Thraxen has released a new version of the Mame emulator for the Xbox:

Heres whats new:

ver 20060505:

This is a fixed version of ver20060412.

1. Changed some malloc function to osd_malloc so if there's not enough memory, the emu will warn you instead of a crash. This fixed some crash when decrypting neogeo roms and the gfx error of Power Instinct 2 and Power Instinct Legends on 64m xbox.

2. Rewrote some neogeo gfx rom decrypting code, so it uses only 2K/8M ram instead of 40M/48M/64M to decrypt. Now on 128M xbox it doesnt need vmm to play kog, lans2004, and the svc bootlegs, and less vm is needed for svcpcb and kf2k3pcb. (On 64m xbox less vm is needed too. Some code is converted from iq_132's FBA code, thanks!)

3. Since some encrypted neogeo games need 8m physical memory to decrypt the gfx rom, if the neogeo game need vmm to play, you have to set the threshold value over 8m, or else you will get a crash. So I added a check in the gfx decrypting code, if virtual memory is used, and the threshold value is below 8m, it will warn you instead of a crash.

Due to these 3 changes/fixes, there shouldnt be any crash playing the neogeo games, even playing the huge encrypted neogeo games on 64m xbox.

3. If virtual memory is not used (which means, 'force vmm' is set to 'no', AND there is no info in vm.txt for the loaded game), then the xxpagefile.sys file wont be created in the cache drive.

4. Enable the patch to bypass the hardware test of Ghouls'n Ghosts which is tooooo slow.

5. Since many ppl never read the readme, and dont know there is an aspect ratio mode option, and then complain why the game is not in full screen, I have to set 'stretch' instead of 'original' as the default setting for aspect ratio mode...

6. Added new neogeo drivers: ms5pcb (Metal Slug 5 (JAMMA PCB)), ms5pcbd (Metal Slug 5 (JAMMA PCB,decrypted V,decrypted C)), svcpcba (SvC Chaos - SNK vs Capcom (JAMMA PCB, set 2)), mslug3b6 (Metal Slug 6 (Metal Slug 3 bootleg))

7. Some skin.ini fixes.

8. MAMEoX.xbe is not packed, so it's a bit large. But this will save some byte of memory. If you want to pack it to save some hd space, just use xbepack to pack it.