GP32 Compiling Squidge's Code

[phoda]

Squidge,

Sorry to hear you are not being able to continue your great work on the GP32 programs (at least for the moment).
I would like to start playing around with GP Drive. I have a basic programming knowledge but I have no idea where to start coming up with the development / compilation environment to successfuly compile GPDrive.

Can you give a list of the applications you used or, even better, give a help on how to set up the environment to do so?

Thanks

 

[DJWillis]

phoda,

I would suggest WinterMute's DevKitArm as a modern, well make tool set.
It uses GCC 3.4 and Msys (for *nix commands) http://www.devkit.tk.

I use it on my work laptop as I could not be bothered to build yet another GCC setup from source and it works very well. I have a good set of sample makefiles/examples and a working setup of the GamePark SDK if you want to use them (gpDrive uses them).

gpDrive builds fine under it if you tweak the makefile BTW.

 

[phoda]

Thanks for the answer!

I also have searched the board and found a post by generalmx, who came up with a guide with a nice how-to, which looks pretty good for someone illiterate on GP32 programming, just like me.

If I can't get it working using the guide I'll have to leech your working setup.
Let's hope not.

 

[Squidge]

GpDrive was originally created under DevKitAdvance/GCC3.0 using the GamePark SDK. However, it's strongly recommended you use something a bit more modern now, such as GCC3.4 that comes with DevKitArm.

If you want to use another SDK, such as Mirko's, then I think all the Gamepark SDK specific stuff is in gpmain.c and easily replacable as there's not that much of it. It's mainly the screen setup, and a bit of text output. The only function that may not be directly translatable is GpRectFill, but a for loop should take care of it.

 

[phoda]

Thanks Squidge!

By the way - I just compiled GPDrive after reading the guide wrote by generalmx. It worked right off the bat! I'm very happy for now...

 

[cyberic]

phoda, do you plan to improv gpdrive, or to make it work with linux?

by the way, at what cpu speed does it run? would it increase performance if it was set higher?

 

[Squidge]

GpDrive runs at 133Mhz. It's not set higher as the last thing you want is a crash whilst it's writing to your SMC !

If you know your GP32 is stable at higher rates, there's no problem with increasing it however if your willing to take the risk.

 

[ColinR]

Does it need to be that high? Surely you're limited by the GP memory-->Smc card's transfer rate?

 

[Squidge]

Actually, it's limited by processor power. Going from 66mhz to 133mhz gaves about a 70% speed boost. Just can't talk to the SMC card fast enough.

 

[phoda]

@cyberic - sorry to disappoint you. I basically want to understand a bit more about GP32 programming and I believe GPDrive is a good place to start. I want to do one improvement at this point though - make GPDrive work when being a part of a MultiFW.

@Squidge: I compiled GPDrive, compressed it with b2fxe and everything went fine. However, when I compressed it using b2fxec it always hangs on both geepee32 and my own GP32.
Did you run into any problems when using b2fxec?

 

[Squidge]

Can't say I've ever had any problems with Spiv's fxe compressor. Maybe Spiv can investigate ?

 

[phoda]

Ok - I have made it. Now I have my firmware using Wind-ups 1.0 and a working gpDrive 0.5 (I called it phoDrive 0.1 )

The only thing I had to do to GPDrive was add a GPFatInit() command to the main program, so the SMC hardware was initialized and voila! GPDrive works as a firmware also now.

When I used b2fxec 0.5b instead of b2fxec 0.5c the resulting compressed fxe worked! With that, I converted the fxe back to a new, small gxb using unfxe.

Using Aquafish's Zed I compiled a new firmware using Wind-ups 1.0 and the modified GPDrive.

Thanks for all your help guys! After I do some testing with it I'll post the firmware file. And thanks to Squidge and Acquafish for their amazing apps!

 

[Squidge]

Thanks for letting us know, glad you got it working in the end.