
                                REM!  doc 1.5
                                ____


REM! may be made freely available as long as the original zip file is not
modified in any way.

Attempting to sell REM! or distribute it with game ROMS constitutes
a violation of copyright and may result in legal action being taken.

Anyone using this program does so at their own risk.  The author does not
accept any liability for loss or damage arising from its use.

The author will not be held responsible for copyright violations by users of
the emulator.  Users are reminded that RYGAR is copyrighted and should not be
distributed without permission.

To use this piece of software, you must agree to be bound by the conditions
of use listed above.  If you cannot agree to these terms, please delete your
copy of the emulator.

Rygar is copyright 1986 by TECMO.
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________

A '|' the beginning of the line means it has been added/modified


 1. What is it ?

| 2. What are the requirements ?

 3. Where to get the ROMs ?

| 4. How does it work ?

 5. How good is the emulation ?

 6. Why won't it run ?

| 7. Closing words.

 8. Credits.

 9. How to get in touch with the authors ?

________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________



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1. What is it ?

 - REM! is an emulator for the pc platform, it emulates TECMO's hit: Rygar,
   a beatem-up released in the arcades around 1986.

   If you are unfamiliar with emulators, please refer to the numerous web
   pages on the Internet.




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2. What are the requirements ?

 - 486 or Pentium  ( fast Pentium recommended ).
|   Several people said they couldn't get the emulator to run at full speed
|   on their P166. We don't know the reason since we don't have P166s to test it,
|   however it runs at around 100 fps on PPro 200 which leaves plenty of cpu
|   time, in theory that's just enough for P166s (go figure...) .

 - 3mb of RAM.

 - Soundblaster compatible card ( optionnal )
   SB16 or compatible prefered

 - Joystick ( optionnal )

 - Rygar ROMs ( which you should duplicate from your Rygar board )
    either US or Japanese.

 - DOS, reported to work under W95
                               OS/2 ( no sound )
                               NT4 ( no sound, no joystick )





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3. Where to get the ROMs ?

 - The ROMs are copyrighted, only legal owners of Rygar machines should use
   this program. Users who don't know how to duplicate them should be able
   to find them on the internet.

 - Don't bother emailing requests for ROMs.

 - Using ROMs without owning an original Rygar board is ILLEGAL.




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4. How does it work ?

 - Just put the ROMs in the same directory as the program ( or in a ROM\
   directory ).

 - The ROMs should be named:
        CPU_1F.BIN     16384
        CPU_4H.BIN     16384
        CPU_5J.BIN     32768
        CPU_5M.BIN     16384
        CPU_5P.BIN     32768
        CPU_8K.BIN     32768
        VID_6B.BIN     32768
        VID_6C.BIN     32768
        VID_6E.BIN     32768
        VID_6F.BIN     32768
        VID_6G.BIN     32768
        VID_6H.BIN     32768
        VID_6J.BIN     32768
        VID_6K.BIN     32768
        VID_6L.BIN     32768
        VID_6N.BIN     32768
        VID_6O.BIN     32768
        VID_6P.BIN     32768
 


 - Type "rem!" on the command line.

   Type "rem! nosound" to disable the sound ( both FM & sampled )

   Type "rem! oldsb" to hear FM sound on old adlib or SB8 cards ( introduces
        long delays between writes to the adlib, may slow down the emu )



|- The keys are:   - stick & buttons keys must be defined by the user
|                    The keys are stored in rygar.dat\rygar.key

                   - "3" to insert coins.

                   - "1" to start in 1 player mode.

                   - "Esc" to quit.

                   - "space" to pause.


                   - "F1" to reset the board.


                   - "F2" to enter/exit dip switches menu.
                          Press 1-8 on the main keyboard to change the switches.
                          Press 0 to reset the switches.
                          The board needs to be reset to activate the new
                           configuration.
                          The switches will be saved on exit.
                          Sometimes the menu won't show up because the fonts
                           are printed black on a black bacground, try when
                           playing to make sure you get it.


                   - "F3" to show/hide the boxes holding the bonuses.
                          Half of the bonuses in Rygar are hidden, some boxes
                           will only appear if you jump at the right place,
                           this option will help you track the hidden bonuses
 |                         as well as the hidden stars & parchment (shown as
 |                         small explosions ). These appear only once in the
 |                         game, at level 13.
                          The background color will turn purple.


                   - "F6" to disable the 2nd background ( for slower machines )


                   - "F7" to change the refresh rate ( for slower machines ).


                   - "F9" color booster for closer to arcade colors.
                          ON by default.


                   -"F10" to switch to experimental 224 lines mode.
                          Tested on Matrox & S3 cards.
                          ON by default.



 - Joystick is supported, auto detection & calibration.

 - Hiscores are automatically saved.
    This option only works correctly with the US version. The Japanese version
    stores the hiscore at another adress so this option in disabled in it ( the
    scores are still correctly saved though ). This should only indispose a few
    freaks ( that includes our artist ! )


 - sampled sound ( not true emulation ) & FM sound supported.

    There's no need to convert the sampled sound with Goldwave anymore.

    FM sound is not emulated at runtime, it is emulated once and for all when
    REM! is executed for the 1st time, the resulting audio data is saved on
    disk ( rygar.dat\rygar.fm ) and reloaded at every execution.
    Running 2 Z80s at the same time with Marat Fayzullin's emu would have been
    far too slow, at the time of writing there is no machine powerful enough
    to run it at full speed at the time of writing !
    There's no need to emulate the 2nd Z80 when the music is precomputed,
    but the sound player must be recoded, a pretty long and annoying task while
    not extremely difficult.
    the gain is a pretty fast sound routine but somewhat less accurate player
    ( sfx priority is sometimes wrong ). The sound quality remains the same.



 - config file ( saves Fkeys settings ).




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5. How good is the emulation ?

 - Tastes like the original (all 27 rounds are playable)

 - Minor problems:
                - no 2 players mode
                - sfx priority is sometimes wrong ( causes distorted sound )




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6. Why won't it run ?

 - try it under plain dos.


 - PmodeW says 'not enough memory'

         -3 solutions ( beginner to expert )
            1. try removing residents programs.
            2. run it with DOS4GW ( simply type "dos4gw rem" )
            3. change the amount of lowmem PmodeW allocates ( with pmwsetup.exe ).


 - Sampled sound doesn't work.

         -sampled sound is only for Soundblaster compatible cards.
         -make sure you SET BLASTER string is correct.


 - FM sound doesn't work

         -use 'oldsb' parameter on the command line ( may slow down the emu ! )
          if you have an old SB.
         -FM sound needs to be precomputed the 1st time REM! is run, check if
          if rygar.fm is present in rygar.dat\


 - Joystick doesn't respond correctly.

         -make sure it is centered when loading REM!
         -autocalibration fails: run the joystick test program and send
          the results to us.


 - Screen screws up.

         -224 lines mode is enabled by default, it has not been widely tested
          so it might not be 100%.


  - no dip switches menu, black screen.

         -Sometimes the menu won't show up because the fonts are printed black
          on a black bacground, try calling the menu when playing.




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7. Closing words.


| There won't be more updates, if there are any bugs left, too bad but we've
| got to move on.
|
| We've been asked a few times if we have other emulation projects planned,
| the answer is no, at least not in a near future.
|
|
| We'd like to thank everyone who emailed us ( not a single rom request ! ),
| it's always nice to feel your work is appreciated, it was also an opportunity
| to chat a bit with some real Rygar freaks !!
| More thanks to those who tried helping when there were a few technical
| problems.
| And also thanks to Marat Fayzullin, one of the very first to demonstrate
| emulation of older machines was possible.
|
|
| Sorry there are no arcade web pages mentionned here, there are too many,
| mostly good ones made by dedicated people ( daily updates ! ), they also
| deserve big kudos.
|
| Sorry I couldn't get you the beers Jason !


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8. Credits.

Rygar emulation:  Jean-Marc Leang
extra code     :  Tiago Mendes-Costa
extra gfx      :  Patrick Romano

Z80 emulation  :  Marat Fayzullin

pmodeW         : Charles Scheffold & Thomas Pytel


Disclaimer borrowed from Dave Spicer' Sparcade.

Thanks to everyone who helped and to Jason D Bardis for the original Rygar board




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9. How to get in touch with the authors ?

 - jeanmarc.leang@ping.be
   www.ping.be/~ping0589/rygar/rygar.htm    for Rygar specific questions.

 - www.freeflight.com/fms   for Z80 emulation.





