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Text File | 1997-10-04 | 24.3 KB | 631 lines

MagicEngine v0.9 Copyright (c) 1997 David Michel =============================== MagicEngine's Homepage Copyright (c) 1997 Bt Garner ---------------------------- http://joyce.eng.yale.edu/~bt/turbo/emu MagicEngine's Spanish Homepage Copyright (c) 1997 Juan Carlos ------------------------------ http://milu.fut.es/~bzr/ MagicEngine's French Homepage Copyright (c) 1997 Frederic Schmitt ----------------------------------- http://www.imaginet.fr/~schmitt/emuls/ MagicEngine's Japanese HomePage Copyright (c) 1997 Jun Fukushima --------------------------------- http://www.hucard.com/me/ MagicEngine's Benelux HomePage Copyright (c) 1997 J.H. Schulte ------------------------------- http://www.filiaal.net/magic/index.html IMPORTANT --------- Before we see what's new in this version, I have an important thing to tell you. MagicEngine now emulates CD-ROM games, but to do that the emulator needs an image of a System Card. Initialy I had planned to include an internal emulation of the System Card in MagicEngine, but I didn't have enough time to finish it - Actually only 50% of the System Card is emulated, so I have recently changed the emulator to work with an image of a true System Card. I'm sorry for this little inconvenient - I will change that in the next version... Please note also that MagicEngine works only with true CD-ROMs, it doesn't support ROM image of CD-ROMs... NOTE: About the System Cards, all versions are supported but only ---- the version 3.0 will let you play Super CD-ROM games. DISCLAIMER ---------- This program is provided as is. I take no responsibility for any damage or consequences directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, which may arise from using this program - YOU USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! Files in this package --------------------- -FILE_ID.DIZ 446 bytes -CWSDPMI.EXE 20 217 bytes -DEMO.EXE 200 704 bytes -PCE.EXE 199 680 bytes -PCE.INI 2 466 bytes -ENGLISH.TXT 24 905 bytes -ESPANOL.TXT 25 826 bytes -FRANCAIS.TXT 27 603 bytes -ITALIANO.TXT 26 731 bytes -JAPANESE.TXT 23 329 bytes -REGISTER.TXT 1 479 bytes What's new! ----------- First hi to everyone! And a big thank you to everyone who wrote to me in the past few months, I have certainly received too much e-mails, but it was really nice! Thanks for all the compliments I have received, and for all those registrations too! :) I hope you will enjoy this new version as much as the preceding one, I have put a lot of work in it, especially in the CD-ROM emulation... Ok enough blahblah, let's see what's new. The big enhancement is the CD emulation of course! It's not yet complete, but it will let you play perfectly a good number of games. I haven't been able to test all the existing CDs, but compatibility should be about 80% I think. Normally you shouldn't have problems in running your CDs on the PC, I used only MSCDEX functions to access the CD so it should be compatible with all the CD-ROM drives. The only known problem is with Windows 95, for an unknown reason Windows doesn't want to recognize all the tracks of certain CDs - It recognizes only the first audio track. I can't do anything about that, it's a Windows internal problem, and all the other programs have the same problem too, if you try to start a CD audio player, it will see only the first track. Just to say that it's not a bug in MagicEngine. :) On the other hand this doesn't happen at all under DOS... But I repeat it happens only with some CDs, it's possible the CDs you have work equally well under DOS and Windows... Except that the other big change is the HuCard emulation, nearly all the games that were not working, like the so much wanted Nectaris (Military Madness), work perfectly now. In fact I know only three games that still have big problems : Burning Angels, Fighting Run and TV Sport Hockey. I don't remember all the games that were not working but here's a short list : - College Pro Baseball '89 & '90 - Darius Plus - Davis Cup Tennis - Gunboat - Jack Niclaus Golf - Legendary Axe 1 & 2 - Metal Stoker - Naxat Open Golf - Nectaris - Populous - Power Drift - Super Volleyball - TV Sports Football - USA Pro Basketball - Valkyrie - Volfiev Otherwise a few bugs have been corrected too, and some games are nicer now, like Afterburner, Bomberman, Power Tennis, Alice Dream, Baribari, P-47 and a few other. I have tried to not alterate too much the compatibility and normally all the games that were working before, work in this version too; the only problem I have noticed is with Break In - There's a very small error with the cursor sprite. Perhaps one or two other games have similar problems too, but I'm sure you will report me all the faults! Also the sound is a lot nicer in this version, I would be tempted to say it's nearly perfect, but I won't say it, I will let you judge by yourself. The stereo is now perfectly emulated, and really gives another dimension to the games. Sound card that can handle 16bit audio are also supported, it doesn't make a big difference but it's noticeable. A lot of people have asked me to implement a multi-player mode where each player could be configured independently: on the keyboard, on a joypad or on a GrIP pad. Ok, now this is implemented!! I hope you will like the nice menu we have designed for you... So now everything is configurable, you can setup up to five players, and three different configurations can be defined, this will allows you to define a configuration with your favourite settings when you play alone, and one or two more for when you invit some friend for a Bomberman tournament! :) That is for the emulation side, there's also some improvements on the PC side. The two big new things are the VESA 2.0 support and the support for two new sound cards : the UltraSound and the SoundScape. Well there's surely one or two more things that I have forgotten to tell you, but there were so many new things! :) If you want to get in touch with me, here are both the addresses you can use : e-mail : dmichel@easynet.fr snail-mail: David Michel residence du Parc appt n4 86330 Moncontour France What machine is required ? -------------------------- You will need at least a Pentium for correct speed, MagicEngine has been developed and tested on a P100 with 16MB EDO RAM and results are very good on this machine, most of the games run at full frame rate but depending on your configuration it's possible that there will be some differences. The ideal machine is probably a P166 with a good video card. For the CD-ROM drive the most important is the access time, recent 12x or 16x speeds are perfect but all type of drive will be good, even a simple 2x speeds drive. In all cases it will be faster than a real PC Engine CD-ROM drive. :) Otherwise the slowest PC on which MagicEngine has been tested on, is a DX4 100 with 8MB of RAM and a 4x speeds CD-ROM drive. It was slow but everything worked perfectly. Where can I get games ? ----------------------- Please don't ask me for ROM images, I can't and I won't give you any ROMs! How do I use the emulator ? --------------------------- PCE [options] rom-image Where 'rom-image' is the name of a PC Engine game image. The emulator accepts two formats: a raw image or an image with a 512 byte header (see below for header format). Several options are accepted : -1 ~ Change the format of the image. Two formats exist, normal images and splitted images. Usually all files of 384KB (and a few other like the 512KB version of 'Devil's Crush') use the splitted format, so if you have problems with one of those images, try this option -cd ~ Directly start a CD-ROM game -sgx ~ Enable the Supergrafx emulation, but before you ask me, no it doesn't fully work yet! :) I have just made the old Supergrafx emulation optional, and deactivated by default, because some CDs can't work if it's activated -us/-usa ~ Inverse the bit order of the image, you can try this option if a game doesn't seem to work -nojoy ~ Disable the PC joypad -nosound ~ Disable the sound card Keyboard Functions ------------------ 1) Control Layout : ---------------- F5 ~ Select the default configuration F6/F7/F8 ~ Select one of the three user configurations Cursor-keys ~ Direction Enter ~ Run Space ~ Select Ctrl ~ Button II Alt ~ Button I Z ~ Auto fire II X ~ Auto fire I 0 ~ Slow motion NOTE: Those last control keys are only available when ---- the configuration is set to F5. 2) Frame Rate : ------------ MagicEngine is a pretty fast emulator, but on some old 486 it's still too slow. To speed up the emulation you can control how many frames will be skipped. F1 ~ display all frames [1/1] F2 ~ skip 1 frame [1/2] F3 ~ skip 2 frames [1/3] F4 ~ skip 4 frames [1/5] NOTE: The F2 mode has a side effect. A lot of games use ---- sprite flickering to render special effects. You can't see that in this mode, and even worse, some sprites can completely disappear. In this case it is recommended to try another frame rate. 3) Sound control : --------------- F9 ~ enable/disable the sound F10 ~ reverb effect + ~ increase volume - ~ decrease volume 4) Misc controls : --------------- 1 ~ Toggle sprites on/off 2 ~ Toggle background on/off Tab ~ Magic key that can fix some games. You can try this when a game seems to be frozen (please note that it works only for a few games) Esc ~ Go to the menu Pause ~ Pause the game Prtscr ~ Make a snapshot of the current screen (under Windows 95 press shift + prtscr) F11 ~ Enable/disable the info screen F12 ~ Enable/disable the scanlines video mode NOTE: When in pause mode, the 'prtscr' key is active, ---- otherwise press 'pause' again or 'esc' to quit this mode. The main menu ------------- BOOT CD ~ Select a system card for running a CD-ROM game RESET ~ Completely reset the game. You can also press 'run' and then 'select' to do a reset PLAY ~ Return to the game, same as pressing 'esc' again LOAD ~ This entry is active when a game archive is present in the same directory as PCE.EXE or if MagicEngine can find any ROM (see the 'path' option in the INI file) CONFIG ~ Allow you to completely redefine the configuration of the five players HELP ~ Display nice gfx pages showing the function of all the keys ABOUT ~ The copyright screen QUIT ~ Quit the emulator The config menu --------------- MagicEngine has now a menu to configure the player's controls. To edit a player, just select it with 'up' and 'down' and then press 'space' to change the settings or 'enter' to select a controller (ie. keyboard, joystick, ...). Three configurations are available, select them by pressing F6 to F8. About joysticks they are auto-calibrated, just move the stick a little and MagicEngine will calibrate them automatically. The INI file ------------ Normally you won't have to modify this file, but in some situations it can be useful. frame_rate=[1|2|3|5] -------------------- It's like keys F1 to F4, but it allows you to select your preferred frame rate at startup. default_config=[0|1|2|3] ------------------------ Select the configuration to use at startup. You can change it later by pressing F5 to F8. delay=[999999|...] ------------------ Indicate the delay for slow motion (you can use any value). It is best to experiment and see which delay is suitable. keyboard=[0|1|2] ---------------- Select the type of keyboard : 0 -> AZERTY 1 -> QWERTY 2 -> QWERTZ joypad=[0|1|2] -------------- Enable or disable the PC joypad : 0 -> disable the joypad 1 -> automatic mode 2 -> manual mode In this version the automatic and manual mode do the same thing, they both enable the joypad. auto_fire_speed=[1|...|10] -------------------------- Select the speed of the auto fire. button_1=[0|1|2|3] button_2=[0|1|2|3] button_3=[0|1|2|3] button_4=[0|1|2|3] ------------------ Determine how the two or four buttons of the PC joypad are mapped: 0 -> button I 1 -> button II 2 -> select 3 -> run soft_reset=[y|n] ---------------- In certain games if you press 'run' and then 'select' you will reset the PC Engine. This option will prevent this to happen. If it's enabled only the 'reset' entry in the menu will allow you to do a reset. graphic_format=[0|1] -------------------- The snapshots can now be saved in two formats, this option will let you choose the one your prefer : 0 -> PCX 1 -> BMP vesa=[y|n] ---------- If set the emulator will use a VESA video mode, otherwise it will use a simple mode-x video mode. video_mode=[0|1|2|3] -------------------- Select the screen video mode : 0 -> automatic 1 -> 256x240 2 -> 320x240 3 -> 360x240 4 -> 320x240 | 5 -> 400x300 | VESA modes 6 -> 512x384 | 7 -> 640x480 | When in automatic mode, the emulator selects itself the appropriate mode for each game, otherwise the mode is locked. The four last modes are available only when 'vesa' is set to 'y' and if your VESA BIOS supports them. fullscreen=[y|n] ---------------- The fullscreen mode is a special 256x240 video mode that fills the entire screen, all the black border around the display area will disappear. Unfortunatelly this mode doesn't work on all the video card... NOTE: This mode doesn't work in VESA mode. ---- scanlines=[0|1|2] ----------------- Select the type of the scanlines video mode. This mode tries to simulate a NTSC TV on your PC by inserting small black lines between screen lines. The software mode is safe for all monitors, but the hardware mode uses a special refresh rate of 97Hz. Newer monitors can handle this frequency, but some older monitors can't. If you are not sure, select the software mode '2' or no scanlines mode at all '0'. This option is activated by the F12 key. 0 -> none 1 -> hardware 2 -> software NOTE: This mode doesn't work in VESA mode. ---- laptop=[y|n] ------------ Disable the 360x240 screen resolution for laptop computer. sound=[y|n] ----------- Enable or disable sound output. 16bit=[y|n] ----------- Enable or disable 16bit sound. stereo=[y|n] ------------ Enable or disable stereo. reverb=[y|n] ------------ If set the reverb sound effect will be enabled at startup. master_vol=[0-100] dac_vol=[0-100] cd_vol=[0-100] -------------- Control the initial volume settings of your sound card. If you experiment too quiet or too loud volumes, change those settings. If no values are given MagicEngine will not change the volumes. NOTE: 'dac_vol' has not effect on the Ultrasound. ---- adpcm_vol=[0-200] ----------------- Control the internal volume of the ADPCM channel present in the PC Engine CD-ROM unit. The normal maximun value is 100; it's possible to increase it, but in this case and depending of the game, sound can be distorted. sound_card=[0|1|2|3] -------------------- Select the sound card to use in MagicEngine : 0 -> auto detect 1 -> Sound Blaster 2 -> SoundScape 3 -> UltraSound sync_dma=[y|n] -------------- Enable the synchronization of the sound DMA. Try to activate this option if you hear scratchy sound! info_screen=[y|n] ----------------- Enable the info screen at startup. This screen shows the actual volume for the six sound channels, the selected frame rate and how many frames per second are displayed. Press F11 to toggle this screen on/off. cache=[y|n] ----------- When running a CD-ROM game MagicEngine can maintain an internal cache in memory. It can speed up some games, especially if you have a CD-ROM drive with a slow access time. cache_size=[4096|...] --------------------- Define the size of the CD-ROM cache in KB. cd_drive=[D|...] ---------------- By default MagicEngine finds by itself the letter of your CD-ROM drive, but if you have several drives you can specify here the letter of the drive that MagicEngine will use. system_card_1=[SYSCARD1.PCE|...] system_card_2=[SYSCARD2.PCE|...] system_card_3=[SYSCARD3.PCE|...] system_card_4=[GE.PCE|...] -------------- The CD emulation can not actually run without a System Card. You can set the path of four different System Cards here, MagicEngine will let you select them from its 'boot cd' menu. NOTE: If no files are specified MagicEngine will look ---- for the files indicated above in its own directory. path=[GAMES.DAT|GAMES.IDX|C:\PCE\GAMES\|...] -------------------------------------------- Tell the emulator to use a game archive or a game directory. MagicEngine can now build automatically a menu for you, you just have to indicate the path where your ROMs are located and the emulator will make the menu and load the ROMs individually. You don't have to make an archive anymore. NOTE: MagicEngine recognizes only the file with .PCE as ---- extension, if you have some ROMs with other extensions you can add them manually in the GAMES.IDX file created by the emulator, or just rename them. The header format ----------------- In this version the header format has been enhanced to support bigger HuCards, like Street Fighter 2'. The header is 512 bytes long; here is a short description of all the used bytes : offset size description ------ ---- ----------- 0 1 number of 8KB banks present in the ROM, the maximun value is 128 1 1 ROM format: ---------- bit 0: set if the ROM is splitted bit 1: set when the header contain the title of the game (see below) bit 6: set for an extended HuCard (> 1MB) bit 7: set to inverse the bit order of the ROM 2 1 number of 512KB extra banks (used for extended HuCards). 448 1 length of the title 449 1 checksum of the title (XOR of all the bytes) 450 62 title of the game The rest of the header is not yet used, but for future compatibility, it is recommended to fill this area with zeroes ('0'). Thanks ------ Many persons have contributed to make what MagicEngine is now, I'd like to thank them here, especially : Peter Kriegesmann Stuart Campbell Jens Ch. Restemeier Dave Shadoff Indi and my brother Cedric Michel Special thanks to : - All my beta-testers! Nice job guys!! - All the registered users! Thank you!! - All who have sent me suggestions to enhance MagicEngine! - Alex Martin, for having translated the documentation in Spanish! - Mauro Grauso, who made MagicEngine more international with his Italian translation! - Jun Fukushima, for having translated the documentation in Japanese! - Bt Garner, for providing me a homepage for MagicEngine. - Achillefs Margaritis, for having coded this nice 'fullscreen' mode. - DJ Delorie and all the persons behind DJGPP. - Shawn Hargreaves, his great ALLEGRO library has saved me a lot of work during all the development of MagicEngine. - Charles Sandmann, for allowing me to distribute CWSDPMI along with my emulator. If you are interested you can get the latest version of his program and the source code at this address : ftp.simtel.net:pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2misc/csdpmi*.zip Or if you want to contact him via regular mail: Charles W Sandmann (sandmann@clio.rice.edu) 1206 Braelinn, Sugar Land, TX 77479 David Michel ------------ dmichel@easynet.fr