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News Archive: January 2003

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Libvfdc-0.1 Posted by CyRUS64 @ 14:52
La Cible has released a video decoding library for KOS-1.1.9, which currently supports MPEG2 with no sound ( slow ) & FLI. It is very easy to use (one function call to start playing a video and a single callback function per frame for stopping/continueing/etc) and certainly the FLI decoder could be useful for playing videos in a game/project.

Downloads and more detailed usage instructions are available from the developer tools page.

Thursday, January 23, 2003

FreeSCI Posted by CyRUS64 @ 15:30
FreeSCI has been released for the dreamcast. FreeSCI is portable interpreter for games written for Sierra On-Line's SCI system, which is currently compatible with the following games:

  • Leisure Suit Larry 2 and 3
  • Police Quest 2
  • King's Quest 4
  • Quest for Glory 1/Hero's Quest
  • Space Quest 3
  • Hoyle's Book of Games 1 and 2
  • The Colonel's Bequest
  • Conquest of Camelot
  • Codename: Iceman

    Downloads:
    Local Downloads
    Official Site

    Friday, January 17, 2003

    atari800dc Posted by CyRUS64 @ 14:51
    Version 0.75 has been released by Christian Groessler. Here's what's new:

  • uses Atari800 cvs code base as of jan-11-2003
  • reverted the sound changes which were introduced in the 0.72 version - the sound should be similar to 0.71.
  • saved states on the VMU now show a Atari icon. Due to a change in the layout of the state save file, saved states of previous versions aren't recognized.
  • changing video mode of emulated Atari now doesn't change the video mode used to drive the screen. These 2 video mode settings (what the emulated Atari thinks the video mode is, and the video mode used by the DC) can now be changed independently. Setting them to different values will disable double buffering, so best results are achieved if both settings are the same.
  • buttons B, X, Y on the 1st DC controller can now be redefined to generate simulated key presses on the keyboard. If they are redefined, the Start, Select, and Option keys can be entered in the keyboard emulation screen.

    Local Downloads

    Wednesday, January 15, 2003

    FrotzDC Posted by CyRUS64 @ 3:42
    Sam Steele has released version 0.5 of Frotz DC, an Interactive Fiction interpreter. The changes for this release include a rewritten (specifically for dreamcast h/w) text library, use of the latest KallistiOS library resulting in better third-party peripheral support, a VMU access indicator, and extra public domain roms in the CD images. Note that you must remove "frotz.ini" or "frotz-2.ini" from your VMU before using this version.

    Links:
    Local Downloads
    Official Site

    Monday, January 13, 2003

    NesterDC Posted by Stalin @ 16:33
    Looking through the webpages I have minimized in Opera today I found that NesterDC had an update last month. NesterDC is now up to version 7.1. The changes are as follows:


    • optimize CPU emulation

    • optimize bank switching

    • support NNNesterJ cheat code

    • add many NNNesterJ cheatcode in zip package.

    • refine dreamcast UI code

    • update development environment (gcc-3.2, binutils-2.13.1)

    • optimize object-code-size

    • some misc changes

    • NES external device support
      - Arkanoid Paddle (controlled by Dreamcast Mouse)
      - Mahjong Controller (controlled by Dreamcast Keyboard)



    NesterDC: http://nemesis.kaz.ac/~fumihit/nesterdc/

    Sunday, January 12, 2003

    dRxLaX Posted by CyRUS64 @ 11:32
    From Daniel Fairchild,
    "I've corrected a small bug from the initial release where draw rounds weren't counted towards the total rounds played.
    Only the binary release has been updated, and I'd very much appreciate it if somebody would provide me with working discjuggler, nero and .SBI images of this release.

    In other news:

  • I've included a readme.txt file with the binary release.
  • Various minor updates to the pages at drxlax.com
  • I've started my public developers log that can be read at: http://www.drxlax.com/forum/topic.asp?id=12 , both to keep those with interest in the matter orientated on the status of the game and to keep me motivated to work a little on the code as often as possible.
  • The source code for this version will be released soon.
  • I'm researching ways to make very fast 2D rotations and scaling with the SH4 CPU other than matrix transformation. If it turns out well, I'll integrate the functions into Dan Potters parallax library."

    Links:
    Local Downloads
    Official Site

    Friday, January 10, 2003

    Icarus Posted by CyRUS64 @ 11:58
    I've added some new Icarus screenshots of the Iris Mushroom sample, Mdk2, Skies of Arcadia, Trickstyle, Virtua On : Ontario Tangram, DoomDC, House of the Dead 2, Ferrari F355, and kmtoy2v. (the last showing off the dreamcast's background plane)

    Duck Revenge Posted by CyRUS64 @ 9:57
    Amin has released a new screenshot of Duck's Revenge, a platform game. He also mentioned what has been added of late:

  • Font manager for text output
  • background sound
  • little gameplay parts, must be expanded for finishing
  • enemy detection and missile collision

    Wednesday, January 8, 2003

    LinuxDC Posted by CyRUS64 @ 13:46
    LinuxDC has been updated with a progress update: (thanks to Huma for the news)

  • Adrian McMenamin has got his VMU filesystem driver to the point where it can list files off of the VMU. He's also working on using apache to serve pages from the VMU, once he implements read support.
  • M. R. Brown and Paul Mundt are currently porting the Linux-SH kernel to Linux 2.5.
  • M. R. Brown is working on converting the LinuxDC CVS kernel to 2.5 and bringing stable (2.4) up-to-date.
  • M. R. Brown is also busy writing specific LinuxDC HOWTOs on tool building, configuring and building the kernel, and creating a basic root filesystem and using the BBA to mount it via NFS.
    This is all part of M. R. Brown's plan to create a full-featured, working website within two weeks ... ETA: not available.
  • M. R. Brown also has plans for an autobuild script that will provide the latest stable and development LinuxDC kernels via SourceForge.net's download services.

    They also mentioned, rather excitingly, some initial plans for a Dreamcast expansion device that will allow the use of network and IDE devices.

    FoF Posted by CyRUS64 @ 9:01
    Dan Potter has posted some more info on Feet of Fury at CAgames. As many will already know he further states that 'the finished, complete version of the game will not be released freely on the internet, just another preview version.', amongst also posting further information on the preordering survey, aswell as discussing some of the problems people have encountered with the initial preview/beta version.

    Sunday, January 5, 2003

    SIDPlay + PlusIVe Posted by CyRUS64 @ 18:55
    Christian Nowak has released a port of SIDPlay, a Commodore 64 SID tune player, and also PlusIVe, a C= Plus/4 emulator.

    Local Downloads:
    SIDPlay
    PlusIVe

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