Namco System 12 for MiSTer — Beta 4 is here!

A huge amount of work has gone into game compatibility, GPU performance, CD-ROM support, light guns, racing controls, cabinet I/O, and overall core stability.

🎮 Newly Playable

The following games have been brought up to gameplay since Beta 3:

• Kart Duel

• Golgo 13 / Golgo 13: Kiseki no Dandou

• Point Blank 2

• Gunbarl

• Ghoul Panic

• Truck Kyosokyoku

• Techno Drive

• Attack Pla Rail

• Derby Quiz: My Dream Horse

• Kaiun Quiz

• Tenkomori Shooting

• Toukon Retsuden 3

• Um Jammer Lammy NOW!

• Super World Stadium 2000 / 2001 are not included yet.

💿 CD-ROM Support

System 12's CD-ROM hardware is now implemented for:

• Um Jammer Lammy NOW!

• Truck Kyosokyoku

For Um Jammer Lammy NOW!, stage music now streams from the CD and the gameplay charts are synchronized to the disc clock.

Disc images are not included with the release and must be supplied by the user.

🔫 Light Gun Support

Light-gun support is now available across the System 12 gun library:

• Point Blank 2

• Gunbarl

• Ghoul Panic

• Oh! Bakyuuun

• Golgo 13 / Golgo 13: Kiseki no Dandou

The core supports MiSTer's normalized USB light-gun interface, including Sinden-style camera guns, as well as mouse input.

A new Light Gun OSD section provides:

• Crosshair controls

• Adjustable white gun border

• Aim device selection

• Aim sensitivity

Golgo 13 also receives additional support for its analog rifle and scope sensor.

Important: the light gun currently needs to be configured as MiSTer Player 1. For a Sinden, for example:

player_1_controller=16c0_0f02

🏎️ Racing Wheels & Analog Controls

Analog input support has been added for:

• Kart Duel

• Truck Kyosokyoku

• Techno Drive

• Attack Pla Rail

The core now implements the H8/3002 A/D converter used by the original hardware, allowing steering, accelerator, brake, and other analog cabinet controls to be driven through MiSTer's analog input system.

Joystick-ramp fallback is also available for users playing without a wheel.

Truck Kyosokyoku additionally gains support for its cabinet controls, including:

• Horn

• Music Back / Next

• View Change

• Automatic transmission controls

Kart Duel received several important fixes in the October 13 build and is now playable using either a controller or steering wheel.

🖥️ GPU & Display Improvements

A major focus of Beta 4 has been GPU throughput and System 12 display behavior.

Improvements include:

• Faster display-list DMA processing

• GPU FIFO fixes

• Improved texture-cache fetching

• Reduced unnecessary framebuffer reads

• Corrected GPU command-buffer reset behavior

These changes significantly improve performance during some of the most demanding System 12 scenes.

🕹️ Cabinet & Input Improvements

Additional changes include:

• Fixed DB9 / DB15 arcade-stick buttons

• Functional Service Mode / Freeze DIP switches

• Mappable TEST and SERVICE inputs

• Game-specific button labels

• Expanded MRA configuration support

• Numerous boot-signature, ZIP-prefix, and configuration fixes

⚠️ Known Issues

A few issues remain:

• Golgo 13 can black-screen when loading one particular story challenge.

• Mr. Driller US still has flashing during some attract sequences and score-screen corruption.

• Derby Quiz, Kart Duel, and Kaiun Quiz can show a flashing horizontal band near the bottom of the screen.

• Tekken Tag Tournament still has a two-scanline band at the very top of the picture.

• Tenkomori Shooting has incorrect font glyphs in some score panels and captions.

• Super World Stadium 2000 / 2001 remain unsupported.

Despite those remaining items, Beta 4 represents a major jump forward for Namco System 12 on MiSTer.

The core has gone from a small group of playable titles to the majority of the platform running, while also gaining CD-ROM streaming, light-gun support, racing controls, cabinet I/O, and major GPU improvements.

Thank you to everyone supporting the project and especially those helping test these builds on real MiSTer hardware.

Enjoy Beta 4!

Disclaimer

This project is an independent, unofficial preservation and development effort and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or associated with Bandai Namco Entertainment, Namco, Sony, MiSTer FPGA, or any other rights holder.

All game names, trademarks, logos, copyrighted works, and other intellectual property referenced remain the property of their respective owners.

No copyrighted game software, ROMs, BIOS files, CD-ROM images, or other proprietary game data are included or distributed with this release. Users are responsible for obtaining and using any required game data in accordance with applicable laws and the rights applicable to the original software and hardware they own.

This software is provided for development, research, interoperability, testing, and preservation purposes, without warranty of any kind. Use is at your own risk.