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MESS & MAME wip

More on slots, the SNES side

without comments

Before 0.148u2 release, SNES carts got converted to slot devices as well. Like with MegaDrive and Virtua Racing, the main effect on the end-users is that now games using add-on chips like DSP-1/2/3/4 (e.g. Super Mario Kart, Dungeon Master, etc.) or ST-010 (e.g. Exhaustion Heat 2), or SuperFX (e.g. Star Fox) can be loaded into snes & snespal directly, without the needs of additional clone systems (snesdsp, snessfx, etc.) like in 0.148! And we also support dumps with the DSP bios attached at the end of the file, like byuu’s higan, for ease of compatibility of the files between emulators.

smk_0 smk_1

exhaust2_0 exhaust2_1

sfox_0 sfox_1

The rewrite had however also many other effects. For instance, the Powerfest ’94 competition cart is playable in MESS now (DipSwitches included)
pfest94_0 pfest94_1
pfest94_2 pfest94_3
pfest94_4 pfest94_5
pfest94_6 pfest94_7
pfest94_8 pfest94_9

But we also added support for DSP-1 games with large ROM, like Super Bases Loaded II
sbl_0 sbl_1
sbl_2 sbl_3

Furthermore, some basic support for BS-X Satellaview was added to both BS-X – Sore wa Namae o Nusumareta Machi no Monogatari
bsx_base0 bsx_base1
bsx_base2bsx_base3

and some other compatible games
bsx_comp0 bsx_comp1
bsx_comp2 bsx_comp3
bsx_comp4 bsx_comp5
bsx_comp6 bsx_comp7

Even if most games making non trivial usage of flash memory are not working yet (which means that 70% of the BS-X carts, including the popular BS Zelda, BS Excitebike, Radical Dreamers and Treasure Conflix, will only show a black screen 🙁 ), a few other work fine
bsx01 bsx02
bsx03 bsx04
bsx05 bsx06
bsx07 bsx08
bsx09 bsx10
bsx11 bsx12

Luckily, even our sloppy BSX implementation is enough to support the character data in Same Game, by just dropping samegmcc or samegamecd in the -cart2 slot available when loading samegame…

Same Game + Chara Cassette, Bomberman flavor

Same Game + Chara Cassette, Momotarou flavor

Same Game + Chara Data (which adds Tengai Makyou characters)

A more interesting addition was probably the Korean 20-in-1 multigame cart showed here, which mostly work in current MESS (even if a couple of games freeze at start)
kor20_0kor20_1
kor20_2

kor20_3
kor20_4 kor20_5
kor20_6 kor20_7
kor20_8 kor20_9

As in the MegaDrive case, the slot code allowed for emulation of more protected SNES pirate carts

Digimon
snes_pir00 snes_pir01
Pokemon Gold Silver
snes_pi0r2 snes_pir03
X-Men VS Street Fighter
snes_pir04 snes_pir05
Pocket Monster
snes_pir06 snes_pir07
Soul Edge
snes_pir08 snes_pir09
KOF 2000
snes_pir10 snes_pir11
Pokemon Stadium
snes_pir12 snes_pir13
Tekken 2
snes_pir14 snes_pir15
Street Fighter EX Alpha
snes_pir16snes_pir17

Also, even if MESS has supported 8MB ExHiROM/ExLoROM games with no problems since 2007, support is now more transparent and they work exactly the same as HiROM/LoROM

snaps from Dragon Quest 3 English translation


snaps from Super Demo World

As you might have guessed at this stage, a byproduct of the usage of slots is that it is now very easy to add emulation of the copy protection and of the bankswitch mechanisms used in many pirate carts. However, I can’t stress enough that without slots it would have never been possible to support properly the add-on chips as we do now 🙂

Written by etabeta

April 21st, 2013 at 1:43 pm

Posted in MESS

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