User: dknute Date: 2008-07-18 21:26 Subject: Weekend pasta Security: Public Music: Various DSFs :) Tags: makaron

Well, this isn't the surprise I was talking about but it's still better than nothing :)
Makaron Test 10/1 is out. You know the drill.

T9/4 and T10 were rather unstable but this time around I'm more happy with both GD and DMA code. It's not just bugfixes though, there are several new features in this version:
- support for VMU sounds
- improved Z-buffering
- fully functional DSP
- experimental anisotropic filtering

DSP is enabled by default. It might slow down things a bit, though (as usual) if you have a fast C2D you won't notice it. I'm really considering running whole AICA on separate thread now by the way, so it should improve in future for multi-core systems.
Please note that there's a slight slowdown noticable (in audio) when sequenced music is being played, in all Makaron versions released so far. This is sort of design flaw (and due to rather demanding hardware setup) and will be someday corrected.

Anisotropic filtering is too enabled by default, to 8x - it will be scaled down if your card can't support such mode. This will only be a problem for those cheap cards that support AFx8 but are very slow at it, in this case you might get quite a performance drop. If this becomes an issuse I'll tell you how to disable AF :)

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User: dknute Date: 2008-07-15 13:23 Subject: Cliffhanger Security: Public Music: Jellyfish (IT) Tags: makaron

Evolution will not boot (black screen right after SEGA logo) if there is less than 8 free blocks on Port A/Slot 1 VMU. It's not a bug in Makaron, it does exactly that on my Dreamcast too. Interestingly if you remove the VMU completly at this point it'll unfreeze and show a warning (about there not being enough space to save) and let you continue. On Makaron the only way to avoid this situation is to make sure there's enough space left on VMU before you launch the game.

If you get that Skies of Arcadia bug where it hangs once you leave the in-game menu, it's probably damaged FLASH. Unfortunately Makaron can damage this file as well - this is a bit complicated and so I'll spare you the boring details. Point is, if that happens you need to replace it with a good dump. I consider FLASH image safe if it's not been used with any emulator, so there's no chance it got corrupted. You might still need to set the date & time, mind you, but that's normal and should work from there on.
By the way - I'm always talking GDI images, unless otherwise noted. In this particular case I'd like to remind you people that there are various problems with Echelon's rip of SoA on Dreamcast, and that stays true for Makaron as well. It's not as bad, as Makaron GD emulation is still faster than the real hardware, but you should expects random lags (like those in intro sequence), maybe broken sound and even more graphics glitches.

I've been playing SoA for several hours (and not just me) and not a single hang :) Right now I'm trying to implement VMU sounds - if there's anyone out there who could explain to me where exactly SoA makes use of that, it'd be great. A save file would be even better.

And one more thing - if everything goes well there will be something interesting to show at the end of this week. Stay tuned :)

UPDATE: Never mind that save. There's the face on LCD, the VMU buzzing (yes, it works now), and the controller vibrates as well. You can't possibly miss a Cham now :) Some T10/1 screenshots:

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User: dknute Date: 2008-07-06 17:49 Subject: Puzzled Security: Public Music: Yoko Kanno - Alfa And Omega Tags: makaron

Here's some fast paced action with Puyo Puyo - not exactly something I would play, but I do love the looks & mechanics.
I enjoy watching people play those games for some reason :)


And this is Puzzle Bobble aka Bust-A-Move outside Japan.



This one is actually WinCE game but should work reasonably well on systems slower then my E6600 - there isn't that much processing going on. It gave me some trouble as the Sort-DMA needs to handled in a special way to get correct visuals - but I've managed to make it work.

What's interesting, the USA version screen mask (borders around play area) seems to be somewhat simplified when compared to Japanese original. Well, maybe this depends on the character you choose to play with - but that caught my eye.

I've tweaked my GD code even more and now it seems stable at last. There was also a race condition (found by sheer luck BTW) in the cyclic buffer I use for GD data transfers. I tried to make it safe for one producer/consumer pair but it didn't work out that well, so now it's just blocked via critical sections where necessary.
ARM7 recompiler got fixed too. It was long due, I simply forgot to carry the changes from interpreter and, as luck would have it, I've compiled T10 to use the broken code :)

Oh, by the way - I found out that Evolution does not boot if there's less then some 11 blocks free on VMU at PAS1. Curious. I'll have to see how my DC will handle situation like this.

UPDATE: Seems like all WinCE games report VMUs as having 0 space left. More work for me I guess...
I still got over 200 GDs form Yuki to sort through, so I'm not going to post screenshots from each and every one - but here's a few, I know you like them :P

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