game
icon
title Solvalou (Japan)
set name solvalou
manufacturer Namco
year 1991
genre Shooter (hof)
category Shooter / Flying 1st Person (hof)
driver status imperfect
driver source namcos21.c
snapshots MW: in game / CT: in game | title / PS: in game | title | scores
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rating

67.3% after 31 votes
 
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display
colour emulation good
palette 32768
display type raster
orientation horizontal
resolution 496x480
frequency 60.000000Hz
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sound
sound emulation good
channels stereo
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controls
players 1
nplayers 1P
controls stick
buttons 4
coin slots 3
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hardware
cpu 68000 @ 12.288MHz
cpu 68000 @ 12.288MHz
cpu M6809 @ 3.072MHz
cpu HD63705 @ 2.048MHz
cpu TMS32025 @ 24MHz
cpu TMS32025 @ 96MHz
audio C140 @ 0.02139MHz
audio YM2151 @ 3.57958MHz
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data
version added .062
last change(s) .119u1
roms
name size crc set flags sha1
sv1-mp-u.bin  131072  b6f92762  solvalou    d177328b3da2ab0580e101478142bc8c373d6140 
sv1-mp-l.bin  131072  28c54c42  solvalou    32fcca2eb4bb8ba8c2587b03d3cf59f072f7fac5 
sv1-sp-u.bin  131072  ebd4bf82  solvalou    67946360d680a675abcb3c131bac0502b2455573 
sv1-sp-l.bin  131072  7acab679  solvalou    764297c9601be99dbbffb75bbc6fe4a40ea38529 
sv1-snd0.bin  131072  5e007864  solvalou    94da2d51544c6127056beaa251353038646da15f 
sys2mcpu.bin  8192  a342a97e  solvalou    2c420d34dba21e409bf78ddca710fc7de65a6642 
sys2c65c.bin  32768  a5b2a4ff  solvalou    068bdfcc71a5e83706e8b23330691973c1c214dc 
c67.bin  8192  6bd8988e  solvalou    c9ec18d5f88d53976b94444eedc64d5568155958 
c67.bin  8192  6bd8988e  solvalou    c9ec18d5f88d53976b94444eedc64d5568155958 
sv1-obj0.bin  524288  773798bb  solvalou    51ab76c95030bab834f1a74ae677b2f0afc18c52 
sv1-obj4.bin  524288  33a008a7  solvalou    4959a0ac24ad64f1367e2d8d63d39a0273c60f3e 
sv1-obj1.bin  524288  a36d9e79  solvalou    928d9995e97ee7509e23e6cc64f5e7bfb5c02d42 
sv1-obj5.bin  524288  31551245  solvalou    385452ea4830c466263ad5241313ac850dfef756 
sv1-obj2.bin  524288  c8672b8a  solvalou    8da037b27d2c2b178aab202781f162371458f788 
sv1-obj6.bin  524288  fe319530  solvalou    8f7e46c8f0b86c7515f6d763b795ce07d11c77bc 
sv1-obj3.bin  524288  293ef1c5  solvalou    f677883bfec16bbaeb0a01ac565d0e6cac679174 
sv1-obj7.bin  524288  95ed6dcb  solvalou    931706ce3fea630823ce0c79febec5eec0cc623d 
sv1-data-u.bin  524288  2e561996  solvalou    982158481e5649f21d5c2816fdc80cb725ed1419 
sv1-data-l.bin  524288  495fb8dd  solvalou    813d1da4109652008d72b3bdb03032efc5c0c2d5 
sv1-pt0-h.bin  524288  3be21115  solvalou    c9f30353c1216f64199f87cd34e787efd728e739 
sv1-pt0-u.bin  524288  4aacfc42  solvalou    f0e179e057183b41744ca429764f44306f0ce9bf 
sv1-pt0-l.bin  524288  6a4dddff  solvalou    9ed182d21d328c6a684ee6658a9dfcf3f3dd8646 
sv1-voi0.bin  524288  7f61bbcf  solvalou    b3b7e66e24d9cb16ebd139237c1e51f5d60c1585 
sv1-voi1.bin  524288  c732e66c  solvalou    14e75dd9bea4055f85eb2bcbf69cf6695a3f7ec4 
sv1-voi2.bin  524288  51076298  solvalou    ec52c9ae3029118f3ea3732948d6de28f5fba561 
sv1-voi3.bin  524288  33085ff3  solvalou    0a30b91618c250a5e7bd896a8ceeb3d16da178a9 
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cabinet art
cabinet solvalou.png
control panel solvalou.png
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additional information
info 0.62 [Phil Stroffolino]

0.55 [Phil Stroffolino]

Bugs:
  • Solvalou crashes during the first level. Smitdogg (ID 02085)
WIP:
  • 0.120u1: Phil Stroffolino fixed lockups in Solvalou and sprite priority (see Solvalou mountain range).
  • 0.119u1: Phil Stroffolino fixed Solvalou - Game now playable. Changed TMS32025 CPU6 clock speed to 96MHz. Added 2x c76.rom's to cpu5 and 6. Fixed rom names.
  • 9th September 2007: Phil Stroffolino - Surprisingly, this was one of the first titles I'd gotten "working" with HLE years ago, but the most annoying game to get running with proper emulation. It's got the usual cuskey protection. But it also does some strange things that no other game does: 1) 68k writes a good value to shared RAM, then a NOP, then overwrites with a bad value. The master DSP is in a tight loop and has to catch the good value to proceed, forcing a game-specific cpu-yielding hack to be used by the emulator. 2) there's a block of diagnostics information written as plain text to shared RAM, things like "ROM CRC:" - this info is quite useful while stepping through the CPUs - the CPUs even emit state changes as each subsystem boots up. For some strange reason, the ascii labels (written by the master 68k) are stored much closer together in Solvalou than in any of the other multi-dsp games - the parameters written by the BIOS overwrite the explanatory text, making the diagnostics barely readable. At first I'd worried that this game used a different BIOS, but all functionality appears to be intact. 3) The master 68k doesn't stick to the "standard" bootstrap sequence, but instead triggers the BIOS to reboot itself and waits for a second checksum on the PointROMs. I've patched this out until I can definitively sort out the interrupt handling. On the plus side, Solvalou exposes some cool features not used in other games, such as the ability to place sprites with a z-order providing excellent control over mixing into the 3d scene. One big mystery I'm hoping we'll get solved soon: there are multiple palettes for the 3d objects. In some games, they are all exact copies of each others. In others, one or more will have a radically different color scheme, i.e. everything with a fiery reddish tinge. There's got to be per-polygon control registers outside the point ROMs affecting this - but would be much easier if I knew where these special palette effects were actually used in-game. Possible related: some of the point ROM objects don't actually encode 3d data, and are currently skipped to avoid parse-related crashes. These surely have some_ meaning, but nothing is obviously wrong if I ignore them.
  • 0.97u1: Phil Stroffolino updated the Namco System 21 driver. Solvalou works, but occasionally 3d graphics stop updating; press "A" to unblock the pipeline and resume drawing them. It also needs cuskey support (used from the master DSP).
  • 0.62: Phil Stroffolino added Solvalou (Japan) (Namco 1991).
  • 0.55: Added Solvalou (Testdriver). Locks up on startup.
LEVELS: 3

Other Emulators:
  • Mjolnir
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Romset: 9400 kb / 26 files / 2.97 zip
history Solvalou (c) 1991 Namco.


- TECHNICAL -


Namco System 21 hardware

Game ID : SV


Main CPU : (2x) 68000 (@ 12.288 Mhz), M6809 (@ 3.072 Mhz), HD63705 (@ 2.048 Mhz), (2x) TMS32025 (@ 24 Mhz)

Sound Chips : C140 (@ 32 Khz), YM2151 (@ 3.57958 Mhz)


Screen orientation : Horizontal

Video resolution : 496 x 480 pixels

Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz

Palette colors : 32768


Players : 1

Control : stick

Buttons : 4


- TRIVIA -


Victor Entertainment released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Namco Video Game Graffiti Vol.8 - VICL-8074) on 21/04/1993.


- SERIES -
  1. Xevious (1982)
  2. Super Xevious (1984)
  3. Solvalou (1991)
  4. Xevious 3D/G (1995)
    5. - STAFF -
    • Music composition by : Hiroyuki Kawada
    • - SOURCES -
    • Game's rom.
    • Machine's picture.
    • Edit this entry at Arcade-History.com: http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=solvalou&page=detail&id=2497&o=2
resource links view in MAWS
view in CAESAR
view high score and replay at MARP
view in Progetto EMMA (Italian)
view in arcade-history.com
view in GameFAQs
view in KLOV
view in MamEnd
view in System16
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cheats
cheats
code comments
00000000:907F38:00000007:FFFFFFFF  Infinite Shields
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