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

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

These odd new variants really intrigue me. I assume that the drivers for those are atill being worked on for an upcoming revision of MAME, right? Also according to saucykobold, there is also a version of Raiden 2 that was released before the common 1993 version. This version was easier, had no miclus appearances, and had different enemy placements. Is this just the "easy" version?

That just sounds like the Easy set yes, which is weird in it's own right, because even when the region is seemingly Japan (or Korea) it doesn't display the 'USE IN JAPAN ONLY' text.

If you're curious to just how bad the 'New' versions are I've posted an update.
http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2014/09/25/ume-0-154ex4/

Ugh those new versions just make me want to vomit. The terrible sound makes the music sound like a whole different soundtrack. It also seems to be short loops instead of the entire music track. They also seem to have issues when some enemies are destroyed, no debris flies out, not sure if it's because of the emulation or if that's how the actual board behaves. Very interesting though!

[IseeThings]

A real Japan Raiden DX is now supported thanks to rtw

[rtw]

A real Japan Raiden DX is now supported thanks to rtw

On a sidenote, GOG is selling Raiden III DRM FREE!

http://www.gog.com/game/raiden_3_digital_edition

[rtw]

They also seem to have issues when some enemies are destroyed, no debris flies out, not sure if it's because of the emulation or if that's how the actual board behaves. Very interesting though!

Can you make a few screenshots of enemies which do not emit debris but do on normal R2 ? I have the R2 NEW in my cab just now

[BPzeBanshee]

Apparently it's possible to fit between those shots in the PS version but it's impossible in the MAME version.
Now I don't know if the PS port had inaccuracies or if the MAME version still has weird problems, but the PS version having a smaller hitbox seems like a weird thing to change.
If anyone with a PCB can confirm if it's possible or not to fit between those shots we can maybe figure out this weird mystery.

Does the extending of the wings actually increase its hitbox size? It's possible in MAME with raidendxj and I was able to frame-by-frame do it in raiden2j too but I died and lost my powerups beforehand.

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

They also seem to have issues when some enemies are destroyed, no debris flies out, not sure if it's because of the emulation or if that's how the actual board behaves. Very interesting though!

Can you make a few screenshots of enemies which do not emit debris but do on normal R2 ? I have the R2 NEW in my cab just now

Here you go!




It's mostly here at the beginning, a bunch of tanks don't emit any debris when you kill them, and the guns that move on rails at the beginning don't either.

However, once you get past this point after the large tank exits the building after entering it, enemies begin emitting debris like normal.



Also, at the start of level 2, the first power up plane doesn't emit debris if it crashes to the ground after being shot down.


In this section, only the tanks on the right side along the straight road will emit debris. The ones that come out of the house on the left don't.


I've noticed that all of this happens more often in the New Raiden DX than in Raiden II. Check out the videos in the following link if you haven't done so already.
http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2014/09/25/ume-0-154ex4/

[cools]

I could be wrong but I swear the DX PCB is the same and not every kill drops debris. I'd need to check though and I'm not sure where my PCB is at the moment. Same for the hitbox size, I don't remember ever getting through those particular shots like that.

[rtw]

Furry Fox Jet Pilot check your PM

[jepjepjep]

So something curious I noticed while playing the MAME version of Raiden II:



PS port and MAME respectively.

Apparently it's possible to fit between those shots in the PS version but it's impossible in the MAME version.
Now I don't know if the PS port had inaccuracies or if the MAME version still has weird problems, but the PS version having a smaller hitbox seems like a weird thing to change.
If anyone with a PCB can confirm if it's possible or not to fit between those shots we can maybe figure out this weird mystery.

I tried this out on PCB tonight and it is possible to fit between those shots. USA pcb (no checkpoints) if that matters.

[IseeThings]

so I was going through some old dumps, and there was a set marked Raiden II on Raiden DX hardware..

I was sceptical, but it really is R2 on DX hardware, with DX style rom banking.

It also seems to have the difficulty cranked up to 'You're Dead'



this is the before the bridge in the first level, count the tanks... I don't know if it's using a looped level layout from the off or something, but it's significantly more intense than the regular sets even when the regular sets are set to the hardest difficulty.

[Jaimers]

I tried this out on PCB tonight and it is possible to fit between those shots. USA pcb (no checkpoints) if that matters.

Did you do it with the big ship or the small ship? Your hitbox gets bigger after like 5 shot powerups and 3 missile powerups.

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

so I was going through some old dumps, and there was a set marked Raiden II on Raiden DX hardware..

I was sceptical, but it really is R2 on DX hardware, with DX style rom banking.

It also seems to have the difficulty cranked up to 'You're Dead'



this is the before the bridge in the first level, count the tanks... I don't know if it's using a looped level layout from the off or something, but it's significantly more intense than the regular sets even when the regular sets are set to the hardest difficulty.

So essentially it's a "Death Label" version, if you can call it that? What's the romset for this one?

[IseeThings]

So something curious I noticed while playing the MAME version of Raiden II:



PS port and MAME respectively.

Apparently it's possible to fit between those shots in the PS version but it's impossible in the MAME version.
Now I don't know if the PS port had inaccuracies or if the MAME version still has weird problems, but the PS version having a smaller hitbox seems like a weird thing to change.
If anyone with a PCB can confirm if it's possible or not to fit between those shots we can maybe figure out this weird mystery.

I tried this out on PCB tonight and it is possible to fit between those shots. USA pcb (no checkpoints) if that matters.

I've checked in a change to the collisions which allow you to pass through this pattern (with basically no margin for error) with a fully charged ship, please check to make sure nothing else is broken by the change.

Note, it was already possible to pass through this pattern in the 'NEW' version of Raiden II, which does the hitboxes in software, further suggesting that it should be possible.

re: 'Death Label' it's raiden2dx in the very latest sources, there are no builds with these changes yet.

[jepjepjep]

I tried this out on PCB tonight and it is possible to fit between those shots. USA pcb (no checkpoints) if that matters.

Did you do it with the big ship or the small ship? Your hitbox gets bigger after like 5 shot powerups and 3 missile powerups.

I tried it with both and it works with both!

[IseeThings]

I tried this out on PCB tonight and it is possible to fit between those shots. USA pcb (no checkpoints) if that matters.

Did you do it with the big ship or the small ship? Your hitbox gets bigger after like 5 shot powerups and 3 missile powerups.

I tried it with both and it works with both!

http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2014/10/10/ume-0-154ex5/

These new 'ex5' binaries make it possible in MAME, hopefully this better matches the PCB now.

[Master O]

Whenever Mame 1.55 is released, it will certainly be highly regarded.

Although this isn't a shmup, I hope mamedev finally gets Zero Team working, as well. It still has some kind of hitbox detection issue which hasn't been fully sorted out yet.

[IseeThings]

it's being released on wednesday (tomorrow)

[nesrulz]

http://www.mamedev.org/release.html

[Magma Dragoon]

And so we are blessed with .155. Raiden II and DX working (I'm drooling at that intro!), lots of NMK, Storm Blade doesn't have graphical glitches anymore... It's such a good day indeed!

[lettuce]

God Damn, this day has been a long time coming!!!



So whats the next big game that has had copy protection for a long time??

[Pretas]

So whats the next big game that has had copy protection for a long time??

Zero Team (another Seibu game) is up next.

[Smraedis]

Played some Raiden DX in MAME, seems all accurate to me, apart from that I had a power cut during playing the game, either Seibu don't want me playing this, or the methods to make this game run are too powerful.

[IseeThings]

So, how are people finding this?

A lot was said about the 'differences' between different versions in the past, and wanting to see how different versions were different..

obviously the most obvious differences come between the 'regular' versions and the 'easy' versions, these two variations were well known to the forum before, but until now the 'easy' versions remained arcade exclusives.

furthermore there is the 'harder' version of Raiden 2 on Raiden DX hardware, that was dumped many years ago by 'The Sheep' has anybody come across that version before? it also seems to be unique compared to the others - secrets moved around etc., and it really wants you dead

Then of course you've got Raiden II New with the awful sound and swapped levels, but maybe other differences too (at least in terms of difficulty balance due to the levels being swapped)

...

For Raiden DX there's less differences between versions. The most noteworthy one is the Japan set which lacks the autofire on button 3 that was added to all the other Raiden DX releases. The Korean set is also interesting from a presentation point of view (all selection text translated, like the Japanese one) you don't get that if you just hack another set to the same region.

In terms of actual gameplay / game balance I'm not really seeing much changed between the RDX sets tho, even for different code revisions (I guess they're minor bugfixes) Obviously the 'NEW' DX set has the awful sound, and Gold tinted colours, but again the gameplay looks the same to me?

--

Having now played them what are people's thoughts? Has this shown sides of R2/DX people were not aware of?

[Erppo]

I'm mostly interested if the emulation is known to be correct now, or does it still operate on some kind of "best guess" pricniple?

[IseeThings]

I'm mostly interested if the emulation is known to be correct now, or does it still operate on some kind of "best guess" pricniple?

emulation almost always operates on 'best guess' principals

it's not 100% hardware verified in terms of the COP results, no, and there's one opcode I'm highly suspicious of because the implementation is 100% identical to another, and that doesn't seem likely to me.

However, it's possible Raiden 2 doesn't actually care about the differences, and the results of the commands, as we simulate them, are exactly what R2 expects.

The 'New' versions don't use the advanced COP protection so I'm 99% sure they're accurate to hardware, except maybe a bit of sprite desync / flicker in places (but quality control was so low on those it wouldn't surprise me)

[Erppo]

I guess it's best to wait for someone with lots of experience with the games (saucy?) to get on this. Even the previous version felt pretty good when compared to replays though.

[BPzeBanshee]

I swear the R2 Japan set feels slightly harder than the US sets. The bullets start getting considerable, more quickly from what I've played so far.

I've also noticed when the first powerup ship appears, it opens up a compartment on its top to fire bullets but doesn't actually do so for a certain number of times. At first I thought this was an emulation glitch some time ago when this was being developed in MAME still, but it turns out it's an actual PCB thing and the amount varies between versions from what I can tell, so that might be a indicator of difficulty between the not-so-obviously-different boards perhaps.

[saucykobold]

R2 does seem pretty close to the PCB replays that are out there. A few differences I've noticed so far:

In the PCB, the fast gliders in st6 open fire when they're about halfway down the screen, and you can often kill them before they get to shoot. But in MAME, they fire as soon as they appear, making the stage somewhat harder than it should be.

When you kill one of the st2 boss' drones in the PCB, the resulting explosion follows the drone's trajectory for a bit before dissipating. But in MAME the explosion moves in the opposite direction.

The basic popcorn plane sometimes crashes to the ground. When this happens in the PCB, the sprite of the wrecked plane usually moves toward the bottom of the screen, but when they crash in MAME they'll zoom upwards a lot more than is normal. It's really noticeable in the busier parts of st5 and 8.

[IseeThings]

the boss firing timing / rate is nothing to do with protection, that's got to be a romset / rank think.

the movement of the debris etc. is very much protection territory tho, so yeah, that could be wrong.

[Xyga]

I'm no expert but I can report that if Raiden II still rapes me, Raiden II 'harder' gang-rapes me. TT