JROK's Arcade Simulation - Namco SYSTEM 1 ----------------------------------------- THIS IS A PUBLIC BETA RELEASE - THERE ARE BUGS ! USE AT OWN RISK.... Beta 1.2 - 14th Mar 1999 ----------------------------- Support for Galaga'88 has been added, check the ROMS.TXT file for the expected filenames. Sample effects are now supported. Save state files are smaller NOTE: Old save states cannot be loaded in this version. PLEASE DELETE the jas.cfg file and any .SAV files from the directory Beta 1.1 - 27th Feb 1999 ----------------------------- And the moral is.... dont screw with code you know works, turns out I killed the VESA detect for some video card, Matrox most noticably (pretty annoying considering I've got a G200 powered machine here too !) So.. that's now fixed. As the Matrox doesnt support the 400x300 or 512x384 modes it defaults to 640x480x16bit. NOTE: These are 16bit color modes. Ok, who honestly wants to play two player games ? Well, that got accidentally left out (ooops) so it's now back in.. '2' to start two player. Beta 1.0 - 26th Feb 1999 ----------------------------- Here's the first public BETA of JAS-SYS1 the first arcade simulator for the Namco system 1 hardware. This game board appeared around 1986 and supported some real classic games, such as Pacmania, Galaga'88, Dragon Spirit and SplatterHouse. In my humble opinion this boardset is the pinnacle of 8bit board design. Featuring a total of THREE 6809 cpu's and a 63701 micro-controller. Video hardware was equally as cool with a 6 layer screen, 4 of which featured hardware scrolling, each layer could display 256 colours with a programmable 24bit palette - allowing for upto 16million colors. Basically 'kick-ass' by any standards. The sound system used one of the CPUs, and the micro-controller for sampled waveform playback, it also had stereo sound provided by two Namco 8 channel custom sound chips and the excellent Yamaha YM2151 FM synth. ============ = Sections = ============ 0. Emulator Notes & Known Bugs <- READ THIS 1. New Features & Game Notes 2. System Requirements 3. Running the Simulator & Command Line options 4. Game ROM files 5. Quickload/Save feature 6. Test Mode Keys 7. In Game Keys 8. Player Keys & Joystick 9. Video mode considerations 10. Future Additions 11. Release History 12. Contract Information 13. Thanks 0. Emulator Notes & Known Bugs ------------------------------ This emulator REQUIRES MMX support ! MMX instructions are used extensively in the video display routines. As this is a beta there are known bugs !! Video Mode: This game requires a VESA video BIOS ! To run it needs to be able to use either a 400x300x16bit color mode, 512x384x16bit or 640x480x16 bit. It checks for each mode in order. No DIP switch support, I've not implemented all the dip switch settings. Time ran out for this first BETA so it got left out. Work In Progress: Improving the YM2151 emulation, 16bit mixing will finally be added ! speeding it up more and fixing some of the oddities (!) Support for Galaga'88 ! Support for the REAL Ym2151 plus details of how to hack an old Soundblaster 1.0 or Adlib card to take one ;-) STILL got to add in the dip switch support (BAH!) Few pops and whistles in the YM2151 emulation, that still needs to be optimized and cleaned up a little. *VERY IMPORTANT* NOTE: I have come accross a corrupted set of Japanese ROMs for pacmania. One of the caracter ROMs is a bad dump, the effected rom is the CHAR ROM 2 ( called pm-c2.e8 ) this can be replaced with the PM-CHR2.BIN ROM image from the US version, without problems. A random rude insult goes to the first person who mails me about this problem having obviously not read this.... 1. New Features & Game Notes ----------------------------- Beta 1.2: March 14th - Galaga'88 USA & JAPAN version added. Screen re-draw is a little slower, approx 3% to allow support for programmable priority playfields. 2. System Requirements ---------------------- Baseline machine: Pentium 233 + a fast video card with YM emulation OFF & no frame sync ! This program hogs the CPU, it really sucks up the cycles. So you need either a Pentium 350 or better for full frame rate and emulated Yamaha YM2151 audio. To improve speed on a slower machine try the following: - Disable Emulated YM2151 support, this is VERY cpu intensive. - Disable frame sync 'w' option on command line - Disable Joystick - Run in DOS mode, not in a windows/win95 DOS box If you're running using an Intel FX,LX or BX chipsets try using the fastvid program ( not included ) this is a useful utility which really improves video performance. 3. Running the Simulator & Command Line options ----------------------------------------------- jas-sys1 GAME [n] [w] [y] [c] [l ] [m] [] - brackets indicate optional values GAME - the game to run PACMANIA - USA pacmania PACMANIA - Japanese pacmania GALAGA88 - USA Galaga 88 GALAGA8J - Japanese Galaga 88 Note: See Game ROM files Options ------- c - Sets soundcard. 1 = soundblaster only for now... n - No menus. No menus will be displayed, use this with the 'l' option to load a game and immediately exit using the ESC get. By default the game will start from fresh reset. l - Loads a saved image. Specified by value 1 to 9 The image file will be loaded and automatically run. m - Mode is the VESA mode to use. Default is 400x300x16bit m1 = 512x384x16bit m2 = 640x480x16bit NOTE: not all cards support all modes !!!! w - No wait for Video Sync. Stops the wait for video frame refresh. Disabling this option means the game will run faster. 4. Game ROM Files ----------------- The ROMs for each game need to be placed in sub-directories named after the games. The following directories are required pacmania <- USA version of Pacmania pacmanij <- JAPAN version of Pacmania galaga88 <- USA version of Galaga 88 galaga8j <- JAPAN version of Galaga 88 See the file ROMS.TXT for details of filenames. 5. QuickLoad/Quick Save feature -------------------------------- At any point during game play, the image may be saved. This is a snapshot of the system memory and game status, you can reload this game later by using either the command line 'l' option, or pressing shift and the function key (see next paragraph). During game play hitting the function key, f1 to f9 will save a game image ( the number being the same as the function key eg. in Gaplus hitting f1 save a file called gap-dat1.sav ) Hold down SHIFT and a function key f1-f9 to load an image. After loading the image will automatically start playing. 6. Test Mode Keys ----------------- Not yet implemented... Doh... 7. In Game Keys --------------- 3 - add credit 1/2 - 1, or 2, player start F1 -> F9 - Save game image SHIFT F1 -> F9 - Load game image F10 - start test mode <- ( oh no it doesnt !) F12 - save screen dump in .TGA format Esc - return to menu 8. Player Keys & Joystick -------------------------- Use the 'define keys' function on the menu to setup the keyboard controls. 9. Video mode considerations ----------------------------- The default VESA mode is 400x300x16bit color. Other cards may will require an additional VESA driver. If this mode is not supported it attempted to use 512x384x16 bit or 640x480x16bit For a really good ( the best ?) VESA driver you can get see Scitech's Display Doctor, their web site is at http://www.scitechsoft.com REALLY IMPORTANT: Make sure the VESA modes are set to 60Hz refresh! The game will run TOO FAST without it. Using Scitech's Display Doctor use the UVCONFIG -e60 to set the low res refresh rate to 60Hz. A lot of very popular cards dont seem to support the 400x300x16bit right now... So used of the Matrox G200 and STB 4400 will get the higher res. 640x480x16bit screen... 10. Future Additions ------------------- Lots can go in here... 11.Release History ------------------ Beta 1.0 - Public release Feb 26th 1999 Beta 1.1 - Public release Feb 27th 1999 - Fix VESA mode detect for Matrox cards (!) Fix Two player mode (!) Beta 1.2 - Galaga'88 support