JOTEGO

SF Alpha with QSound, SF2 Mix and 128MB Poll

This week we are going to get some love from arcade hackers.

First, we have the SF Alpha for CPS1.5 project. Born in our Discord channel, this is a version combining the CPU+GFX of the CPS charger version with the QSound from the CPS2 version. ...

CPS 1.5 Public Release

CPS1.5 core is ready for public exposure now. Changes from the beta:

-The core is available from JTBIN now. Or you can use the update script.
-QSound is clear now. Note that it has a high dynamic range, which means that it may sound a bit low som...

New SDRAM Controller & Core Updates

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Arcade systems have many memory chips working at the same time. Whereas a computer system of the same age will have all devices built around a RAM memory, arcade games had no single central memory.  Each subsystem had access to its memory, which often was exclusive.

This difference meant that...

Contra & Street Fighter Public Releases

Although I wanted to wait for a perfect K007121 implementation before releasing any Konami title to the wild, I think Contra is in reasonable shape. There is still a bug related to barrel position but, as of today, nobody knows the secret of that. We are all waiting on Furrtek's discoveries t...

QSound! (CPS1.5 beta 2)

It's taken about 6 weeks of development but the DSP16A chip is now part of our FPGA family. This is the heart of QSound. Yes, we now have QSound, the sound system of CPS2, ready.

So here it is the second beta release of CPS 1.5, introducing QSound. There is still work to do but the experience is way better with the awes...

CPS 1.5 First Beta

FILES ATTACHED

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You've been hearing me talking about CPS1.5/2 for ages. Well, it's not complete but I want to share a beta so you see that it is coming together step by step.

This beta features all CPS 1.5 games booting up and playable, albeit only 1P and 2P controls work. CPS ...

Labyrinth Runner + Higemaru Contest Winner

BETA FILES HERE 

This week I bring you a new game running on Konami hardware: Labyrinth Runner, aka Trick Trap. This is a fantasy game, tough but with a nice learning curve. 

This 1987 title runs on relatively cheap hardware. ...

Trick Trap/Labyrinth Runner Beta Files

Find the beta files attached.

Higemaru Competition & News

ManuFerHi has made a new case for his SiDi FPGA platform (a MiST derivative) and he told me he wants to give one away. I was thinking to do a little contest... Let's decide it with the highest score achieved in the latest core: Higemaru. Thi...

Higemaru!

QSound is still going to take a few weeks. So I was looking for a core I could get together in a single day to share with you guys today. I had several options and finally decided on this little title: Pirate Ship Higemaru! 

Side Arms (Public Release)

After a beta period of one month and no bugs reported, I am releasing Side Arms to the general public. The files are in JTBIN as usual and if you use MiSTer you can use the update_all script to get Side Arms updates from now on.

The week has been about QSound and CPS1.5. I have been working in defining the MRA file form...

Stickers!

This week I have been delivering updates to existing cores (Bionic Commando, CPS1, 1942 and Vulgus). So I'd like to take the chance of not having any major release to send you some stickers for the album.

The date in the sticker is the or...

Stickers!

This week I have been delivering updates to existing cores (Bionic Commando, CPS1, 1942 and Vulgus). So I'd like to take the chance of not having any major release to send you some stickers for the album.

The date in the sticker is the origin...

Street Fighter 1 Beta

SEE FILES ATTACHED

English

This game is quite something! The PCB has three layers and almost no custom chips. It is not easy to power it up because of the sheer ammount of chips on it. Although it follows classic CAPCOM designs, it features a large mode for sprites (32x32 or 16x16...

Missing bits

I'd like to discuss a technical topic this week: missing elements in emulators and, well, some FPGA cores. Let's use the palette memory of Side Arms for our case study.

Side Arms uses a regular RAM chip to store colour palette values. The GPU decides which pixel has priority from the character, scroll, object and s...

Side Arms (beta) + Bubble Bobble/Tokio Public Release

As usual, busy week with too much to talk about but let me be brief

-First, I'm making the TAITO core (Bubble Bobble and Tokio games) public. It still has the problem with the bubbles but I think it is related to the M6801 CPU core for which I have no replacement and fixing that CPU is not my priority now. By making the...

Side Arms beta files

Please find them attached.

Trojan! (Public Release)

Get the files either through the MiSTer update-all script or attached to this post. Source code.

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2020-08-07 10:26:11 +0000 UTC View Post

Tokio - Scramble Formation & Sticker Album!

TOKIO/Scramble Formation files here. 

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Although I'm spending most of my time on QSound, I'd like to release some titles in the meantime. These games will not take me too long so QSound development won't get halted.<...

Tokio - Scramble Formation Files

The same RBF is used for Bubble Bobble and Tokio. Please find the files attached. Not all MRA files work yet:

-Bubble Bobble: some bootlegs will fail.

-Tokio: original game will fail. Use the bootleg.

Work In Progress: Q-Sound

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This has been my first week working on Q-Sound. CAPCOM abandoned the YM2151 FM chip for the last few CPS titles and started using a PCM-based solution. PCM is the main sound source used in NeoGeo titles too, although the NeoGeo can do FM and PSG sounds too. CAPCOM had already abandoned PSG sounds when e...

Combat School! (aka Boot Camp)

FIND FILES ATTACHED -MISTER, MIST, SIDI-

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I'm sorry for being one week late. This was meant to be a special release for the 4th of July but last week was very busy and couldn't finish it. So here it is anyway, happy 4th of July (!)

This is Konami doing another sports game. An...

MiSTer Case Winner

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As you know, Antonio Villena offered a MiSTer case for us. Today, through an unusual tweet I got the ASCII characters to look for the winner....

Bubble Bobble 2nd Beta

FILES ATTACHED TO THIS POST

Then there was music and wonderful flowers... Yes, we finally have music for Bubble Bobble. I have written a Yamaha OPL1 core based on the best reverse engineered data I have found. I got a lot of good information from 2020-06-26 08:02:05 +0000 UTC View Post

ADSR and Yamaha Cost Saving

This has been the FM week. I have fixed some NeoGeo sound issues, which have been released on MiSTer today and continued work on the YM3526 OPL sound chip. Let me talk about FM sound a bit.

NeoGeo, Megadrive and Ghosts'n Goblins have something in common: FM sound chips built around the ...

Bubble Bobble 1st Beta

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It is the beginning of a fantastic story... Yes, your favourite bubble spitting dinosaurs come to the FPGA world. And they move better than ever. Files attached!

This was a request from one of the patron directors and I was a bit afraid because the game contains four CPUs! Two Z80 for game control...

Reporting Issues

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What is the best way of getting the attention of a core author -not just me- to get an issue effectively solved? That's github issues.

For problems on my arcade cores, please go to jtbin/issues and ente...

News and Raffle

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Antonio Villena has donated a MiSTer case kit to hold a raffle among my patrons. His case has a DB9 connector so you can use a SEGA Genesis (or Atari) contro...

Contra (Gryzor) Beta - MiST(er) and SiDi

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I'm very happy to bring this week the classic Contra from Konami (files attached). As a child I only knew the Amstrad CPC version except for a night out with my parents when I could just see the arcade game for a few minutes. Couldn't play that night. Amstrad version was very good and i...