Parrot’s Ark: Another Cargo Arrives
The Ark keeps moving.
What started with individual systems coming aboard has now turned into something much larger. While new hardware continues to be studied and emulated, the systems already aboard are being rebuilt, tuned and pushed closer to the machines they are preserving.
This update brings new emulation support, wider force feedback and output support, better driving and lightgun controls, and another large round of performance, audio and graphics improvements across the TeknoParrot emulator family.
As always, TeknoParrot is an emulator project. We do not provide, host or distribute games, ROMs, game data or copyrighted arcade software. Game software is not included with TeknoParrot.
Four more passengers for TeknoModel2
The Model 2 section of the Ark has grown.
TeknoModel2 now includes emulation support for:
Sega Touring Car Championship
Virtua Cop - 2 Players
Virtua Cop 2 - 2 Players
The House of the Dead - 2 Players
TeknoParrotUI support has been added alongside them.
But simply getting another game running is only part of the work.
Model 2 timing has now been corrected to 57.524160 Hz. CPU execution, memory reads, interrupts and FIFO handling have been optimized, while SCSP audio performance continues to improve.
Missing texture filtering has been implemented and a tilemap priority problem has been corrected.
Sega Rally also gains adjustable WASAPI volume controls with boost support.
Transmission handling has been rebuilt so H-pattern gears behave more like real arcade hardware. Hold the gear to remain in gear. Release it and the transmission returns to neutral.
The guns are being recalibrated
Bringing old lightgun hardware into a modern setup creates its own problems.
The House of the Dead now has improved default calibration, while Virtua Cop 2 received calibration patches designed around modern lightgun setups.
The old gun-flash hiding method has also been replaced with individual game patches, and TeknoViper's crosshair system has now made its way aboard TeknoModel2.
The wheels fight back
Force feedback has become one of the biggest areas of work across the Ark.
FFB and output support has now been added or expanded across:
TeknoZeus
TeknoVUnit
TeknoHornet
TeknoCobra
Code One Dispatch
TeknoViper
TeknoModel1
TeknoModel2
TeknoVegas
TeknoVegas force feedback has been doubled, while TeknoModel1 VR and Virtua Fighter feedback received additional tuning.
The TeknoParrotUI FFB strength setting is now a proper slider, with 100 as its default.
FFBBlaster wheel loading and several device-position configuration issues have also been corrected.
Cruis'n gets another overhaul
TeknoVUnit has received one of its largest passes yet.
Cruis'n USA, Cruis'n World and Offroad now support improved transmission behavior and sequential shifting through TeknoParrotUI.
Cruis'n USA networking has also been repaired by handling its short-timeout handshake locally.
Cruis'n World received a DMA timing workaround for the disappearing garage, alongside selectable 2.4 and 2.5 revisions and a workaround for the 2.4 neutral gear sprite.
A particularly expensive Vulkan problem was also found and eliminated. Repeated frame resizing was occurring when it was not needed, creating a major performance penalty.
Audio and interrupt handling have been optimized at the same time.
Racing Jam DX
TeknoCobra continues to mature.
Racing Jam DX now has corrected gear handling, proper neutral behavior and corrected clutch logic.
Sequential shifting has been added with matching TeknoParrotUI support.
Coin handling has also been corrected, allowing the previous free-play workaround to be removed.
FFB and outputs are now integrated into TeknoCobra as well.
HNG64 controls restored
Several problems were hiding inside TeknoHNG64's I/O path.
Road Edge and Xtreme Rally now have shift-up and shift-down bindings that correctly match their actual in-race behavior.
A missing instruction jump flag was also discovered. That bug could cause the emulated I/O board to skip inputs entirely, including BGM controls.
Beast Busters: Second Nightmare also receives corrected lightgun and XInput axis configuration.
Zeus gets lighter
TeknoZeus has inherited the newer texture-dumping and caching work developed for TeknoVegas.
This removes a significant amount of unnecessary CPU overhead.
Another serious issue was found in the GPU path: empty uploads were repeatedly being submitted and forcing synchronization stalls.
Removing them brings major improvements in affected areas, including the Cruis'n Exotica test menu.
Audio processing has also been optimized further.
More work below deck
TeknoVegas has received faster texture loading, palette-aware texture replacement, improved LZMA decoding and better audio SRAM handling.
California Speed no longer gets stuck during boot when texture packs replace Voodoo boot textures.
CarnEvil inherits newer audio-loop optimizations, unnecessary framebuffer sorting has been removed, and Mace: The Dark Age finally has its missing kick-button binding with proper UI hints.
Elsewhere:
TeknoHornet has faster compute shaders and reduced CPU spinlocking.
TeknoM2 no longer resets EEPROM at boot and no longer requires AVX2.
TeknoS21 has expanded emulator-specific error reporting and checks.
TeknoS22 now runs WASAPI audio independently from frame presentation.
TeknoParrotUI no longer creates teknoparrot.ini for emulators that never use it.
UI metadata and several control configurations have been corrected.
The Ark keeps sailing
And the Ark still has room.
More systems, more emulated games, and more features are in the pipeline.