v1.4

Sections

Introduction Downloading Kawaks Installing Kawaks Installing Games Setting Up Kawaks Creating Macros Shot Factory Playing A Game

Introduction

Kawaks is another multi system arcade emulator. It supports the Neogeo and Capcoms' CPS1 and CPS2 systems. Although these systems are supported by Mame, Kawaks adds extra games and alot of special features. Firstly it's updated far more often than Mame so supports all the new CPS2 releases as they happen. Also Kawaks supports all the fancy effects used in the CPS2 games. There is also complete emulation of the Neogeo system too including all the lovely raster effects. Kawaks will also decrypt the new games (King Of Fighters 2000, Metal Slug 3...) and save the roms so you can load the games faster. Not only that Kawaks has support for macros for doing combos in fighting games. This means that you can program a button with some commands and Kawaks will execute the combo for you (very useful for me as I'm crap at fighting games!) Finally it has a special screen grabbing utility called the Shot Factory which lets you rip out graphics from games. All in all I've done tutorials for Calice and Nebula that do similar things but Kawaks is probably now the more popular emulator and I had several requests for one. Have fun! Top

Downloading Kawaks

You can download the latest version of Kawaks from it's homepage. Top

Installing Kawaks

To install Kawaks you will need a copy of Winzip. Simply right click over the icon, select extract to... and type C:\Kawaks. All the necessary folders will be created. (If you have problems check out the Basics tutorial) The folder structure is like this... blend For sprite blending config files capture Where Kawaks saves screen captures. cheats Folder for cheats eeprom Folder where games internal settings are stored ini Folder where you can put custom settings files for each game lang Where Kawaks stores language packs for its GUI. recinput Folder where recorded game inputs are stored roms Where you put your zipped roms saves Folder where Kawaks stores its saved game states sshots You can put screen captures in here for Kawaks to show when you select games to load. tracklst Folder containing music track information for the winamp jukebox You can also find a small description on how to create a desktop shortcut in the Basics tutorial. Top

Installing Games

You will find links to sites with the games supported by Kawaks on the links page. You can download games from any site that has Mame roms as they are about 99% compatible. You will need to place the zipped roms in the C:\Kawaks\Roms folder. If you are not sure how to do this try the basics tutorial. Top

Setting Up Kawaks

When you first open Kawaks it will check what kind of video to use. Once done it will give you the result of which video memory is fastest. You can override this via the menus if you wish. Once opened you will be presented with this screen... Here is what you can access from the menus... File Menu Load Game Opens up the file window. On the left hand side you will see the games list. On the right you will see a small window at the top where a screenshot of the game will show (if available) and below some buttons to filter the games list. You can also see the scan buttons which you should use if you add any games to Kawaks and need to refresh the games list. Auto Start Game If selected when you start a game Kawaks will automatically begin emulation. If turned off you will need to use the start/pause option below to get things started. Configure Paths Opens a window that lets you specify exactly where you want Kawaks to save its files to. You can also configure alternative rom paths if you share roms between emulators. Start/Pause Emulation Does exactly what it says... Step Frame Steps the game loaded one frame forward when its paused. This can be useful if you are screen grabbing. Reset Resets the current game in memory. Start Netplay Starts the built in Kaillera netplay support. Save State Slot Lets you select 1 of 10 slots available per game to save its position. Preceding Save Slot Selects the previous slot. Next Save Slot Selects the next slot. Save State Saves the current state of the game loaded into whatever slot is selected, Load State Loads a saved game from the selected slot. Record Input Slot Lets you select 1 of 10 slots to record you playing a game. Record Input Starts recording you playing a game. Replay Input Plays back the input file in the currently selected slot Exit Exits Kawaks. (Note this can only be done when Kawaks is paused!) Video Menu Full screen Switches Kawaks to fullscreen mode. Full screen resolution Lets you choose a screen resolution for kawaks to use. Video memory allocation This is what Kawaks sorts out when it first runs but you can override it here. Video memory uses the memory on you graphics card and system memory uses you system ram to put data in. You might find if you have an older graphics card on a speedy machine it may pay to use system memory. If you aren't sure then leave it on automatic. Triple buffering Smoothes out game graphics especially scrolling.(May not be supported by some cards) Frame skip Sets how many frames are skipped to achieve full games speed. (Best left on none) Auto frame skip Automatically decides how many frames should be skipped to maintain full game speed. Turbo mode Runs the games as fast as the computer possibly can. Brightness Increases/Decreases the brightness of a game which can be useful on darker monitors or TV's Disable Disable lets you disable lots of different screen characteristics which can be very useful if you want to rip out graphics from games. Set background color Set background colour is again used for graphic ripping as it will leave a pure colour background so you can cut graphics easily in image editing software. Redraw frame without messages When Kawaks changes certain settings it will put up a message on the screen. If you want to capture that screen minus the text use this option. Interframe blending This option will blend frames together which has the effect of creating a static blended object rather than a flickering one. This is great for fire effects and alot of the effects use during special moves on the CPS2 games. You need a fairly meaty machine to use this option well and also you need to turn off auto frame skipping. Enable transparancies This option will use the files from the blend folder to give you transparent sprites for certain effects. This is much less general than interframe blending. Select video blitter Lets you choose whether Kawaks uses special screen smoothing effects on games to reduce the normal jagged edges. This can slow things down if you don't have a fast computer. Zoom window Zooms in the games using hardware zooming. Correct window ratio Displays the windowed game in the correct aspect ratio use by its arcade monitor. Correct full screen ratio Displays the full screen game in the correct aspect ratio use by its arcade monitor. Also lets you stretch the game to fill your whole monitor. Sound Menu Sound Frequency Lets you decide on the sound quality produced by kawaks. If you have choppy sound then reduce this value. Reverse stereo Reverses the stereo effect. Mono sound Mixes the stereo sound to make a mono sound. Interpolate sound Improved the sound quality of Neogeo games by smoothing the sample Low Pass Filter Improves bass in games. CPS1 sound options Lets you enable/disable the sound chips found on the CPS1 board. QSound options (CPS2&CPS1) Lets you enable/disable the sound chips found in QSound games and also amplify the sound too. Neogeo sound options Lets you enable/disable the sound chips found on the Neogeo board. Winamp jukebox Lets you substitute in-game music with you own using Winamp. This is done by making a playlist in Winamp of your music, disabling the Qsound music in the option above, selecting Winamp jukebox and then running a game that uses QSound. (mostly CPS2). Display track info Displays music track information when it changes. Log sound to 16bit raw stereo Saves sound as a raw sound file so you can use it and edit it. Misc Menu Configure 68000 frequency Lets you overclock the emulated 68000 processor used by most games. Always on top Alway keep Kawaks the top window. Autopause Automatically pauses Kawaks is the window is de-selected. Enable menu hot keys Enables the key shortcuts for menu commands Multitask friendly Makes sure Kawaks doesn't hog your systems resources when multitasking. Task Priority Lets you decide how much CPU time Kawaks will get. This is useful when you have other programs running. Choose language pack Lets you choose which language the Kawaks GUI is displayed in. Game Menu Region code Lets you change the region code used in CPS2 games Dip switches (CPS1) Lets you change setting for CPS1 games such as difficulty, lives, continues etc... Neogeo settings Lets you set the type of system to be emulated, its region, and whether you need to put in coins. Cheats Enables/Disabes cheats for games if available. You can get cheat files from Cheatmania. Just extract the zip file into the C:\Kawaks\Cheats folder. You will see the following screen when you use this option on a game with a cheat file. This is Mercs... Quick toggle cheats Lets you quickly access a cheat without opening the window above. If you hit display cheats it will give you a description on the game screen then all you need to do is select the one you want from the list. Reload cheat file Reload the cheat file if you have changed it during gameplay. Search Cheat Lets you search for your own cheats. It uses a similar system to most emulators where it looks for values that have changed. Lives for instance would need a search for value equals to the number of lives you have and then searches for decreasing values. The more times you search the narrower the results. You can then output the results in a text file so you can test them. Lives tend to be stored in 8Bit values, energy bars in 16Bit values and timers in 32Bit values. Some games can also use Hexidecimal to store its values so if you don't get any joy try these. Redefine Keys Opens this screen... All you have to do is select a box and press the key you want to use. In the bottom right hand side you can see which keys activate which macros. Macros are covered below. Reset default keys Resets Kawaks to its default keys. Use Hotrod Configuration Lets you use the Hotrod arcade controller with Kawaks. Reload settings from ini Reloads the current ini file for the loaded game which can be useful if you have mucked up its settings. Save settings to ini now Saves the current settings to an ini file thats exclusive for the game that is loaded. Save key settings as default Saves your key settings to work on all games loaded (unless overridden) Tools Menu No emu text on screenshots Hides any messages when taking screenshots Screenshot (unfiltered) Take a screenshot which has no special effects on it. Screenshot (filtered) Takes a picture of exactly what you have on the screen filters and all. Shot Factory See Below Tileviewer Let you view all the game tiles that make up the graphics in games. 68000 debugger Only for experts as it lets you see exactly whats going on in the emulated CPU. Audit romsets Checks all the romsets you have to make sure they have the correct roms in them. A text file is left in the Kawaks folder with the results. Generate Romcenter DAT Generates a DAT file for use with the rom manager Romcenter. Generate CLRMamePro DAT Generates a DAT file for use with the rom manager CLRMamePro. Enable save decrypted C's after loading Lets you load an encrypted Neogeo game and Kawaks will decrypt the roms and save them as a new rom set. This speeds up loading significantly on lower spec machines. Top

Creating Macros

Macros are use to do the special combo moves in fighting games. This can be great if you are as crap as me at fighting games and can't get your fingers hitting the right buttons at the right time. Anyway the first thing to do is to run the game you want to use the macro on. This will create an ini file for it and thats where the macros are stored. Next open the C:\Kawaks\ini folder and double click on the ini file for the game you want to use the macro on. This will automatically open notepad with the ini file loaded in it. Heres one created for Super Streetfighter 2 Turbo (ssf2t.ini)... ; Configuration for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (World 940223) [Settings] Region=-1 ; 68000 frequency (in Hz) CPUFrequency=11800000 [Netchat] NetSayA=Gwehehe >:] NetSayB=Godamnit NetSayC=Hadouken !!! NetSayD=Shoryuken !!! NetSayE=:))) [Controls] ; Reset Key Key_Reset=68 ; Test mode Key_Service1=87 Key_Service2=88 ; Player 1 Key1_Start=2 Key1_Coin=4 Key1_Up=200 Key1_Down=208 Key1_Left=203 Key1_Right=205 Key1_b1=30 Key1_b2=31 Key1_b3=32 Key1_b4=44 Key1_b5=45 Key1_b6=46 ; Player 2 Key2_Start=3 Key2_Coin=5 Key2_Up=19 Key2_Down=33 Key2_Left=32 Key2_Right=34 Key2_b1=30 Key2_b2=31 Key2_b3=16 Key2_b4=17 Key2_b5=18 Key2_b6=26 ; Player 3 Key3_Start=0 Key3_Coin=0 Key3_Up=0 Key3_Down=0 Key3_Left=0 Key3_Right=0 Key3_b1=0 Key3_b2=0 Key3_b3=0 Key3_b4=0 ; Player 4 Key4_Start=0 Key4_Coin=0 Key4_Up=0 Key4_Down=0 Key4_Left=0 Key4_Right=0 Key4_b1=0 Key4_b2=0 Key4_b3=0 Key4_b4=0 ; Netplay chat Key_NetSayA=2 Key_NetSayB=3 Key_NetSayC=4 Key_NetSayD=5 Key_NetSayE=6 ; Enhanced macros ; Player 1 macros Key1_MacroReverse=57 Key_Macro1A=16 Key_Macro1B=17 Key_Macro1C=18 Key_Macro1D=19 Key_Macro1E=20 Key_Macro1F=21 Key_Macro1G=22 Key_Macro1H=23 Key_Macro1I=24 Key_Macro1J=25 ; Player 2 macros Key2_MacroReverse=0 Key_Macro2A=0 Key_Macro2B=0 Key_Macro2C=0 Key_Macro2D=0 Key_Macro2E=0 Key_Macro2F=0 Key_Macro2G=0 Key_Macro2H=0 Key_Macro2I=0 Key_Macro2J=0 ; Player 3 macros Key3_MacroReverse=0 Key_Macro3A=0 Key_Macro3B=0 Key_Macro3C=0 Key_Macro3D=0 Key_Macro3E=0 Key_Macro3F=0 Key_Macro3G=0 Key_Macro3H=0 Key_Macro3I=0 Key_Macro3J=0 ; Player 4 macros Key4_MacroReverse=0 Key_Macro4A=0 Key_Macro4B=0 Key_Macro4C=0 Key_Macro4D=0 Key_Macro4E=0 Key_Macro4F=0 Key_Macro4G=0 Key_Macro4H=0 Key_Macro4I=0 Key_Macro4J=0 [Macros] ; Macros for player 1 Macro1A=14+ Macro1B=25+ Macro1C=46+ Macro1D= Macro1E= Macro1F= Macro1G=123+ Macro1H=456+ Macro1I= Macro1J= ; Macros for player 2 Macro2A=14+ Macro2B=25+ Macro2C=46+ Macro2D= Macro2E= Macro2F= Macro2G=123+ Macro2H=456+ Macro2I= Macro2J= ; Macros for player 3 Macro3A= Macro3B= Macro3C= Macro3D= Macro3E= Macro3F= Macro3G= Macro3H= Macro3I= Macro3J= ; Macros for player 4 Macro4A= Macro4B= Macro4C= Macro4D= Macro4E= Macro4F= Macro4G= Macro4H= Macro4I= Macro4J= The part marked in red is the section we are interested in as thats where we put the macro information. To enter this info you need to know the formula to use. What you do is substitute the movements you do with a controller and the buttons you press with commands. Here's the list... Joystick Movement (i.e. UL = Up+Left) UL U UR L,B C R,F DL D DR Fire Buttons 1 to 6 1,2,3,4,5,6 Start S Hold Button For 20 Frames ~ Go to next frame , Allow other input during move + e.g. To do a fireball on the Streetfighter games you go D,DL,L and fire 3. As a macro it'll look something like this Macro1A=D,DL,L3 With the hold for 20 frames option you need to remember that games run at 60 frames per second so to pause for one second use 3 ~'s. Make sure that if you need to do a movement and press a button at the same time don't use the comma. All you need to do is follow this formula for each combo adding it to each line and when you're done save it. If Kawaks is still loaded then use the Reload settings from ini option on the game menu. Now when you press the relevant combo key you can watch Kawaks do the hard work for you. Because you can fight from both directions you can either set up two macros per combo or use the reverse macro key with the combo key you want to use. Top

Shot Factory

This is used for grabbing sprite images out of games. It gives you ultimate control over the games graphics and makes things much easier as all the filters are in one place. Here is the shot factory window... What you see on the left are a complete list of the sprites available in the game. Next to each one is a tick and if you double click on it that sprite will disappear. Unfortunately life isn't as easy as that. First you need to find the sprite you want. You should still be able to see the main game screen so the first thing to do is the select/deselect the buttons in the layers section. You will see different parts of the screen disappearing and re-appearing. When you have found the layer your sprite is on deselect the other two layers and select the Blink Selected tick box in the bottom right hand side. What this will do is when you find the right sprite it will blink at you. Now you need to find the sprite in that long list. Luckily if you click and hold you left mouse button in a blank area of the list you can drag a box that will select several sprites at a time. This will narrow down the search and when you've found it you can deselect all the other sprites. Now all you need to do is press the screenshot button and the image is captured. You can also make an animation by capturing a sequence of images and editing them in an animation package. To do this just press the step frame button to move onto the next frame and press screenshot button again. The sequence will be saved in the capture folder. Top

Playing A Game

Once you have loaded Kawaks select Load Game from the file menu. Pick a game you have downloaded and the window will resize to the correct resolution. You now need to know the default keys... Default Keys Controller Player 1 Cursor Keys Player 1 Fire Buttons 1,2,3 A, S, D Player 1 Fire Buttons 4,5,6 Z, X, C Player 1 Coin F3 Player 1 Start F1 Controller Player 2 U, J, H, K Player 2 Fire Buttons 1,2,3 Ins, Home, Page Up Player 2 Fire Buttons 4,5,6 Delete, End, Page Down Player 2 Coin F4 Player 2 Start F2 Test Mode F11 Reset Game F10 Pause Enter Heres Kawaks playing a few games... Top

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