Old PC, new purpose. Details inside. \ VOGONS

Old PC, new purpose. Details inside.

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First post, by Ace

Posted on 2011-01-03, 05:12

Ace Offline

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Location: Montreal, Canada

I had originally used this computer as a test box for any new sound card I get because it's one of the few motherboards I have with ISA slots, but I got an IBM Personal Computer 300GL in which resides 1 ISA slot, so I'll now use that computer as a text box for any new sound card I get.

But that's not the computer I wanted to talk about. This test box, originally a computer running Windows 98 SE back in 2000, has now been set up for something I originally did not want to do: emulation for a future arcade cabinet. Now, I'm not a big fan of emulation, so I'd like to avoid it as much as possible, HOWEVER, I have stumbled upon some of the earliest versions of MAME for MS-DOS. What's so special about them? How about being able to use TRUE OPL2 or OPL3 FM Synthesis rather than MAME's then poor emulation of the YM3812 and YMF262? For me, the one thing that truly kills emulators is how they ALWAYS mess up the sound in some way, but with these older versions of MAME, I've decided to set up an emulator box to be used exclusively for games that have a YM3812 or YMF262 on the original arcade board.

Now for the specs of said computer:

-Intel Pentium III 1GHz overclocked to 1.13GHz(FSB was overclocked to the maximum 150MHz supported by the motherboard)
-384MB of RAM(also overclocked due to the faster FSB)
-nVidia GeForce FX 5600 AGP graphics card(again, overclocked due to the faster FSB)
-20GB hard drive(it's overkill for what I want to do with it, but it's the only hard drive I have that's either not in use or not dead)
-Gigabyte motherboard with VIA Apollo Pro VT 82C693A chipset
-SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 CT1600 ISA sound card
-OS is MS-DOS v6.22
-Runs 2 different versions of MAME for MS-DOS: MAME v0.36 and VSyncMAME v0.57

I'll get some pictures later since it's fairly late here(past midnight as I'm typing this). However, I will leave you with a sample of what these old versions of MAME are capable of. Here's 15 minutes of Open your Eyes from Zero Wing, a game with a YM3812 on the original board, recorded off my SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 using its YMF262: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHkZbOLRJO4

Later, I will also show you how the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 handles Raiden, a game which uses a YM3812 alongside an OKI6295 ADPCM sound chip(the emulated OKI6295 sounds phenomenal on the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 with its heavy low-pass filtering).

Reply 1 of 5, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2011-01-03, 06:15

Mau1wurf1977 Offline

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Good work! Looking forward to more of you excellent videos!

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 2 of 5, by shock__

Posted on 2011-01-03, 07:18

shock__ Offline

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Hm ... kind of a 2 bladed sword there, considering that while you take away the OPL2/OPL3 emulation and use the real thing, you stick with a lower quality of the general emulation using an outdated version of the emulator (not having exactly followed MAME development, but I suppose there at least have been various improvements when it comes to other parts of the emulation [CPUs, mem handling, custom chips, etc.]).

Apart from that ... good job 😀

Reply 3 of 5, by Ace

Posted on 2011-01-03, 16:21

Ace Offline

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Posts: 529
Joined: 2010-10-16, 17:35
Location: Montreal, Canada

I've only found two problems with those older MAMEs:

-Zero Wing: when you enter Test mode and exit back, there's a minor graphical error when you destroy enemy ships(instead of a red flash, you see an upside-down background flash)
-Raiden: in VSyncMAME v0.57, there is no collision detection when you first play the game.

Wonder if it's possible to get v0.59 of DOS MAME. I can't run Zero Wing and Truxton on VSyncMAME v0.57 since they're slower than in MAME v0.36, so DOS MAME v0.59 would be only for Raiden. I'll go try MAME32 v0.59 to see if the collision detection error's fixed. Once that's done, I'll go looking for DOS MAME v0.59 unless someone here can provide it for me.

Now for a quick question: is the YMF262 backwards compatible all the way down to the YM3526(OPL) or just to the YM3812?

Reply 4 of 5, by shock__

Posted on 2011-01-03, 16:40

shock__ Offline

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Location: Berlin, Germany

Ace wrote:
Now for a quick question: is the YMF262 backwards compatible all the way down to the YM3526(OPL) or just to the YM3812?

Quite frankly I have no idea ... even tho I _think_ I've read somewhere the 3812 can be used as a drop in replacement for the 3526

Full details for the 3526 can be found here: http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/docume … hipdata/ym3526/ ... maybe someone who's familiar with the OPL2/OPL3 can check those documents.

Reply 5 of 5, by Ace

Posted on 2011-01-03, 21:18

Ace Offline

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Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 529
Joined: 2010-10-16, 17:35
Location: Montreal, Canada

More sound from the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0, this time playing Gallantry from Raiden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUNIru_r37U

Raiden uses a YM3812 mixed with an OKI6295 ADPCM sound chip, so on the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0, the YMF262 takes care of the FM Synthesis while the DSP takes care of the sound from the emulated OKI6295(sounds awesome with the heavy low-pass filtering).

Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.

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