Finalburn Alpha?

[quadomatic]

Actually it may not be as bad as I first thought. I've got some CPS2 action happening already. DDSOM started up for me a few moments ago. A few glitches but it seems okay.
I've done some FPS checks:

All things equal, CPS1 actually requires more grunt than CPS2 - due to the complex YM-2151 FM sound chip. CPS2 just used pre-rendered QSOUND samples which means there's much less work to do.

At the default Dingoo 336Mhz at with 16000hz sound using 16-bit graphics:
A CPS1 game with YM-2151 (ie. Knights of the Round) runs fullspeed though frameskipping at about 30fps.
A CPS1 game with QSOUND (ie. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs) runs fullspeed at about 40fps.

I bet MAME4ALL runs these quite a bit slower.

EDIT: CPS2 cache is done. That wasn't that bad after all. It's about the same speed as CPS1 and a bit slower when it's loading from the cache files.
One BIG problem is that Booboo's plan to provide a workaround for the SD corruption bug will really cripple FBA if load speeds are 25% of what they currently are.
Also, those who bought better/faster SD cards (ie. CLASS 6) will get some payback now as you'll get even less pause when things are loading.

So, does the CPS2 cache fix mean that games like Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Marvel vs Capcom work now? (sorry to be so persistent/pestering)

 

[slaanesh]

pls release it i dont mind as long as wrestlefest works
sent you a small donation btw

Bad News: I tried Wrestlefest - but it didn't work. I looked at the driver - it requires lots of RAM about 40MB.
Fine I said, I tried create a cache file - FBACache doesn't support it. D'oh!
Good News: I'm having a look at FBACache and seeing if I can add support for cache creation for Wrestlefest. It will certainly need a cache to work on the Dingoo.

So, does the CPS2 cache fix mean that games like Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Marvel vs Capcom work now? (sorry to be so persistent/pestering)

I haven't specifically tried SFA3 and MvC - all I tried was DDSOM with a cache file and it worked fine. I'll have a look at these soon.

 

[conso]

easy, guys. As much as I hate booting the original firmware , fba is mostly about games that already work just fine on dingoo. I really appreciate what slaanesh is doing, but there is no reason to be pushing.

 

[quadomatic]

easy, guys. As much as I hate booting the original firmware , fba is mostly about games that already work just fine on dingoo. I really appreciate what slaanesh is doing, but there is no reason to be pushing.

From what slaanesh is saying, FBA would work better with than the internal emulators for at least a few games. Besides, what's wrong with getting excited for a new release?

 

[slaanesh]

easy, guys. As much as I hate booting the original firmware , fba is mostly about games that already work just fine on dingoo. I really appreciate what slaanesh is doing, but there is no reason to be pushing.

This is true, but FBA has many games other than CPS1/CPS2 and NeoGeo.

Anyway, I've got the cache going for wwfwfest - I haven't tried it yet but it should work now. (EDIT: I've tried it now and it's fully working.)
The cache files need to be built (using FBAcache) and then supported (running in FBA) on a per driver/game basis.
The net result is that it's a fair bit of extra work

This was actually a good exercise as I've now got the know-how to create new caches and utilize them.

EDIT: Funny enough, wwfwfest once converted into a cache file will probably fit into the Dingoo's memory without swapping. :/
Here's the reason:
Like MAME, the FBA game drivers often need a large amount of memory to decode the game's graphics ROMs. As a rule of thumb, the graphics ROM space requirements will double in size. ie. what was 8MB of actual ROM expands to 16Mb of runtime graphics ROM.
Graphic ROMS are decoded in such a way to provide the easiest and fastest method of drawing to the native hardware video RAM, in this case the Dingoo. The original emulated platform often stores it's graphics in a horribly convoluted manner which would require many times longer to manipulate when the emulator is trying to draw to the screen. And since drawing the video is such an important and already time consuming task, this needs to be done as quick as possible.

So take wwfwfest as an example; it has 9MB of graphics ROM. These are all loaded into memory at once. 18MB of RAM is required to store the decoded graphics ROM. A further temporary 8MB is required to decode the graphics. The FBA executable is about 4MB. A quick bit of maths and you can see we've already run out of space - as there is only about 25MB (guessing) of process RAM available on the Dingoo.

The beauty of the cache file is that we don't need temporary space for decoding as it's already done and we don't need the buffers for the ROMs - plus the kernel will automatically swap in/out graphics as required. In this case I think it will fit entirely so speed should be excellent.

 

[pongplaya]

easy, guys. As much as I hate booting the original firmware , fba is mostly about games that already work just fine on dingoo. I really appreciate what slaanesh is doing, but there is no reason to be pushing.

This is true, but FBA has many games other than CPS1/CPS2 and NeoGeo.

Anyway, I've got the cache going for wwfwfest - I haven't tried it yet but it should work now. (EDIT: I've tried it now and it's fully working.)
The cache files need to be built (using FBAcache) and then supported (running in FBA) on a per driver/game basis.
The net result is that it's a fair bit of extra work

This was actually a good exercise as I've now got the know-how to create new caches and utilize them.

EDIT: Funny enough, wwfwfest once converted into a cache file will probably fit into the Dingoo's memory without swapping. :/
Here's the reason:
Like MAME, the FBA game drivers often need a large amount of memory to decode the game's graphics ROMs. As a rule of thumb, the graphics ROM space requirements will double in size. ie. what was 8MB of actual ROM expands to 16Mb of runtime graphics ROM.
Graphic ROMS are decoded in such a way to provide the easiest and fastest method of drawing to the native hardware video RAM, in this case the Dingoo. The original emulated platform often stores it's graphics in a horribly convoluted manner which would require many times longer to manipulate when the emulator is trying to draw to the screen. And since drawing the video is such an important and already time consuming task, this needs to be done as quick as possible.

So take wwfwfest as an example; it has 9MB of graphics ROM. These are all loaded into memory at once. 18MB of RAM is required to store the decoded graphics ROM. A further temporary 8MB is required to decode the graphics. The FBA executable is about 4MB. A quick bit of maths and you can see we've already run out of space - as there is only about 25MB (guessing) of process RAM available on the Dingoo.

The beauty of the cache file is that we don't need temporary space for decoding as it's already done and we don't need the buffers for the ROMs - plus the kernel will automatically swap in/out graphics as required. In this case I think it will fit entirely so speed should be excellent.

i wet my pants for the release thx soooo much man

 

[eder182]

woooww! Thanks for the hard work and for the explanations!!!!

Fba >>>>>>> Dingoo cps2

 

[ste_167]

I finally got round to sorting out Dingux this weekend, so this is exciting news for me! Thanks for all the work you're putting into Dingoo development.

Ghouls 'n' Ghosts will be interesting with FinalBurn, as it currently doesn't work with the standard CPS1 emulator. It has severe graphics glitches (making it unplayable), but teases you with great speed!

You'll be happy to know that GnG runs glitch-free and silky smooth.

I missed your post yesterday, that's excellent news! It's my game of choice when flying, and I have a ten-hour trip to Florida in October. It's playable in MAME4ALL at 420Mhz, but I'm guessing it's smoother again on FBA.

 

[eder182]

And X-men Vs Street Fighter? runs fine? playable?

Great work, man!

 

[slaanesh]

I've been cleaning up some of the code for the CPS1 drivers. All games work really well except for Forgotten Worlds which has dodgy sound. It's a special case as the sample rate for the sound effects hardware is different (for some reason) to ALL the other CPS1 games. It's a bit annoying but I may have to leave it for now.
I've also freed up about 0.5MB of space by reducing the size of the executable (removing totally redundant code) and reducing run time memory requirements. We want as much run time RAM as possible for those big ROM games! Some of this reclaimed space will eventually be re-used again by the inclusion of drivers for new games.

As for xmvsf, ummm... it's huge! I haven't tried it but it should work and be playable. I'm trying hard to get all CPS1/2 & NeoGeo games at least working as best as they can (with the above exception so far).

EDIT: Booboo is planning on releasing a kernel with a workaround for the SD card corruption. The fix slows the speed of read/writes of the SD card to 25% of the current speed. This will certainly make some of the large ROM games a fair bit slower to play as new graphics are loaded in. I do not intend on using this kernel. I'm going to wait until the issue if fixed properly.

EDIT2: Of course as soon as I posted this I found the "Forgotten Worlds" sound bug. Fixed.

EDIT3: I can't help thinking that the GP2X and Wiz versions should get the benefit of the improvements I'm making too.

 

[slaanesh]

Well after a string of great successes I've finally hit a disappointment.
I added '1943' and clones and found that it runs slower than in MAME! I was expecting it to be faster than MAME - basically full speed and full frame rate at the default 336Mhz. It only manages 30FPS or so.

I know this is pretty minor but it does effect plans I had for another project for the GP32. Just for a bit of fun, I was going to port FBA to the GP32 - though strictly as a "one game" emulator of 1943 (one of my favorite all time shooter type games). My thinking was that it would run full speed and full frame rate on the GP32 with the help of DrZ80 - but alas - I think I've just scrapped that idea based on the performance I've just witnessed.

I also ported 1942 and tweaked Bombjack - these both run very well. I know, big deal - they already both run very well in MAME4ALL.

I'll port Raiden as well and I really hope it goes better than 1943. Then I think I'll work at getting an initial release out!

 

[PolloLoco]

What's your ETA for an initial release?

 

[eder182]

"As for xmvsf, ummm... it's huge! I haven't tried it but it should work and be playable. "

Yeahhhh!!!! Thanks for the info!!

ps.: my Dingoo is PACKAGING on DX!

 

[quadomatic]

ps.: my Dingoo is PACKAGING on DX!

woohoo! Always fun to watch

 

[conso]

Hehe, I miss the days I constantly refreshed the dx-page to see if my dingoo is finally on the way ^^

 

[euleberlin]

Thanks a lot again for your work on this! Can´t wait for the release, but MAME4ALL does a great job in keeping me entertained until then. :lol:
And i love to read your dev-thoughts, always pretty interesting.

 

[-Regii]

Sorry to be pushing, but have you had the chance to try MvC yet? Haven't read about it, maybe I'm blind, but if it would just BOOT (not necessarily be fast or so) it would still be a big step above the native Emulator...
And, I don't think it's either CPS1/2 or NeoGeo, but is there a way to maybe get Metamorphic Force working at some point?

 

[eder182]

ps.: my Dingoo is PACKAGING on DX!

woohoo! Always fun to watch

Hehe, I miss the days I constantly refreshed the dx-page to see if my dingoo is finally on the way ^^

shipped today!!! Yeahhh!

I am anxious to play MAME4all, picodrive, snes9x and FBA on dingoo !

 

[slaanesh]

Sorry to be pushing, but have you had the chance to try MvC yet? Haven't read about it, maybe I'm blind, but if it would just BOOT (not necessarily be fast or so) it would still be a big step above the native Emulator...
And, I don't think it's either CPS1/2 or NeoGeo, but is there a way to maybe get Metamorphic Force working at some point?

Boots, loads, starts, plays! Playable speed too - even on 336Mhz.

ETA for initial release will be within the next 7 days.

 

[PolloLoco]

Sorry to be pushing, but have you had the chance to try MvC yet? Haven't read about it, maybe I'm blind, but if it would just BOOT (not necessarily be fast or so) it would still be a big step above the native Emulator...
And, I don't think it's either CPS1/2 or NeoGeo, but is there a way to maybe get Metamorphic Force working at some point?

Boots, loads, starts, plays! Playable speed too - even on 336Mhz.

ETA for initial release will be within the next 7 days.

Awesome. Would it be possible for you to post the romlist for the version you've ported? So we know what games to expect? Or not to expect?