Regen - New Accurate Genesis Emulator

[King Of Chaos]

Right, here's some information about a new Genesis emulator that's out...

What is it?
-----------

Regen is a Sega Genesis/MegaDrive emulator written for maximum accuracy.
Although the accuracy is very high, it is still not as accurate as Gens or Kega Fusion
in some places. While the compatibility is very high few games have glitches.

<brag mode>
I feel very proud to say that Regen does *not* uses any game specific hacks
to raise compatibility. Also the level of accuracy is equal to Kega in most games.
</brag mode>

Here is a rough list of things present and missing:

Present:
--------
* Main 68000 CPU emulation using Musashi, specially modified for Genesis emulation
* Sound CPU, Z-80, emulation using RAZE
* VDP:
- Scroll planes A and B with vertical scrolling
- Window plane
- Sprites
- All sprite limitations
- Sprite masking
- Shadow/Highlight
- Interlace mode
- DMA transfer(all modes)
- H/V timing through tables
- DMA timings
- NTSC and PAL emulation
- Sprite collision and sprite overflow flags
- FIFO and VDP write timings
* Accurate YM2612 emulation
* PSG emulation
* Stereo sound output
* IO ports emulation
* Support for 6-button pads, Teamplayer, 4-way play, Menacer lightgun, J-Cart, Mouse
* Special SVP chip (DSP) supported
* Serial EEPROM emulation
* Emulation of special on-cartridge protection chips of unlicensed games
* Save/Load states in Genecyst format(used by Kega and Gens)
* GameGenie/Hex/Pro Action Replay code support through cheat files
* Full backup ram support
* Kega Fusion plugin support
* Nice debugger :-)
* Many many other things

Missing:
--------
* VDP:
- Window bug not implemented. No game uses this feature.
* Plugins that scale the output by 2 are only supported
* No SegaCD support
* No 32X support
* No GameGear/MasterSystem support

You can get the latest version of Regen from:

http://aamirm.hacking-cult.org
http://board.zsnes.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11109 (recommended)

What are the requirements?
--------------------------

To run Regen at a decent speed requires a Pentium III 1Ghz or up with
at least 64MB RAM and WindowsXP or higher is needed. These are the
bare minimums. Optimized builds for other CPUs are also available.

Regen requires DirectX 7 or higher. Regen only supports 16 and 32 bit color depths
so your desktop must be set to either one of these.

For sound, Regen requires DirectSound compatible hardware.

DirectInput compatible input hardware is needed. Keyboard, mouse, gamepads are supported.


How to use it?
--------------

If you have used Gens or Kega before then using Regen should be fairly easy
but a few things need explaining.

* Saving and loading quick states will save it to or load it from
where the ROM file is.

* Video plugins are same as Kega and should be placed in a folder named "plugins"
where the Regen executable is placed.

* Only plugins that scale the output by 2 are supported currently.

* Superfast rendering will only take effect after restarting the emulator.

* Selecting Overdrive may clip sound.

* If sound is skipping try changing the "SoundBufferSize" value in the
ini file.

* You can also load games from the command line. The syntax is:

regen game_name

There is no support to set options from the command line right now.

* Don't even try to use joystick as a controller. It will not work :-)

* When plugin is set to "None" or Superfast rendering is selected then the output
of the filtered and unfiltered screenshots will be same.

* Up to 32 render plugins are supported.

* The place where screenshots are saved is only selectable by manually editing the
"regen.ini" file by putting the path in front of "ScreenShotDir=" variable. For
example if you want your screenshots to be saved in "C:\sshots" you will have to
edit the regen.ini so that ScreenShotDir variable looks like this:

ScreenShotDir=C:\sshots\

Note the final backslash, that is important.

Thats all! other things should be self-explanatory.

The latest version is v0.6, which can be downloaded from the following locations...

Pentium 4 & Core 2 Duo
Pentium III & AthlonXP
Linux Binary (Old)

You can reach the developer and suggest stuff to him here.

Screenshots:

[MIR]

HMM... i saw this last night in the OpenSUSE Repository Emulators.

[Tony H]

Will have to investigate the debugger.

[scarface200729]

Yeah, its about time. Fusion was looking so promising and then it died. I hope we finally get a snes calibre emulator this time around. Complete with cheat searching tool and open source.

[King Of Chaos]

Kega isn't dead... it's just sleeping... If you haven't noticed, Steve Snake is starting to becoming active again on certain sites.

[King Of Chaos]

Version v0.6 is out, check the first post for the latest links! Here's the changelog for the last two releases...

Version 0.6
-----------

* Changed the Z-80 emulator from MZ-80 to RAZE as this is much more accurate and
since MZ-80 was having some problems with some games. If you find some games broken
report them.
* Updated M68K core to latest version as a result debugger disassembly is broken for now.
* Added highly customizable and fast text engine. You can change the text color from
the ini file by modifying TextColor_R, TextColor_G, TextColor_B values.
Option to make and change fonts will be added later.
* Option to show framerate.
* Added my own pixel doubling (non-anti-aliased) and interpolated filter plugins.
* Added option to not emulate console lock-ups. These are not emulated by default.
You can emulate them by setting EmulateLockups variable to 1 in the ini file.
* Changed the name of "Superfast blitting" to "Superfast rendering" as this is right.
* SRAM and EEPROM saving and loading added. Maybe incorrect. I couldn't test it much.
You can disable their loading and saving from the "System" menu.
* WAV logging added. VGM logging will be added soon. The directory where the sound will be dumped
can be specified in the ini file by changing the SoundDumpDir variable.
* Made Super Street Fighter II working. You must disable autofix checksum for it to work.
* Tried to improve the PAR support. I couldn't test it much. Tell me how it goes.
* Regen can now fool the "Emulator Detector" program made by Tiido. It can detect if his program is being
run on real Genesis or on an emulator. I could not find any emulator that is capable of fooling it...no not even Kega.
* Following unlicensed games added, more to come soon:
- Super Bubble Bobble
- Earth Defend
- Whac-A-Critter / Mallet Legend
- Funny World And Balloon Boy
- Squirrel King
- Bugs Life. Autofix checksum must be disabled for this game to work.
* Fixed the following bugs (mostly reported by ZSNES forum members):
- Sprites showing up in Battle Tech start when they shouldn't be. Thanks to Eke for
reporting this problem and telling the solution too :-)
- Sound problems in Sonic 2.
- Loading another game past Virtua Racing causes the graphics to be messed up.
- Loading another game from history when Virtua Racing is loading causes the emulator to crash.
- Does not mute sound when lost focus.
- Once a cheat is enabled, you can't change the state if it's a multi-option cheat.
(e.g. Sonic 1 chaos emerald modifier, can't change from Six to Five, always goes back to Six).
* Hopefully fixed (or at least minimized) the static in sound when window is moved.
* The following things are still unfixed due to some valid reasons :-)
- Ultimate Mortal Kombat Trilogy. AFAIK its a hack. I don't like to add hacked games that need special handling.
But if there are enough people who would like to see it on Regen then I will add it. Currently there has been just 2 requests
- No autopause if minimized using taskbar button. Windows reports that Regen has the focus. I could not find
any emulator, with autopause option, that autopaused this way.
- Save states in Virtua Racing. Genecyst savestate format currently does not allow extra stuff to be saved. It needs to be extended.
- Game no Kanzume o Tokuyou won't run. It wants to write to ROM and also seems to use unused VDP control bits.
I have not found *right*(read: without hack) way to run this game.
- Wonder Library will also not run. Is it really a Genesis game?? Seems to be a SegaCD game. It does lots of unused memory read/writes
in the SegaCD area.

Version 0.5
-----------

* DMA timings implemented. This fixes the following:
- Single line at bottom in Virtua Racing.
- DAC in Virtua Racing now runs correctly.
- Legends of Galahad bottom screen.
- Formula 1 and Kawasaki Challenge bottom screen.
- Insector X intro being too fast.
- Many others
* Autofix checksum option added. Note that fixing checksum might break some games.
* Improved YM2612 emulation again.
* Serial EEPROM emulation added. Huge thanks to Eke for his very good documentation on this.
* Added Hex code and PAR (Pro Action Replay) cheat code support to cheat engine. All codes working in Kega should work.
* Fixed the following bugs (taken directly from the Regen topic in ZSNES forums, thanks to King of Chaos):
- Clicking Disable Sound without game loaded can cause the emulator to crash.
- The setting for disabling sound (and other settings) isn't saved sometimes.
- Editing the Disable Sound setting in the INI doesn't disable the sound, trying to disable it crashes the emulator.
- Clear History sometimes doesn't work, unless you click it several times.
- Clicking on an empty history slot will crash the emulator.
- ROMs bigger than the 4MB Genesis limit (e.g Super Street Fighter II) causes the emulator to crash.
- No selection for Gamepad under Use in the controller configuration.
- When you change games, you can't load in a new cheat file for the new game.
- When you "power off" the emulator, you can still activate cheats, no "No game loaded" dialog.
- No checkboxes for the selected Sound Rate, so you don't know which one you're using.
- System > Country > Auto Detect does not have a check by it when selected.
* Some unlicensed game support. The following unlicensed games are supported right now
more will be added later, huge thanks to Haze (David Haywood):
- Lion King II
- Elf Wor
- Mahjong Lover
* Emulation of system lock-up on illegal address access. Now Sonic Crackers hangs just like in reality.

[LiquidManZero]

Wow, cool. Finally a Genesis emulator that is trying not to kind of suck.

[King Of Chaos]

New version out.

Version 0.7
------------

I had some more features to add than these but due to university work I could not complete
them and I had to save some things to do in 0.8 Smile

* Fixed a problem in sprite masking code. Fixes sprites in Castle of Illsions appearing above the window plane.
* Fixed sprite problems in Contra Hardcops.
* Added preliminary FIFO and its timing (VDP write latency) emulation. Menu in Double Clutch is now correct (but flickers)
and The Chaos Engine runs perfect (no flickering on scroll). It was reported by Eke and he also helped in fixing it. Thanks.
* Fixed corrupted games when loaded after Virtua Racing.
* Improved DMA timings (Sonic 3D intro).
* Added 7zip support. Only the first file in it will be loaded.
* Added support to redefine menu shortcuts.
* Regen now remembers last ROM path.
* Rewrote major part of DirectInput code to fix some controller issues. All controller related issues should be gone.
* Selecting a window size now has a little check by the selection.
* The "Off" options are now highlighted when loading cheats.
* Default directories for BIOS (system dependant), SRM, BRM, Save States, Screenshots, etc.
* Configuration settings for the various settings and paths to BIOS/various directories (like Kega).
* Added option to brighten the screen (like Kega). But there is no support to save it because it is not
correct for all the games (especially the games with Shadow/Highlight effects).
* Following unlicensed games now run correctly, still many more to come:
- Soul Blade
- 12-in-1
- 4-in-1
- Smart Mouse
* Regen will now create the default directories and will show a small message box when its run for the first time.
* Added a special keyword to the cheat files called "Default" this will auto-enable cheat options. For example:

[3]
Name=Infinite Lives
0=Off
1=On
Default=1

This will enable the second option (since counting from zero) for this cheat.

* Added option to reload the cheat file in cheats dialog box. I did this because my cheat editor was very buggy
and did not save the cheat file correctly. Now the user can easily edit the cheat code with their favourite
editor and reload the cheat file instantly. Note that all the enabled cheats will revert back to being off
except those which were auto-enabled with the special "Default" keyword.
* When there is no history to be displayed, nothing appears when hovering over the File History sub-menu.
* Fixed "Disable menu shortcuts" option.
* Fixed "Reset to default keys" option.
* Fixed a minor bug in command line code.
* Option to shorten the path in the history to game name only. Only changeable through the ini file by
setting ShortHistoryNames to 1.
* Removed the empty file history slots when less than 5 games have been played.
* Cheat Window is a bit bigger now (on request).
* Fixed Port 2 controller being saved on Port 1d. And possibly others.
* Fixed buzzing sounds when disabling sound mid-game.
* Netplay option has been disabled in this release because it was way too buggy.
* Text engine uses a bit smaller font.
* Regen now directly creates and sizes itself to the last position instead of creating at center and moving to the
last window place or resizing itself.
* Minor fixes and tweaks.
* Many, many, MANY new cheat files added (thanks to King of Chaos).
* Fixed many typos in the ReadMe file. Thanks to Adam.
* Some more things which I forgot.

[MIR]

found it for my OS. But it is version 4.0 D:

[DarkSerge]

Nice emulator...I like it...it could use a cheat finder and breakpoints(read write execute) with tracing feature. Otherwise its pretty good....

[King Of Chaos]

Request those to the author here.

[gustavodq]

I can't get the emu to work in my PC. Do you know if I need a .dll or anything of the sort.

[gustavodq]

Can't use Regen

I get the "Regen has detected a problem and must shut down" message (Send error report/Don't send)

[King Of Chaos]

AamirM, the developer of Regen has been posting WIP betas on the SpritesMind forums for several weeks now, with various improvements to sound and other things. This is a Regen package (created by me) for the Beta 4 release. Of course this package will include everything you'll need to run Regen right off the bat.

Stuff included in this package are;

-Latest Regen test executable (v0.93 Beta 4, with the debuggers).
-Required Fonts folder and makefile executable, to prevent crashes and to allow you to customize the fonts.
-Updated Readme and History files (which are updated for v0.93 Beta 4).
-Updated Cheats files, for those whom could use them.
-All working rendering plugins 2X and below.

Notable changes are;

-Added Regen v0.93 Beta 4 executable.

Download: Regen v0.93 Beta 4 (With Debuggers)

P.S. I'm sure a lot of you will want to test this version, as it contains several debuggers.

[LiquidManZero]

A little unstable, but it's starting to look pretty good.