Those of you waiting for the stable release of Project Amber, I'm afraid (in keeping with the Amber Tradition) will have to wait a little bit longer.
I did promise a release tomorrow and there will be one, but it won't be the super stable fully supported release I hoped it would be.
I will post over at DadsFME sometime tomorrow in the emu development thread, so those of you who just can't wait can have a play.
The release thread alone will probably take a few hours to put together, and there is some major finishing off work left to do.
For those of you not following the development thread the state of the emulator at present is as follows...
Supported techs are MPU4, Scorpion 2, M1A/B, System 83, Scorpion 1, MPU3.
MPU3 and Scorpion 1 have mild issues with some games at present, the drivers need a thorough going over which I had hoped to have done by now.
System83 is playable for Cops and Robbers (the very first one), and I will see later tonight what other games I can get running / will already run. As it stands right now the AY8910 chip isn't attached, If I get time tonight I will sort it.
M1A/B is running, and every game I have tested runs ok, though I have only tried 4 games. The NEC chip is supported, the OKI chip isn't as yet, neither is the AY8910 chip however the next job is to support those chips in M1.
Scorpion 2 is running rather nicely now, the Dot Matrix is supported, including the DMD/Game link, so features should work properly. The NEC sound chip is supported, but the YM2413 chip is not, and I have no plans for it to be emulated by tomorrow either. However having got the AY Synth chip up and running now, this hopefully wont be too far behind. The YMZ280 chip for Spotted Dick and How Big's Your Rock (which runs just fine door closed now) will be looked at this evening and is 95% complete.
MPU4 is the star attraction, with the OKI, NEC, and AY8910 sound chips installed and working already, I just need to emulate the 7 Seg extender boards, fix a couple of known bugs, and its pretty much good to go. Except as I type that I just remembered that 6/7 Reel games are not currently supported either. A solid couple of hours should see it working fully.
That's as it stands right now. By tomorrow I hope to have NEC/AY8910/OKI chips installed on all required techs (save for the OKI on Scorp 1, which only affects Crazy Crocs game). I will also try and add the last few extenders to MPU4.
Over the next few days after that work will begin on getting the YM2413 chip emulated, along with a bit of a graphical overhaul for the main menu's. I will sort the bugs in Scorpion 1 and MPU3, fix the layout editor, and at LONG last write the docs.
With all that negativity out of the way... some good news, here's a list of stuff Amber can now do layout wise...
The sound (oh god sound again) I have completely rewritten, along with the sound tool you have seen already which is now built in to the emulator. The chips actually work this time around, and I have managed to get rid of most of the annoying pops and clicks that were creeping in. And you know, make it play the right sounds at the right time. For the most part the emulator will autodetect Sound Settings (Synth sound must be enabled as an option, Similarly the serial version of the NEC chip must be enabled as an option).
The OKI chip has had a thorough going over, and even supports stereo effect creation as used on M1a/b.
The AY8910 synth works as far as I can tell from limited testing, certainly it works for Smash and Grab and Nickelodeon, but there are probably a hundred or so games I haven't tested so who knows. It sounds right this time around, and works 100% fine in Windows 7 (whether it works in XP or not I haven't had time to test).
Dimmed Lamping is supported on all techs, though some techs are currently using a dummy multiplexer to save cpu cycles as certain techs didn't do dimming as such, but you still get the lamp fade in / out as it should. The exception is Scorpion techs which could do dimming, but they had a sort of self contained multiplexer, as far as i can see no docs exist that detail the operation of the system, I will take a look at trying to figure out whats going on eventually, but getting the main bulk working has been the priority. I also couldn't think of any Scorpion games that actually used the dimming system, though I am probably wrong, answers on a postcard...
Reel Bounce is now available having rewritten the reel drivers completely earlier in the year to try and improve my original driver which only worked for MPU4, occasioanally.
I will Included a few options for adjusting bounce from game to game, though as it stands right now it has been adjusted from tech to tech by me internally. Reels will also stop slightly (very slightly) off center by 3 pixels either way, and the bounce is somewhat related to the speed of the reel, so you will get less bounce from a reel nudge than you will from a sudden reel stop, (as you should). Reel masking works nicely now allowing for only the symbol to light up whilst the main band stays dark.
The Alpha display can be coloured any colour you wish (those of you using red or pink will get some kind of punishment!) also a glass layer can be overlaid at a variable brightness, and the background of the alpha can also be varied. The alpha will get smaller default Alpha's as part of the graphical upgrade. Whilst I think my current alpha does look pretty good, it doesn't fit many layouts at its natural resolution, and doesn't scale that well either, so for better scaling support I will be fixing this shortly.
The Dot Matrix is in and working for Scorpion 2, the graphical upgrade will allow for a glass layer to go in front of it for a bit more authenticity.
So that's where its at. Aside from the YM2413 emulation, everything else is fairly straightforward and shouldn't take that long, though there is a fair bit to do, its mostly small jobs.
Any reported bugs will be looked at and corrected as quickly as possible.
Once I release the interim emulator tomorrow it would be nice if a few layouts could be created for it. I'm hoping to have a nice stable version of the emulator within two weeks.
