March 1998

3/31/98
Emulator Release: Z26 0.97 news by zophar
21:56:  A new version of Z26, John Seigar's Atari 2600 emulator for DOS, has been released. Here's what's new in Version 0.97:

- More games are showing signs of working. I've added support for the following offbeat cartridge formats: Atari Super Chip (some 16K images), and CBS Ram Plus (12K images).
- Fixed a problem in sound drivers introduced in 0.96 (oops!).

You can download Z26 0.97 from the Atari 2600 page.

Frontend News: fwNES Express 1.1 news by zophar
16:31:  Lin has released an update to his fwNES frontend, fwNES Express. Here's what's new in 1.1:

-corrected a slight position shift in the Settings dialog
-added option to delete FWNES.INI when updating settings
-added option to view FWNES98E.TXT or *C.TXT or *J.TXT
-improved keyboard navigation in Settings dialog
-plus some other minor touch-ups

fwNES Express Page

Site News: Some friendly reminders news by zophar
16:18:  Just some friendly reminders for those of you that need them. To start, as most of you know, tommorow is April 1st, 1998. What is so important about this day? Well, besides the fact that the father of Eric Cartman is revealed o n tommorow's episode of South Park, you should be aware that it is April Fools Day. What does this have to do with anything? I have a feeling that many fake 'emulators', and rumours of them, will be floating around tommorow. I've already heard about a "Te kken 2 Emulator" scheduled for "release tommorow". Just keep your eyes peeled, and don't download and run anything that sounds too good to be true. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Second of all, the Articles section is coming very shortly now! Really! I promise! The Frontends section will be here someday. If anyone is interested in creating/maintaining one, give me a buzz.

That's all for now. You may return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Emulator Release: Slutte! Release 5 (Bligh) news by zophar
15:07:  Slutte Release 5 (Bligh) is now available. Here's what's new in this Bionic Commando emulator:

- Bligh version.
- Scroll layer priority is now nigh-on perfect.
- Game resolution is more accurate.
- Added another screen mode (clipped 320x200).
- Frameskip option implemented.
- Palette intensity emulation altered a little. Still not perfect, though.
- Fixed some graphics clipping bugs.

You can download Slutte! Release 5 (Bligh) from the Single Arcade emulator page.

Emulator Release: Reality 64 0.1a news by zophar
14:51:  A new Nintendo 64 emulator has been released. Gordon Hollingworth has released his Nintendo 64 emulator, Reality 64. Currently, it is a CPU-only emulator, so don't expect it to run your N64 games. On a side note, I tried to run the emulator but got an 'out of memory error', so I'm assuming you need more than 16MB RAM to run it. You can download it from the Nintendo 64 page.

3/30/98
Emulator Release: FreeMSX 0.11 news by zophar
16:37:  A new version of FreeMSX, an MSX emulator for Windows 95, has been released. Here's what's new in 0.11:

- Z80/R800 switching changed from BIOS-trap to I/O register processing (S1990), therefore more programs are running now
- Pause-LED added to statusbar
- Deselecting a port-device (using "no device attached" again) was not possible. This caused problems in multiplayer-games.
- Description of S1990 added to MSX.HLP
- Description of configuration-files added (help)
- Window-activation using mouse failed, while popup-windows are displayed
- FullScreen: black border not always repainted
- HiRes: Screen 1 and Screen 2 problems fixed
- LoRes: zoomed sprites are supported now
- Debug-output is now routable to file also
- Minimum support for disk-errors added
- MSX-Basic help updated (Kanji, ...)

You can download FreeMSX 0.11 from the MSX page.

Emulator Release: xDragon 0.25 news by zophar
09:21:  A new version of xDragon, a multi arcade emulator for Robocop, Bad Dudes Vs Dragon Ninja, and Dragon Ninja. Here's what's new in 0.25:

- Added two new video modes
- Added a joystick calibration part

You can download xDragon 0.25 from the Multi Arcade Emulator page.

3/29/98
Site News: Infe's Snessor & Scrollball page recovered news by zophar
23:12:  We have recovered all of Infe's Personal page, which contain the Snessor and Scrollball pages. Also, the rest of Zophar's Domain as it was a few months ago has been recovered. So what does this mean for you? It means that all o f Zophar's Domain is now online. Have fun!

Infe's Scrollball & Snessor page
Zophar's Domain 1-20-98

Emulator Release: TheSE 0.11 news by zophar
14:45:  A new version of TheSE, an SNES emulator from the authors of USNES, has been released. Here's the list of changes present in version 0.11:

- 8x8, 16x16, 32x32, 64x64 Sprites
- Sprite Flipping both X and Y
- 16x16 tiles are finaly implemented
- SPC700 silent emulation
- A lot of major bugs fixed

You can download TheSE 0.11 from the SNES page.

Frontend News: FWNFE 0.7.37 & SnesGUI 1.4a news by zophar
14:41:  P-Funk has released a minor update to his FWNes frontend, FWNFE. In FWNFE 0.7.37, a long filename bug has been fixed, that would not allow you to be able to load games longer than 8 chars long.

FWNFE Page

SnesGUI has been updated to Version 1.4a. SnesGUI is a multiple frontend for three SNES emulators: zSNES, Snes 9x, and esnes.

SnesGUI Page

Emulator Release: xDragon 0.2 news by zophar
14:33:  Nicolas Hamel and David Michel have released a new version of xDragon, a multi arcade emulator. Here's what's new in Version 0.2:

- Added Robocop
- Added sound emulation (FX&Music)
- Added the 6502 emulation, fully in ASM

You can download xDragon 0.2 from the Multi Arcade Emulator page.

3/28/98
Emulator Release: Callus 0.30 news by infe
20:44:  New Callus! Yay! There are a whole LOT of new features in this version, including a GUI and music support. Here they are:

-Fixed sprite clip bug
-Row based overdraw reduction
-Exponential operator envelopes
-Corrected black background intensity
-'resv' command line option
-Volume control dialog
-Movie playing/recording (.CM?)
-Rewrote graphics decoder in asm (faster loading)
-Modified 384x224 mode (should be more compatible)
-Rotated display
-Japanese Dynasty Wars support (dwj)
-Japanese Pnickies support (pnickj)
-Chiki Chiki Boys support (chikij)
-Tile/sprite partial-priority
-Improved plane enable bits
-Muscle Bomber Duo support (mbomber)
-Hybrid input option (see below)
-KOD/Rockmanj dipswitches
-3rd/4th player inputs
-Support for a second sidewinder (untested)
-Haggar pants GUI
-Fixed sprite/bg synch
-Sound logging to wav files
-Implemented ADPCM channel volume
-Fixed rare palette mapper color leak
-Fixed minor player input bug
-Cadillacs and Dinosaurs support (dino)
-Japanese Knights of the Round support (knightsj)
-Japanese Warriors of Fate support (wofj)
-Warriors of Fate support (wof)
-Semiaccurate YM2151 timer/irq mechanism
-Digital YM2151 FM emulation
-Emulated hardware coin counter
-1941 support (1941)
-State slots changeable with F6/F8
-State display
-Fixed -remapbut bug
-Punisher support (punish)
-EEPROM emulation
-Japanese Punisher support (punishj)
-Nemo support (nemo)
-Quiz and Dragons support (qad)
-Japanese Wonder 3 support (wonder3)
-Japanese Varth support (varthj)
-Japanese Willow support (willowj)
-Mercs support (mercs)
-Japanese Quiz and Dragons support (qadj)
-Varth support (varth)
-Japanese Nemo support (nemoj)
-Japanese Street Fighter II support (sf2j)

You can download Callus at Zophar's Domain's Multi-Arcade Emulator Page.

Utility News: SNESSOR95 & ScrollBall (Again) news by infe
14:42:  Thanks for the email replies, guys, I now have the latest versions of both programs. I've put them online at ZD in these spots:

SNESSOR95 Page
ScrollBall Page

The web pages for these are just slapped there for now, I will fix them up a bit later today.

Emulator Release: Z26 0.96 news by zophar
10:49:  John Saegar has released version 0.96 of his DOS Atari 2600 emulator, Z26. Here's what's new:

- All known DOS box lockup problems have been fixed :-) Please let me know if you find more.
- Fixed sound-related DOS box lockup on emulator startup that happened when Windows 95 wasn't finished playing a sound when the emulator was started. z26 now waits for Windows 95 to finish before initializing the Sound Blaster.
- Fixed rare sound-related DOS box lockup on emulator finish. Thanks to Ummagumma and Len Shikowitz for working with me on this, and thanks to Chris Pile for some interesting conversations on *paranoid* Sound Blaster programming. I used some code from his Asteroids emulator to help pull this one off.
- Vertical sync code now falls back to old code automatically if a timeout occurs. This avoids a lockup if the delay introduced in version 0.95 proves to be insufficient.
- Sound is now properly turned off when a game is paused on all supported sound cards.

You can download it from the Atari 2600 page.

Frontend News: FWNFE 0.7.1 news by zophar
07:39:  P-Funk has released Version 0.7.1 of his FWNes frontend, FWNFE. This version implements all of the command line options present in FWNes 0.15b.

FWNFE Page

3/27/98
Emulator Release: EX68 v 0.29 news by zophar
22:30:  A new version of EX68, the only X68000 japanese computer emulator available, has been updated to version 0.29. Since the update.txt is in japanese, as well as the rest of the documentation, I really can't tell you what's new. Download it from the X68000 page and see for yourself.

Site News: Welcome back to Zophar's Domain! news by zophar
14:38:  After a nice 5 day vacation, Zophar's Domain has returned to the web. A huge thanks goes out to SwampGas, who helped find me the new home, and thanks also go out to Ubu, who is hosting my site on his server, malicia.com. Check out this application form when you get a chance if you're interested in low-cost shells and web hosting.

Now, on to the not so fun stuff. Zophar's Domain has lost Infe's personal page, along with the source code to Snessor95 and Scrollball. We'll keep you updated on what happens in the next few days.

Finally, please read the ENTIRE page for the news of the last few days. Although Zophar's Domain was down, the news was still updated, so read it all. Also, the site may possibly be VERY slow today, but the T1 we are on is just for now, so don't worry. Enjoy Zophar's Domain, and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to let us know!

Utility News: SNESSOR95 & ScrollBall Dead news by infe
14:14:  Due to a recent hard drive crash, I lost the source code to my programs SNESSOR95 and ScrollBall, so they are now officially dead. On a related note, if anyone has SNESSOR95 2.1 or ScrollBall 2.5, please email me, so I can get the actual program from you. I currently don't have either one...please email me before sending the program, though, so I don't get flooded :). If you have earlier versions, please email me as well, because at least those are better than nothing. My email address is infe@iswt.com.

Site News: New Poll news by infe
13:58:  Unfortunately, we lost the results of the last poll (which will you use more, snes9x or zsnes) in the server move, but if I remember correctly, "I will use both" got the most votes. A new poll is up, where you can tell us how fast the new server is for you.

Misc. News: Death of The Dump's Genesis Section news by zophar
12:58:  The Dump's Sega Genesis ROMs section is now gone. Why, you may ask? It's because the IDSA, an organization similar to the SPA, has threatened Harry Tuttle with legal action. Read on...

"Unauthorized reproduction and distribution of our members' entertainment software titles is a violation of their exclusive rights under the Copyright Act, federal and state trademark law and the law prohibiting unfair competition. Your actions are illegal and can result in criminal prosecution and/or civil liability.

"On behalf of our members, I demand that you immediately cease reproducing and distributing any entertainment software titles published by an IDSA member and that you delete any copies on your hard-drive. We will be monitoring your Website..."

- Gail Markels
Interactive Digital Software Association

3/26/98
Emulator Release: Atari 800 DOS Emulator 0.9.1 news by zophar
23:59:  Atari 800 Emulator for DOS has been updated to version 0.9.1. The following has been updated in this new version:

- new POKEY v2.4 with sound channels filtering! Exclusively written by Ron Fries for Atari800 emulator. Thanks, Ron!
- merge of Perry's and (Raster & Joy)'s source tree - great! Current source can be compiled for DOS by either Makefile.dos or by Perry's Makefile.pm (with Pentium optimizations). Perry's Makefile needs DOS game library Allegro. The only functional difference between these two DOS versions is that Makefile.pm enables keyclicks (due to different sound handling).
- major rewrite of DOS keyboard emulation - now allows two modes of operation: native (the labels on English PC keyboard are valid) and original (the keyboard layout is the same as the original Atari800 keyboard). You can switch between these two modes on-the-fly by pressing Control+F1 and Shift+F1). Better handling of START/SELECT/OPTION keys (these console keys are independent of the rest of keyboard). Screen view movement changed to Control-numeric pad (just like emulated joy, but with Control key). (Raster)
- ANTIC speeded up by narrowing the screen width to 42 chars (originally it was 48 chars wide, but no TV can show more than about 43 chars..). This should speed things up for about 10% in wide modes and PM graphics. (Perry)
- Emulation of 320 kB of memory added. Two different modes are supported - Rambo and Compy Shop. Extended memory tested by Q-meg (alternative operating system for Atari320XE). ROM/ShadowRAM and AtariXL Basic switching optimized. (Raster)
- Atari5200 emulation corrected (loading of ROMs, keyboard, paddles). Special support for Bounty Bob on Atari5200 added. (Perry)
- new SIO code that supports formatting (written by (thor), updated by Perry and Petr).

You can download Atari 800 Emulator for DOS 0.9.1 from the Atari 8bit/5200 page.

Emulator Release: WinUAE 0.7.0 Release 1 news by zophar
21:40:  The first non-beta release of WinUAE 0.7.0 is now public. Here's what's new:

- Total rework of CPU-engine, thanks to Bernd Schmidt. One single executable is now used for *all* versions of WinUAE - 68000, 68010, 68020, and 68020 with 68881.
- Now completely a Win32 application. Up-side: no more annoying console window appearing when you double-click on WinUAE. Down-side: support for command-line interface is reduced. Also, no visible logging. NOTE: I will most likely REMOVE the command-line support completely from WinUAE in the next version, since the GUI provides a complete interface to all of the commands.
- Reworked the GUI to accomodate up to sixteen hard-files and/or mount-points, as well as the new CPU settings.
- Sound now works in 8-bit and 16-bit formats.
- Scrolling bug in graphics has now been eliminated.
- Stretched GUI problem can be resolved - read the information on my web-page.
- Priority level of WinUAE is now NORMAL, rather than IDLE. This should give a small performance boost when WinUAE is the foreground application.
- Directory-names with trailing slashes should be handled correctly now.
- New configuration-file format, but old files should still load correctly.
- New "Julian-Mode" option, so that middle-mouse-button can escape the mouse-capture which occurs when running WinUAE in windowed-mode. No more having to press ALT-TAB just to lose the mouse-capture. Just for you, Julian!
- Source-code will be available shortly both at my web-site, and also at the official UAE homepage. Bernd is moving UAE to the GNU Public License.
- WinUAE Home Page reworked yet again.

You can download WinUAE 0.7.0 Release 1 from the Amiga page.

3/25/98
Emulator Release: MetaLynx 0.0.5a news by zophar
23:28:  After over 7 months of inactivity, MetaLynx has finally had an update. However, nothing much is really new. Here's the list of changes:

- Support for packed 3-bit, 2-bit, and 1-bit background noncollideable sprites
- Support for literal 4-bit, 2-bit, and 1-bit background noncollideable sprites
- Timer fixes
- Hardware 16-bit multiply
- Numerous other slight changes that I forgot, since I haven't updated MetaLynx in such a long time - sorry!

You can download MetaLynx 0.0.5a from the Lynx page.

Emulator News: Virtual ColecoVision & Slutte! news by zophar
18:34:  Virtual ColecoVision will no longer be updated, according to the author. Here is what he announced:

"I've halted further development on The Virtual ColecoVision. This doesn't mean that I won't update my site, fix bugs or answer technical support related e-mails. What it does mean though is that I won't be adding any new technology or new features to the emulator unless requested by several users."

Slutte! will be updated again, contrary to what the author originally said after releasing Version Beefheart. Here's what he said:

"So Beefheart won't be the last version after all. I've started on the MAME driver, and progress isn't quite as fast as I'd imagined it would be. Since the last update, I've worked out exactly how the scroll-layer priorities work, along with some other fairly major stuff, so I think I'll take a break from the MAME stuff and add these changes to Slutte! soon."

Don't forget to visit the Virtual ColecoVision page and the Slutte! page.

Emulator Release: EX68 0.28 news by zophar
18:20:  Version 0.28 of EX68, the only Windows 95 X68000 emulator available, has been released. Since I can't read Japanese and no one has translated it yet, so basically, John Stringer of the Japanese Computer Emulation Centre said the following:

"The changes are not obvious in gaming terms... the music synching seems to have improved and Space Harrier runs nicely. It looks like changes have been made in the way EX68 runs the X68000 OS and also in the music system."

- John Stringer

You can download EX68 0.28 from the X68000 page.

Emulator Release: Boycott 0.35 news by zophar
18:02:  A new version of Boycott, the newest Gameboy emulator to hit Emulation, has been released. Here's the list of changes in Version 0.35:

- FIRST NON BETA RELEASE (FINALLY !!!)
- Compatibility rate up to 90% (all games seems to work :)
- Debugging of CB instructions (I forgot some stupid breaks :(
- Debugging of ROM Bank switching (it works now !!!)
- Sprite priorities improvement

You can download Boycott 0.35 from the GameBoy page.

Frontend News: URL 0.93 news by zophar
17:34:  Zoop has released Version 0.93 of his Universal frontend for DOS. Here's what's new:

- Various bugs fixed.
- Better handling of single zipped emulators.
- Added AUTO_ZIP and STAY_CURRENT commands (see docs).
- Added a kid mode, featuring moving eyes :-)

You can download URL 0.93 from the URL Homepage

Emulator Release: fwNES 0.15b news by zophar
17:29:  fwNES 0.15b has been released. There is a whole slew of new things in this release, the most notable being many new mappers added, as well as the much needed SoundBlaster support. The sound has much improved. Here's the full list of what's new:

- Fixed some palette bugs / worng backgraound in SMB.
- Fixed horzantal scorlling bugs/ the right side like garage in SMB.
- Added PPU $2001 Routine.
- Added another 6502 Core by ShuKondo ..(it's cool ) but experimental
- A New Sound Engine (NAIL) ,i feel much better ,by ShuKondo :)
- Added up to 10 slot of realtime save/load function. (*.RT? )
- Added SoftReset/CoolReset
- .INI auto save last emulator status
- Some Spilt Screen improved
- PPU Emulation Better
- Mapper #1 Mmc1 Mapper Fixed
- Mapper #5 Mmc5 Mapper Fixed /More Game work although Buggy
- Mapper #10 Mmc4 Mapper Fixed /FireEmblemGaiden title screen bugs fixed
- Mapper #16 Bandai Mapper Fixed /All Game should work
- Mapper #17 FFE Mapper Fixed /Some game work more better / NamcoSangoushi2J-FFE
- Mapper #19 Namco Mapper Fixed
- Mapper #32 G101 Mapper Fixed
- Mapper #64 H3001 Mapper Fixed
- Mapper #66 74161/32 H/V/PG Fixed
- Mapper #67 SunSoft 3 Fixed
- Mapper #68 SunSoft 4 Fixed
- Mapper #69 SunSoft Mapper5/FME-7 Fixed
- Mapper #70 74161/32 Added
- Mapper #71 Camerica Mapper Added
- Mapper #72 Jaleco Early Mapper #0 used in early Jaleco Games
- Mapper #73 Reserved for Konami VRC?
- Mapper #74 Taiwan MMC3 -Varient Mapper #0
- Mapper #75 Jaleco Mapper SS8805/Konami VRC 1 Added
- Mapper #77 Irem Early Mapper #0 used in early Irem Games
- Mapper #78 74161/32 Added.
- Mapper #79 American Video Entertainment Mapper Added
- Mapper #80 X1-005 H/V/PG Fixed
- Mapper #85 Konami VRC7 Added TinyToon2 Adv 2J/LaggranePoint
- Dump Screen into .PCX

You can download fwNES 0.15b from the NES page.

3/21/98
Frontend News: FWNFE 0.6.0002 news by zophar
21:17:  P-Funk has released version 0.6.0002 of FWNFE. Here's the minor changes in this frontend for FWNes:

- implemented the rest of the command line options
- cleaned up some of my ini code.

You can download it from the official homepage.

Emulator News: SNES9X Page Updated news by infe
16:20:  The official SNES9X Page has been updated. They are now looking for people to port SNES9X to new platforms. Thanks to secain of the SNES Emulation Centre for this news.

Emulator Release: SNEESE 0.15 news by infe
15:23:  The following features are new in SNEESE 0.15:

- Modes 5 & 6 (16x8 & 16x16) fully implemented, NB 512 horizontal resolution is not yet supported.
- Mode 2 (offset change mode) vertical column offset support added, see included rom (happy.smc) try it on other emus, note the difference ;-)
- IRQ support added, Zelda name selection screen now works, and in SMW the clouds on the ghost house now scroll.
- Fast Rom and Pal/NTSC timings added may be inaccurate...
- Dynamic ROM allocation implemented (ensures we don't allocate 6MB for a 1MB rom).
- Implemented Fixed Colour hack, now SMW has a blue background when it should.. looks a lot better.
- SPC bugs fixed, but still no sound?? I can't figure out the problem so we made it low priority for this release, and erm, well its not yet included sorry..
- DMA redone, this speeds it up by making the memory access simpler.
- HDMA redone, indirect mode is working better, FZERO is visible but extremely bodgy, also helps bosses on SMW a little.
- Zelda maps are now fixed, rain is animated now too, but you should disable plane 1 while playing or you won't see it! Also zelda mode 7 map works now too.
- Mario maps no longer corrupt when entering / leaving the large map area in SMW.
- OAM name & base select implemented properly, actraiser bosses no longer corrupt.
- Sprite priority rotation now working, mario is visible on the top left corner of the map screen, in SMW.
- GUI now has a nice joypad control configuration screen thanks to the work of Santeri Saarimaa.
- Emulator can now distinguish between SMC & BIN images ie. rom images with and without a 512 byte header again thanks to Santeri Saarimaa.

It can be downloaded at the SNES page.

Emulator Release: Atari800Win 1.9 news by zophar
13:20:  A new version of Atari800Win after months of inactivity, has finally been released. Here's what's new in Version 1.9:

- As the title suggests, this is considered a beta. It is much more functional than the previous version, and in general more stable, but there are things I would like to look into before finalizing this to version 2.0. I am specifically looking for bugs in the user interface and use of atari800win vs. the other Atari800 emus, for instance if it works in DOS but not in Win95.
- The biggest change is building from the 0.9.0 Atari800 code base. This means a huge list of changes to the emulator core; basically, it's much better now. P/M graphics and collisions in particular are really working well.
- CPU core updated along with above changes. It's very good now, but still not perfect (7Cities of Gold still doesn't work! auuugh!).
- Some inconsistencies in disk drive dialogs corrected.
- Large-format ATRs can be read - use MyDos45 (Atari DOS won't read them)
- Keyboard as joystick problem fixed (and the NT users say, "yea").
- Better recovery from lost Dsound buffers while in Primary mode
- Hardware dialog reworked to fit better for those running 320x240 screens.
- Added kludgy antic mode f (that's graphics 8 for you Atari BASIC weenies) "artifacting". You can set the colors created and turn the effect on an off via the Atari/Antic menu. This needs to be implemented for character modes as well, but I haven't done that yet.
- Various small performance increases. There must be a better way to to stretchblt the 768x480 modes (actually, I know there is for sure in DDraw, and I need to change that - but look into GDI as well).
- Spent hours finding a bizarre memory tromp bug. Doh.
- SIO command 0x21 works. What's that? Oh, nothing much - just disk format :-). You need to have a file to mount first, so copy an existing .ATR file, then mount it, and tell the Atari to format it - voila.
- Things that need to be added: a monitor, find out what's still wrong with 6502, look at various SIO bits that I think aren't right (GTIA and P/M, DLI all seem GREAT now, much better than XL-it! for example)

You can download Atari800Win 1.9 from the Atari 5200/8bit page.

Site News: Save Archives Updated news by alamone
00:26:  A few saves have been added to the ZST Archive and GS0 Archive. Thanks to all who contribute!

3/20/98
Emulator News: 3DFX Emulator... isn't news by zophar
22:26:  Well, that 3DFX 'emulator', as i foretold, is a fraud. Please people, don't email me an emulator news story unless you've tried out the emulator first.

Translation News: More on Shadow leaving RPGe news by zophar
21:57:  Shadow has e-mailed me and informed me that although he has left emulation for good, he has never dropped a project before, and doesn't plan on letting his leaving change that. So what does that mean for us? It means his translations-in-progress (including Lunar:Magic School!) will be finished eventually by him, and released.

Emulator News: 3DFX Emulator? news by zophar
21:55:  Please shoot me if this is a load of B.S. (and it probably is), but if it's true, I don't want to deprive you of this information. LordFlux has notified me that a possible 3DFX emulator is available for Quake2. Although I don't see much of a point to this (unless you don't have a 3DFX card and you simply *must* see colored lightning), you may want to try it out for yourself and see if it works.

3DFX "Emulator"

Emulator News: Even more Snes9x news news by zophar
10:27:  The Snes9x preview page has been updated with some new screenshots. From the screenshots, you can see that Color Addition, Subtraction, and transparencies are now present. It seems like a new release of Snes9x will be coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled.
Snes9x Preview Page

Translation News: Shadow leaves RPGe news by zophar
10:19:  Shadow has announced that he has quit RPGe. Here is his closing message:

"I can't tolerate the number of people who send me flames and death threats, it's more than I can bear to handle. I'm going off now to work on my own. Maybe I'll program, maybe I'll translate for myself, like I used to when it was fun, I don't know but please wish me well in whatever I do. The unfinished translations that had been in work, Lunar Magic School, Ranma RPGe, and Pocket Monsters have been pulled from the site. I'm not sure who's going to take charge here, pull RPGe back together, and manage our many members. I hope they can keep the spirit of doing this all for fun alive and well. I'll miss some of our kind visitors at the message boards and all the members of RPGe. It's been great but due to fate I can't continue. Best wishes."

This is most unfortunate, especially since this means we may not say Lunar: Magic School translated! (And for anyone who follows the Lunar series, you know why this upsets me). Best of luck to Shadow.

3/19/98
Emulator Release: SNEmul 0.51 news by zophar
17:56:  Archeide of the SNEmul team has e-mailed Zophar's Domain to announce the release of SNEmul 0.51. This version has many changes since 0.5, the most exciting of which is sound! Here's the full list of changes:

- Fixed a bug in SPC700 that led the tunes to be dissonant.
- Fixed a bug in BRR decompression.
- Changed the sound updating routine.
- You can now listen to music & sfx in games. Some commercial ROMs sound really good(ex : Secret Of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy II, etc)!
- Speeded up the BRR decompressions.
- Implemented tile priority (Thanks to -you know who you are-). You should no more experience tile superposition problems with ROMS that use it like Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy V, etc.
- Corrected sprite priority.
- Some other bugs fixed: now Super Metroid, Ogre Battle, BomberMan, etc work fine :)

You can download SNEmul 0.51 from the SNES page.

Site News: Just some reminders news by staff
17:38:  Since there hasn't been much happening today (actually, nothing at all has happened in emulation today so far), we'll just post these friendly reminders here.

First of all, please make sure when you send an e-mail to someone that you send it to the right person, (ie, _Rza_ handles links, alamone handles save states, and so forth), or if you're using the form updater, that you choose the right topic (ie, frontend news is not translation news). Remember:do not abuse the form updater, or your host will be banned from ever submitting news again.

Secondly, we are adding an Article section to Zophar's Domain very soon, and the first article will be an editorial from Zophar on...something (you'll see). Also, a Frontend section will come someday...I hope.

Finally, don't forget to check out these great sections of Zophar's Domain for more information on emulation and such:
- Zophar's Message Domain
- Links Page
- Home of Snessor95 and Scrollball

3/18/98
Emulator News: More Snes9x news news by zophar
23:34:  Straight from the Snes9x preview site:

One day I tell you that you can't see the Yoshi and the baddies in Yoshi's Island, the other day that's 'fixed'. Although it's not completely fixed, Yoshi is visible, the baddies are too but buggy, which make 'finishing' the first level very hard. Also transparency is now working with the tile-based update engine(previously it was only working with the line-per-line-based screen updates). New screenshots will follow shortly.

Snes9x Preview page

Emulator Release: Slutte! Release 4 (Beefheart) news by zophar
23:09:  Slutte! has had its 4th release today. This version is called 'Beefheart'. I don't know about you, but I think these Captain version names are getting silly. Anywho, here's what's new:

- Player 2 controls now work.
- Added a menu interface for setting the dipswitches.
- Fixed a problem with the highscore saving.
- Started work on emulating the palette intensity values, so fades kinda work.
- I don't think the intermediate colours are right, but it's a start.
StarScream v0.24 implemented. Neill's bugfixes have made the parachuting bonus objects move more correctly.

This emulator is probably being discontinued, as the author is probably going to write a MAME driver instead. You can download Release 4 of Slutte! from the Single Arcade Emulator page.

Site News: ZST archive updated news by alamone
19:30:  Seven new saves posted at the ZST Archive. Keep them coming in!

Utility News: Thingy 0.7 news by zophar
00:27:  A new version of Thingy, a NES ROM hacking utility, has been released. The following has been updated in 0.7:

- Added the option to have 2 table files and switch back and forth between them. Press TAB in the main screen to switch. This is pretty useful if you want a japanese and english table to dump japanese text and put in english text, or if some games have two fonts.
- Also, a BIG speed increase and when you select things to edit/dump, it highlights the text.

You can download Thingy 0.7 from the NES Utilities page.

Misc. News: Marat Fayzullin's HOWTO document updated news by zophar
00:20:  Marat Fayzullin has updated his famous 'How to write an emulator' document. Anyone interested in writing an emulator may want to check out this valuable document, which explains the basics on how to begin writing an emulator.

3/17/98
Emulator News: Snes9x progress news by zophar
23:59:  Straight from the Snes9X preview page:

I've been talking to the anonymous programmers and asked a status report. They had the following to tell me about the SuperFX emulation:

"no SuperFX game is actually playable yet. Yoshi's Island works but you can't see yoshi, the baby or the baddies, in StarFox the space ships are missing, the only copy of DOOM available for testing is corrupt, in Vortex the SuperFX gets stuck in loops, in Stunt Racer the landscape doesn't move."

The anonymous programmers want at least one SuperFX game playable before a release and just for the record the hardest part of emulating the SuperFX aren't 'drawing' the polygons, it's getting the CPU &
registers emulated correctly.

Emulator Release: Z26 0.95 news by zophar
23:15:  Z26, an Atari 2600 emulator for DOS, has been updated. The following has been added in 0.95:

- Fixed the blinking line in the upper left corner of the screen that
showed up in 0.94 when z26 was run with the -r (full speed) command line switch.
- Fixed joystick games that previously didn't work with a joystick. - These include: airlock.bin, alien.bin, circatri.bin, circus.bin, circus-j.bin, enduro.bin, supferar.bin, and supferri.bin.
- Made some progress with game jitter.
- Made progress with a (fortunately rather rare) problem that causes z26 to sometimes lock up at startup under Windows 95. This fix has to do with initialization of the vertical synchronization code. I've added an additional delay to give Windows 95 more time to complete it's animation of the switch to full screen mode when graphics mode is turned on before timing the vertical non-display interval and reprogramming the VGA registers.

You can download Z26 0.95 from the Atari 2600 page.

Emulator Release: BRMSX 1.105 news by zophar
16:03:  A new version of BRMSX, an MSX emulator for DOS, has been released. Here's what's new in Version 1.105:

- Fixed a bug in vdp auto-increment address. Now old Konami games like "Ping Pong" and "Yie Ar Kung Fu 1" works again.
- added keyboard click
- added voice through PPI 1-bit PCM ("Super Laydock")
- added voice through PSG 4-bit PCM ("READWAV", "Star Wars", "Oh Shit!")
- emulation of port ABh (PPI indirect set/reset bit, used inside the BIOS)
- new debugger screen with new debug options (read the help page)
- limited support to SCC sound, using square waves instead of the user-defined wavesamples (most Konami MegaROM games, like "Salamander" and "King's Valley 2").

You can download BRMSX 1.105 from the MSX page.

Translation News: FF2j translation finally released! news by zophar
04:32:  After months and months of anticipation, the translation that basically started the whole translations boom has been released! Demi, in coordination with a bunch of other people, have completed the translation, and it's available for download at his website. It would be available here on the ZD Translation page, but Demi is in charge of that, and he never updates it...oh well :)

Emulator Release: xDragon 0.1 news by zophar
04:26:  A new arcade emulator for Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja, and Dragon Ninja, has been released. Named xDragon, it runs these 2 games without sound. Here's the features in this first release:

- Game(s) supported: Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja, Dragon Ninja
- Full 68000 emulator, using Starscream
- Horizontal and vertical scrolling supported
- Background priorities supported
- Players input (1 & 2) supported, using keyboard and joystick
- ALL graphics parts coded in ASM.
- Sprite supported at 99% (priority not perfect yet)

You can download xDragon 0.1 from the Multi Arcade emulator page.

3/16/98
Misc. News: Console Copiers for sale news by zophar
15:30:  I received an e-mail regarding Console Copiers for sale. Since it has been hard lately to purchase a backup unit, I'm posting this news. Here's the e-mail:

This might not be 100% emulator related but since to the high demand of SNES Backup Units lately I have taken it upon myself to start selling the Professor SF II backup units with 64 megs of RAM for $200 in the US only. For more information please goto http://members.tripod.com/~heXim/emu/and see the first advertisement. For any further questions feel free to email me at vividbarrier@hotmail.com.

Utility News: Thingy 0.6 news by zophar
15:26:  A new version of Thingy, a NES utility to help with rom hacking, has been released. From the readme, here's what's new in 0.6:

Semi-minor update. Some bugs were fixed, and i changed a few constants around to make it a bit faster. Made it so that you can make the end string (ie /00) something other than 00. The sample table file that was made for FF2us was a little messed up, fixed (thanks Ballz).

You can download Thingy 0.6 from the NES Utilities page.

3/15/98
Misc. News: Damaged Cybernetics news by zophar
21:58:  Well, I must confess, I sat here for half an hour thinking about whether or not I should post this news. I've decided as much as I am against what DC stood for (or some people thought it stood for), I'm going to proceed nonetheless.

For those of you who didn't know, Damaged Cybernetics, or DC as it was called by many, was a group specializing in "grey-area" information, such as MPEG Layer 3's involvment in audio piracy, console copiers, and emulation. It 'died' after the source code to NESticle, the most popular NES emulator around, was stolen by the groups leader, Donald Moore, also known as MindRape.

To make a long story short, Chris Hickman, maintainer of Archaic Ruins, obtained the old DC webpages from Donald and set up a 'time-capsule' of sorts. It's a real memory-jogger. You may want to give it a look, and even if you never heard of DC, you might want to give it a look.

Frontend News: FWNFE, and update to DvRageFE news by zophar
21:41:  A new frontend has been released, and another has been updated. The first is for FWnes, called FWNFE. The other is an update, DvRageFE 2.09, a frontend for RAGE 0.9

P-Funk has released 0.5.0011 of his FWnes frontend, named FWNFE. You can download this frontend from the official homepage.

Devil16 has released version 2.09 of his RAGE frontend, DvRageFE. You can download it from the DvRageFE page.

Site News: Two people reached 500,000? news by zophar
21:28:  Well, either one of them is lying, or else they both hit the counter at the exact same moment. Either way, I might as well congratulate them both on being the 500,000th visitors to Zophar's Domain. Congratulations, both TaunT and The Black Falcon. Thanks to everyone for their continued support of Zophar's Domain.

Site News: 500,000? news by zophar
15:09:  It seems that someone has visited Zophar's Domain, reached the half-million mark, and didn't bother to mail in! If any of you reached the mark, but forgot to e-mail Zophar's Domain, please do, with a screenshot.

Utility News: Thingy 0.5 news by zophar
14:32:  A new version of Thingy, a small NES util used to aid in the translating of NES ROMs. In Version 0.5, included are a couple bugfixes and the option to output script into a file. The dumper works for outputting both .txt files for English games, and .EUC files for japanese games. A sample table file to output a .EUC file for FF2 text has been included. You can download it from the NES Utilities page.

Frontend News: Front End-O-Matic news by zophar
14:24:  A new frontend called Front End-O-Matic, has been released. Currently it only supports Raine 0.09, but other emulators are planned to be added in future releases. You can check it out at its official official homepage.

Emulator Release: RAGE 0.9 news by zophar
14:22:  A new version of RAGE, a multi arcade emulator for Capcom, SNK and IREM games, has been released. Here's what's new in version 0.9:

- Support for: Undercover Cops, Ninja Spirit, In the Hunt, Blade Master, GunForce and Image Fighter
- Legend of Hero Tonma with all the power ups
- R-Type JP & US two player support
- Special command for Image fight -r to rotate the screen

You can download RAGE 0.9 from the Multi Arcade Emulator page.

Emulator News: Bobcat, Project Unreality and RAGE, oh my! news by zophar
02:25:  Here is some quick news about Bobcat (a lynx emulator that never made it), Project Unreality (the only real N64 emulator around), and some news on RAGE (a multi arcade emulator).

Bobcat has been discontinued. But since it was never released, Bobcat shall be known as vaporware. Yet another emulator that never made it. The author's closing message is quite blunt.

Project Unreality will be getting sound emulation very soon. You can read all about it at the Project Unreality homepage.

According to some other websites, RAGE 0.9 will be released sometime later today. Although I hate posting rumours (in fact I think this is the first one I ever posted), I couldn't think of any other news story to put here that would make the title of this news update sound correct. Oh my...

3/14/98
Emulator Release: FreeMSX 0.10 news by zophar
21:26:  A new version of FreeMSX, an MSX emulator for Windows 95, has been released. Here's the change list in version 0.10:

- Fixed VDP-Command bug (thanks to Newf Kobayashi), which prevented some GigaMix games from running
- Game Master 2 SRAM support added (help updated (GM2 SRAM save/load currently crashes MSX-Games) SRAM is saved in FreeMSX\SRAM directory (must exist)
- hangs of Turbo-R MUSBASIC.ROM fixed CALL PCMREC and CALL PCMPLAY works now, even if PCM-Sound is not supported yet!
- View- and Media/ReadOnly-settings are saved now
- Locale/Keyboard patch is enabled now (works currently for european ROM's only)
- sometimes failed to use 'new' tape-images
- incorrect 'write protected' state for tape-images
- static configuration no longer used you MUST select a MSX configuration on FreeMSX-startup, on the next start the last used configuration is loaded. You can also modify and/or create new *.CFG files!
- MSXTR800 memory layout changed to fix problems with some software (GigaMix games using DM2, ...)
- SoftBoot in R800 mode resetted Turbo led, but kept turbo-mode on (enabled R800 caused strange behaviour of next started programs)
- MoonSound documentation updated

You can get FreeMSX 0.10 from the MSX page.

Site News: Poll Results Reset news by infe
14:56:  Due to problems with the poll, we had to reset the current results back to zero for all the options. In the process, a couple new choices were added to this poll. What are you waiting for? Go check it out!

Frontend News: SnesGUI news by zophar
14:40:  Richard Scullion has ust released the first beta version of a new freeware SNES Frontend for Win 95 called SnesGUI. It supports Snes9x, Esnes and Zsnes and provides:

- Saveable audio, video and speed settings for individual ROMs
- Graphical key reconfiguring for Esnes and Zsnes [by editing the config files :-)
- Joystick/Mouse reconfigure by doubling as a frontend for JoyEm
- Lots of other features.

You can download it at the official homepage.

Site News: Poll Results Are In! news by infe
09:31:  The last poll was, "Should emulator authors release source code with their emulators?" Unsurprisingly, most of you (58.1 percent) feel the choice should be left to the emulator author. A third of you think source code should ALWAYS be released, and only 7 percent of you don't like when authors release source code.

The new poll is, "After the new SNES9X is released, which do you expect to be using more, SNES9X, or ZSNES?" Cast your vote today!

3/13/98
Translation News: StarSoft Translations opened! news by demi
22:19:  Starsoft translations has recently unveiled their anticipated web page with a preliminary translation release of Bahamut Lagoon for the SNES. Although only a few menus and windows have been translated, it is the farthest patch of any group attempting the game. such games as Der Lungrisser and Lufia (French) are to be expected from this group. Best of luck!

Starsoft Translations, inc.

Emulator Release: Atari 800 Emulator 0.9.0 DOS news by zophar
21:54:  A new version of Atari 800 emulator has been released. In version 0.9.0, the following things are new:

- the right vertical line was missing on screen (Raster)
- DOS: BREAK key should not have auto-repeat (Raster)
- ANTIC now contains #ifdef POKEY_UPDATE. That should be defined in Makefiles for architectures where it's impossible to update sound buffers in DMA interrupt (i.e. Unices etc)
- source cleaned up (no C++ style of comments), docs updated

You can download Atari 800 emulator 0.9.0 from the Atari 5200/8bit page. As a side note, the official DOS page is here. It is not being 'secretly updated' as you may have read on other news pages.

Frontend News: FURFE 1.1 news by zophar
21:41:  FURFE, a frontend for the Multi Arcade emulator Raine, has been updated to version 1.1. Nothing is new except that it is now compatible with Raine 0.09. You can download it from the official homepage.

Emulator Release: Raine 0.09 news by zophar
16:26:  The long anticipated release of the previously unknown Wrestlefest emulator is Raine, and it's now available. Here's what's new in Raine 0.09:

- Switched to the Pentium optimized gcc.
- Toki and Snow Bros are playable.
- Added WrestleFest and Terra Force; playable.
- Added Starscream 68000 engine for Rainbow Islands (Original/Extra),Rastan, Toki, Snow Bros, WreslteFest, Terra Force.
- Thanks to Starscream and new asm gfx routines, most games are faster (Rainbow Islands, Rastan are 60fps on my p120).
- Released on Friday 13th... Hmm...

You can download Raine 0.09 from the Multi Arcade Emulator page.

Misc. News: Eidolon's Inn news by zophar
15:07:  Eidolon's Inn now offers a few Sega CD Games for download. This is the first I've ever heard of people putting CD games on the web for download, you might want to check it out, in the Sega Genesis section.

Misc. News: Friday the Thirteenth news by zophar
11:17:  Yes, another Friday the Thirteenth. There was one last month too, so that makes today a very special day. In the ZD tradition, we've found another website for all of you to enjoy. At AntiChrist.com, you can see exactly what could very well happen in the next few years. Note that this page may be offensive to jews, christians, muslims, hindus, buddhists, African-Americans, Native Americans, russians, hessians, oceanins, totalitarians, communists, socialists, caucasions, satanists, atheists and proletariats. Viewer discretion is advised.

3/12/98
Emulator Release: Z26 0.94 news by zophar
17:38:  Z26, one of the best DOS Atari 2600 emulators available, has been updated to version 0.94. Here's what's new:

- A new default video mode (mode 3). This video mode is just like the
old default mode (mode 2) but it displays 4 additional scan lines for a total of 204.
- Adjusted the vertical position of some tall games for better appearance.
- Fixed a flicker problem. This actually happened in 0.93 but I forgot to mention it.
- Restored 0.92 sound and joystick code.

You can download Z26 0.94 from the Atari 2600 page.

Emulator Release: Slutte! Release 3 ("American") news by zophar
14:24:  The third release of Slutte!, ("American" version) a Bionic Commando Arcade emulator, is now available. Here's what's new:

- The previous version (Ahab) crashed if you had no CFG file. This has been fixed.
- The sprites no longer lag behind when the screen scrolls.
- Improved define-keys option: now you can use CTRL, ALT, and so on.
- Added high-score saving.

You can download Slutte! "American" version from the Single Arcade emulator page.

Misc. News: Build Your Own Arcade Controls Site news by zophar
13:20:  A number of days ago, I posted a story about this new Arcade Controls building site. This is an update. The site owner's ISP unexpectedly closed their doors on Monday, so the page is up at this new location. Thanks to saint for informing me.

Emulator Release: Nofrendo 0.58 news by zophar
12:59:  A new version of Nofrendo, one of the best NES emulators for DOS, has been released. Among other changes, the most noticeable one is the huge speed increase. Here's what's new:

- Speed - all kinds of it. All games except those which bankswitch heavily far exceed real NES speed with zero frameskip on my p133.
- Bankswitching is much faster
- Graphics engine rebuilt from the ground up, it now rocks
- AUTO frameskip now default
- Icky NESticle palette removed
- New real-time state format (no longer NESticle compatible)
- 10 different real-time state slots, use 0-9 to select
- Keyboard remapped a bit to make room for the above
- Numerous mapper 1 (MMC1) fixes- Xexyz works, among others
- Dragon Warrior 3 and 4 now work, off a tip from Jim Geffre
- Long filenames are now used for all files under Win95, even if you pass the shortened tildename (FILENA~1.NES). This is great for front-ends which pass only the 8.3 filename. Short names in DOS.
- New command-line option "-nowhining" (for dirty ROMs)
- Keyboard control fix- Nofrendo will no longer freak if your joystick isn't connected and one is specified in the .ini
- Joystick reading bug fixed- Commando no longer locks up
- Screen shots (it's about freaking time), 99 max per game, use '/'
- New VRAM discovery by D fixes Trojan up a bit

You can download it from the NES page.

3/11/98
Emulator Release: UAE 0.7.0b2 Release 5 news by zophar
02:53:  Another bugfix release. Are we having fun yet?

- Fixed problem with running WinUAE on your Windows desktop when the desktop was not 16-bit. An 8-bit Windows desktop is still not really supported.
- Fixed the "No Logging" option to get rid of the Logging Console, when you run WinUAE from the Explorer or a desktop-shortcut.
- Fixed the mysterious "-w" glitch, where if you didn't specify it on the command-line, WinUAE would complain about an out-of-range value.
- Fixed the command-line parsing of "-P" and "-Q", so that if you don't give them an argument, you won't get an Access Violation anymore, but instead a warning that you're not using those parameters correctly.
- Fixed an obscure bug with the 68000-versions. If your "default" configuration had any Graphics-Card memory specified, this would disable the "Full-Screen" option in the Display panel, and you'd be stuck always running in a window. This didn't make sense, since the 68000-versions cannot *have* any Graphics-Card memory.
- Added more documentation to web-site.

You can download it from the Amiga page.

Site News: ZST Archive Updated news by alamone
02:51:  There have been a few more saves added to the ZST Archive. I have had problems with people sending in ZIPs with too many saves. Please read rule #1 which states that the ZSTs must be somewhere near the END of the game. "Important" locations in the middle of the game don't count. Remember, any contributions that do not follow the guidelines outlined will be deleted. Also, new saves that are markedly better than existing saves will replace them, so that may a reason why your save was deleted. All this also applies to the GS0 archive. Please keep those saves coming in and help the save archives grow. Thanks, -alamone.

Misc. News: Ripper Alert news by zophar
01:37:  As I was browsing the web today, I noticed a great looking page, with a nice layout, nice use of colors and an all around friendly feel to it. Of course the layout was nice, it was a complete rip of Zophar's Domain! You can find the offending page here, which is located on Squareplanet's site. Not only did he rip my front page, he also ripped the Translation page, which was Demi's work. The funniest thing of all is the Copyright message on this page, he can NOT claim copyright, since I already own the copyright on this website. Feel free to e-mail this person and inform him of his wrongdoing.

When people take something you've worked hard on for a long time, and claim it's their own work, it doesn't feel too good. They say that copying is the highest form of flattery, but I don't see it this way. I don't want people to get away with this (even in 1996, my website, however crappy, was not a rip of any other site). This person didn't even bother to change the colors or the names of some of the sections...

3/10/98
Translation News: Translation Group "Grand Opening" news by infe
23:02:  A translation group calling itself Starsoft Translations will "open its doors" this Friday, Friday the 13th. They have apparently been working on some translations for a while. Could this be new a translation(s) about to be released? We will just have to wait and see.

Site News: Server Problems Rectified news by staff
22:56:  The server problem that was causing ZD to be so slow has been fixed. We appreciate your patience.

Site News: Problems with Internexus news by staff
21:16:  It appears that something is wrong with Internexus. Everyone is having severe problems when connecting to the site, transfer speeds of anything higher than 0.3KB/sec doesn't seem to be happening. We will try to find out what is causing this, until then, just sit tight. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Emulator Release: SNEmul 0.5 news by infe
19:06:  This new version of SNEmul supports more roms and even has experimental sound emulation. It is available for download at the SNES page.

Emulator Release: Slutte! Release 2 (Ahab version) news by zophar
12:08:  The second release of Slutte!, known as the 'Ahab Version', is now available. Heres what's new in this Bionic Commando Arcade emulator:

- Ahab version (as of this version, all revisions of Slutte! will be named after famous Captains).
- Eliminated the irritating 1-pixel offset playfield glitches.
- Made the text graphics more accurate (bonus-scores at ends of the levels use the correct character set now).
- Previously-bugged graphics such as the moving robot-limbs and the elevator now work a lot better. This is due to the addition of some (very basic) scroll-layer prioritisation.
- Improved the palette updating. Now the -puff command line option is
unneccessary. Thanks to Jason Fourier for this suggestion.
- Mode-X support added, eliminating the need for a VESA 2.0 driver.
- Rewrote the file routines in an effort to make it work in DOS 6.22 (though I can't test it, so fingers crossed).
- Added a joystick calibration option.
- Added screen-grab function.

You can download Slutte! 'Ahab' from the Single Arcade Emulator page.

Emulator Release: BRMSX 1.104 news by zophar
11:31:  A new version of BRMSX, a fast MSX emulator, has been released. Here's whats new in 1.104:

- Joystick emulation (in both port-A and port-B, check the usage!)
- Volume control (press "+" and "-" on the numeric keypad)
- Added a new bar graph: the PSG Graph
- Support to SCREEN 3 ("Aekrus")
- Added full sprite cropping ("Salamander", "Super Laydock")
- Fixed bug on interrupt handling ("Frogger")
- Fixed bug in color 2 (most spanish games, like "Hundra" and "Commando Quatro")
- Fixed bug with transparent sprites (lots of games, including "Knightmare")
- Fixed bug in "PLAY" basic statement (it will work now)
- Support for the brazilian memory expansion MegaRAM ("Execrom", "Super Disk Copy")
- New games in the save-state archive since the last update: "The Castle", "Nemesis" and "Hundra".

You can download BRMSX 1.104 from the MSX page.

Frontend News: UFE 3.66 news by zophar
10:44:  A new version of UFE, a multi purpose frontend for DOS, has been released. Here's whats new:

- Better ZIP archives management
- Several bugs fixed for archives of roms directories (SYSTEM16/RAGE)
- Add default support for emulators with no parameters in order to play archived roms
- Supports SPARCADE and SYSTEM8
- New DEFAULT.LST where roms work in the emulator home directory

You can get UFE 3.66 from the official homepage.

3/5/98
Translation News: NBA Live 97 Hack Fixed news by infe
23:57:  If you downloaded the NBA Live 97 IPS patch that fixes some of the player names in the game, you may have noticed that the patch didn't work and made your NBA Live 97 rom 11 megs. It turns out a corrupt version of the patch had accidentally been uploaded to the page. A non-corrupt version is now available.

Emulator News: SNES '9X back from the dead news by zophar
19:48:  After months of SNES '9X being discontinued, Jeremy Koot has announced on his SNES '9X Preview page that SNES '9X is being resumed by two programmers that wish to remain anonymous. Here is a list of what you can expect when the next release of SNES '9X is out:

- SuperFX support !
- Sound digital FIR filter and echo !
- Sound pitch modulation !
- Mouse support !
- Multi-tap support !
- 16-bit and 8-bit colour screen modes !
- Transparency (Screen Addition / Subtraction) !
- Offset-per-tile (Tetris Attack, Puzzle Bobble, etc) !
- Hi-res and Interlaced screen modes !
- Improved automatic ROM type detection.
- Lots & lots of bugfixes !
- And finally but probably the biggest change, the source will be released !

There are also some pics of SNES '9X running games like Yoshi's Island and StarFox! Check out the SNES '9X preview page for the full story. Thanks to Kaijira for the news.

Emulator Release: Build Your Own Arcade Controls FAQ news by [noam]
17:13:  saint has made up a FAQ to help you setup different types of controllers and what not for your computer. The FAQ includes information on:

- Hardware for building your own arcade controls
- Methods of wiring the hardware to your PC
- Ready made alternatives to building your own arcade controls
- Methods of hooking up game console controllers to your pc

The FAQ is online at http://www.iclc.net/~saint/arcade.html.

Emulator Release: Grytra 0.8 news by zophar
11:27:  A new Arcade emulator for Gryzor, known as Contra in the US, has been released. It's for DOS, and currently is very slow, has no sound, and incorrect colors, but it is an early version, so stay tuned for future versions. You can download Grytra from the Single Arcade Emulator page. Thanks to Norman King for the English translation of the documentation.

Frontend News: FrontRage 1.02a news by zophar
10:40:  FrontRage 1.02a, a RAGE frontend, has been released. In this version, the following has been updated:

- snapshots saved as GIFs
- minor bugfixes.

You can download FrontRage 1.02a from the FrontRage homepage.

Misc. News: Use N64 Controllers On Your Computer? news by infe
10:05:  Dennis Brown is currently working on a project which will allow people to use N64 controllers on their PC. He is currently looking for technical information about the N64 controller at his site. Thanks, Dennis, for submitting this news.

Utility News: Final Fantasy Improvement 0.02 news by zophar
09:49:  A new version of the _Demo_ 'improvement' series for Final Fantasy I is now available. FF Improvement can now edit towns. You can pick it up at the NES Utilities page. As a side note, it seems that the official page has received an 'improvement' of its own recently.

3/4/98
Emulator Release: SSEmu 0.05 news by zophar
22:15:  A new Sega Saturn emulator, the first to actually emulate something, has been released! Sega Saturn Emulator, or SSEmu for short, currently emulates the SCU (Saturn Control Unit), partially emulates all three Hitachi processors, and emulates music. So far, this is the leading Sega Saturn emulator, and although it cannot display graphics yet, this is the closest anyone has come to emulating the Sega Saturn at all. I tried it with Virtual Fighter Remix, it loaded it, loaded a sound file, and starting playing CD audio from the drive. So it does something.

You can download SSEmu 0.05 from the Sega Saturn page. As a side note, the Saturn is my favorite Next Generation system, so I'm kind of biased :)

Emulator News: Asteroids Emulator news by zophar
19:11:  Although this is rather old news, I added an Asteroids emulator to Zophar's Domain, simply called Asteroids. It has sound support, and is quite fast as it is written in 100% assembly. Although MAME already emulates Asteroids, this emulator can run at full speed on very slow machines, and a windowed display option that has the property
that objects don't change shape as they move across the screen.

You can download Asteroids 3.02 from the Single Arcade Emulator page. Thanks to John Saeger of Z26 fame for the news.

Translation News: Mother (Earthbound chapter Zero) news by demi
16:59:  I'm not sure how far this has reached into the public's attention, but Zophar has given me the green light to post news here about it so I will do so.

About a month ago, a fully translated NES prototype cartridge of the prequel to Earthbound (for the SNES) was found. Earthbound was mother part 2 in the japanese series but the originator, Mother for the NES, was never released. Apparently, back in 1988 Nintendo of America had it translated fully into english to test it on an american audience, but it was rejected for a public release. So, prototypes of these catrtidges exist but are impossibly hard to find since there may be only 5 or 10 of them in the world.

Anyhow, a prototype cart of Mother was obtained somehow from a Nintendo employee and was auctioned off on rec.video.games.classic a month ago. I (demi) have gotten ahold of the buyer and have talked to him about dumping the game onto a ROM so we can all play it, but there's a problem. He's an avid collector of old video games, and he was wise to assume that it would depreciate in value once it is dumped, since it would no longer be a one-of-a-kind item. He is asking 400 dollars to let us dump it, and i'm trying to gather supporters to help us cover the cost. Please, if you share a love of games the way many of us do, show a little compassion and put something back into the emulation community. Even as little as 25 dollars may help us out.

If you wish to contribute, please visit the official website covering events on the mother situation here or contact the treasurer, Bill Fleming, via email. Thank you.

Frontend News: URL 0.92 released news by [noam]
16:25:  Zoop has released version 0.92 of his multi-emu Frontend URL here's what's new and fixed in version 0.92.

-Bugs fixed in rating and characters selections.
-Added a mouse on/off switch.
-Fixed a sorting bug.

Pick it up at Emu Camp.

Translation News: Hack of NBA Live 97 for SNES news by demi
16:09:  Seems a guy has taken a liking to the NBA live 97 SNES ROM and decided to apply the fundamentals of rom hacking to it. In his first patch, various poorly depicted names have been fixed to correspond to their correct team players, along with stats. Being the first of its kind, we at ZD can only wish him the best on his endeavour.

check.

Emulator Release: Slutte! - Bionic Commando emulator news by zophar
10:36:  Slutte!, a new Bionic Commando Arcade emulator, has been released. It's rather buggy at the moment, has no sound, but the game is playable. You can download the first release of Slutte! from the Single Arcade Emulator page.

Frontend News: UFE 3.65 news by zophar
08:33:  Gollum has released a new version of UFE, his Universal Frontend for emulators. The following is new in this version:

- New INSTALL.BAT
- FATMAN 2.00 (HexEditor) included in UFE pack
- UFE.DOC updated (explains UFE.LST)
- Some texts fixed (docs/error message)
- Wednesday bug fixed (it was displaying Wednesda !!!)
- Directory bug fixed (CALLUS/MAME...)
- Default UFE.LST beautified and more accurate
- Add default support for PACIFIST, STONXDOS, DOSUAE, WINUAE, FELLOW, BRMSX, FMSX-DOS, METALYNX, SYSTEM16, SAGE, RAGE, NOFRENDO, TNES, FWNES98, MADNES, XNES, NEZULATOR, PCNES, GBUK, ESNES,VPCE

You can get UFE 3.65 from the official homepage. Thanks to Gollum for the news.

Emulator News: More Wrestlefest Emu Screenshots news by zophar
00:03:  More screenshots have been put up, showing that the as of yet unpublic Wrestlefest Emulator is worth its weight in gold. Check them out, they are no longer garbled.

3/3/98
Emulator Release: VGEN 0.001 news by zophar
21:11:  A new Genesis emulator called Virtual Genesis (VGEN), has been released. In Version 0.001, here is what's currently emulated:

- 68000 by Neill Corlett
- Built in debugger by Neill Corlett
- Genesis main ram,vram,cram,z80 ram,vdp registers
- Dma
- V Interrupt
- Plane A,Plane B,Sprite plane
- horizontal and vertical scrolling
- controller 1 emulation

You should note, however, that this emulator is capable of playing a few games very slowly with many glitches, as it's very preliminary. You can download VGEN 0.001 from the Genesis page.

Translation News: FF IV Translation resumed? news by zophar
19:52:  It appears as though the FF IV Translation by J2E was never really halted. Read this post on Demi's message board for more information regarding the translation's current status. Thanks to Blister for the news.

Emulator Release: Sparcade 2.23 news by zophar
18:29:  A new version of Sparcade, a multi arcade emulator, has been released. The following has been changed in 2.23:

- Wardner game options fixed
- Centipede scanlines bug fixed
- Original version of Slapfight now supported
- Alcon now supported (US version of Slapfight)
- Commando frame skip bugs fixed

You can download Sparcade 2.23 from the Multi Arcade Emulator page.

Misc. News: SNES Emulation Centre gets a facelift news by zophar
13:47:  The SNES Emulation Centre now has a new look, you might want to check it out, as this site is one of the best for anything SNES related, be it emulators, translations, or anything else Super NES related.

Utility News: Final Fantasy 1 Improvement Released! news by [noam]
07:14:  Just 1 day after the release of "Zelda Improvement" comes...Final Fantasy 1 Improvement! I'm beginning to enjoy the team of EFX and _Demo_.

You can go on over and pick it up at the NES Utilities Page.

Also, here's Final Fantasy ImprovementThe HomePage for it.

Emulator Release: Appler released news by zophar
00:28:  A new Apple ][+ emulator for DOS, coded in 16 bit assembly, has been released. It emulates all the functions of an Apple ][+, plays sound through the PC speaker and is incredibly fast, running at full speed on any 486/33, and even on a 386! You can download Appler from the Apple II page.

3/2/98
Translation News: Lunar: Magic School news by zophar
23:15:  Shadow of RPGe has started to translate Lunar: Magic School. For those who didn't know, this was a part of the lunar series, released for the GameGear, but ONLY in Japan. Shadow has translated certain parts of the game so far, but needs some help. Please, if anyone can help, contact Shadow. Don't forget to read Shadow's post on ZMD regarding the translation. Anyone who can help, please don't hesitate to e-mail him!

Site News: New Format news by staff
23:06:  We at Zophar's Domain have made some changes to the way news is done. There will now be an icon next to the title of the article stating who did the update, and the type of news will be before the title. The different types are:Emulator news, Emulator Releases, Site news, Translation news, FrontEnd news, Utility News, and misc. news. Please let us know how you like the new format.

On a side note, there have been various test messages on this page. We are done with our little 'test' messages, all should work now.

Emulator News: Official Project Unreality Compatibility List news by zophar
18:08:  Breakpoint, author of the N64 emulator Project Unreality, has put up a compatibility list of games that work with 0.3a. Check it out when you get a chance, lots of demos appear to be working.

Site News: Crispana Has Resigned news by infe
17:52:  Crispana has resigned as graphics maintainer of ZD. [NOAM] and _Rza_ will be doing graphics now.

Utility News: Zelda Improvement .01 Released! news by [noam]
15:20:  Wow, the nes utilities are on a rise. From the genius behind Mario Improvement and half of ZSNES (_Demo_) along with Mr. NES Scene himself (EFX) have released version .01 of their NES rom hacking utility "Zelda Improvement".

With the same idea as "Mario Improvement" in mind this utility allows you to change the macros and what not on Zelda maps.

Pick it up at the NES Utilities Page.

Utility News: Hexposure 0.200 released news by zophar
14:50:  Hexposure, a small, but very useful utility to hack text in NES ROMs (and other ROMs as well) has been updated to version 0.200. The following has changed since the previous release:

- When loading a file xxx, Hexposure will automatically attempt to load the accompanying font table (xxx.TBL). If it doesn't find one, the standard ASCII table will be used.
- Better font table system, similar to Xlate. Check the file ZELDA.TBL (included in this .ZIP archive) for an example. This basically makes all the old .TBL files obsolete. Check Section 2.2 of this document for an explanation on the new table format.
- The "Search again" feature was listed as "not implemented" in the previous version: however, it was fully functional, sorry if you didn't notice. :)

You can download Hexposure 0.200 from the NES Utilities page.

Emulator News: Wrestlefest Emulator in the works news by zophar
00:04:  It appears that someone who wishes to remain anonymous has been working on a Wrestlefest emulator. Check out this screenshot page at Emulation Happenings.

3/1/98
Frontend News: SNES GameCentre news by zophar
23:56:  The author of SNES GameCentre has e-mailed me the following:

It's a Windows 95-based SNES emulator front-end so automated, all you have to do is click on a game and the program will know if you want it to use either ZSNES or SNES9x, then it will set your preferred emulator options for that game, and go. Looks cool, too.

This is one of the very few (maybe the only) Win95 front ends not written in Visual Basic. So all you *need* to run it is the SNESGCTR.EXE file. (It creates an .INI in whatever directory you place it, however.) If you put the SNESGCTR.HLP file in that directory as well, you can get a lot more information about this program and other stuff.

I would appreciate all bug reports, to: kcowgill@infinet.com

Thanks!

You can download the FrontEnd from here.

Frontend News: New StarLaunch news by zophar
23:48:  A new version of StarLaunch, a multi emulator launcher for Windows 95, has been released. Here's whats been added:

- Support added for Snemul, TNes, Dragones, Madnes, UNes, Nofrendo, Massage, Mastergear and Callus.
- Newer options interface for Snes emulators, Snes9X and ZSnes options screens have screen size previews, and a mosaicing transition between resizes.
- You can configure keys for Sneese, Nlksnes, ZSnes, and configure the gamepad buttons for ZSnes.
- Sounds are customizable
- Long filenames are handled properly with zip files!

You can check out this frontend and download it at the StarLaunch homepage.

Emulator Release: UAEWin 0.7.0b2 Release 1 is out news by zophar
23:35:  A new release of the windows port of UAE, the most complete Amiga emulator around, has received an update. In Version 0.7.0b2 Release 1, the following has been updated:

- Ported in 0.7.0b2 source. Big deal. Read my web-page for my views on this!
- Hard-files work again, as long as your existing hard-file is a power-of-two in megabytes (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 Megs, etc.).
- Compiled with latest GCC 2.8.0 version, which supports Pentium and Pentium- Pro optimizations finally. These versions are compiled with the -mpentium flag, as the -mpentiumpro flag seems to actually produce slower and larger executables?!?!
- Support for up to 64-Megs of Zorro-III "fast" memory.
- Fixed nasty bug in the "Startup" panel in the GUI. It prevented proper awareness of various memory settings, which forced you to save and load a configuration in order to actually get a memory-setting to take effect.
- Added more logging options under the "Advanced" panel in the GUI.

You can download UAE for Windows, Version 0.7.0b2 release 1 (boy that's a mouthfull) from the Amiga page. All 3 versions (Picasso96, compatibility and regular) versions are there, along with the documentation.

As a side note, the UAE DOS source code to version 0.6.9c has also been added to the Amiga page, it seems I forgot to upload it a long time ago.

Emulator Release: TOSBOX 1.02 released news by zophar
22:35:  A new version of TOSBOX, a fast assembly coded Atari ST emulator, has been released. The following has been updated in Version 1.02, which are 2 small updates:

- End-of-file checking by seeking past the end of a file now works in most cases. (e.g., GFA BASIC 3 programs)
- stderr now defaults to the console screen (fixes c68.ttp compiler)

You can download TOSBOX 1.02 from the Atari ST page.

Misc. News: The "Big N" cracks down on ROMs sites news by zophar
16:22:  Over the last week Nintendo has been cracking down on ROMs sites which carry Any Nintendo made game(NES, GameBoy, N64, SNES, even arcade titles like Donkey Kong). Some of the sites include Davesclassics.com and Classicgaming.com. Here is an email of one of the many Cease & Desist orders Nintendo has been sending out to sites.

By the way, Zophar's Domain carries absolutely NO commercial Game ROMS whatsoever, and never will. Just a side note.

Translation News: Final Fantasy IV translation canceled news by zophar
16:06:  It appears that the translation of FF IV to english has been canceled. Someone leaked a beta of the patch, therefore they are canning it. To read some explanation of what's going on, read this post on Demi's rom hack board, but be warned, the level of immaturity is high.

Misc. News: Interviews news by zophar
13:24:  In today's interviews news, we have 2 interviews. The first is with zsKnight of zSNES, the second is Jim Geffre of PC-NES. These interviews are located at the Emu-Soft FX page.

Site News: Poll Results news by zophar
12:17:  Well, the poll results are in. The question we posed to you was,"Do you think the N64 emulator, Project Unreality, will ever be able to play commercial games at a decent frame rate on a P200?" The results are as follows:"Yes, but it will take years at least" received 40.7% of the vote. "Yes, I expect it to be playable on a P200 in a few months" received 31.7%. "No, Project Unreality will never be able to play commercial games" received 14.2%. Finally, "I don't care, N64 emulators are pointless" received 13.4%. The majority of you(72.4%) feel that it will one day play games on a P200 at a playable frame rate! Time will tell..

The new poll question is, "Should emulator authors release source code with their emulators?" Cast your vote now!

Site News: News Update Section news by zophar
11:53:  We have now added a submit news section, where you can submit any emulation relatd news to Zophar's Domain. Be sure to check out the Submit News page, and if there's any current news not on this page, please let us know!

Also, you may have noticed there is no more banner at the top of the page. This is because my advertisers have halted the program. As the spanish say, Que sera sera.

zophar@voicenet.com