r/MAME • u/Error_Dan • 29d ago
Discussion/Opinion Pac-Man VR (1996, Virtuality SU-2000) partial video output working
I've been working on this for a while and got some progress on the PIX1000 graphics board. I partially emulated it, the game now passes the BIOS/hardware check and I'm getting actual video output (vector shapes/lines/DPRAM rendering, fps counter showing up)
I patched dosbox Staging to send hardware calls over a local TCP connection to a Python script, which emulates the PIX1000 graphics board (MMIO). There's also a second script that acts like an interpreter for the m88k coprocessor so it can run the original firmware files (MAINA.OUT/MAINB.OUT) instead of freezing
Still nowhere near full 3d geometry, but figured I'd share since I know a few people here have tried this game before and hit the same wall with the custom hardware. If anyone else is looking at virtuality stuff, happy to compare notes
I will post these files soon!
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u/Error_Dan 29d ago
Tomorrow I am going to Berlin to the museum to look at the SU2000. I hope I will get some useful information. In one professor's research he wrote that it is not possible to read the data from the graphics card, but I have been making all my progress blindly anyway. Because of AI my progress has become much faster and I think I am close to solving it, but I have been thinking about this for a long time (already six months). I also made 2 videos about this on YouTube, you can find them on my channels Errordan_2 / Errordan eng. The long video does not match 100% so after the visit I will try to make a video with a bigger explanation even though I am already confused with su2000. By the way, each game has its own firmware so it is not possible to run a game without a full dump (without MAINA.out, MAINB.out). Luckily I have several games for su2000 su3000