• New Games Added: Pang! 3 (Euro, Mitchell) and Sangokushi 2 (Asia)
• Pang! 3 loading and GFX problems some were experiencing should now be fixed. Please let us know if your still having problems.
• Speech Samples in Forgotten Worlds / Lost Worlds now play at the correct speed.
• The Qsound hack of Street Fighter 2 now plays samples correctly ("you win" sample for example)

• Compiled with Allegro 3.9.27 WIP with additions by Antiriad. All speed problems Raine 0.28g had should be fixed with this.
• Compiled with SEAL 1.07 for better compatibility with PCI soundcards.
• Feveron EEPROM issues fixed. Insert Coin and the test mode are working now.
• Puzzle Bobble 1 (B-System version) added.
• Macross 2 added. Very preliminary, playable, but with loads of graphical glitches.
• All unreleased sets are removed, will help you to complete your romset by showing you only missing stuff that you really can find out there (don't bug neither me nor Antiriad about roms).
• Added the MAME names for some romsets (e.g. DFEVERON for Dangun Feveron).
• The Cave games (Dangun Feveron, Uo Poko & Esprade) will run much better with a 16-bit screen mode. For that you will need to change "bpp = 8" to "bpp = 16" in the raine.cfg file. Don't try to run any other games in a 16-bit screen mode as it won't work.
• This one release doesn't mean that Raine is alive again. Its future is still very uncertain and maybe you will never heard again of it. Maybe you will.
• If you need support for this release don't bug Antiriad. Drop into #Raine, EFNet and try to ask there (no rombegging).

• better graphics (more colors, smoother animation)
• now the player's ship is also replaced by a sprite (this was hard)
• 10 different MIDI songs as background music

• added: scantime, rebuildtime and some rebuilderstatistics
• misc: optimized zipscanner
• misc: a lot gui changes & some source cleanup
• misc: support for zip32.dll version 2.3
• misc: support for ROMCenter 2 datfiles
• misc: fixoptions aren't restored by a fastscan operation
• fixed: small rebuilder stopping bug

• In sync with the DOS 0.37 beta 3 build. [Aaron Giles]
• Minor bugfix in the Z80 core for the Leland games. [Aaron Giles]

I really look forward to this! :-)

"The emulator is still in its infancy. It will be released soon (for free until I am confident of the product). This first release will include at least one driver file for Z80-based games. This release will happen sometime this month."

The main idea behind Mimic is that the emulator runs off text based driver files that should be easy to write. This means:

1. You don't have to change the executable to add a ROM set
2. You don't need a compiler to add a ROM set
3. I don't have to release source code. This means I have more quality control (and I can release as commercial later if I want).
4. You don't need to know C to add a ROM set.
5. VERY small executables.

• added: optional scanner option "hide fixed"
• added: showall/hideall option to expand tree in ScanResults
• misc: added some warnings (import, backup)
• misc: optimized zipscanner
• fixed: unneeded/name check for sets with exactly one rom

"Aaron Giles has finally updated the Leland driver to work almost perfectly, the games include Ataxx, World Soccer Finals, Indy Heat, Super Off-Road, Pigout, Viper, All American Football and much more! I hear a MAME WIP update is coming soon too!"

"Mike DX of EmuDX and the Monaco GP Simulator, has been kind enough to share a some WIP imformation on the Monaco GP Simulator. It seems that both scrolling and collision are working at this point, however the simulator is still in the early stages, and a fair amount of work remains."

I certainly look forward to this simulator! :-)

"News About Metal Slug 3:"
"Many people have been waiting for the news for a long time. Now many rumors are spreading on the net. One of them says it is already dumped but has graphic glitches, and requires patches on P2 and S1 files. If you believe rumors like that, you're fooled... :p Yes Metal Slug 3 is already dumped, but MS3 is compressed with 64 bit method, so no emulator is capable of playing it... :p (NeoRageX doesn't support 64 bit compression) We have to wait for the next version of NeoRageX or modify MAME ourselves... :p It is said that the next version of NeoRageX may not be released to public.(This is not confirmed) Be there any further news I'll tell you folks. I'm too busy on my job... :~("
"Billy Jr."

Thanks to dewen for another tranlation as well and please keep in mind that this is just the translated newsbit from Billy Jr. and I can't confirm or disprove anything!

"There is an added large fonts mode, see links below the top of screen Toaplan logo. Updated almost all CDs missing information in the Soundtracks page. Added links for most games to other relevant sites, plus some more information for some games."

Toaplan programmed some of the best shoot'em ups in arcade history, take a look for yourself!

"If anyone is going to attend this years E3 show in the Los Angeles area, please feel free to stop by and visit us. HanaHo Games will be inside the Capcom boot #424 in the Los Angeles Convention Center South Hall. We will have a HotRod and an Arcade PC mini there for people to see on display."

So if you are one of the lucky guys to attend this show and always wondered about HanaHo's products then be sure to visit them and say hello from me too! :-)

• misc: FakeClones in split-merged sets aren't shown anymore.
• misc: timeout for receiving data
• misc: cache cleanup when necessary
• fixed: test for unneeded samples
• fixed: gui bugs, text bugs
• fixed: fastscan loading bug

• Logiqx fixed some broken things in the latest MAME source; he added the missing "Warrior" sample support and fixed MAME so "gamelist, listinfo, listsamdir, listsamples and verifysamples work as expected for all games."
• Prophet got in touch with the guys who are supposed to continue the System16 emulator and they said that screenshots of the improved emulator should be released soon.
• PacMAME was updated to v0.37 beta2! Be sure to take a look at this amazing project which supports more them 140 different versions of PacMan!

• added: export of current data
• added: new datfile keyword 'forcemerging'
• misc: "Display LI Errors" -> "List Data Errors"
• misc: added new warning: "clones which exist totally in the parent set" to "List Data Errors"
• misc: removes old ( < cmpro 1.4) cache files
• misc: window positions/sizes repair
• misc: profile/fastscans/logfile foldernames are now relativ pathvalues
• misc: fastscans/logfiles strings are initialized when creating a new profile
• fixed: RomCenterDatfile Import
• fixed: verification of 'Allow Double Names'

• HobbesAtPlay wrote a very useful message for everybody who likes to help with the MAME highscore datfile in which he explains the format of the highscore-entries!
• The Arcadeflyer pack #19 from the Arcade Flyer Archive had some corrupt images in it, be sure to download the updated archive!

"Hey people, well, after a weekend in our computer room at college plus 300 bottles of coke we finally have some goodies for you: Turbo Outrun is decrypted and running 100% perfect on current System 16 emu. No changes (well, the support) have to be made to the emu. Afterburner I+II are both running and playable, but a few bugs keep it from being perfect. Nothing to worry, after some hours of sleep we'll get back to work".

Let's hope that this is true and maybe this opens the way to decrypt the whole bunch of encrypted Sega System16 romsets as well.

• misc: added some folders to the archive...so you can clean up your cmpro folder :o) Only zip32.dll, cmpro.exe, _last.cmp and cmpro.txt should be the only files (beside the new folders) in your cmpro folder...you should put fastscans, datfiles, cache data to the new dirs. ! OLD DEFAULT BACKUPPATH WAS RENAMED !
• misc: emulator binary isn't needed anymore if CMPro already cached the data from this binary
• misc: 'fix missing' will be called even if a rom checksum is wrong not only when a rom is missing
• misc: all FolderBrowser are initialized with the last used folder
• misc: internal data will now be stored in 'cache' folder.
• fixed: gui bug

• Added AUTO support for 16bit Colour. You can now let MAME decide, or force 8 or 16bit depending on your tastes.
• Added support for Gravis GrIP and Gravis GrIP (constrained).
• Finally added the most-requested feature of these last few months - support for Hotrod and Hotrod SE joysticks. Although they're called differently from the command line, they're included in the standard Joystick menu in FEMAME.
• Added support for -triplebuffer and -notriplebuffer, as requested by various people lately.
• Added support for -translucency and -notranslucency, just to finish off the vector options.
• Renamed "16bit Col" to "Col.Depth" and changed the options from "AUTO, YES, NO" to "AUTO, 16bit, 8bit". No actual changes to the underlying code, it's just a cosmetic thing - your settings from the old version will be retained.
• And finally - I got fed up of the beta cycle. Not many problems were being reported so I renumbered this release to 2.01.

• Compiled with Allegro 3.9.32 WIP
• Compiled with SEAL 1.07
• Dr Toppel, Plump Pop, Kiki Kai Kai, fixed hopefully.
• Twin Cobra 2 might be tweaked better with any luck.
• Now works properly with more than 256 games (hah).

• Ç Fixed problem where MacMAME would crash if the 'hiscore.dat' file was converted to Mac line-endings (e.g. by Stuffit Expander). [Brad Oliver]

and two tips for Macintosh users:

• This build of MacMAME ships with the most current 'hiscore.dat' file available as of this writing, so until a new one is released, you don't need to go to the extra effort of downloading and installing it.
• I recommend you turn off "Convert text files to Macintosh format" in the Stuffit Expander and the Magic Menu preferences. Sooner or later, you'll download a file that Stuffit will mistakenly convert that should remain in it's original format (e.g. an Unreal add-on or a Dark Forces add-on, neither of which are text files). Better to play it safe and disable this option than end up with corrupted files and the wasted time and effort.

• AstDX is an emulator for Atari's Asteroids arcade machine with newly designed graphics and sound. It uses Atari's program ROMs from 1979, but instead of drawing vector graphics as in the original game, most game objects are replaced by animated sprites.
• In the original arcade machine the sound is made with special circuits for each sound effect. In the emulator this is achieved with digital samples (.wav files). I added also a background music track in MIDI format.
• AstDX runs under DOS.