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Text File | 1997-08-03 | 18.6 KB | 428 lines

THE LONGEST RUNNING REGULARLY UPDATED ACORN WWW MAGAZINE: 32-bit Acorn Gaming http://www.doggysoft.co.uk/gaming/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- !Sega version 0.71 (3rd August 1997) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This text file gives a brief introduction to the !Sega emulator. It is split into a few different sections so that you only need to read the bits which interest you: 1) Overview - what this program does 2) Basic operation - getting started 3) Advanced operation - Things you don't _need_ to know about, but might want to use anyway 4) MasterGear - more details about this portable emulator 5) Known bugs in this version 6) History - details of changes between this and previous versions 7) Copyright and Disclaimer ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Overview ~~~~~~~~~~~ !Sega is an emulator for Sega's Game Gear and Master System consoles, capable of running over 95% of the games available for these platforms. Games for the emulators must be supplied in a ROM file, which is a file image of the ROM which was in the relevant original game cartridge. This emulator requires a Risc PC or later Acorn machine, including the A7000. If run on anything slower than a StrongARM processor then it will not run at full speed. It is roughly two and a half times to three times too slow on an ARM710 processor. There are several places on the internet where such ROM cartridges can be downloaded from. You should try a web search or look at my 32-bit Acorn Gaming WWW pages (see address above) for possible sources. Note that it is illegal to be in the possession of copyrighted software without having permission to do so from the copyright holder - this means that it is illegal to possess virtually any ROM image when you do not own the original game itself (and even if you do the copyright conditions may exclude you from using anything other than the original cartridge itself). I personally own a Game Gear and many games, and use just these games on this emulator for testing, although since I do not have a StrongARM I do not actually use the emulator myself anyway. Please do not email me asking for ROM images, for I will not do so under any circumstances. I do not condone software piracy. !Sega consists almost entirely of an emulator written by Marat Fayzullin (fms@freeflight.com) called MasterGear, which I (Gareth Moore, glm20@cam.ac.uk) have ported to Acorn computers by providing graphics, sound and keyboard handlers, and writing a front-end for it. I have made a few changes to the code, so that it now strips copier headers from cartridges, and understands the Acorn filing system, but apart from this all code is by Marat, and it is he that deserves your appreciation for this emulator. "Sega", "Master System" and "Game Gear" are registered trademarks of Sega Enterprises Limited. Neither I nor Marat are in any way associated with Sega. This emulator is completely unofficial. Also please note that Marat will not supply you with ROM images, either. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Basic Operation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Before you can use the emulator at all you need to have the Acorn Toolbox installed on your system. This is a set of modules freely available from Acorn's FTP site (ftp.acorn.co.uk) which provide user-interface support libraries for all desktop programs to use. Instructions on what to do with them should come included no matter where you download them from. If you have RISC OS 3.6 or above then the Toolbox is a permanent part of your system, and you need not obtain anything extra in order to run this emulator. Double-click !Sega to load this emulator. A loading announcement window will appear briefly - any mouse click or keyboard press should remove it, or you can wait for a few seconds. It doesn't stop operation of your computer, however, so you can just ignore it and leave it there until it goes away if you like. The emulator will not do anything useful until you supply it with a ROM image file, so you'll need to obtain at least one of these. If it ends in ".gg", ".sms", "/gg" or "/sms" then it will be assumed to be either a Game Gear or Master System game respectively, but better still you should filetype the file to either 'SegaGG' or 'SegaSMS'. (Open a filer menu over the file and choose "File 'Whatever'" -> "Set type" -> ... and enter "SegaXXX" where XXX is either GG or SMS). Once filetyped you can just double-click a file to load it into the emulator, and it will have a 'Sega GG' or 'Sega SMS' picture representing it in your filer window. Note that your computer has to have "seen" the window with !Sega in before this will work, however. For further details about file operations and so forth see the Welcome and User Guides which came with your computer. If you are viewing the ROM image files from a DOS disc then they will be automatically filetyped, as long as they have GG or SMS file extensions. If you are using SparkFS then add the lines: 0x0ad gg 0x0ae sms ...to the end of your !SparkFS.Config.Extensions file in order to make sure that most archived games you download will be filetyped automatically. Double-click a filetyped game, or drag one to the Sega icon on the iconbar. You will now be playing the game assuming all is well - use the keys described below or define your own (see later). To return to the desktop press the <ESCAPE> key, which will pause the game. To continue it select 'Continue game' from the Sega iconbar menu. This option will be greyed out if no game is currently paused. You can also select 'Kill emulator' to remove the current game, although this serves little practical purpose unless you wish to stop someone else continuing your game without quitting the entire program. If you get funny colours or odd effects which you don't expect, try filetyping the game to make sure you are not trying to run a Game Gear game in Master System mode (or if it is already filetyped, check it is correct). The game expects to find a 60Hz 320x480 mode to run in (Acorn define this mode as standard, so this should not be a problem). The default keys are as follows: Q - left (joypad 1) W - right (joypad 1) P - up (joypad 1) L - down (joypad 1) [ - button 1 and button A on joypad 1 ] - button 2 and button B on joypad 1 <SPACE> - START button on Game Gear Keypad 7 - left (joypad 2) Keypad 8 - right (joypad 2) Keypad 9 - up (joypad 2) Keypad 6 - down (joypad 2) Keypad + - button A on joypad 2 Keypad . - button B on joypad 2 <INSERT> - PAUSE button on Master System <HOME> - RESET button on Master System <F1> - select joypad 1 <F2> - select joypad 2 (Note that both joypad keysets work on the Game Gear) Please note that the 'Save game' feature from the iconbar menu is not currently implemented. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Advanced Operation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [This section will be rewritten once the interface is complete.] Three operations are currently implemented - full-screen mode, key redefinition and saving of SRAM (allowing you to save your current position when playing a game which lets you do this). Unimplemented options are either hidden or greyed out (you can see the missing options using !ResEd if you are so inclined). The emulator can be reconfigured whilst you are playing a game if you choose to return to the desktop with <Escape>. Continue the game for your changes to take effect. Redefining Keys ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This should be self-explanatory. Click with adjust on the iconbar icon, or choose 'Define keys' from the main window opened when you click on the iconbar icon with select. Click on the key you wish to redefine and a new window opens describing the key you are about to redefine and waiting for a key press. At this point you can press literally any key on the keyboard and it will be defined as requested. The name of the key you chose is entered in the box (if it is incorrect this is because you do not have a standard Risc PC keyboard, but this does not matter because the name is for your information only) and from then on it will have replaced the previous key for the given action. You can also use the mouse buttons if you so wish, and the left and right alt, ctrl and shift keys are distinguished between. Full-screen mode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To run the emulator using the full-screen mode you must define full-screen modes of the following dimensions: Game Gear: 160x288 Master System: 264x384 Without these modes the emulator defaults to a 320x480 mode. In the 320x480 mode the emulator _should_ run at the correct speed - in the full-screen modes it won't. If you only want to run games for one system full-screen then you need only define the relevant full-screen mode, not both. Acorn's !MakeModes (available from ftp.acorn.co.uk) can be used to define suitable modes. I cannot offer any help with this - sorry (I simply don't have the time). I might suggest, however, that you only make adjustments with the ARROW BUTTONS, and NOT by typing in values. I find the program adjusts other values sensibly if you use the buttons, which it doesn't do when you directly enter values. Once you have defined a suitable mode you should select the "Run full-screen" option in the main window. If no suitable mode is found when you attempt to run a game the emulator displays a warning and does not proceed with the game. Saving SRAM ~~~~~~~~~~~ Open the main window by clicking <Select> on the iconbar icon. In the "SRAM Storage" box is a toggle switch (to the left of a greyed-out text-entry icon). If you select this toggle switch then the current state of the game's SRAM will be saved when you either: * Quit or kill the emulator, or * Return to the desktop whilst playing a game The SRAM will be saved to the file you choose by dragging the icon to a suitable filer window as normal. Note, however, that the SRAM will only be saved _after_ the emulator has been started up with a game - no file is written immediately. Alternatively, an existing file can be loaded in by double-clicking it or dragging it into the window (or to the iconbar icon) as normal. It is not possible to overwrite an existing SRAM file - if you choose a file which is already present then this will be loaded in as the SRAM for the given game (rather than a new file being created with the same name). Note that you should only use SRAM files with the games that created them! If you use one with the wrong game it may well be overwritten by the new game's data, or the new game may object to the contents of the SRAM file. As a safety measure, if you do _not_ choose the "SRAM Storage" option then the current SRAM state is written to a file in <Wimp$ScrapDir> called 'SegaSRAM' each time you return to the desktop. If you quit or kill the emulator it is removed, however. This is a deliberate feature in case you forget to choose an SRAM save location and do not wish to lose your position. (If you wish to open this directory then push F12 and type: *Filer_OpenDir <Wimp$ScrapDir> then push <Return> twice). Whilst a game is being played the contents of the "SRAM Storage" box become unavailable. This is because it does not make sense to change the SRAM whilst a game is playing. If you wish to copy an existing file then this may be done using normal filer operations (files are not left 'open' in the desktop). Filetypes ~~~~~~~~~ The filetypes used have not been allocated by Acorn and are in the user area. They are: 0AD - SegaGG - Sega Game Gear game 0AE - SegaMS - Sega Master System game 0AF - SegaSRAM - Sega SRAM save file Other types are also defined, but are not used in the current version. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) MasterGear ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Marat Fayzullin is a prolific author of emulators, as you will observe for yourself if you connect to his WWW pages at: http://www.freeflight.com/fms/ Some of these are value-for-money shareware products, but the majority are freely available, with Marat very kindly providing C source code for them. It is from this source code that I have compiled this Acorn version of the emulator, and added the various version-specific features described in the preceeding sections. The name of this emulator on other platforms is MasterGear, but this won't fit within Acorn's "pling-plus-nine-characters" application name limit, so I had to rename it "!Sega". You can go direct to Marat's MasterGear home page by connecting to: http://www.freeflight.com/fms/MG/ This is a port of version 1.00 of Marat's emulator. Marat knows of the following problems with this version of the emulator: GP Rider - The road sometimes gets distorted. Garbage when selecting the motorcycle. Use -delay to fix it, at least partially. XMen - Use -vperiod 7500. Altered Beast - Restarts at the title. Use -vperiod 8500. Dynamite Headdy - Screen sometimes blinks. Use -vperiod 10000. Galaxy Force - Some garbage at the top of a screen in the Green World. Alex Kidd Lost Stars - Palette gets reset to zeroes. Surfing Ninjas - Garbage at the title screens. Sonic Drift 2 - Screen sometimes blinks. Mickey Mouse GG - Some problems after being killed in the second level. Mahjong GG - Distorted screen. Astro Warrior - Remains of blown cannons are distorted. The fixes referred to can be set by selecting the relevant 'patch game' options in the front-end [not implemented in the current version], or by entering the values into the front-end configuration panels [not implemented in the current version]. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Known bugs in this version ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Sound is not perfect yet - the sound-chip emulation is only partial (this is a bit of an understatement, actually!) * If the emulator can't change mode due to the mode it wants not being defined you might get a funny flash before the desktop continues (this is because it actually has to run through the emulator loop once to get back to the point where it returns to the desktop). I can fix this by doing the mode check before continuing, rather than from the core emulator code itself. * Full-screen mode has no speed limiting * Allow for both 50Hz (PAL) and 60Hz (NTSC) versions of Master System games; all games are run at 60Hz at the moment, unless full-screen when no speed limiting is applied. * Clicking <Select> or <Adjust> when redefining the keys causes the 'Press a key' window to reopen sometimes if you have the pointer over the underlying icon which was clicked on to open the 'Press a key' window * Still accepts SRAM loads even whilst options are all greyed out during a game! (Whoops...) [Doesn't matter, since it's ignored until you kill the game and start a new one] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) History ~~~~~~~~~~ Major version history follows. Some beta-test releases are omitted, but incorporated into major version change details. New to version 0.71: * Fixed bug which meant that if you double-clicked a game before first running !Sega the sound didn't work New to version 0.70: * Full desktop SRAM support added, as described in section (4) above * Warning before trying to play files with unknown filetypes or an unknown or absent file extension New to version 0.60: * Implemented key redefinition, with a nice desktop front-end. Mouse-buttons can also be used * Double-clicking a game without !Sega loaded now allows game to be paused correctly (bug fix) * Sound system settings are now restored when returning to desktop (not just when 'killing' game) * Master System full-screen mode now works, but I've doubled the vertical size because I had it wrong before - which was why it didn't work ;-) * Now flushes keyboard buffer on return to desktop New to version 0.50: * Different sound support, using logarithms and other nice stuff that generate rounding errors in C (so it's not quite right, even though I use a look-up table to try and make it more accurate). It's hard to tell how well it works due to my not having a StrongARM (since sounds will be cut off completely differently if the emulator were to run faster). Thanks to Dave Walker at Acorn for finding out the frequency conversion information. New to version 0.40: * Sound support, albeit incorrect and with no noise * Full MS joypad 2 support New to version 0.30: * Full-screen operation * Pause game and return to desktop * Integrated emulator/front-end * Minor front-end redesign New to version 0.20: * Redesigned front-end with configuration windows (inactive, however!) Verion 0.10 * Initial release ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Copyright and Disclaimer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This emulator is copyright Marat Fayzullin 1994-6, and the Acorn-specific components are copyright Gareth Moore 1996-7. You may not attempt to pass off any part of this work as your own, although you may distribute it freely as long as you supply the complete archive (that is, all the files supplied to you). This software is supplied "as is". I make no claims about the reliability or suitability for any purpose of this emulator, and any use of it is undertaken at your own risk. No responsibility is taken for any failure of the software, or for any loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by the software. Whilst I will endeavour to help you if you have problems with this emulator, no such support is guaranteed. In the above "This emulator" refers to everything supplied within this archive, which is specifically the !Sega application and all the files contained within it, and also the documentation files (including the one you are reading now). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you wish to contact me then please email me at glm20@cam.ac.uk. If this email address does not work then find out my current address by connecting to my web pages (address below). It will certainly be in use up to and including August 1997. Alternatively, you may write to me using the address: Gareth Moore, Downing College, Cambridge, CB2 1DQ Or find out my current email address from my WWW pages: THE LONGEST RUNNING REGULARLY UPDATED ACORN WWW MAGAZINE: 32-bit Acorn Gaming http://www.doggysoft.co.uk/gaming/