Calice


Sections


Introduction


Calice is one of the latest Capcom emulators about. Although it is in the early stages of development it is getting quite a reputation and is catching up on the now classic Callus. (Callus, Calice see the similarity.)

Calice emulates the Capcom CPS1 and CPS2 hardware and supports most of the games supported by them. If you want one emulator for both of these systems then Calice is the one for you.

Calice also supports Sega System 16/18 games and has preliminary support for NEO-GEO.

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Downloading Calice

You can find the latest version of Calice on the downloads page.

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Installing Calice

To install Calice you will need a copy of Winzip. All you have to do is to open the zipfile, press the extract button and type C:\Calice into to the path area of the window that opens.

Heres a look at the directory that is created...


 
Cheats
For cheat files used in CPS2 games mainly.
DRV
Driver files for supported games
EPM
Used by games to save Eeprom files
Lang
Used to store language files for the Calice GUI.

PlugIns

Plugins for sound, video and controllers.
Roms
For you rom files.
Snap
Where screenshots are saved.
States
Where saved games are stored.

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Installing Games

Because Calice supports both CPS1 and CPS2 games you can use Mame roms for the CPS1 games from http://www.mame.dk/ and get the other roms from somewhere like http://www.aceroms.com/ CPS2 section.

To install the games you will need to place the zipped roms into the C:\Calice\Roms directory. If you are unsure on how to do this then try the basics tutorial.

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Setting Up Calice

This is the screen that you will see when you first load Calice...

AVP Screen

Although Calice is fairly new to the emulation scene there are alot of settings you can change. Here is a summary...

Game Menu
Load
Game Load

All you have to do is to highlight the game you want and press load. You need to be careful as at the moment because Calice won't filter out any missing games from the list. The check boxes allow you to hide / show the different systems supported.

Start Netplay
Lets you play you games against opponents on the net.
Dipswitches

Dip Switches

To use this screen highlight the option you want to change in the left column and then pick the setting you want from the right column. Press close to continue or press default if you want to use the default settings.

Setup Directories

Directories

This screen lets you set up the default directories used by Calice. This can be useful if you share the roms directory from a different emulator.

Cheats

You need to open a game first but then you can access Nebula format cheats for the game. You'll see a screen like this...

Exit
Exit from Calice

 
CPU Menu
Pause
Pauses Calice
Reset
Reset the currently loaded game
Load State
Load a saved game
Save State
Save your current games position
CPU Speedup
Speeds up the simulated CPU for the loaded game.
Debugger
Opens the debugging screen which allows developers to monitor whats going on in games.

 
Controller Menu
All you need to do is to select the controller type from the top of the menu and select configure if you want to change it's settings.
Direct Input 3.0 Keyboard
Use this if you are using Direct X below version 7.0
Direct Input 7.0 Joystick
Joystick Plugin

To configure this screen press a button and then press a joystick key. You can test your settings at the bottom of the window. Press exit & save when you've finished.

Direct Input 7.0 Keyboard

Controller Config

To configure this click in a box, press a key and when you're done press OK.

Direct Input 7.0 Unified

This Option lets you use a mixture of keyboard and joystick controllers.

Pressing device will let you select which controller you want to use and when your happy with your selection you can configure it by pressing configure.

Selecting a joystick device will bring up this window...

Just click a button and press the joystick button you want to use.

A keyboard Controller will bring up this screen...

Just click a button and press the key you want to use.

 
Video Menu
Windowed Mode
Sets the type of zoom or rotation used to display Calice in a window.
Fullscreen Mode
Sets the resolution of the screen used in fullscreen mode.
Frameskip
Frameskip sets whether you want Calice to skip frames of games to speed up gameplay. If you find your games are going far too fast you can select Sync to 60hz which makes sure that the game runs at the speed it was supposed to.
Layers
Turns on or off the different layers of graphics. Very useful for grabbing screen images.

 
Sound Menu
Configure

Sound Menu

 
Feature
Lets you pick how the sound is handled through you sound card. The stereo / mono options are simple enough and the 2D / 3D options should be enabled depending on whether you have a multi speaker system.
Sample Rate
This option determines the quality of sound produced. The higher the number, the better the sound.
Channel Type
This part determines the sound system that Calice uses to decode the sound in the games. QSound is the original sound type used by Capcom. Software uses Calices own sound decoder. Streaming directly uses the hardware on your soundcard. Directsound uses Windows DirectX to play the sound. (Qsound is the best!)
Pitch Shift Calculation
This option is purely to make the sound better by using different method to smooth the waveform being produced.
Sound Enable
Enable the different sound systems used by Calice. YM2151 is the main music chip. ADPCM is the sound timer used (I Think!). QSound is Capcoms own sound system.
Pre Amp
Boost the volume output.

QSound Player

Qsound Player

According to David (the author) all you need to do is click change, select a game and use next to select the music track you want to hear.

 

Settings Menu
Thread Priority
Determines how much CPU time is used up by Calice. Only useful if you run more than one program at a time.
Language
Sets the language Calice is displayed in.

 
NEO-GEO Menu
Territory
Sets which language will be displayed on NEO-GEO games.
Machine Type
Sets whether Calice emulates the arcade NEO-GEO or the home version.
Memory Card

Allows you to manage memory cards which the NEO-GEO saves its games on to.

The Call Manager opens the games internal Memory Card manager which looks like this...

The rest of the options are fairly self explanitary.

Finally below you can see the information stored in the calice.ini file. To open this file you need to open the C:\Calice directory and find a file called calice with an icon that looks like a textpad with a yellow stamp on it. Double click on it and it will open.

Romdir
Logdir
Drvdir
Epmdir
Stadir

Frameskip
VerifyRoms
debugMode
continueMode
demoSounds
videoFlip
freezeScreen
freePlay
fastPc
firstTimeRun
threadPriority
rasterEffects
Language
controllerDll
videoDll
vsync
ym2151Enabled
qsoundEnabled
adpcmEnabled
QMixer
QFeature
DisplayCps1
DisplayCps2
DisplayZn1
DisplayZn2
DisplayNeogeo
DisplaySystem16

" .\roms\"
" .\log\"
" .\drv\"
" .\epm\"
" .\states\"

0
yes
no
no
yes
no
no
no
yes
no
highest
yes
0
".\plugins\controllers\titojoy.dll"
".\plugins\video\wzoom2x.dll"
yes
yes
yes
no
QSoundSW
2D
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes

There are settings that aren't in the GUI. Here they are...

Verifyroms - This enable/disables whether Calice checks the CRC's of roms when they load.

continuemode / demosounds / freeplay- will set these dipswitches by default when a game loads.

videoFlip - Can smooth out graphics

fastPC - If you've got a fast PC (like me) then set this option to yes as it will slow Calice to the correct speed.

rastereffects - enable some effects that Capcom game use when drawing graphics (e.g. the 3D floor in the streetfighter series)

vsync - should stop graphics "tearing" in full screen mode.

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Playing A Game

To play a game all you need to do is open the game menu and select load. Select the game you have downloaded and press the load button. You will see in the title bar Calice checking to roms it is loading. Once the game is loaded you will need to know some keys.

 
Keyboard Settings
Cursor Keys
UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT
Q
P1 FIRE 1
S
P1 FIRE 2
D
P1 FIRE 3
W
P1 FIRE 4
X
P1 FIRE 5
C
P1 FIRE 6
I
P2 FIRE 1
O
P2 FIRE 2
P
P2 FIRE 3
J
P2 FIRE 4
K
P2 FIRE 5
L
P2 FIRE 6
F1
P1 Start
F2
P2 Start
F3
Coin Slot 1
F4
Coin Slot 2
F5
Test Mode

If you want to use a joypad then use the settings section to configure it.

Press F3 a few times to put in some money and then press F1 for one player start. Thats it... Have fun!

Heres a few screenshots...

 

Garou - Mark of the Wolves (Neo Geo)

Ghouls 'N Ghosts (CPS 1)

Art Of Fighting (Neo Geo)

Super Puzzle Fighter 2X (CPS 2)

Street Fighter Zero 3

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