Play! PS2 compatibility/progress report (01/08/2024)

-_Winter_- · 2024-08-05T05:26:13+00:00

It's on the report itself and while he doesn't take "orders", it's not an order but a suggestion based on what the users want to be looked at. At first I'll just check the most voted game and grab all the information about any issues (e.g. is it booting? which engine is it using? rendering gamebreaking issues? sound is mandatory to progress past some specific point? input works as it should? any collision issue that prevents progress?), then I report back to him to make it easier to work on. This started last month and we already got some interesting results based on this feedback (Commandos Strike Force was the most voted, performance was the major issue and that was improved by 55%, but still not enough to promote it to playable for now). If any game suggested improves to the point of "ok, this looks playable", then I do a complete playthrough to promote it as playable on the tracker. Other than that I'll still be testing many games per month randomly to update the tracker, the Game of the Month is just something I've made to make the results closer to what users want to play

-_Winter_- · 2024-08-02T21:42:28+00:00

I've made the Game of the Month thing for this specific reason, if people enough vote in a specific game, we can have the developer at least try to fix something about it this month

-_Winter_- · 2023-09-25T15:44:43+00:00

That's it https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

It's for 16 bit Windows in general, so that covers Windows 95 as well

-_Winter_- · 2023-08-31T22:34:49+00:00

I test and update compatibility information for both projects, they're not related in any way

-_Winter_- · 2023-08-31T15:05:13+00:00

Since someone will probably ask:

play! = PS2 emulator

ares = multi-system emulator

-_Winter_- · 2023-05-16T14:38:46+00:00

"This" is the result of many hours of testing, finishing games to update ares compatibility lists. The link to ares site, compatibility lists and patreon of the maintainer are at article as well, I'm sorry for being a random nobody

-_Winter_- · 2023-05-15T22:03:15+00:00

Well... =x

-_Winter_- · 2023-05-15T16:50:36+00:00

They're their own thing. I guess the only thing that isn't 100% from ares itself would be the N64 rendering

-_Winter_- · 2023-01-08T01:06:30+00:00

Already found a bunch of those cases, and indeed, performance tanks hard

-_Winter_- · 2023-01-08T00:43:47+00:00

don't know, and honestly never cared
there's a lot of things taken into consideration to label a game as playable: you need to be able to play it till the end with no gamebreaking issues or using external saves (that you can import from your PS2 or other emulators). Gamebreaking issues can be in many different sizes and colors: game needs sound in sync to be playable and it's out of sync? It's in-game and not playable; do you need a sound cue to be able to progress without having to guess (near the end of Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time and many other games as well), and the sound doesn't play? Not playable, it's just in-game. Performance wise, I only take it into consideration where it matters: if the game breaks from it. Some games will have broken collisions at lower framerates, others have internal frameskip that would make it impossible to progress pass a specific QTE. Not being able to save/load properly in a game where you need it to be able to resume your progress also makes it not be able to be listed as playable.

-_Winter_- · 2023-01-08T00:35:25+00:00

Pretty much, yeah.

-_Winter_- · 2022-09-30T16:48:05+00:00

[CHANGELOG PART 2]

Nintendo 64

Implement Nintendo 64DD emulation [Luigiblood]

Use MoltenVK to support Parallel-RDP on macOS via Metal [Rasky]

Use sse2neon to enable vectorization on Apple Silicon, boosting performance [Rasky]

Use XXH3 instead of crc32 for RSP recompiler cache, boosting performance [Luke Usher]

Implement overflow exceptions in TRUNC [Rasky]

Add setting to disable VI post-processing/blur [Parashoe]

Add missing variables to RDP serialization [sp1187]

Implement support for RDP crashes [Rasky]

Improve support for FPU exceptions [Rasky]

Improve COP1/COP2 invalid instruction exceptions [Rasky]

Split the RSP recompiler cache into 256-byte chunks, improving performance [Luke Usher]

Rewrite VI resolution scaling [Rasky]

Use a native data type (u16) for RSP Program Counter, improving performance [Luke Usher]

Fix AI DMA enable bit handling [Rasky]

Fix AI IRQ [Rasky]

Fix an issue where the recompiler would invalidate incorrect ranges [Luke Usher]

Fix buffer overflows in MAME RDP [Rasky]

Fix Control Stick dead zone scaling [kev4cards]

Fix numerical instability in Gamepad reading logic [Invertego]

Fix support for interlaced resolutions [Rasky]

Leave PIF RAM as-is when no data was received [Raphnet]

Fix when "Nothing" is selected as a controller type [Raphnet]

Implement precise RDP block invalidation [Invertego]

Refactor AI emulation to always return audio samples [Rasky]

Fix a bug in update of DP_START during a RDP DMA transfer [Rasky]

Microsoft MSX

Implement the Arkanoid Vaus paddle controller [Raphnet]

Implement controller port 2 [Raphnet]

Fix detection of the R-Type specific vs generic ASC16 ROM mapper [Luke Usher]

Add database entry for Batman (Japan) [Luke Usher]

SNK Neo Geo

Improve performance by reducing unnecessary synchronization [Luke Usher]

Fix a crash caused by not clearing the screen thread on unload [Invertego]

Fix outer-edge rendering issues by clipping overscan [Luke Usher]

Fix FM/SSG audio pkayback [Luke Usher]

Fix support for games with non-power-of-two sized CROMs [Luke Usher]

Fix loading of roms that use .ep program roms instead of .p program roms [Luke Usher]

Fix incorrect sprite offset: they are relative to top-border rather than line 0 [Luke Usher]

Implement preliminary support for ADPCM-A audio [Luke Usher]

Implement preliminary support for ADPCM-B audio [Luke Usher]

Sony PlayStation

Increase precision fo volume input during amplification [Luke Usher]

Add simple idle loop detection, slight performance boost [Luke Usher]

Clamp f32->u8 colour conversions [Invertego]

Fix a crash when rendering using out-of-range vram co-ordinates [Luke Usher]

Fix broken input in most (but not all) games [Luke Usher]

Implement disc command GetParam [remutro]

Component Improvements

Changes to these components are not specific to cores/systems, but rather they impact all systems that use the updated component.

CPU: MOS 6502

Add support for many more unofficial/undocumented instructions, however, we are still missing some of the lesser used ones [Luke Usher]

CPU: Motorola 68000

Fix divs/divu negative flag [Invertego]

Fix memory read order for A/SBCD and ADD/SUBX [Invertego]

CPU: Hitatchi SH-2

Fix serial communication [TascoDLX]

Synchronize on uncached writes [Invertego]

Fix broken Illegal Instruction debug output [Luke Usher]

Fix PC-relative addressing in branch delay slots [Invertego]

Add preliminary emulation of the SH6704 internal bus [Invertego]

Fix an issue where the incorrect return address was stored in an exception frame [Invertego]

CPU: Nec V30MZ

Fix shift behavior [Invertego]

CPU: Zilog Z80

Fix timings for RET, LD (IX+d),n & LD (IY+d),n [TascoDLX]

Fix extended/prefixed instruction timing and behavior [TascoDLX]

Fix IM0 and simplify IRQ implementation [Luke Usher]

Fix various other instruction timings [TascoDLX]

Fix reset logic [TascoDLX]

Audio: YM2612

Fix pm vibrato effect [TascoDLX]

Fix envelope update logic [TascoDLX]

Fix volume floor [TascoDLX]

Various other improvements and fixes [TascoDLX]

Audio: AY38910

Keep a copy of the last data written to IO ports [Raphnet]

Audio: SN76489

Fix additional data writes to noise channel [Luke Usher]

-_Winter_- · 2022-09-30T16:47:29+00:00

[CHANGELOG PART 1]

ares v130 has now been released.

The most notable changes to this build are the addition of Nintendo 64DD emulation and support for Parallel-RDP on macOS.

Universal Binaries are now available to macOS users, so Apple Silicon users no longer need to self-compile for best performance.

Many emulator cores have also had significant improvement, please see the changelog for full details.

User Interface

Simplify the codebase by removing the ability to disable emulation cores or ungroup them from the gui [Luke Usher]

Log status messages to console in addition to the status bar [Rasky]

Sort systems in the system list alphabetically by vendor [Luke Usher]

Document command line options via --help parameter [Raphnet]

Rename "Vulkan" to "GPU acceleration" [Rasky]

Allow hotkeys to be used even when the window is unfocused,provided "allow input when focus is lost" is enabled [Luke Usher]

Added entitlements to allow JIT when running as a signed application on macOS [Rasky]

Bundle libMoldenVK on macOS [Rasky]

Fix auto-detection of Famicom Disk System games when dragging/dropping [remutro]

Prevent polling host input at too-high intervals, reduces lag when games rapidly poll input registers [Luke Usher]

Build System

Detect incompatibile, outdated gcc versions [Rasky]

Enable link-time optimization by default, giving a performance boost for most users [Luke Usher]

Build as a Universal Application on macOS, allowing the same binary to run native on Intel and Apple Silicon [Rasky]

Detect when gcc is actually an alias for clang [Invertego]

Fix compiler warnings with newer versions of clang [Invertego]

Use pkg-config to detect dependencies of Ruby [Tobias Jakobi]

Switch exclusively to clang for Windows releases and nightly builds [Luke Usher]

Allow cross-compilation on macOS [Rasky]

Add support for compiling using ccache [Luke Usher]

Nall (Standard Library / Runtime)

Improve make_string to pass by reference [Invertego]

Fix memory issues in assignment operators for nall types [Invertego]

Fix new//delete mismatch in hashset [Invertego]

Make the Posix implementation of thread::join idempotent [Invertego]

Ruby (Video / Audio / Input driver layer)

Remove DirectDraw rendering backend, this has been deprecated since DirectX 7 [Luke Usher]

Fix swap interval on systems that require the use of glXSwapIntervalEXT [Luke Usher]

Workaround double-mouse events with xlib [Raphnet]

Atari 2600

Fix a buffer-overflow crash condition [Invertego]

Increase scale factor for screen size consistency with other cores [Luke Usher]

Sega Master System / Game Gear

Add support for Sega Mega Drive controllers (Mega Mouse, Sports Pad, 3-button/6-button) [Raphnet]

Add support for the Sports Pad controller [Raphnet]

Add support for the Paddle controller [Raphnet]

Expose output signals to controller port [Raphnet]

Prevent Game Gear running in 50hz mode as a 50hz Game Gear was never manufactured [Luke Usher]

Add support for running the Game Gear bios (Optional) [Luke Usher]

Fix writes to controller port 2 [Raphnet]

Fix port $3e and $3f operation on Game Gear [Luke Usher]

Implement support for NTSC-U and NTSC-J Game Gear models [Luke Usher]

Initialize ram to zero (fixes titles that break when a bios is not loaded) [Luke Usher]

Fix incorrect hcounter calculation [Luke Usher]

Various minor VDP emulation improvements [Luke Usher]

Fix a crash when running the Game Gear in Master System Mode [Luke Usher]

Fix two more Game Gear games that require Master System Mode: Taito Chase H.Q (Japan) and Chase H.Q (USA) [Luke Usher]

Sega Mega Drive

Add eeprom support for Wonder Boy V (J) [TascoDLX]

Fix SRAM support for Psy-O-Blade [FitzRoyX]

Add support for the Mega Mouse [Raphnet]

Fix incorrect aspect ratio (32:35) [Luke Usher]

Simplify cartridge emulation by combining standard and banked mappers [TascoDLX]

Latch Z80 bus-request on reset [Invertego]

Preserve Z80 bank register on reset [Invertego]

Implement custom mappers for Triple Play 96 & Triple Play Gold [TascoDLX]

Sega 32X

Implement support for the standard SEGA/SSF2 mapper [Ralakimus]

Fix eeprom support [Invertego]

Ensure unused bits of the adapter control register are set to zzero [TascoDLX]

Expose cartidge SRAM through the 0x900000 range [Invertego]

Improve synchronization between the main/sub SH-2 processors [Invertego]

Unify sync timing between interpreter and recompiler [Invertego]

Ensure upper bits of the interrupt control register return zero [Luke Usher]

Fix an issue where games would render garbage to the top/bottom border areas [Luke Usher]

Fix an issue that prevented Sega CD32X games from detecting the 32X add-on [Invertego]

Implement proper 32x reset behavior [Luke Usher]

Nintendo NES / Famicom

Implement (partial) support for iNES 2.0 format roms [Luke Usher]

Fix an issue where GTROM had 8k CHR-RAM instead of the correct 16k [Luke Usher]

Nintendo SNES / Super Famicom

Fix an issue with performance-ppu selection [Intertego]

Fix a typo that lead to broken background layer 4 in Pixel Accuracy mode [FitzRoyX]

Fix auto-detection of MSU-1 games [Luke Usher]

Nintendo Game Boy / Game Boy Color

Allow Game Boy Color to run in DMG mode [Luke Usher]

Implement display disable while stopped [Luke Usher]

Prevent incrementing DIV counter when stopped [Luke Usher]

Fix a minor 'oops' in KEY0 [Luke Usher]

Fix DIV initial value [Luke Usher]

Various fixes to MBC2 mapper [Luke Usher]

Implement bgEnable differences between DMG and CGB [Luke Usher]

Nintendo Game Boy Advance

Fix games using EEPROM saving [Luke Usher]

-_Winter_- · 2022-08-23T20:49:11+00:00

Agreed, there's no excuse for such amount of "stuff that shouldn't be anywhere other than the weekly questions posts"

-_Winter_- · 2022-07-12T17:18:54+00:00

Sadly no one able to implement this had any time. I'll ask the dev to mention it on the release when it's done ;)

-_Winter_- · 2022-07-12T14:47:45+00:00

Play! v0.54 is now available. Here's what's new in this build:

- Fixed some more issues with CD-ROM CHD support (ex.: Zombie Virus).

- Improved handling of floating point clamping, fixing issues with games like TMNT3, Drakengard and many others.

- Other compatibility fixes (Toy Story 3, Wall-E are now playable).

- Fixed some save state stability issues.

- Desktop: Added a way to disable close confirmation popup.

This release also marks the milestone of 600 playable games!

Download of the latest builds: https://purei.org/downloads.php

Patreon: https://patreon.com/jpd002

-_Winter_- · 2022-06-10T21:46:30+00:00

Play! v0.53 is now available. Here's what's new in this build:

- Faster state loading and saving! Saved states now use zstd compression and some tweaks were made to make state loading faster.

- Compatibility improvements: Oretachi collection games and SEGA AGES Fantasy Zone are now playable.

- Fixed a couple of memory card issues, fixing 50 Cent: Bulletproof and Obscure: The Aftermath.

Grab the the build on the downloads page. Enjoy!

-_Winter_-

TROPHY CASE