RealSpectrum Release 14

posted in Emulator Release by mfc on Jul 22nd, 2004

RealSpectrum, one of the most accurate and full-featured Spectrum emulators around, has been updated recently. Here is what's new:

Improved +3 disk emulation: better handling of copy-protected disks and extended DSK files. All disk images from the TZX Vault collection now work.
Alternate set of timings for 48K and 128K: a recent investigation has revealed that in certain 48K and 128K/+2 machines the multicolor timings differ by 1 clock cycle from their usual values; this is evident in MDA demo and Megalomania demo (for the 128K), and in a simple BASIC program which draws some stripes on the border (for the 48K). The alternate timings, which occur in a small number of machines, can be now selected from the model-specific properties menu (press F3 twice). Please refer to the Hardware configuration menu section for more information.
CSW v2.00 support: RealSpectrum now loads tape files in the new CSW v2.00 format, which is now supported by many other tools and emulators too.
ZXCF IDE interface: support for the ZX Compact Flash interface with 1 MB of RAM, which provides access to IDE storage memory via HDF files. The ZXCF can be activated from the IDE interfaces menu.
Video blitting FX (RS32 only): the Spectrum screen can be resized to 2x using either a simple pixel doubler or an intelligent rescaler for smoothed edges. See the new option in ALT-F11.
MP3 and OGG support (RS32 only): RS32 can now load tape files in MP3 and OGG Vorbis formats.
Universal WAV support: RealSpectrum can now read also stereo and/or 16-bit WAV files. Besides, RS32 is able to decode WAV files compressed with any audio codec installed in Windows.
Ultra-precise tape loading: RealSpectrum now performs sampling interpolation when reading audio data from WAV, MP3 and OGG files. This extra precision achieved dramatically improves the loading reliability with super-fast turbo loaders, such as Ultracargas (~6000 baud) and even the Codemasters CD (~14000 baud!).
Improved RS232 emulation (RSDOS): the serial ports menu now includes an option to select the handshake type, in order to support different kinds of cables. Linking has been successfully tested with a standard 128K and 48K+IF1.
Z80 core enhancements: implemented our findings on the undocumented behaviour of the PF flag with I/O block instructions; CPU emulation is now even more perfect.
Sound system stability: changed the sound synchronization code for better compatibility.
Several bugfixes: FastLoading (Biturbo III and others); extraction of files from ZIP archives; Microdrives ERASE_M hook code (changes were committed to the wrong sector); tape saving in WAV format (the last pulse was not closed correctly); and several other fixes in many places of the code.

You can download this from our Sinclair Spectrum Emulators section.

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