New Games and Service Release
We have a big list of requested features implemented and bugs fixed below. But, let me present first two new cores contributed by Andrea and reviewed by the team.
Volfied, a QIX-like game from TAITO. This is a derivative board from Rainbow Islands, using the Yamaha YM2203 instead of YM2151 for sound and a frame buffer to draw the background.
Block Out, a 3D tetris. I did not know about this game. It is from Technos, it seems to share the sound subsystem with Double Dragon 2 and use a frame buffer to draw the blocks. This core is based on MAME's documentation. I am not planning on doing further research work on it.
Other than the two new cores, all the rest of the effort has been on fixing issues and implementing requests. I think the most important one is the System 18 extended CRT support.
The SEGA System 18 hardware uses a rather low line frequency which is impossible to handle for many consumer TVs. I won't go much into the details but, if you cannot operate the S18 core on your TV do this:
Start the core
The image will go out of sync, press the OSD button to bring up the OSD
Now press the regular OK button for the OSD. That will start changing the system speed. Press and wait 5 seconds
If that does not work, press again and wait another 5 seconds
There are 8 different settings. Most likely, the 104% setting will work for eveyone. This implies that every thing is +4% faster, including gameplay and music. That's the tradeoff of this solution.
Chuka Taisen is a game for which we already had support on the JTKIWI core but it was disabled because of some off-place sprites. We do not have a final hardware-based solution for that problem, but Andrea contributed a ROM patch for the game that prevents the dummy off-place sprites from showing up.
Full list of changes
New core: VOLFIED. This is a derivative from the Rastan PCB although it introduces a frame buffer. Two-player inputs are not supported yet. Thanks to Asturur
New core: BlockOut. This reuses the Double Dragon 2 sound subsystem, the rest is based on MAME's documentation. Thanks to Asturur
Run and Gun: several GFX improvements. Removed top red line, removed black vertical lines on title screen...
CPS1: permanent buzz sound on Gulunpa fixed
Double Dragon and Double Dragon II: added a Turbo option for Analogue Pocket
Added video mode to MiST/SiDi: scanlines without blending
Tighter CPU clock control on M68000 CPU games that use SDRAM for work RAM
Caliber 50 flip mode implemented. Thanks to Asturur
Thunder Hoop level 4 crash (in-game protection) fixed
Fix screen rotation on SiDi128
Short ROM patch for Chuka Taisen makes it playable on JTKIWI core. Thanks to Asturur
OutRun: corrected CPU timing while the main and sub CPUs arbitrate the shared bus
Fixed System 16 regression introduced last week (sorry!)
Rainbow Islands 1UP sign/boss health bad GFX fixed
Parodius big bomb sprite fixed
Tough Turf wrong background at the very end
1942 object layer off by one pixel in the default orientation mode
