Hi guys,
Sorry for the lateness of this month's update. Had a very hectic few weeks! Rest assured things are still progressing nicely 
All of the AWPs I'm regularly testing are working pretty much perfectly. There's still many more to test! Will be asking for help soon (sorry I know I've been saying that for a while!). I'm still in the process of setting up the web site to aid with this.
One major problem I've found recently is I cannot get any club machines to boot (well the ones I've tried anyway - mainly Globals). I wouldn't say wasted, but I've spent a lot of time trying to figure this problem out so I may put it on hold for the time being. Unfortunately this means club machines might not be supported in the initial release, we'll have to see.
If anyone does have any ideas why they won't boot please get in touch There's no error, they just seem to freeze. Most get to "Resetting RAM" on the alpha and then wait forever. There's a chance it may be related to the outstanding datapak issue that a lot of the Globals are suffering from. My hunch is that it's something different entirely though... Could be something to do with the boot chip or ASIC??? Bit low on ideas I'm afraid 
There's no error, they just seem to freeze. Most get to "Resetting RAM" on the alpha and then wait forever. There's a chance it may be related to the outstanding datapak issue that a lot of the Globals are suffering from. My hunch is that it's something different entirely though... Could be something to do with the boot chip or ASIC??? Bit low on ideas I'm afraid To me the club machines are a low priority and I'd rather focus on getting the rest of the emulator finished at the moment.
What I've mainly focused on in the past few weeks is the testing of various graphics libraries to find the most suitable for use in the emulator. I'm now 95% settled on "Gorgon" which is a 2D rendering library built over "SlimDX", which is a .net DirectX library. It's free and open source and includes all the advanced rendering options I wanted such as pixel shaders Other libraries I've tried were either too bloated or had a steep learning curve and would have taken me months to understand and use effectively.
Other libraries I've tried were either too bloated or had a steep learning curve and would have taken me months to understand and use effectively.Issues fixed since last month's update:
The coin mech is now correctly implemented (as per the exact specification) so shouldn't cause any more issues.
The hopper is now (sort of) implemented correctly and works quite well. On some machines it pays out wayyy too fast though and this can cause an error. Still, it's much improved
Many, many fixes to the sound which should now (almost) be perfectly in sync and not drop out.
Many improvements to the JIT compiler (compile time is down from ~30 to ~5 seconds for a large 4 meg game). It also now runs roughly twice as efficiently as the interpreter (meaning if your CPU hypothetically ran at 80% using the interpreter, it would run at 40% using the JIT compiler). In practice even the interpreter now uses very little CPU (15-20%) thanks to recent improvements. This means there shouldn't be any problems running the emulator on older PCs (provided they have a DirectX 9 capable graphics adapter)
Issues still outstanding from last month's update:
Glitches in the reels - I've not really looked at this. Nice and easy to replicate as one machine - Cannonball Run is being very picky and won't boot.
Serial ports and datapak is still not correctly implemented. Made some good progress on this but the synchronisation is still not quite right with sending/receiving data on the serial ports. Causes some Globals to freeze at various points in gameplay (mainly when successfully gambling wins)
Some new (fairly minor issues) that have surfaced since last month:
There are some missing opcodes from the older "compatibility" H8 instruction set. Global's Wildside uses these which is strange as it's one of the later Epoch machines. They must have used a different compiler or settings for this ROM. The missing opcodes are very easy to add in and won't take long.
There is an occasional page fault (invalid address access) crash that I assume must stem from a bug somewhere in the core. I've seen it happen in two places. One is somewhere in the Bacta tests on Homer's meltdown and the other on one of the hidden feature on "Spin on it".
Some of the functionality is missing from the SEC meter. If you try to read the meters on Jolly Roger in the Bacta test mode, it errors. Extremely minor.
There's a few missing options that need to be configurable such as the DIL switches. Need to also be able to dynamically open the cabinet door/turn the refill key etc. All of these inputs are currently hard coded.
One other problem is I'm really starting to struggle to find any more sound ROMs. A lot of suppliers and engineers I've contacted have been extremely unhelpful and rude, or sadly have tried to/have ripped me off (I'm not referring to anyone here or over at the Mecca who have all been extremely helpful and supportive). The industry as a whole just seems like a horrible place to me which is a shame
Again - sorry I know I've asked a million times now but if anyone might be able to source/dump any more, please let me know
You can check out what we're missing at:
Sorry not forgotten about the new videos, just need a bit of time to record them... Watch this space
Edited by killcrazy, 18 June 2013 - 12:17 PM.
