Raiden 2 and Raiden DX Will Be Fully Playable in Mame 1.55

[Master O]

Fixed sprite DMA for Raiden 2, bullets are now visible[Angelo Salese, Olivier Galibert]

http://git.redump.net/mame/commit/?id=7 ... 3a190fd904

Does this mean what I think it means?

[BPzeBanshee]

Yes it does. Also, parts that were missing from the attract intro are now present albeit at wrong depths. And the previous commit from Oliver Galibert regarding the 0x6200 address write means that tanks and popcorns correctly aim towards the player.



There's still a lot of behavioural issues before it can be classed as working, but a HUGE improvement over recent years and I for one am really excited about this. I was asking about it some days ago and was told not to pester too much, so let's take some advice from R.Belmont and "...just relax and wait for cool things to happen".

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

This warms my heart like an early Christmas. Progress is progress

[austere]

Awesome, they may just get the whole thing done with only behavioural modelling/emulation. And just when I got access to a scanning electron microscope...

[BPzeBanshee]

Well I dunno about a scanning electron microscope austere (I thought this was tried already) but if you're any good with x86 disassembly apparently OG has been pulling a few nuggets from reverse-engineering the PC version.

[IseeThings]

As he said, studying the PC version is behavioural, at a fairly high level.

The actual workings of the COP, and exact meaning of most of the tables / sequences it uploads are unknown. At the moment only the high level interpretation of what each command called by the game does, the parameters it works with, and the ram values it affects is being figured. The PC version doesn't have a COP, or a COP emulator, so the behaviour of the code they have instead is being mimicked in the COP simulation, full understanding (and confidence in emulation) will come later, maybe much later.

Personally I think (at this stage) the actual emulation work Trap15 is doing with the NMK games is more interesting as it should lead to a final solution for sound on those.
https://twitter.com/trap0xf/status/503270258631651328
unfortunately he still hasn't shared this dump, so I can't attempt to hook anything up in MAME, so I guess I can understand why people are getting more hyped by the MAME R2 news, because they can actually try it out right now

[Master O]

As he said, studying the PC version is behavioural, at a fairly high level.

The actual workings of the COP, and exact meaning of most of the tables / sequences it uploads are unknown. At the moment only the high level interpretation of what each command called by the game does, the parameters it works with, and the ram values it affects is being figured. The PC version doesn't have a COP, or a COP emulator, so the behaviour of the code they have instead is being mimicked in the COP simulation, full understanding (and confidence in emulation) will come later, maybe much later.

Personally I think (at this stage) the actual emulation work Trap15 is doing with the NMK games is more interesting as it should lead to a final solution for sound on those.
https://twitter.com/trap0xf/status/503270258631651328
unfortunately he still hasn't shared this dump, so I can't attempt to hook anything up in MAME, so I guess I can understand why people are getting more hyped by the MAME R2 news, because they can actually try it out right now

They're hyped for R2 because people have been wanting to play it in Mame for at least 15 years.

[IseeThings]

As he said, studying the PC version is behavioural, at a fairly high level.

The actual workings of the COP, and exact meaning of most of the tables / sequences it uploads are unknown. At the moment only the high level interpretation of what each command called by the game does, the parameters it works with, and the ram values it affects is being figured. The PC version doesn't have a COP, or a COP emulator, so the behaviour of the code they have instead is being mimicked in the COP simulation, full understanding (and confidence in emulation) will come later, maybe much later.

Personally I think (at this stage) the actual emulation work Trap15 is doing with the NMK games is more interesting as it should lead to a final solution for sound on those.
https://twitter.com/trap0xf/status/503270258631651328
unfortunately he still hasn't shared this dump, so I can't attempt to hook anything up in MAME, so I guess I can understand why people are getting more hyped by the MAME R2 news, because they can actually try it out right now

They're hyped for R2 because people have been wanting to play it in Mame for at least 15 years.

I realise that too, although it's actually the most accessible of the COP protected games already with the near perfect PSX and PC ports. All the other COP games are arcade exclusives, or at best received related games that weren't really directly connected to the arcades. (Zero Team, Legionairre, Godzilla, Seibu Cup Soccer, Denjin Makai, Heated Barrel, SD Gundam Sangokushi Rainbow Tairiku Senki, X Se Dae Quiz) The real achievement will be having all those working with confidence.

Also I find the NMK sound emulation more interesting because it's not been done properly before, and again we're dealing with a lot of exclusives, or games where the ports had downright awful sound (USAAF Mustang / Fire Mustang on the Genesis) so proper sound emulation the originals will be a big achievement, the current simulation only gets you so much.

That's not to say I'm not excited about R2, the sheer level at which they integrated the protection features into the gameplay is fascinating, so seeing the code to emulate it unfold is really interesting.

[BPzeBanshee]

I find the NMK stuff interesting too, but you hit the nail on the head there Haze: anyone with SVN/compiling skills can see visible progress in MAME as it happens - providing said progress is committed to the main line branch and not kept behind closed doors for years and years unlike certain drivers, prototype games and emulation improvements which I'm not going to elaborate on here.

The thing with Raiden II is, aside from the waiting time while Raiden II itself is accessible via other means they don't do the original game justice. The PC version has wonky aspect ratio and shadow blending among other things, and the PSX version has non-standard difficulty compared to the PCB. They also both lack the intro sequence present only on the PCB. As for games using the chip, Raiden DX would certainly generate interest too, but until correct ROM banking happens that game will always be horridly broken from what I understand, it's currently worse than the others from what I can tell for that reason. Godzilla is curious for me since there's actually very few Godzilla-themed games that are any good at all and as you say it hasn't got a port at all. Zero Team is apparently underrated for a fighting game, and most folks are so sick of soccer games to care much for Seibu Cup Soccer but anyone with half a brain knows they're all an important piece of history. Seibu themselves don't have the code to get this stuff working again and DotEmu are useful as a bucket of bird shit, to get this running it's either MAMEdev or bust.

Speaking of which, not meaning to knock those involved, but I can understand some people seeing updates to stuff like the Williams pinball drivers/fruit machines/etc or seeing the occasional whole team effort put into something, and wondering why that can't be done with raiden2.c as well. Then there's the "add 6 months before I touch the driver whenever someone asks about it" mentality that seems to flare up sometimes when the subject comes up on official channels. Seeing any kind of progress that isn't adding a comment line or "modernisation" is of course going to get people excited again, I just hope folks like Kale and Oliver G don't get hit by a car/asteroid/bullet/mental burnout/etc before the driver can be called "finished".

[BPzeBanshee]

The stage 1 boss actually walks correctly as of r31888! In addition, tanks are now coming out of their houses like they're supposed to, the purple laser doesn't crash the game (but is invisible so no screenies) and enemies like the powerup carrier that wandered off the screen in the last commit behave right again.

Interestingly though, the stage 2 boss's main form is not hittable (its popcorns and destuctable pieces are), and while the thrusters in the attract sequence are now correctly placed (they weren't before), the player-related weapons in-game and I think the collision hitbox is offset. Interesting how the Seibu COP secrets are always two steps forward and one step sideways, but there is light and hope and happy things I tell you!

Should I bother uploading builds for people to try out (they'd only be official mame64 from svn)?

[ninn]

I got the reference, OP! Took me a while, but I got it now

[BPzeBanshee]

ROM banking in Raiden DX has been pulled off, allowing the game to actually function and not crash MAME completely as of r31915 (and I think some of the background garbage I saw in attract mode has also been fixed by it too). O.Galibert and Kale are on a roll!

[cools]

Time to sell my PCB then

[trap15]

Personally I think (at this stage) the actual emulation work trap15 is doing with the NMK games is more interesting as it should lead to a final solution for sound on those.

I'm quite flattered. For those interested, I post about the NMK work time to time on Twitter (you'll have to excuse the world news retweets), and on my blog. I made a post about it on my blog earlier today, though I realize now that it lacks a lot of background and terminology descriptions. I'll be doing another post in a few days probably, and that should have better descriptions and information.

On the topic's subject, I'm hoping once Raiden II is hackishly emulated somebody will bother to figure out exactly how this stuff works instead of leaving it. If I'm not busy and care enough, I may look at it again. Having a half-working reference is immensely helpful.

[BPzeBanshee]

edit: old picture, water is now translucent

ITS ALIVE

Kale has a list of remaining issues in the source driver here, in addition to that thermonuclear bomb does nothing apart from initial flash in terms of bullet eating/damage, then there's the occasional flicker, transparency for the logo in attract modes/stage clear, attract replays not playing right, sprites disappearing before they scroll off the screen and ... I think that's about it!

[Master O]

edit: old picture, water is now translucent

ITS ALIVE

Kale has a list of remaining issues in the source driver here, in addition to that thermonuclear bomb does nothing apart from initial flash in terms of bullet eating/damage, then there's the occasional flicker, transparency for the logo in attract modes/stage clear, attract replays not playing right, sprites disappearing before they scroll off the screen and ... I think that's about it!

What does "blending" mean in the context of Raiden 2?

1 min. better understanding of the blending http://git.redump.net/mame/commit/?id=d ... 8c88d9236a
36 min. more blending fixes (nw) http://git.redump.net/mame/commit/?id=0 ... 6043c9041a
114 min. more blending finetuning (nw) http://git.redump.net/mame/commit/?id=b ... 87e092e3dd

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

How can I try this out? Raiden II won't even load in r31915, it just says it's missing some images, and Raiden DX crashes before even starting up.

[Master O]

How can I try this out? Raiden II won't even load in r31915, it just says it's missing some images, and Raiden DX crashes before even starting up.

Chances are, the romsets for those games have changed since many changes were made to the raiden2.c driver.

That's why you're having issues getting those games to run.

[trap15]

New post regarding NMK stuff, hopefully a bit more understandable to those not familiar with the subject at hand.

[BPzeBanshee]

What does "blending" mean in the context of Raiden 2?

Alpha transparency, ie overlaying of a tile with an additional tile of a flat colour with an alpha value to give transparency to it. Note as of r31956 the transparency in not only water but in the "Raiden II" logo present in the attract sequence.

I think the thrusters in the intro are supposed to have alpha transparency too but it's been so long since I've seen a real PCB functioning. Can any Raiden II board owners confirm or deny this?

New post regarding NMK stuff, hopefully a bit more understandable to those not familiar with the subject at hand.

An interesting read regardless of background. I do hope regardless of the situation of the ROM dump itself that others will be able to get the dump using your methods and achieve NMK music as it was intended.

[Master O]

New post regarding NMK stuff, hopefully a bit more understandable to those not familiar with the subject at hand.

Does this news also apply to Thunder Dragon 2, trap15?

[Master O]

Raiden DX in Mame, Now with Sprites!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Unu0vdUbQ

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

Raiden DX in Mame, Now with Sprites!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Unu0vdUbQ

This is just beautiful, I almost had tears of joy in my eyes! How can I try this out? Please tell me! Does this also mean that we can finally try out all of the odd "New" revisions and variants of both Raiden II and DX?

[BPzeBanshee]

Collision issues fixed it seems. All bosses, enemies and player hitbox work as expected! Unfortunately alpha transparency is still not quite right - not so obvious in early stages but there are now things that should be opaque that are now translucent (scatter bomb in HUD layer and several dark tiles I've seen from stage 4 onwards). Expect a WORKING | GAME_IMPERFECT_GRAPHICS tab to get slapped on this real soon. There's also a missing third button for Raiden DX but that's an easy addition I was able to do myself.

This is just beautiful, I almost had tears of joy in my eyes! How can I try this out? Please tell me! Does this also mean that we can finally try out all of the odd "New" revisions and variants of both Raiden II and DX?

There's plenty of good guides around in compiling MAME and most folks here (myself included) are a bit sick of repeating the same stuff. You'll either need to learn to compile MAME yourself or wait a while longer for official builds. As for the "new" revisions, they're in a different driver file which currently hasn't been touched.

[Xyga]

Excellent.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Upon checking out my USA region Fabtek licensee version of Raiden II PCB, it does have alpha transparency with the Raiden II fightercraft attract sequence. Still has the ol' backup battery mounted on-board but useless, functionality-wise, these days.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[trap15]

New post regarding NMK stuff, hopefully a bit more understandable to those not familiar with the subject at hand.

Does this news also apply to Thunder Dragon 2, trap15?

Thought I replied to this earlier but I guess not. No it doesn't, TD2 has been fine in MAME for about a year now, since the sprite priority fixes got applied. Only the games I listed will be affected.

[cools]

The third button bug apply to all revisions? Its an export only feature on the PCBs

[IseeThings]

Third button isn't hooked up at all.

Interestingly we don't have a Japan Raiden DX, the ones we had that were marked Japan when they are dumped are actually Korean and Asia (Metrotainment, Hong Kong) sets.

Due to the game logic bugs, and still 'high level' at which the COP is emulated I'd be very hesitant in marking it working myself. Unless the COP results are 100% verified to hardware then it's going to affect how the game runs in subtle ways.

[BPzeBanshee]

Bummer. Perhaps I was overly optimistic?

Adding the third button is a simple addition, the register is there but MAME marks it in raiden2 as unused and raidendx does nothing to add it when inheriting its button/dsw stuff. But if it's export-only I guess some reorganisation would be required to get it "the right way", possibly making any Japan version found the default set and then export versions having an inherited control setup with the third button registered in MAME. I've also noticed the powerup plane at the beginning of Raiden II do a few "pacifist" shots in that it opens up to fire but shoots nothing for a set amount of times, this amount varies between the existing MAME sets and I've seen different results yet again in some Japan set Niconico videos. Get your boards dumped, Raiden II/DX owners!

I haven't tested input replays yet either, if replays can function without the RNG messing up the run having someone clock Training Course with all the secrets in DX would be a surefire way to spot any remaining game logic issues. Then again, perhaps the other games like Zero Team and Seibu Cup Soccer would be more immediately beneficial test cases for COP behaviour.