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Console Hacking.Com is the site to find all the latest Hacks and Hacking, Homebrew, Emulation, Mods, Tutorials and reviews for all of todays and yesterdays consoles.
N64 Magazine issue 1 from April 1997 has been released at Out-of-Print Archive. The high quality scanned and edited magazine is courtesy of meppi and can be downloaded in full from the OoPA website. Also accompanying the release are four chosen online articles from the N64 Magazine: Lifting the Lid article on the N64, Super Mario 64 review, Mario Kart 64 review and Pilot Wings 64 (seems to be a ‘64′ theme running through those titles) review. Enjoy.
Hearing about and reading RetoManiac was like a rollercoaster for us. First we were up with the excellent points of this new ezine, the next, we were zooming back down with some of the lesser good points. Let us explain ourselves here…
First things first, RetroManiac is a new Spanish retrogaming ezine, produced in glorious PDF and available to download for free. It contains some great articles on classic video games, including a retrospective on the Streets of Rage series, the Spectrum, Retro Gamer ‘Retro Revival’ style articles on the likes of Toki, Bruce Lee, Dune 2, and lots more. That’s excellent. It also reviews new games released on the current generation of consoles. That’s not so good.
The contents page and reviews index page have anchor links to their respective pages. That’s very good (we haven’t seen that since, well, Retroaction). However, the page format chosen is a weird one. The front cover is a normal A4 portrait, but as soon as the content page kicks in, the format changes to an elongated landscape style. Nothing wrong with that you might say – Retroaction does something similar – but this seems to be designed as two pages joined for printing, rather than designed as a digital page for the screen.
The writing, what I can make out, looks very good. Detailed when needed and less when required. Good. In amongst the new games reviews are Monkey Island 2 Special Edition and, erm, some other, supposedly, retro styled games. Not too good.
The design of the RetroManiac is brilliant. The layouts, overlays, text boxes and images are all put together with some real professionalism here. Bravo to the designer. By the time I got to the latter pages I noticed there was no bookmarks available – I couldn’t jump back to a particular page. This means the delightful contents page, with its superb anchor links directing the reader to the relevant page with the click of a mouse is made redundant. But we’re really grasping at straws for faults at this point and the guys who produced RetroManiac must be congratulated on their first issue.
So with a group of passionate writers, contributors and a designer, you can produce a free ezine that would not look out of place sitting next to Retro Gamer. Other publishers of similar ezines take note.
And it must be said that it is just their first issue. Improvements and additions to the format will no doubt take place for future issues. Maybe an English version as well? I’m sure I can say for all that we are looking forward to issue 2.
WIP version of Super Nintendo emulator has been updated recently. Changes:
- This release is only to demonstrate a new S-PPU renderer I have been working on. The goal is to use it only for the performance core. It is feature complete, with a few caveats. The most noticeable is that save state support is not implemented yet, but it also handles mosaic support in a less precise manner to speed things up. Under the hood, it is still a scanline renderer, but each scanline pass renders whole tiles at a time rather than iterating over every pixel. It is also designed more like the accurate PPU in terms of code layout, with each component of the PPU isolated to its own class. As a result, the performance build as a whole runs 13.5% faster now; which means the new S-PPU is roughly 27% faster than the old one.
Deunan has posted some WIP news concerning his Dreamcast Emulator for Windows.
Now that new Demul has Kaillera support it should get much less crowded in here
BTW, while I do appreciate showed interest it really doesn't motivate me if you guys keep asking about NAOMI2 support all the time. I said it will be there one day and that's all I can tell you at the moment. Stop bugging me about it. And no, I'm not planning on adding Model 3 or Hikaru support. Also, no keyboard input for Dreamcast controllers - did I mention that yet?
Anyway, remember how I had overheating problems with my GF7900 this summer? I actually fixed that before I switched to ATI Radeon and figured that some photos would make a nice blog filler :P
Here's the card, it's a 7900GS but thanks to nice factory overclock it easily rivals 7950GT. I used to play Fallout 3 at 1920x1080 and it did have some annoying slowdowns but was otherwise playable:
There's plenty of space for good cooling solution, kinda reminded me of good old days with water-cooled R9800XT The problem was, as usual, money related - I didn't want to buy anything since I was already thinking about R5770 back then. But then I got a very nice deal, an Arctic Cooling Silencer 5 for about 2$. New. So I got two This thing was designed for 6800/7800 GT series but I figured the chip layout is so similar I should be able to make it work somehow.
And the old cooler, now removed:
Turns out I was right - it's almost a perfect fit (memory chips are slightly off but only by few milimeters so still get all the cooling they need). The biggest issue was with the tall power capacitors there, on the right, I had to file off some plastic below the fan. Nothing major but it took almost two hours to get it right. Another approach would be to replace two offending caps - I could to that but soldering 8-layer PCB is next to impossible without proper preheating and I wanted to finish the swap the same day. At some point I even thought I'd have to file off part of the back completly, which would create a hole and spoil the airflow, but I got a fit just before I got through. The final result:
You might notice it looks a bit shorter now - that's right, I had to put my mad hacking skills to use here and hack off some 2cm of the exhaust. Now it can be fitted into a PC without any trouble. Surprisingly there isn't that much of a change in GPU temperatures but enough to keep the system stable even with the box closed. Wee bit quieter too, but I have to say that the original cooler was never noisy.
My hands hurt from all that hacking and it took all afternoon but for 2$ it was a lot of fun - a success then
In other news - my programmer can no longer be used since it's connected to LPT port and requires a driver to allow direct I/O access. Said driver doesn't work in Windows 7, not to mention 64-bit version... So, what now?
I could just buy a cheap XP-based PC and use that but I don't really have a room for it. Well that's still an option - but since I got the PCBs I ordered for FPGA overvoltage protection I just made a VHDL logic analyzer project and spent a few days figuring out the protocol. Turns out it's not very complicated, I think I got it all figured out now so the next step would be to try and create a custom interface via USB. I'd have to write my own PC-side code now as well.
Some of you might wonder if simply buying a new, cheap USB-based programmer wouldn't be easier. This is how I see it:
- It would be more expensive to go that way, even if I got myself a Wellon or something equally cheap.
- Quite frankly not all that many "new" programmers come with proper Windows 7 support. Surprisingly so.
- The programmer I have is a bit ancient now but still works and pretty much covers my needs (though it can't be used with modern low-voltage devices that require 2.5V or 1.8V).
- I have some self-made stuff that I really need - like FLASH based replacements for 27C160/322 EPROMs. My programmer software had this unique feature of allowing me to create my own programming algorithms, not really something you see often. Right now I'd have to make my own GUI anyway so I would obviously still have this ability.
Looking for cheap USB interface solutions I found out that there is a software based support for pretty much all AVR devices. I could really use an MCU since USB is reasonably fast but has nasty latencies and that would kill performance (after all, you need to drive individual chip pins in a timely fashion, not to mention reading back). With something more than a basic USB parallel port I could use macros to speed things up.
Problem is, software USB takes tons of CPU cycles so this alone might limit the transfers. I have an ARM7 with USB, but it seems like an overkill for just an interface chip. So maybe an AVR with hardware USB? Seems like a good compromise, doesn't it.
So I start looking for a cheap AT90USB162 board and then the PS3 jailbreak happens. What a timing, huh. I suppose I'm going to buy a few bare chips now and solder the thing on my own. I do have AT90USBKEY kit here somewhere but that one is already spoken for. I have half a mind to port that psgroove thing to software USB just for the fun of it but alas, no time to spend on such frivolities. Someone will do that sooner or later, and if not I could just solder another PCB I suppose
Pretty clever malloc abuse, by the way. How the hell did they figure that out... I mean, for the trick to work you need to put your code in the right places. For that you need to know all the addresses first so a 3.41 memory dump would be required. But to get the dump you first have to run the exploit and geohot's approach only works up to 3.15. Maybe it was developed on debug unit? Then again I suppose the idea itself isn't that new, the exploit code was made and tested on earlier FW and just tailored to the newest one. Only a matter of time before SONY plugs this hole but this will be a great blow to them. Already is, just hasn't sinked in yet properly.
Join the Tier 1 Squad and try out the different skill sets of super elite soldiers. To survive the brutal Afghanistan war front, you need all you've got. If you are a people person, enlist the help, or go against other elites using your network modes. Become a war hero, get your Medal of Honor this October!
From the publisher: Over 2 million Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines wear the uniform. Of those, approximately 50 thousand fall under the direct control of the Special Operations Command.
The Tier 1 Operator functions on a plane of existence above and beyond even the most highly trained Special Operations Forces. Their exact numbers, while classified, hover in the low hundreds.
They are living, breathing, precision instruments of war. They are experts in the application of violence. The new Medal of Honor is inspired by and has been developed with Tier 1 Operators from this elite community.
You will step into the boots of these warriors and apply their unique skill sets to a new enemy in the most unforgiving and hostile battlefield conditions of present day Afghanistan.
Please place your orders early if you want the Tier 1 Editions. Although they are set at around the same price as the Regular Editions, they provide more weapons with areas unlocked and will give you a more exciting experience early on.
The Asian versions are English in audio and provide Chinese and English subtitles, their prices are set lower, so if you can speak either of the languages, be sure to consider this version.
Xbox360™
Medal of Honor US US$ 64.90
Medal of Honor ASIA US$ 44.75
Medal of Honor JPN US$ 84.90
Medal of Honor (Tier 1 Edition) ASIA US$ 48.75
PlayStation3™
Medal of Honor US US$ 64.90
Medal of Honor ASIA US$ 48.75
Medal of Honor JPN US$ 84.90
Medal of Honor (Tier 1 Edition) ASIA US$ 54.75
PC Game
Medal of Honor (DVD-ROM) US US$ 54.90
Game Guide
Medal of Honor Collector's Edition Guide US US$ 29.90
Medal of Honor Guide US US$ 19.90
If you want to delve into the history of the title, play the previous titles:
PlayStation2™
Medal of Honor: European Assault (EA:SY! 1980) JPN US$ 19.90
Medal of Honor: Frontline (EA:SY! 1980) JPN US$ 24.90
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (EA:SY! 1980) JPN US$ 20.90
Medal of Honor: Vanguard (EA:SY! 1980) JPN US$ 20.90
Sony PSP™
Medal of Honor: Heroes (Greatest Hits) US US$ 24.90
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (EA Best Hits) JPN US$ 34.90
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (Greatest Hits) US US$ 24.90
Join the Tier 1 Squad and try out the different skill sets of super elite soldiers. To survive the brutal Afghanistan war front, you need all you've got. If you are a people person, enlist the help, or go against other elites using your network modes. Become a war hero, get your Medal of Honor this October!
From the publisher: Over 2 million Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines wear the uniform. Of those, approximately 50 thousand fall under the direct control of the Special Operations Command.
The Tier 1 Operator functions on a plane of existence above and beyond even the most highly trained Special Operations Forces. Their exact numbers, while classified, hover in the low hundreds.
They are living, breathing, precision instruments of war. They are experts in the application of violence. The new Medal of Honor is inspired by and has been developed with Tier 1 Operators from this elite community.
You will step into the boots of these warriors and apply their unique skill sets to a new enemy in the most unforgiving and hostile battlefield conditions of present day Afghanistan.
Please place your orders early if you want the Tier 1 Editions. Although they are set at around the same price as the Regular Editions, they provide more weapons with areas unlocked and will give you a more exciting experience early on.
The Asian versions are English in audio and provide Chinese and English subtitles, their prices are set lower, so if you can speak either of the languages, be sure to consider this version.
Xbox360™
Medal of Honor US US$ 64.90
Medal of Honor ASIA US$ 44.75
Medal of Honor JPN US$ 84.90
Medal of Honor (Tier 1 Edition) ASIA US$ 48.75
PlayStation3™
Medal of Honor US US$ 64.90
Medal of Honor ASIA US$ 48.75
Medal of Honor JPN US$ 84.90
Medal of Honor (Tier 1 Edition) ASIA US$ 54.75
PC Game
Medal of Honor (DVD-ROM) US US$ 54.90
Game Guide
Medal of Honor Collector's Edition Guide US US$ 29.90
Medal of Honor Guide US US$ 19.90
If you want to delve into the history of the title, play the previous titles:
PlayStation2™
Medal of Honor: European Assault (EA:SY! 1980) JPN US$ 19.90
Medal of Honor: Frontline (EA:SY! 1980) JPN US$ 24.90
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (EA:SY! 1980) JPN US$ 20.90
Medal of Honor: Vanguard (EA:SY! 1980) JPN US$ 20.90
Sony PSP™
Medal of Honor: Heroes (Greatest Hits) US US$ 24.90
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (EA Best Hits) JPN US$ 34.90
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (Greatest Hits) US US$ 24.90
The SD Card Association (truth be told, one of our favorite card-related associations) has a new spec in the works that will almost triple the speed of its SDHC and SDXC cards, according to CNET. The specification, which should be complete Q1 next year, will achieve 300MB per second by adding a second row of electrical contacts on the bottom face of the card, and will be backward compatible with older, slower devices. Although being referred to internally as SD 4.0, brand names for the technology are still being considered -- with UHS-II (the successor to UHS-I ultra-high speed bus cards) as one possibility.
According to Apple's UK website, iOS 4.1 will hit on Wednesday, September 8th. The US website still displays the non-commital "Coming Soon" message, so we'll have to keep our eyes peeled. We're going to go ahead and guess that all those shiny new iPods will come to retail that day too... but don't hold us to that one. Like we said, it's only a guess.
TorrentFreak has shed some light on the dark practice of installing stealth-mode P2P clients during game downloads and using unsuspecting gamers' PCs as 'bandwidth slaves.' The clients operate in the background and largely go unnoticed until problems arise that are caused by overactive uploading/seeding. While the Akamai NetSession Interface and Pando Media Booster are specifically called out, there appear to be other offenders as indicated in the comments left by TorrentFreak readers. A publisher called Solid State Networks is putting out a call for an industry-wide 'best practices' effort to promote transparency, control and privacy on behalf of gamers who are otherwise being abused for their bandwidth without their consent.
There are 
