[Caanoo] A Few Questions

[Xynche]

Ok, I've had my caanoo for about a week now and I'm really liking it. For the most part everything is great but I have a few problems and questions. Any help with any of these would be very much appreciated.

1) For NES I'm using gpfce. Its great and everything is nice except that I don't know how to back out of the emulator. It's kind of a hassle to turn of the system every time.

2) Video playback seems to be horrible. I've tried many different videos and movies and they are all really bad. I tried converting them to the native format in resolution, bitrate, and such but it is still really bad. Is there any way to fix this? I've tried Mplayer too, it's just as bad.

3) PSX emulation seems too be very well with Pcsx reARMed, but I don't know what games would be good without l2/r2 buttons. Are there any recommendations on games that are nicely playable with the controls?

4) For the most part I'm just emulating SNES NES and GBA, any recommendations on other systems/games, possibly some native games that you guys like?

I'm running firmware 1.6.0 if that helps out, that's what it came with. Thanks in advance.

 

[Akabei]

1) I can't remember exactly anymore, but it was a button combo with one of the shoulder buttons(something like L+Y), just try a few or(maybe, even better) have a look at the readme.
2) look here
3) I'd say most puzzle games(like bust-a-move), run-n-guns, strategy games or rpgs don't need the R2/L2 buttons. Have a look here to get some inspiration.
4) Don't miss Picodrive, the Sega Genesis/Megadrive emulator. Temper is a great PC Engine/Turbografx 16 emulator running through ginge. The easiest way to get it running will be a download of Yoshi's Caanoo Emu Pack, as it's already preconfigured.

 

[Xynche]

Sweet, thanks for the help. I looked around forever for a video fix, and that one seems better than what I tried so I'll give it a shot. I'll check out some megadrive/PC Engine stuff but I've never been into sega really, or PC Engine, any suggestions on games for the consoles? Also, is there any way to set r2/l2 buttons in pcsx reARMed to thumbstick click+l or r?

Edit: One last question, how does psx emulation work with games that have 2 disks?

 

[Akabei]

The Racketboy site has a Sega and PC Engine/Turbografx-16 section, as well. Look at defining games and hidden gems. http://www.racketboy.com/

IIRC, you have to create a savestate, reboot with the second cd inserted and load the savestate.

 

[yoshi41dragon]

And don't miss the PC Engine Bible. They even have their own Online Mag. Great Stuff. B)

 

[yoshi41dragon]

Regarding L2/R2 buttons. You can map the touchscreen to these buttons.

The touchscreen is divided in 4 parts, so you can map 4 buttons (TS1/2/3/4).

+---------+---------+
|         |         |
|   TS1   |   TS2   |
|         |         |
+---------+---------+
|         |         |
|   TS3   |   TS4   |
|         |         |
+---------+---------+

In the emulator menu, follow these steps...

1. Controls -> Player 1
2. Press right/left until you see "touchscreen as buttons" at the bottom
3. Press B on L2 and press the touchscreen in the square TS2
4. Press B on R2 and press the touchscreen in the square TS4
5. When you go back to "[all devices]" with right/left, you will see the complete button mapping incl. TS2/TS4
6. Don't forget to save the settings (globally or only for the loaded game)

Hope this helps.

 

[someoneElse]

IIRC, you have to create a savestate, reboot with the second cd inserted and load the savestate.

Extra stuff/ Change CD Image is for disc swaps.


For GPFCE, it's L+Home to bring up the menu, and R+Home to exit directly. I can't recall, but if savestates are defaulted to the shoulder buttons, you'll have to hold it down while you cancel the savestate confirmation, then press Home. It's not a good or obvious key combo considering there's a dedicated button for such things and it cannot be remapped.
Edit: Hold Home, press L works better than the reverse.

 

[rohezal]

For 2)

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/63133-psx-rearmed-gameplay-reviews/

 

[Xynche]

Wow, thanks a lot guys. I waqs really worried that I got into this a little to late and wouldn't get any support from anyone. I haven't got around to trying to convert some videos again (Takes forever :/), but everything else is great. Thanks again, and one last thing. Is there anyway to help the Caanoo community out? I don't know how to code or anything like that but it would be nice to help out and make sure that support for this thing stays around.

 

[erico]

...I don't know how to code or anything like that but it would be nice to help out and make sure that support for this thing stays around.

I guess most important is to stick around and try helping others anyway one can, even if that means re-post knowledge earned or posting some emulation experience with some game under some settings.

On the code part, if creating is your stuff, you can always create for engines that will run on the caanoo, like things that will run on Scumvm or Instead for example.

Welcome!

 

[rohezal]

For encoding try winff http://code.google.com/p/winff/

Click on extended options, use 320x240, 4 to 3 ratio, xvid. Works pretty good . Video encoding works faster on faster pcs like desktop instead of laptops.

 

[Xynche]

For encoding try winff http://code.google.com/p/winff/

Click on extended options, use 320x240, 4 to 3 ratio, xvid. Works pretty good . Video encoding works faster on faster pcs like desktop instead of laptops.

I'm actually using Ubuntu Linux, since my computer is horrible and crashes with windows all the time. I'm working with a half a gig of ram haha. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Does anyone know where I could start learning coding and stuff? Like maybe how to make ports of other games and such? Thanks.

 

[DJRoby4]

On ubuntu I was using arista, or ffmpeg in terminal!

 

[Xynche]

Ya, the only video converter in the software center is arista last time I checked.

 

[u9i]

Hi Xynche. Congratz on your Caanoo. If you are interested in native games, you should definitely check some out. A lot of nice ones were submitted to RIOTdigital Tag-Team Coding Competition, but you will find them updated on the download archive.

Also try games like Animatch, Mr. Drillux, and of course my games: Warehouse Panic and Zombie Sorbet

Everything should be found here:

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/caanoo.cgi

As for helping out. Use the forum and participate.

/Uni

 

[rohezal]

For learning coding, read Dan Godkins C for Dummies. Its one of the best beginner books I ever read, when it comes to coding. I was 15 when I read it. Now I'm 26 and writing my Bachelor Thesis in computer science .

And keep it easy going. Take your time to learn to code, write simple programms, read the MAKE chapter. Write an own small game, using SDL (google it, its a C language game framework). And after it, when got enough experience, start to try port games.

 

[Akabei]

@u9i: The server of your avatar picture definitely deserves a special price for slowing down the whole community over several years. I'd like to say congrats for your endless efforts to slow down the internet.

 

[Xynche]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, and I'll definitely check my bookstores for that Dan Godkins book.

 

[choy.andy]

Re: #4 -- I'd highly recommend MAME4ALL and GNGEO. Both are excellent.