MAME 0.271 - Massive System 23 Improvements - Time Crisis II, Crisis Zone

[@fregulang0]

I've uploaded the raw MAME captures, in case anyone wants to see high quality versions of the footage used in this video, without KZbin's harsh compression. Download here: mega.nz/folder/5JMnXRCJ#bCAJq_Mdc10NIqFCBZJeDA The folder contains three files: - timecrs2_270.mp4 (681 MB) - timecrs2_271.mp4 (2.80 GB) - crszone_271.mp4 (1.51 GB) I think those filenames are pretty self explanatory. Note: Purely due to size, these are not the original AVI files created by MAME. The original timecrs2_271.avi was somewhere around 25 GBs, while the MP4 is about 11.2% of that size. They are, however, still lossless. Because of the odd format, you'll need something like VLC or clsid2's fork of MPC-HC to play these correctly. Ffmpeg (ffplay) can play them, but shows compression artifacts that aren't there when viewed on VLC/MPC-HC.

[@CoCoNOFox]

I have waited for so long

[@mikelicenblat]

me too mate i needed these on the Mame Emulator so whenever i go to friends houses to play

[@MrGTheSpiritAvenger]

can't wait till crisis zone is fully playable 🔥🔥🔥

[@fregulang0]

@@MrGTheSpiritAvenger Same. I haven't tested how far into the game it gets yet (might already work all the way to the end), but the only thing wrong with it, graphics aside, seems to be that rather interesting input bug.

[@bryansabater9562]

14:08 I love the sound effect when the player get shot by enemy bullet.

[@fregulang0]

It is a pretty damn cool sound. I'm using it as a placeholder in one of my games and it's so good that I'm sad I'll have to change it ;_;

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

ALL WE HAD TO DO WAS BELIEVE

[@TheBigExclusive]

You can thank Reddit. They were making fun of the Mame team for taking 25 years to emulate Time Crisis and Daytona USA. Basically shamed the Mame team into finally getting these games emulated. The Mame Team tried to defend themselves, but their excuses for taking so long were pretty badx and they got called out. .

[@fregulang0]

​@@TheBigExclusive Somehow, I seriously doubt that antagonizing the MAME team on Reddit is what got any systems emulated, lol. As far as I'm concerned, we can thank the contributors who dumped the boards and actually wrote the drivers. Ryan Holtz has been working on improving System 23 for at least the last 2 years (from what I can see publicly on KZbin- could be more). Is it a shame that it takes time? Does it get frustrating? Yes, it is, and yes, it does. I should know, I check the MAME page religiously every month and search the changelog for "namcos23". But at the end of the day you've got to remember that the devs owe us nothing. We're not 'entitled' to this work. The fact that it exists at all, for free, is a miracle to be thankful for.

[@penguinsushi8442]

​@@fregulang0having a legal process in place for preserving old hardware (that's funded somehow) would be a dream 😔

[@fregulang0]

@@penguinsushi8442 It would, but I imagine that'd also require patent and copyright reforms (which are needed, but have financial interests working against them). Lots of things get lost to time, and it's a shame. On the bright side, we at least have significant archival and emulation projects.

[@penguinsushi8442]

@@fregulang0 Indeed. Something is better than nothing, and this middle ground might be better than any solution implemented via copyright etc (grass always greener, hindsight is 20/20 etc).

[@751126thomas]

Is this for real??? Crisis Zone is all about my childhood! I’ve heard this arcade motherboard never been decrypted before and it’s been kept in some namco engineers’ hands. So I thought it would be some kind of commercial secret forever. But anyway it is a good start!

[@fregulang0]

100% real, even if you can't really play it yet. :^) If I'm not remembering wrong, what I read made Crisis Zone not boot was the ROM being loaded incorrectly, so it's possible that the emulation of the board itself had already been capable of running the game to some extent before this version. Don't quote me on that, though. There's a video on another channel that shows the game's ending, so the only real blocker for playing through to the end (besides needing an extremely beefy CPU to run the game at speed even with underclocks) seems to be the input issue. Definitely a very exciting update.

[@tropixx_xlr1549]

Regular time crisis 2 and zone on pc almost perfectly emulated, finally. Crisis zone needs work though in terms of visuals and controls, but it looks good though!

[@fregulang0]

Very encouraging updates, regardless of emulation not being 100% perfect yet. :D

[@lumlee2414]

@@fregulang0 But can you still play 2 players in Time Crisis II?

[@fregulang0]

​​@@lumlee2414 LAN is still unemulated at this time, but more or less recently, the driver was updated with references to the device that handles link communication and what looks like an initial definition for it (comments call it a "skeleton device", so likely not functional yet). The instant I hear Time Crisis II linked play is emulated is the instant I record and post a showcase video.

[@unknownuser8228]

​@@fregulang0keep it up there, i just need my nostalgia fullfilled

[@g4z-kb7ct]

8:53 wow how did you get that special area with all the 5000 guys? Now that it's working almost perfect in mame I suppose I should dump a couple more s23 versions I have here. Yup! All of this was made possible because of my many years of dumping and the stack of s23 boards that passed through my dumping lair ;-)

[@fregulang0]

There's three bonus areas like that, one in each stage: - Stage 1, Area 2: shoot Jakov in the head every time he appears (his hat will fall off, and he'll cough) - Stage 2, Area 2: shoot the two bonus enemies that zoom by on the other train (right after Buff shoots out the windows) - Stage 3, Area 1: shoot Wild Dog at least 37 times (at least, I think that's the number - just shoot him as much as possible) Also, that's so awesome. Arcade TC2 was a big childhood game for me, and I never came across a CZ machine, so it's really exciting seeing them getting better and better in MAME! Thanks for your work!

[@g4z-kb7ct]

@@fregulang0 At the beginning of stage 1 is there a way to control the player going left or right to the pay phone? Then when travelling up the road in the next part where the barrels are, sometimes you go up the left side or up the right side. There are various other multiple paths going through the shop area and no obvious way to control it?

[@fregulang0]

​@@g4z-kb7ct When you're playing alone, the orange enemies that show up near the end of a section control which path you take, depending on which one you shoot first. There's exceptions with the first two bonus areas, and in Stage 2 Area 2, your starting path depends on the explosive barrels at the end of Area 1.

[@Alucard400]

you saved some games from extinction because of doing so. Thanks so much for your work! I'm going to start researching on what would be the ideal light gun to get for playing Crisis Zone and Time Crisis II.

[@g4z-kb7ct]

@@Alucard400 The easiest way is probably a Sinden. The gun4ir is another way but is a DIY thing, although I think they can be bought too (as conversions on several different gun types but not cheap. If you just want to buy something that will work get a Sinden. Or check various youtube vids that shows lightguns for mame.

[@CDbiggen]

Even fully loads on my phone now ❤. But only runs at 5fps or something 😂. But wow amazing.

[@fregulang0]

Not surprising LOL. These games are incredibly demanding, even on desktop CPUs (and one of the devs mentioned that the emulation is still unoptimized). I had the opportunity to try out Crisis Zone on a friend's PC with a 9800X3D, and it still wouldn't hit 100%.

[@CDbiggen]

@fregulang0 , Woah, I was amazed it ran at all but I was expecting it to run well on my desktop 12700k. Might have to temper my expectations on that one haha. But this progress is amazing to see.

[@fregulang0]

​@@CDbiggen It did run TC2 at full speed, but CZ was around 70% iirc. You could underclock the emulated CPU(s) to gain some extra speed but it still may not reach 100% at this time. Optimizations will likely make a big difference when they come.

[@bryansabater9562]

Mame Updated to .272 Duplicate display has been fixed for both TCII and CZ

[@fregulang0]

Yeah, saw it. IIRC that commit came only a couple days after the 0.271 release, but imo it's a bit less newsworthy than this huge update. A video showcasing that would be a couple seconds long, at best. :P I'll likely post a new video when some of the following things come: - Missing effects (TC2, the white/red flash when you shoot certain enemies/objects) - Missing texture mapping effects (TC2, the satellite's panel reflection texture is supposed to scroll/move around with the camera) - Missing texture flipping/rotation (?) modes in SS23 Ev. 2 (CZ, seen in the "ACTION!!" and "RELOAD" prompts, and characters' faces) - Scrolling texture fixes (TC2: the arcade mode scrolling text at the top cuts off incorrectly in the japanese version, CZ: textures that shouldn't scroll, do) - 2D layer/priority (?) fixes (TC2: shell casings appear behind the 2D HUD, CZ: HUD elements appear behind their background) - Depth fixes (some things appear behind or in front of others when they shouldn't) - Lighting updates (TC2, you can compare to an arcade capture to see differences in lighting) And of course, the holy grail: - Linked play emulation

[@bryansabater9562]

There are more highlights of the update to System 23/System Super 23 board, and oh, did you saw my Time Crisis II videos.

[@fregulang0]

​@@bryansabater9562 I just checked your latest playthrough, you definitely know how to score, although we sometimes disagree on methodology and which paths to take :^) On that note, my most recently uploaded full playthrough is rather outdated by this point (as is this very video). When I get guns ready I'll probably upload another full playthrough. I've been able to score just over 2mil on KB+M, but it's likely not gonna be as easy to do with an actual lightgun, so I'll probably aim for around 1.8-1.9 mil. I can give some tips, if you don't mind: - At the very end of Stage 2-1, you can get the 5000 point bonus from both barrels (learned this from Smraedis). First shoot both of them two times, then shoot each quickly one more time. There's a small time window after the first barrel explodes where you can still shoot the second and get its bonus as well. - When Diaz comes out hiding behind Christy, there's some areas you can shoot around her where you'll hit him even before he pops out to shoot. One of them is right above her right shoulder, next to her neck, the other is right beside her right arm. There might be others, his hitboxes are bigger than hers, I think. - More times than you'd think it's worth it to actually not shoot enemies three times if you're likely to miss, the accuracy bonus stacks up and can make up a score difference as crazy as 200,000 points if you keep it going as much as possible. In certain specific spots the game will just take it away from you even if you don't miss, but still. - If you're interested in playing closer to full speed, you can start MAME with the -cheat parameter and underclock the CPU to 15-16% for TSS1-3, or 12-13% for TSS4-5. If you're willing to expend some time and effort, you can also compile your own MAME, which might give you an additional boost (it did for me). That's regarding gameplay, but on the video: - I'd recommend recording your playthrough using MAME itself; for gameplay you can use the -record parameter, which will generate an input replay file (and not slow down the game), and then you can use -aviwrite (warning: ginormous filesize!) to create a perfect full-speed video, regardless of how the game ran when recording. It will also not display the crosshair, which is a nice bonus.

[@bryansabater9562]

@@fregulang0 Oh you forgot the mention -Enemy/Object flashing is missing

[@fregulang0]

​@@bryansabater9562 I did mention it, under the first point ("missing effects") :P

[@israelgonzalezabrego3551]

Oh my god!!! Please some one know how to play this with lightgun on a CRT TV?

[@fregulang0]

@@israelgonzalezabrego3551 I don't have a CRT TV or CRT-based lightgun, but I can tell you that guns like the Sinden (white rectangle on screen) or GUN4IR and RS3 Reaper (IR-based) work directly in MAME without hassle. You set them up on your PC, then tell MAME to use lightguns as the lightgun input device, map your controls, and you're good to go. I imagine CRT-based guns would be just as easy if they work on your PC.

[@israelgonzalezabrego3551]

@@fregulang0 Ok thanks for the advice, but like to use them to with the sega model 2, model 3, and Naomi emulators maybe doesn't works with that, I don't know I need to try I guess

[@fregulang0]

@@israelgonzalezabrego3551 Those don't emulate System 23, which is what I figured you meant. But basically, modern guns will work with any game or emulator that can take mouse input.

[@greenth-mac2550]

I never managedd to make mame runs, for some reason I stuck with an error or a bug. It's nice to see you making something for this game, I guess it's easier than redoing the whole thing from scratch for Max Payne 2 right? By the way, I'm that same person who once had a chat in your comment section under the max payen prototypes, "Alialatrach" green profile, just wanted to say.

[@fregulang0]

@@greenth-mac2550 I remember! Sorry I never made that MaxED tutorial. :P As for this video, it's just a showcase of the state of the two games I'm interested in, not anything I made myself (video aside). I do have a lightgun game in very early development, made in Godot, but there's not been much progress lately.

[@greenth-mac2550]

@@fregulang0 You don't need to apologize to anything. I do wish I know how to work around MaxEd like add prefabs and sound effects and dialogues, stairs and elevators, I am trying to recreate the official maps but only as rooms, I am bad at mapping but doing so will allow me to pretend I am playing the official maps with adding npcs as I please, best I could do but better than nothing.

[@KarlSturmgewher]

Getting close to working? I wish the Time Crisis games were on Switch. But for the moment, we have the Namco System 1 and 2 games on Arcade Archives.

[@제로아워즈미국특수부]

How to crisis zone arcade namco system 23 download?

[@fregulang0]

I can't legally link it to you or tell you where to find it, but I'll just say it's easy to find out there... (...Bandai Namco, if you're reading this, I WILL buy these games if you release the arcade versions on PC)

[@toniclementegarcia6656]

Is time crisis 2 fully playable? BTW, another massive textures improvements is coming to namco system 23 by mooglyguy

[@fregulang0]

@@toniclementegarcia6656 Fully playable start to end as either Keith or Robert! Also, keeping my eye on that. I've taken to compiling MAME myself again after this release, so the moment that PR (and any others related to S23) gets merged is the moment I test it. :D

[@larsandresson3459]

Way are the picture so dark ? it was not so in the Arcades

[@fregulang0]

The graphics, though much better and more accurate than ever, still aren't being emulated perfectly, so them not being 1-to-1 with arcade is to be expected. Even then, it'd be hard to compare unless you could perfectly losslessly capture the raw video signal coming out of an arcade unit.

[@richwatson1985]

My crisis zone version during gameplay is running slowly. Is yours?

[@fregulang0]

Yes, extremely. You can underclock the CPUs for a speed boost (this works better in Time Crisis II), but it still doesn't reach anywhere near full speed on my machine. There also remains the issue of not having control during gameplay, so even if you could get it to run at full speed, we still have some waiting to do, it seems.

[@richwatson1985]

@ Shame. Well at least we are getting somewhere :) yeah time crisis 2 works great! Awesome with the Sinden.

[@retrokid5182]

@@fregulang0 which cpu, mame virtual cpu or actual cpu

[@fregulang0]

​@@retrokid5182 Sorry, never was notified of this comment. I meant MAME's emulated CPUs. The less CPU cycles you need to emulate per second, the faster the machine will run.

[@pecanboy3502]

Whats ur pc specs bro? U got crisis zone running at like normal speed while mine is choppy and laggy

[@fregulang0]

@@pecanboy3502 Nah, it runs very slow for me too. But MAME records perfect videos, regardless of emulation speed.

[@supergunshooter3615]

why does your time crisis 2 work with almost 100% game speed?

[@fregulang0]

@@supergunshooter3615 It doesn't, but MAME records videos at 100% speed regardless of how well the game actually runs on your PC. That said, if you run MAME with the -cheat parameter, you can go to "Slider controls" while the game runs, and underclock the main CPU for a speed boost. On TSS1, 2, and 3, you can go all the way down to 15%; on TSS4 and 5 you can go to 12% due to the faster CPU (both options result in ~19.9 MHz). Any lower than that and the virtual CPU will be unable to keep up with the game, and you'll get slowdowns and black frames/blinking. You can also underclock the other two CPUs for a further boost as long as you set them both to the same value and restart the machine with F3 after making changes (otherwise the game won't take your inputs, probably due to the CPUs being out of sync), but the music will be in slow motion and most sounds won't play, or will be cut off.

[@raychang2155]

@@fregulang0 what options of slider control menu are the mentioned TSS1~5? I just saw Overclock CPU : maincpu, subcpu, jvs & c352sound when i press TAB in game. thank for your help to boost the game speed.

[@fregulang0]

@@raychang2155 TSS1-5 are the game versions; when you're selecting a ROM to play on MAME, your Time Crisis II might say "(Japan, TSS1 Ver. B)" or "(World, TSS4 Ver. A)". TSS1 to 3 run on System 23, while 4 and 5 run on Super System 23, which has a faster CPU (133 MHz vs 166 MHz; 133 * 15% = 19.95 MHz, 166 * 12% = 19.92 MHz). The CPU you want to change is the ":maincpu". As mentioned above you can also underclock the ":subcpu" and ":jvs:namco_tssio:iocpu" if you don't care about slow music and choppy sound (set them both to the same value, restart with F3). Underclocking ":c352" gives no performance boost as far as I can tell and only makes sound play back in slow motion.

[@raychang2155]

got it, thanks, sir

[@larsandresson3459]

are there way to play in 1080 p or higher resolution in Mame ?

[@fregulang0]

@@larsandresson3459 You can play in fullscreen and disable integer scaling (it's disabled by default, I think) and even disable the aspect ratio lock (yuck!), but if you mean upscaling, MAME doesn't do that; it'd be against its stated goal.

[@penguinsushi8442]

​@@fregulang0and would be a headache I presume, elements not scaling etc and other bizarre issues that have to be resolved after perfect emulation is achieved

[@fregulang0]

​@@penguinsushi8442 A ton of emulators have upscaling capabilities so I figure it's a mostly solved problem, but in MAME's case they're only interested in emulating the *exact* behavior of each machine; upscaling is inherently incompatible with this. It also does software rendering exclusively, so even if you could upscale, it'd be mad slow.

[@penguinsushi8442]

@@fregulang0 Right.... that makes more sense why running TC2 in MAME is so slow.