I started this week trying to get System 16B games working, but I came across the i8051 MCU again. This MCU is used in many arcade games, and I have already faced it in the past. There are no good open-source cores for it. At least, not good from our retro point of view. I haven't been able to make it work reliably so far. 2021-07-09 15:58:13 +0000 UTC View Post
MiSTer users: copy beta.zip to games/mame
This week we have three classic titles. Passing Shot was my tennis school as a kid and Alien Syndrome was on magazine covers everywhere. And Time Scanner is one of the best-known pinball titles.
Note that for Passing Shot, you will have to look in the Alte...
2021-07-02 17:14:29 +0000 UTC View Post
The SEGA System 16 isn't a single arcade game architecture. It had two major versions: 16A and 16B and a close ancestor known as pre 16A. But if you look closer, you will find more variations.
There were boards with unencrypted CPUs, but there were encrypted ones too. And among them, there were several options too: FD10...
2021-06-25 17:01:37 +0000 UTC View Post
The long story of the M68000 related bug finally came to a happy ending. Long story short, Blackwine identified the instruction that broke Shinobi and Ijor -the M68000 module author- suggested the read-modify-write cycle could be wrong in the glue logic.
Normally, a CPU takes control of the data bus to read or write, no...
2021-06-18 16:07:53 +0000 UTC View PostThe CPS2 core still has several issues which are all likely linked to a bug in the M68000 CPU. I will eventually find and fix the bug, but it can still take from days to a few weeks.
If I release CPS2 as it is, there is a major problem with Mars Matrix and with Gigawing's final boss.
I haven't been able to r...
2021-06-12 07:29:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi all, I have too many news this week!
-New System 16 beta with four games added: Wonder Boy 3, Phantasy Zone, Action Fighter and Alex Kidd. Note that WB3 is in the alternatives folder only for now.
-For MiST and Sidi, just use the attached files as usual
-For MiSTer,...
2021-06-11 15:18:25 +0000 UTC View Post
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Last week's I held a video meeting with the Patreon directors. To summarize it in a line, I want to increase the quality and quantity of the work. For this, I will try to leverage both the community and full time hires. I am about to make an offer to the first JT employee to work full time on developmen...
2021-06-04 17:04:22 +0000 UTC View Post
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We finally close the CPS2 beta series this week with four titles:
I am very thankful to all of you for supporting the development of this core. However, I must say that...
2021-05-28 18:31:11 +0000 UTC View Post
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I have given a big push to the Konami titles this week. I have applied many of Furrtek's discoveries on the custom chips. As a result, many graphic glitches have gone away in Combat School and Labyrinth Runner. In addition, the custom c...
2021-05-21 15:40:25 +0000 UTC View Post(español abajo)
This week's update comes with a ton of internal changes. First, the SDRAM is now operated at bursts of 8 bytes, so graphics information is transferred in a single request. Together with other improvements, this change has boosted the number of sprites per line, and the X-Men COTA start screen is now cor...
2021-05-14 15:45:13 +0000 UTC View Post(español abajo)
I had fixed, improved and strengthen many core features not just during the week but during the last two weeks. So, I was looking forward to this update. But, in the tests before bringing this to you, I found a couple of graphics issues that could also be hiding elsewhere. I didn't even get to pass the ...
2021-05-07 19:12:29 +0000 UTC View Post
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This has been another busy week of catching bugs, trying to close the core development. There are four types of problems left:
1. Graphic glitches due to SDRAM congestion
2. Raster and row scrolling effects not working well together
3. Odd behaviours that could point to a bug in the M6...
2021-04-30 14:52:50 +0000 UTC View Post
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It has been a very intense week as I am ironing out the little things pending in the core. They are little, but they are the toughest ones!
The only worrying one is Gigawing because, in a couple of scenes, there is a moment when the SDRAM fails to deliver all the sprites, and some lines show glitc...
2021-04-23 15:54:50 +0000 UTC View PostYou were expecting more shooters, and here you go:
-Progear: this game has awesome graphics. It reminds me of Studio Ghibli art. The gameplay is also great.
-Eco Fighters: this horizontal shooter has an interesting mechanic because of the rotating cannon, similar to Forgotten Worlds. The Megaman team designed it.<...
2021-04-16 17:52:39 +0000 UTC View Post
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I started on Patreon 2 years ago, after my Ghosts'n Goblins core was ported to MiSTer. When I saw the coverage that Smokemonster made for it on his YT channel, I thought it was worth developing more systems. Two years later, I have published a ton of stuff: individual chip modules, single arcade boards ...
2021-04-16 14:49:45 +0000 UTC View PostWhat would you like the next JTFriday to be about?
2021-04-10 07:42:28 +0000 UTC View Post
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We finish three series of games this week:
-Dungeon&Dragons, by adding Shadow over Mystara
-19XX, by adding 1944
-Street Fighter Alpha, by adding the third game
Plus Janpai Puzzle Choko, a title in Japanese, but you don't need to understand the language to play. Give it a go!
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I've been working non-stop to find the bug in the QSound chip producing the distortion, but I still haven't got it. So there is no CPS2 update this week.
To make up for it, and because I know some people miss 80's games, I am offering you one of my personal favourites this week: Shin...
2021-04-02 16:20:47 +0000 UTC View Post
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This week comes with an incredible new bunch of games. I cannot pick the main title! We have the second game in the Darkstalkers series (Revenge), which brings more crazy spooky fights. I had been asked about Dimahoo for several weeks, and I think it's...
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There are several game series on CPS2, and we continue this week with the Alpha one: Street Fighter Alpha 2 (including Zero 2 Alpha) is visiting us today. We finally have all the characters that appeared in Super Puzzle Fighter 2 in their original games available. CPS2 is full of cameos and references b...
2021-03-19 17:05:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Please get the files from the latest beta post
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My first core after starting Patreon was 1942. It took me about two months to complete it. About two years later, I can deliver new cores much more quickly, but the feeling towards these games hasn't changed. I am very gl...
2021-03-12 16:59:55 +0000 UTC View Post
PLEASE GET THE FILES FROM THE MOST RECENT BETA POST
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Development of the CPS2 core has progressed. Some GFX glitches are gone now (formerly visible in CSCLUB/MPANG), and there is now support for 16MB GFX games. These are the titles for this week:
-All 16MB version Mighty! Pang
-Pu...
PLEASE GET THE FILES FROM THE MOST RECENT BETA POST
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Now that the basic CPS2 architecture is in place, it is time to add more games to the core. CPS2 games could have up to 32MB of graphics ROM; for this week, the focus has been games of 8MB. These are the titles:
-...
2021-02-26 15:47:04 +0000 UTC View Post
PLEASE GET THE FILES FROM THE MOST RECENT BETA POST
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This week we have achieved a major milestone: on-the-fly ROM decryption, just as the original system does.
CPS2 games are encrypted by shuffling bits and exoring with the keys over and over again. The encryption ke...
2021-02-19 17:00:55 +0000 UTC View Post
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I started on FPGA retro developments with a Yamaha YM2151 module: the most important chip for arcade games. I made hundreds of measurements, and I designed the FPGA counterpart -JT51- to match those measurements.
But there were two things I couldn't measure: the <...
2021-02-12 20:57:23 +0000 UTC View Post
NVRAM
After some headache and too many debugging hours, we finally have NVRAM support for MiSTer CPS1 and CPS1.5 cores.
All CPS1.5 cores use NVRAM instead of DIPs to keep the configuration. From the CPS1 set, Pang! 3 uses NVRAM too, although it seems that not all versions do.
NVRAM requires ...
2021-02-05 17:55:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Accuracy of the core; that is what we all want.
I was concerned about the speed of the CPS1 core for a long time. But I needed a reliable way to measure it. I bought the tools to replace the ROMs in an SF2 PCB with my test code. Then, I contacted Grego2D (the author of Final Fight Anniversary Edition) and asked hi...
2021-01-31 10:26:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Please find the files attached. Unzip the file to the _Arcade folder in your SD card, then run the update_all script on MiSTer.
Sorry for the long wait! I am proud to announce the first beta of the CPS2 core for MiSTer and MiST/SiDi!.
Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, one of the most popular ...
2021-01-29 17:28:44 +0000 UTC View Post
A typo broke the volume balance in the last CPS1 update, but I thought it was something else. So I started looking at ways sound may not have been accurate. Eventually, I found the typo, I increased accuracy, and I re-balanced the volume in all cores. 20 cores have been updated.
NOTE: C...
2021-01-15 22:17:19 +0000 UTC View PostI know you are tired of SDRAM trials. So am I. So this will be the last one.
I have built a memory test, which uses the SDRAM logic I use on my cores (including CPS). There are two versions: 48 MHz, and 96 MHz. Both will show a green screen until a problem is detected. Then, the display will turn red and stay red....
2021-01-08 17:27:15 +0000 UTC View Post
