Via Elation comes more news of the up and coming Dreamcast Emulator for Windows:
Today's experiment... FAILED as well.
A very nice person calling him/herself Yuki donated Japanese ROM set, fresh from Dreamcast. Thank you! To my suprise it's 1.01d, just as any EU/USA one... And the FLASH file is a bit different too, comparing to what I had until now. Some version strings from both BIOS images:
KABUTO Ver.1.004
GDC Version 1.01 1998-09-30 MP
syTmr Version: 0.51 / syTmr Build:Jun 23 1998 14:52:57
syRtc Ver 1.00 Build:Sep 28 1998 05:10:44
syInt Ver 1.00 Build:Sep 16 1998 14:37:57
fmMng Ver 1.00 Build:Sep 29 1998 14:42:44
SIMPLE PLAYER VER. 1.00 98/10/02
KABUTO Ver.1.01d
GDC Version 1.10 1999-03-31 MP
syTmr Version: 0.51 / syTmr Build:Jun 23 1998 14:52:57
syRtc Ver 1.00 Build:Sep 28 1998 05:10:44
syInt Ver 1.02 Build:Oct 08 1998 19:31:47
fmMng Ver 1.00 Build:Sep 29 1998 14:42:44
SIMPLE PLAYER VER. 1.00 98/10/02
Well I can't be 100% sure, as I don't really know where that 1.004 came from, but it seems there was a bug in GD handling routines. GDC module was clearly upgraded. See, the older one is a bit strange, it's trying to boot GD-ROM media even if the GD drive says it's empty. This causes BIOS to hang just after swirl logo and you can't enter console menu. There is a way around it - namely you need to use unbootable image or (preferred) GDI image for EU/USA region rather then leaving the drive "empty". This will satisfy GD library and wont boot at the same time, so BIOS menu becomes accessible. I have no idea if that's because the ROM image was modified by someone or if it's a bug in the emulator. It is also possible that the early Dreamcasts were just slightly bit different then the later ones. Maybe there was even some sort of hardware-based workaround for that BIOS or the GD firmware was different.
The point is: If you use Japanese BIOS on Makaron and are experiencing problems with 1.004 version, substitute it with EU/USA image. This might not work well with the earlier FLASH image, but it should in most cases. The earlier FLASH lacks second entry for default settings (which include TV output format), but as far as I can tell it's not really used in NTSC modes anyway.
Oh, and I forgot to make an update to my last entry, so here are some final images from the experimental depth-peeling rendering system:
In some cases it simply looks great and most of the Z-fighting is gone, but I still couldn't get around all accuracy issuses. The last image is 7-layers deep and should render text in that dialog window, but...
Also, this is way too SLOW. For example (if you want things blended properly) to render 5 layers mean 10 redraws of the entire translucency. Fourteen redraws in Evolution is still real-time, but some games are way more demanding. For example my rig (E6600+GF7900) simply cannot handle more then four layers in Ikaruga and still maintain 60RPS, and in this game even eight layers is nowhere near enough.
I'm not going to include this experimental rendered in the next release, it's simply way too... experimental :) Even for Makaron.
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