East German Poly-Play

[Slein]

Hello everybody,

while being a little stuck with the KC85/4 core i found the Poly-Play arcade from East Germany was based on similar hardware. A Z80+CTC+PIO and all information to make it work could be found in the mame driver for it. I still have no way to test analog video out, so most likely HDMI only.

So here it is.

Some information about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poly_Play

[Dercheforp]

Thanks for the cool core! Works perfectly on the HDMI. On the analogue TV, only 3/4 of the picture can be seen and the sync is not yet correct. But at least most of the picture is displayed.

[tontonkaloun]

Yes ! Thanks for this cool core !

[Moondandy]

That's a neat core, are you planning to add it into Main? It's possible if you do someone could help on the analogue video side.

[mapf]

Thanks for your work. I saw (and played) a Poly-Play when I visited then then-still-GDR shortly after the introduction of the DM.

Your core outputs a 15KHz, 49Hz analog signal (according to my VGA monitor, who cannot sync to 15KHz modes, but shows the signal information). This looks promising.

[Slein]

Analog video is on my list for when i have an analog io board. Right now it outputs sync somewhere in the vicinity of a vga signal, but i aim for correct tv sync in the end. Though i'm not sure if that is whats needed.

Right now the roms are embedded in the core, i think that means its unfit for Main.

[Moondandy]

Ah right, yeah those would need to be loaded separately. Do you plan to do that?

Surprised they don't have one of those at either the DDR museum or Video Games Museum in Berlin, would be a great fit for either.

Always cool to find out about systems you have never heard of before, thanks for making this.

[Slein]

Yes, sooner or later i will have a look at how mra and all that stuff works.

The Video Games Museum in Berlin has one of them, i believe all the information that went into the mame driver came from that one.

[Moondandy]

Ah, I don't remember seeing one in the Berlin Games Museum, maybe missed it. Really like that museum, well worth a trip if anyone is in Berlin.

I posted a link to here in the discord group, apparently it's quite simple to strip out the ROMs. I am sure people could give pointers if you have any issues.

[Slein]

I removed the roms and added a mra file.

[Moondandy]

Nice one! Once it is in Main then the MAME-getter script can be updated to grab the ROMs and then anyone using that or the update all script will get the MRA and the ROMs.

[Slein]

I reworked the memory handling to support the Poly-Play 2 roms and added mra files for the newer hardware and the czech version.

There are a few new games in there

[tontonkaloun]

Hello

Thanks, very good job

[Alkadian]

I reworked the memory handling to support the Poly-Play 2 roms and added mra files for the newer hardware and the czech version.

There are a few new games in there

Great, thanks Slein. Everything is working fine, the MAME-getter script downloaded the roms correctly as well

BTW I do love Schießbude. It is a nice Carnival clone!

[Slein]

Last night i played a little longer and it crashed a couple of times. Looks like a bad idea to allow the cpu to write to rom areas, is fixed now.

the MAME-getter script downloaded the roms correctly as well

Good to know, didn't see that

Schießbude is kinda deeper than it looks at first glance, the reloading box top left, the multipliers top right. One of my favourites too. Hase & Wolf is good too.

[Alkadian]

Looks like a bad idea to allow the cpu to write to rom areas, is fixed now.

Thanks Slein, I will download and test it

[SkinnyV]

Very cool core! Thanks for working on this. I can’t wait to try it. It was also quite interesting to learn about this cabinet. I hope we can get a few Soviet arcade cores at some point too!

[Slein]

Could someone with a crt test the attached core? If the picture is ok i know what to aim for.

I hope we can get a few Soviet arcade cores at some point too!

I never heard of them, but had a quick look, really interesting stuff! see here

[alanswx]

Interesting system to build:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIA-MC-1

Not sure if there are enough docs

[Slein]

Theres a lot of info in the mame driver and some of the roms are available for mame.
https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/ma ... tiamc1.cpp

The basic system is russian equivalents to Intel 8080 tech, the memory layout is in the driver and the "only" thing left is the graphics hardware. Mame has a debugger built in to view memory and help around some obstacles.

[Slein]

I hope we can get a few Soviet arcade cores at some point too!

While waiting for my analog io board to arrive i had a look at the TIA-MC1 soviet arcade.
The graphics part is kind of complicated, but it boots and there is something on the screen to see.
Sprites, sound, input and other things are still missing and its not playable yet.
Konek-Gorbunok roms are hardcoded for development, but there are other games available too.

I will keep github updated.

Konek1.png (633.4 KiB) Viewed 9393 times

[MiSTer_Kirk]

When they were designing the Poly-Play, did they not think about putting the Joystick nearer the buttons ?
Anyway, where do you put the PolyPlay.rbf ? I tried putting it in "/media/fat/_Arcade/cores" but it doesn't show up in the menu. And the roms are from Mame 0.220 ?

[Slein]

Anyway, where do you put the PolyPlay.rbf?

Just run the update script, it should download everything you need.
The rbf in /_Arcade/cores/, the mras in /_Arcade/ and the roms (0.220) in /games/mame/

Btw, the joystick is on wrong side too! The soviet arcade has a similar layout, looks like that was the way to go back there and then.

[MiSTer_Kirk]

Just run the update script, it should download everything you need.
The rbf in /_Arcade/cores/, the mras in /_Arcade/ and the roms (0.220) in /games/mame/

Thanks. I'm always a little wary of the update script in case it breaks something, such as the Archie core breaking CRT 15khz - had to go back to an older core.

[Alkadian]

@Slein,

Thanks for the new core TIA-MC1! It looks so cool. I have just tried Konek-Gorbunok and I have enjoyed it a lot!

Thanks again!

[Slein]

Well, i messed up the update

But i'm glad you enjoyed the core

[Alkadian]

Well, i messed up the update

But i'm glad you enjoyed the core

[TLPD-AVW]

Great work on PolyPlay and TIA, but for some reason I can't get my CRT TV to sync up properly with both of them. I have a B&O MX7000 set (which I should probably get to recap once the global situation calms down) and I'm accustomed to manually adjusting "Hfq" value in its service menu to reduce a few rows of wavy lines at the top of the screen for various arcade cores not intended for regular home TV screens. However, both Eastern European cores produce rather strong distortion which causes the top third of the screen to constantly flicker, making it practically unusable. This is usually caused on my end by an off-spec refresh rate like in the case of Breakout core (63.45hz, way outside of acceptable range), but according to MAME these cores should both be very close to 50hz, so I'm a bit confused by the cause of the issue.

Is there anyone else here with sync problems on CRT? I am not excluding the issue with my particular TV set, but I want to be sure if it's not an common issue.

[Slein]

Thats the first time i get feedback from someone with a real crt-tv

My flatscreen has no problems to sync to both and i'm surprised there is so much of the picture missing on the right.
Give me a little time to think about it..

[lamarax]

I think what you're doing is the heart of the MiSTer project