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Laserdisc Arcade Emulator - DAPHNE
Matt Ownby writes: "Ever wanted to play the original arcade version of Dragon's Lair on your PC? A new version of DAPHNE, a laserdisc arcade game emulator, has just been released under the GPL, featuring full mpeg2 support. A total of ten laserdisc arcade games are playable including Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, and Cliff Hanger. Screenshots are available :)" I don't know how many people have laserdisc players these days, but this is still neat.
Game Name - Supported by DAPHNE?
Badlands - No
Cliff Hanger - No
Dragon's Lair - Yes
Dragon's Lair 2 - No
Goal to Go - No
Space Ace '83 - Yes
Space Ace '91 - No
Super Don Qui-xote - No
Thayer's Quest - No
Obviously those marked as no are still work in progress
Hmm. I'm wondering how BIG those MPeg2 files are going to be.
It probably won't be too long before the Romz Warez folks are spreading those around...
Then of course I'm thinking there are probably some hardware rom images themselves which will probably need to be dumped (and in most cases, pirated...)
I actually have a Video Laserdisc player... this would certainly be a lot of fun to play with but unless I yoink the disc out of an arcade cabinet, I doubt I'll be able to get ahold of a legal copy of the Laserdisc. Unless someone knows someplace you can purchase them?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Actually right after I posted that I looked on EBay and found this.
Apparently it's the PCB from a Dragon's Lair arcade cabinet, but it doesn't mention anything about the Laserdisc. Hmm...
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Its only the PCB.
I too own a LD player and it would be awesome to hook it up and play.
But i cant recall now if it reads CDRs or not. That would seriously complicate the use of warezd roms.
And getting the real thing should be close to impossible.
Anyone done this yet and compared them to the DVD releases of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I havent played around with Daphnie yet but I have played the Dragons Lair DVD (It took me hours to beat it.) and found it to be of superb quality. The only problem with playing games like that on a DVD players is using the remote.
The one and only flamingmoose,
someone has already written an emulator (windows only which is why it is not in mame) which converts all the calls from the dragons lair LD to the DVD scenes. Very fast and supposed to be quite good. Check out the WIP archive on www.mame.net to try and find it (alternately, use the news archive at retrogames.com)
Hey, I'm colorblind and a webmaster. I made a site in only grayscale (except for some the images) simply because I couldn't decided on a color scheme. I think that the webmaster wasn't colorblind but possibly insane?
The one and only flamingmoose,
Dragon's Lair has already been ported to DVD format.
It's available
here
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
A: DAPHNE, when used with a laserdisc player, uses a TV (or VCR) for output. What you do is plug a laserdisc player into your computer, then you plug a TV into your laserdisc player. You control the game using your computer's joystick or keyboard, but you watch the action on your TV. The arcade game worked like this too; it didn't do any of its own graphics, it relied exclusively on the laserdisc player for the video.
ahhhh
so i'll need an all in wonder card or something to have everything in my PC, along with the laser disc and laser disc player
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I have Space Ace and Dragon's Lair somewhere...
I just picked up three LC-V4400 laserdisc players from university surplus at $13.33 each. Therefore, I can use this. Mmmm..PC interface. So, HA! I'm better than you.
I have the mpeg-1 release of dragon's lair, dragon's lair 2 and the outer space game.
Sorry but those are the absolute worst games. They are so not fun.
Luckily i downloaded a copy of it off the net and didn't waste any money on it.
No laserdisc mpegs, available from alt.binaries.emulators.misc ... Since Dragon's Lair 1&2 and Space Ace are available as DVD titles, would that be more economical, both as source footage, and for those of us who would rather play them at optimized speeds instead of emulated?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
a Long time ago (90's) I had a dos program that would control a pioneer commercial Laserdisc player (the one in the games cabinet) and allow you to play the game (spaceace and dragons lair only) on your TV. My only problem was where did people come up with the origional game Laserdiscs? it's not like mediaplay has them in a clearance bin.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm glad they made this it isn't a terribly difficult hack, but it certainly requires a lot of detail and time. Perfect for a Laserhead! Thanks.
;)
But if you read the FAQ pages for the project, you see the other unfortunate side of Laserheads. They REALLY REALLY hate anyone who isn't near their level of knowledge on laserdisc stuff.
Don't expect support!
I just wanted to point out that the PCB you pointed out on eBay doesn't contain any of the game logic. It is the power supply for the unit. Probably one of those things an arcade person could have guessed (since putting a transformer next to a PCB is really strange), but would probably take dragon's lair specific information to know.
Shame on the seller for such a generic description. Look! I have the dragon's lair PCB!!
I only saw one Laser Disc on EBay's site ;-)
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
I'm remembering some laserdisc game that I used to play where you piloted an F14 and took out planes/tanks as you flew along.
It was incredibly expensive and a sitdown machine. I was absolutely addicted.
Was it... "Lock-On" or something like that? Too bad it's not in the list. It must be a different format than Dragon's Lair/Space Ace since there was more real-time control of the jet rather than just actions taken at certain story tree points.
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Are the any movements afoot to emulate non-CPU games? I've was looking to download Death Race (1975 game that had you and a partner try to run down as many pedestrians as possible -- whoever mowed down the most, won), and apparently it was made of all discrete components without a CPU. There are apparently a number of machines like that.
I also wonder if it even makes sense to emulate something like that (do you import the schematic?) in a general sort of way, or would you have to write a simulator for each unit.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I thought I saw Space Ace and/or Dragon's Lair as an interactive DVD in the local video store.
Anybody notice how much the big blue guy in Space Ace looks like the genie in Aladdin?
MAME even emulates the portions that drew graphics on top of the laserdisc video. I don't know if they have implemented the control system for the Laserdisc player though. In any case, you're right. A DVD player with fast remote control response is sufficient to play Dragon's Lair or Space Ace. It would take a little more for M.A.C.H. 3.
Ah yes, I remember when Dragon's Lair came out. Using the laserdisk was a big step ahead over the resolution/image complexity/etc you could get in other video games at the time. And there was a lot of hype about how soon your video game would feature your favorite actors instead of crude cartoons and the like. I guess it hasn't really happened like that very much, but it is true that video games have gotten a lot more visually sophisticated - back in the old days the only *really* nice graphics were on the package (or the side/top of the console in the arcade).
That's the Evil Commander Borf!
...with the Infanto Ray!!
"the First Ever Multiple Arcade Laserdisc Emulator! =] DAPHNE is a program that ..."
We should just call it F.E.M.A.L.E.
Solomon Chang
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
11. You have ever rode on a mini-scooter to work.
Actually, in the video game you run down gremlins. It's only in the movie that you run down humans.
Possibly the earliest example of game-makers fearing lawsuits.
I'm _not_ a sysadmin, though all apply for me :-)
Of course the old CD-ROM versions aren't fun! The video quality is terrible, and the moves for the gameplay are all wrong!
Even with high-quality video and authentic gameplay, it may still not be your kind of game. But don't pan it just because of the lame ports that have existed over the years...
FIXME: Add a sig here
Spent much of my teenage hours beating Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. Definitely excited about this!! I remeber people would crowd around and watch. It was like a movie for them.
I seem to remember that one of the scenes in Dragons Lair was some flaming ropes or chains that you had to swing across a pit of fire with.
Does anyone else remember this scene?
I have the PC-CDROM version, which states that it has all of the original arcade game, however lacking this scene, that would look to be a lie.
DVD version have that scene?
My mistake.
To see the current list of supported games, just view the main documentation.
And they are :
Astron Belt
Cliff Hanger
Cobra Command (running on Astron Belt hardware)
Dragon's Lair (US)
Esh's Aurunmilla
Galaxy Ranger
Space Ace (US)
Star Blazer
Super Don Quix-ote
Thayer's Quest
If you are using mpeg, you don't need any additional equipment.. just a reasonably fast computer and preferably a video card with YUV acceleration.
I am not sure why you chose to accuse all laserdisc collectors of "REALLY REALLY [hating]" anyone who isn't near their level of knowledge, and I find this stereotype unfortunate. Perhaps my wording in the FAQ is a little bit strong, but I don't think I ever said that I hated newbies or uninformed people. I just said that our primary goal is to develop the emulator, and not to answer FAQ's all day. If you think that we should be spending our time answering FAQ's instead of writing the emulator, then I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that point.
Other posts have indicated that Cliff Hanger is not available yet.
...
...
When I was 10 I was addicted to that game. It rocked. I still have a little journal entry I made in a short-lived journal I started at that time, which has the first 30 or so moves in it
I could never beat the Ninjas though. I suppose that now I'll find the whole thing is a piece of cake, like all video games that I thought were so difficult when I was young and have since revisited to beat my old high score of 15 years ago on the very first try
Where can you get the dragon's Lair DVD?
Such games are no more difficult to emulate than any other games. In fact, Pong was one of the first games emulated by MAME. It's in older versions of MAME, in improved versions of recent builds of MAME called FixMAME, and it's been emulated accurately in its many different forms, both arcade and home, by several other emulators.
The reason that Pong was dropped and support for other discrete-circuitry games was dropped isn't technical, it's legal. The MAME devs decided that emulating a whole discrete-circuitry game--meaning that MAME would play that game without needing to download any external ROMs at all-- would keep MAME open to easier legal attack. So they removed Pong and drew an arbitrary distinction between all-circuitry games and games that have ROMs. They arbitrarily call all-circuitry games "simulated" games rather than emulated--a very stupid distinction since, to run the ROMs on the emulated machines in MAME, MAME simulated a whole lot of discrete circuitry.
What they really should have done is create a plug-in framework for discrete-circuitry games, so that the emulated/simulated circuitry could be packaged in a zip file and downloaded just like ROMs are. That way they could avoid the legal pitfall while still preserving the oldest games, those with discrete circuitry, which are also those most in need of preservation. I find it hypocritical that the MAME devs claim that MAME is made for the purpose of preserving our arcade heritage before the machines are too far gone, and yet they spend their time emulating Golden Tee games that you can still find in any sports bar today (they're in the source code, but disabled since they're still being sold), and yet refuse to emulate the 70s classics that used discrete circuits and are disappearing all the time. Sure, developers can spend their time working on whatever they want and blah blah blah, but it's still hypocritical to emulate games that are still being sold and refuse to emulate games that are disappearing, and claim you're doing it all to preserve our arcade heritage. What a crock of shit. They emulate what they want to play, with no regard for the games that are really in danger--the oldest arcade games, almost all of which have discete circuits and no ROMs. So instead of finding a way around the legal issues, like a plug-in system, they draw an arbitrary line in the sand and claim that they shouldn't emulate the hardware of these games because it would be a "simulation"--as if the emulated hardware that ROMs run on is real, not simulated?
Forgive me if I get a little pissed, but I'm annoyed that a project which claims to be for arcade preservation is letting the foundation of the arcade business disappear, mostly because they enjoy playing Golden Tee and such more than really preserving the 70s classics. The discrete circuitry games are largely difficult to find, except for a few of the most popular like pong and Breakout. And even so, how many people under 25 have ever seen and played the real, original Breakout, the game that started a whole genre and was worked on by some big-name people like Woz?
MAME should stop cutting our arcade gaming heritage into arbitrary slices and saying, if it has a ROM we'll emulate it but if it doesn't we won't; if it has a Laserdisc we won't emulate it (a driver was submitted that works with the DVD version of Dragon's Lair, but will not be included in MAME); etc.
On a better note, the discrete circuitry classic Monaco GP has been quite well emulated recently by a stand-alone emulator, and there's even a version of MAME available that has it hacked in (FixMAME). It's a much more complicated game than Pong--in fact, about as complicated as you can get with discrete circuits alone. So it's a great accomplishment, and I hope more people will follow with similar projects, despite lack of encouragement by MAME.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
There was a dragons lair on floppy disk,
back before cdroms were popular. It was terrible.
The same awful gameplay, but with equally
awful graphics. Plus, it had a complex copy protection scheme
requiring you to search through these tables to find the right numbers to type in.
Dragons lair has a serious history of lameness.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
That is just my two cents.
Vermifax
Logout
Found this site that has laserdisc and DVD players.
;)
These are the highend pioneer units that have PC conections as well as keyboard and mouse.
http://www.documentsonline.com/4sale/deals.htm
Under the consumer electronics...
Now Im going to have to try and find the dvd games everyone is chatting about.
I have played with these units (I bought one of the DVD units) and they are definatly hi quality and kinda cool. Hooking up a keyboard and mouse I have had fun pointing out errors or movie mistakes... (although I have learned not to do it during a movie
So many geeky toys and not enough time...
:)
If you already have a LD player and disks, why would you need an emulator ?