Watara Supervision

[Moondandy]

It is finally time to start a thread for the Watara Supervision. For anyone that doesn't know this system, it was a cheapo Asian handheld from 1992 and boasted around 65 games.

supervision1.jpg (40.77 KiB) Viewed 4991 times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watara_Supervision

Pierco worked on implementing this over a year ago, and had it in a decent WIP state, but he has not had time to go back to it with his work on other cores like Game & Watch. Jason has stepped up to pick up from where Pierco left off, to clean it up and try get it over the finish line. Excitingly there is now have a test build posted on the discord:

JasonA — Today at 10:58
Watara Supervision core. Added sv support via OSD. Updated to latest sys. Reverted to previous vram_addr calculation (still some vertical placement issues on some carts). Replaced 65c02 cpu with a more stable one. Thanks to @Pierco for allowing me to work a bit more on this core.

Supervision.rbf

(2.61 MiB) Downloaded 237 times

Currently there are issues with flickering in games with moving entities the cause of which is being looked into, and a few games either don't load or have issues that we don't know yet if are due to the core or are bad dumps, so further investigation is needed there. The No Intro set is the best for anyone looking to grab a pack of roms. This is an overview of what is currently working:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1080109513

Note: This sheet will go out of sync with the test build.

If anyone finds any issues or has feedback on the core, please post away. It's a going to be a fun wee core to have on the MiSTer, and another one that will no longer have FPGA implementation exclusive to the NT Mini. A big thanks for Pierco and Jason for working on it!

[Xbytez]

(how do I attach a .rbf file to download here?)

All you need to do is add the .rbf as an attachment to your post, I have done this for you on your post.

[Alkadian]

So many great surprises these days, many thanks to the devs for this new toy

[Moondandy]

These are the games that currently crash before getting into play:
Classic Casino (USA, Europe).sv
Climber (USA, Europe).sv
Final Combat (USA, Europe).sv
Pyramid (USA, Europe).sv
Super Block (USA, Europe).sv

These are the games with serious/game breaking issues:
Crystball (USA, Europe).sv
Dancing Block (USA, Europe).sv
Linear Racing (USA, Europe).sv
Olympic Trials (USA, Europe).sv
Penguin Hideout (USA, Europe).sv
Soccer Champion (USA, Europe).sv
Space Fighter (USA, Europe).sv

If anyone fancies helping out, it would be great to get these games checked on an emulator to see if they work without issues elsewhere. I am a bit scuppered using a Mac when it comes to niche emulators and don't currently have Mame or Retroarch set up, where there seems to be some level of support.

[NightShadowPT]

Wow... the gift that keeps on giving.

Now I'll finally be able to try the Watara Supervision... it's been years hearing about the thing without ever had tried any.

Thanks to the dev team!

[owlnonymous]

I'm super stoked on this core! I love weird handhelds with exclusive games.

I know it's early, but I tried out the test build and I'm getting 88.4Hz, which is giving both my analog out (reading at 320x480) and capture (1080p) issues. I'm sure this is already known. Looking forward to watching the core progress.

[Neocaron]

Tetris clone on the Supervision was awesome!

[Psygho]

THX! would be verry happy to see this fully funtional! Keep up the good work!!

[Xbytez]

This core now been released! Based upon initial work by Pierco and rewritten by Kitrinx.

GitHub for Watara Supervision:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SuperVision_MiSTer

[djsquare]

I never had one of these back then but it seems very familiar, as if I've seen it somewhere in maybe an old magazine or something. Thank you Kitrinx for brining us this and anyone else who made this happen

[_javi_]

Do games have to be in .sv or .bin format?
Core menu ask for .bin, but i see .sv posted in this thread.

I get a blank screen on my CRT TV after selecting the roms. Maybe this core doesnt work with DirectVideo (although the menu shows ok)

EDIT: updated rbf and everything is working fine. Sv files in zip format work ok.

[akeley]

I get a blank screen on my CRT TV after selecting the roms. Maybe this core doesnt work with DirectVideo (although the menu shows ok)

Yep, I doesn't seem to work on my Direct Video either. But, I don't even get the menu, just black screen on a consumer TV and rolling one on a PVM. So that's odd. Via IO board it works fine, I use games in .sv format.

[Moondandy]

Do games have to be in .sv or .bin format?
Core menu ask for .bin, but i see .sv posted in this thread.

I get a blank screen on my CRT TV after selecting the roms. Maybe this core doesnt work with DirectVideo (although the menu shows ok)

The release version has "*.bin,sv" in the menu, .sv definitely works

[seastalker]

THANK YOU AGAIN RYSHA! You are progressing very well at dethroning the NT Mini Noir's jailbreak core being the only obscure-console kid in town.

This timestamp shows the list I'm talking about:
https://youtu.be/NJnwmy78zn4?t=2663

[Newsdee]

being the only obscure-console kid in town.

At least MiSTer is the biggest obscure-computer kid in town