I love your great work !!! U are my hero ^^
Lando

I look forward to trying this once I get home :) Thanks for the update.

Looks a lot better than the last one. Got it to boot at least and detect my Logitech dual action.

Im tired. Will find out how to mount and get past time question tomorrow.

Congratulations, in the last week, i try your emulator (for first time) and others more. Works fantastic and fast.

I have a question: In other release can you add a Naomi support?

Thanks.

Exodust

Nice work, Deunan. Just out of curiosity, do you go out of your way to make your emulator difficult to use? It's probably the most difficult emulator to use of all I've ever tried. Good back-end coding though. :-)

Your PAD plugin detects my logitech wingman cordless 2 pads, AND my xbox 360 pads, but in each case the triggers aren't detected right, which makes actually playing many games impossible. This problem is compounded by the fact that you won't put in a simple keyboard plug-in to let people help you test the emu. Any relief in sight? :-)

Cheers...

Surely it is work in progress on the latest version 10/1. I noticed some flaws in the sound system of Makaron. Tried out some games but played '102 Dalmatians' between the different versions.

- Test 9/2. Speech: Works. Effects: Works.
- Test 10/0. Speech: Broken. Effects: Works.
- Test 10/1. Speech: Broken. Effects: Broken.

Every sentence of Speech skips directly until the whole dialogue is played and the game continues. In the latest version the Effects just vanish completely too. Maybe it is just a fluke and it will straighten itself out in future versions.

Supporting AF (and enabling it by default) and not supporting higher res or AA yet is a bit incongruous, I think. Did you see that Soulcalibur came out recently on XBA? And looks great, just like it looks in NullDC in high res with AA :) Hoping for Makaron to be on the same level soon.

Should have some fun with this.

The speed of T10 is a bit faster than normal and sound sometimes distorts, T10-1 does not have this problem. However, I still need to disable vsync in my display card otherwise Makaron will freeze in full screen mode.

In a shmup called Border Down, there is a "sample play" section which demostrates some playing technique. Those sample plays are supposed to be perfect. However, in Makaron and other Dreamcast EMU such as Chankast, the player's ship will be hit by bullets. Can it be fixed? Thanks.

A video showing this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOKZZqCGQnY

The game itself is 100% smooth, just the capturing software dropped some frames.

My config:

GDMT on
region =2
cable =0
SH4core =2
MMU =0
LCD =0

Core2Duo E4400
1GBx2 DDR2-667 RAM
Intel DG965RY mainboard
Asus ATI 2600XT (tried with catalyst 8.3 and 8.6)
Win XP Professional SP3
SB X-Fi XtremeMusic

Does anyone else have problems with assigning an axis to the triggers to get analogue? With or without, the "Digital Triggers" checked,it acts CRAZY in games (racing).

Yes. Basically just about any games using the triggers (probably about 90% of Dreamcast games) are almost totally unplayable until the pad plug-in is fixed. Man, I really wish he'd add at least *basic* keyboard support. Ah well.

Ok. Im the third poster in this thread and I have spent some time on Makaron now. This really isnt not your grannys emulator.

Most all the games that work for NullDC work in Makaron as well, although I didnt test many. So far Makaron works with a few games that no other emulator will work with. I was really happy to get to play Cannon Spike (almost perfect).

Im going to work more on in and I really like the fact that I can just copy a Makaron folder with full configs in with the CDI and just drag a shortcut to the desktop. Makes it so that my girlfriend can start her games. So much cooler than having to start the emulator, select plugins for each individual game and go from there.

Most of the games that wont work stop with Internal Error in module SH4/r Gilli Q0x00007694/0x45a1

Dual Core 6400, 2GB, 500GB, nVidia 7600GT - XP SP3, DirectX9c.
Logitech dual action - Work perfectly.

Makaron emulates '98 console and will never look & feel like modern games. Dreamcast video resolution is some 640x480 pixels (in some cases 320x240) and it can use 16-bit textures at best. Even if you run Makaron in 2048x1536, the generated image will only be upscaled... With FSAA the pixels will be round rather than square - but still the size of a fat ant.

Lack of GUI: Well, this is a test version. I kinda assume you people can read, write and use Notepad :) Am I wrong?

NAOMI: Be patient.

x360 pad problems: Use XBCD with wired pad. For anything else go ask Microsoft to release a fully functional DirectX driver. Rather than breaking it on purpose so that people would have to support XInput. Which in turn works only for x360 pads (and not even other x360 accessories, like steering weel).

Keyboard support: But there is one. Keyboard is used to emulate DC keyboard. A gamepad is required to emulate DC controller. Duh?

102 Dalmatians: Will investigate. Thanks for pointing that out. If that happens later in game, I'd like a save file.

Border Down: This seems to be some accuracy problem. If it's about x86 FPU computations not being bit-for-bit perfect copy of SH4 FPU, then there's little I can do about it. Time will tell.

Fullscreen: Yup, it's been brought to my attention. Makaron won't work properly if your desktop resolution is higher than some 1280x124 and you have V-sync on for 3D. Still no idea what's it about.

SH4 0x45a1 GILLI: This is General Illegal Instruction exception on SH4, because 0x45a1 is not a valid opcode. In this particular case I bet you're trying to run WinCE game, a rip (in that case you're on your own) or yet unrecognized GD image. Turn MMU on manually and try again.

And one more thing: it works for me :)

> Lack of GUI: Well, this is a test version. I kinda assume you people can read, write and use Notepad :) Am I wrong?

You aren't exactly wrong, though we think people's testing would go a lot faster and smoother, and you'd get a lot more useful input from folks out there if you had at least a simple GUI. You can always expand on it later when a non-test version is released. It's rare to see an emu with no GUI at all, even in its alpha stages, and probably for this reason alone if for no other.

> x360 pad problems: Use XBCD with wired pad. For anything else go ask Microsoft to release a fully functional DirectX driver. Rather than breaking it on purpose so that people would have to support XInput. Which in turn works only for x360 pads (and not even other x360 accessories, like steering weel).

We're very much aware of the unfortunate Xbox 360 issues with XInput, though this isn't related to that. None of the other pads we've tested with the most recent plug-in work with triggers either (though other buttons do). Of course one could regress to an earlier version that does work, but why go backwards?

> Keyboard support: But there is one. Keyboard is used to emulate DC keyboard. A gamepad is required to emulate DC controller. Duh?

Ok, but that's really not the issue, as I think you know. We're not talking about support for TOTD. Basic keyboard emulation of a gamepad would be a helpful *option* for all DC games. Many folks out there don't test your emu at home where all creature comforts (read: gamepads) are readily available. There are also tons of notebook users who sometimes have gamepads plugged in, and sometimes not. It's easy to think everyone has a setup like yours, but the reality is you are writing your software with the world as your audience, and the world is a pretty diverse group of people.

Don't get me wrong, you've done some really great work on this emu and we're really impressed with the progress. It's just that there's a few simple things you could do to produce dramatic results that will ultimately benefit you anyway. If you don't see things that way, well hey it's your software and YOUR work, but that would be terribly unfortunate for the others out there who use it, at the very least.

Just a few bugs to report.....Virtua Tennis, the court don't appear green, appears black, Sonic Adventure, title screen don't show Sonic Adventure, shows grey blocked out area where it should appear, also the screen where you select the character it flickers where the name is, not spose to happen....appears to run fine otherwise.....in Grand Theft Auto 2, the icon that is the character does not appear....in vmus in bios, second slot vmu characters don't appear on vmu screen select.....tested in test version 10.1, with an ATI Radeon HD 4850...

Well, I throw some bugs in here just so they're noted.

NBA Showtime: Announcer voice is dead silent in gameplay. On Null, the voice causing major audio garbage.

NFL Blitz 2001: Textures in game have no boundries, completely messed up. Can't progress to actually gameplay anymore, as the video stops when selecing a main menu item now - sound continues.

Crazy Taxi 2: Shadow and many other glitches in game.

Virtua Cop 2: Graphics are completely messed up these days.

Test Drive Lemans: When the game starts, one Sound effect from the main menu starts looping and never stops - no in game sound except that incessant noise.

That's all for now. I won't bring up the games that work near perfect as that list is growing and would take too long now. :)

I've tried "102 Dalmatians" on my system and it seems to work fine... Are you using GDI image? What are your system specs, maybe it's because Makaron can't keep up decent emulation speed?

Dreamcast to PC adapter: Can't find any info on this. If it's DX compatible the rumble should work - how does it behave in other games? In other words I require more information.

Triggers: Checked again, works for me. If have gamepad problems (not x360 pad), please provide details. And I'd like to remind you there's always the option of manually editing MakaronPAD.ini.

GUI again: Not to offend anyone but I see it like this - if you're not smart enough to run Makaron as it is now, your input will not help me any. And the purpose of these test releases is to collect bug reports, all else is secondary.

Keyboard support: Gamepad is a requirement to run Makaron. Analog input is impossible with keyboard and so I'm not going to create HID broken by design. I don't really care if it scares off people - they probably never had a DC in the first place and just want to download some rips and play for free. This is not the type of crowd I made Makaron public for, you know.

Bugs with NBA/NHL and other "sport" games are a bit of mystery. Will be fixed someday I guess. Seems like those use common rendering system that gives Makaron a hard time.

Sonic Adventure: This is normal, in a sense that it's not easily fixable. Turn Z-writes and alpha tests on in F12 menu (nullDC and other emus have that by default, I don't - it's ugly for those games that don't need it).

Virtua Cop and other games with glitches on far planes: Very much like Sonic this is something that works fine on PowerVR2 but is not easy to emulate. In this particular case it's about Z-bufer accuracy, it's 32-bit floating-point on PVR2 and 24-bit integer on D3D9 cards. You do the math.
Maybe DX10 would help but I don't have Vista, nor a card supporting DX10. And it would be slower due to necessary texture conversions (DX10 no longer supports 16-bit textures).
Another way to fix this, maybe, would be to create a special vertex shader program for just those few games that need it. Not much luck with that so far.

Crazy Taxi 1&2: Use different shadow casting mode. It won't be perfect (like, under bridges you will actually cast anti-shadow) but looks WAY better in most cases.

As for that tiger head in RE: I'm guessing it's some sort of SH4 cache issue. Maybe even coded on purpose, to prevent proper emulation. Like with everything else, I hope to fix that one day.

And let me remind you one more time - for all WinCE games you need a FAST CPU. Below certain speed threshold those games will not boot or will freeze shortly after. Random crashes in TA module are also because of poor emulation performance.

> GUI again: Not to offend anyone but I see it like this - if you're not smart enough to run Makaron as it is now, your input will not help me any. And the purpose of these test releases is to collect bug reports, all else is secondary.

That's an unfortunate attitude, though you're missing the point - it's not a question of not being "smart" enough to run Makaron, it's a question of being more productive when you don't have to manually edit files to switch between games, or to manually edit configuration files to match your specific pad (by the way, just because pad support works for your pad doesn't mean your plug-in isn't broken). There are lots of other usability improvements that would dramatically help the testing effort if nothing else, but I'll stop there. Hopefully you see the point now.

> Keyboard support: Gamepad is a requirement to run Makaron. Analog input is impossible with keyboard and so I'm not going to create HID broken by design. I don't really care if it scares off people - they probably never had a DC in the first place and just want to download some rips and play for free. This is not the type of crowd I made Makaron public for, you know.

Again, you're just missing the point. Most games run perfectly well using the digital d-pad alone, and the analog pad is only secondary. This is perfecty fine for testing. Refusing to add keyboard support because it's "broken by design" is just myopic thinking. "They probably never had a DC in the first place" may be true for some people, but I submit to you that the vast majority of your users are honest people who just want to help. You are just making it very difficult for them to do so.

Resident Evil, tiger's head problem revisited:
Okay, it's a timing problem. Long story short - Makaron is too fast :) I might be able to fine tune it better someday but for now:

1) Make a save before visiting the statue
2) Quit Makaron, add "SH4MIPS = 160" (without quotes) to Makaron.ini, in the [Settings] section
3) Run Makaron, load the save, visit the statue, it should work now
4) Once you're done, save again, exit Makaron, remove the line you've added in step 2 (or comment it out)
5) Run Makaron again, load the save, keep playing

This will limit SH4 top speed to 160 MIPS (if it doesn't work you can try lower settings). Sort of "underclock" it. On a real Dreamcast the execution speed it tied to RAM timings, DMA transfers in progress and stuff like that. Makaron doesn't take all of this into account, just tries to run as fast as possible (unless game uses SLEEP to slow SH4 down - that is respected).
On the plus side, Makaron is much more smooth in places where DC had problems (Evolution battles, Delicious demo, etc).

Resident Evil, tiger's head problem revisited:
Okay, it's a timing problem. Long story short - Makaron is too fast :) I might be able to fine tune it better someday but for now:

1) Make a save before visiting the statue
2) Quit Makaron, add "SH4MIPS = 160" (without quotes) to Makaron.ini, in the [Settings] section
3) Run Makaron, load the save, visit the statue, it should work now
4) Once you're done, save again, exit Makaron, remove the line you've added in step 2 (or comment it out)
5) Run Makaron again, load the save, keep playing

This will limit SH4 top speed to 160 MIPS (if it doesn't work you can try lower settings). Sort of "underclock" it. On a real Dreamcast the execution speed it tied to RAM timings, DMA transfers in progress and stuff like that. Makaron doesn't take all of this into account, just tries to run as fast as possible (unless game uses SLEEP to slow SH4 down - that is respected).
On the plus side, Makaron is much more smooth in places where DC had problems (Evolution battles, Delicious demo, etc).

works !thanks

virtua fighter3 visual memory do not Recognition

virtua fighter 3 is visual memory do not Recognition

Can someone help-me?

I couldn't test Makaron yet. All versions I get blackscreen.

For, exemple, I'm trying to run Soul Calibur. The CDI path is correct in the .ini and I'm using a proper configurated USA Bios.

I get this message after I choose "play" on the BIOS screen:

Makaron: Version: Test 10/1 (MT)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x20: Makaron controller (0x00270101 / 0x00540906)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x01: Makaron VMU (0x00030201 / 0x00540a01)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x02: Makaron VMU (0x00030201 / 0x00540a01)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x60: Makaron controller (0x00270101 / 0x00540906)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x41: Makaron VMU (0x00030201 / 0x00540a01)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x42: Makaron VMU (0x00030201 / 0x00540a01)
GD-ROM: MT mode
OCD: Obraz CDI
OCD: CDIv3.5
IGDI: MD5: 71879037e0a46b4a777cecde7a7ee799
IGDI: Unidentified image.
HOLLY/MMAP: RESET @0xac000116

PC Config: Core2DuoE4600, 2GB DDR2, 8800GT, Windows XP SP3 32bit.

Thank you ;)

Really good. I have got a few games to work with Makaron that wont work with NullDC. Best of which, CapComvsSNK. It worked with NullDC but was unplayably slow.
Lack of GUI is cool. Doesnt really bother me once you get into it.

Well let me be the first to request info on how to disable the anisotropic filtering. Its not that it necessarily slows my computer down, I just would like to compare the speeds with it on vs. off. I have recently been playing Skies Of Arcadia gdi and I noticed lots of slowdown. I'm not sure if this is my PC or Makaron itself or the anisotropic filtering. Anyhow in general I notice a vast improvement in Makaron 10 Test 1's performance vs. 9 Test 4.
Also I would like to add that while navigating Makarons many ini files is somewhat tiresome, I unlike some others understand this is a "Test" release and the adding these type of finishing touches is kind of uncalled for. mkfro is decent(if thats what you want), but I will stick with manually editing the files for each title..honestly its just not a big deal..lol
Thanks again for the latest update :)

Oops. I've just discovered I commented out the code to disable AF :) But if T10/1 is slower I bet it's due to DSP rather then AF, unless you run non-MT version on really old graphics card.
DSP can be disabled by adding "DSP = 0" to Settings section in Makaron.ini.

Hi guys, i don't get makaron to run a single game.
I tryed to follow the read me file :
I specified on the gdi.ini the gdi path
I use a jap bios that i renamed FLASH_JP and BIOS_JP.
When i run makaron i have the setting window (set time qnd date). Once i accept forthe second time i only get a black screen regardless the game i use and it's region.
Do I miss something when initializing makaron ?

Thanks if you can help me.

Go through ReadMe again. Follow the described procedure of setting the date & time.

Okay firing up:

"Conflict Zone - Modern War Strategy" / USA

I get a message from the game:

An unsupported device has been inserted.
(Logitech Cordless RumblePad 2)

Then it stalls\hangs since it will not accept input from the controller when used with this game.

By the way nice work so far.

Okay for some reason this game doesn't draw to all of the screen area, 1/8 is a black area along the bottom of the screen.

I also fail to put the game trucks in gear...not sure if its a controller issue...or user error at this point...I'll respond back when I know more.

During tutorial starter mission aircraft unavoidably crashes\collides into the sea hanging the game.

This is a known bug - and much like Border Down one I'm not sure what's causing it.

Conflict Zone: That's interesting - I'll look into it when I have some time. And this game :)

18-Wheeler: What you described would be normal for 50Hz PAL mode - but you're using USA version, correct? Hmm... let me guess, you didn't have the means to dump your own ROM set so you downloaded one?

Critical Error (Title)
(-1102) in module Makaron: WinMain - HOLLY.PokazObraz/Present: D3DERR_DEVICELOST (Device lost)

Suspect you probably already have seen this as it happens every single time for me :)

WinXP w/SP3
GeForce 8800GTS
P4 D 3.0GHz
2GB RAM

Anywho... The clock thing... IS A NIGHTMARE :P

Also, in 10/1 - Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2 does not seem to be accepting input. Works fine in Ikaruga tho.

great work!
*_______________*

ASS:carachapadu

When I try to start Makaron, all I get is a message window titled "Critical error" with the following message:

(-1002) in module Makaron: Winmain - MAkaron.Przygotuj -> HOLLY.Przygotuj -> HOLLY/Maple.Przygotuj -> HOLLY/Maple.PrzygotujWtyczki -> HOLLY/Maple.DodajWtyczke

Any help in getting it to run would be appreciated. I get the same message no matter what version of Makaron I'm trying to start.

My System:
Core 2 Quad Q6600
Vista x64 SP1
4 GB RAM

Nobody EVER reads the ReadMe file... Configure your gamepad.

My analog triggers are still inverted. Have to press them for makaron to recognise them as not pressed.

I hope you can allow an option to reverse this in the next release.