100 Hand Painted Special Edition Pandoras

[fusion_power]

Further, you shouldn't extend your hopes too high for OGL ES 2 acceleration for PS1 - while it can happen I'm sure there will be some compatibility issues. People have been trying to hack around incompatibilities between OGL/D3D and PS1 for years and ES 2 is actually substantially less flexible in a number of ways.

Hm, I always read negative statements about OGL ES (2). But when it is really useless, why did it was actualy invented? I mean, there must be a reason why somebody decided not to use "straight" OpenGL but some kind of new "light" Open GL ES thingy. :unsure:
So, what IS the advantage of OGL ES? And will it have a uesful job onto the Pandora?

 

[notaz]

Well, PicoDrive is the best emulator I know on the Pandora so far, however, SMS is only halfway implemented and notaz wants to finish that before releasing it.

It's not only that, the last beta is rather unstable and missing several things I consider important. The current code I have is in the middle of some 32x related rework and is not functional at all. I really don't know when I can finish this, day job and pandora firmware work already drains more energy then I have and there is nothing left for PicoDrive really

Anyway, here are a number of reasons why I think overclocking will be desirable:

My 32x code is also slow and will need overclocking, (assuming I can get the damned thing finished).

 

[paddy]

Will there be no picodrive for a while then ? or is there a working build for smd and mcd.

 

[Exophase]

My 32x code is also slow and will need overclocking, (assuming I can get the damned thing finished).

That's unfortunate and a little surprising, as Kega Fusion claims fullspeed on at least some games on around Pentium 2 400MHz level CPUs. Pandora at 600MHz should be competitive, and Kega Fusion is only using an interpreter (although a fast dual-CPU execute one)

Other platforms where overclocking may benefit are PC-FX and Jaguar outside of T2K (which doesn't quite seem like a comprehensive emulator)

 

[Exophase]

Hm, I always read negative statements about OGL ES (2). But when it is really useless, why did it was actualy invented? I mean, there must be a reason why somebody decided not to use "straight" OpenGL but some kind of new "light" Open GL ES thingy. :unsure:
So, what IS the advantage of OGL ES? And will it have a uesful job onto the Pandora?

The reason why OpenGL ES 2 exists is to provide a lighter standard that requires less hardware to fulfill. This is especially important for embedded platforms where features (some pretty esoteric) mean die space and power consumption.

In Pandora's case the reason why it's using OpenGL ES 2 is because no one has done full OpenGL 2+ drivers for SGX530 on Linux. The hardware is technically capable of it.

 

[Monk]

The reason why OpenGL ES 2 exists is to provide a lighter standard that requires less hardware to fulfill. This is especially important for embedded platforms where features (some pretty esoteric) mean die space and power consumption.

In Pandora's case the reason why it's using OpenGL ES 2 is because no one has done full OpenGL 2+ drivers for SGX530 on Linux. The hardware is technically capable of it.

Is there any reason, do you suppose, to expect anyone to produce such drivers, to a reasonable standard, in a timeframe which would appreciably effect Pandora 1 users?

 

[MooTheKow]

Let me preface this by saying: Notaz - greatly appreciate your work and the time you've donated to things - so don't take this as a knock on you. My enthusiasm about the Pandora shipping soon is extremely dampered by learning that SNES, Nes, Genesis, and PSX emulation are going to be unavailable for some time though.. Does anyone know if the MAME stuff is actually in a usable state now so I can at least play those types of games for a while?

 

[notaz]

Will there be no picodrive for a while then ? or is there a working build for smd and mcd.

There is but it sucks, I'm in doubt if it should be released in that state.

That's unfortunate and a little surprising, as Kega Fusion claims fullspeed on at least some games on around Pentium 2 400MHz level CPUs.

Where did you get that claim? Gens recommends 800MHz as a minimum.

There are some unfortunate factors like layer merging which I suspect is trashing the cache pretty badly. Also those SH2s are soc-like chips and have division unit which is unfortunate to emulate on ARM (used extensively by Virtua* games). Also some self modifying code problems..

I'll admit though that I did most of my testing on Wiz (that I still hope to target) and GP2X really and a lot of things have improved from the last working pandora version.

 

[fusion_power]

The reason why OpenGL ES 2 exists is to provide a lighter standard that requires less hardware to fulfill. This is especially important for embedded platforms where features (some pretty esoteric) mean die space and power consumption.

In Pandora's case the reason why it's using OpenGL ES 2 is because no one has done full OpenGL 2+ drivers for SGX530 on Linux. The hardware is technically capable of it.

Hmm, makes sense. I hope the Coders can take advantage of OGL ES onto the Pandora.

Will there be no picodrive for a while then ? or is there a working build for smd and mcd.

There is but it sucks, I'm in doubt if it should be released in that state.

Aww, I can't live without Pico Drive. Can you release the "normal" working Picodrive without 32x and SMS? I think it should be an easy 1:1 port from GP2X to Pandora, so people who don't own a WIZ/ GP2X but a Pandora can also enjoy this great Emulator.

 

[skeezix]

I did a couple crappy halfass ports of various SNES emus (from the Dingoo one, the gp2x one, the real snes9x various versions.) Theres one bug most ARM platforms hit, and some fix, in snes9x; I need to track it down one of these moments Still the older builds of the snes emus, in my sucktastic quick-ass ports, work great. I play Killer Instinct and LttP on thgese half ass ports, with full sound, full speed, already.

So you will have SNES, its just not a full featured port, since they're quick half-ass jobs I did.

I mean, the device is not yet shipped, so you can't expect to have piles of stuff available; but yet, there is a fair pile of stuff, so its pretty good already

I've got my usual stable of my own software, plus a few ports I do on most platforms, plus writing a couple new games... plus of course, maintaining my piece of the firmware. I could have done a much better job of SNES, but I have a lot on my plate. Likewise for everyone else.. the guys who have Pandora dev units right now, are also the guys producing your firmware. Thats a pretty good reason why things like SNES are not perfect yet

But thats not to say there isn't a pile of good stuff for you, including a SNES emu thats full speed, but only supports half the games. (ie: the one I'm using mostly I hink was the dingoo port, so the dingoo port was very much cut down to make it work happily on the dingoo; we dont' need to cut out nearly so much, but I did a naive port, in a hurry, what can I say.)

I'm not much of a SNES man (never really owned one, much), but if no one else picks it up as a pet project, I will. But I'm betting the Squidges of the world, or other folks, will adopt it, and you'l get top notch SNES pretty quick.

(My stable includes other things.)

Anyway, sorry for a rushed reply.. time is tihgt and sadly I'm tied up all weekend so not posting much over this weekend

jeff

 

[Phawx]

The reason why OpenGL ES 2 exists is to provide a lighter standard that requires less hardware to fulfill. This is especially important for embedded platforms where features (some pretty esoteric) mean die space and power consumption.

In Pandora's case the reason why it's using OpenGL ES 2 is because no one has done full OpenGL 2+ drivers for SGX530 on Linux. The hardware is technically capable of it.

Is there any reason, do you suppose, to expect anyone to produce such drivers, to a reasonable standard, in a timeframe which would appreciably effect Pandora 1 users?

There was one dude, I don't even remember his name anymore, that wanted to do Full on drivers.. if I remember correctly. Urbanski? I think. It's been too long though and I think he originally was eager to do them because OMAP3530 was pretty bleeding edge at the time. I don't think he'd be that interested anymore.

 

[Exophase]

Where did you get that claim? Gens recommends 800MHz as a minimum.

It was on SpritesMind, but he may have been talking about Sega CD instead - honestly it wasn't clear. But given the context 32X makes more sense. Unfortunately Fusion doesn't speak of what it requires. Here's the post (second from the top):

http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=458&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=dynarec++recompiler&start=15

You've probably already seen it. Maybe he just meant the SH2 emulation.

 

[jonlad1]

Will there be no picodrive for a while then ? or is there a working build for smd and mcd.

There is but it sucks, I'm in doubt if it should be released in that state.

That's unfortunate and a little surprising, as Kega Fusion claims fullspeed on at least some games on around Pentium 2 400MHz level CPUs.

Where did you get that claim? Gens recommends 800MHz as a minimum.

There are some unfortunate factors like layer merging which I suspect is trashing the cache pretty badly. Also those SH2s are soc-like chips and have division unit which is unfortunate to emulate on ARM (used extensively by Virtua* games). Also some self modifying code problems..

I'll admit though that I did most of my testing on Wiz (that I still hope to target) and GP2X really and a lot of things have improved from the last working pandora version.

I can wait. You've done enough already on the firmware, its not fair for everyone to ask/expect so much even before the system has been shipped.

As long as I know that Picodrive will be released sometime in the future (with Sega CD support!!!), I'll be a happpy man.