Heinrich Tillack emailed me with this news:

i uploaded a small tool at http://a128.ch9.de

"tga2kmg" tool :

This utility loads 24bit TGAs and converts them into twiddled KMGs of the specified format. Creates working (!!) RGB565, ARGB4444 , ARGB1555 textures. I wrote this tool because I was sick of this non-working PNG lib and would like to have punchthru / translucent textures with alpha channel on my Dreamcast

cygwin/win32 bin+source

regards

heinrich

Thanks to Heinrich for the news. ...

An Unknown coder with a little help from Vampent have released the worlds first GBA emulator for the Nokia N-Gage and Symbian 60 phones, the emulator is more of a tech demo at this moment but check out the full info here --> http://ngage.dcemu.co.uk/gbaemu.shtml ...

Nintendo plans to set up as many as 1,000 WiFi hotspots in Japan, to encourage users of the DS to play games via WiFi. The hotspots will be in locations such as toy stores and department stores, enabling retailers to demo WiFi games. Nintendo also plans to roll out hotspots in other markets as well, though no timetable has been set. No word on whether the hotspots will require any kind of authentication to keep non-DS users out, but it's a safe bet that if you see groups of laptop-wielding salarymen squatting on the floor in Hakuhinkan’s game department, the network is wide open. ...

Sony is already having problems meeting software publisher demand for the development kits for their recently announced next-generation console, PlayStation 3.

Sony president Ken Kutaragi revealed to Japanese newspaper Jiji that the company has so far provided more than 100 PS3 development kits to various publishers.

However, he goes on to say that they are struggling to meet the high demand for the kits and are already running out of parts.

So, could this shortage of the necessary tools used to create PS3 games have a detrimental effect on the volume and quality of games we can expect from the first wave of PS3 titles?

Well, not really. This scenario really isn't unusual - most recently Sony had trouble supplying enough PSP dev-kits - and developers can simply navigate around the problem by working according to the console's specifications on high-end PCs.

This allows a substantial portion of a game to be primed for completion before the dev-kits eventually drop through the letterbox, at which point developers can then make any necessary tweaks and alterations. So, there's absolutely no need to panic. ...

The Nintendo DS was the best-selling console in Japan once again last week, with Nintendo's own DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain title topping the software charts - but the market overall continued to experience low sales.

Software sales dropped below 350,000 for the full week, well below half of the annual weekly average and significantly lower than the 617,000 units recorded in the same week last year, with the low sales being largely caused by a lack of major new releases.

Indeed, only two new titles made it into the top ten, with Bandai's PSP RPG title Hero Legend Gagharv Trilogy: Akai Shizuku becoming the first PSP title to dent the charts for several weeks, in at number four, while Sega's Pachinko Slot! Fist of the North Star on the Nintendo DS came in at number ten.

Four DS titles made it into the top ten ranking, in fact - aside from Pachinko Slot at number ten, DS Training For Adults climbed into the top spot, Bandai's anime licensed SD Gundam G Generation DS was at number five and Nintendogs: Shiba and Friends was at number seven.

Also still selling relatively strongly were Enterbrain's RPG title Berwick Saga (PS2) at number two, and crossover RPG Namco X Capcom, published by Namco and in this week at number three.

In hardware terms, the DS continued to grow its lead over the PSP, taking over 34 per cent market share this week - compared with just under 23 per cent for the PSP, and slightly over 30 per cent for the PlayStation 2. ...

Microsoft's Xbox 360 will have better graphics performance than the PlayStation 3 despite the better on-paper specifications of the Sony console, according to graphics chip designer ATI's Richard Huddy.

Speaking in an interview with techie website bit-tech.net, Huddy - ATI's developer liaison and technology evangelist - went into detail about the Xenos chipset used in Xbox 360, and how it stacks up against NVIDIA's RSX part for the PlayStation 3.

Although the RSX is more powerful in terms of raw specifications - it runs at a higher clock speed for a start, 550Mhz rather than the 500Mhz speed of the Xenos part - Huddy claims that the unified shader architecture used by ATI will give Xbox 360 the graphical edge.

"That mere 10 per cent clock speed that RSX has on Xenos is easily countered by the unified shader architecture that we've implemented," he claimed. "Rather than separate pixel and vertex pipelines, we've created a single unified pipeline that can do both."

"Providing developers throw instructions at our architecture in the right way, Xenos can run at 100 per cent efficiency all the time, rather than having some pipeline instructions waiting for others," Huddy explained. "For comparison, most high-end PC chips run at 50-60% typical efficiency. The super cool point is that 'in the right way' just means 'give us plenty of work to do'. The hardware manages itself."

For its part, NVIDIA has repeatedly downplayed the importance of unified shader architecture, and has publicly stated that it doesn't believe that this is the best path to improved graphics performance.

Huddy believes that this position is marketing bluster from NVIDIA, rather than being based on any genuinely held beliefs about the technology in question.

"This time around, they don't have the architecture and we do, so they have to knock it and say it isn't worthwhile," he said. "But in the future, they'll market themselves out of this corner, claiming that they've cracked how to do it best. But RSX isn't unified, and this is why I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful."

Of course, neither the RSX nor the Xenos exists in final silicon form yet, and the claims of both NVIDIA and ATI need to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt as a result. Although they're both based on IBM-manufactured chips and PC-like graphics parts, the architecture of the Xbox 360 and the PS3 is radically different and direct comparisons are difficult.

However, many developers working with both consoles up to now have privately concluded that Sony's system, which will be launched at least six months after Microsoft's, will have the edge in terms of overall performance. ...

Remember the days when you bought a gaming machine and the darn thing actually came bundled with a game? Yeah? Well, it looks like Nintendo is gonna go old school on us, as some sources have suggested that as soon as June 12, Nintendo will start bundling Mario 64 DS with DS units for no extra cost ($149.99). Holla! ...

A new installment in Sega CD's hit Lunar role-playing game series is coming to the Nintendo DS. According to the latest issue of Famitsu, Marvelous Interactive will release Lunar Genesis on the double-screened handheld on August 25 in Japan. The game is being distributed in North America by Ubisoft sometime between July and September.


Lunar Genesis will play as a new 2D RPG rather than a port of the previous two installments released on the Sega CD in 1992 and 1994. The game takes place 1,000 years before Lunar Silver Star, with a new adventure following Gien Campbell, a 15-year-old delivery boy who works in a port town. Party members in the game include Lucia Collins, a 14-year-old magic-using girl who is like a sister to Gien, and Gabiriel Ryan, a half-beast girl who is good at claw-fighting and has the ability to absorb and use enemy attacks.

Gien's story starts off when he one day receives a request to make a delivery to the town of Heelritz, a place also known as the town of half-beasts. Excited about his visit to the legendary city, Gien makes his way there despite of a lot of hardships. However, what he sees when he gets to Heelritz is far from the utopia that he had imagined.

Lunar Genesis takes advantage of the DS's hardware, letting players move around the map by touching the point where they want to go. The battles use both the top and the bottom screens to show the enemies on the ground and in the air. One interesting feature is that players can order their characters to run away from battles with the DS's microphone. Whether players can also order other battle commands via voice is currently unknown.

Development of Lunar Genesis is currently 90 percent complete. ...

Microsoft's Xbox 360 is set to use hard drive technology from storage specialist Seagate, with the company announcing that its new LD25 2.5" discs are to be used as the removable drives for the console.

Seagate announced the LD25 range of drives in a statement last night, describing the new drives as specifically designed for use in game systems, home entertainment devices and small form factor PCs.

The drives will be available in 20GB, 30GB and 40GB variants, with the Xbox 360 set to ship with the 20GB version of the hardware - which will be used for applications ranging from downloading game content to storing video messages and custom soundtracks.

"The hard drive extends the gaming experience on Xbox 360," explained Microsoft's corporate VP of Xbox hardware, Todd Holmdahl. "From downloading trailers, new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, and more to supporting custom playlists in every game and storing video messages from friends, Seagate's LD25 Series 2.5-inch hard drive brings gaming and digital media together for the ultimate entertainment experience."

According to Seagate, the new drives use a technology called DynaPlay, which optimises their performance to reduce power consumption and improve media streaming and security, while motors using a technology called SoftSonic mean that the drive runs more quietly than its competitors.

Seagate joins an impressive line-up of technology partners who are working with Microsoft on the new console, including CPU provider IBM, graphics chipset designer ATI and wireless solution provider RTX Telecom. ...