Patch Features



Columns

Columns for the MSX2 is a great port of this classic game, deemed by many to be of 16-bit quality.



Well, except for its two title screens. They were just hasty digitizations of the Sega Mega-drive title screens, that looked bland and missed a lot of details. Even the aspect ratio was wrong.



This enhancement patch replaces the two title screens with new ones, made as real Pixel Art, that are even more colorful and detailed than the Mega-drive ones.



As a bonus, this patch also disables the keyboard click and removes the annoying copy protection.





Duck Hunt

The original game is great, but it uses the Sega Light Phaser directly connected to the MSX without any adapter. When plugged this way, the Light Phaser will obtain the ground for its entire circuit from a data pin of the PSG, which is strongly not recommended. In the long run there's a high probability to fry the PSG Port3/bit5. Imagine that for the MSX models that have the PSG integrated into the chipset. With this bit fried, a lot of MSX devices won't work anymore, like the mouse, touchpad, paddles and even the joymega.



This patch implement the following enhancements and fixes:

Change the embedded Lightgun driver to the standard MSX lightgun. The Gunstick support was also dropped (not enough space in a 8KB ROM).

The game now passes all MSX AcidTests

The turbo will be enabled if the CHGCPU routine is present in the BIOS

A better interrupt handler was implemented

Both light guns can now start the game. When the 2nd light gun starts the game, the two player mode will be selected. Note: You can still connect your Sega Light Phaser to the MSX, but now you will have to do it the right way, by connecting it to the gunSMS adapter. And you're now also able use the NES Zapper with the gunNES adapter.



There's still a bug in the game that wasn't fixed: in two player mode, if both players pull the trigger at the same time and player-1 misses his shot, the player-2 sensor won't be checked and will miss his shot too.





Fleet Commander 2

Fixes a race condition that exists on the game boot, that could cause problems on some machine under certain circunstances.

Allows the turbo to be enabled on any machine that has the CHGCPU routine on its BIOS when R is keep pressed on boot. The original routine only allowed the turbo on MSX Turbo-R machines.

Galaga Paddle support

This patch adds support for the MSX-Paddle to the game Galaga.



As a bonus, it also adds:

Supports MSX-HID PnP connection/disconnection detection for the paddle

Allows 5 to be pressed on boot to force 50Hz video

Enables the turbo on machines that have the CHGCPU routine on BIOS

Ghost

Ghost is a fantastic a-la-Maze of Galious style game developed by unepic_fran where you control Ghost, one of Viktor's agents, who has the mission to destroy a computer that went mad and is now controlling the Dallas space station.



This patch makes many improvements to the game:

Fixed the PSG replayer, so now the whole game passes the Acid2Test

Fixed a bug where the password could not be typed if the caps lock was on. This was a problem with the Sharp Hotbit computers, since they have the capslock enabled by default in their BIOS. The first impression was that the password screen just didn't work on the Hotbits.

Implemented a new interrupt handler, for many reasons:

It improves the game performance and reduces the tearing that happened in some more crowded areas



It also allowed the keyboard buffer flushing routines to be eliminated from the game, saving more CPU time.



This also fixed the problem that the keyboard routines had with turbo, probably leading you to disable the turbo on turboR machines

Implemented full joystick support. This way the game can be played entirely on the joystick, without having to get out of the comfort of your sofa to reach for the keyboard ;). The new controls are:

Joystick Button-2: pause the game



Up in the pause menu acts like RETURN: teleports you to the center room



Down in the pause menu acts like CTRL: teleports you to the area-4

Since there are no more problems with turbos, now the game enables the turbo on any machine that has the CHGCPU function on its BIOS, for quicker screen transitions and to eliminate any residual tearing on crowded areas

Added CoolColors (the same palette I used on Gradius-2 smooth scroll) to improve the visuals on MSX2 or higher. These colors enhance the gradients and details of all MSX1 graphics.

Gradius-2 Patches This patch implements many enhancements on Gradius-2: On MSX1 and MSX2: DynamicVsync

On MSX2+ and MSX Turbo-R: SmothScroll and standard TurboFix.

Enables the turbo via CHGCPU on boot

CoolColors

Many routines were optimized.

King's Valley II Enhancements

On MSX1, MSX2 and MSX2-Gold versions:

DynamicVsync

Enables the turbo via CHGCPU on boot

Hold TAB to throttle the game speed

Automatically sets the VDP to 60Hz on boot, to play the game at the correct speed even on european machines. If you have an old european TV that doesn't support this, keep SELECT pressed on boot to disable it.

Enhanced sprite multiplexing: if you have a turbo machine, the sprite multiplexing routine will now take advantage of that and the flickering of the sprites will occur at a higher framerate, dynamically adjusted as high as your CPU supports.

Many small optimizations on the jukebox, reducing the CPU usage

Pausing the game don't stop the sprite multiplexer (flickering) anymore

Jukebox fixed to pass the Acid2Test

Specific bugfixes/enhancements for each version:

KV22/KV2G: Much faster routine for picking a tool/weapon. But 128KB of VRAM is now a requirement.

KV22/KV2G: Smarter routine for refreshing objects on screen. It's much faster and the objects don't flicker anymore

KV21/KV22: Now both coldboot and warmboot are supported. This means that the ROM not only boots as a cartridge, but also detects if it was booted from MSX-DOS and boots correctly with disk support on both cases. This allow you to load the games under the MSX-DOS2 using your favorite ROM loader and use the harddisk for loading/saving custom stages.

KV21/KV22: Finally it's possible to set the desired theme for custom stages. The 6 original themes are supported and 2 "new" themes (see below) are supported, which along with the second palette supported for each theme supported by the KV22 version results in 32 different possibilities.

KV22: Two "new" themes were created by combining two of the themes with the palette of each other.

KV21/KV22: Fixed the bug that allowed files with spaces on its name to be saved on disk. This resulted in files that could no be handled properly by the MSX-DOS. The spaces on the filename are now replaced with underlines. The stage title will continue to be shown with spaces.

KV22: Translated the introscreen logo

KV2G: Translated the introscreen logo, certificate screen and the menus

KV21: On the 5th theme, the decorative beetle eyes now blink at the right place.

KV21: Fixed the disk routines, now harddisks are supported for loading/saving stages (KV22 didn't had this bug and supported harddisks from the beginning)

KV21: Removed GameMaster-1 compatibility, because it caused problems on harddisk support. GameMaster-2 compatibility is still present though.

KV21: Fixed the bug that caused the player sprite to appear on the wrong side of the screen for 1 frame on screen changes.

KV21: The TMS9918 palette is loaded on MSX>=2 machines. I decided to use this palette instead of CoolColors because there's already an MSX2 version of the game. So the TMS9918 palette would be more faithful for comparisons between the two versions.

KV22/KV2G: Modified to use the HKEYI hook instead of HTIMI, just like any other Konami game.

KV22/KV2G: Relocated a variable that was placed on the HTIMI hook

Konami's Soccer

Standard TurboFix

Removes some annoying software protection routines to make space for the turbofix routines.

Laydock-2 enhancements Laydock-2 is one of the very few MSX2+ exclusive games. This patch does many enhancements into this game, aiming to improve the playability, performance and balance the difficulty of the game between the one player and two player modes. New title screen. The original title screen was a hasty digitisation. The MSX2+ trump card was to have thousands simultaneous of colors, something just unseen at that price range in 1988, and even less on an 8-bit machine. But the title screen of this game was almost monochrome and was full of artefacts, leaving a not so great impression.

Turbofixed the game. The turbo is automatically enabled on machines that have the CHGCPU routine on BIOS, and on Panasonic MSX2+ machines. Even the sample player will work at the correct rate, regardless of the CPU speed.

Optimised many of the game routines, so it runs a quite faster now even at 3.57MHz

Modified the sample player to play the samples at the PPI instead of the PSG. The samples were 1bit anyway, and this saved space for the new routines

Fixed a bug in the intro demo that caused the loading screen to be shown (and the respective sample to be played) only once every 256 loops of the demo

Implemented Double-buffering on the SAT (Sprite Attribute Table)

Fixed a bug that caused the shield meter to show an incorrect percentage

Fixed a race condition in the vertical scroll code that caused the sprites to jump on certain CPU speeds

Fixed a bug that made the Alpha weapon launch backwards in the horizontal stages

Bugfix: Bulldog didn't clear its explosion last sprite frame from the screen

The shield energy is now refilled at the beginning of each planet. This was implemented since the game allows you to start with a full shield at any stage you already played anyway.

Adjusted the power and speed of the weapons to match those of Super Laydock

To compensate for the stronger weapons, the shield now works differently:

It holds 20% less initial power



As a reward for careful players, the undocked ships now can recharge up to 8 units (50% of the max) per planet. It slowly recharges when the docking power is kept maxed for at least 4 seconds

There's a new dotted gauge just below you shield gauge, that show the amount of charging you still have left

The docking power also plays a rule at the fire rate of your projectile weapons. At the minimal level, your weapons have the original Laydock2 fire rate. At the maximum docking power, your weapons will match the fire rate of Super Laydock.

The docking power now discharges when taking hits even when the players are undocked. This will reflect in the ships fire rate (as explained before), and will also make docking harder, in a way to balance the difficulty between the single-player and dual-player modes.

All the weapons you have available can be fired at any time now. Some weapons were blocked from firing under some conditions as a workaround for bugs they had. This caused a nightmare for the player since he selected weapons that sometime just wouldn't fire without any explanation. Those bugs were fixed, so the blocks could be removed.

The "Double" weapon now kills both airborne and ground enemies on vertical levels too

Implemented 3 button joystick/keyboard support. They select the next/previous weapon respectively:

Changed the SHIFT to N and M for the keyboard 2nd and 3rd buttons



On the MSX joystick, press the trigger-2 to select the next weapon, and the triggers 1 and 2 simultaneously to select the previous weapon

Added joyMega support: button-A = next weapon, button-C = previous weapon, START = pause

Implemented support for quick weapon changes on single-player mode. This allows the secondary weapon to be changed while the older is still on screen. This will also solves the bug where the Condor missile got stuck on bosses

Improved the Merry weapon: when no direction is selected, it will fire forward like Zanac's weapon-0

Adjusted the launch point of the "Double" weapon on horizontal stages, to match the place on the ship were it is launched on vertical stages. This also makes it more effective.

Replaced ESC with STOP to pause the game on the keyboard

Fixed a bug that allowed line interrupts to happen during disk I/O (it was a miracle that it didn't freeze very often)

Implemented frame skipping and dynamic vsync for a much smoother gaming experience. This also considerably reduced the tearing that happened in screen flashing and palette fading effects, and the glitches that happened on the sprites on the MSX Turbo-R at the top of the screen.

Enhanced the shield gauge to show when the shield power is overboosted

Bugfix: Corrected the player-2 energy bar position, since it was misaligned



Fixed a bug that corrupted the fixed point damage under some occasions

Fixed a glitch that caused spurious sprites to be shown when the boss ship stage was being loaded

Note: Only after I finished the patch that I noticed that there's a different title screen if you boot the disk-2 of the game. I won't have time to remake that screen too, so if someone feels compelled to do that, just send me the finished image and I can include it on a newer version of the patch.



TL;DR: Besides the bugfixes and new title screen, the difficulty isn't watered down by this patch. In fact, what it does now is to reward skilful players that know how/when to balance the risks of playing offensive versus defensive, and that master the sub-weapons available in the game. The docking power now has a very important role in the game, so use it wisely. And yes, there's turbo and joyMega support now.







Maze of Galious, The

DynamicVsync

Enables the turbo via CHGCPU on boot

CoolColors



Hold the TAB key to throttle the game speed

Automatically sets the VDP to 60Hz on boot, to play the game at the correct speed even on european machines. If you have an old european TV that doesn't support this, keep SELECT pressed on boot to disable it.

Metal Gear 1 DynamicVsync

DynamicVsync

Enables the turbo via CHGCPU on boot

Hold the TAB key to throttle the game speed

SPACE key now speeds up the text dialogs, just like Metal Gear-2

Automatically sets the VDP to 60Hz on boot, to play the game at the correct speed even on european machines. If you have an old european TV that doesn't support this, keep SELECT pressed on boot to disable it.

Removed the annoying region lock. Now it's possible to play the japanese version on non-japanese machines

Enhanced sprite cycling: if you have a turbo machine, the sprite cycling routine will take advantage of that and the flickering of the sprites will occur at a higher framerate.

Improved graphics for the moving parts of the bridge. They now match the non-moving pieces better.

Metal Gear 2 Turbo Fix Standard TurboFix

Enables the turbo via CHGCPU on boot

Jukebox fixed to pass the Acid2Test



Mon Mon Monster

Turfofixed the game



Faster screen-change routine

The game now passes the Acid2test. This also means that the FM soundtrack can now be heard on the MSX-Audio BIOS v1.3

New interrupt handler: quicker and more compliant

Enable the turbo on machines that have the CHGCPU routine on BIOS

The PSG can be redirected to the PSG emulator (requires MSX-Audio BIOS v1.3b, yet to be released). When this feature is enabled, the turbo will also be enabled automatically on Panasonic MSX2+ machines



Configuration keys that can be pressed on boot:

R = Enable the hidden F1 cheat to advance stages



5 = Force 50Hz refresh rate, otherwise it will select 60Hz



P = Force PSG mode (don't detect MSX-Music or MSX-Audio)



O = Use PSG driver only (Allows PSG soundtrack on PSGemu)



M = Ignore internal MSX-Music

Added joyMega support:

START = pause



A button = throws rocks

Fixed a bug that caused writes to the OPLL to happen even when no MSX-Music was present

Fixed the "CONTENUE" typo of the game over screen

Quarth

TurboFix: The game can now be run on turbo machines without any glitch

Fixed the splitscreen routine



Fixed the places where the CPU didn't wait for the blitter to finish

The turbo will be enabled via CHGCPU BIOS call on machines that support this

Correct handling of non-VDP interrupts, that are now passed along to the interrupt chain.

The game now passes the MSX Acid2Test: fixed routines on the Jukebox and battle-mode splitscreen

50Hz video mode can be forced at boot by keeping the "5" key pressed.

The Button-2 of the joysticks can now be used to pause the game.

Partial Game Master 2 support. The ingame Game Master menu functions are glitchy, but the rest work fine.

Salamander Patches DynamicVsync

CoolColors



Fixed the ripple-laser, which on the MSX version didn't behave as a laser at all. Now it behaves like the arcade version.



Space Manbow

Standard TurboFix

Fixed the bug of the random number generator of the stage-7 boss (the big green head with horns). This bug caused a too long delay between the launch of each bubble, resulting in one of the lamest bosses of the MSX history. After this fix, the boss started to behave as a real stage boss.

Jukebox fixed to pass the Acid2Test

Valis II: The Fantasm Soldier

This patch enhances the drum kit of the game Valis II for the MSX2, both for the FM and PSG soundtracks, plus some extra enhancements:

Some of the sound effects were also enhanced

The PSG volume will be adjusted to match the FM volume, finally fixing the obnoxiously loud PSG volume that this game originally had

Implements a workaround for the sound bug that happens at the 2nd part of the cutscene at the end of act 5

Because this game is so CPU heavy, it also enables the turbo on any machine that has the CHGCPU BIOS function on its BIOS, granting a much smoother experience and shorter loading times. This way the game will play at the same speed as the PC-88 version For an even more pleasant music experience, you can check if your MSX computer needs a hardware sound fix at this page.



