Calling X68000 enthusiasts - need help w/emulation

[Zeether]

So I recently got the newest version of XM6, which seems to be a decent X68k emulator, and I'm having a couple of issues I need solved:

1. How do I map the joystick buttons to keyboard keys? To clarify, in WinX68k, if a game uses the joystick/gamepad, the buttons are mapped to keys Z and X by default. However, if I try said game in XM6, Z and X do nothing. Best example is Super Star Shooter - in WinX68k, X is fire and Z is speed change. Pressing either button in XM6 does nothing, in fact I need those buttons to skip the "Tiny Game System" splash screen unless I put the emulator in turbo mode. Which leads to...

2. Is it possible to make the emulator load games faster without resorting to turbo mode? In WinX68k you could turn on a setting to do this, but on XM6 the only way is turbo it seems.

And finally...

3. How the hell do I get MIDI output to work? I installed a program called Timidity++ in addition to a MIDI output mapper for Windows 7 so I could play Tyrian with an AWE32 soundfont, but trying MIDI output in, say, Sol-Feace will not work. I love the music in Sol-Feace and after listening to the MT-32 and CM-64 versions I would love to play the game with said enhancement.

I have been enjoying most of what I've played on X68000, by the way, although I will say the shmup library is not without stinkers - Cuarto for example is horrendous.

[Raytrace]

So I recently got the newest version of XM6, which seems to be a decent X68k emulator, and I'm having a couple of issues I need solved:

1. How do I map the joystick buttons to keyboard keys? To clarify, in WinX68k, if a game uses the joystick/gamepad, the buttons are mapped to keys Z and X by default. However, if I try said game in XM6, Z and X do nothing. Best example is Super Star Shooter - in WinX68k, X is fire and Z is speed change. Pressing either button in XM6 does nothing, in fact I need those buttons to skip the "Tiny Game System" splash screen unless I put the emulator in turbo mode. Which leads to...

2. Is it possible to make the emulator load games faster without resorting to turbo mode? In WinX68k you could turn on a setting to do this, but on XM6 the only way is turbo it seems.

And finally...

3. How the hell do I get MIDI output to work? I installed a program called Timidity++ in addition to a MIDI output mapper for Windows 7 so I could play Tyrian with an AWE32 soundfont, but trying MIDI output in, say, Sol-Feace will not work. I love the music in Sol-Feace and after listening to the MT-32 and CM-64 versions I would love to play the game with said enhancement.

I have been enjoying most of what I've played on X68000, by the way, although I will say the shmup library is not without stinkers - Cuarto for example is horrendous.

I'm not too sure about the answers to those questions but howcome you're not just using X68k? I've never had any problems with it - apart from the fact for a few seconds I was too thick to realise you load the 2 floppies in 1 drive each :p

[Zeether]

WinX68k hasn't been updated in years, and some games don't exactly run well in it. Sometimes the music skips, changes tempo suddenly, or won't even play at all. Plus it has this one issue where holding down the fire buttons on the keyboard sometimes causes movement via the arrow keys to get messed up (but that may be a keyboard fault and not the emulator)

[Raytrace]

WinX68k hasn't been updated in years, and some games don't exactly run well in it. Sometimes the music skips, changes tempo suddenly, or won't even play at all. Plus it has this one issue where holding down the fire buttons on the keyboard sometimes causes movement via the arrow keys to get messed up (but that may be a keyboard fault and not the emulator)

oh ok I c - maybe I've just been lucky so far - I could only find a 2005 build of XM6 - where are the new one ?

[Zeether]

WinX68k hasn't been updated in years, and some games don't exactly run well in it. Sometimes the music skips, changes tempo suddenly, or won't even play at all. Plus it has this one issue where holding down the fire buttons on the keyboard sometimes causes movement via the arrow keys to get messed up (but that may be a keyboard fault and not the emulator)

oh ok I c - maybe I've just been lucky so far - I could only find a 2005 build of XM6 - where are the new one ?

Right here: http://www.geocities.jp/kugimoto0715/xm6g.html

[null1024]

You could always try MESS, for the one thing I used it for [playing Cho Ren Sha on my Mac], it worked like a charm. Just make sure you have all the bios ROMs and pick the right machine [I didn't, so I was stuck with using the slowest x68k model, which would chug every time a boss exploded or something].

[Raytrace]

WinX68k hasn't been updated in years, and some games don't exactly run well in it. Sometimes the music skips, changes tempo suddenly, or won't even play at all. Plus it has this one issue where holding down the fire buttons on the keyboard sometimes causes movement via the arrow keys to get messed up (but that may be a keyboard fault and not the emulator)

oh ok I c - maybe I've just been lucky so far - I could only find a 2005 build of XM6 - where are the new one ?

Right here: http://www.geocities.jp/kugimoto0715/xm6g.html

thanks

I can't really read Japanese though - is there an english version? - the version of W68k I use is the 'high speed english' one....

[Mortificator]

The 2006 version has English menus. I can't find a live link to it at the moment, so I threw it up here.

Is it possible to make the emulator load games faster without resorting to turbo mode?

What I do is make a save state on the title screen. It doesn't help the first time you load a game, but lets you bypass loading every time after.

I don't see an option to remap controller buttons to keyboard keys either, just to other controller buttons. I guess the obvious solution is to plug in a controller, but if you use the keyboard out of preference, that won't make you happy.

[Raytrace]

The 2006 version has English menus. I can't find a live link to it at the moment, so I threw it up here.

thank you very much - checkin now

seems very stable - one problem is I cant find any graphical options - mainly all I'm looking for is turn off blur/filtering when fullscreen

oh and does anyone know were there ever any decent shmups for the FM Towns thing?

[BPzeBanshee]

The 2006 version has English menus. I can't find a live link to it at the moment, so I threw it up here.

thank you very much - checkin now

seems very stable - one problem is I cant find any graphical options - mainly all I'm looking for is turn off blur/filtering when fullscreen

oh and does anyone know were there ever any decent shmups for the FM Towns thing?

The FM Towns Marty if memory serves had a port of Raiden. Beyond that I dont know.

As for your graphics problem that might be it using DirectDraw and thus not able to be switched off.

I'd keep your copies of your other Sharp X68000 emulators around though, some have better compatibility. For example, in one of the ones I've got Thunder Force II's under-the-sea backgrounds don't display while in another one it does. Trial and error I guess.

[Raytrace]

The 2006 version has English menus. I can't find a live link to it at the moment, so I threw it up here.

thank you very much - checkin now

seems very stable - one problem is I cant find any graphical options - mainly all I'm looking for is turn off blur/filtering when fullscreen

oh and does anyone know were there ever any decent shmups for the FM Towns thing?

The FM Towns Marty if memory serves had a port of Raiden. Beyond that I dont know.

As for your graphics problem that might be it using DirectDraw and thus not able to be switched off.

I'd keep your copies of your other Sharp X68000 emulators around though, some have better compatibility. For example, in one of the ones I've got Thunder Force II's under-the-sea backgrounds don't display while in another one it does. Trial and error I guess.

cool - thanks for the info, it can be pretty difficult to find info on X6800, let alone FM Towns

[Damocles]

Other than Rayxanber, I don't believe the FM Towns had many exclusives. Tons of arcade ports, however.

[cuttingagent]

I just started playing with 2 emulators for this (Win68k english and XM6) and I noticed I get an error everytime the games try to save a score to disk. I'm assuming I need to load a blank (virtual) disk to write to, but does it need to be a fake floppy or a fake hard drive?

Cho Ren Sha is a good example of this happening.