What's New

Hitachi Compiler upgraded to version 5.1 Release 3

Metrowork Codewarrior Added

C++ support was added, in the form of the Metrowerks CodeWarrior compiler and IDE environment. Full documentation is supplied in PDF format. Most sample programs in this release have been demonstrated to cross compile within the Metrowerks environment; for your convenience, CodeWarrior projects have been added to most sample programs.

Note

: The Hitachi linker automatically aligns certain data types that the Metrowerks compiler does not necessarily need to align. Due to the fact that some Shinobi libraries (such as Kamui) expect their data types to be naturally aligned, the following bit of code was added to samples to force the Metrowerks linker to make them work:

#ifdef __MWERKS__

#pragma align (4);

#endif

Kamui structures that previously happened to be allocated naturally at 32-byte aligned addresses should be forced to allocate at 32-byte addresses, if the CodeWarrior compiler is being used. For an example of this, see the QTDirect sample program.

Shinobi libraries upgraded to version 1.42

Including bug fix so that language reading function syCfgGetLanguage() now works.

New improved KAMUI2 libraries added

Even lower level access and flexibility given to developers through the Kamui2 interface. Note that this is the first release of this new API and as such has not undergone much testing - this should be therefore treated as a "Beta" release and we do not recommend that games nearing completion should be ported to this API at this stage. Click

here to have a quick guide to how to convert your Kamui1 programs to Kamui2.

Visual Memory SDK updated, and new tutorials added

Thirteen sample programs that demonstrate how to program the Visual Memory Unit (VMU) were added to the release. Also tutorial documentation is added. SDK and docs for VMU are found in the \vm_sdk directory.

Improved documentation

Check out our new HTML contents list

here. Note that because we like to make sure that European developers get the very latest in tools and libraries quickly as possible, some documentation does lag behind the latest versions. We have endeavored to keep this to a minimum - if you have any questions please do call DTS Europe.

Newly developed, detailed technical presentations were added to \doc\training. Information is also included about developing using Microsoft's Windows CE for Dreamcast (available separately). For your convenience, PowerPoint and Word viewer programs were added to \doc\training\viewers .

Build environment altered to support GMAKE and simpler makefiles

Microsoft Visual Studio is no longer required in order to build or run the sample programs included in this release. Instead, the build process is designed around the freely redistributable gnu make (gmake.exe) utility for Win32. Source code for the utility is included for your convenience.

Codescape, GDWorkshop tools and firmware upgraded to new versions

Audio64 driver and tools added *

The new Audio64 library was added. This is a new driver interface allows developers to play 64 sound samples simultaneously using the AICA engine. There are two APIs for this interface, implemented in ac.h and am.h. This library does not require the use of Macintosh tools in order to generate sound content. To support the Audio64 library, five command-line tools for processing audio were added to \util\snd\pc. Additionally, two sample programs showing how to use the new interface were added to \shinobi\sample\audio64.

Software Standards included

Click here

New firmware for GDR writer

Bugs fixed that caused crashes and bad GDROM to be burnt.

Middleware Libraries

True Motion 2 evaluation libraries added and updated version of CRI libraries. Documentation included.

IP Maker tool added

Simplify the process of editing and creating IP.BIN files using this new windows based utility. (utils/ipmaker)