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ColecoDS - Improved

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https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/ColecoDS
V4.6: 22-Dec-2021 by wavemotion-dave
  • New CZ80 core added to solve compatibility problems with the remaining games.
That was a bit painful... I grafted in a new Z80 core with higher compatibility to solve the remaining 15 games with problems... compatibility is now very close to 100% - every game should now be playable.

This comes at a cost - the new Z80 core is significantly slower than the DrZ80 core I had been using - so guess what? I'm including both CPU cores in future releases. Right now, everything still defaults to the fast DrZ80 core which has 95% compatibility and will run full speed even on the older DS-LITE/PHAT. Only the 15 games that have problems are using the new core. But you can switch the new core in/out via GAME OPTIONS. In the future, I may make the new slower/accurate CPU core the default for the DSi and above (the DS will have to live with the good-but-not-perfect DrZ80 core for speed).

Many Bothans died to bring you this build. And many cups of coffee were consumed.

1640193461404.png



Edit: Updated to 4.6a to add a few more games to the new CPU core. And boosted performance of the new core by almost 10% !! I'm really pleased with the compatibility of the new Z80 core - it may soon be the default for DSi and above.
 
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https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/ColecoDS

V4.7: 23-Dec-2021 by wavemotion-dave
  • Major speed improvements in the new CZ80 core.
  • Installed new CZ80 core as the default for DSi and above.
Well, this escalated quickly! I moved as much of the new CZ80 core into tightly-coupled ARM memory (ITCM) - removing what I could from the older DrZ80 core. That slows down the older DrZ80 core a bit - but still fast enough to render games full-speed on the DS-LITE/PHAT. The new CZ80 core has a 20% speedup which allows all known games to play at full-speed with incredibly high accuracy on the DSi and above. As such - I've made the new CZ80 core the default if you are running on a DSi or better.

Please upgrade to 4.7 as soon as possible - it's f*cking awesome :)
 
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wavemotion said:
https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/ColecoDS

V4.7: 23-Dec-2021 by wavemotion-dave
  • Major speed improvements in the new CZ80 core.
  • Installed new CZ80 core as the default for DSi and above.
Well, this escalated quickly! I moved as much of the new CZ80 core into tightly-coupled ARM memory (ITCM) - removing what I could from the older DrZ80 core. That slows down the older DrZ80 core a bit - but still fast enough to render games full-speed on the DS-LITE/PHAT. The new CZ80 core has a 20% speedup which allows all known games to play at full-speed with incredibly high accuracy on the DSi and above. As such - I've made the new CZ80 core the default if you are running on a DSi or better.

Please upgrade to 4.7 as soon as possible - it's f*cking awesome :)
Click to expand...
Great Job as always! Just came to say that I believe you only "released" the source code for 4.7 and not a compiled .nds file on git.
 
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https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/ColecoDS

V4.8: 26-Dec-2021 by wavemotion-dave
  • Preliminary support for SG-1000 games (.sg format)
  • Cleanup across the board - a bit more speed gained.
This would have been a pretty cool release having added the Sega SG-1000 game support (it's basically the same video, sound and CPU as the Colecovision - with just a small delta in memory layout) - except Team Pixelboy's traditional Christmas Day release was 9 popular Sega SG roms converted to the Colecovision released over on Atari Age. So that takes a bit of wind out of the sails here - but it's all good :) There are still some exclusive SG-1000 titles and a few cool homebrews (including SC-3000 games which will also mostly play fine on this emulator). Seek out the Taiwanese port of Pippols for the SG-1000 which is super fun.

I did gain a couple more frames of performance on the new CPU core - and everything is running really nicely.


Edit: I checked in a debug-version of the DrZ80 core... fixed for 4.8a. If you grabbed the original 4.8, please grab latest :)
 
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Hey ber - not exactly sure what you're asking for. I keep all my CV Homebrews in one directory, commercial releases in another, utilities in a third and now SG-1000 games in a fourth directory. They don't have to be merged together. You can navigate to whatever folder (up or down your directory tree) as you like.
 
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Yeah sorry. I mean, when you want to open a new game, some kind of window asking 'what system? Coleco/SG1000'. Even if it's browseable, Coleco default path is /roms/coleco so I thought that something like /roms/sg1000 could work out of the box. However I realize that this can not be that simple, so please don't waste your time. Thanks anyway.
 
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Happy Holidays all... I've been spending my vacation working on adding Sord M5 emulation to ColecoDS. I really hoped to have this done by Christmas - after all, what little boy or girl doesn't have fond memories of waking up extra early on Christmas morning and hoping that Santa brought them this quirky Japanese computer that shares most of the same internal architecture as the Colecovision.

1640868107309.png


Wait? What?! You've never heard of the Sord M5? Yeah, me neither. But it really is almost the same architecture as the Colecovision - same Z80 CPU processor, TMS9918a VDP (graphics) chip and same SN sound chip. The big difference is that it also contains a pesky Z80-CTC chip which clocks timing and mediates the VDP interrupts from the graphics processor to the CPU. That's taking some time to implement - there aren't a lot of good working open-source Sord M5 emulators out there and so I'm doing my best with Z80-CTC data sheets. It's almost working.

There are some exclusive games on this system - the one that I'm most looking forward to paying is Apploon which only saw a release on the PC88 and the Sord M5. It's a great little platform-shooter and it's working except the sound is wrong because I still need to finish the Z80-CTC emulation. Soon... soon...


1640868026460.png
 
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wavemotion said:
Happy Holidays all... I've been spending my vacation working on adding Sord M5 emulation to ColecoDS. I really hoped to have this done by Christmas - after all, what little boy or girl doesn't have fond memories of waking up extra early on Christmas morning and hoping that Santa brought them this quirky Japanese computer that shares most of the same internal architecture as the Colecovision.

View attachment 291801

Wait? What?! You've never heard of the Sord M5? Yeah, me neither. But it really is almost the same architecture as the Colecovision - same Z80 CPU processor, TMS9918a VDP (graphics) chip and same SN sound chip. The big difference is that it also contains a pesky Z80-CTC chip which clocks timing and mediates the VDP interrupts from the graphics processor to the CPU. That's taking some time to implement - there aren't a lot of good working open-source Sord M5 emulators out there and so I'm doing my best with Z80-CTC data sheets. It's almost working.

There are some exclusive games on this system - the one that I'm most looking forward to paying is Apploon which only saw a release on the PC88 and the Sord M5. It's a great little platform-shooter and it's working except the sound is wrong because I still need to finish the Z80-CTC emulation. Soon... soon...


View attachment 291800
Click to expand...
yeah, happy holidays to u too!
 
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wavemotion said:
Happy Holidays all... I've been spending my vacation working on adding Sord M5 emulation to ColecoDS. I really hoped to have this done by Christmas - after all, what little boy or girl doesn't have fond memories of waking up extra early on Christmas morning and hoping that Santa brought them this quirky Japanese computer that shares most of the same internal architecture as the Colecovision.

View attachment 291801

Wait? What?! You've never heard of the Sord M5? Yeah, me neither. But it really is almost the same architecture as the Colecovision - same Z80 CPU processor, TMS9918a VDP (graphics) chip and same SN sound chip. The big difference is that it also contains a pesky Z80-CTC chip which clocks timing and mediates the VDP interrupts from the graphics processor to the CPU. That's taking some time to implement - there aren't a lot of good working open-source Sord M5 emulators out there and so I'm doing my best with Z80-CTC data sheets. It's almost working.

There are some exclusive games on this system - the one that I'm most looking forward to paying is Apploon which only saw a release on the PC88 and the Sord M5. It's a great little platform-shooter and it's working except the sound is wrong because I still need to finish the Z80-CTC emulation. Soon... soon...


View attachment 291800
Click to expand...
Happy holidays, Wave! Your work never fails to impress
 
Last edited by Cris1997XX,
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Not quite ready for the 4.9 build... probably later today - but I just checked in 4.8c with preliminary support for the Sord M5.

It only supports Cartridges - so just .bin (or .rom) and you must rename to .m5 so ColecoDS will know to apply the Sord M5 emulation to it.

You will also need the 8k Sord M5 BIOS which is pretty easy to find... rename to sordm5.rom and place in the same directory you would keep coleco.rom :)

The only thing not 100% is the sound emulation ... but I'll get there soon. Been busy playing Apploon and Step Up :)

Unfortunately a game I really wanted to play (as it looks like something I'd enjoy) is Up Up Balloon which only has known bad dumps... even Mame and Emu5 won't play the current dump. It's a really obscure system!
 
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Cool, @CrashMidnick !

Because of the odd way in which the Sord M5 handles interrupts (using the Z80-CTC chip), I had to use the slower more accurate CZ80 CPU core which probably is only 90% speed on the DS-LITE. Recommend you turn on 'Frame Skip' which will render the game at 100% speed easily on the older hardware. I'll try to get the faster DrZ80 core working with the Sord M5 emulation soon.

Also recommend you try out Apploon... what a quirky little gem of a game that probably has never been played on a handheld until today :D
 
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wavemotion said:
Cool, @CrashMidnick !

Because of the odd way in which the Sord M5 handles interrupts (using the Z80-CTC chip), I had to use the slower more accurate CZ80 CPU core which probably is only 90% speed on the DS-LITE. Recommend you turn on 'Frame Skip' which will render the game at 100% speed easily on the older hardware. I'll try to get the faster DrZ80 core working with the Sord M5 emulation soon.

Also recommend you try out Apploon... what a quirky little gem of a game that probably has never been played on a handheld until today :D
Click to expand...

Yes I noticed that. But all the games I played (cobra, jumping jack, galax, powerpac, warp warp, pooyan) are full speed without FS (58-60 FPS). The only one that goes down to 53-54 fps is Apploon where I activated FS ;) I will do more tests but I think the slower sound core is OK with Sord M5.

Apploon is very addictive !

Up up baloon gives me a black screen (like you said) and Intruder gives me a screen with special characters.
 
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CrashMidnick said:
Up up baloon gives me a black screen (like you said) and Intruder gives me a screen with special characters.
Click to expand...
Yep. Both games have no known good dumps. There are a few other games with no known good dumps. It’s just not a popular system.

Another game to try is Wonder Hole which is the only port of an Irem arcade game that no longer exists (no surviving machine boards and it’s on the MAME list of lost games until someone discovers one in their parents barn).
 
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https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/ColecoDS

V4.9: 30-Dec-2021 by wavemotion-dave
  • Improved SG-1000 game support (.sg and .sc format)
  • Preliminary support for Sord M5 games (.m5 format)
SG-1000 compatibility is better - just about every game runs (for some reason the Taiwanese bootleg Twinbee ported to the SG-1000 requires the DrZ80 core to work - no idea why!).

Added support for the Japanese Sord M5 which is very Coleco-like (same chips - different IO mapping). It's got a funky Z80-CTC counter/timer chip that I only partially emulate so the sound might not be pitch-perfect but it's close and more than enjoyable. There are some exclusives on the Sord M5 that are worth seeking out.

Enjoy - and happy new year!
 
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