- Added FOUR new games!
 |
 |
| Atari Crash 'N Score | Atari Jet Fighter |
 |
 |
| Atari Quadrapong | Shark JAWS (by "Horror Games" aka Atari) |
- New discrete sound engine! Adds sound to Space Race, and improves sound in Gotcha and Breakout
- Support for "Absolute" joystick mode which allows for the use of paddle controllers
- Added control descriptions to the New Game menu
- Improved performance in most games
- Numerous bug fixes
Download Links
32-bit Windows version (Required for 32-bit versions of Windows)
Source Code
Enjoy!
Thank you Adam and the gang. You guys rock! Please keep it up.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Always good to see a fresh release. Shark Jaws FTW :)
ReplyDeleteThank You! DICE is Awesome!
ReplyDeleteI remember, ten years ago, I looked for an emulator that could run "shark JAWS" until I found it was not emulable because it's a discrete logic game, but the DICE team made that possible, Thank you very much guys !
ReplyDeleteGreat work as usual. I am looking forward to playing Ramtek Clean Sweep in a future release and also seeing what Atari/Kee Games' Crossfire will look like.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that most games now run at 60 fps on my computer, now I can play breakout but I hope no accuracy was lost to increase performance.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why but some games don't run (yes I have the roms). I can play, for instance, Stunt Cycle but when I press start to play Breakout (and others) nothing happens. What's weird is TV Basketball worked yesterday but not today. I'm running 64 bit Windows 7and I run DICE as the administrator. Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteHmm I haven't seen this issue before, so I'm not really sure what the problem is! How do you have the controls for start / insert coin configured? You can try deleting all the DICE config files (generally in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\dice) to see if that helps. Breakout fyi also requires the serve button to be hit in order to serve the ball after the game is started.
DeleteThat worked Adam, thanks. I didn't touch the settings at all. I'll keep u posted if it happens again. Thanks for the quick reply. I also have the mouse ticked for paddle and wheel and I can't get my mouse to do anything.
DeleteOk mouse works now. I guess it started after I exited the program and then restarted it. I don't know why...at least it works. Thanks
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHere's a really crazy idea! I looked it the source files and found you coded the games using C++,
Deletenow assuming you made the roms from scratch, (Pong, Breakout, Attack) have you ever considered making your games, from your own ideas? If you will, I'd love to see them. That would be awesome.
Any ideas what DICE 0.8 will include?
DeleteThat would be interesting...
DeleteThis is brilliant!! Fantastic work guys!! Keep up the good work!
DeleteThanks for another epic release Adam! 4 new games this time, that's awesome.
ReplyDeleteShark JAWS and Quadrapong made my day, long live DICE and looking forward for more and more games to be added in the future.
YES! I check this place every day to see if there's a new release. I'm loving the new games!
ReplyDeleteAdam I traced the overlay for Jet Fighters. If you would like it please let me know. Please PM me on the Mameworld boards (Antny)
ReplyDeleteAdam, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm probably a bit older than the average MAME cabinet owner l(born in 1968) and I really love playing older games that make me feel like a little kid in an arcade (or at my local bowling alley) again. I would love to get a faster PC for my cab, ironically so I can play (more) of these old, DICE-emulated games at "full speed".
ReplyDeleteHi! I'm trying to use DICE on linux. It works on newer machines (compiled from source), but getting "Segmentation fault" on older machines (P4, 1G ram, ATI card). I'm using the same OS (tinycore on usb, so the OS is exactly the same), only the hardware differs. No idea what to change. Tried with radeon 9200, radeon 9600, same crash. Any clue? thx
ReplyDeleteOk i've found it, had to delete the settings.ini, and it's working on the other machine as well.
DeleteI found a neat trick in Breakout, this trick is how to get the ball into the top layer without hitting the bricks.
Delete1. Load up Breakout
2. Insert a coin and press 1 player before the "default ball" dispenses
3. DO NOT PRESS SERVE YET! Let the ball auto dispense. (This can only happen if you do action 2.)
4. Hit the ball when it auto dispenses, and it will go through the bricks when it hits the top wall, press serve.
5. the ball will then be in play!
Lol!
DeleteJust a guess: maybe DICE requires some graphics capability from the vga-card? When i first tried it, with VESA drivers, had the same crash. After i changed to the Xorg drivers (ati), it started to work.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding! Thank you so much for your excellent work on this emulator! Might I humbly ask where things stand with regard to Tank? Is there some issue with getting dumps of the ROMs? It's just a bit surprising that it wasn't one of the first few games included. Once you guys get that in, I'll be set for life!
ReplyDeleteTank is a multiple board hardware system whereas currently emulated games are single board systems. DICE currently only emulates single board games. A lot more code is required before DICE can handle games that use multiple boards including Computer Space or a board rack setup such as Indy 800. It might be a while before multiple board hardware games are emulated.
DeleteExpect more supported games in the immediate future will be single board games for time being. Games like Ramtek Clean Sweep, or Ramtek Wipe Out / Midway Leader, and maybe Atari / Kee Games' Crossfire. Crossfire was a very limited release game and very hard to find anything about the game other than the name mentioned on sites for many years until recently described by Keith Smith and also added/documented on Arcade-History. The fact it might be emulated and running in DICE and maybe later in MAME will be a preservation success.
I see. Thanks for that informative answer. For some reason I had been under the impression that Tank was a single-board machine. Clean Sweep is another top choice for me, so it's great to know that one might be coming soon-ish! And, exciting news about Crossfire as well. Sounds like great things are in store for this emu.
Deleteawesome stuff,many thanks for your hard work,any chance you`ll do Maneater - by Project Support Engineering?
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8pXCoCF6b4
Interesting video clip. I recall only seeing the simple, basic design upright cab model of Maneater instead of the fancy designed cab model. It has been so long since seeing that game in person that I forgot what the audio sounds are like. Unfortunately PSE Maneater emulation status is currently way out-of-reach or can be considered a very long shot at this time since there is nothing available that is needed in order for Maneater to have a slim chance of being emulated.
Delete1. Roms and proms not available since Maneater pcb probably has not been dumped yet.
2. logic schematics for Maneater are not available anywhere at this time compared to other PSE games.
3. Maneater is a multiple board hardware system iirc. And DICE currently emulates single-board games.
I see,in my ignorance I thought that because Shark Jaws had been emulated,then surely the very similar Maneater might be able to be done as well,anyway I`m very grateful that space race was emulated,I remember playing that as a seven year old.I`ll look forward to Ramteks Clean Sweep,did you know that PSE had a game called Elimination that was very similar but used an up and down pong style bat
Deletehttp://7rea.com/d/1387537105151.jpg
I was not sure how many boards Maneater uses until seeing some auction years earlier and one of the photos appears to show a similar board rack layout that uses multiple boards just like PSE's Game Tree, PSE's Desert Patrol, and maybe same with PSE's Bazooka (not sure of that myself).
DeleteThe surprise find is PSE's Knights in Armor only uses a single board verified by copy of stapled installation pages and logic schematics for PSE's Knights in Armor. I don't have Knights in Armor pcb, but do know that the game does use a rom (storing images) and that rom needs to be dumped in case a Knights in Armor pcb ever turns up.
Another odd find is one of PMC's early pong clones uses a multiple board setup instead of a single pcb. It might be interesting to see a pong clone, that uses a multiple board setup, might run slower compared to the emulated Atari version of Pong....that is whenever the PMC version is eventually emulated.
With Space Race now having audio support, it reminds me of when I first played the Space Race cab in early winter months of 1974 as 9 year old back then. The cab was at a Straw Hat pizza parlor.
As for the PSE photo that you mention, that is first time ever hearing about the game. After looking at photo, I believe it is called Play Five. It happens to be similar to Fun Games Take Five game when comparing the Play Five instruction plate to the arcade flyer of Fun Games Take Five.
Fun Games had gone out of business by early 1977 and several of Fun Games unsold Race cabs were acquired by Exidy to be reused as upright Robot Bowl cabs. Maybe Fun Games unsold Take Five cocktail tables were acquired by PSE and the Take Five instruction plates were removed and replaced with PSE's instruction plate called Play Five? Same game, but sold by a different company under a different product name?
Fun Games, Exidy, and PSE were within vicinity of each other. So it could be PSE also grabbed some of Fun Games unsold inventory after Fun Games went out of business. That's my guess.
The games simply rock, Adam is just awesome with this. Yes I would like to see Tank, Tank II, and a favorite, Pin-Pong. :)
DeleteOr, you could just fire up the Atari 2600 VCS and play Combat, same thing.
DeleteWell, playing combat on the Atari 2600 inst really the same thing, First of all, you have different game variations on Combat e.g. big plane vs. three small planes. Second of all you have those mines you always run into, Third of all, Kee Games made Tank! Not Atari!
DeleteKnights in Armor,now thats one I would love to see,hell even a video of the game play would be nice,does anyone actually have one of these units?,how many were actually made?,all I`ve ever seen is the flyer for the game that shows a not very good picture of the game screen/game cabinet
ReplyDeleteI recall only seeing PSE's Knights in Armor once sometime in either late winter 1975 or maybe it was around following summer in 1976. It was within that time frame. The game was at a pizza parlor in Lakewood,CA that my cousins would occasionally go to maybe a Shakey's pizza parlor iirc. I was with them that day and I watched them play the game a few times while I was with them.
DeleteTo me, it seemed I came across more PSE Desert Patrol cabs, and PSE Bazooka cabs compared to other PSE games including Maneater which I saw a few times over the years, but Knights in Armor is one of PSE's games I rarely saw other than the one time I was with my relatives.
Depending upon what functions the rom is used for, if Knights in Armor only uses one or maybe two roms that only store graphics data it might be possible for DICE to do partial emulation of Knights in Armor....that is assuming that the rom doesn't store any critical gameplay data such as character movement directions etc.
I will look over Knights in Armor schematics and see what roms (and their functions) are on the Knights in Armor schematics and post here later of what the roms do. It would be ideal if I had a pcb of the game, but I don't. I am guessing Adam and Rich are busy completing any remaining emulation issues with Ramtek Clean Sweep and Ramtek Wipe Out. It will be interesting to see how Atari/Kee Games Crossfire, another rare / limited release game, emulation is going since they both have Crossfire schematics to work with.
A few page scans are still on MW and can be grabbed for those that are registered MW members.
DeleteLook for this page scan: pseknightslayout.jpg 3916 KB
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=287182&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1
The pcb image indicates two roms in the corner.
From Knights in Armor logic schematics: Man rom or also shown as ROM 1..the functions throughout schematics list M.video etc which is related to ROM 1 (ie: Man Rom).
Also from Knights in Armor logic schematics: Horse rom or also shown as ROM 2..the functions throughout schematics list H.video etc which is related to ROM 2 (ie: Horse Rom).
Both rom chips are listed as type: 82S115P there is also 8205R so that is probably a chip equivalent in case the other type isn't available.
It looks like the roms might do more than storing data images so I am not sure if it will be possible to do partial emulation of the game even if roms are not available.
There do seem to have been a lot less of these produced compared to PSE's other games,I guess I`ll just have to live in hope that someone will find one of these in some warehouse somewhere,but even a partial emulation would be nice.With the game play did you move the horse or were you just limited to moving the lance and shield?
DeleteKnights in Armor schematics might be on next round of photocopy items to be mailed to both Adam and Rich later. If things work out, maybe the best partial emulation scenario is almost everything can be emulated with exception of data images being visible...something similar to Atari Shark JAWS where if roms are missing parts of the game is still somewhat playable when running the game in DICE. I am not certain how much game code is controlled by the two roms in Knights in Armor. Best case scenario is minimal control and Knights in Armor is still partly playable, but missing data images.
Deleteiirc the horses automatically gallop towards each other. The players have no control over the horse movements. The game might have been more popular had they allowed the players to control the horse directional movments, but the gameplay would have lasted much longer .. something that operators would not want when idea is to have as many customers playing in a fixed amount of time.
Ideal game design scenario would have been have each joust round last a minute or two and allow players to control horse directional movments until a player wins the joust round or joust round reaches a draw and then continue to next joust round until all the preset number of joust rounds are completed. That could have made the game much more popular imo.
A scan of PSE Knights in Armor instructions sheet is now on MAMEWorld artwork forum. It requires someone that can rebuild the sheet and re-create a brand new instructions sheet for preservation purposes. Hopefully someone that is an expert on type fonts can help work on that and get instructions sheet fully restored.
The PSE game I would like to see emulated is Desert Patrol, but with that being a multiple board game, it may be a while before that happens and if it ever does, it will be extremely slow in DICE or MAME compared to say a single board hardware game like Atari Breakout.
Thank you for all the info you`ve provided its been very informative.
DeleteHey, guys! Check this out, I made a Terminal for DICE 0.7 for quick, easy, access to all the games but you need to have the terminal in the same folder as the DICE Executable.
ReplyDeleteHere is a "How to" on How to make this Terminal.
1. Open Notepad,
2. Copy and paste this coding:
@echo off
Title Dice 0.7 Game Selector
mode 40,35
cls
:dicerun
cls
echo.
echo Hello, please select a game to begin.
echo.
echo 1. Pong
echo.
echo 2. Gotcha
echo.
echo 3. Space Race
echo.
echo 4. Pong Doubles
echo.
echo 5. Midway's TV Basketball
echo.
echo 6. Rebound
echo.
echo 7. Quadrapong
echo.
echo 8. Shark Jaws
echo.
echo 9. Anti-Aircraft
echo.
echo 10. Crash 'n' Score
echo.
echo 11. Jetfighter
echo.
echo 12. Breakout
echo.
echo 13. Stunt Cycle
echo.
echo 14. Exidy's Attack
echo.
echo 15. Run Dice
echo.
echo 16. Exit Terminal
echo.
echo 17. Help with DICE.
set /p trip= ))
if %trip%==1 goto 1
if %trip%==2 goto 2
if %trip%==3 goto 3
if %trip%==4 goto 4
if %trip%==5 goto 5
if %trip%==6 goto 6
if %trip%==7 goto 7
if %trip%==8 goto 8
if %trip%==9 goto 9
if %trip%==10 goto 10
if %trip%==11 goto 11
if %trip%==12 goto 12
if %trip%==13 goto 13
if %trip%==14 goto 14
if %trip%==15 goto dice
if %trip%==16 goto exit
if %trip%==17 goto help
goto dicerun
:exit
cls
echo.
echo Goodbye!
ping localhost -n 2 >nul
exit
:1
dice.exe pong
goto dicerun
:2
dice.exe gotcha
goto dicerun
:3
dice.exe spacerace
goto dicerun
:4
dice.exe pongdoubles
goto dicerun
:5
dice.exe tvbasketball
goto dicerun
:6
dice.exe rebound
goto dicerun
:7
dice.exe quadrapong
goto dicerun
:8
dice.exe sharkjaws
goto dicerun
:9
dice.exe antiaircraft
goto dicerun
:10
dice.exe crashnscore
goto dicerun
:11
dice.exe jetfighter
goto dicerun
:12
dice.exe breakout
goto dicerun
:13
dice.exe stuntcycle
goto dicerun
:14
dice.exe attack
goto dicerun
:help
cls
echo.
echo D.I.C.E Game Selector
echo.
echo To run the games from this
echo terminal, please make sure you
echo have this file in the folder
echo as the DICE executable.
echo.
echo Talk to Adam for other help...
echo.
echo If you found any problems with
echo this terminal, please email me
echo here: tayllorlucas@yahoo.com
echo.
echo How to use the terminal,
echo only select the number under the game.
pause
goto dicerun
:dice
dice
cls
goto dicerun
3. Click "Save as"
4. Select the folder the Dice Executable is in,
5. Select "All Files (*)"
6. and type "DICE Terminal.bat"
7. Save it, and run it! Have fun!
I don't know how Adam will react to this post, but I'll give Adam this software
And you can email me for the full Executable file
Wow, this thing is pretty sweet dude, nice!
DeleteA little handy program to run dice quick, Great concept!
DeleteEerm, how long did it take you to make this?
DeleteAbout 20 minutes.
DeleteCan you make one for DICE 0.8?
DeleteI found this is an informative and interesting post so i think so it is very useful and knowledgeable.
ReplyDeleteReally awesome work! Does Dice support overlays? If not, any plans on adding support for this?
ReplyDeleteThanks
I was thinking the same thing,
ReplyDeletecrossfire doesnt start with "dice crossfire" bat... any idea? it starts if i start inside the dice emulator
ReplyDeletegot shark jaws running well but no sound. Any ideas? Thanks so much!!
ReplyDelete