Turbografx Emulation help?

[digigoji]

I'm attempting to use a few different types of TG-16 emulators, as my actual one is on it's last legs.

One, Temper used on a GP2XWiz handheld, needs a syscard3.bin file. I have been looking and cannot locate where to get this. Can anyone please help?

The second, does anyone have a crack for the OSX version of MagicEngine? I have every intention of buying a full version, but I've come up with so many dead ends on successful emulation for the Mac, I'd rather not spend the money on yet another one. If I can verify everything first, then I'll buy.

Any help would be, well... helpful.

[TheRedEye]

I'm attempting to use a few different types of TG-16 emulators, as my actual one is on it's last legs.

One, Temper used on a GP2XWiz handheld, needs a syscard3.bin file. I have been looking and cannot locate where to get this. Can anyone please help?

The second, does anyone have a crack for the OSX version of MagicEngine? I have every intention of buying a full version, but I've come up with so many dead ends on successful emulation for the Mac, I'd rather not spend the money on yet another one. If I can verify everything first, then I'll buy.

Any help would be, well... helpful.

Why do you need to crack Magic Engine to evaluate it? All that registration does is take away your five minute time limit.

[digigoji]

And allow you to play from the "Virtual Drive". I'm not going to spend the $20 and find out I cannot play ripped games. It plays my actual CD games just fine, but I'm not going to bring them with me where ever my laptop goes.

[tomaitheous]

Normally I'd say you're a fool for even paying for Magic Engine (ME), but since you're running Mac OSX - you really don't have much of a choice. Mednafen bests ME anyday of week, but since you're running OSX, I don't think it's an option for you. OSX ftl :P

[digigoji]

Normally I'd say you're a fool for even paying for Magic Engine (ME), but since you're running Mac OSX - you really don't have much of a choice. Mednafen bests ME anyday of week, but since you're running OSX, I don't think it's an option for you. OSX ftl :P
Yeah, I'm not THAT big of a gamer to buy a whole new system for a handful of games, so I'm sort of stuck. Sort of.

That's where my GP2XWiz comes in. All my games in one handy-dandy handheld, thus the need for the syscard files.

[ApolloBoy]

but since you're running OSX, I don't think it's an option for you. OSX ftl :P

There's still TGEmu though. Granted it may not run CD games and it has some flaws, it's still a pretty decent emulator for OS X.

[digigoji]

Thanks for the tip about TGEmu. If it doesn't run CDs, then I'm still stuck with Magic Engine...

Is anyone able to help out with the syscard?

[Arkhan]

its probably the same as the system card 3.0 .pce file for use with Ootake/Mendafen/ME.

You're going to want to use it with Magic engine anyways since the Magic System pretend system card 3.0 is a POS.

[bombman]

I paid full price for Magic Engine and it is horrible. Half the Turbo CD games I've played are glitched to hell and apparently it has huge timing issues as well. Use Mednafen imo, I haven't had any trouble with it yet, and it's free.

this page may be of help i dunno: http://mednafen.darwinports.com/

[skaar]

Asking for cracks is also an easy way to get your ass banned, too.

[Arkhan]

I paid full price for Magic Engine and it is horrible. Half the Turbo CD games I've played are glitched to hell and apparently it has huge timing issues as well. Use Mednafen imo, I haven't had any trouble with it yet, and it's free.

this page may be of help i dunno: http://mednafen.darwinports.com/

the problem is its built in "magic system" which replaces Sys card 3.0 Its gimped

[Ed Oscuro]

The Magic System is built in, but I think they've always allowed you to use the actual System Card images. I've never had any severe problems with Magic Engine, although I am getting more interested in Mednafen as time goes on.

[Arkhan]

The Magic System is built in, but I think they've always allowed you to use the actual System Card images. I've never had any severe problems with Magic Engine, although I am getting more interested in Mednafen as time goes on.

yes you can definitely boot ME up with a System Card and use that instead of the awful built in stuff.

Magic System has ALOT of problems. Any games which make heavy use of Randomization *cough insanity* cough cough* don't work out so great. It does some pretty odd stuff where every other emulator using a real system card image doesnt.

[norkusa]

I've got the 0.99 version of Magic Engine but it's for Classic and won't run in OSX. :-/

TGemu is good but no CD support (yet). Only other thing I can think of is get Parallels/Boot Camp/VMware and run the Windows version.

[Ed Oscuro]

Magic System has ALOT of problems. Any games which make heavy use of Randomization *cough insanity* cough cough* don't work out so great.
File a bug report.

You know, thinking about the PC-Engine and TG-16 games I know of, I can't say any use randomization, or even have much reason to look up some obscure value for use in psuedorandom number generation. May just be the case that ME simply hasn't needed the most accurate implementation of what sounds like a CPU feature.

[Arkhan]

I've got the 0.99 version of Magic Engine but it's for Classic and won't run in OSX. :-/

TGemu is good but no CD support (yet). Only other thing I can think of is get Parallels/Boot Camp/VMware and run the Windows version.

id say sell the mac and get a PC myself.

oooo :-D


having to pay for parallels just to play PCE games would be kinda lame.

[tomaitheous]

You know, thinking about the PC-Engine and TG-16 games I know of, I can't say any use randomization, or even have much reason to look up some obscure value for use in psuedorandom number generation. May just be the case that ME simply hasn't needed the most accurate implementation of what sounds like a CPU feature.

So you don't think any RPGs pick a "seed" from some random value in ram or map register on startup, that directly equates to picking randoms for enemy encounters (monster types and/or occurrence rate)? I'm sure more games use it than you think :)


File a bug report.
David Micheal isn't interested in accuracy levels that approach mednafen.

[Arkhan]

So you don't think any RPGs pick a "seed" from some random value in ram or map register on startup, that directly equates to picking randoms for enemy encounters (monster types and/or occurrence rate)? I'm sure more games use it than you think :)


ROFL yes.

Random number generation is pretty important in Insanity also, and ME screws it all the hell up.

Pretty much anything that doesnt have predetermined attack waves/patterns uses randomization...

So, basically every rpg :-D

[NE146]

having to pay for parallels just to play PCE games would be kinda lame.

Do people really pay for Parallels? :p

[Ed Oscuro]

So you don't think any RPGs pick a "seed" from some random value in ram or map register on startup, that directly equates to picking randoms for enemy encounters (monster types and/or occurrence rate)? I'm sure more games use it than you think :)
No, that was what I was actually referring to. I had the impression that Ark Area (whatever his name is) was doing something different from all the other games that I believe work correctly.

[Arkhan]

No, that was what I was actually referring to. I had the impression that Ark Area (whatever his name is) was doing something different from all the other games that I believe work correctly.

:shameful:

Is it really that hard to scroll up and look for a user name two posts away?

The reason you "believe" these games work correctly, is the randomization is not immediately apparent. Random battles are random battles. You don't often sit and track just how random the things are since its an RPG. You also don't play through it a second time and check if its exactly as random the next time...

However with a game like Insanity where with each room change you randomly generate a room, randomly seal off some doors, and randomly spew robots around the room, you quickly realize you are no longer getting proper randomization. I haven't checked back on it for awhile but last time I was working on Insanity and tested it in ME, the game always began on the same room with the same robots in the same spots with the same doors open, and then the next room was always the same, etc. etc.

As for other games which appear to be fine, they just might be games where the patterns of enemies are predefined....


Do people really pay for Parallels? :p

I dunno. I tend to only use real computers. :-D *zing*

[Ed Oscuro]

In any case, you've got evidence that the emulator isn't operating per expectations, so you really ought to share that with them. Even if they charge for their emulator. If nothing else it will be humorous if they flat out deny the issue.

[Arkhan]

In any case, you've got evidence that the emulator isn't operating per expectations, so you really ought to share that with them. Even if they charge for their emulator. If nothing else it will be humorous if they flat out deny the issue.

I'm fairly sure David Michel is aware of the inconsistency of Magic System, and due to the appearance of other more accurate emulators, AND the possibility to use the real system card, im pretty sure he isn't looking to fix it ASAP.

plus, pointing this stuff out at the possibility of making the author look stupid and generating humor is kinda lame. :)

[Ed Oscuro]

Bad business decision if that's the one he's making, but alright then.

Edit: Looks like various accuracy issues preventing games from being played right have been known for at least a couple years now. (http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/TMLogic.html)

[Arkhan]

Bad business decision if that's the one he's making, but alright then.

Edit: Looks like various accuracy issues preventing games from being played right have been known for at least a couple years now. (http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/TMLogic.html)
:above me::above me::above me::above me:

business? rofl.

ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL.

yes its totally bad business that his built in clone of Syscard 3 is flakey and the immediate solution is to just use Sys Card 3. Noone who pirates games will ever think to download Sys Card 3 and remove the issue. :) Making sweet profits is clearly the goal of Magic Engine. >_< haha

and, the screen resolution issue is far from the actual problem here...

[tomaitheous]

In any case, you've got evidence that the emulator isn't operating per expectations, so you really ought to share that with them. Even if they charge for their emulator. If nothing else it will be humorous if they flat out deny the issue.

The problem is; is that ME still has game specific hacks. This means ME looks to identify the game, and use alternate settings/emulation code to "fix" the problem. While that *was* fine and dandy years ago, that just doesn't cut it nowadays. And especially if you are still charging for your EMU. David would have to do a huge re-write of the emu core. Previously, he wasn't interested in doing this. But, he might actually take this route (he's hinted at it). Even if he does, it's not available right now. And other emu authers have *already* taken the initiative. Mednafen is very accurate and TurboEngine's (still early WIP) goal is accuracy (from the same author as Regen). Ootake, sadly, has taken ME's route as of lately (quite a few game specific hacks. And/or hacky/incorrect emulation).

Sound emulation in ME isn't as accurate as mednafen or the real system (not just advance stuff like in demos, but even average quality and mixing). Mednafen uses blarggs special anti-aliasing sound engine. ME also has bizarre timing issues (timer, video, cpu). It failed a lot of my tests (hell, code running in scratch ram was faster on ME - when it had no business being faster. That really surprised me). It lacks quite a few video register emulation as well. I can go on and on.

For some people, they don't care. It's "good enough" for them, is playable, has a GUI, etc. But why *pay* for an inferior product when you can get something better for free? I paid for my copy of ME BITD. It was great. I didn't mind paying because nothing else was even close to what ME had going. But times have changed. David refused calls to add a debugger for translation and homebrew development (and now I know why. It's not easy to implement a debugger when you have a lot of game specific hacks and hacks to the emulation itself. Hacky emulation means things tend to fix themselves on a resync point, but this isn't debugger friendly). Emu authors have switched mentality and approach to emulation. Be it new emulation authors and old school ones (Mr. Snake started a whole new emulator with the goal of accuracy). The focus now is on very high accuracy (well, for the PC platform that is).

[Ed Oscuro]

And especially if you are still charging for your EMU.
Bingo, that's why I suggested Arkhan take his findings public (okay, more public). I appreciate the history and findings however - a lot of which I wasn't aware of at all. Out of the blue, is there a major difference between Gens 2.11 (which I think uses the Starscream 68000 core) and the latest Fusion (3.51 or so last I checked) accuracy-wise? Gens seems a bit more antiquated interface-wise and seems to run a bit slower if anything.