Anyone Working On The Nes Emulators?

[naples39]

Alright!! I am pumped someone out there is actually working on a NES emulator. If we can just get a half-decent GUI and save state support I will be set.

Btw, how is compatibility on InfoNES? I thought I had heard that nkNES was based on InfoNES as well--is that true? If so, would compatibility for fishyNES then the be the same as nkNES? I only ask because some of my favorites have graphic errors in nkNES (SMB3, RC proam, paperboy). I would throw in Tiger-Heli and Rad Racer 2 to that list, but those games gives most PC emulators problems too.

 

[sephiroth111]

I believe PocketNES has some machine code, which would not be portable.

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Pocketnes is mostly C with a tad of C++ and ASM. The ASM bits are the things that could be (reletivly) easy to recompile (mostly the mappers) since the ARM7tdmi and the ARM920T both are from the same gen of code, and both have a thumb unit. as far as i know, the only things that would have to be done would be the video code (cause i'm unsure on the video processing on the GBA) and the filesystem, cause its designed to be run from a GBA flash cart in its own contained filesystems.

though if you look at the supercard source version it can load things from a FAT filesystem, so that should give you at least something to work with.

corewise, it would provide the best compatability and a vast amount of expansion, since it was designed to run on a 16.78 MHz ARM7tdmi processor. the good thing is that you can probably eliminate speedhacks and frameskip altogether, the bad news is you'd need to work on a frame limiter.

 

[Kensupen]

PocketNES has a frame limiter. I usually turn it off to have more fun in games. More of a challenge.

-Kensupen

 

[sephiroth111]

PocketNES has a frame limiter. I usually turn it off to have more fun in games. More of a challenge.

-Kensupen

​

ok then, ignore the frame limiter then. the rest has to be written, though i dont think its opositivly out of the question, the work on it would be more than the "simple" emulator ports done. inho, it'd be worth it, its one of the only homebrew programs i run on my GBA. (that and goomba color)

 

[fishybawb]

Alright!! I am pumped someone out there is actually working on a NES emulator. If we can just get a half-decent GUI and save state support I will be set.

Btw, how is compatibility on InfoNES? I thought I had heard that nkNES was based on InfoNES as well--is that true? If so, would compatibility for fishyNES then the be the same as nkNES? I only ask because some of my favorites have graphic errors in nkNES (SMB3, RC proam, paperboy). I would throw in Tiger-Heli and Rad Racer 2 to that list, but those games gives most PC emulators problems too.

​

"Graphic errors" for Paperboy is generous, "Complete graphics fuckup" would be closer to the truth

At the minute compatibility is the same as nkNES's, yes. In InfoNES's defence, it's not entirely to blame. NES carts used mappers which swap blocks of data into memory to get around the fact that the system didn't have a lot of RAM to play with. The headers of a lot of ROMs on the 'net are incorrect, so the wrong mapper emulation code is used.

I've got a WIP version of fishyNES that plays Paperboy fine (the headers for the ROMs I've seen all report mapper 0, it's actually a mapper 3 game). I'm guessing the other games you mention suffer from the same problem, so I should be able to get them working and get much better compatibility than nkNES

Other emus seem to take one of two routes to get around the problem - either keep a checksum of known "bad" ROMs and force a certain mapper, or let the user choose manually if there's a problem. I'm not sure which route to take yet... I'm thinking checksums to keep it simple for users, but it's a bit more work.

Anyway, things are going OK. Expect a proper first release over the weekend at the latest.

 

[rokdcasbah]

At the minute compatibility is the same as nkNES's, yes. In InfoNES's defence, it's not entirely to blame. NES carts used mappers which swap blocks of data into memory to get around the fact that the system didn't have a lot of RAM to play with. The headers of a lot of ROMs on the 'net are incorrect, so the wrong mapper emulation code is used.

i was wondering about problems with megaman 3...that's gotta be it then. maybe you should have a user selectable mapper for the time being and then implement checksums in a later revision?

Anyway, things are going OK. Expect a proper first release over the weekend at the latest.

​

wow, that's quick work. good luck. also i'm glad to hear that what you're busy with (new job etc) seem to be good things rather than bad.

 

[naples39]

"Graphic errors" for Paperboy is generous, "Complete graphics fuckup" would be closer to the truth

At the minute compatibility is the same as nkNES's, yes. In InfoNES's defence, it's not entirely to blame. NES carts used mappers which swap blocks of data into memory to get around the fact that the system didn't have a lot of RAM to play with. The headers of a lot of ROMs on the 'net are incorrect, so the wrong mapper emulation code is used.

I've got a WIP version of fishyNES that plays Paperboy fine (the headers for the ROMs I've seen all report mapper 0, it's actually a mapper 3 game). I'm guessing the other games you mention suffer from the same problem, so I should be able to get them working and get much better compatibility than nkNES

Other emus seem to take one of two routes to get around the problem - either keep a checksum of known "bad" ROMs and force a certain mapper, or let the user choose manually if there's a problem. I'm not sure which route to take yet... I'm thinking checksums to keep it simple for users, but it's a bit more work.

Anyway, things are going OK. Expect a proper first release over the weekend at the latest.

​

Great news all around!!! I'm already looking forward to it and thanks for all the hard work!

 

[Mikey242]

Wow, how have I missed this topic for soo long... This is great news fishybawb, thanks alot for working on this one

 

[cbox]

Yeah I use PocketNES on my GBA as well but the 200k limit on rom size is disheartening. Same limit on goomba as far as I can tell, so it's severely limited on what it can play, since a lot of the better games are larger, especially for GBC.

 

[naples39]

Yeah I use PocketNES on my GBA as well but the 200k limit on rom size is disheartening. Same limit on goomba as far as I can tell, so it's severely limited on what it can play, since a lot of the better games are larger, especially for GBC.

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Since when did pocketnes have a 200k rom limit? TMNT 2 and 3, Tecmo Super Bowl, SMB3, and Castlevania 3 are all 384k or 512k and work fine for me on pocketnes.

 

[Kensupen]

He's talking about the compy version needed for the media player that uses CF cards. I was referring to the main program that needs a GBA flash cart.

-Kensupen

 

[Javacat]

I can't wait to try this NES emulator out . I'd never heard of InfoNES before, so I did a quick search on google and found a wiki page about emulators for the PSP. On it they mention an emulator called FamiContest, which is apparantly based on infoNES, but has improved compatibility. Maybe it would be worth looking into that port?


It's just a pitty Nestopia is so bloated After I found that I deleted all the other NES emulators off of my PC. It's the first and only NES emulator I have found which plays the NES port of Elite perfectly.

 

[cbox]

Yeah I'm talking about the video player version. It's handier because you can put all the roms on a CF card and plug it into your GBA. I also have a flash cart so I might look into the other version, but flash cart flashing is just so tedious to change a game or two, then wait 30 minutes while it flashes, so I rarely use my flash cart.

 

[sephiroth111]

Yeah I'm talking about the video player version. It's handier because you can put all the roms on a CF card and plug it into your GBA. I also have a flash cart so I might look into the other version, but flash cart flashing is just so tedious to change a game or two, then wait 30 minutes while it flashes, so I rarely use my flash cart.

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what the hell flashcart are you using? i have a XG2 turbo (not the plus model) and the burntimes for it are like 15min. for the entire 512M on it.

if anyone wanted to do this, its based on loopynes, which was also written in c/c++ which i also believe a linux version exists for.

 

[fox808]

Thanks for working on a NES emulator. Will this version work with theoddbot's fast boot firmware? I liked using NK's NES emu but now that I use the fastboot firmware it does not work, I think it's cause it writes to NAND. Anyways, great job!

 

[rokdcasbah]

Thanks for working on a NES emulator. Will this version work with theoddbot's fast boot firmware? I liked using NK's NES emu but now that I use the fastboot firmware it does not work, I think it's cause it writes to NAND. Anyways, great job!

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yeah, i had a similar problem with nknes...but this "fishynes" beta works fine and i'm using theoddbot's firmware (version 0.4).

 

[mooseknuckle2000]

any news fishybawb? how close are we to an official release w/ a selector? (sorry, just really looking forward to this)

 

[daclassicgamingmaster]

any news fishybawb? how close are we to an official release w/ a selector? (sorry, just really looking forward to this)

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yep same here (the reason why im back in this thread).

 

[Justron]

I'm so excited that this is going to be the first time I post. Something I have to point out right now.. NESGP2X has the buttons reversed. Do you know how hard it is to run and jump and shoot and do whatever when the buttons I've used since I was little are reversed? Blargh!

Anyway, just a bump to let you guys know there's probably some other lurkers out here who're patiently waiting for the new releases!

 

[fishybawb]

Sorry all, I spent the weekend in hospital with an (very) irregular resting heart-rate of 166, and the smorgasbord of ECGs, echo scans, heart monitoring and general unpleasantness that such an condition entails.

Needless to say, fishyNES is currently not top of my priorities. It WILL be worked on further, just not for a little while. If someone half capable of doing something with the source is interested, just let me know and I'll send it. It ain't that pretty, but I'd rather just have a decent NES emu out there than sit on the code.

Cheers,
Rob.