Seta2 for MiSTer

FPGA core of Seta's "newer" arcade hardware (1994 - 2002: the TMP68301 CPU, the X1-020 / DX-101 video chip and the X1-010 sound chip), for the MiSTer. Written from MAME 0.289's seta/seta2.cpp, x1_020_dx_101.cpp, tmp68301.cpp, x1_010.cpp and eepromser.cpp; MAME was the oracle for everything (ROM layout, video chip state, pictures, sound, inputs, the battery RAM), and the result is checked against it in simulation and on a real MiSTer. No ROMs or other copyrighted data are in this repository: you supply your own MAME 0.289 romsets.

Three core files

One source tree builds three core files, one per board dot clock: each runs its machine at a whole multiple of its boards' dot clock, so every dot is the same number of clocks and a direct video output (the RetroTINK 4K's DV1 mode) samples a clean picture.

Core file	Machine clock	Games
seta2_<date>.rbf	89.4588 MHz (8.13 MHz dots x 11)	Mobile Suit Gundam EX Revue, Wakakusamonogatari Mahjong Yonshimai, Kosodate Quiz My Angel 1 / 2, Puzzle De Bowling
seta2grd_<date>.rbf	93.75 MHz (6.25 MHz dots x 15)	Guardians / Denjin Makai II (three boards)
seta2pen_<date>.rbf	91 MHz (7 MHz dots x 13)	Penguin Brothers, Hong Tian Lei (A-Blast), and Sammy's light-gun games: Deer Hunting USA, Turkey Hunting USA, Wing Shooting Championship, Trophy Hunting - Bear & Moose

The MRAs name the right core file, so you only have to put all three RBFs in _Arcade/cores/ and the MRAs in _Arcade/. The standard 32 MB SDRAM module is enough for every set (the graphics, up to 32 MB, are in the SDRAM; the program and the samples in the DDR3). Not supported, from the same driver: Reel'N Quake!, Endless Riches and TelePachi Fever Lion (medal machines), and Star Audition, the A-Blast bootleg, Namco Stars and Balance Try (not working in MAME 0.289 either).

Screenshots

The title screens, as MAME 0.289 draws them.

seta2

Mobile Suit Gundam EX Revue	Wakakusamonogatari Mahjong Yonshimai	Kosodate Quiz My Angel
Kosodate Quiz My Angel 2	Puzzle De Bowling

seta2grd

Guardians / Denjin Makai II

seta2pen

Penguin Brothers	Deer Hunting USA	Turkey Hunting USA
Wing Shooting Championship	Trophy Hunting - Bear & Moose

Install

The zip of a GitHub release unpacks over the root of the SD card. By hand:

1. Put releases/seta2_<date>.rbf, seta2grd_<date>.rbf and seta2pen_<date>.rbf in /media/fat/_Arcade/cores/ and the contents of mra/ in /media/fat/_Arcade/ (the other versions of a title are in _alternatives/_<Title>/). Keep the RBF names and dates: MiSTer finds the core by the MRA's <rbf> name and takes the newest. Delete older seta2*.rbf files.
2. Put your MAME 0.289 romsets in /media/fat/games/mame/ (the merged set, or the split sets with their parent zip).
3. Start the game from the Arcade menu. With a recent Main_MiSTer the ROM image (up to 41 MB) loads in about a second (fast loading: the MRAs carry address="0x30000000", which makes Main_MiSTer copy the whole image into the DDR3 at once, and the core copies the graphics from there into the SDRAM); an older Main_MiSTer ignores the attribute and streams the image as before, which takes longer. Use the MRAs of the same release as the cores.
4. Buttons: define them once per game ("Define buttons"); each MRA names the buttons its game uses (the others are -, which MiSTer skips).

seta2

MRA	Set	ROM zips (MAME 0.289)
Mobile Suit Gundam EX Revue	gundamex	gundamex
Wakakusamonogatari Mahjong Yonshimai	mj4simai	mj4simai
Kosodate Quiz My Angel	myangel	myangel
Kosodate Quiz My Angel 2	myangel2	myangel2
Puzzle De Bowling	pzlbowl	pzlbowl

seta2grd

MRA	Set	ROM zips (MAME 0.289)
Guardians (P-FG01-1 PCB)	grdians	grdians
Guardians (P0-113A PCB)	grdiansa	grdiansa + grdians
Guardians (bootleg)	grdiansbl	grdiansbl + grdians

seta2pen

MRA	Set	ROM zips (MAME 0.289)
Penguin Brothers	penbros	penbros
Hong Tian Lei (A-Blast)	ablast	ablast + penbros
Deer Hunting USA (V4.3)	deerhunt	deerhunt
Deer Hunting USA (V4.2)	deerhunta	deerhunta + deerhunt
Deer Hunting USA (V4.0)	deerhuntb	deerhuntb + deerhunt
Deer Hunting USA (V3)	deerhuntc	deerhuntc + deerhunt
Deer Hunting USA (V2)	deerhuntd	deerhuntd + deerhunt
Deer Hunting USA (V1)	deerhunte	deerhunte + deerhunt
Deer Hunting USA (V4.4.1, Japan)	deerhuntj	deerhuntj + deerhunt
Turkey Hunting USA (V1.00)	turkhunt	turkhunt
Wing Shooting Championship (V2.00)	wschamp	wschamp
Wing Shooting Championship (V1.01)	wschampa	wschampa + wschamp
Wing Shooting Championship (V1.00)	wschampb	wschampb + wschamp
Trophy Hunting - Bear & Moose (V1.00)	trophyh	trophyh
Trophy Hunting - Bear & Moose (location test)	trophyht	trophyht + trophyh

tools/make_mra.py writes the MRAs from MAME 0.289's ROM lists and DIP switches (read from seta2.cpp itself) and checks that each builds, byte for byte, the image the simulations ran, with the md5 MiSTer computes.

Controls

Joystick	8-way stick, Start, Coin and the game's buttons, named in its MRA as the games call them (Gundam EX and Puzzle De Bowling in their How To Play screens; the order checked by pressing each in MAME): see the table below. My Angel 1 / 2 have no joystick
Light guns	Deer Hunting, Turkey Hunting: one gun; Wing Shooting, Trophy Hunting: two (player 2 on the second controller). Aim with a gun that MiSTer sees as an analog stick, a mouse, or a gamepad's stick and d-pad: below
Keyboard	1 / 2 start, 5 / 6 coin, 9 service (the service coin). Test modes: the Service Mode DIP switch, then Reset
Mahjong panel (Mahjong Yonshimai)	keyboard, MAME's defaults: letters A-N, Left Ctrl = Kan, Left Alt = Pon, Space = Chi, Left Shift = Reach, Z = Ron, 2 = Bet, Y = Flip Flop, Right Alt = Last Chance, Right Ctrl = Take Score, Right Shift = Double Up, Enter = Big, Backspace = Small

Game	A	B	X	Y
Guardians	Attack	Jump	Special (the power gauge's attack)
Gundam EX	Soft Attack	Medium Attack	Hard Attack	Throw
My Angel 1 / 2	Answer 1	Answer 2	Answer 3	Answer 4
Puzzle De Bowling	Left Curve	Throw (straight ball)	Right Curve
Penguin Brothers, A-Blast	Bomb	Jump
Deer / Turkey Hunting, Wing Shooting, Trophy Hunting	Trigger	Pump
Trophy Hunting (location test)	Trigger

Light guns

The games read where the gun points; the core makes that position from what MiSTer has, so no light gun is needed:

A gun seen as an analog stick	Sinden, GUN4IR and the like, which MiSTer sees as a gamepad's left analog stick: the stick's position is the aim, -128..127 across the whole picture. Set P1 stick (P2 stick) to Aim; the gun's own calibration applies
Mouse	OSD Mouse aims (P1, the default, or P2): moves the aim; the left button is the trigger, the right the pump
Gamepad	the left analog stick aims as above; the d-pad moves the aim (2 steps of 256 across the picture per frame). With the stick on Auto (default) a stick pushed all the way (an arcade stick on a gamepad encoder) moves the aim as the d-pad does and a partial push aims directly; D-pad makes any push move the aim
Buttons	A (button 1) the trigger, B (button 2) the pump (the shotgun's reload; not needed with the DIP switch Gun Type on Hand Gun), Start, Coin. Trophy Hunting's location test has triggers only
Crosshair	OSD: shows where each gun points, red P1, green P2, as MAME's crosshair. A real gun does not need it

The aim covers MAME's ranges (X 0x25-0xC5, Y 0x08-0xF8) evenly across the 320 x 240 picture, and the games take a shot where MAME's crosshair is: in Deer Hunting the scene cards and the YES / rifle buttons answer to shots at their places on the screen. The games keep their bookkeeping, settings and records in a battery-backed RAM, which the core saves to the SD card (OSD below).

OSD options

Option	Values
Aspect ratio	Original, Full Screen, [ARC1], [ARC2]
Scale	Normal, V-Integer, HV-Integer, Narrower HV-Integer, HV-Integer+	integer scaling on the HDMI scaler (the framework's video_freak; the 15 kHz analog output is not affected): the largest whole multiple of the picture's height that fits the screen, with the aspect ratio's width (V-Integer) or a whole multiple of the picture's width (Narrower: the multiple below the aspect ratio's width, HV-Integer+: the one above it while it fits, HV-Integer: the nearer). With Full Screen the integer modes use the screen's own proportions
Scandoubler Fx	None, HQ2x, CRT 25 / 50 / 75 %	the core's horizontal blank toggles on every line, the vertical blank's included, as the scandoubler needs
CRT Adjust (a page of its own)	Off / On, H-Size, H-Position, V-Shift	the size and place of the picture on a 15 kHz analog output without the monitor losing its lock, after rmonic79's MiSTer-CRT-Adjust (modules/crt_adjust): H-Size -16..+15 (a step is 1/64 of the picture's width, about its centre), H-Position -48..+48 dots, V-Shift -16..+15 lines (positive moves it down). It does nothing while the scandoubler is in use and the HDMI picture follows it: leave it Off for HDMI and direct video (DV1). Each game's room is in the table below
Crosshair	Off, P1, P2, P1+P2	the light-gun games only (Controls, Light guns)
P1 stick, P2 stick	Auto, Aim, D-pad	the light-gun games only
Mouse aims	P1, P2, Off	the light-gun games only
Autosave NVRAM	On, Off	the light-gun games only. On: when the OSD opens after the game has changed its battery RAM, MiSTer saves it to the SD card
Save NVRAM		the same at once
DIP switches	per game	as MAME 0.289 defines them, with MAME's defaults; Gundam EX's Language jumper too. The light-gun games' second bank works here (in MAME 0.289 it does not reach the games)
Volume	Normal, -6 dB, -12 dB, -18 dB	Normal is MAME's mix (the X1-010's two outputs into one speaker)
Pause	Off, On	stops the CPU and the sound chip; the picture stays
Turbo CPU	Off, On	Guardians only: the 68000 at 23.44 MHz instead of 16.67 (16.27 on the P0-113A board and the bootleg), for less slowdown when the screen is busy
CPU speed	Native 16.27 MHz, Turbo 20.33 MHz, Turbo 22.36 MHz	Gundam EX only, the same. Only the 68000 runs faster: the sound chip, the TMP68301 timers (Guardians' music tempo) and the video keep the board's rates. The most is a quarter of the core file's clock: the 68000 (fx68k) is given two clocks for each of its steps and needs them (its longest path is 12.8 ns, a clock 10.7-11.2 ns)
Sync widths	Standard, Board	Standard (default) caps the horizontal sync at ~4.7 us and the vertical sync at 3 lines; Board gives them as the games program them (Guardians 7.5 us and 4 lines, Penguin Brothers / A-Blast 9.1 us), which some TVs show dark and unsteady
SDRAM read capture	Normal, Late	a diagnostic for SDRAM modules that answer late
Reset		restarts the machine

MiSTer keeps the battery RAM on the SD card as a .nvm file (the MRAs' <nvram index="4" size="8192"/>: its first 8 KB, all the games use) and loads it with the game; the bytes are laid out as the start of MAME's nvram/<set>/nvram. Without a saved file the RAM starts cleared, as MAME's. Gundam EX's EEPROM starts from the MRA's image at every load (its settings are not saved).

CRT Adjust's room in each game (beyond it the picture's edge is cut, or its first / last lines fall into the vertical sync):

Game	H-Size about the centre	H-Position	V-Shift
Guardians	up to +6	-59..+15	-17..+10
Gundam EX	up to +7	-73..+22	-20..+14
Mahjong Yonshimai	up to +10	-67..+31	-12..+7
My Angel, My Angel 2	up to +14	-61..+43	-12..+7 (My Angel 2: -11..+8)
Puzzle De Bowling	up to +14	-54..+44	-13..+7
Penguin Brothers, A-Blast	up to +9	-67..+23	-12..+23

The pictures sit right of the line's middle (the right margin is the smaller), so a larger H-Size fits with the picture moved left.

Status

Verification. MAME 0.289 is the reference. In simulation (Verilator, the games' real programs, the real SDRAM path): every ROM region of the 23 sets byte-identical to what MAME loads; the video chip on frozen MAME states, 234 of 240 frames of the first ten sets pixel-identical (the other six are Guardians' raster-interrupt frames, which MAME draws in pieces); the whole machine from reset, the boot and attract pictures of every set equal to MAME's, a few frames apart; Guardians' scripted play pixel for pixel through its gameplay; Deer Hunting's scripted hunt (2400 frames) pixel for pixel but for the randomly drawn wind, and its battery RAM at the end MAME's byte for byte; Wing Shooting played by two players, both hunters' choices on the same frames as in MAME; the X1-010 sample by sample against MAME's algorithm (every sample within 1 LSB); the fast and streamed loads byte-exact; CRT Adjust and the light guns' aim in unit benches. docs/status.md has the measured results, the bugs found on the way and the open points.

On a real MiSTer (the owner's MiSTer Multisystem 2, with a RetroTINK 4K in DV1 mode and with a 15 kHz CRT):

• Release 20261020 (the first): every game loads and plays, picture and sound; the named buttons, CRT Adjust, Turbo CPU / CPU speed, DV1 and fast loading work. The first tests found, and the builds since fix: a black screen (the fast load's header), a shredded picture on DV1 (now one core file per board dot clock), Gundam EX's black screen when its demo starts (the decoding of its second program ROM), a dark, unsteady picture on the CRT (the long sync pulses the games program: Sync widths) and the RT4K's "MiSTer Gen." class for Guardians and Penguin Brothers (now 262 lines: Video and sound).
• Build 20261021 (the light-gun games): every game, new and old, plays; the guns aimed with the gamepad's d-pad and analog stick, the crosshair shown. Not tried on the hardware yet: the mouse, a real gun (Sinden / GUN4IR) and high scores kept over a reload. The simulation's two-player play found, before this build, that player 2's gun was not decoded (Wing Shooting, Trophy Hunting).

Known differences from MAME

• Random choices can come out differently: Deer Hunting's wind, Wing Shooting's attract birds and hunting spot. MAME 0.289's X1-010 returns a channel's "playing" flag without bringing the sound up to date, so a flag clears there only at its next sound update; the core clears it when the sample ends, and the games poll the flags.
• The frame rates are the boards' (below), not MAME's 60 Hz, and program reads that miss the CPU's cache wait for the DDR3 (MAME has no wait states): the attract modes run a few frames apart from MAME's.
• The raster interrupt and the palette: the core draws each line just ahead of the beam and looks the palette up as the dots go out; a replay of MAME's writes shows that this gives MAME's pictures in Guardians' raster scenes; a palette fade written during a frame can show one step apart for a frame.

Video and sound

TMP68301 and X1-010 at 50 MHz / 3 = 16.667 MHz (Gundam EX, the P0-113A Guardians and the bootleg: 32.53047 MHz / 2), as MAME. The picture uses the CRTC values the games program, with each board's dot clock: the 384-wide games 8.13 MHz, ~60.0 Hz (261-262 lines). Guardians and Penguin Brothers / A-Blast get 262 lines instead of their CRTC's 259 and 256, with a line two or four dots shorter so that the frame rate stays near the boards' (Guardians) or MAME's (Penguin Brothers): Guardians 6.25 MHz, 409 x 262, 58.3 Hz (CRTC 411 x 259 = 58.7 Hz; measured on the boards: 58.27-58.5 Hz); Penguin Brothers 7 MHz, 445 x 262, 60.0 Hz (CRTC 449 x 256 = 60.9 Hz). The RetroTINK 4K sorts a MiSTer direct-video signal into a class by its lines per frame: with 259 or 256 lines it took these games as "MiSTer Gen.", in which it squashes the picture while the MiSTer OSD is open, and with 262 as "MiSTer 240p", like the other games. The picture and the syncs keep their positions; the added lines and the removed dots are blanking. The light-gun games (Sammy's board, MAME's samshoot) run as their CRTC says: 7 MHz, 446 x 262, 59.9 Hz; their second interrupt is MAME's 60 Hz periodic one, counted from the CPU clock.

The video chip (rtl/s2_video.sv, rtl/s2_render.sv) is written from MAME's x1_020_dx_101.cpp: sprites and tile sprites drawn a line ahead of the beam from the SDRAM. Sound: the X1-010 (ppriest's x1_010.sv, MAME's sound chip transcribed: Credits) with the sample banks of each board.

Build

Quartus Prime Lite 17.0.2 (the version MiSTer's framework needs). The project has three revisions, one per core file:

quartus_sh --flow compile Seta2 -c Seta2        -> output_files/Seta2.rbf      seta2
quartus_sh --flow compile Seta2 -c Seta2Grd     -> output_files/Seta2Grd.rbf   seta2grd
quartus_sh --flow compile Seta2 -c Seta2Pen     -> output_files/Seta2Pen.rbf   seta2pen

py -3.8 tools/release.py [--builds <dir>] copies them to releases/ as seta2_<date>.rbf / seta2grd_<date>.rbf / seta2pen_<date>.rbf with their fitter, timing and RAM-depth reports (it fails on a negative slack); py -3.8 tools/package.py writes the release zip (dist/Seta2_MiSTer_<date>.zip, the SD card's structure, no ROMs) from releases/ and mra/; py -3.8 tools/make_mra.py writes the MRAs.

Simulation and tools

Verilator benches in sim/ (run in WSL; they build in $HOME/build_seta2):

sim/video/run.sh <statedir> <frame>...                     the video chip on frozen MAME states, vs MAME's pixels
sim/sys/run.sh <image> <frames> <out> +every=10 [+wav]     the whole machine from reset (sim/sys/runb.sh <set> ...: on its core file's clocks)
sim/snd/run.sh <x1.log> <x1snd.bin> <seconds> <out.wav>    the X1-010 with MAME's register writes
sim/crt/run.sh [15 13 11]                                  CRT Adjust on each core file's rasters
sim/guns/run.sh                                            the light guns' aim, buttons and crosshair

The machine bench takes scripted inputs (+inputs=: tools/play_inputs.py, tools/gun_inputs.py for the light guns), loads and dumps the battery RAM (+nvload=, +nvdump=) and runs the fast and streamed loads (+fastload, +stream). tools/capture.py runs MAME headless with tools/lua/dump_state.lua (states, pixels, the same scripted inputs); tools/sys_match.py / tools/sys_lag.py compare the bench's pictures with MAME's; tools/seta2_ref.py is the Python reference renderer, tools/seta2_image.py builds a set's ROM image. MAME's captures, the images and the benches' pictures go to a scratch folder work/ next to the repository (never committed); tools/paths.py says where MAME, the romsets and MAME's source are.

Repository layout

Seta2.sv, Seta2*.qsf, Seta2.qpf, Seta2.sdc, files.qip	the MiSTer top level (OSD, inputs, DIP switches, the light guns, the battery RAM file, video, audio) and the Quartus project with its three revisions
rtl/	the machine: TMP68301 board and memory maps, video chip (renderer, SDRAM fetch), ROM loader, SDRAM controller and program cache, EEPROM, clock enables (Turbo), CRT Adjust glue, light guns and their ports, battery RAM file
modules/	other people's cores, with their licences (modules/VENDOR.md)
sys/	the MiSTer framework
mra/	the MRAs: one a title in the folder, the other versions in _alternatives/_<Title>/
releases/	the RBFs of the releases with their fitter, timing and RAM-depth reports
docs/	status.md (results, measurements and process notes), the title screens
tools/, sim/	MRA writer, ROM-image builder, reference renderer, MAME scripts, benches

Credits

• MAME (the seta2 driver and the X1-020 / DX-101 video chip by Luca Elia and David Haywood, the TMP68301 by Olivier Galibert, the X1-010 by Luca Elia with the rewrite by Manbow-J, the serial EEPROM by Aaron Giles; BSD-3-Clause): the hardware knowledge and the oracle for every comparison.
• ppriest / Paul Priest: Arcade-Seta_MiSTer's x1_010.sv, MAME's X1-010 transcribed (GPL-3.0; modules/x1_010), and his light guns, gx_guns.sv of his Konami GX core and the Zombie Raid guns of Arcade-Seta_MiSTer, which rtl/s2_guns.sv's aiming follows (GPL-3.0-or-later).
• Jorge Cwik (fx68k, GPL-3.0), rmonic79 / Umberto Parisi, with Andrea Bogazzi (MiSTer-CRT-Adjust, GPL-3.0-or-later).
• kandowontu: Arcade-Guardians_MiSTer and Arcade-GundamEX_MiSTer, read as references (board maps, CRTC values, Guardians' timer and raster interrupt), and the model of the Turbo CPU / CPU speed options.
• plasticbugs (tools/mra_build.py, from analogue-pocket-gaiapolis, GPL-3.0): the MRA assembly and md5 check.
• The MiSTer framework (Sorgelig and contributors); the platform layer, fast loading and Scale follow the owner's other cores (Oh My God!, Monster Maulers, Heavy Unit), the CRT Adjust glue the Metro core's.

Licence

GPL-3.0-or-later (LICENSE); vendored modules keep their own licences (modules/VENDOR.md).