I've been playing around with SL9821. This is what I've discovered.
ROMs:I don't have roms for the exact PC-9821 model that SL9821 expects, but the following roms dumped from a PC-9821Ce2 work to some extent:
Working:BIOS.ROM
FONT.DAT
SNDBIOS.ROM
RHYTHM.DAT
Not working:ITF.ROM
BANK.ROM
IDEBIOS.ROM
SCSIBIOS.ROM
By using the four working roms with the latest version of SL9821, all of the basic functionality of the emulator works correctly:
Download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/4p017p8qq ... Ce2%29.rar*These are for testing purposes only. These roms are not officially supported by SL9821, and it's only a lucky coincidence they work at all. Do not contact the emulator author and report that something is not working because you're using the wrong roms.
Floppy disks:The .bin format used by SL9821 is simply a headerless sequential sector dump (aka raw format, BKDSK format).
There is no need to do some complicated conversion process. You don't even have to use the converter utility included with the emulator.
Most of the .hdm files in the Neo Kobe set will work directly without any modification. Most FDI files can also be used in SL9821 by converting them to BKDSK format first using VFIC. Then simply rename the file extension to *.bin for convenience.
On the other hand, protected disks and disks with weird formatting will not be recognized.
These are the raw disk formats that SL9821 recognizes with their conventional BKDSK file extensions.
Code:
(.HDM) 1,261,568 bytes 1.23MB 2HD(77/2/8/1024)
(.DD9) 737,280 bytes 720KB 2DD(80/2/9/512)
(.DD6) 655,360 bytes 640KB 2DD(80/2/8/512)
(.HD5) 1,228,800 bytes 1.2MB 2HC(80/2/15/512)
(.HD4) 1,474,560 bytes 1.44MB 2HD(80/2/18/512) **limited support in SL9821
(.HDB) 1,021,696 bytes 1.0MB 2HD(77/2/26/256)
Hard disks:.SLH files are sequential sector dumps with a 512-byte header, not unlike .nhd images.
The header structure is like this:
Code:
offset size meaning
0x00 4 ID "HDIM" (48 44 49 4D)
0x04 8(qword) size of disk excluding header (thus, total .slh file size minus 512)
0x0C 4(dword) sector length "512" (00 02 00 00)
0x10 4(dword) number of cylinders
0x14 4(dword) number of heads, usually "8" (08 00 00 00)
0x18 4(dword) number of sectors, usually "17" (11 00 00 00) for disks less than 544MB, or "136" (88 00 00 00) for disks equal to or greater than 544MB
0x1C 20 Serial number (may be left blank)
0x30 8 Revision number (may be left blank)
0x38 40 Model name (may be left blank)
The rest of the header from 0x060 to 0x1FF is blank (00).
If you create a new disk with the emulator, the serial number is a timestamp in the format "yyyymmdd-hhmmss-fff " (last character is a space), while the revision and model name are left blank.
Unfortunately, SL9821 only likes hard drives to be certain sizes, which is an issue related to emulating the IDE BIOS. I tried manually converting some small .hdi files to .slh format, but when I mounted the images in the emulator, SL9821 changed the CHS values in the header to the wrong values, making the disks unreadable.
Essentially, for hard drives under 120MB, SL9821 only allows the following four sizes:
Code:
20MB (21 364 736 bytes raw, 307 cylinders/8 heads/17 sectors/512 sector length)
40MB (42 467 328 bytes raw, 610 cylinders/8 heads/17 sectors/512 sector length)
81MB (85 000 192 bytes raw, 1221 cylinders/8 heads/17 sectors/512 sector length)
120MB (126 222 336 bytes raw, 1813 cylinders/8 heads/17 sectors/512 sector length)
Hard drives greater than 120MB can have arbitrary sizes(?), up to 4GB.
The bad news is that since most existing hard disk images are not one of the allowed sizes, they cannot be converted to .slh directly.
Right now, the best approach is to use DiskExplorer to copy data from your old hard disk images (*.hdi, *.nhd, *.thd, *.hdd) into a new .slh image.
Here are some blank .slh images at the accepted sizes. Included are unformatted, DOS 5.0A-H formatted, and DOS 6.2 formatted disks. The DOS formatted images are just bootable blank disks, not full DOS installs.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/jtjvmxo29 ... _disks.rarYou can open these in Disk Explorer using the profile that kuoushi posted above, or by selecting Manual HD and clicking the Search button.
CD-ROM:SL9821 only accepts .iso images natively, so if you want CD audio, you'll need to mount the CD using virtual drive software like Daemon Tools.
Use this CD-ROM device driver:
Code:
NECCD.SYS/NECCDA.SYS
8,400 bytes
CRC32: a5410ac7
config.sys: DEVICE=NECCDA.SYS /D:CD_101
autoexec.bat: MSCDEX.EXE /D:CD_101 /L:Q
NECCDB.SYS also works well, but only if a CD is present in the drive. If there is no CD, the system will hang during bootup.
Code:
NECCDB.SYS
9,000 bytes
CRC32: 95163442
Also, enter the following information in the SL9821 CD-ROM tab:
Vendor ID:
NECProduct ID:
CD-ROM DRIVE 5Here's a basic boot floppy with CD-ROM support:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/v8i9kwdgb ... t_disk.rarGame tests:Many games and software work well, and SL9821's low audio latency is great for fast action games (Touhou bla bla bla). However, there are still many glitches and minor issues that need to be fixed.
For example:
-
Farland Story - horizontal black line glitch when scrolling, and incorrect battle graphics (SL9821 is actually emulating a different graphics display controller chip (uPD72020) that was not used in early PC-9821 models)
-
Policenauts - incorrectly positioned furigana over text
-
Night Slave - inaccurate sound effects
-
Kohakuiro no Yuigon - no response to keyboard input
-
Venus - fails to boot
-
Flame Zapper Kotsujin - entire emulator crashes during bootup (possibly due to font rom incompatibility), severe graphics errors in-game
-
VEM486 memory manager - general protection fault occurs inside PC-98 DOS. This one is most unfortunate because we have been using VEM486 in most of the Neo Kobe HD images. To fix this, you'll need to boot from a floppy disk and edit the config.sys file to use HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE instead of VEM486 and VEMEMM. Use sedit.exe to open c:\config.sys, del "REM" from the beginning of the himem.sys/emm386 lines, and add "REM" to the beginning of the VEM486 and VEMEMM lines.
On the other hand, SL9821 is able to correctly run a number of games that other emulators struggle with.
For example:
-
Angel CD version - only works in SL9821!
-
Shadowcaster - previously only working in Anex86
-
Private School - previously only working in Virtual98
-
Appareden with CD audio - only works in SL9821!
-
Policenauts - do, do, do, do-do-do... yes, the infamous Policenauts lip syncing works in SL9821.
Note 1: you must use the correct version of AVSDRV.SYS (v3.10, file size 48,048 bytes, CRC32 1a90b67d). This is the only driver that correctly reproduces the lip syncing, even on real hardware.
Note 2: If the game gets stuck on the Konami logo, try ejecting and reinserting the CD.
Here's a preinstalled Policenauts .slh hard disk and .bin boot disk for SL9821. You'll also need a copy of the Policenauts CD (not included).
http://www.mediafire.com/file/547usx8cj ... nstall.rarConclusion:Minor inconveniences and glitches aside, I am impressed by how well this new emulator works. If satotomi continues to improve it, SL9821 definitely could become one of the top PC-98 emulators.
TL;DRIt works. Here's some stuff.
- Working substitute roms:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/4p017p8qq ... Ce2%29.rar - Boot floopy with CD-ROM support:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/v8i9kwdgb ... t_disk.rar - Blank hard disk images:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/jtjvmxo29 ... _disks.rar - Policenauts install (CD not included):
http://www.mediafire.com/file/547usx8cj ... nstall.rar※良い子は上記のリンクをクリックしないで下さいね。ダウンロードしたら…