Meka 0.72

vbt

Staff member
It's out and I've added to the emulation section. The changelog is quite big for this release.


- Updated k.

- Ports:

- Preliminary MacOSX port. [Proppy]

Compile and run under a x86-based MacOSX system. Missing sound (due

to Seal) and debugger (unknown problem to resolve).

Looking for someone who wish to improve and maintain this port.

- Video/Blitters:

- Upgraded everything to hi-color video modes and got rid of old,

8-bit indexed video modes. This is a major change in MEKA core.

Some of the benefits are:

- No more snow and/or color flickering on video card drivers

which disliked palette changes.

- Better integration with desktop (usually run faster).

- Getting possible to use various kind of graphics filters.

- No more hassle with color limitation for the programmer

(meaning more features implemented for the end-user).

- Finally possible to show all Game Gear colors at once,

and to implement LCD screen persistence (not yet done).

Some of the features above goes hand to hand with the blitter

system, which will be improved soon. [Omar]

- Fixed HQ2X stretched blitter when target output was not 16-bits. [Omar]

- Stretching works on all blitters. [Omar]

- Video depth, Vsync, Triple Buffering and Page flipping are now global

video settings, removed from each specific blitter. Greatly simplify

configuration and tweaking. [Omar]

- Triple buffering doesn't interfere with the refresh is not supported

by the current settings (eg: windowed mode), making it safe and more

simple to always leave it enabled. [Omar]

- Changed default fullscreen blitter configuration in the hope of getting

something more compatible (640x480 by default), as so many people have

problems with fullscreen modes.

- Removed obsolete "scanlines" blitter, in favor of "tvmode". [Omar]

- Removed "parallel" blitter that displayed both odd and even frame

next to each other. Seems useless now. Could be brought back if some

four-eyed person request it. [Omar]

- Sound:

- Added support for VGM 1.10 header type. [Omar]

- Emulation:

- Fixed data corruption/overflow in VDP emulation when seeking and

writing to an invalid palette address. Thanks Maxim. [Omar]

- VDP palette write do not mask out current VDP address, so performing

the (unprobable) set address/access palette/access VRAM sequence will

keep address in the full 16KB range. [Omar]

- Fixed VDP line interrupts not properly running in overscan area in

224 lines mode. Fixes bottom of the screen in Charles Mac Donald's

BB2K6 demo. [Omar]

- CPU:

- Z80: Fixed cases were address arithmetic would not wrap in the

16-bit address space, effectively crashing the emulator (those cases

were mostly happening on corrupted data, but it also legit Z80 code,

and in any case we don't want the emulator to crash). [Omar]

- Z80: Fixed RETI behavior (same as RETN, copying IFF2 to IFF1).

Fixes pausing in SMS Robocop 3 during legal screens/introduction,

probably other infrequent cases. [FluBBa, Omar]

- Z80: Accepting NMI doesn't copy IFF1 over IFF2, as suggested

by Sean Young's "The Undocumented Z80 Documented". [Omar]

- ColecoVision:

- Fixed emulation of pending NMI, pending flag is cleared when

reading VDP status. Fixes "Rock 'N Bolt" among other.

Thanks to the anonymous poster on SMS Power! forums. [Omar]

- Note that the compatibility list for ColecoVision titles is

severly outdated. At some point, James Carter worked on a new,

more accurate list, but I lost all contact with him.

- Removed detection of supposed 128-bytes headers and 512-bytes footers

(from some old soft/copiers?), due to many false detections,

particularly on homebrew ROM images (the code was introduced in 2001

when Dig Dug and Pac-Man prototypes were released with such header,

but ROM images now circulating are without the header). [Omar]

- GUI:

- Sorted default themes, removed non Sega 8-bit related themes.

Now embedding background pictures in regular binary distribution.

CALL FOR NEW OR IMPROVED THEMES SUBMISSION! Please contribute.

- KeyPad Enter key now works on input boxes. [Omar]

- Added shortcut CTRL-F4: closes current window. [Omar]

- Added shortcut CTRL-TAB: cycles thru windows taking inputs. [Omar]

- Reworked theme (skin) system from stratch: [Omar]

- Changed MEKA.THM file format.

- Using explicit names for variables.

- Added more variables, making the skin system a little more

complicated but also more configurable.

- Using de-facto standard of specifying colors in #RRGGBB format.

- Rewrote most code since it was all legacy from old MEKA 0.10.

- Added link to debugger documentation in HELP menu. [Omar]

- Removed closing fadeout since the current hi-color implementation

is way inefficient and cannot garantee proper speed. [Omar]

- Development:

- Debugger:

- Fixed various command-line parsing bugs. [Omar]

- Added line history. Navigate history by pressing Up/Down.

List or search in history using HISTORY (HI) command. [Omar]

- Added conditionnal breakpoints. [Omar]

eg:

BREAK r C000.. =01,02,03,04 ; break on read of 01020304 in RAM

BREAK x =C9 ; break on CPU execution of RET

BREAK x =0,0 ; break on CPU execution of NOP NOP

BREAK w pram 0 =03 ; break on PRAM write of color 0 as red

- Added display line event breakpoints/watchpoints. [Omar]

Useful for debugging line interrupts.

eg:

BREAK line #13 ; break on display line 13

- Added "B nopnop" shortcut to break on two successives NOP instructions.

This is basically equivalent to "B x =0,0". [Omar]

- REGS (R) command in debugger now display shadow registers as well. [Omar]

- Added cursor before current instruction in disassembly. [Omar]

- Added access to shadow registers in expression evaluator. [Omar]

eg:

PRINT AF',BC',DE',HL'

- Added SET command to modify Z80 registers. [Omar]

eg:

SET BC=$1234 ; set BC register to $1234

SET DE=HL,HL=0 ; set DE=HL, then zero HL

- Added MEMEDIT command to spawn a new memory editor. [Omar]

- Added CLOCK command, to display/reset a Z80 cycle counter.

Very simple but can be helpful to time Z80 routines. [Omar]

- (Win32) Forward debugging log to Windows debugging stream via

OutputDebugString(), so running MEKA from Microsoft Visual studio

will display log in the 'Output' window. [Omar]

- Memory Editor:

- Added viewing and editing of VDP registers (VREG). [Omar]

- Added configuration file directive for resizing window. [Omar]

- Fixed cursor position when inputing an address on last page. [Omar]

- Added NES PRAM support. [Omar]

- Tiles viewer:

- Added NES palette switching (8 palettes). [Omar]

- Tilemap viewer:

- Added tilemap viewer. [Omar]

Shows tilemap, hovering or clicking a tile shows specific info

about it, allows filtering BG/FG, disabling tile flipping, display

of scrolling box, with or without raster effects, manual selection

of tilemap address, etc.

- Made '$' default prefix for hexadecimal values in various places. [Omar]

- Datadump: [Ambil, Omar]

- Fixed "palette" dumping. Blue and green components were inverted.

Replaced dumping of target host RGB values by actual SMS/GG components.

- Added sprite pattern base address in "sprites" dumping.

- Cleaned Technical Information Viewer content, renamed a few fields

to their official names, removed redundant information. It's not

yet all clean. [Omar]

- Miscellaenous:

- Various fixes.

- Increased max length of directory/filenames. [Musuruan]

- Added "Automatically crop and align screen captures" option.

This option aligns screen captures on the nearest visible tile,

helping to simplify the process of creating game maps by pasting

captures next to each other. [Omar]

Note: May not work properly on game using scanline based effects.

- Updated various tidbits in the configuration file. [Omar]

- (Win32) Removed flickering from initialization message console. [Maxim]

- (UN*X) Renamed main executable to 'meka' (instead of 'meka.exe').

- Sources/Project

- (Win32) Added new targets supporting shared standard libraries. [Omar]

- (Win32) Updated Allegro library from WIP 4.1.18 to 4.2.0, including

various fixes/improvements:

http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro/onlinedocs/en/changes.html

- (Win32) Now linking to zlib.lib instead of zlibs.lib (name for standard

static build of ZLIB). [Omar]

- Removed password encryption from MEKA datafile (became useless). [Omar]

- Fixed a bunch of warnings on higher warning levels. [Omar]

- Hacked a lot of old GUI code (box, widgets, menus among others), cleaned

and renamed various structures, replaced several usage of indexes by

pointers, added const qualifiers, rewrote parts of various applets,

got rid of some old obsolete code, etc. Hopefully broke nothing. [Omar]

- (Win32) Fixed MSVC project to reference LIBPNGDIR.

- (Win32) Including statically compiled libpng.lib in package. [Omar]

- (UN*X) No more need to manually edit .ASM files to compile. [Omar]

- Updated SOURCES.TXT documentation. [Omar]

- Added and modified entries in the checksum and compatibility lists. [Omar]

Some particular renaming includes:

SMS - 0e21e6cf - Astro Flash (JP) --> Astro Flash [Hack] (JP)

SMS - e5ff50d8 - Back to the Future II --> Back to the Future Part II

SMS - 2d48c1d3 - Back to the Future III --> Back to the Future Part III

SMS - 953f42e1 - Castle of Illusion --> Castle of Illusion - Starring Mickey Mouse

SMS - b9db4282 - Castle of Illusion (US) --> Castle of Illusion - Starring Mickey Mouse (US)

SMS - 59840fd6 - Castle of Illusion [SMS-GG] --> Castle of Illusion - Starring Mickey Mouse [SMS-GG]

SMS - 9942b69b - Castle of Illusion [SMS-GG] (JP) --> Castle of Illusion - Starring Mickey Mouse [SMS-GG] (JP)

SMS - 42fc3a6e - Deep Duck Trouble --> Deep Duck Trouble - Starring Donald Duck

SMS - 65d7e4e0 - Fantasy Zone --> Fantasy Zone [v2]

SMS - 5d08e823 - Fushigi no Oshiro Pit Pot (JP) --> Fushigi no Oshiro Pit Pot [Hack] (JP)

SMS - a4ac35d8 - Galaxy Force [50 / 60 Hz] --> Galaxy Force

SMS - 6c827520 - Galaxy Force [60 Hz] --> Galaxy Force (US)

SMS - dabcc054 - Ghost house (JP) --> Ghost House [Hack] (JP)

SMS - c1e699db - Great Baseball [JP] (JP) --> Great Baseball [JP] [Hack] (JP)

SMS - 84665648 - Great Soccer (JP) --> Great Soccer [Hack] (JP)

SMS - 695a9a15 - Jungle Book, The --> Jungle Book, The (Walt Disney's Classic)

SMS - 24e97200 - Land of Illusion --> Land of Illusion - Starring Mickey Mouse

SMS - 6350e649 - Legend of Illusion (BR) --> Legend of Illusion - Starring Mickey Mouse (BR)

SMS - c352c7eb - Lion King, The --> Lion King, The (Disney's)

SMS - 87b9ecb8 - Satellite 7 (JP) --> Satellite 7 [Hack] (JP)

SMS - bcd91d78 - Seishun Scandal (JP) --> Seishun Scandal [Hack] (JP)

SMS - a71bc542 - Spy vs Spy (JP) --> Spy vs Spy [Hack] (JP)

SMS - 1de2c2d0 - Strategic Defense Initiative (JP) --> SDI (JP)

SMS - 95cbf3dd - Super Tennis (JP) --> Great Tennis / Super Tennis (JP) (note: this one is tricky. Official game name is "Great Tennis" but title screen says "Super Tennis").

SMS - 9dfa67ee - Teddy Boy Blues (JP) --> Teddy Boy Blues [Hack] (JP)

SMS - 60c19645 - Zillion --> Zillion [v0]

SMS - 5718762c - Zillion (US) --> Zillion [v1] (US)

GG - bb4f23ff - Adventures of Batman and Robin --> Adventures of Batman & Robin, The

GG - 7a41c1dc - Aladdin --> Aladdin (Disney's)

GG - 770e95e1 - Aladdin (JP) --> Aladdin (Disney's) (JP)

GG - 4457e7c0 - Deep Duck Trouble / Donald Duck no.. --> Donald Duck no Yottsu no Himitsu (JP) (was Japanese dump)

GG - f6af4b6b - Dynamite Headdy --> Dynamite Headdy (JP) (note: US/EU version is another dump)

GG - 36aaf536 - Evander Holyfield Boxing --> Evander Holyfield's "Real Deal" Boxing

GG - 423803a7 - Gambler Jikochuushin Ha (JP) --> Gyuwanburaa Jikochuushin Ha (JP)

GG - 9f64c2bb - Ichidanto-R (JP) --> Ichidant~R (Puzzle & Action)

GG - 8c048325 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade --> Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [BAD]

GG - 4a98678b - Joe Montana Football --> Joe Montana Football (JP)

GG - 90100884 - Jungle Book, The --> Jungle Book, The (Walt Disney's Classic)

GG - 30c09f31 - Jungle Book, The (US) --> Jungle Book, The (Walt Disney's Classic) (US)

GG - 52dbf3e1 - Land of Illusion --> Land of Illusion - Starring Mickey Mouse

GG - 0117c3df - Land of Illusion (JP) --> Mickey Mouse no Mahou no Crystal (JP)

GG - 0cd9c20b - Lion King, The --> Lion King, The (Disney's) (EU)

GG - 9808d7b3 - Lion King, The (US) --> Lion King, The (Disney's) (US)

GG - 00c34d94 - Madou Monogatari I - Mittsu no.. (JP)--> Madoh Monogatari I - Mittsu no Madokyuu (JP)

GG - 12eb2287 - Madou Monogatari II - Aruru 16.. (JP)--> Madou Monogatari II - Aruru 16-sai (JP)

GG - 0a634d79 - Madou Monogatari III - Kyukyok.. (JP)--> Madou Monogatari III - Kyuukyoku Joo-sama [v0] (JP)

GG - 7ec95282 - Madou Monogatari A - Dokidoki-.. (JP)--> Madoh Monogatari A - Dokidoki-Bake Shon

GG - cc90c723 - Pocket Jong Sou (JP) --> Pocket Jansou (JP)

GG - afcc7828 - Psychic World --> Psychic World (JP)

GG - 445d7cd2 - Royal Stone (JP) --> Royal Stone ~Hikarishi Toki no Tobira~ (JP)

GG - 95efd52b - Ryu Kyu (JP) --> Ryuu Kyuu (JP)

GG - 09f9ed60 - Shadam Crusader (JP) --> Shadam Crusader ~Harukanaru Oukoku~ (JP)

GG - 2ae8c75f - Shanghai 2 (JP) --> Shanghai II (JP)

GG - 4d1f4699 - Shining Force Gaiden (JP) --> Shining Force Gaiden ~Ensei Jashin no Kuni e~ (JP)

GG - 30374681 - Shining Force Gaiden II (JP) --> Shining Force Gaiden II ~Jashin no Mezame~ (JP)

GG - 6019fe5e - Shining Force Gaiden Final Con.. (JP)--> Shining Force Gaiden ~Final Conflict~ (JP)

GG - 742a372b - Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade'..--> Spider-Man / X-Men: Arcade's Revenge

GG - f1732ffe - Tale Spin --> TaleSpin

GG - 09151743 - Tanto-R (JP) --> Tant~R (Puzzle & Action)

GG - 3d8d0dd6 - World Series Baseball [A] --> World Series Baseball [v0]

GG - bb38cfd7 - World Series Baseball --> World Series Baseball [v1]

SG1 - 545fc9bb - Ashizawa's Hatchidan Tsumeshogi (JP) --> Serizawa Hachidan no Tsumeshogi (JP)

SG1 - 5970a12b - Champion Baseball --> Champion Baseball [16k]

SG1 - 6d909857 - Sega Mah-Jong (JP) --> Mahjong (Sega) (JP)

SG1 - e7e0f0e3 - Home Mah-Jong (JP) --> Home Mahjong [v1] (JP)

SG1 - 09196fc5 - N-Sub (1988) --> N-Sub [16k] (1988)

SC3 - 622010e1 - Sega Music Editor --> Music

SC3 - b67ea1c4 - Sega Music Editor --> Music [BAD]

SC3 - 2ec28526 - Sega Music Editor (JP) --> Music (JP)

SC3 - ae4f92cf - Uranai Angel Cuty (JP) --> Uranai Angel Cutie (JP)

 
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