SSF Ver0.07 beta R3

Borisz · March 21st, 2006

Haven't really looked into the changelist yet, but aside from compatibility related stuff, the things you'll be interested in the most are STV emulation, and that SSF can now run without BIOS files (of course its still recommended to use them).

http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~phantasy/ssf/index.html

JKKDARK · March 21st, 2006

without bios? wow, that is better

Borisz · March 21st, 2006

More idiot-friendly, but not necessarily better. I can't begin to imagine the problems that running a game without the BIOS will cause, especially for games that don't even work and reset to the BIOS by start (the emu would just quit with error message with the user having no clue in what just happened).

anyway, here's the changelist. my comments are in bold.

FRT processing of the SH2 was updated
PCM sound generation of the SCSP was updated
The missing Timer Starting Primary processing (???) was added to the SCU DMA
The back screen of the VDP2 and the scroll processing was updated
(note: the back screen means a color that is set to the whole background, and the actual graphics are displayed in front of that. It's very useful becase you can have, say, a simple red background that way without any processing power on the background/sprite engine. Metal Slug for example uses this, and now shows correct graphics because of this with this version.)

The button handling the screen rotation option (you know, the one used for tate modes in shmups - you don't need to set your monitor sideways because the emu will just rotate the screen instead) was moved from regular 0 to the numeric 0
The "System Program" was hooked up (usage is optional)
BIOS file is not needed when its hooked
However, software which uses the BIOS will not work if there is no BIOS.
(note: by System Program, I assume the author means the specific code in the BIOS that makes booting a game possible. What this means, basically, is that games will now boot without the BIOS. But if the game corresponds to the BIOS in some way, or tries entering back into it, it will stop working because the actual BIOS is not there. Therefore this is completely optional, and is triggered by the "Not Use BIOS" option under the Program3 tab of the options menu - if you don't have any bios file specified, this will be the default of course)

STV emulation was added
STV mode is triggered by holding SHIFT while the emulator starts up, after specifying an STV BIOS.
It is also possible to specify a ROM file directly via commandline, in this case it is not necessary to press Shift.
BIOS is required to run STV.
(Here is a link to an explenation on how the ROM files inside the ZIP should be named as, it includes a bunch of interesting stuff on how the ROMs are placed on the actual hardware, but as far as I can tell MAME roms are named according to this too, so its unnecessary for me to translate it.)
input used for the STV are:
TEST = F11 key
SERVICE = F12 key
Coin 1 = 5 key
Coin 2 = 6 key
Coin 3 = 7 key
Coin 4 = 8 key
1P Start = 1 key
2P Start = 2 key
3P Start = 3 key
4P Start = 4 key
The button setup of each player follows the controller setup of SSF.
Because of that, the mahjongg panel/controller and the 3P and 4P controller inputs are not supported.
Also, protections are not emulated either. (note: Radiant Silvergun on the STV is one example to that, and works the same way as it did in MAME before it emulated this protection: it hangs after pressing start.)

**refraction** · March 21st, 2006

hmm i imagine there will be some level of HLE bios going on in there somewhere. most games make system calls to run standard routines.

__________________

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Dont PM me for help, use the forums, thats what its for!

Borisz · March 21st, 2006

Or possibly the author reverse engineered the BIOS and included his own code instead of the copyrighted SEGA one? Like Kega Fusion did with the 32x bios. One would need to memory dump the emulator to check that, though.

xemumanic · March 22nd, 2006

I'm havinig trouble loading up ST-V ROMs. I'm using the current MAME set, the BIOS loads fine if I dont pick a game, but if I select a roms, say rsgun.zip from my MAME set, zip decoder.dll crashes, and so SSF goes with it. What can I do to fix this?

Borisz · March 22nd, 2006

Appearantly zipdecoder.dll can't handle zip files with comments. If your set is torrentzipped (if you got the full pack from where I think you did) then it has comments included, which cause crashing. And Radiant Silvergun doesn't work anyway, it has a protection which is not yet emulated by SSF.

xemumanic · March 23rd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Borisz

Appearantly zipdecoder.dll can't handle zip files with comments. If your set is torrentzipped (if you got the full pack from where I think you did) then it has comments included, which cause crashing. And Radiant Silvergun doesn't work anyway, it has a protection which is not yet emulated by SSF.

Thanks, I'll try it again.

I didnt get my ROMs where you think I did, I don't have the entire MAME ROMset, I only said I'm using the current MAME ROMset for Radiant. Nonetheless, thanks for the info.

EDIT: Yeah, it works. I knew Radiant wouldnt play as you mentioned that earlier, but the problem was it never even got that far.

Last edited by xemumanic; March 23rd, 2006 at 00:42..

Hamsandwhich · March 25th, 2006

Runs like a charm, but I can't seem to save. Everything looks well when I save in-game, but if I turn of the emulator, and reboot, the information is lost. Any tips?

JKKDARK · March 25th, 2006

do you have the same problem with other games?? try in your saturn

Borisz · March 26th, 2006

Quote:

Anyone try to run Panzer Dragoon Saga on this yet?

I've beaten the whole game. A few of the rotating backgrounds are glitched but otherwise it runs perfectly fine.

Make sure that the files that SSF uses for saved games are properly accessible (not read only, etc). Or try enabling the "Hook backup library" option.

KMFDManic · March 26th, 2006

for some reason or another, even though I specified the stv bios, when I hold shift down when starting up the emulator...it does not go to stv mode...Is there something I am missing here? thanks in appreciation of any response to my post...

KMFDManic · March 27th, 2006

nevermind, it was a problem with bios...I got it working perfectly now!

JKKDARK · March 27th, 2006

obviously, it is the best emulator for saturn

xemumanic · March 27th, 2006

Tate mode doesnt seem to work with ST-V mode. The translation says press Numeric 0 (zero), but it doesn't work. Any ideas?

EDIT: Seems DirectDraw can't be enabled if you want it to work.

Last edited by xemumanic; March 27th, 2006 at 22:06..

Borisz · March 27th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by xemumanic

Tate mode doesnt seem to work with ST-V mode. The translation says press Numeric 0 (zero), but it doesn't work. Any ideas?

EDIT: Seems DirectDraw can't be enabled if you want it to work.

Screen rotation only works in direct3d (default) mode, so ya, don't enable directdraw. If you look back to one of the older changelogs, its mentioned in that.

I should really really make a manual or something.

xemumanic · March 30th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Borisz

I should really really make a manual or something.

Yeah, I'd love to see that. You also let out another little tid bit I didnt know, that the default mode was D3D. Still doesnt explain why full screen tate mode looks so horrible (flickering of the task bar and other things) but its good to know, I wont be using DirectDraw anymore.

Borisz · March 30th, 2006

Directdraw can be faster for some people. I guess it depends on your videocard, for me its slower if i enable vsync (on a gf4mx). Also press f5 twice and it'll force refresh the empty space of the screen where the taskbar and other stuff tends to flickers.

Turok · April 16th, 2006

What exactly is "hook backup library"?

Borisz · April 16th, 2006

A hack that grants you infinite backup space (so you don't have to mess with not enough space for savegames on the memory cards or internal backup memory). Basically it's there so your memory card wont ever get filled up, and you can have a backup memory cart AND a 4m RAM extension hooked up at the same.

Well, it's not technically infinite as it just stores gamesaves on your hard disk independantly (in the Backup folder). But most savegames are only 1-5 kbytes in size, so an average hundred-gigabyte hdd would give you more space then anyone could ever possible need for this.

March 21st, 2006	#1 (permalink)
Borisz Vanned Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: dot hu Posts: 1,327	SSF Ver0.07 beta R3 Haven't really looked into the changelist yet, but aside from compatibility related stuff, the things you'll be interested in the most are STV emulation, and that SSF can now run without BIOS files (of course its still recommended to use them). http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~phantasy/ssf/index.html

March 21st, 2006	#4 (permalink)
refraction PCSX2 Coder $refraction's Avatar$ Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Plymouth, UK Posts: 9,822	hmm i imagine there will be some level of HLE bios going on in there somewhere. most games make system calls to run standard routines. __________________ http://www.generalemu.net/ Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.4Ghz (425x8), Leadtek GTX 280 1Gb, 1.8Tb HDs, 2Gb Corsair DDR2-800 @ DDR2-1020 5-5-5-18 Dual Channel Dont PM me for help, use the forums, thats what its for!
$refraction is offline$

March 25th, 2006	#9 (permalink)
Hamsandwhich Registered User Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Seattle Posts: 1	Anyone try to run Panzer Dragoon Saga on this yet? Runs like a charm, but I can't seem to save. Everything looks well when I save in-game, but if I turn of the emulator, and reboot, the information is lost. Any tips?

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March 21st, 2006	#2 (permalink)
JKKDARK Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Munich, Germany Posts: 6,349	without bios? wow, that is better

March 21st, 2006	#3 (permalink)
Borisz Vanned Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: dot hu Posts: 1,327	More idiot-friendly, but not necessarily better. I can't begin to imagine the problems that running a game without the BIOS will cause, especially for games that don't even work and reset to the BIOS by start (the emu would just quit with error message with the user having no clue in what just happened). anyway, here's the changelist. my comments are in bold. FRT processing of the SH2 was updated PCM sound generation of the SCSP was updated The missing Timer Starting Primary processing (???) was added to the SCU DMA The back screen of the VDP2 and the scroll processing was updated (note: the back screen means a color that is set to the whole background, and the actual graphics are displayed in front of that. It's very useful becase you can have, say, a simple red background that way without any processing power on the background/sprite engine. Metal Slug for example uses this, and now shows correct graphics because of this with this version.) The button handling the screen rotation option (you know, the one used for tate modes in shmups - you don't need to set your monitor sideways because the emu will just rotate the screen instead) was moved from regular 0 to the numeric 0 The "System Program" was hooked up (usage is optional) BIOS file is not needed when its hooked However, software which uses the BIOS will not work if there is no BIOS. (note: by System Program, I assume the author means the specific code in the BIOS that makes booting a game possible. What this means, basically, is that games will now boot without the BIOS. But if the game corresponds to the BIOS in some way, or tries entering back into it, it will stop working because the actual BIOS is not there. Therefore this is completely optional, and is triggered by the "Not Use BIOS" option under the Program3 tab of the options menu - if you don't have any bios file specified, this will be the default of course) STV emulation was added STV mode is triggered by holding SHIFT while the emulator starts up, after specifying an STV BIOS. It is also possible to specify a ROM file directly via commandline, in this case it is not necessary to press Shift. BIOS is required to run STV. (Here is a link to an explenation on how the ROM files inside the ZIP should be named as, it includes a bunch of interesting stuff on how the ROMs are placed on the actual hardware, but as far as I can tell MAME roms are named according to this too, so its unnecessary for me to translate it.) input used for the STV are: TEST = F11 key SERVICE = F12 key Coin 1 = 5 key Coin 2 = 6 key Coin 3 = 7 key Coin 4 = 8 key 1P Start = 1 key 2P Start = 2 key 3P Start = 3 key 4P Start = 4 key The button setup of each player follows the controller setup of SSF. Because of that, the mahjongg panel/controller and the 3P and 4P controller inputs are not supported. Also, protections are not emulated either. (note: Radiant Silvergun on the STV is one example to that, and works the same way as it did in MAME before it emulated this protection: it hangs after pressing start.)

March 21st, 2006	#5 (permalink)
Borisz Vanned Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: dot hu Posts: 1,327	Or possibly the author reverse engineered the BIOS and included his own code instead of the copyrighted SEGA one? Like Kega Fusion did with the 32x bios. One would need to memory dump the emulator to check that, though.

March 22nd, 2006	#6 (permalink)
xemumanic Registered User Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 26	I'm havinig trouble loading up ST-V ROMs. I'm using the current MAME set, the BIOS loads fine if I dont pick a game, but if I select a roms, say rsgun.zip from my MAME set, zip decoder.dll crashes, and so SSF goes with it. What can I do to fix this?

March 22nd, 2006	#7 (permalink)
Borisz Vanned Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: dot hu Posts: 1,327	Appearantly zipdecoder.dll can't handle zip files with comments. If your set is torrentzipped (if you got the full pack from where I think you did) then it has comments included, which cause crashing. And Radiant Silvergun doesn't work anyway, it has a protection which is not yet emulated by SSF.

March 25th, 2006	#10 (permalink)
JKKDARK Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Munich, Germany Posts: 6,349	do you have the same problem with other games?? try in your saturn

March 26th, 2006	#12 (permalink)
KMFDManic Registered User Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Willoughby, OH Posts: 2	for some reason or another, even though I specified the stv bios, when I hold shift down when starting up the emulator...it does not go to stv mode...Is there something I am missing here? thanks in appreciation of any response to my post...

March 27th, 2006	#13 (permalink)
KMFDManic Registered User Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Willoughby, OH Posts: 2	nevermind, it was a problem with bios...I got it working perfectly now!

March 27th, 2006	#14 (permalink)
JKKDARK Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Munich, Germany Posts: 6,349	obviously, it is the best emulator for saturn

March 27th, 2006	#15 (permalink)
xemumanic Registered User Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 26	Tate mode doesnt seem to work with ST-V mode. The translation says press Numeric 0 (zero), but it doesn't work. Any ideas? EDIT: Seems DirectDraw can't be enabled if you want it to work. Last edited by xemumanic; March 27th, 2006 at 22:06..

March 30th, 2006	#18 (permalink)
Borisz Vanned Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: dot hu Posts: 1,327	Directdraw can be faster for some people. I guess it depends on your videocard, for me its slower if i enable vsync (on a gf4mx). Also press f5 twice and it'll force refresh the empty space of the screen where the taskbar and other stuff tends to flickers.

April 16th, 2006	#19 (permalink)
Turok madman Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Near a tunnel Posts: 8	What exactly is "hook backup library"?

April 16th, 2006	#20 (permalink)
Borisz Vanned Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: dot hu Posts: 1,327	A hack that grants you infinite backup space (so you don't have to mess with not enough space for savegames on the memory cards or internal backup memory). Basically it's there so your memory card wont ever get filled up, and you can have a backup memory cart AND a 4m RAM extension hooked up at the same. Well, it's not technically infinite as it just stores gamesaves on your hard disk independantly (in the Backup folder). But most savegames are only 1-5 kbytes in size, so an average hundred-gigabyte hdd would give you more space then anyone could ever possible need for this.