Updating VAntAGE (current version: 1.13p1)

[Hornpipe2]

I'm working on updating VAntAGE, the Vertical Antiquated Arcade Game Emulator.  This project runs 85+ classic vertical arcade games at 100% speed on a Pentium 100 or better.

The latest version is 1.13p1.  Downloads and changelog can be found here.

Original post follows.

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Is there anyone out there who would still be interested in updates to this project?  What would you like to see?

There is, I think, some low-hanging fruit out there that might make a useful 1.13 release:
* High Score support
* update to the latest MZ80 core (3.4)

I tried a MAWS search for "raster, z80 cpu, parents only, vertical" games and it turned up 554 results.  That's obviously inflated because it includes games which used a z80 as a coprocessor while e.g. a 68k did the work.  It would take some time to parse the list and figure out what is useful to add from that.

[tikbalang]

i am.

[Hornpipe2]

Last night I was able to set up a working build environment.  It seems someone in the last couple years has _finally_ patched cwsdpmi to fix that stupid "too much memory = crash" bug, so I was able to build a version that could run everything from Galaxian to Gunsmoke without any page fault crashes.  A few source cleanup type changes were required to get us building under the latest gcc.

If anyone else is interested, I am thinking of rebuilding "pure" build environments for 486, Pentium and Pentium Pro and zipping them up so that others don't have the nightmare of tracking down the MAME-patched SEAL sound library, etc.

Seems VAntAGE was already on the latest mz80 core - I regenerated a new one from scratch, and the differences were minor (went ahead and replaced it anyway).  I looked into the high score patches for MAME, seems like those could be added in with a little work.

I also re-enabled the Dig Dug WIP driver to see how much progress was made last time around... it looks like it gets to the ROM check screen, but everything is totally garbled and the game doesn't run.  If I'm going to be writing new drivers, I'd better start with something even easier (yes I know, it's almost exactly Galaga hardware, but I've never touched emulator source code before).

Maybe one good quick win would be hooking fake analog controls to the buttons so we can play Moonwar / Azurian.  I was also considering a switch to enable "Button 1 + 2 = Button 3" so that Gunsmoke can be played on 2-button machines.  I realize these are hacks in the name of playability over true re-creation but isn't that what VAntAGE is all about anyway?

Anyway if this starts to turn into a real short-term project I should set up a real website for it.

[gonzo90017]

Hell yeah!

[Hornpipe2]

Started working on trying a new driver: "Moon Quasar", which is nearly identical to the (working) Moon Cresta driver except for the ROM names and an extra dipswitch.  Rigged everything up, and I've made it so far as a screen full of red 0s (just like the first frame or two of current mame), but it halts there.

From what I can tell, Moon Quasar needs one more step on init to change the "memory_base_opcode_ptr" to halfway into the ROM segment - which would (hopefully) be the decrypted area.  There's no comparable function in VAntAGE to do this, though, and no other VAntAGE game needs this step from what I can tell.

Here it is in MAME:

Code: [Select]

unsigned char *rom = memory_region(REGION_CPU1);
int diff = memory_region_length(REGION_CPU1) / 2;


memory_set_opcode_base(0,rom+diff);
and the function from memory.c:

Code: [Select]

/*-------------------------------------------------
memory_set_opcode_base - set the base of
ROM
-------------------------------------------------*/

void memory_set_opcode_base(int cpunum, void *base)
{
if (cur_context == cpunum)
{
opcode_base = base;
opcode_memory_min = (offs_t) 0x00000000;
opcode_memory_max = (offs_t) 0x7fffffff;
}
else
{
cpudata[cpunum].op_rom = base;
cpudata[cpunum].op_mem_min = (offs_t) 0x00000000;
cpudata[cpunum].op_mem_max = (offs_t) 0x7fffffff;
}
}

EDIT:  SUCCESS... sort of.  I decided to try another Galaxian-based game, "Catacomb" which came out well after the last VAntAGE release.  All I did was copy the Galaxian layout and add a struct for the new ROMs based on the latest MAME code... and we have another playable game in VAntAGE!  It just needs fixed DIP switches to complete things.  Sadly this game has a bad / missing PROM so the colors are wrong, but hey it's progress : )

[gonzo90017]

Nice! Keep us posted.

[Hornpipe2]

I love these Galaxian-based games.  I added support for "Lucky Today", which is just a boring slot machine game.  There's supposed to be a bill acceptor here and no inputs in VAntAGE exist for that, but the coin insert works just as well.  Still, variety is good - beats adding yet another Pac-Man bootleg hack : )

Unfortunately the "original orientation" is 180 from what it's supposed to be.  I'm sure there is an easy fix out there.  OH!  I fixed the dips in catacomb as well : )

[Hornpipe2]

* Hacked in a fix to the upside-down Lucky Today
* Added "Triple Draw Poker" (tdpgal).  This one's got a weird glitch: the game plays fine, but the VAntAGE UI is upside down!  I may just leave it as is.

Well, that just leaves Streaking as the only missing "parent" on the Galaxian board.  There are a couple of Moon Cresta-based ones that don't work still - Moon Quasar and Skybase.  I may take a crack at fixing those.

[Hornpipe2]

Today I spent a little time on the Pac-Man board set, to see what fun things could be enabled there.  I tried to punch out a driver for Cannon Ball (cannonbp) since VAntAGE is lacking in Arkanoid-types, but after some hacking I got some images on the screen in wrong places and the gameplay was totally screwed.  This game has some kind of custom protection chip inside, the emulation should be relatively simple but I don't know if I did the work right.

So I decided to cut my losses and go for an easier game: Eggor (eggor) - which works great, though MAME reports the colors are wrong.  The driver is basically Mr TNT but with new ROMs.

Next I took a shot at Naughty Mouse (nmouse).  From what I can tell it gets to the Rom Check screen and crashes out.  I think there is a custom interrupt handler here which I need to implement.  Should be simple assuming I can find out how to hook it in...

This weekend I'll probably try to set up optimized sterile build environments for 486, 586 and 686 and produce some binaries with support for the 4 new games.  I've also commented out drivers for games which are "not working" so that the count isn't artificially inflated.

[bloodyviking77]

Wow. Haven't checked in here in ages - what a pleasant surprise to see the oldies getting some love!
This is a great project - keep up the good work !

[Hornpipe2]

Okay, I took the time to set up some build environments for i486, i586 and i686... and built some 1.13p1 binaries for you all to try out!

http://greg-kennedy.com/vantage

Please test and report bugs : )

[EndTwist]

It is really nice to see someone picking VAntAGE development up again.

Hornpipe2: Have you thought about throwing the source on GitHub? (http://github.com — no affiliation, I just love it). It's free, and people would be able to contribute very easily, provided they can use Git.

[Hornpipe2]

I have thought about making a "real" source-managed project out of it, but two things are stopping me from putting in the extra effort required:

1) I already know the interest in VAntAGE binaries is pretty low, so there's probably not a single person out there besides me interested in updating the source.  Heck, it hadn't been touched in 5+ years until I got into it.
2) It's not my source anyway - though I know I'm welcome to fork it and all, I would hope to wrap up v1.13 and give it back to Brian Lewis for hosting on his site.  Ideally he'd put the whole thing on Sourceforge or something instead.

Good suggestion though!  And thanks for your interest in the project : )