back to 16 in the configuration file, and be sure to contact me. - Added automatic peripheral type switching. - Added Sport Pad controller emulation. - Improved Paddle controller emulation (much more precise). - Finally managed to understand peripheral detection, so you can play Out Run with the Paddle controller enabled (ala Steering Wheel) for the first time in your life :-) - Fixed Light Phaser emulation bug in Operation Wolf. - Added a switch to enable/disable YM-2413 emulation inside of the GUI. - Added a switch to change country inside of the GUI. - Emusphere.com sucks (just checking if they ever read what they paste). - Messages are now shown in fullscreen mode, making things a bit slower. You can disable that feature in the configuration file. - Fixed snow when VSync is enabled and colors are being updated. Check the Star Wars introduction to notice the difference. (thanks to Lord_B). - Major checksum, name and compatibility lists update. Added more than 200 new entries, fixed some names, and added more product numbers and Japanese name equivalents. (special thanks to Jossa and Tincho DJ) - Fixed a potential nationalization bug. - Added hard pause feature, available from the menu or with CTRL-P. - Added ALT-F11 hotkey to enable/disable the background layer (for sprites ripping). - Added values in the configuration file to resize the file browser. - Added values in the configuration file to remap the joystick buttons. - Added necessary menu entries to swap keyboard and gamepad buttons. - Added two new GUI themes, courtesy of Tincho DJ. Uncomment them in the default theme file or enable them with Wonder Theme. - Updated savegame format (backward compatible, of course). - Increased end delay for non registered users. - A few other cosmetic changes. Special thanks for this release goes to James McKay for having figured the big part of the controller thing by originally hacking Sport Pad Football. Meka 0.13.1 ----------- - Fixed many crashing bug introduced in version 0.13. - Fixed FM persistant sound when loading a PSG game after a FM game. - Fixed a bug when trying to free a ROM when the BIOS logo is running. - Now you can load a savegame while the BIOS logo is running. - Fixed Shining Force 3 (Game Gear). - Added some more entries in the compatibility and checksum lists. Meka 0.13 --------- - Various non emulation bug fixed. - Added an option to free the current loaded ROM (to play the snail game). - Added Colecovision emulation. - Color themes are no more hardcored into the executable, so you can create your own ones by editing the MEKA.THM file. Added the following new ones: - Girl's Power (by me) - Monochrome (by Limbs a Flyin') - Necro (by Roni) - Grey Box (by Puyolin and me) - Added the necessary code for handling registration keys. Now registered users have a permanent keyfile that unlock Meka. - All pause buttons bug with or without joypads enabled should be fixed now, although I still cannot test the code. - Fixed snow in SG-1000/SC-3000/Colecovision games. - Fixed a keyboard lock bug that happened sometimes (mainly when starting "BrAin waSH" but also in some other cases). - Update savegame file format. Old files can still be loaded with this version, but you won't be able to play the new savegames with an older version. Oh well, who cares ? - Removed SMS background picture anti-aliasing to fit with all color themes and added a picture when no cartridges is inserted. - Some optimizations in SG-1000/SC-3000/Colecovision games. - Added FM patch for Monica Em: O Resgate. - Added a few more titles to the compatibility and checksum lists. Meka 0.12 --------- - Added preliminary voice emulation. - Added joystick and video drivers entry in the configuration file (you can now use four-buttons joypads, VESA modes, etc..). - Fixed PSG/FM volumes. - Fixed a bug that prevented Battery RAM to be saved in certain cases. - Fixed a BIOS bug when no ROM was loaded in Japanese mode. - Added an option to disable background refresh (for GFX ripping). - Fixed virtual long filename duplicates creation. - Changed default IPeriod to 228 and updated the list. - Fixed Shining Force 2. - Added new entries into checksum and compatibily lists. - Improved double dump detection, via a tolerance system. - Some minor optimizations. Meka 0.11 --------- - Fixed sound crashing. - Improved FM sound emulation. - Mapped start/pause button on joystick (button 3). - Fixed Orguss (SG-1000). - Fixed Power Strike (SMS). Meka 0.10 --------- - Initial public release.