Genesis / Megadrive core ported to MiST

[slingshot]

a menu option to swap buttons II and I were really appreciated)

Seems they're swapped unintentionally, since in SF2 config, setting button I displays button II. Will correct it (and will stop hijacking the Genesis thread).

[DrOG]

a menu option to swap buttons II and I were really appreciated)

Seems they're swapped unintentionally, since in SF2 config, setting button I displays button II. Will correct it (and will stop hijacking the Genesis thread).

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

Sorry to be OffTopic...

[MasterOfGizmo]

Still don't know if the firmware really handle more than 2 correctly.

The Atari ST Core supports Four joysticks for quite some time and because of the new Atari st games frogs this possibility has recently gotten some attention.

So I am pretty sure four joysticks do work nicely.

[slingshot]

The Atari ST Core supports Four joysticks for quite some time and because of the new Atari st games frogs this possibility has recently gotten some attention.

So I am pretty sure four joysticks do work nicely.

Great, then it's confirmed 4 works. I wonder what about the 5th. I think that would be 4 USB + 1 DB9, since one of the DB9 is overridden by one USB?

[jotego]

I have been working for the past few weeks in improving sound quality, not the core itself. I think the FM synthesis core is already very accurate to real hardware with many features actually verified to be 100% equal. That is why I changed the focus to better sound experience.

Interpolation
Have you heard of the CD's 44.1kHz or the common 48kHz used nowadays? In digital music the sample rate is everything. One difficulty with these systems is that they used custom data rates. Like Megadrive has 55kHz. To change from that rate to a different one requires a lot of filtering, otherwise you will get artifacts in the sound. Emulators tend to do this poorly. The VGM file format used for videogame music has a big problem with this, for example.

FPGA clones normally do not filter either and if the output is at 55kHz, it will be fed to a high speed DAC without any consideration. This causes high frequency artifacts, particularly noticeable for PCM sounds. I have added proper interpolation filters to the Genesis core now.

PCM
The original YM2612 has a limitation as a PCM music player. It is very hard to push data at the required 55kHz rate -not to talk about the memory needed for that!- but the chip did not provide any up-rate filter. So PCM sounds were bound to have artifacts. On top of that, software programmers were usually sloppy to keep a fixed data rate flowing in, which created again more artifacts.

I have added an internal 27.5kHz resampler to JT12. PCM music now sounds better than on real hardware (and better than any emulator).

Check out how Streets of Rage sounds now.

While these changes get incorporated into the main repository, you can try it with my own core synthesis here.

Good work, although there are no sound improvements on Super Street Fighter II.

I do not hear any problems in Super SSF2 now. If you still notice issues, please send some audio/video or specific details so I can debug it.

[DanyPPC]

Jotego you are a great ! Now I test SSF2 and report here my feedback.
Thank you very much to improve sound of Genesis Core.

[slingshot]

I have been working for the past few weeks in improving sound quality, not the core itself. I think the FM synthesis core is already very accurate to real hardware with many features actually verified to be 100% equal. That is why I changed the focus to better sound experience.

Great! Will try and put it to the mist-binaries repo soon.

[DanyPPC]

Excellent work Jotego ! Now my MiST sounds better than my little MD2

SSF2 sound is now ok, but in general I have also found improvements on other games like Batman.
This Core is close to perfection !

[DanyPPC]

New updated version by Slingshot, many thanks !

Are there differences between this new and Jotego version ?

[slingshot]

Just a small user_io update, nothing serious.

[MasterOfGizmo]

Guys, thanks so much for your work on the genesis core. It has become one of my favourites and I had a lot of fun contributing a little bit to your great work.

You made 2018 a great year for the MIST and I am looking forward what 2019 will bring for the trusty old MIST board. There still seems to be more life in that little metal box than I expected.

[Gehstock]

Thanks for all your Work on MiST and the other Devs too

[slingshot]

You made 2018 a great year for the MIST and I am looking forward what 2019 will bring for the trusty old MIST board. There still seems to be more life in that little metal box than I expected.

And I would like to thank you for the MiST board first, without that I would never start with FPGAs, and the Genesis was a great learning experience also.

[vebxenon]

Guys, thanks so much for your work on the genesis core. It has become one of my favourites and I had a lot of fun contributing a little bit to your great work.

You made 2018 a great year for the MIST and I am looking forward what 2019 will bring for the trusty old MIST board. There still seems to be more life in that little metal box than I expected.

Thanks very much to all

[vebxenon]

Double post.

[vebxenon]

Just for your information the unreleased game Segasonic Bros has been ported for Mega Drive and it's playable on MiST .

https://mobile.twitter.com/DustinOfcYT/ ... 0681420800

I've put some photos from MiST here:

https://mobile.twitter.com/veb_xenon/st ... 3946569729

[vebxenon]

I've found a game that doesn't boot: Time Killers. Even I've tried EEPROM and Fast VRAM options and once the Sega logo appears, screen goes black.

Regards,

Salva

[slingshot]

I've found a game that doesn't boot: Time Killers. Even I've tried EEPROM and Fast VRAM options and once the Sega logo appears, screen goes black.

Regards,

Salva

That was a bug, luckily the fix wasn't hard.

[slingshot]

One thing I missed from the core to play Pirates! Gold is backup RAM support. Now it's done:
https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-bina ... 190110.rbf

Please read the usage before, and upgrade the firmware (for safety)!

Now it's possible to play Pirates or Story of Thor without restarting again and again
(I've tried these two games).

[DrOG]

Big THANKS for the improvement!

[Newsdee]

This is great! It's fantastic to see the core mature rapidly thanks to all your efforts.

[NegSol]

Absolutely great news. I will have to test it this weekend - Thank you!

[Higgy]

Nice work!

Here is Windows code to create a 32kb file, cut & paste this into Command Prompt (CMD in Windows Search):
fsutil file createnew megadrive1.sav 32768

[DanyPPC]

Many thanks to all !

[Chris23235]

Many thanks for your fantastic work, the core is nearly perfect. A small glitch appears in Splatter House 3, both the US and the japanese Rom have a graphical glitch, the walking animation of the character isn't played, when the character moves, it is stuck in one frame of the animation.