Makaron_T10 Released ...

Makaron_T10 Released - Dreamcast Emulator for Windows

July 2nd, 2008, 02:19 Posted By: wraggster

DKnute has released a new version of his Dreamcast Emulator for Windows. heres the release info

I think I've finally got the DMA code working. Well, for me at least

It needs to be tested further on variety of hardware - and that's where you people come in. Expect T10 soon.

Some loose thoughts I feel like voicing:

1) T10 might be a bit slower than T9 series. It'll most likely affect only low-end systems as there isn't really much of a difference (if any) on my E6600.
2) WinCE games usually crash when emulation speed drops below certain treshold. In other words, if you got fast system you should get stable performance.
3) Due to changes in GD-DMA code loading times are back. It's considered normal behaviour since this is how Dreamcast works. Thanks to those changes compatibility has improved and following titles should now boot and work:
- all Dream Preview discs
- original MIL-CDs
- Street Fighter Zero 3
- SEGA Tetris Online
- Tetris 4D
4) CD-DA (audio tracks) will play, but still use the older method of fetching data. This might cause Makaron to crash but it's very unlikely as data reads and playing audio are mutualy exclusive tasks.
5) There are some minor changes in full-screen setup code (the debug window will be hidden and not forcibly refreshed). No 16:x aspect ratios yet.
6) Changes to sorting/drawing code broke shadows in Virtua Fighter 3tb. I'm not planning on fixing that anytime soon though, as it would break many other things. Late T9 versions have this problem too, by the way.
7) Makaron now disables screen saver when run. It's only going to be a problem if it crashes, as it might not re-enable it on exit. Just so you know.
8) If you manually enable MMU the recompiler will not switch to address translation mode until it's actually requested, so there's no speed penalty in BIOS and most games. Some however (like Ikaruga) use only partial translation and this can be emulated without full-blown MMU support. It'll work either way but will be a lot slower with MMU enabled. Some WinCE games are automatically recognized (this works only for GD images) and MMU will be turned on when necessary. In short: keep it off unless Makaron complains about it.

UPDATE: Few more notes:

There were some last-minute cleanups in the code, I hope I didn't break anything

MT version is the one I actively develp, the other is just dumbed down not to support threading. Not tested much so your mileage may vary.
As always, make sure you backup your own INI files if you want to keep them. For GDROM.ini though you should comment out the GDMT setting, or choose one of the following:
-1 is immediate mode. This will block emulator and allow the read to complete. In short: worst performance, but should always work. This is also the default mode for non-MT version.
0 is deffered mode. The read still blocks, just not right away but rather outside SH4 main loop. It might provide smoother emulation (if it works at all

1 is threaded mode. Disk reads are scheduled to separate thread for another core/CPU to take care of. Best speed, smooth emulation, should now work with every game. This is the default for MT version.
Threaded mode can't be selected for non-MT version of Makaron - deffered method will be used instead. This limitation was introduced on purpose, and might be lifted in future. Note that unless you have multiple cores/CPUs it will work just like deffered mode anyway.

I'd also like to remind you that there's a frontend to Makaron called mkfro. Highly recommended for people who can't work my INI files.

UPDATE2: If you experience random crashes while in-game movies play (or are about to start), or from time to time CD/GD image refuses to boot (but works most of the time) - report this. Give me the title and your PC specs.

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