GP32 For Testing How Accurate Is Geepee32?

[CrazyDesi]

I think the title kinda sums it up .

 

[evil_king]

Not very accurate at all in my experience. Even simple apps do different things on the emu and the real hardware. Trust me it's much better to test on real hardware than on geepee32, even though it takes long to transfer each build as you code, it will save you time in the long run.

 

[Pirotic]

i've always found GeePee to be spot on, the only downside is it emulates the CPU at 40mhz (the default speed), so if your game's clocked higher it'll be running too slow on the emulator.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Yeah, besides one file io function of mine, all of my games are emulated flawlessly in GeePee32, its "spot on" like Pirotic said. The down side, is if your game uses a cpu speed higher than 40-60 mhz, then GeePee32 runs it really slow (because its stuck at this speed). And the lack of audio, but in most cases GeePee32 will do you just fine.

Hell I even made 90% of Electronia (see my signature) with only GeePee32 for reference, and it didnt fail me once.

As for testing on real hardware, well, writing to the SMC constantly is a pain, and DarkFaders PC Link app that "streams" the data, reboots the GP32 with 3 out of my 4 games, before they even start, so GeePee32 is the ideal developers tool.

I doubt I would have come so far, so fast, in GP32 development without it.

I am sure there are specific cases where it wont work, some specific thing you do that causes odd results in the emulator (or, and this does happen, code that works flawlessly in the emulator but has difficulties on real hardware), but for the most part, using GeePee32 as a dev test station, is perfect.

Trying to get the animation timing good? Trying to positition some text and images? Trying to test out a new control scheme? Why waste time and write cycles, and in many cases, batteries, just to test those out? Hell I know personally I will sometimes build 2 or 3 times just to place an image or two, doesnt it seem like a waste to test that on real hardware, when GeePee32 is going to give the same results?

Not to mention, if you are trying to get pixel accuracy, (position an image perfectly), its hard to tell if its positioned right, or lined up with, other images, text, or capture certain images at a certain frame, to see if its all lined up, etc... on the screen, when you are testing on real hardware. On GeePee32 you just take a nice screenshot and zoom in, in your favorite image program.

So, to sum it all up, unless you do something specific that the emulator doesnt like, some wierd oddity, then it is a priceless tool, and it should defintly be in your arsenal of dev tools.

 

[evil_king]

It is great for animation and image refining quickly. A few frustrating experiences when first starting to develop for the gp32 really pissed me off and I generally don't use it anymore. What was that about game streaming???

 

[Arda]

we used geepee32 when writing our game, it lacks some features such as DMA and sound but it speeded up our development time for sure.

Until you start to write sound code, geepee32 is good and in my opinion, *accurate*. Not speedwise,but it gives enough information and impression about how your program will be. If you want to see real result, try it on gp32.

(at one point of development, our game stoped working with emulator, we swiched to the real hardware tho)

 

[mATkEUpON]

For all I know:

The DMA are not totally implemented, but the DMA 0 is !!!! But the different modes are not correctly emulated, such as burst transfer not taken into account...

The file size is also a limit, and it seems to be around 2MB for fxes/gxbs...

But I'd say it's VERY accurate, because I use a lot of ASM, DMA0 transfers, and my programs always run on geepee32.

 

[Axeman]

GeePee has been cool for learning too. Makes it a lot easier to try things out without having to transfer files etc.

 

[Oankali]

Puzzle Mix was developped using Geepee, and it works perfectly in it, except for sound and some timing issues.
Then I switched to VC because I needed a debugger to do Animings. I had to prepare a compatibily module because some functions don't want to work correctly.
Now I only use VC to program, and sometime Geepee to test if all is going well. And at the very end, just for timing I use real hardware.
I could never have been able to program my OKF Font Engine without VC!!
If it works so fine for me it's because I use only the original SDK and no ASM.
I think I will still program in VC, it's so cool to be able to modify code and compile on the fly without having to reset your game!! There is nothing better to prepare a screen and align all elements!!
And if I need some ASM module, then I will update my compatibily module.
To see what I mean, look at the sources of my OKF Font Tester in this post OKF Font Tester. In OankaliSrcVC.zip you can find the files I use.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Puzzle Mix was developped using Geepee, and it works perfectly in it, except for sound and some timing issues.
Then I switched to VC because I needed a debugger to do Animings. I had to prepare a compatibily module because some functions don't want to work correctly.
Now I only use VC to program, and sometime Geepee to test if all is going well. And at the very end, just for timing I use real hardware.
I could never have been able to program my OKF Font Engine without VC!!
If it works so fine for me it's because I use only the original SDK and no ASM.
I think I will still program in VC, it's so cool to be able to modify code and compile on the fly without having to reset your game!! There is nothing better to prepare a screen and align all elements!!
And if I need some ASM module, then I will update my compatibily module.
To see what I mean, look at the sources of my OKF Font Tester in this post OKF Font Tester. In OankaliSrcVC.zip you can find the files I use.

Except that, VC costs money and its windows only.