AMIGADRIVE   The MegaDrive Emulator For The Amiga   <> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <>  It's taken long enough to evolve.. infact over 6 months intensive programming has finally seen the first release of the "AmigaDrive emulator". Considering the Megadrive and Amiga contain a very similar architecture - it was only a matter of time before this emulator appeared. I mean, considering the Amiga can emulate IBM's, MAC's, C64's, BBC's, Spectrums, QL's etc.... most with completely different processors, the Megadrive one seems simple in comparison. (Although it certainly isn't!) The real surprise is that no other attempt has been made in the time of the Megadrive's release.  INTRODUCTION ------------  First off, we won't bore you with the technical specifications of this emulator, but will highlight the main objectives and features of this software... * TO BRING THE MEGADRIVE WORLD TO THE AMIGA - FOR UNDER £100! * TO RUN MEGADRIVE CARTRIDGES FROM FLOPPY OR HARD DISK DRIVE. * TO RUN MEGA-CD GAMES VIA ANY CD-ROM DEVICE, AND THE FORTHCOMING A570 CD-ROM INTERFACE FROM COMMODORE. * TO ALLOW YOU TO SAVE/LOAD AND EDIT GAMES, IN MUCH THE SAME WAY AS THE "SUPER MAGIC DRIVE" BACK-UP SYSTEM ALREADY AVAILABLE ALLOWS. * TO RUN SOFTWARE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE ON AN AMIGA MACHINE.. AN AMIGA 500 REACHES APPROX 60-65% SPEED.. A 68030 CAN ATTAIN 95% OR MORE. PLUS -- THIS EMULATOR IS TOTALLY BRITISH CODED! NO HONG KONG STUFF HERE!! :-)  EMULATION ---------  THE 68000 CODE IS OF COURSE EMULATED (?) WITH THE AMIGAS OWN 68000 PROCESSOR. THE Z80 IS ALSO EMULATED BY THE 68000. (Naturally there is therefore a slow down, especially when attempting to run Mega-CD games and SCALING). THE MEGADRIVES SOUND IS EMULATED AS FOLLOWS: THE "CHIP MUSIC" CHANNELS ARE SPLIT IN THE SAME WAY AS OTHER MUSIC PROGRAMS WORK, SUCH AS "OKTALYZER", "TFMX", "STARTREKKER" ETC, BUT EVEN MORE SO AS ONLY THE FIRST 2 CHANNELS ARE 'SPLIT' THIS WAY. A SLIGHT LOSS IN QUALITY OBVIOUSLY OCCURS. THE REMAINING 2 "SAMPLE" CHANNELS WORK AS NORMAL WITH THE OTHER TWO AMIGA SOUND CHANNELS. One drawback is that the sound quality is reduced even more than the music programs mentioned above, as to keep enough processor time for the other emulation. However if you have heard the Megadrives sound quality, you will know that the samples are pretty poor anyway. Blame Commodore for not having a 8 or 16 channel sound chip!! THE MEGADRIVES 64 COLOURS ARE OBTAINED BY UTILISING THE AMIGAS HALF BRITE MODE. (THIS WILL THEREFORE LOOK TOTALLY WRONG ON AN AMIGA 1000) UNFORTUNATELY, WITH THE WAY THE PALETTE WORKS, SOME COLOURS WILL NOT APPEAR CORRECT. YOU CAN OPT FOR HAM MODE SCREEN EMULATION WHICH WILL GIVE THE CORRECT PALETTES - FRINGING WILL BE MINIMISED BY CONTINUOUSLY ADJUSTING THE PALETTE ON EACH SCAN-LINE, (LIKE NEWTEK'S DYNAMIC HI-RES & ASDG'S HAM-8 MODES) NB: THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE ON THE 68000 VERSION. INFACT EVEN WITH THE 680X0 VERSION, ANYTHING BELOW A 25MHZ 68030 WILL PROBABLY STRAIN TO DO THIS AT ANY GOOD SPEED. ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THE HARDWARES LIMITATION ON SCREEN UPDATING. WE BELIEVE THE EHB OPTION IS MORE THAN SATISFACTORY ANYWAY. THE MEGA-CD'S SCALING/ROTATION CAPABILITY MEANS THE EMULATOR WILL SLOW DOWN *QUITE CONSIDERABLY* WITHOUT AN ACCELERATOR. THEREFORE A FASTER PROCESSOR IS THOROUGHLY RECOMMENDED, IF NOT VITAL.  MEGA-CD OPERATION -----------------  As is probably already known, the current Mega-CD units have special protection to stop you being able to run say a Japanese CD on an European/UK Megadrive. We have overcome this, by automatically detecting which country of origin the CD is from (by reading the CD header information like the Mega-CD).. and switching the Amigadrive to that country, that is Japanese, American or European. We have found this to be pretty much successful. We will be releasing update "modules" for any game that still fails to run. The CD-Rom options have been tested on Philips and Goldstar CD-Rom units, and we are writing the routines to work with the forthcoming A570 (formally the A690) CD drive. Until the A570 is released we cannot ensure its 100% compatibilty, but it is expected to be launched before the final version of the Mega-CD software is released. We also hope to get the software to work with the Xetec CD-Rom system in the near future. The software for running the Mega-CD is sold separate to the main package and will be sold for £75 Including VAT.  MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS --------------------  To run the AmigaDrive emulator, you will need the following: AMIGA COMPUTER (!) WITH 1.5 MEGS OF RAM. (KS1.2 or above) FAT AGNUS (THE MACHINE MUST RUN IN 60HZ [NTSC] MODE) AN AMIGA 500 WILL BE NEEDED IF USING THE A570 OPTION. ALL AMIGAS : A PHILIPS OR GOLDSTAR CD-ROM UNIT FOR RUNNING MEGA-CD SOFTWARE. The following are thoroughly recommended: Faster processor; 68020/30/40 (almost vital for running Mega-CD games) and maths co-pro for mathematical work (Scaling/rotation) Hard Drive; to store games.  RUNNING THE GAMES -----------------  The games can be run from disk, but of course firstly need to be converted from cartridge format to disk. We will be supplying our own adaptor to allow you to transfer the ROM data to the Amiga via Parallel. This will be sold at approximately £20 including VAT. You can alternatively make your own adaptor, which will consist more or less of an IC socket, parallel cable and little else. The requirements will be made available to the public domain as it becomes available, and can be built for approx £5. You can also directly run the cartridge with the adaptor, without saving to disk (if you have just a floppy system for instance.) Once the game is put on disk, a menu system allows you to load the games from floppy or hard disk (using a fully windowed environment) and execute them. A monitor is included on the professional version of the emulator and you can save the game at any point (like an Action Replay). It is also possible to also modify the games with cheat modes etc.. with our built in "cheat mode finder" option, similar to that used in Datel's "Action Replay" for the Megadrive and the forthcoming "Game Genie". The professional version of the AmigaDrive will also let you code your own Megadrive software. However the official documentation is only given to authorised Sega developers, and so you will have to become one, or get friendly with someone who is! .. or learn by trial and error!  THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM --------------------  'AmigaDrive' : Matt Francis Coding Simon Colgrave Howard Mansell Amiga : Devpac 3.01 Configuration Amiga 3000 25MHz - with installed KS2.04 ROM 9 Megs 32bit RAM Goldstar CD-Rom drive + adaptor Testing : J. Morris P. Turner L. Costa K. Wilson M. Hudson L. Lirpa Special thanks: Advance Console Entertainment For the loan of the Mega-CD unit.  COPYRIGHT ---------  The AmigaDrive, Megadrive emulator is designed and produced by Advanced Emulation Ltd, and remains our copyright (C) 1991/2. All Rights Reserved. Although the main software is commerical, and we will supply the adaptors ready made, the diagrams are released to the public domain. Sega(TM) is a trademark of Sega Enterprises Ltd, Japan. NB: This Emulator is NOT approved by Sega.  ESTIMATED RELEASE DATE ----------------------  The AMIGA-Drive Emulator should be available from May 1st 1992, and will come complete with main AmigaDrive software, consisting of normal 68000 version and enhanced 680X0 6888X version. Distribution will be made direct from Advanced Emulation Ltd. Trade enquiries welcome.  COST ----  The AmigaDrive software will be sold for £99. The Professional version will be sold for £150. The Mega-CD software will be sold for £75 - please note, as stated in the text above, an accelerator with maths co-processor is recommended, as the standard 68000 is trying to run TWO 68000 processors in parallel! The Cartridge adaptor is £20. But the diagrams will be made public domain if you wish to build your own. These prices include VAT, but ARE NOT finalised. Full details will be available later in April.  FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS -------------------  A future version may very well be as a hardware version, with separate versions for the A500, A600 and A1500-3000 series. We are also closely looking at a Super Nintendo emulator, although this will be virtually impossible to do through software, and will almost definately be hardware.  EPILOGUE -------- _  _ // Thank you for reading! and remember... 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