Release Emu EX Plus Alpha ported to the Pandora

[singler]

When I try to use GBC.emu 1.5.29, fresh from the repo, playing a game works fine but, when I go back into the menus, it starts to glitch out, responding to input events in strange ways (eg traversing menu entries out of order and being flaky about acknowledging other types of button presses) before, shortly thereafter, freezing up to the point that I have to hold the Pandora button and kill it to recover the system. That leaves the hardware overlay wedged, so I then have to restart before doing anything involving video or fullscreen graphics.

For comparison, the following PNDs, fresh from the repo, appear to be drawing the icons on the left and right ends of the menu headers as black boxes but, otherwise, seem unaffected by the problem:


... and the following PNDs, which were already on my Pandora from a while ago, work flawlessly.

I am having same problem on CC Pandora. But actually menu is not glitching. It is displaying view from one-before view. E.g. you press space for menu, it still displays game. Then you press down arrow, it starts to display menu. You press one more down. It displays first down view. You press up, it display view of second press down. Then if you press one more time up, it will go up (as if you pressed only once). Shortcuts in the game seems to work, but for example if doing save state would ask of overwrite, it would not display that. If you confirm with button press you can view for short period of time that menu and save gets saved.

Try to change your video driver. You may have good results with 4.10 using sgx driver r2 pnd.

not sure about rebirth, but CC panda does not have 4.10 driver. I tried all other available versions via that pnd - they do not work at all.

Now I downloaded 5.15.09 from http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=archive&app=GBCemu_ptitseb Gave it a short play, seems to be fine, no menu glitches, didn't notice problems with game

 

[ptitSeb]

Well older version, like the the build 09 use GLES1.1 for rendering, where newer version GLES2.0 and shader. That may explain the diferences (CC doesn't like much shaders and GLES2.0).

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Well, I would think it can be kept as a low priority so long as no one else is complaining about it. Since 1.53 is working fine, I can use that. The only advantage for 1.43 is speed I think, and I am always able to clock high enough that 1.53 is full speed from what I can tell.

Also, if no one else is experiencing this issue, it may just be a problem with my SD. Who knows, but I'll keep testing for now.

I have this issue, and am still having it.

 

[ptitSeb]

what issue is that?
I'm working on a refresh build, using latest sources, but I still have segfault and many things not working yet, so it's not ready for release...

 

[Glyph Reader]

Good to hear that you're making a new build, ptitSeb. I've been having tons of issues with SNES, and the other emulators have black boxes for the corner icons.

 

[atari_afternoon]

No problems here at all any more, getting back to default drivers on CC has solved it, as expected.

 

[b_o_b]

@ptitSeb is it possible to make pushing the Pandora key exit the emulator just as if you were using exit from the menu? Reason is that I want to make playing a game on the Pandora as easy as possible (I am lending one of my Pandora's to a very non-tech person). I try to avoid explaining or using - any - menu as much as possible.

So start emulator -> pick the game from menu "load game" or "recent game" and without re-entering the menu exit the emulator with the Pandora key. The emulator should then still save the state.
I looked for something in the menu of GBC.emu, but couldn't find it. Maybe change a config file somewhere?

[edit] In the menu you can change keypad and I am now using 0 as exit button instead of escape or Pandora key. Pandora key is not accepted by the program but using 0 instead works fine.
[edit2] just noticed the emulator already had a default convenient key binding for exiting - the backspace key .. oh well.

 

[lunarwhale]

Got a couple little problems.

I'm having trouble again with the 1.43 SNES emulator's browser not working properly - selecting a file tends to cause erratic behavior (crashing, simply not loading followed by the cursor hopping around, etc). Is anyone else still experiencing this, or vould the issue just be on my end?

Also, where should BIOS go for the Sega CD, and what do they need to be named? Also, I can't find an option to get rid of the menu shortcut on the screen (the three little vertical boxes in the top right). I've got Picodrive working, so this isn't that big of an issue, but it would be nice to have the options since I'm pretty sure this emulator is more accurate.

 

[Citizen_Lurker]

Got a couple little problems.

I'm having trouble again with the 1.43 SNES emulator's browser not working properly - selecting a file tends to cause erratic behavior (crashing, simply not loading followed by the cursor hopping around, etc). Is anyone else still experiencing this, or vould the issue just be on my end?

Also, where should BIOS go for the Sega CD, and what do they need to be named? Also, I can't find an option to get rid of the menu shortcut on the screen (the three little vertical boxes in the top right). I've got Picodrive working, so this isn't that big of an issue, but it would be nice to have the options since I'm pretty sure this emulator is more accurate.

I won't recommend using Md.emu for Sega CD emulation, I've experienced freezes in the middle of Shining Force CD. I recommend Picodrive for Sega CD, it works perfectly although the sound is a little bit tinny.

 

[Splintercat]

An odd issue I've been having is that no matter if I pick 1.43 or 1.53 the emulator that launches says 1.5.29 at the top.
Is that just a bug or should I see 1.43 and 1.53 respectively depending on which one I start up?

I was having issues with games that use flickering transparency and auto frameskip either making the texture opaque or fully invisible (Megaman X series shield animations for example), but it looks like turning off interpolation fixed that.

Finally, despite the top saying 1.5.29, I am also seeing some of the menu issues that lunarwhale is seeing on 1.43.

All of the above issues persisted after removing the pnd and reinstalling it.
This is on a 1GHz Pandora.

 

[ptitSeb]

An odd issue I've been having is that no matter if I pick 1.43 or 1.53 the emulator that launches says 1.5.29 at the top.
Is that just a bug or should I see 1.43 and 1.53 respectively depending on which one I start up?

The 1.43 or 1.53 is the version of the Snes9x core that is used.

The 1.5.29 is the version of the Emus Alpha Plus EX themself. 2 different things.

The 1.43 Core is faster than 1.53. But it is also less compatible. So prefer 1.43 unless there is something odd hapening (audio or timmig issue mainly). Then switch to 1.53.

But the problem you are discribing seems to be "speed" related. The Pandora isn't fast enough to maintain 1:1 framerate and some frameskip is used. But a few games doesn't work well with frameskip. Not much that can be done here. Try another emu maybe, like spi.snes, it maybe fast enough?

 

[Splintercat]

Thanks for the info! That helps out quite a bit.
I'm also seeing the same menu freezing issue that lunarwhale described with version 1.43.
I'll go to the recent games tab and pick a game, and the whole program will either crash or freeze. I don't see this issue with 1.53 though.

 

[ptitSeb]

I haven't a stable set of updated Emu Plus Alpha yet. I had build a set a few months ago but the C64 pnd wasn't working (other seemed fine). I have then updated the sources but haven't finished building them (it takes time to do, always need a bit of hacking to suit my toolchain).

In the mean time, you can try this pnd : Snes9xEX.pnd the browsing should be fixed, but there are still stuffs not working (like selecting a shader).

 

[Azerty16]

Do these emulators are better than the older one for the Pandora (picodrive, gpsp, snes9xp etc) ?
I'm getting a CC Pandora and i would like to know which emus should i use.

Merci pour ton travail de fou ptiSeb !!

 

[Citizen_Lurker]

The old SNES one is definitely better for me at least (much faster), for Megadrive I prefer MD.emu (better sound and slightly more accurate emulation overall) but for Sega CD use Picodrive (better compatibility). As you getting CC Pandora, I imagine that GBA.emu won't perform too good for you, so Gpsp wins (it's a shame it crashes in some games). For everything else I recommend using .emu emulators. Easier to use, often more features / better emulation. Gambatte, for example, doesn't have V-sync, so yeah...

Hope that helps. I'm sure you're gonna figure everything else by yourself.

 

[Azerty16]

Thanks a lot for your answer !

I should get my Pandora in a few days, i'm so eager to get it and try all those magical things !

 

[PokeParadox]

Having trouble with snes emu right now. I'm trying to navigate and set the roms folder and it crashes out each time I try to go up one level.

 

[b_o_b]

An issue I think I've always had with Emu Ex (not sure if it only one of the emulators or more) is that the menu sometimes has issues. Pressing the spacebar should start the menu and in the beginning it usually works fine. After a while pressing the spacebar doesn't seem to response anymore and it can only be solved by pressing up or down - then the menu reappears.
If you continue playing and using the latter method after a while the menu becomes totally unresponsive.

I've played a couple of GBC.emu games lately and had the problem a couple of times. Unfortunately I can't reproduce it consistently and sometimes the emulator works fine for a long time, hopefully someone can confirm or has a workaround.
Issue occurred on my Pandora Classic Zaxxon 1.76

 

[b_o_b]

Played with GBC.emu until I got the problem again (menu not accessible with spacebutton). Started the pnd from terminal - no error messages. .out file attached to this post. Worked fine for about an hour.
@ptitSeb if there is anything I can do to improve the bugreport let me know.

 

[ptitSeb]

The only thing that can help is a (short) way to reproduce the crash unfortunalty.