Configuring and Running PC-98 Emulators for Touhou

[Agent of the BSoD]

This deserves to be made so you guys can be happier! I'll tell you about how to configure the PC-98 emulators for Touhou. If you have any problems with configuring them, let me know and I'll help you out with them as best as I can. Also please post here about this stuff so I can update this post to make things better!

Before you do anything, be sure to download EditDisk, because it's very helpful for English Patches and stuff inside the .hdi files.
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA013937/editdisk/editd165e2.zip


T98-Next English:
This is by far the best emulator for running these games, but it comes with a drawback, it lags like crazy and takes up a lot of RAM space, so make sure you don't have too many things running when you're using this. Luckily, unlike Anex86, this emulator comes with the font built in so you don't have to worry about that!
To work out the lag, there's just a few things to configure. It won't eliminate the lag but it will make it much better since I can't find a way to make it any faster.
Go to this link to download it if you don't have it already (it is the English version): http://www.mediafire.com/?myjyjyett2d
When you open it up, it looks kinda confusing. The top button on the left is the power button for the game, on or off. The second button is some pause thing but doesn't do anything for me. The third restarts the game, the fourth collapses the configuring screen you see, the ? is for help which still doesn't do anything for me, and the last closes Next.
Now to fix it up:
First, go to Mother Board Setting at the top. Under CPU, Type, it should be i486DX. (This is a later CPU type so it was more recent and better) Set Clock to Auto. Frame Rate should be at 1.00 and Memory Size at the max: 64 MB. All the Rom stuff should be unchecked I guess.
Under Device Manager, choose *GDC.nhw and click Setting. Set Frame Skip to AUTO. At the bottom I also have it display as 32bit and Display at Center. Mess with the Resolution if you want to.

The rest should be fine but there are a few things to can do if you want to, so they're optional:
Choose @Disk.nhw. This can be used to open up EditDisk through Next so under the EDIT Button, click browse and choose the EditDisk.exe application. Now in the Main, Disk, HD Drive where the game is, you can click Edit and open EditDisk that way.

EDIT #2: What you should have running, for what works for me at the moment, in the device manager is everything but *SCSI4CD.NHW and *SCSI4CDN.NHW. Also, open up @RS232C.NHW and where it has checked Port Setting fixed, un-check that. I have Use Port set to COM1 but I don't know what that is but it's working at the moment.
Just disable @RS232C.NHW altogether. It's working way better that way. It only lags when there is a MASSIVE cluster of bullets, and Mima's final attack if you haven't continued, lags a bit. But she's easy anyway so does it matter?

EDIT #1: Enable MPU98.NHW I just figured out that this is the option that lets you change the style of music like in Touhou 2. Yay me! Intelligent Mode should be checked, enable Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth in the MIDI Device thing (or whatever yours may say), Sample Rate at 44KHz and Use DirectMusic to Play should be checked. Don't check Swap to MT32. It takes out the MIDI version.

EDIT #3: Under Sound86.nhw, there is something to be changed that was apparently a glitch in Next. The Sound Configuration window should have High Quality checked, Sound Buffer at 100 (this may change depending on your computer and could cause less CPU usage, so move it around and see what makes yours faster), and everything should be at 20 EXCEPT for SSG, which should be around 5 (after testing this, it may need to be lower). I have I/O Board address at 188 (but I have no idea what it does yet) and Config Level at INT 5 (don't know what this is either).
Thanks to Master Bigode for this tip!
I also compared these to Hoot (now that I figured out what's going on) so this is about right, but I may change this later.
EDIT #4: SSG should be at 8. If you want to know how I tested this, check the beginning of page 2 (or post 31)

To load up a game, go back to Main, then DISK if it doesn't put you there automatically. Under HD DRIVE, double click the slot by the red box. Locate the Touhou game .hdi file and open it. Run the game by clicking on the first button on the left, described earlier. And there you go! (Mine says No Information above the game when selected so ignore it)

To full screen the game, start up the game (or have that full screen option check to do it for you) press F12 (which brings up this blue menu-like thing, then press F10. The same can be used to un-full screen it.


Anex86
This emulator is great with performance, usually. It doesn't require much RAM space at all, but the sound is not as good. It also has trouble with graphics often, like Sariel on Touhou 1, her bullets flash a lot.

Here's how to make it better.
Download it here: http://www.zophar.net/pc98/anex86.html
Download both files (there should be two listed on the site, one for the emulator, and the other for a font because anex needs a font pic thing to read text for whatever reason)
When you got both, make sure you put the ANEX86.bmp image somewhere where you can find it, I suggest the same folder anex is in. Open up ANEX86 and you get something more simple looking than T98-Next and legible.

To configure it, click Config. You should get a new window with LOTS of tabs for stuff. I'll start this at Window, so click it. Under Window Fix aspect ratio doesn't need to be checked by default, unless you stretched the emulation window then maybe that would help I would think. NEVER have Use palette animation checked. Under Window (DirectX required) DirectX should be checked. For Mode, Full screen can be checked to full screen the game when you start it up. (un-full screening the game causes this to uncheck for whatever reason). Use 32 bit color should be checked, Use 640 x 400 doesn't need to be checked since the games are already in that size. Re-initalize on switch didn't do anything for me so leave it unchecked.
For Draw, have all of them checked if you can. Older computers may have trouble with the fast parts checked so experiment for the right speed.
For Palette, again NEVER have it checked. Why it's in two places, I don't know.

EDIT: This just happened to me. If you're having trouble with fullscreen where it does something freaky, a good fix for this is to deselect use 640 x 400. This worked for me.

Go to Video tab. Update strategy should be set to Sync and the number set to 1. (I believe this is the frame rate). For misc., NEVER have GDC clock 5MHz checked. I forget what this does and the palette animation does but just don't use them. Real time palette doesn't need to be checked either.
Display mode (text): Force text mode doesn't need to be checked along with Display mode (graph): Force graph mode. Disable lo-res should be checked but I don't notice anything but it's good to have that checked anyway.

Am I done yapping yet? Nope, not quite. Next is the Font, so go there.
For file name, click the ... and find the anex86.bmp font and choose it. Done. It's that easy. Leave the rest as is.
Important Note: There is a better font for the translated English version of Touhou 2 here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ek0otznmwn2

Under Timing, just leave those two unchecked and the GDC should both be at one, but I don't think it's using them so whatever.
Ignore MEM SW and DIP SW.

RTC: I have Refresh checked to keep real time for the emulator.

Fdd/Hdd: I have 1M under FDD interface checked but we're using HDD so you can leave it too.

Sound: This one is important so don't skip it. Under type, set it to -86 and check real. For the enable part: just check all of them because it makes the music a bit more decent and adds some more instruments.

Wave: Set Rate/Buffer to the max, 55KHz and set buffer to 16. You may have to move that number around (lower for me makes the music almost not play at all, just bits of it, but see what your computer can handle) What this fixes is Anex's terrible sound delay. Also, have Use wave out checked. The scrollers should all be in the middle, which is fine for me.

Under Manager, I don't have anything checked so ignore it.

System: Under Machine, check Ext-RAM and it should be at 1,024. The Processor should be normal and so should be Emulator Priority. I used to have the Speed min checked at 100,000 but I don't need it now (it helps speed it up if the game is running slow) NEVER have Speed max checked under any setting because for some random reason, it drastically makes the game run slow.

Keyboard: I have Use Windows's layout and Use DirectX and convert scan code checked. Everything else is unchecked.

Mouse: Check Use DirectX. The Capture for Full screen and Windowed make the mouse disappear when in that mode. (when windowed, it only disappears when it's over the game) The Speed for me is at the middle since you don't use the mouse for these games to my knowledge.

JoyStick: use if you've got a joystick, obviously. It's self explanatory but if you've got problems with it, try asking here and someone may be able to help you.

That should be it. Now to run the game, click the ... button by HDD1 back on the small screen you started with and choose your .hdi file, then click Start. Also, don't have either of the check boxes here checked. To full screen, hold Alt, then press Enter. Same can be used to un-full screen.


So there ya go! Again, comment about how it works for you here and what problems you have.
There is one more emulator if I recall but I never had any luck with it before so I'll post it in here later if you're actually using it.
It was Neko Project II. I'm not going to, as you can read below, because Touhou doesn't run on it.

Have fun!

[Momiji]

This was pretty much already covered here, even though the thread doesn't have a clear title.  But it's good to have an all-inclusive Howto.

Anyway, the buttons on the right side of T98-Next are Power, Sleep/Resume, Reset, Toggle hardware settings, Help, and Quit.  The Sleep/Resume switch is only used for the PC98 version of Windows, it's probably not going to be supported under DOS games.

The PC98 had support for RS232 (Serial) ports, generally used for serial port mice, and a SCSI controller for adding a CDROM or other SCSI devices.  These are emulated by the RS232C.NHW and SCSI4CD.NHW/SCSI4CDN.NHW drivers, respectively.  The games don't use these at all.

The machines also had MPU401 (MIDI) ports along with it's standard sound synthesis hardware, so you could plug in an external MIDI synthesizer.  T98-Next emulates this by outputting to whatever MIDI synths are set up in Windows (generally it's built-in software synth) or Timidity++ under Linux, via the MIDI port driver (MPU98.NHW).

About the PC98 sound hardware, the -26 and -86 options actually refer to different sound cards available to the PC98.  The first uses a Yamaha YM2203 FM synth chip, which only has 3 FM channels and 3 SSG (square wave PSG) channels.  The second uses a YM2608, which has 6 FM channels, 3 SSG channels, a freely-useable ADPCM channel, and six "RSG" percussion channels with one preset percussion sound each.  IIRC the first two PC98 Touhou games only support the first-generation sound card, so you won't get any changes with -86, but the later games do, and the difference is dramatic.  Also, the Anex86 implementation of the -86 sound card lacks the RSG channels, they only seem to work in T98-Next.

As far as Anex86 goes, it has a lot of problems working under Wine/Linux so I personally don't use it at all.  It also seems to have a lot of odd glitches here and there so I generally don't recommend it for use.

An aside, about Anex86, the RTC option is the Real-time Clock, which I don't think is necessary for any of the Touhou games.  But a lot of these options are generally just mapping existing hardware in your computer so I don't think it's consuming any real "resources", as far as being an emulator goes.

[Agent of the BSoD]

Yes, well... I only put this here because this does have more stuff you can do to the emulator to make it better. It's very detailed for people who are having trouble with theirs. Plus, it mentions a fix for Anex's sound lag which I never found in the other post for it.

Also, I can't fix the lag completely on Next because it wastes too much RAM. I beat SoEW's Hard and Mima on her final wave was terrible. (but I had bombs, so I would've won anyway)

[Raydere]

I'm having issues getting a joystick to work with the PC98 games. The fire and bomb buttons work fine, as does directional input, but it seems that there is no way to have a focus button on a joystick, even if I have at least 6 buttons on it. Am I stuck without a focus button (with no way to have one) if I use a joystick then?

I've tried using Google to solve this issue, but it seems that no one knows about this issue, making Google a complete waste of time.

[orinrin]

I'm having issues getting a joystick to work with the PC98 games. The fire and bomb buttons work fine, as does directional input, but it seems that there is no way to have a focus button on a joystick, even if I have at least 6 buttons on it. Am I stuck without a focus button (with no way to have one) if I use a joystick then?

I've tried using Google to solve this issue, but it seems that no one knows about this issue, making Google a complete waste of time.

The only time I've been able to utilize focus on a stick was to use either Joy2Key or Xpadder.  It's a nifty program that maps button presses to keyboard keys.  I suggest you check it out.

[Agent of the BSoD]

I'm having issues getting a joystick to work with the PC98 games. The fire and bomb buttons work fine, as does directional input, but it seems that there is no way to have a focus button on a joystick, even if I have at least 6 buttons on it. Am I stuck without a focus button (with no way to have one) if I use a joystick then?

I've tried using Google to solve this issue, but it seems that no one knows about this issue, making Google a complete waste of time.

I can't help you with that part since I don't own a joystick at all. But it would be nice to know what happens with SUPREME's suggestions. Let me know so I can update the first post.

[djvj]

How do you remap the keys used in game for either emulator. I prefer t98-next, but if this cannot be done, I would like to know how to do it for anex86 then.

T98 I can't find anywhere to change the keys. Anex86 though, I see the keyboard tab, but when I try clicking the buttons and pressing the keys I want, they don't seem to do what I wanted them to. Is there some secret to this?

Joystick I can get to work just fine though. But I want to assign certain keys to match other emulators.

[Romantique Tp]

Are you trying to play on a pad ? If so use either joy2key or Xpadder, because the emulated pad doesn't have a third (focus) button.

[djvj]

Edited my post above, didn't think I would get a reply so fast

I have joyticks working fine. But in my arcade cab, I have an IPAC. No joysticks.

So for instance, player 1 would be:
Shot - E
Bomb  - Z
Focus - X

[djvj]

Ok, I figured out what I was doing wrong with remapping keys in anex86:

On keyboard tab, start fresh by pressing Reset, this will reset the options to enable just Window's Layout and Convert Scan Code. Then press Reset Layout to reset any previous mappings you have on the keyboard below.

The default keys are:

Player 1
Directionals
RTY
FGH
VBN
Actions
shot - z
bomb - X

Player 2
Directionals
789
456
123
Actions
shot - left arrow
bomb - right arrow

esc - pause

To correctly remap these keys:

First press the key in the anex86 window that you want to move. Follow this by pressing the physical key on your keyboard where you want to move it.

For instance, I want to remap A to S, I would click the A in anex86, then hit the S key on my keyboard.


Now if someone could tell me how to do this in T98-next, I would be very grateful.

[Agent of the BSoD]

I just looked into Next. It doesn't appear to have that option at all. There is a Key thing but it doesn't look like it's for controls. Unless a keymapper would work, I have no idea otherwise.

[djvj]

I can remap keys in autohotkey as a last resort, but the emulator should be able to do it. So it's pretty sad they never added such basic functionality.

I did see that key setting though, not sure what it does it's all characters that make no sense to me.


On another note, even anex86 is buggy with remapping keys. For instance, I can remap player 2's shot to the B key (because B was never used for anything) and it works fine. But if I go and remap player 1's controls to the arrow keys, it doesn't work. It seems like you can only remap buttons that weren't used before.

If anybody figured out anything on being able to do this, please let me know.

[djvj]

Just an update, I used T98 and remapped all the keys using a script I made in autohotkey to do everything I was looking for. Game now works great with 2 players using all custom keys.

[Agent of the BSoD]

All right. I decided that I'm going to try to get Neko Project working this time. I'm just confused on one thing. The latest version of Neko has two links for two different downloads, as seenhere. http://yui.ne.jp/np2/
The first one is "Japanese" and the second is "Global". I have both of them but they seem identical, yet they are different. Can someone please clarify this for me? Or at least which one I should get?

[Momiji]

"Global" is in English.  Also, NPII only emulates the older PC98 models that had a 286, which won't play Touhou games, while T98Next emulates the later 486 models.  Kinda sad, since NPII seems to have a lot of neat options like multiple soundcard configurations.

[Agent of the BSoD]

"Global" is in English.  Also, NPII only emulates the older PC98 models that had a 286, which won't play Touhou games, while T98Next emulates the later 486 models.  Kinda sad, since NPII seems to have a lot of neat options like multiple soundcard configurations.

Darn. Well... now that I have it, I'm gonna mess with it anyway to see what it can do, maybe with some other games.

[Agent of the BSoD]

Yep. I see what you mean. I've only tested Touhou 1. It does the starting animation of the blue circles, then goes back to DOS screen and shows:
A>op
then sits there indefinitely, no matter what or where I change the settings on it. It sucks, cause I've heard from looking on Google that Neko is a good emulator, when it works.

Edit: Well, it looks like all the touhou games do different things.
Touhou 2 shows the above message along with the dreaded red lettered japanese text with STOP in it.
3 Displays the STOP text in WITH the dos screen for running the game,
4 has Himem test extended memory "...done.", then sits there,
5 shows only the STOP message.

This makes me very sad. The groups that made the emulators should have finished them, not leave them as a work in progress.
It just makes me, one day when I'm a programmer, to get together a group and actually finish an emulator for these games (or at least for touhou). I've actually been thinking about this for a long time.

And, while browsing google, I found this. I guess I missed that thread the first time through.

[Momiji]

This makes me very sad. The groups that made the emulators should have finished them, not leave them as a work in progress.

They're not WIPs, NPII just emulates those certain older types of PC98s.  NEC released PC98 machines for 18 years, starting from the PC-9801 with an 8086 all the way up to the PC-9821 with a first-generation Celeron.

Specifically, the PC98 Touhou games are probably 32-bit programs; where T98Next and Anex86 support the early 32-bit (486-based) models, NPII supports the 16-bit (286-based) models.

If you want to work on something though, work on implementing PC98 support in Dosbox.

[Agent of the BSoD]

If you want to work on something though, work on implementing PC98 support in Dosbox.

That would actually be very cool. Not sure how choppy that would be though. Unless I could post a request to the dosbox team to try to put it in the program. They probably won't, though, since they're still making a lot of the dos games work on their emulator. Don't get me wrong though, it's a good emulator.
I'm not much of a programmer just yet though. I just started college and I'm learning C++ at the moment.

[Momiji]

That would actually be very cool. Not sure how choppy that would be though. Unless I could post a request to the dosbox team to try to put it in the program. They probably won't, though, since they're still making a lot of the dos games work on their emulator.

The processor cores are already done, you just need the rest of the machine reimplemented (video and soundcards, expansion bus, memory management, etc.).  Outside of that, they still run MS-DOS (and Windows for the later machines).  I think someone on IRC had tried pushing this to the Dosbox devs but I don't remember the outcome.

[Agent of the BSoD]

The processor cores are already done, you just need the rest of the machine reimplemented (video and soundcards, expansion bus, memory management, etc.).  Outside of that, they still run MS-DOS (and Windows for the later machines).  I think someone on IRC had tried pushing this to the Dosbox devs but I don't remember the outcome.

If they've tried already, they probably rejected it, since nothing has come out of them for PC98 yet. They probably didn't think it was a good idea.

[Momiji]

They probably didn't think it was a good idea.

If I remember right, it was more them being retarded than anything else.  =/

What sucks, I've already been able to run some very basic PC98 DOS programs (specifically PMD98) in Dosbox, without changes to the emulator.  It helps that both systems used MS-DOS and whatnot.

[Agent of the BSoD]

What sucks, I've already been able to run some very basic PC98 DOS programs (specifically PMD98) in Dosbox, without changes to the emulator.  It helps that both systems used MS-DOS and whatnot.

Was that an hdi file or something else? The only thing I can recall dosbox can run are exe's.

Also to note, I think I will ask the Dosbox team to incorporate PC98 in there. I'll make it a nice paragraph too, so maybe they could have PC98 run much better, because Dosbox is clearly a great emulator. (except for Tomb Raider 1, it's terrible with that)

[Momiji]

Was that an hdi file or something else? The only thing I can recall dosbox can run are exe's.

DOS exes for the PC98, not hdi files.  Basically any DOS program should work as long as it isn't accessing anything outside of what DOS provides, since the PC98 expansion bus and whatnot is different.

Also to note, I think I will ask the Dosbox team to incorporate PC98 in there. I'll make it a nice paragraph too, so maybe they could have PC98 run much better, because Dosbox is clearly a great emulator. (except for Tomb Raider 1, it's terrible with that)

Good luck with that, hopefully they respond positively about it.  As for Tomb Raider, Dosbox doesn't emulate any 3d graphics accelerator chip.

[Agent of the BSoD]

I did send them a message and they have replied back. Look below for the conversation.

Me:

Hello DOSBox crew! I actually have something to ask of you.

I was wondering if you would be able to implement the PC-98 series into DOSBox. The PC-98 is an older, japanese computer, which is very similar to the DOS platform. The PC-98 had only a few extensions added to it to make if run.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_PC-9801

The reason I'm asking this is because of the current emulators for PC-98. The one's we have right now will run the game, but not too well. There are three emulators right now for this series. Neko Project II is one of them, but is limited to very old games, so it's kinda useless. Anex86 is a popular emulator in that it maintains the fps decently well, but the music, sound effects, and graphics are very bad. T98-Next is the emulator that play the music well, and the graphics are good too, but the problem is that it takes up all of the computer's CPU usage, and in turn, slows down the game and the computer.

That is why I'm asking you guys if you would like to include PC-98 into the DOSBox platform. If you are able, that would be great, since we've all had to deal with these problems. Well, we meaning the people that like these games for the emulators. There would be only a few things to modify, since I heard someone was able to run some PC-98 thing in DOSBox and it ran fine.

Contact me back, and thanks for listening!

Them:

Don't think there is much interest within my crew to add it.
We tend to add things to dosbox that we like to add and we have no
japanese people in our crew so little exposure to the PC98.
 
I checked the wiki page you linked and it had a link to ROMs and
things like that. That is something we don't like very much either.
DOSBox is usuable as such, without the need to download a ROM or
something like that. The name ROM could be misleading though.
 
One of the problems of the approach of dosbox is that we emulate each
instruction at the exact same speed. So games relying on timing using
the cpu instructions. (which I suspect most PC98 are, given the
hardware was fixed and not as diverse as the regular PCs) will not run
very well inside dosbox.
 
You might indeed have luck by loading a DOS based pc98 emulator inside
dosbox if they are already very similar.
 
However on the wikipage:
The PC98 is different from the IBM PC in many ways; for instance, it
uses its own 16 bit C-Bus instead of the ISA bus; BIOS, I/O port
addressing, memory management, and graphics output are also different.
 
Given that we emulate all those things (aside from the ISA bus), I
guess it is not as simple as it appears at first glance.

Well, so much for that. I sent a 'thanks' message back.
I guess we'll have to live with what we got. Can't say I haven't tried. (unless there is a way to make next run better in DOSBox, but I don't think that's possible.)

[Romantique Tp]

Anyone who tried T98 Next has probably noticed that the bass instruments are way too loud.
To fix this, run T98, go to the Device Manager tab and then highlight Sound86.nhw and click on "Setting". There, change the volume of the SSG channel to 5.
Doing so makes it sound nearly as good as FMDMD, as well as making the music from HRtP sound good.

I also recommend increasing the sound buffer value a little, as this decreases the CPU/RAM usage.

On T98 Next vs Anex86: T98 is definitely the best emulator for PC-98 touhou games.

[Agent of the BSoD]

Doing so makes it sound nearly as good as FMDMD

Mind filling me in on what that is? :V

I also recommend increasing the sound buffer value a little, as this decreases the CPU/RAM usage

Also, I think you mean decrease the buffer value. Mine was defaulted to 100, so brought it up to 120 and my CPU usage gadget said my CPU usage was at 100%. So I decreased it to 80 and my CPU usage decreased to 64% roughly.

EDIT: Also, decreasing the SSG to 5 does make it sound much better. Next now sounds more like hoot. (I tried it with "Magic Mirror" from the original Touhou 1 game. Thanks!

[Romantique Tp]

Mind filling me in on what that is? :V

It's a music player for PMD format files(.m/.m2).
It sounds like sex. As in, better than Hoot IMO.
http://c60.fmp.jp/download.html

It can't play .MDT files though. (HRtP music)

Also, I think you mean decrease the buffer value. Mine was defaulted to 100, so brought it up to 120 and my CPU usage gadget said my CPU usage was at 100%. So I decreased it to 80 and my CPU usage decreased to 64% roughly.

Weird. Increasing it made the emulator run better for me.

[Agent of the BSoD]

Weird. Increasing it made the emulator run better for me.

I made a new discovery! Putting the sound buffer at 80 makes the game like EoSD without the vsync patch, BUT EVEN BETTER!! Now your movements are even more delayed or may not happen AT ALL!! (batteries included  :V)

Yeah, that sound buffer does weird things. I guess that it depends on the computer being used, so everyone will have something different happen. I'll fiddle with it for a while though.

EDIT: I fixed the first post for all of this music stuff.

[Momiji]

Doing so makes it sound nearly as good as FMDMD, as well as making the music from HRtP sound good.

Oh yeah, that reminds me.  I had forgotten my previous use of FMDMD, it's an awesome alternative to hoot and it's a lot easier to get working in Wine (for anyone using Linux/OS X).  Unfortunately it doesn't have the awesome hardware status display that hoot has.