Voldorium 1.1.0

To install: download Voldorium-1.1.0-windows.zip below, unzip it anywhere you can write to, start Voldorium.exe and choose your own disc dump (.gdi). The first start builds the game from your disc after asking (it downloads the compiler, about 190 MB, once). See the README's Installing section. The download holds no game code.

Changed

• The game's code is now a module of its own, sc_game.dll, and Voldorium.exe holds none of it (885 KB instead of 17.5 MB; the build checks for translated functions and pieces of the game's executable). The module talks to the runtime through a fixed table of about twenty functions and variables. Same game: screenshots from the menus into a fight are byte-identical to 1.0.10, SyncTest and netplay checksums match, and the game runs within a few percent of 1.0.10's speed (unpaced; far inside a 60 fps frame). Builds of the module are reproducible: the same disc and version give the same file on every PC.
• The lobby's build key now also covers the translator, so players who meet online run the same game module as well as the same executable.

Added

• A ready-to-run Windows download (Voldorium-1.1.0-windows.zip, about 2 MB): unzip it, start Voldorium.exe, choose your disc dump. It holds no game code.
• First start builds the game from your disc. A Voldorium folder without sc_game.dll (the download, or tools/build.py --only release) builds it at its first start, after saying what it downloads and asking: builder/first_run.bat extracts, translates and compiles, in about half a minute on a fast PC once the tools are there. A module from another version is rebuilt the same way.

All builds need your own legal disc dump of SoulCalibur (USA, T-1401N, V1.000); see the README.

Voldorium 1.0.10

Fixed

• Arcade: the VS screen before Inferno was garbled for a moment (#2). The VS screen's last picture is held while the next stage loads, but the hold only started after a megabyte or more of textures at once, and the stage before Inferno is smaller. It now starts as soon as the stage's textures overwrite the VS screen's own.

All builds need your own legal disc dump of SoulCalibur (USA, T-1401N, V1.000); see the README.

Voldorium 1.0.9

Fixed

• GRAPHICS > LOADING sent the game into character select and it could not be left (#2): the menu did not recognise its new line and passed the choice on to the game's own menu. Selecting it now switches between ORIGINAL and FAST as intended.

Everything from 1.0.8 is included.

Voldorium 1.0.8

Fixes from the first issue reports (#1, #2) and more.

Fixed

• Practice: FREESTYLE SETTINGS > GUARD IMPACT stopped the game ("call/jump to 8c032a36: no
  translated function"). The translator now also follows the calls made by functions found
  through pointer tables, which brought in the one function that was missing.
• Practice menus in 16:9: the pause menu, the command list and the attack data panel were
  pulled apart (some lines at the left, some in the middle, some at the right). In fights, a
  window's pieces now move together with the window.
• Character select: dark and bright lines sweeping across the animated background. The
  light streaks behind the portraits are 3D strips; a strip with a point behind the camera was
  mistaken for flat 2D artwork and narrowed for 16:9 while its neighbours were not, so cracks
  opened between them and showed what lies behind (a bright band, or black). Triangles that
  reach behind the camera are also left out now, as the Dreamcast does: some graphics cards drew
  them as black streaks.
• Options menu: the scrolling logos flickered at the sides and were cut in half: they now
  repeat across the whole 16:9 picture.
• Mission Battle map: the markers flickered and jumped between two positions (whenever the
  flying comet reached the edge of the screen). The map is now drawn undistorted with its
  markers, with a blurred copy of the map at the sides.
• Character select (Practice, VS): the two big portraits were stretched once both players
  had picked: they are no longer taken for a background picture.
• Before each fight: a garbled VS screen, and the VS screen rushed (#2).
  Disc reads were instant, so the VS screen was cut short and its sideways sweep-in barely
  played, and the stage's textures replaced its pictures while it was still shown. Disc reads
  outside fights now take the Dreamcast drive's time (as in Flycast), so the VS screen lasts as
  long as on the console, and its last whole picture stays on screen while the fight loads.
  Fights keep instant reads (online play is not affected).
• The intro ran too fast: it streams from the disc, so with instant reads it outran the
  original. With the drive's timing it now lasts as long as in Flycast (9031 frames against
  about 9040).

Added

• Fast loading (GRAPHICS menu: LOADING ORIGINAL / FAST; [game] loading in
  voldorium.ini): FAST makes every disc read instant, as in 1.0.7 (the VS screen is then cut
  short again, but no longer garbled). Online matches always load at the original speed, so both
  players stay in step.
• High resolution hit level labels in Practice: the HIGH / MID / S-MID / LOW and "!" labels
  shown at a hit were 64 x 64 pixel pictures drawn several times larger (blocky, and no
  smoothing could add the detail). They are redrawn at 4 times the size in the same style
  (tools/hitlabels.py), in every colour the game uses (the art follows the game's palette),
  with the same proportions as the originals. New: replacement art for any texture
  (textures folder, port/m1/tex.c).

Changed

• The memory card save screen ("Saving SOULCALIBUR game data...", on the way back to the
  main menu) takes 0.3 s instead of 2.5 s: it runs 8 times as fast, showing every eighth
  frame. The game saves exactly as before.

Voldorium 1.0.7

Source only: build it from your own legal disc dump of SoulCalibur (USA, T-1401N) with Build Voldorium.bat (see the README). No game files or executables are distributed.

Fixed

• No version number and no system text when the game was started from another folder (a shortcut or launcher whose "Start in" folder is not the Voldorium folder): the BIOS font (biosfont.bin) was looked for in that folder. It is now always looked for next to Voldorium.exe. The screen resolution was not the cause.

Full list of changes: CHANGELOG.md

Voldorium 1.0.6

You need your own legal disc dump of SoulCalibur (USA, T-1401N, V1.000). This release contains no game code, no game data and no executable: you build Voldorium on your own PC from your own dump.

How to build: download Source code (zip) below, unzip it, double-click Build Voldorium.bat and choose your .gdi file. It fetches its tools (about 220 MB, once, checksum-verified) and opens the finished Voldorium folder. Details and troubleshooting are in the README.

Everyone who builds this release gets an identical Voldorium.exe, so players on 1.0.6 can meet in Online Versus (other versions do not see each other).

Fixed

• The version number in the main menu's corner was hard to see over the unlocked main menu's
  bright background: it now has a dark outline, readable over any background.

Voldorium 1.0.5

You need your own legal disc dump of SoulCalibur (USA, T-1401N, V1.000). This release contains no game code, no game data and no executable: you build Voldorium on your own PC from your own dump.

How to build: download Source code (zip) below, unzip it, double-click Build Voldorium.bat and choose your .gdi file. It fetches its tools (about 220 MB, once, checksum-verified) and opens the finished Voldorium folder. Details and troubleshooting are in the README.

Everyone who builds this release gets an identical Voldorium.exe, so players on 1.0.5 can meet in Online Versus (other versions do not see each other).

Fixed

• Builder with the Microsoft Store Python stopped with "unable to open output file ... No
  such file or directory": that Python keeps what it writes under AppData in a private copy the
  compiler cannot see. The builder skips it (it then uses its portable Python) and keeps its build
  files in work\ inside the folder instead of AppData. The game itself is unchanged.

Voldorium 1.0.4

You need your own legal disc dump of SoulCalibur (USA, T-1401N, V1.000). This release contains no game code, no game data and no executable: you build Voldorium on your own PC from your own dump.

How to build: download Source code (zip) below, unzip it, double-click Build Voldorium.bat and choose your .gdi file. It fetches its tools (about 220 MB, once, checksum-verified) and opens the finished Voldorium folder. Details and troubleshooting are in the README.

Everyone who builds this release gets an identical Voldorium.exe, so players on 1.0.4 can meet in Online Versus (1.0.3 and 1.0.4 do not see each other).

Fixed

• Music dropped out and jumped in level (the intro, stage music): streamed music plays from a
  ring buffer in the AICA's "ADPCM long stream" mode, and at each lap the decoder either restored
  an old state or stopped decoding until it caught up, holding one value for a whole lap. It now
  carries on through the loop, as the chip does. The intro's level now follows Flycast's within
  1 dB (it swung by up to 20 dB).

Added

• Footage recording for videos: M1_RECORD=file.mp4 (with M1_FFMPEG and M1_RESOLUTION)
  writes one frame per emulated refresh to ffmpeg, in step with M1_WAV; it runs at any speed.

Voldorium 1.0.3

You need your own legal disc dump of SoulCalibur (USA, T-1401N, V1.000). This release contains no game code, no game data and no executable: you build Voldorium on your own PC from your own dump.

How to build: download Source code (zip) below, unzip it, double-click Build Voldorium.bat and choose your .gdi file. It fetches its tools (about 220 MB, once, checksum-verified) and opens the finished Voldorium folder. Details and troubleshooting are in the README.

Everyone who builds this release gets an identical Voldorium.exe, so players on 1.0.3 can meet in Online Versus.

Fixed

• Arcade mode froze after a few fights: the KO slow motion waits in a short loop for a flag
  that an interrupt sets, and the translated loop never let interrupts run (they were only taken
  at function calls). Tight loops now check in every 4096 instructions, as on the hardware; an
  arcade run now goes through every stage (port/tests/arcade.sh).

Added

• A frozen game writes a hang report to m1_log.txt (what it was running) after 8 seconds
  without a frame, so a freeze can be found from the log.
• One-click builder: double-click Build Voldorium.bat (or drop your .gdi onto it). It
  fetches pinned, SHA-256-checked tools into toolchain/ (nothing is installed), runs every
  step and opens the finished Voldorium folder. No Git Bash, Python install or Flycast checkout
  needed any more; the two Flycast files the build uses are downloaded at a pinned commit.
• tools/build.py: every build step in one script (the Git Bash scripts now call it).
• README: step by step build instructions and a Troubleshooting table.

Changed

• The online build key ignores line endings, so every checkout of the same sources matches.
• Reproducible builds: no time stamps or folder names in the executables (they held the build
  folder's path, and so the user name), so the same version builds byte-identical files on
  every PC.