SDOJ in MAME - now available, in a goofy hacked ROM

[buffi]

I wonder if this was born from buffi's ROM dump?

I was not involved in making this hack. It looks pretty funny though!

[EOJ]

Here's a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaXxRA9xTj8

The ships are the same but the operator is Garfield, and the characters are the ones I mentioned before. The star items are red now too.

[el_rika]

Well, except for the multicoloured score and cartoon characters that replace the dolls (which i remember sparked a lot of rage from the serious gamers back then...so look at this like a long overdue patch  ), the game is good ol' Sdoj, complete with fixable slowdown and all the fluff.

https://imageupload.io/i/aPfUXbVty3

Edit: oh, and the stars are red, good eye EOJ 

Edit2: there's also a small .txt inside the rom that mentions a date in april next year when something related to this game (probably the normal rom release) will happen.

[EOJ]

I wonder if this was born from buffi's ROM dump?

I was not involved in making this hack. It looks pretty funny though!

I didn't think you were, but since you sent the PCB to someone to dump the ROM, I thought maybe someone with access to the ROM then made this hack.

[slateman]

> I HOPE YOU ENJOY!!
>
>IF YOU DO NOT ENJOY, LOOK FORWARD TO 04/20/22 FOR A FUN BIRTHDAY PRESENT!
>
>- CAVEDWELLERS

20 April is the 10th anniversary of the original release. 

This is...just awfully strange.  But - it's SDOJ!

[dan76]

Not being a huge fan of the game, I kind of digging it. Garfield and the T-Rex are an improvement for me. Still too much talking, but you know, it's great.

[slateman]

Not being a huge fan of the game, I kind of digging it. Garfield and the T-Rex are an improvement for me. Still too much talking, but you know, it's great.

I'm *totally* digging it.  Been waiting a long time for this opportunity.  Don't care if the game itself is flawed - that's not news.  But after years of feeling it may never happen, this is exciting news.  It's been 10 years - I'm sure I can wait till April to play the real version!

[EOJ]

Have you not played the X360 version in all these years? It's not the best port, but I'd take it over a MAME ROM any day of the week.

[slateman]

Have you not played the X360 version in all these years? It's not the best port, but I'd take it over a MAME ROM any day of the week.

Oh yeah, I have.  Just did three international moves in the past five years and my 360 hasn't made the transition well.  Getting a new unit isn't high on the priority list.  :/

And, as I'm not nearly the caliber of you all in terms of skill, I like having emulation to do save states to capture images & the like.  Besides, it always felt like this might never happen. 

[EOJ]

There is X360 emulation on PCs now. From what I hear it is pretty good, though I have not tried it. Maybe you could play the X360 version that way?
But if you are happy with the MAME emulation, then perhaps there is not much for you to gain from such an endeavor.

My Japanese X360 is still going strong 10 years later.  When it dies I'll have to replace it with another, because these Switch and Steam ports (and MAME emulation) just aren't as good.

[EOJ]

I watched four videos on youtube of the MAME ROM played with different CPU and blitter settings, and in all four the slowdown accuracy was much worse than the X360 port. No surprise really, as that is the case for nearly every SH3 game that has an X360 port.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGL8MsF9koA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oONHM8wxO1g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgC5oWaMh3c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RClniFO7Jf0

[Sandinista]

I watched four videos on youtube of the MAME ROM played with different CPU and blitter settings, and in all four the slowdown accuracy was much worse than the X360 port. No surprise really, as that is the case for nearly every SH3 game that has an X360 port.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGL8MsF9koA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oONHM8wxO1g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgC5oWaMh3c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RClniFO7Jf0

Thanks for the info . Not my thing mame , always prefer the ports . Good to know.

My Japanese xbox 360  still works great too 

[EOJ]

Nice thing about SDOJ is you don't even need a JP X360. It plays on any X360, and the digital download version is only like $25.

[el_rika]

Don't be Grinch Eoj 

Those vids don't have the best tweaks, though a couple of them are ok-ish.
The game can be tweaked to feel decently close, and certainly close enough to play the game seriously as some like to put it 
I played this game religiously for a few months, back then when it came out on 360 (not that i was anywhere close to decent at it though) and while perfectly playable and comparable to pcb, the port has some issues here and there, and in some ways the mame tweaks fix a few of them.

I'm slowly getting into the groove, but i have some good numbers for both Expert and Shot/Laser after testing it quite a lot this past week. 
There's no slowdown that doesn't trigger as it should (levels, bosses) and even the spastic one (in-out, in-out), which is a great indicator of the correct Cpu clock, is there.

https://vimeo.com/655433052 (quick gameplay for Extra, potato quality sorry for that).

40 mhz/57% for Expert
41.8 mhz/56% for Shot

Will update the slowdown topic with better vids sometime in the future.

[EOJ]

I'm not being a grinch, I'm just speaking the truth.

You can live in la-la land and ignore me, if you like.

[el_rika]

You can live in la-la land and ignore me, if you like.

God forbid, man. Was only kidding. I have nothing but respect and gratitude for your effort in keeping things alive here.

[Sandinista]

Nice thing about SDOJ is you don't even need a JP X360. It plays on any X360, and the digital download version is only like $25.

Yeah , and i love to play it on a sd crt in tate mode .

[EOJ]

You can live in la-la land and ignore me, if you like.

God forbid, man. Was only kidding. I have nothing but respect and gratitude for your effort in keeping things alive here.

That's just me being a grumpy old man. Nothing personal. 

[EOJ]

EXA-Arcadia filed a claim to have SDOJ blocked/removed from MAME. And they also requested Akai Katana be removed, for good measure (due to their upcoming EXA label). Both claims have been implemented.

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/54899379258a7266db8d5bc6cda8b48169e67503

You can read the C&D here: https://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=120280#Post120280

There's also a long reddit thread about this.

[buffi]

Still trivial to play though.
Just rename to another game like dfkbl, just like the knuckles hack