DCEmu Homebrew Emulation & Theme Park News
wraggster
by Published on October 13th, 2006 15:32
We're all prepping our Claims Direct forms this morning, as Sega makes us fall out of our wheelie-chairs with the reveal of the Phantasy Star Universe beta, available for free download now on Xbox Live.
In case you missed the last instalment, Phantasy Star Universe is an online co-op adventure where six-man squads go around blasting at various nasties in a real-time combat setup.
This time around there's also a single-player adventure with over 40 hours of promised gameplay - although we're assuming the solo mode isn't in this beta, but we'll have to get back to you on that one after we've managed to rig it up ourselves.
The beta version will be available for download until October 15, and playable until the 18th of the same month. Additionally, Sega says the Guadian license - which will unlock all of the online shenanigans in the game - will be available for £6.99 from November 24.
Look for our Phantasy Star Universe impressions very soon - we're already preparing to sprint to the 360. ...by Published on October 13th, 2006 15:29
Heres an excerpt
PSP Fanboy had a chance to play the upcoming Sonic Rivals at NYC's DigitalLife event. I had high expectations for the game because I hold a belief that the 2D Sonic games are much better than their 3D counterparts. With the impressive processing power of the PSP, I expected to see a vivid, colorful, living environment for Sonic and the gang to race through. The build I played (which felt very early: it didn't have music, or voice acting), didn't showcase the PSP's graphical prowess. Surprisingly, the game felt somewhat sluggish, with Sonic's notoriously fast speeds feeling somewhat subdued.
Full article ...by Published on October 13th, 2006 15:27
Heres an excerpt
Welcome to the next installment of the Ace Combat briefing. Fans of the Ace Combat series have been waiting for a portable iteration in the long-running franchise. The wait will end this fall, when Namco Bandai ships Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception, for the Sony PSP. The title promises to deliver a no-compromise Ace Combat experience - everything from the console versions will make it intact.
And yes, this even includes the impressive visuals that have become a trademark for the series. As part of an on-going campaign by Namco Bandai to brief the gaming populace on what to expect, head down below to read up on some of new locations in the game. And head into the media pages to find new screens and footage, too.
Terminus Island
Terminus Island is located on the southern tip of Aurelia. Since it is so close to the polar region, it is surrounded by ice throughout most of the year. However, there are oil fields nearby, which are a significant part of the vast natural resources that lie beneath the surface of Aurelia. Since the Leasath invasion, this area has been used by enemy forces as a fueling base within the Grapenill air fortress.
Sachana Air Base
Sachana Air Base is the largest air base on Aurelia. Although it is surrounded by dense forest, it is close to a major city, so geographically speaking it had a large amount of military air capability. Given this, however, it was one of the first targets of attack during the Leasath invasion. It has since become a strategically important base for them. Since taking it over, the Leasath enemies have mobilized air troops in a wide zone surrounding the base in addition to installing advanced enemy detection warning systems in the area.
Full Article ...by Published on October 12th, 2006 18:52
Via GTA Portable.com:
It's been rumored to be in Vice City Stories over the past few months now. Recent previews also hinted it to be in the game, but now it's official. With the hands-on preview of Computer and Videogames came a bunch of new screenshots, one of which showing Vic riding a hovercraft on the waters of Vice City.
This addition to the game will certainly bring a new way of taking on missions, and getting around not only faster and easier, but also in a more fun way. Expect to see these in races, probably in multiplayer mode too. ...by Published on October 12th, 2006 18:47
Egon has released a new game for the DS, heres the full info:
New SuperPang DS!! (v 0.1a)
That's my first project on a DS, it is in a very early alpha stage, but it's already playable. I plain to port the game completely, and add some extra content. By this time, there's a single infinite level.
The project features ADPCM music and sound, and graphics ripped from original arcade and supernintendo version.
At this stage of the project I would like to get feedback from playing issues, glitches, errors. Any comments wellcome
Known issues are:
- The collision is not as precise as it should (it uses rectangles...)
- The player is not invincible just after died, so it could enter in a die-loop if plenty of balloons (press B in that case)
- Maybe the balls are a bit on the speedy side
Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...by Published on October 12th, 2006 18:42
Kaktus|621 posted this news:
Version 1.7 of my Homebrew was released just in this moment
It has lots of Updates ;-) for example :
* Multilanguage Support (French, English, German), depending on the Setting in your NDS Firmware
* Lots of Small Updates in IcyTower
* The "Euro Quiz" game was added.
Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...by Published on October 12th, 2006 18:30
VGBA by Marat Fayzullin is a GameBoy Advance emulator for S60 3rd Edition phones. This first beta version of the S60 port is slow and lacks sound support, optimized versions will come later.
VGBA will run Nintendo GameBoy Advance cartridges from .gba and .gba.gz files. Place your files into E:\Others\VGBA, but please, make sure you own the actual games. This VGBA port is very slow and lacks sound, so I release it more as a demo, with intent to release the optimized version later. Control keys:
[SOFT1] and [SOFT2] act as A and B fire buttons.
[1], [4] act as LEFT shoulder button.
[3], [6] act as RIGHT shoulder button. [*] works as SELECT.
[#] works as START.
QWERTY keyboard acts as fire buttons, just like in other VGBA ports.
[&larr], [C] toggle sound playback.
Download and Give Feedback on Which Phones this works on etc Via Comments ...by Published on October 12th, 2006 18:18
Epicenter posted this news that Gamepark sent him today and discussion of the processors etc:
Allow me to quote an e-mail I recently recieved from GAMEPARK:
Among the 3 systems, GPKiDS will be the first to be released. Whether GPKiDS will be released under GAMEPARK’s brand or under other firms’ brand has not yet decided. Our rep said at E3, we planned to launch GPKiDS three months ago however; we have been encountered several problems with GPKiDS and thought we should fix the problems right before the launch. This is why it is taking longer than we had first anticipated. The release date for GPKiDS cannot be said right now. We have not yet fixed the problems and we are unsure how long it would take to get things right. In addition, we don’t want to make the same mistakes we have made at E3 and other occasions. However, in my opinion and mine only, GPKiDS will be launched no later than the end of this year.
Now for XGP and XGPmini, it has been over a year since we thought out and designed the two systems. Because it has been over a year, using what we said we were going to use, in terms of specification, will put our systems between no where. They will no longer have an edge (technology and price wise) over other portable systems. So we are planning to make some changes so that our systems have up-to-date technologies and still have price competitiveness over other handhelds. So far we have finished with sculpturing, if I were to say in figure of speech. All we need to do is adding more details to our systems so that there won’t be major faults with the systems. Right now we are concentrating on finalizing GPKiDS and dirstribution of GPKiDS. Once we have found strong ground for GPKiDS, we will move on to XGPmini. If I may ask a quick question to you, as a developer what would you think of a system which uses Samsung S3C 2410 chipset and separate 3D graphic accelerator? Would you still prefer a system which uses S3C 2460? Lastly, the release of GPKiDS in October is totally incorrect information.
I'm first of all glad to see GP is taking the required time to iron out issues before putting out their systems, I can forgive the delay since they intend to compensate for it with increased hardware specifications. This is an interesting question posed, however. Let's take a look at the features of the SoCs in question.
S3C2460 Main Features:
- 200/266 MHz ARM926EJ-S Microprocessor w/ 16KB Instruction/Data caches, Jazelle Java acceleration
- VFP9 ARM-designed Vector/Floating Point Unit
- 100 MHz TEAK 16-bit DSP
- MobileDDR/MobileSDRAM Controller
- Onboard PowerVR MBX RS 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator (1.0M Polys/sec+)
- Hardware MPEG4 Decoding/Encoding support
- Hardware JPEG Decoding/Encoding support
S3C2410 Main Features:
- 200/266 MHz ARM920T Microprocessor w/ 16KB Instruction/Data caches, no Java acceleration
- No VFPU, No DSP
- SDRAM/MobileSDRAM Supported, MobileDDR not supported
- No onboard 2D/3D graphics acceleration
- Hardware MPEG4 Decoding/Encoding support
- No JPEG Decoding/Encoding support
Also in the fray is the S3C2413, which adds MobileDDR support to the S3C2410's features, but does not support MPEG4 decoding in hardware.
A quick breakdown of features..
- The VFPU (AFP9) will accelerate any non-integer math, particularly useful in 3D or 2D applications featuring complex object movement. It will also act like a secondary processor when Integer and Floating-Point code is used equitably, providing a large speed improvement without special code to operate it, making it painless to use, unlike say, the ARM940T in the GP2X.
- MPEG4 decoding support will speed up operations involving playback of video. Without it, video playback will rely on the CPU and might not be quite as snappy. It is my belief 320x240 video playback will work fine with no hardware acceleration, but playing video at other resolutions would be ill-advised. JPEG decoding support accelerates the loading of JPEG images, useful for web browsing and textures in 3D games.
- MobileDDR memory support will considerably accelerate memory access, especially useful in situations where multiple components might compete for memory. MobileDDR memory may also improve battery life. MobileSDRAM uses less power than SDRAM, but is not as fast as MobileDDR.
So, this raises some interesting issues. Stay with the S3C2460 which may be more expensive? Or settle for a simpler chip, and add an accelerator? To keep floating point capability, a coprocessor must be added. I have not found separate chips that are based on the VFP9 technology by ARM, but I suspect that they do in fact exist. Samsung makes a separate MPEG4 decoding unit called SA3A480.
An issue is also raised about if the XGP/XGP Mini should use different 2D/3D accelerators. For the record, my recommendation to Gamepark was the S3C2460 ideally, and if that was too expensive, a cheaper option might be the S3C24A0, coupled with a separate VFP9-based coprocessor, Samsung SA3A480 ...by Published on October 12th, 2006 17:24
New version of the port of Zsnes the snes emulator to the Xbox, heres whats new:
-Added a music player to the GUI. Music is played at 44100 16-bit stereo. The following file formats are supported: GBS, SPC, NSF, VGM, GYM, and VGZ.
This covers the following systems:
Nintendo
Super Nintendo
Sega Genesis
Sega 32X
Sega Master System
Sega Game Gear
Gameboy
Gameboy Color
SG-1000
-Updated the FAQ.
Usage:
-I have included some sample music for all formats.
-For files that contain multiple tracks (like Gameboy and NES), the white button goes to the next track and the black button goes to the previous track.
-To stop a track (and resume the background music), press "X". Otherwise, the selected song will loop.
More Info ...by Published on October 12th, 2006 17:21
Bubble2k has released a new version of his Snes emulator for the Nintendo DS, heres whats new:
DS-specific Fixes and Features:
- Overhauled the graphics engine to make use of the DS VRAM
(most games have less graphical glitches now)
- Implemented Mosaic effect.
- Aligned the SNES ROM to 64KB boundary.
(Chrono Trigger now works like Snezziboy on the DS)
- Modified Snezzi builder to allow building of 32Kbyte ROMs.
(32Kbyte Demos seem to work fine noW)
- Reallocated memory to various parts of the ITCM/DTCM/VRAM
- Implemented line-by-line mechanism for the following graphic registers:
- - Horizontal/Vertical scroll offsets
- - background disable/enable (hide/show)
- - tilemap address
- - screen brightness
- - screen transparency
- - screen mode (allows mid-frame switch between screen mode 1-6 to screen mode 7 and back)
(does not support mid-frame switch between modes 1-6 to modes 1-6)
(Chrono Trigger works fairly well aside from backgruond priority issues,
which causes any game screen that has a warp zone to fill up with white/blue circles, 16x16 tiles are still not supported)
- - Mode 7 rotate/scaling registers
(F-Zero is playable!)
- Fixed Megaman7/XMen speed problems by protecting the ROM region, and allowing only Read access. (Previous it was allowing Read/Write access)
- Implemented delayed NMI/IRQ triggered. NMI/IRQs are now triggered 4 SNES clock cycles after the point in which they are fired.
(Chrono Trigger intro now gets past the Courtroom Trial Scene, and possibly some other lock ups)
- Fixed a bug with the writing to register $211A
(Contra 3 title screen/Castlevania 4's bridge now works again)
- Fixed a bug when reading from $2137 register that causes the horizontal and vertical counters to latch incorrectly.
- Fixed a critical bug with the MVP instruction to load the source and destination banks in the correct order.
- Fixed a critical bug with the MVP instruction to decrement the X and Y registers per move (previously it was incrementing the X and Y registers.
- Revised the per scanline timing downwards:
FastROM: 227 cycles
SlowROM: 200 cycles (???)
- Fixed the 16-bit decimal mode SBC to subtract correctly; operand was previously incorrectly set up
(Knights of the Round no longer gets stuck at the score countdown screen)
- Fixed computation of the Mode 7 registers to the GBA's/DS's rotation modes.
(Super Soccer's intro where the ball flies toward the screen shows up
correctly now)
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