in the softlist. The official syntax to launch disk games is now
mess famicom -cart disksys -flop gamename
which corresponds to inserting the RAM expansion cart with
connected the disk drive into the cartslot and the desired disk
in the disk drive (exactly like you would have done with the
real thing). In this way, you cannot mount anymore both a cart and
a disk in the Family Computer (as in a real unit).
Users that cannot cope with this limitation and/or with the new
syntax can still use the famitwin driver (which offers both cart and
disk options) or the newly added driver fds which emulates a
famicom with the expansion always inserted: in both latter cases
the old syntax
mess famitwin -flop gamename
will launch the game, as previously. [Fabio Priuli]
(MESS) famicom: fixed disk system IRQ latch clear in Kaettekita
Mario Bros. based on investigations by FHorse. [Fabio Priuli]
Out of whatsnew: For the moment I gave up the original plan to
also modernize the floppy drive and the disk format. If anyone
wants to look into these, be my guest :-)
(and Suikoden - Tenmei no Chikai) can be considered as working. Also fixed wrong
battery size for Aoki Ookami to Shiroki Mejika - Genchou Hishi in xml, which was causing
a "Memory Over" error message ingame. [Fabio Priuli]
out of whatsnew: apparently the current WRAM mirroring (based on nesdev wiki notes)
causes glitches in some of these games. I hope to improve this soonish.
battery is found. This allows for loading factory formatted sram/nvram from softlist. [Fabio Priuli]
(MESS) nes.c: Fixed Silva Saga, which relies on SRAM not being 0x00 filled from factory,
with many thanks to naruko for investigating the problem. [Fabio Priuli]
emulation of JY Company PCBs (mappers 90, 209 & 211). It's still
too glicthy to be promoted to working state, but you can now see
how Super Mario Wolrd, Contra Spirits, Donkey Kong Country 4
and Tiny Toons Adventures 6 were like. nw.
pass-through cart. Correct syntax to launch e.g. Dizzy The Adventurer
is now "mess nes -cart ade -cart2 dizzyadv". Moved Aladdin minicart
dumps to a separate softlist (but you can load in -cart2 iNES files from
fullpath, if you like) [Fabio Priuli]
nes_camerica: simplified emulation of the BF9096 board and fixed
emulation of GoldenFive board (used by the Polish Pegasus 5 in 1
cart). [Fabio Priuli]
out of whatsnew: this commit completes the recent work about emulating properly the
different pass-through NES/Famicom devices and their corresponding mini-carts...
there should be no more games requiring non-standard syntax to be launched.
slot. The two Senyou Cassettes (Top Hit 20 Vol 1 & Vol 2) have now to be
loaded with the following commands "mess nes -cart karaoke -cart2 top20v1"
(or top20v2). This is accurate to the hardware, because these expansions
had to be manually inserted into the body of the main Karaoke Studio cart
before playing. [Fabio Priuli]
now select songs and see the animation, even if I would not call playable the
games this way. [Fabio Priuli]
out of whatsnew: the expansion slot is currently hacked around at loading time.
I will soon implement it as a subslot, but I still need to check a few details first.
Datach games have now to be loaded with the following commands
"mess nes -cart datach -cart2 gamename" where gamename can be
either a shortname from the datach softlist, or a fullpath to the iNES files
(or to headerless 256k dump of the Datach minicarts). This is accurate
to the hardware, because Datach carts could not be mounted in the main
Famicom cartridge slot. [Fabio Priuli]
out of whatsnew:
+ fixed a small bug in handling MMC-1 games with > 8K of WRAM (only a Jpn baseball games use this,
and I can see no difference in behavior)
+ updated emulation status in xml for a few games I had made working during slot-ification
* hacked around the limitations of our PPU code, so to support the different CHR registers
* implemented Extended Attribute Mode (Ex1)
* improved PRG-RAM handling
* simplified NT-RAM handling
* first attempt to add split screen mode, still broken
out of whatsnew: this was for sake of messnew inclusion ;)
improved FFE mappers (I'd be more interested into actually emulating the copier but this is
all we got at the moment...) . nw.
Also, backing up some wip code for other pcbs that still does not produce any useful result.
state [Fabio Priuli]
(MESS) nes.c: improved Taito LROG017 emulation (mapper 77), promoting Napoleon Senki to working
state [Fabio Priuli]
(MESS) nes.c: added emulation of the Sachen SA-9602B pcb used by Mei Shao Nv Meng Gong Chang,
a chinese port of Princess Maker by Sachen, based on the great work done by Cah4e3 in FCEUMM
[Fabio Priuli]
out of whatsnew: this change also moves the summary of known issues in the appropriate source files
(some pirate and multigame cart issues have to be rechecked, due to the amount of changes done since
they were last checked, so I will add them back after a few test)
- converted carts, mappers and pcbs to use slot devices
- fixed starting of Famicom, Famicom Twin and Dr. PCJr
- fixed handling of "no disk" in FDS so that the system displays Mario and Luigi
jumping around as expected
- added AY8910 sound to Sunsoft-5B (Gimmick JPN sfx)
- added YM2413 to VRC-7 (Lagrange Point OST)
- added support for recorded samples to Jaleco sport titles and to Bandai Family Trainer
Aerobics Studio, thanks to notes by hap and egoh, and recordings by Pongbashi
(samples are needed because these games use a currently undumpable speech chip)
- added support for NES-EVENT pcb used by Nintendo World Championship 1990,
including dipswitches
- added support for Galoob Game Genie real usage (in addition to the codes which
Puggsy added to his cheat collections): when you load ggenie, a second cartslot
becomes available to load another game attached to the cheat device (e.g. with
"mess.exe nes -cart ggenie -cart2 smb") and you can enter the cheat codes as in a
real NES
- added support for Nantettatte!! Baseball lock-on mechanism, based on the tests
performed by naruko on his carts: when you load nantbb, a second cartslot
becomes available to load one of the two update minicarts (91 Hen or OB Hen)
- improved emulation of Namcot 163, 175 and 340 boards, based on the tests
performed by naruko, lidnariq and bootgod on the real hardware
- moved Nantettatte!! Baseball minicarts to a separate list (nes_ntbrom.xml) because
they cannot be loaded in the NES directly, but only through the nantbb subslot
- emulated bus conflict (CPU/PRG) in PCBs documented as having it
- partial emulation of open bus, enough to make working the games using it as a sort
of protection
- fixed crash when loading files using FFE mappers
- fixed mirroring in some boards (Sunsoft DCS and UNL-CC-21) and in some games
(e.g. Paris Dakar Rally Special and Escape from Atlantis)
- fixed a few bugs in Tengen 800032 emulation (mapper 64), promoting Klax, Xybots
and Road Runner to work state
- fixed Tengen 800037 emulation (mapper 158), promoting US Alien Syndrome to work
state
- added working emulation of many bootleg pcbs used for pirate conversions from FDS
(Ai Senshi Nicol, Doki Doki Panic, Fuuun Shaolin Kyo, Green Beret, Monty no Doki
Doki Daidassou, Tobidase Daisakusen, Super Mario Bros Malee 2 / Genius Merio Bros...)
- improved emulation of many pirate pcb (BMC-GOLDENCARD-6IN1, KS7013B,
KS7012, BMC-GHOSTBUSTERS63IN1, UNL-MALISB, MAXI15 and more...)
- improved RacerMate Challenge II emulation, but the game is still not working due to
unemulated bicycle controller
- added CPU-based IRQ mode in Tengen 800032 emulation (mapper 64), fixing
Skulls & Crossbones gfx (but the game is still not working)
- fixed many small inaccuracies in the old code, spot during the conversion
- added support for most other known pcbs, even if in most cases emulation is only
sketchy
- reduced the need of fake alt pbcs for boards which only differed by mirroring handling
(these are now recognized through the "mirroring" feature)
- removed fake wram which was added to a lot of partially documented pcbs and
re-added it only where actually present, so to more accurately document what was
really in the carts
Out of whatsnew: There's still a lot to do (e.g. to clean up the implementation of the pirate pcbs)
but I hope that submitting this now I can get some wider testing help so to catch and fix regressions
before next release :)
n64.xml: added a recently released proto dump. no whatsnew.
gba.xml: added new dump from nointro. no whatsnew.
nes.xml: added usual flush of new pirate dumps/redumps from misc sources + one proto. no whatsnew.
(MESS) nes.xml: added dumps of Super Maruo (first pirate FC game ever), courtesy
of bombman, and of a few pirate games, courtesy of maxzhou. no whatsnew.
+ bunch of misc tiny fixes (thanks Tafoid)
