GOD-FIGHTER ZEROIGAR [NEC PC-FX] RELEASE!

[NightWolve]

No coincidence at all! 

That's the missing "filmstrip" background in the Sakuraigar story slideshows that I reported to Rypheca, and that she kindly diagnosed and identified what the problem was.

Zeroigar is setting one of the background screens to an illegal size that real hardware is correcting, but Mednafen was rejecting and failing to display.

I fixed Zeroigar in the patch to set the proper values, and Rypheca fixed Mednafen to "correct" the value (just like the real hardware does).

That way , the patched game will work on old versions of Mednafen, and the original unpatched game with work on the new version of Mednafen. 

Oh, that's interesting. So there was a more proper way to treat an error and more correctly emulate how real NEC hardware responds to it. Gotcha!

Try the MAGIC-ENGINE FX emulator, just to see. I think the "F1 save, F5 load" trick works when your 5 minute timer is about to run out since it's payware - that's a tip David Michel himself mentions to reset the timer and keep playing when in demo-mode.

The problem with that is that Magic-Engine FX doesn't actually emulate the PC-FX accurately enough to play Zeroigar 100% correctly.

Only Mednafen gets all the graphics and sounds correct. 

I really can't recommend Magic-Engine FX for playing this translation, especially since David is asking you to pay money for it ... and it doesn't fully work, and Mednafen is free ... and it does.

Oh, well, it's what I have/use, but I didn't know it has issues with the game. 1st level looked fine to me when I played it. I guess I'll try to get it running with Mednafen if I can on my PC. But to be honest, I kinda hate command-line software and never liked Mednafen being the non-GUI oddball emulator! Hahaha! I know, I made TurboRip, but it's just cause it was easier to let Windows provide you with a DOS-emulated window than designing and controlling your own window/GUI. ;)

I don't have a problem with someone deciding on payware though, but as Dicer can't get Mednafen to work at all, it's the only other alternative emulator I know of and he might as well try it. And yeah, there's a bypass to Michel's 5 minute timer in demo mode that he himself revealed in his forums so you can play all games fully without buying it.

He's a good guy, he helped me when I started working on TurboRip and fan translations with hardware/coding info and so forth. He has been harassed/heckled by people (as I have myself) with the free-for-me entitlement complex that believe they deserve such software for free, so I kind of sympathize.

[elmer]

No coincidence at all! 
Only Mednafen gets all the graphics and sounds correct. 

I really can't recommend Magic-Engine FX for playing this translation, especially since David is asking you to pay money for it ... and it doesn't fully work, and Mednafen is free ... and it does.

Oh, well, it's what I have/use, but I didn't know it has issues with the game. 1st level looked fine to me when I played it. I guess I'll try to get it running with Mednafen if I can on my PC. But to be honest, I kinda hate command-line software and never liked Mednafen being the non-GUI oddball emulator!

You can just drag a .cue file onto mednafen.exe in Windows Explorer ... not the friendliest of interfaces, but it avoids the command line. 

[I don't have a problem with someone deciding on payware though, but as Dicer can't get Mednafen to work at all, it's the only other alternative emulator I know of and he might as well try it. And yeah, there's a bypass to Michel's 5 minute timer in demo mode that he himself revealed in his forums so you can play all games fully without buying it.

He's a good guy, he helped me when I started working on TurboRip and fan translations with hardware/coding info and so forth. He has been harassed/heckled by people (as I have myself) with the free-for-me entitlement complex that believe they deserve such software for free, so I kind of sympathize.

The really, really, hard work done by David Michel, David Shadoff, Charles MacDonald, and a few other pioneers are how we can all get to enjoy the PCE/PC-FX emulators, translations and homebrew that are available today! 

It probably wouldn't ever have been done without them.

David Michel's generosity in providing the algorithms for his PC-FX's FMV emulation to Rypheca for use in Mednafen was incredible (you can see the credit to him in Rypheca's source code).   

I have absolutely no problem with David, or any other developer, asking for money as compensation for all their hard work.

The only problem that I have with Magic Engine FX, is that he stopped developing it years ago, even though there are some significant problems in it's emulation.

It's like he's (quite understandably) just lost interest in the PC-FX platform.

Anyway, I'll try to update my Mednafen patches to the latest 0.9.38.5 release of Mednafen today and make a new build, then perhaps Dicer can try that and see if it works on his Windows 10.

[esadajr]

I'm surprised no one mentioned MedGUI, the Mednafen frontend. At least for Zeroigar it gets the job done.

The whole emulator enchilada (x64) https://goo.gl/F9G6NE

[elmer]

Anyway, I'll try to update my Mednafen patches to the latest 0.9.38.5 release of Mednafen today and make a new build, then perhaps Dicer can try that and see if it works on his Windows 10.

OK Dicer, if you want to give Mednafen another try, I've uploaded a new build of my modified Mednafen and put the links in the original development thread ...

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=18654.msg418740#msg418740

I'm surprised no one mentioned MedGUI, the Mednafen frontend. At least for Zeroigar it gets the job done.

Hahaha ... I'm a crusty enough old curmudgeon to object to the idea that a simple front end takes over 8MB of files, plus the entire .NET framework in order to work! 

But I guess that it's a good recommendation for those people who are more interested in actually running games, rather than in complaining about modern software development practices. 

[Aggie Tsubi]

TANGENT:

Forgive me, but I don't remember if you ever wrote about Miraculum PC-FX....

If you have played the game, what did you think of it?


BACK ON TOPIC:
When you do play Zeroigar, you have to tell us what you thought of it. I always enjoy reading your posts.

I think it is safe to say that your quality to crap ratio is unparalleled: a few excellent posts every year.

Thanks for the very kind words! You know, I'm such a lazy ass that I bought Miraculum nearly two years ago and it's still sitting at the bottom of a pile of unplayed games, whoops. Boy, it would suck if it ended up not working, haha. It's definitely on my to-play-soon list along with patched Zeroigar. And then they'll transition to the to-ramble-on-about list, haha.

I actually have played Zeroigar some before (in Japanese), but not extensively. Like others, the level-up system went completely over my head (kanji are my mortal enemies). Really liked what I've played so far, both in terms of gameplay and the cool retro-for-even-back-then cutscenes. It's gonna be awesome to understand every bit of it with the patch.

[esadajr]

I finally got a chance to play/test this last night on a Wii. While it doesn't run like a dream, I say it is playable and looks awesome via component on the CRT. The slow down is more notorious during the video playback and even there it doesn't sound that bad. The music is a bit slow, but the controls are fine even when the screen accelerates.

[NecroPhile]

The problem with that is that Magic-Engine FX doesn't actually emulate the PC-FX accurately enough to play Zeroigar 100% correctly.

Unless it's since been fixed, MEFX wouldn't let me play the two minute score thingy back when we had a high score challenge thread going here.  Selecting it from the title screen just got me a blank screen.

[SamIAm]

The chief problem with MEFX is that it doesn't emulate any of the rotation effects properly. That means the second boss, the fourth boss, and the stage six mid-boss aren't drawn as they should be, and you will literally be taking hits and not be able to see what it hitting you. It's only playable if you're a maniac like me who has completely memorized the boss patterns already.

[CrackTiger]

This project motivated me to finally get a PC-FX again. I don't know how much free time I'll have to play the game, but I'll try it out as soon as my new system arrives.

[NightWolve]

I've been using ImgBurn for years, and after thinking about this today, I finally felt shamed enough to donate.

Ya know what, I said f--k it, and just donated as well! He's a great coder and I've been using it for years since switching over from Ahead Nero that I got for free when I bought a new budget DVD drive at MicroCenter. Nero is interesting, has lots of features, and it helped keep TurboRip working on Windows Vista/7/8 with their Nero ASPI DLL layer till I finally released the updated 1.40 version with this project which uses the native Microsoft SPTI layer instead (like ImgBurn!), but anyway, I grew to like the ease of ImgBurn and I feel I've always had successful burns with it.

[Filler]

TANGENT:

Forgive me, but I don't remember if you ever wrote about Miraculum PC-FX....

If you have played the game, what did you think of it?

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I played it a bit a number of months ago. At first it seems like a very traditional RPG in both good and bad ways. What stands out about it are the FMV scenes (of course) which I really like how they act as cut scenes in what is otherwise much like an RPG from the Super Nintendo. Additionally there is some shocking violence, and just a bit of humor and personality. I was enjoying it when I stopped playing. I'd like to get back to it.

[esteban]

TANGENT:

Forgive me, but I don't remember if you ever wrote about Miraculum PC-FX....

If you have played the game, what did you think of it?

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I played it a bit a number of months ago. At first it seems like a very traditional RPG in both good and bad ways. What stands out about it are the FMV scenes (of course) which I really like how they act as cut scenes in what is otherwise much like an RPG from the Super Nintendo. Additionally there is some shocking violence, and just a bit of humor and personality. I was enjoying it when I stopped playing. I'd like to get back to it.

Thank you

Every bit of feedback helps.

[elmer]

This project motivated me to finally get a PC-FX again. I don't know how much free time I'll have to play the game, but I'll try it out as soon as my new system arrives.

I hope that you enjoy it!

You'll be one of the select few to appreciate the old technique that I used to anti-alias the soft-subtitles on the Sakuraigar Mode level name screens (the regular Anime Mode level name soft-subs were trivial to do, since they're always on black).

[herb]

Burning a copy now,super excited. Thanks a bunch for doing this dude!

[EvilEvoIX]

Cant wait to play!

[SkyeWelse]

Awesome! Looking forward to playing this when I can either get a PC-FX or a PC-FX GA for my 98 machine. Thank you for working on it. It looks great!

-Thomas

[SamIAm]

I'm grateful for the publicity, but...
wayback.retrogamingmagazine.com/2015/zeroigar-for-pc-fx-translated-by-fans/

The PC-FX is not known for its scrolling capabilities.  Hell, the console was built from the ground up to be a full motion video (FMV) console, it has limited hardware as far as actually producing anything outside of FMV games.  NEC set it up like this on purpose, check out titles like Battle Heat or Team Innocent- this thing was not meant for fast moving objects, quick input from the gamer or anything related to either of those things.

For more proof of this check out the gameplay video of Choshin Heiki Zeroigar in action.  See that jerky movement in the background?  It is not all that bad but it can be hard on the eyes and could produce headaches in certain people.  Definitely play at your own risk here.  For those wanting something smoother may I suggest the 194X series?

...sigh.

FYI, the scrolling is smooth 60FPS. The "jerky" scrolling in my youtube preview video is the result of youtube itself converting it to 30FPS. The PC-FX can scroll just fine. 

[o.pwuaioc]

People who don't actually own a product should not be writing magazine articles about them.

[NecroPhile]

Standard bearded fatass hipster gamer with knowledge limited to whatever he can cut and paste from wikipedia or glean from a youtube video. 

[elmer]

I'm grateful for the publicity, but...

Oh, dear! What idiot wrote that? Where did it come from?

It might be a good idea to put a link to the the RomHacking project page on that YouTube video so that anyone who finds the video can download the patch.

[NecroPhile]

Oh, dear! What idiot wrote that? Where did it come from?

http://retrogamingmagazine.com/2015/08/12/choshin-heiki-zeroigar-for-pc-fx-translated-by-fans-choshin-what/

[esteban]

Oh, dear! What idiot wrote that? Where did it come from?

wayback.retrogamingmagazine.com/2015/08/12/choshin-heiki-zeroigar-for-pc-fx-translated-by-fans-choshin-what/

Dear lord.

Tar and feather the bastard!

Seriously.

Wildfruit and soop, get to it!

For great justice.

[elmer]

waybackretrogamingmagazine.com/2015/08/12/choshin-heiki-zeroigar-for-pc-fx-translated-by-fans-choshin-what/

Not exactly a thorough piece of research. 

At least he links back to the site where he found out about the announcement, so you can see where he read about the translation's release ...

http://www.retrocollect.com/News/pc-fx-vertical-shmup-chshin-heiki-zeroigar-translated-into-english.html

[elmer]

Hahaha, I wrote a comment on the Retro Gaming article's page, and Carl Williams was kind enough to post a reply and then actually edit the article to remove the bit about Zeroigar having jerky scrolling.

He left all the other misinformation intact; but I don't suspect that it would do any good to start an argument with him about it. 

[Aggie Tsubi]

*shakes my head*

Well, it wouldn't be the PC-FX without gamers, even journalists, commenting on it and its games without having any actual firsthand experience.

[elmer]

*shakes my head*

Well, it wouldn't be the PC-FX without gamers, even journalists, commenting on it and its games without having any actual firsthand experience.

He has literally just signed up for a new account here, in order to do the research for writing an article about the PC-FX, and is currently waiting for Administrator Approval.

We'll all get the chance to very politely make our case, and hopefully educate him about the machine and show him what is good about it.

Kudos to him for coming here and being willing to learn!   

[NightWolve]

I actually just patched Zeroigar a few moments ago and also helped Aaron patch it as well.

Yeah, there certainly is an art to designing a patching system. My first patches for Ys I & II Complete were batch files and were the most feedback-prone because of it. My first job after I earned my CS Bachelors was mostly making InstallShield installers for VB6 software actually, but when I started fan translation work I no longer had licensed InstallShield 5.5 software so I went back to batch style... Eventually I learned about NSIS and that's when I got back to doing what I was good at, too good - I noticed that you get less interaction from the fanbase because they won't get stuck with Windows patchers - they're dummy proof. With the ole .cab batch file system, they got stuck all the time on things like copy files x to y which led to emails/help requests/etc. Heh-heh.

Anyway, I'll have to download the latest Mednafen and get all set up with it when I have a chance.

[RGMag]

Hi guys, I am the standard bearded idiot fatass hipster bastard gamer that wrote the article about Zeroigar that apparently ruffled a few feathers here.  First, true, I don't own the hardware or the game but I do write articles about stuff I find interesting, whether I own the hardware or not.

True, I gleaned a lot of information on the game from a Youtube video (the one linked in the article) and did do more than a little bit of Googling (actually, I use Bing for the rewards and the results are usually better suited when it is gaming related).  This is how I figure someone would learn about new things and would be considered research for the article. 

I am not meaning to come off as a jerk up there, words are very bad at relaying sarcasm, grins and pokes of fun. 

I had another account here, "triverse" but the e-mail it is linked to (my former company's e-mail of "cwilliams@scenic7pr.com" is no longer valid and I can't retrieve the password).  Elmer has been an immense help in getting that fixed but I think it is still outside of my reach, hence the new account here.

Please, by all means, let me know what else is wrong in the article.  I am not above learning and editing work that I have put forth when it is wrong (as evidenced by changing the only thing mentioned in the comments on that article).  As I mentioned over on RGM, we as a team are only interested in putting forth the correct information and if we are wrong, let us know and it will be fixed.

Elmer mentioned that I am interested in learning more about the PC-FX for a future article.  That is true.  In our second issue of our print/PDF magazine (links available on RGM's site for those interested) we did a rather lengthy article on the Sharp X68000.  That article is one of the most memorable and most brought up pieces we have done so far (granted we have not released another issue in over a year but that is due to lack of available staff).

Prior to Youtube and Wikipedia, I was of the persuasion that there were only Burning Heat and a few other titles ever released for the PC-FX.  Why?  Because that is all Gamefan covered back in the day (Gamefan was my main source of gaming news back in the day).  Until I saw Zeroigar I had never heard of it, nor knew there were shmups on the system.  I wrote the article more out of excitement for the "discovery" and not with the intent of making the console look bad/worse than it already appears to most gamers.

By the way, if anyone here is willing to put words behind original articles on the PC-FX, I am willing to pay them to do it on RGM.  We are hiring and I would much rather have people that are passionate about the systems they are writing about than people like me that are looking in from the outside.

I will politely wait over here for the tar and feathers to arrive.  Please warm the tar up to an optimal temperature prior to applying.

[NightWolve]

OK, first suggestion I have to help with the Zeroigar patching process, but up to you if you wanna use it.

Download: ysutopia.net/software/FileBySize.zip - For Win95/98/NT/2K/XP/V/7/8/10/etc.

Synopsis: When I saw the batch patch system that BurntLasagna imported from the guy who originally started the Dracula X project, it was using complex batch syntax with the FOR loop that only works for NT/2K/XP and forward to find a file by its size, and not its name! So, I decided to make a quick command-line app called FileBySize that takes a few parameters, a wildcard and a size, and then prints the name of the file that matches it. Simple. Newer 9X version also takes a /set parameter to produce a ready-to-go SET batch command.  Replacing the syntax with my app allowed the batch file to work on Win9X/ME, but more than that, which is what's relevant here, is not having to hard-code a filename standard for the image file set.

OK, so in your batch file, there is this section:

call :check_size zeroigar01.wav   4132508 || goto :bad_original
call :check_size zeroigar02.iso 365950976 || goto :bad_original
call :check_size zeroigar03.wav  29990396 || goto :bad_original
call :check_size zeroigar04.wav  47277596 || goto :bad_original
call :check_size zeroigar05.wav 130472540 || goto :bad_original

After Aaron used TurboRip which named the files by the long full name, I had to have him rename them to what you have there. So, instead of that extra grunt work, here's how you could replace hardcoded names using my little FileBySize app in your batch file:

@echo off
cls
echo Zeroigar Find-Files-by-Size test begin!
echo Designed to work as early as Win9X/ME!!
echo.

FileBySize *.wav   4132508 /set=TRACK01> out.bat
call out.bat

FileBySize *.iso 365950976 /set=TRACK02> out.bat
call out.bat

FileBySize *.wav  29990396 /set=TRACK03> out.bat
call out.bat

FileBySize *.wav  47277596 /set=TRACK04> out.bat
call out.bat

FileBySize *.wav 130472540 /set=TRACK05> out.bat
call out.bat

IF EXIST "%TRACK01%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK01%
IF EXIST "%TRACK02%" echo Found Track 2 ISO name: %TRACK02%
IF EXIST "%TRACK03%" echo Found Track 3 WAV name: %TRACK03%
IF EXIST "%TRACK04%" echo Found Track 4 WAV name: %TRACK04%
IF EXIST "%TRACK05%" echo Found Track 5 WAV name: %TRACK05%

del out.bat
echo.
echo TEST COMPLETE!
pause

Shorter version, but less compatibility:

@echo off
cls
echo Zeroigar Find-Files-by-Size test begin!
echo (This batch language won't work for Win9X/ME, only NT/2K/XP/Vista/7/8/10++!)
echo.

FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.wav 4132508   /s' ) DO SET TRACK01=%%I
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.iso 365950976 /s' ) DO SET TRACK02=%%I
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.wav 29990396  /s' ) DO SET TRACK03=%%I
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.wav 47277596  /s' ) DO SET TRACK04=%%I
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.wav 130472540 /s' ) DO SET TRACK05=%%I

IF EXIST "%TRACK01%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK01%
IF EXIST "%TRACK02%" echo Found Track 2 ISO name: %TRACK02%
IF EXIST "%TRACK03%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK03%
IF EXIST "%TRACK04%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK04%
IF EXIST "%TRACK05%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK05%

echo.
echo TEST COMPLETE!
pause

And that's it. It was tested on Windows 98, 2000 via emulation and my native Windows Vista desktop. Long file names with or without spaces work no problem. The EXIST test will need double quotes when there are spaces, so that's why they're there!

Anyway, yeah, up to you if you wanna use it, or for next time, etc.! I wanted to share this old app so this gave me a chance to promote it regardless if you feel like updating that aspect of your batch file.

EDIT: Fixed the NT script, needed the "tokens=*" flag in the FOR loop after all, otherwise it only worked on Win2000, but not on my Vista. With the "tokens=*" flag, it works on both which is technically the right thing to do, use that flag so it returns all strings and doesn't separate by space characters! I also removed the double quotes in the SET command for those FOR loops so it matches the other version and the EXIST test uses them only. FYI.

[SamIAm]

Hi guys, I am the standard bearded idiot fatass hipster bastard gamer that wrote the article about Zeroigar that apparently ruffled a few feathers here.  First, true, I don't own the hardware or the game but I do write articles about stuff I find interesting, whether I own the hardware or not.

True, I gleaned a lot of information on the game from a Youtube video (the one linked in the article) and did do more than a little bit of Googling (actually, I use Bing for the rewards and the results are usually better suited when it is gaming related).  This is how I figure someone would learn about new things and would be considered research for the article. 

I am not meaning to come off as a jerk up there, words are very bad at relaying sarcasm, grins and pokes of fun. 

I had another account here, "triverse" but the e-mail it is linked to (my former company's e-mail of "cwilliams@scenic7pr.com" is no longer valid and I can't retrieve the password).  Elmer has been an immense help in getting that fixed but I think it is still outside of my reach, hence the new account here.

Please, by all means, let me know what else is wrong in the article.  I am not above learning and editing work that I have put forth when it is wrong (as evidenced by changing the only thing mentioned in the comments on that article).  As I mentioned over on RGM, we as a team are only interested in putting forth the correct information and if we are wrong, let us know and it will be fixed.

Elmer mentioned that I am interested in learning more about the PC-FX for a future article.  That is true.  In our second issue of our print/PDF magazine (links available on RGM's site for those interested) we did a rather lengthy article on the Sharp X68000.  That article is one of the most memorable and most brought up pieces we have done so far (granted we have not released another issue in over a year but that is due to lack of available staff).

Prior to Youtube and Wikipedia, I was of the persuasion that there were only Burning Heat and a few other titles ever released for the PC-FX.  Why?  Because that is all Gamefan covered back in the day (Gamefan was my main source of gaming news back in the day).  Until I saw Zeroigar I had never heard of it, nor knew there were shmups on the system.  I wrote the article more out of excitement for the "discovery" and not with the intent of making the console look bad/worse than it already appears to most gamers.

By the way, if anyone here is willing to put words behind original articles on the PC-FX, I am willing to pay them to do it on RGM.  We are hiring and I would much rather have people that are passionate about the systems they are writing about than people like me that are looking in from the outside.

I will politely wait over here for the tar and feathers to arrive.  Please warm the tar up to an optimal temperature prior to applying.

Greetings, and welcome to the forums.

While I am sure that you can understand the frustration of coming across inaccurate information regarding something you love, I can assure you that people here don't really have any ill will toward you. Your interest in getting the story straight is what really matters, and as you are demonstrating that, I think you'll find the tone around here will change.

Now let me introduce myself. I am the guy who did the Japanese-English translating for Zeroigar. Call me Sam.

I've not been a PCE fan for as many years as a lot of the folks around here. However, living in Japan and speaking/reading Japanese has made it very easy for me to absorb a lot of system and its history quickly. I bought a PC-FX a few years ago, and uncovering the story behind it has been fascinating. I see it as the closing chapter of the entire PC Engine story. In fact, if you were to write a long feature about it, the first thing I would urge you to do is start all the way back in 1987 and thoroughly build up the story to its release. In short, what happened after the PC-FX came out is nowhere near as interesting as what happened before it came out.

If you want help, I can help you. I've spent lots of time reading Japanese magazine articles from the period, and I would dare say that I have a better grasp on what was happening from the Japanese perspective than just about anyone else you'll find in the English speaking world.

As a matter of fact, I have actually thought about writing up a feature to tell the story of the PC-FX myself. I even started drafting one, although meeting elmer back in March and getting Zeroigar out the door with him made me shelve it. If you wanted me to take on the work of producing a major feature, I would probably start over.

Writing about the PC-FX would be fun. Doing as thorough a job as possible would be time consuming and would incur a few costs. Were it to happen, a little compensation would be appreciated. I'm not the best writer in the world, nor do I have journalism experience, but I do think I could handle it.

So tell me, how many words are you imagining a feature about the system being? I can very easily imagine something in the 10,000 range. Feel free to PM me if you prefer to discuss details privately.

Thank you!

PS - About your article:
1. It's "Chojin" not "Choshin". Don't worry, everyone gets that wrong.
2. "this thing was not meant for fast moving objects, quick input from the gamer or anything related to either of those things." This just isn't true. Elmer can tell you more about it, but it is in fact easily capable of more than any of the 16-bit consoles. It has the same graphics processor as the PC Engine. In fact, it has two of them. There's no weird input delay, either.

[elmer]

OK, first suggestion I have to help with the Zeroigar patching process, John, but totally up to you if you wanna use it.

Hahaha ... thanks NightWolve ... I'll look at this properly when I've gotten over the "Friday" feeling! 

I definitely need to handle TurboRIP's output properly!

I will politely wait over here for the tar and feathers to arrive.  Please warm the tar up to an optimal temperature prior to applying.

Definitely no tar-and-feathers from me ... I've only recently begun seriously looking at the PC-FX myself.

There's a lot of misinformation out there in the interwebs ... this is a good place to get some reasoned discussion from people that actually own PC-FX consoles and can put its legacy into perspective.

2. "this thing was not meant for fast moving objects, quick input from the gamer or anything related to either of those things." This just isn't true. Elmer can tell you more about it, but it is in fact easily capable of more than any of the 16-bit consoles. It has the same graphics processor as the PC Engine. In fact, it has two of them. There's no weird input delay, either.

The more that I look at the Sharp X68000, the more that I can see the similarities between it's design, and the design of the PC-FX.

The PC-FX's "King" chip looks, to me, to be the next-generation version of the chip that Hudson designed for the X68000's "text" and "graphics" layers.

The PC-FX's "King" chip is capable of displaying 4 256-color scrolling bitmapped backgrounds (or 2 65536 color backgrounds) ... twice the capabiltity of the legendary "God Machine".

That doesn't even take into account the 2 VDC chips (the same ones in the PC Engine), that add another 2 16-color layers and 128 sprites.

The machine is a 2D power-house. Well in advance of the PlayStation ... but lagging behind the Saturn.

If you add on the PC-FXGA's 3D chip, which was designed to be released as an "add-on" for the PC-FX console, then you rival, or arguably surpass, the Saturn.

IMHO, it wasn't the machine's hardware that let this console down ... it was economics and opportunity.

[RGMag]

No worries, my original post in this thread was more of a joke about the comments made previously- a poor attempt to let you guys know that I read the thread before posting rather than "blindly" posting a response here.

SamIAm, I am fine with discussing this bit here in the public (the rest may need to be discussed in another thread so as to not derail this one too much).  I pay $1.50 per thousand views on articles for the website.  Articles need to be at least 300 words long (this is so Google will properly catalog it for their users) and need to be linked to "retro" gaming somehow to be published on RGM (I am working on launching a more universal site later this year).  Pay is monthly for the previous month via Paypal (we can work out arrangements for other payment if need be).  Word limits on the site are pretty high, just that minimum to worry about.  We have an article in proofreading right now that is being combed through that is over 15,000 words covering "hentai" and other "mature" themes in games from both sides of the pond.  Just takes time since I am really the only one doing the proofreading (and writing the bulk of the content)- I have to pick and choose my battles so to speak.

We published two issues of our print magazine (the site was started to simply promote that, hence the "magazine" in the URL).  We stopped after two issues because of lack of staff to write intriguing articles.  I paid out $20 per page for articles that were published (there were word limits on everything printed though as pages are not cheap).  Sales were also quite low and I was unable to recoup expenses, while the free PDF's have been downloaded nearly 50,000 times so far across many distribution methods (most popular is Google Play)- free doesn't bring in cash.  Ads were not sold at a high enough rate to cover expenses involved either (no one wants to advertise a retro project and the ones that do just do it through Google Adsense).

If we ever relaunch the print mag I would love to have a several page feature on the PC-FX but it would probably be too limited in space to start in the late 80's and move through it's complete history properly.  Something like that would probably be better for the website where word limits are quite high (we haven't said stop yet on an article).

Reviews, TOp 10's, editorials and opinion pieces would be a good way to earn more than a few bucks and help spread the word about the PC-FX in quick fashion.

What other games on the PC-FX are like Chojin?  I mean, open my eyes guys.  I am still under the impression that there are less than 10 games for this thing - like a launch and it didn't sell well so no one released any more games for it- type opinion.

[elmer]

What other games on the PC-FX are like Chojin?  I mean, open my eyes guys.  I am still under the impression that there are less than 10 games for this thing - like a launch and it didn't sell well so no one released any more games for it- type opinion.

I've PM'd you some introductory info.

When you've read up on that, it would be a nice idea to start your own thread where we can talk about the PC-FX.

Let's try to keep this one for Zeroigar! 

[NightWolve]

OK, first suggestion I have to help with the Zeroigar patching process, John, but totally up to you if you wanna use it.

Hahaha ... thanks NightWolve ... I'll look at this properly when I've gotten over the "Friday" feeling! 

I definitely need to handle TurboRIP's output properly!

Cool!

[Feedback #2]

OK, here's another area to update where Aaron and I got stuck: In using Mednafen. In the ReadMe, all you have is this section:

2)  PLAYING THE GAME ON AN EMULATOR

This game only works 100% properly in Mednafen.

ME-FX has graphical problems that severely inhibit gameplay.

Running this game in Mednafen is as simple as dragging and dropping the
zeroigar.cue file onto mednafen.exe.

Alternatively, you can launch it via the command line, or even set up a
custom .bat file.

Problem: There are 2 PCFX BIOS files out there... One works, one doesn't - Mednafen almost boots, but all you're left with is a black window and that's it! Turns out the BIOS file I had with the MagicFX emulator was the one Mednafen rejects... So neither I nor Aaron could get it up and running with Mednafen at first... But then I remembered reading about 2 BIOS files somewhere, maybe that was you, but only in this thread ? I can't remember, but anyhow, so I googled around for the other one. I came across a gametronik site that lists 2 links:

1) NEC PC-FX BIOS (1994)(NEC)(JP)
2) NEC PC-FX BIOS (1994)(NEC)(JP)[a]

I tried the first one, but turns out that was once again the bad BIOS that Mednafen crashes on. I tried the 2nd one, and hooyah, the game worked!!!!!!

* Alright so based on that experience and hours wasted with Aaron with both of us getting stuck, him with bad burns as well until he finally got a good one, I would say add something to the Mednafen ReadMe section to look for the "NEC PC-FX BIOS (1994)(NEC)(JP)[a]" BIOS file in particular to avoid this trap which cost Aaron and me some good time - we almost gave up...

* It also would be worth it to PM Ryphecha to use the CRC32 of the BIOS Mednafen works with and reject any other BIOS file instead of being left with a black window doing nothing, etc.

* The other thing I had to learn was what to name the BIOS file proper to get it loaded by looking at the stderr.txt output file. I thought it was enough to copy the file to the firmware folder, but Mednafen wants it named "pcfx.rom" so that's another instruction to add to the ReadMe. It can be in the same folder as mednafen.exe or in a firmware folder if mednafen already created it.

Aaron had bad CD-R batches, so first couple of burns failed to work on his real PC-FX, so we tried emulators... Turns out he even had a pre-2008 MagicEngineFX emulator which couldn't load his CD drive - I assumed he had the latest since the last version was 2008, but even there we lost time and he couldn't get any burn loaded anywhere, even Mednafen, etc.

So yeah, there go some pitfalls that can be avoided. Something needs to be mentioned about the BIOS file, and maybe tell Ryphecha about this as well to update the emulator to provide an error message somewhere, in the stderr.txt file or the window to get the proper BIOS file, etc.

[elmer]

OK, first suggestion I have to help with the Zeroigar patching process, but up to you if you wanna use it.

Thanks for the detailed feedback, I really appreciate your input! 

Replacing the syntax with my app allowed the batch file to work on Win9X/ME, but more than that, which is what's relevant here, is not having to hard-code a filename standard for the image file set.

Hahaha ... I have absolutely no interest in having the patch support Win98/WinME! 

Windows XP is supported ... and even Microsoft gave up on that operating system a year ago.

But it would be sensible of me to make sure that the patch doesn't actually try to run and fail on Windows 98.

I'll just rename "english_patch.bat" to "english_patch.cmd" to signify that it uses that newer NT "cmd" file syntax, and so make sure that Windows 98 won't run it.

Good catch! 

After Aaron used TurboRip which named the files by the long full name, I had to have him rename them to what you have there.

Errr ... so the real problem is that you didn't use the "supported" method of ripping a .bin/.cue image???   

The patching process already doesn't care what the name of the .bin or .cue file are ... when it extracts the individual tracks, it gives them the specific names that you then see me test for.

Anyway ... the complaint was good, because I decided to get off my lazy ass and properly support TurboRip's individual .wav/.iso files.   

So, instead of that extra grunt work, here's how you could replace hardcoded names using my little FileBySize app in your batch file

Thanks, but since I'm only supporting Windows XP or above, it's really easy to do it in the batch file without needing a separate program ...

for %%i in (original-cd\*.wav) do call :identify_file "%%i"
for %%i in (original-cd\*.iso) do call :identify_file "%%i"

if not defined SRC_TRACK1_FILE goto :no_original
if not defined SRC_TRACK2_FILE goto :no_original
if not defined SRC_TRACK3_FILE goto :no_original
if not defined SRC_TRACK4_FILE goto :no_original
if not defined SRC_TRACK5_FILE goto :no_original

cd english-cd || goto :failed

copy "..\%SRC_TRACK1_FILE%" zeroigar01.wav || goto :failed
copy "..\%SRC_TRACK2_FILE%" zeroigar02.iso || goto :failed
copy "..\%SRC_TRACK3_FILE%" zeroigar03.wav || goto :failed
copy "..\%SRC_TRACK4_FILE%" zeroigar04.wav || goto :failed
copy "..\%SRC_TRACK5_FILE%" zeroigar05.wav || goto :failed

goto :test_original

:identify_file

if %~z1 equ   4132508 set SRC_TRACK1_FILE=%~1
if %~z1 equ 365950976 set SRC_TRACK2_FILE=%~1
if %~z1 equ  29990396 set SRC_TRACK3_FILE=%~1
if %~z1 equ  47277596 set SRC_TRACK4_FILE=%~1
if %~z1 equ 130472540 set SRC_TRACK5_FILE=%~1

exit /b 0

That scheme keeps compatibility with the previous method of doing things.

But then I remembered reading about 2 BIOS files somewhere, maybe that was you, but only in this thread ? I can't remember, but anyhow, so I googled around for the other one.

Yep, I mentioned the BIOS problem on page 4 of this thread ...

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19536.msg418669#msg418669

You're right, it's probably something that should be in the patch's README file.

Another good call! 

I'll talk to SamIAm about update the patch.

[SamIAm]

Very good call about the BIOS info. In fact, that was something I had wanted to put in there, but just forgot about. Shoot. 

Hope we didn't lose too many people over that one.

[NightWolve]

Hahaha ... I have absolutely no interest in having the patch support Win98/WinME! 

Windows XP is supported ... and even Microsoft gave up on that operating system a year ago.

But it would be sensible of me to make sure that the patch doesn't actually try to run and fail on Windows 98.

Yeah, I understand. I personally like to code things in such a way where even the oldest MS OS still works. We had somebody here recently bragging that they're still using Win98 too, and sometimes it is nice to know how something could be minimally coded as a script or an executable so that it behaves pretty much the same in Win95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP/V/7/8/10/etc. It's just kind of cool in my book if it can be accomplished. I'm aware of MS's official "bye-bye" to XP status, but yeah.

Definitely the new FOR loop tricks in NT are cool, but I personally would try to see if there was another way to accomplish the same end result that still worked on the 9X core if possible.

I'll just rename "english_patch.bat" to "english_patch.cmd" to signify that it uses that newer NT "cmd" file syntax, and so make sure that Windows 98 won't run it.

Ah, I was gonna mention that, that is the more proper thing to do, as it is technically gonna be using NT upgraded batch syntax, the .cmd extension is the better choice to reflect that just in case somebody did download it on an Win9X core OS.

Very good call about the BIOS info. In fact, that was something I had wanted to put in there, but just forgot about. Shoot. 

Hope we didn't lose too many people over that one.

Yeah, that was a bummer, mednafen looking like it's about to start, then just giving a black window without any kind of info as to what the problem was, neither as an onscreen message or in the stderr.txt that it writes which is how I learned to name the BIOS properly to "pcfx.rom". Good thing elmer had said something somewhere that I partly remembered, but I still had to rediscover it albeit a bit of the hard way. ;)

[SamIAm]

A little photo memento before I throw these in the trash. This is how many versions of Zeroigar I had to burn just with elmer in the last five months in order to test the game as we developed the translation. In 2012, I probably burned another couple dozen while doing testing with Esperknight.

Anyway, I did get the readme updated. It's just waiting for romhacking.net to approve the change. Thanks again, Nightwolve!

[NightWolve]

Errr ... so the real problem is that you didn't use the "supported" method of ripping a .bin/.cue image???   

Honestly, I figured the script (without having looked at it) already dynamically fetched the filename based on size, I just kinda figured you had already done that because of your request to get me to add the PC-FX TOCs to TurboRip and give it much-needed upgrading, not just cause you seem to be a very advanced coder. I was under the impression you wanted to be able to work with its output.

So with Aaron having used TurboRip first, I figured it'd be easy to have it skip forward to the ISO/WAV/CUE phase even if you didn't start with a BIN/CUE. I found I just had to delete the early lines in the script related to BIN/CUE conversion to ISO/WAV/CUE and simply have him rename the files to match your script, which got it patched. No biggie.

Yep, I mentioned the BIOS problem on page 4 of this thread ...

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19536.msg418669#msg418669

You're right, it's probably something that should be in the patch's README file.

Ah crap, so that is what I saw, and you even emphasized the same 2 7z files I found and mentioned renaming it to pcfx.rom to suit Mednafen's preferences... I didn't retain enough memory of that post. At least it got me thinking that I read something about 2 BIOS files, so it led me to the solution even though I used Google and didn't come here first... :/

Well, I went to the ReadMe first to see what was said about Mednafen, and it just said it works 100% like you were saying about it compared to Michel's PC-FX emulator. So initially I figured Mednafen didn't like my Windows Vista or video drivers, something, etc.

An aside, speaking of MagicEngineFX, it seems Michel pulled another fake BIOS system card deal like he did for MagicEngine... I hate that... His fake Magic System Card 3 never worked properly with Ys IV, it'd cause sound bugs, and I always had to keep telling people don't use his Magic System Card choices or certain games won't work properly... He literally introduced bugs to games by attempting to code his own system cards on the basis of "escaping" copyright issues and not solely relying on the real BIOS ROMs for CD games which is B.S., the whole thing is technically illegal anyway, all the way and is why I would host the real ones on my site...

But yeah, it looks like MagicEngineFX will not load the real BIOS, it didn't do anything whether or not I had it in the same folder. It's nice that it runs without one from the get-go, but I wonder if he's introduced bugs to Zeroigar and other games because that's what it does by default. In other words, all that time I had the BIOS file in the same folder with the EXE, it was never using it, it's booting with his fake (and likely unfinished and buggy like the PCE ones) version...

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u305/sirsinnes/100_1170_zpsfdrma98n.jpg

So you ran a healthy coaster-production factory in your home to get this done... Nice!

Anyway, I did get the readme updated. It's just waiting for romhacking.net to approve the change. Thanks again, Nightwolve!

[Filler]

What other games on the PC-FX are like Chojin?  I mean, open my eyes guys.  I am still under the impression that there are less than 10 games for this thing - like a launch and it didn't sell well so no one released any more games for it- type opinion.

There are none. It's the sole SHMUP on the system.

It would probably do you some good to look over information on this forum and the PC-FX World portion of the site to get some general information. As far as I know, the system was supported for a little over 3 years. (Again, as far as I know) there were 62 games released for it. I have copies of all that I know of. Most of my experience is first hand, I may not be as knowledgeable as some people here.

One of the biggest revelations for me was the discussion we had here about the meaning of the elements of the name, PC = PC98, F = Future, X = 未知数 (unknown number). I talk about this and some general things about collecting for the system in this video:

I mistakenly state that it's a "consolized" version of the PC98, which is incorrect. What I meant is that it's probably best thought of as a home console successor to the PC98. I discuss implications of this further in the video. Suffice to say, I feel that the system has a lot of PC style games on it, especially ones representative of Japanese PC gaming of the time. It was also developed around the time of the release of FM Town's actual consolized PC system, the FM Towns Marty.

It was also marketed heavily towards Japanese anime fans with a mascot character (Rolfee) and games based on popular anime series, not to mention the "Anime Freak" series of digital magazines that had a serialized OAV series, and lots of text and video content.

I can also contribute some video reviews for you to watch for what they are worth. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8C1A4296459A2D6F

By way of introduction, I'm the (language) translator of what I think was the first completed translation project on the system, Welcome to Pia Carrot. I'm also currently working on Team Innocent which elmer recently volunteered some amazing work on, as well as some other games on the system like Ojousama Sousamou, and Ah! Megami-sama.

[16bitgium]

Just burned this to disc and finished the main game. Pretty fun! Thnaks for you guys hard and beautifull work.

[elmer]

Just burned this to disc and finished the main game. Pretty fun! Thnaks for you guys hard and beautifull work.

Congratulations! 

Finishing the main game should have unlocked the Sakuraigar Mode for you; I'm curious to hear what you think of that. 

We're up to 570 downloads on RomHacking.net ... which sounds pretty good to me for a game that's on the PC-FX instead of the SNES.

I wonder if we'll get any new "converts" joining here? 

[PCEngineFX]

Thank you so much for your hard work on completing this project!  With NightWolve's help, I was able to finally burn a CD-R to play in my FX.  I've always loved the FX, but found it unfortunate that I could never fully enjoy the games due to not understanding Japanese.

On a side note, I plan on live streaming English Zeroigar on my newly formed Twitch channel whenever I get a few hours to spare http://www.twitch.tv/pcenginefx/profile/past_broadcasts

[JoshTurboTrollX]

Thank you so much for your hard work on completing this project!  With NightWolve's help, I was able to finally burn a CD-R to play in my FX.  I've always loved the FX, but found it unfortunate that I could never fully enjoy the games due to not understanding Japanese.

On a side note, I plan on live streaming English Zeroigar on my newly formed Twitch channel whenever I get a few hours to spare http://www.twitch.tv/pcenginefx/profile/past_broadcasts

Good to know!  I'll keep my eyes peeled and gave you a "follow".. 

[Filler]

Thank you so much for your hard work on completing this project!  With NightWolve's help, I was able to finally burn a CD-R to play in my FX.  I've always loved the FX, but found it unfortunate that I could never fully enjoy the games due to not understanding Japanese.

On a side note, I plan on live streaming English Zeroigar on my newly formed Twitch channel whenever I get a few hours to spare http://www.twitch.tv/pcenginefx/profile/past_broadcasts

Did you ever get around to checking out Pia Carrot? 

[Dicer]

I had put this on the backburner for a while, got the latest mednafen the proper bios (I was using an older one apparently) and after fiddling with gui and controller I am playing this...


Most excellent work

I only wish mednafen had some better options for scaling and smoothing and stuff, it's looking a bit chunky unless I scale it down...

I really need to land a PCFX one day...one day

[esteban]

Not trying to spam, but since some folks won't be reading the "development" thread....




Share a pic of you LightScribe or slap a label on a CD-ROM.

[elmer]

Not trying to spam, but since some folks won't be reading the "development" thread....




Share a pic of you LightScribe or slap a label on a CD-ROM.

Those are beautiful! Thank you! 

[SamIAm]

The timing is right to share a couple more youtube videos with you all.

This is the first four stages of the translated game. That leaves three for you to uncover for yourself.

...and this is a preview of the unlockable Sakuraigar Mode. You'll find that the music, enemies, and of course the story have all been changed dramatically. It's quite a trip.

Enjoy!

[Arkhan Asylum]

My PC-FX died.   It caint even discs anymore.  lol

God damnfuckingfuck.

Need to get on that.