Faster release? Take your time man, makaron is your baby after all.
Thanks for the update and keep up the good work.

> I started from zero on my own so anybody can do that.

Maybe some people could with an huge effort, but I think you're underestimating your own abilities. :)

Please don't rush your emulator. Faster releases don't lead to better emulation amd compatibility. Please take your time on your next one, we would love to see the next release at it's best. Your emu does not need monthly revisions , you put all he work into your baby so take as much time u need. I would love to see that software renderer you had planned.Once again skip the swift releases and release when you feel you are satisfied with the release at hand, thank you for your very good emu and we all appreciate your skills. And yes the xbox 360 pad is the best for any game at hand and it is so similar to the dc joystick.

Keep up the fight dk. What you are doing will no doubt be remembered in the course of time.

On a side note full-screen filters sound like a great idea; the full-screen filters found in MAME/MESS are excellent!

I agree will all of the above.

NAOMI 2 requires a lot of optimizations series. The Dreamcast hardware is much High Power compared with NAOMI 2. Example is Demul, with a bad optimizations requires a Core i7 (Not i5) to run at constantly 60 fps.

er sorry but with my core 2 duo e8200, i have 60 fps, with naomi 2 on demul, they are optimizng naomi 2, its not "impossible"

Deunan:

While I generally agree with your comment that open-source isn't as simple as many people make it out to be (and indeed, it's no "magic bullet" solution to languishing, closed-source projects) I disagree with your suggestion that it affords little benefit to the community. To the contrary, I believe open-source projects are particularly befitting of complex emulation projects where an unlimited community of people may combine their talents to tackle a very difficult task.

nullDC is not exactly a shining example because:

1) It has only been in open-source status for a scant few weeks;
2) It isn't an attractive project at the moment since its codebase is a total mess, as its own devs have pointed out; and
3) It bolted out of the gate playing third-fiddle to Demul and Makaron in several important aspects, having languished for the past several years due to lack of time and interest on the part of its devs.

I suspect that may change in the future, but for now I would point to better examples of other, more successful open-source emulation projects such as MAME, MESS, Dolphin, and PCSX2, to name but a few. In each case, these projects are FAR superior and have FAR outlasted other closed-source attempts to emulate their target system(s) for a number of reasons including:

1) There are indeed an "army of helpers" who can and DO contribute an enormous amount of time, energy, talent and raw code. You certainly know this more than many, having contributed a great deal of your own valuable juice to MAME - and *wow* you've already made a huge difference there.

2) Open-source projects cannot die simply because the primary author decides to "close shop" due to real-life issues or what have you. This greatly enhances their longevity in the face of constantly changing and evolving operating systems, hardware, drivers, etc. that reduce their usefulness to an eventual zero. The road to success is strewn with the bodies of so many long-forgotten, closed-source emulation projects over the last ten years, I'd hate to count them. When will you close shop with Makaron? Do you know?

3) Open-source projects tend to promote a great deal more information sharing, including the exchange of more comprehensive thoughts, ideas, and suggestions for improvement based on the general community's better knowledge of the source material. I'll even posit that an open community is more likely to find and share valuable development tools such as system schematics beyond what may be available to a closed circle of devs.

4) Open-source projects tend to reflect the interests of a greater community of developers and users alike, rather than those of a single dev or dev group. Case in point: there are quite a few people who would love to see a decent UI and (gasp) keyboard support in a Dreamcast emulator. While that will obviously be a "con" to you, consider that the argument you so vehemently made against these features was designed to influence the opinions of your users, not yourself - after all, you hold fast to your own convictions, so there is no need to write about them on a public site when you would clearly otherwise have better things to do.

Further, the "don't get your hopes up" rhetoric you've expressed above is a perfect example of this - why shouldn't your fans and supporters get their hopes up? Why shouldn't someone be able to whip up some code to enable keyboard support as an OPTION if people sought such a thing? Your answer of "because it's MY project" is perfectly acceptable within a limited context, but then remember that your diatribe against keyboard support immediately follows your argument against open-source on the grounds that it doesn't benefit the community as much as a closed-source project would. Probably not the best timing there.

I'm sorry to be frank, but I just couldn't let this part of your post slide by. For all I know, Makaron may indeed end up as a great emulator in the annals of emulation history or whatever, but its benefits could be amplified through an open-source model - especially with you as a principal author. But hey, it's your baby. We DO have nullDC and the MESS Dreamcast driver (the latter of which we should also thank you for) as alternatives after all.

Wow, a response that's even longer than my original rant. Not something you see everyday :)

Code quality aside, it doesn't really get any better than this. You have a working emulator on your hands (and not the only one, lxdream is still out there as well) and suddenly all the wanna-be coders are gone? It was "we must have sources" before and now it's "somene plz fix it". How is this of any benefit to anyone?

It could be used as documentation but unless you can easily parse C/C++ in your head you're not going to learn much from it. So not something I'd recommend for begginers. Hell, I get easily lost in MAME sources (hence why I seldom poke my nose in there) and it's supposedly meant to be easy to understand. Don't want to start any flames here so I'll just say I have a different opinion. MAME code is well structured, true, and being readable it a good start but it shouldn't end there. And yes, I do realize it's size and number of various systems it can emulate.

Basically all these successful open projects have a constant group of devs, mostly ones who sticked with them from day one or so. Yes, PCSX2 forked after a certain period of inactivity but it's been merged again. So, to address your points:

1) The main devs stay with the project and any additional "helpers" contribute very little. Any exceptions to this rule are, indeed, exceptions. You could probably point out a few open projects that have been adopted and continued but how many have simply died in peace?

2) Open projects do die. Most of them actually. The code stays open, yes, but it's often forgotten or simply overlooked. That's assuming it doesn't come with a license that prevents people from messing with it as they see fit, GPL for example. Not everyone feels confident enough to publish their changes or simply like maintaing coherency with other people additions, often conflicting.

3) That I agree with, but that is one positive among many negatives. There are many devs who simply work better and more efficiently when they have complete control over the code, don't have to explain or defend their position on certain code/data constructs and so on. Not to mention complete differences of opinion that can actually halt the project or break up the team.

4) I couldn't care less what other people want. You see, Makaron is my hobby project. Failing to understand that simple fact, especially words MY and HOBBY is the key here. I'm not building a monument to last and make it into history books. I don't claim to have the best, most complete or fastest Dreamcast/NAOMI emulator (though I pride myself in being first with certain features). Nor do I really try to make it such. I just tinker with the code in a way that interests me, that's all. Community? What's that? I'm just happy that there are other people who think Makaron is useful in some way.

The fundamental problem here is, I think, people belive Makaron to be some sort of legacy of mine. It was never meant to. It's just a little piece of software that hopefully makes others a bit more happy, and if not it's at least a source of amusement for myself. If Open Source projects are indeed that great than I'm already doomed to be eaten alive by MESS someday. Seeing how I'm not really interested in participating, I guess I might just pack my things and leave right now? Why delay the inevitable, right?

Nice to hear some news. Thanks!

The easiest way I can think of accomplishing this is to create a disc-swap config file like say discswap.cfg and in it you set the paths for the discs like:

disc1=[path and filename]
disc2= ..
disc3= ..
disc4= ..

Then within the running emulator you press ALT and whatever number key and it swaps to that disc you specified in the discswap.cfg file.

Just my 2 cents for maybe a quick "proof of concept" that it works.

Yup, and that's how it worked in few special builds I gave away. Not exactly robust but was fullscreen-proof though :)

sorry for being a newbie, but, is there a homepage for Makaron? Or is it just another of my delusions? :)

Thanks. And sorry for being a newb.

Sure there is. You just found it :P

I think nullDC has the issue of being really badly coded (in style, not content). I was planning to sit down and spend a few days familiarising myself with the code so I could start writing some bug patches, but I realised a few classes in that I would need to completely rewrite the entire project into something more maintainable, otherwise I would be wasting my time.

However, if I was to do that, why wouldn't I just make my own emulator? Makes you think...

Well, yes, it doesn't exactly look well-maintained :)

If you're motivated enough you should start your own project. And not becase null requires so much work but for your own sake. I doubt it'd be easier or faster but you will learn more this way. You don't even need to finish it, really, it's all the thinking done along the way that counts.

Unless, of course, your aim is to amaze the world with your creation :)

Hello Deunan, I love this emulator but I am having a problem.
Some games have slowed down music, these are GGX, Ikaruga, Shikigami No Shiro II, and Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper.
I have seen a few Youtube videos of these games running in Makaron with music at the correct speed, so I was wondering if there was some way around this issue.

Hardware and operating system specs please.

You can bitch all you want about nullDC, it STILL remains SUPERIOR to this stupidly pointlessly over-complicated emulator.
And get 360 pad ? Fuck off, the PC is the most open platform there is, forcing gamers to buy the same shit pad over and over makes the PC no better than a console. And besides, any decent gamer will tell you that the Playstation Dual Shock 2 pad is THE best pad for the PC. Mine simply uses Direct Input, it works in Win7 without any 3rd-party drivers, and every game and emulator works fine. So stop whining and start coding a decent Pad driver, without resorting to pure laziness with the 360 pad.

And as for NAOMI, fuck NAOMI, and not literally. NONE of the warez kiddies who reply here own a NAOMI machine, so you are all breaking the law when it comes to this emulator.

Personally, I think you should just give, fuck off, and stop bitching at other emulators. Or better still, code a DECENT emulator.

You amuse me. How old are you, again?

Don't listen to that moron , and his stupid rants.He doesn't have the best IQ to figure out how to load roms in a emu....laughable. Anyways he deserves no responses, leave him be where he's at.........in complete silence. To the mr. angry guy internet bashing is useless it makes you look uber stupid, and very unintelligent. The xbox 360 pad is better than the ps3 or ps2 joystick because windows picks it up easily without using third party drivers. please ignore anyone else like that beacuse they are the apple that is poisoned to try and kill creative thought and speech. I say ignorance is bliss my dear boy. Great emu and we apreciate the work sir on your emu.....that's all.

No need to rush your emulator, Deunan -- take however much time you need.

As for full-screen filtering, well, it's totally up to you. Personally, if you can make it so that Makaron acts like a REAL dreamcast (same image quality, for instance), that's already awesome to begin with.

To understand what I meant by "real", consider checking out the Playstation emulator "pSX" (maybe you already have?). What I like about pSX is the fact that it behaves like a, again, real PSX -- same graphics, and so forth. I don't need the flashy stuff that emulators such as ePSXe provide, seeing as how when I want to play a PSX game, I want to play it the same way that I did nearly 14 years ago (trust me, my computer can easily handle ePSXe and its plugins -- maxed settings with the best graphic/sound plugins? no problem).

Then again, do whatever you want to do. As you said before, it's YOUR project.

I keep reading your posts for a loong time!
Am really impressed by your work and style although i didnt even used your emulator...yet
Keep up the good work, many ppl are following your progress without ever knowing it :)
Regards from Cyprus

I have an interesting question.
I think it's fair to say that eventually one day you will decide that you've reached a point where you feel you're done - in terms of developing Makaron anymore. Since, you've mentioned how this project is really more of 'your hobby' as opposed to creating a historical piece of emulation. Does that mean once you're done with Makaron you will not allow it to be continued by someone else OR that you will not release the source code for it?
Thanks for all the great work on Makaron thus far.

Not sure yet. If/when that day comes I guess I'll make a decision.

Hi Deunan,

First of all I would like to say that I really appreciate your work. Your emulator runs really well and I have figured out how to map it to my control panel and it works great!

I have an issue with my screen where it looks to be off by a pixel and yes I have an ATI card. I tried doing the ATI graphic card fix and it didn't work (half of my screen is off by a little, it's described as a shifted triangle in the config file), I experimented with various values and nothing seemed to work, has anyone with an ati hd 4850 graphics card found a fix for this?

Thanks Again, I love this emulator.

Oh and as far as the nulldc thing, yeah it's a shame that more people are not taking initiative, but nulldc definitely runs dreamcast games pretty well, but Makaron is still way better for Naomi. Any plans on supporting atomiswave?

Hmm... strange, try setting "pixelcenter = -0.5" in the INI, [PVR2] section (and remember that DC and NAOMI use different files). If this doesn't work then I messed up somewhere again.

I have little interest in Atomiswave but recently I was thinking about adding it as well. Can't really say when but you'll most likely see an early version even before T13 is completed.

hello, sorry my bad english...

I had a Dreamcast many years ago, so Dreamcast is very special for me, but in my country find a Dreamcast to sale is very dificult and if I found is with a problems or modificated with neons (and very expensive).

Emulators is a solution so I have used emulators for a long time, but always with a problems, like crashs, games simply don't work, textures corruptions... nullDC and Makaron are good emulators, but if you (you are a great programmer) help nullDC with parts of Makaron code, Dreamcast emulator is continue be your hobby and users (like me) will be very happy! :)

a curiosity, Chankast uses much less processor than nullDC and Makaron. In my old Pentium 4 Chankast runs well, but actual emulator not, why?

Love Makaron, a quick tip for onboard video card users, if u get the T&L error ur onboard graphics are shit so download 3d analyzer and check the "emulate HW TNL" but as for my problem i was wondering where to input the values to use a keyboard i have no joystick so i can't even test the emulator it runs up to the bios and im stuck because i can't press anything at the system bios, to be more specific i have heard various rumors that Makaron is THE ONLY emulator that can actually emulate winCE powered games. So i am in the midst of testing Silver to help your cause and write a bug report. I have tested in the NullDC 1.04 r22 but it's still a very buggy build. The JVS file that people keep mentioning that needs to be edited to use the keyboard is not in this build. I was wondering if Makaron is compatible with Joy2key or Xpadder something of that sort thanx DK, i would really like to c how fast i can tweek this on my shitty comp.

ssj5psychobrolli@yahoo.com

Great News for atomiswave support! ^^

just wanted to add if anyone doesn't know already the makaron works perfectly with a dreamcast controller adapter to pc (trio linked plus 2)
its awesome (only thing is vmu on the controller wont work of course)
also works on my 64 bit windows 7.
oh but Im still unable to make it work with the Naomi version of makaron
so any help with that would be very much appreciated
great great job dknute

Hi, Deunan!

I ask you becouse you are powerful programmist! You alone created your emu. Powerful great emu! Becouse you alone can create some things what nobody can!

Becouse you have the powerful analytic mind and original methodics !

And Becouse I cant ask “demul team”. They will never help with it. They hate Nulldc! I don’t know why. Maybe it just envy? So many evil, you know! Yes! I think its just envy.

How about you? Do you hate Nulldc too? I hope not. (I’m sory if I mess)

What do you think about nulldc code? Can you change something? If you wonder ofcourse!

We have two important problems in DrkPVR

1) Z-buffers + Shadows
2) Dynarec

I think you can help to destroy those issues!
What did you think about that?


Thank you.

P.S.

I think Dreamcast must have minimum 3 workable emu! Becouse competition is wonderful thing and its not only hobby for all (I mean developers)

IT IS SPORT!!!!! (honest sport, I hope)

I don't hate nullDC. Why would I? It's just a project, like mine.
It's not that I don't want to help but I have very little free time. It's hard as it is keeping Makaron up to date and work on the hardware, I can't spend any more on other projects. Sorry.

Thanks to Makaron we can play Dreamcast games on our powerful PCs which now have more than enough cpu power to emulate games. Some games like Hydro Thunder were coded to run at 30fps. Is it possible to change that since our PCs emulating the Dreamcast would have no trouble running Hydro Thunder at 60fps instead of 30fps? This may be game-code specific or is it something that can be forced at the emulator level? If it is game-code specific, then how difficult would it be to hack the hydro-thunder game code to force 60fps instead of 30 fps?

It really depends on the game and for some it might be enough to "overclock" the virtual SH4 to achieve higher rendering rates. But then again it's probably timed to vertical refresh of the emulated machine so as long as that is locked to 50/60... Some games are also coded in such a way that everything is timed to V-blanks (rather then timers, for example), so messing with that will break them.

It's not easy, assuming it's possible in the first place. Sure, every game could be modified (a.k.a hacked) to work differently but it's not something I'm interested in. Not to mention time consuming.
Any emulator-level solutions to "improve" things are always bad for compatibility. You can make a couple of games look nicer and at the same time prevent others from working at all. Obviously it's not something I'd want.

Hi, Deunan!

Is it posible to add in next build of MAKARON -- "maximum supported res" with "aspect raito mode"?

Thank you!

Next version should have better support for HD monitors.

Hi
plz can you add Vsyns ????

Maybe, kthxbai.

Well,uhm,i left makaron behind for nulldc in these months,but then today ive realized how much it has improved.
So much that im amazed to see doa2millenium working at fullspeed,with perfect graphics.
Well it keeps crashing here and there plus kick button aint working right (with x360 pad) but still its good for some gameplay on the fly.
Im not here to make a request,to ask,to rant or bother.
Just..


...thanks. Alot,sincerely,from the bottom of my hearth.Someway your emu made my day.
I wish i could support you in someway but i dunno how.
Just thanks,again!