GP2X Gba Emu And Static Translation

[BradN]

I noticed QEMU has ARM7 support, so if you get stuck, that might be something to look at. Their approach is using GCC to pre-generate code sequences for different opcodes that are then stuck together by the dynamic recompiler and slightly tweaked to link them together, or at least that's my understanding. I think it mentioned doing some kind of condition code analysis to avoid calculating them when not needed (not sure if this applies to ARM).

 

[Vollgasasi]

hey just that i don't miss anything: you are starting to pull of a gba emu for the gp2x officially? and you plan to finish this bastard?

 

[TKF15H]

Erm... what do you consider "officially"? I didn't sign anything!
And yes, I do plan to finish this. That will take quite a long while though, it's a lot of work, including a complete re-write of the CPU core.

BradN: Thanks for the tip, I'd heard of QEMU before but I didn't know it had ARM support.

 

[A_SN]

Erm... what do you consider "officially"? I didn't sign anything!
And yes, I do plan to finish this. That will take quite a long while though, it's a lot of work, including a complete re-write of the CPU core.

BradN: Thanks for the tip, I'd heard of QEMU before but I didn't know it had ARM support.

Do you have some page where you would keep us up to date with the progress of your project? And although i can't help with programming i will gladly beta test whenever you got a beta (and yes I got gp2x-gcc)

 

[TKF15H]

Well, there is my blog, but that has other projects mixed in the middle. I find it easier to post here though, if you don't mind me using your thread.
(If you do, then... er... sorry! it just happend! ^_^)

 

[Vollgasasi]

by officially i meant a website kind of thing like a sn suggested but its fine like this too.

oh well good luck my friend! and i hope we can welcome you in the guru section of this board soon

 

[A_SN]

Well at there is my blog, but that has other projects mixed in the middle. I find it easier to post here though, if you don't mind me using your thread.
(If you do, then... er... sorry! it just happend! ^_^)

I don't mind at all, it's very fine, use this thread as much as you want keep us up to date, and hopefully have some more people helping you with this

PS : you could make it a sourceforge project i suppose

 

[noreason]

Interesting topic
daily updates are really great, so we know what you are doing and maybe (not me i think ) some people can help you. I'm also in for beta-tests (speed, picture, ...) but first of all --> good luck B)

 

[Vollgasasi]

yea i think squidge, reesy and the other devs would love to help you out if you are stuck!

 

[TKF15H]

Ok, I just started a SourceForge project... that took longer than I expected.
Now I'm off to the shop to buy a new PC. Then installing windows, probably will have to reinstall Linux, Visual Studio, the GP2X dev kit, etc.
ie, not much work on the emulator today, but I coded myself into a hole so this will give me time to think about what to do anyway.

btw, thanks for the support guys.

 

[DavidBeoulve]

You've got mine as well.

 

[TKF15H]

ty, David. ^_^

Daily update:
Last night I stayed up late working on this, so this is actually yesterday's update.
I am currently on opcode STRH Rd, [Rn], -Rm on line 2,328 of arm-new.h (which is now line 1,374 as I cut out the x86/PPC specific code of no use to us).
The Sourceforge project has been aproved, URL: IllexBoyAdvance
I'll make a simple little web page for it later.

 

[DavidBeoulve]

I can help with creating a web page.

Please let me know what HTML/CSS editor you are most comfortable with. I work in Dreamweaver, but I can try to set up the code to be easier for you to manage afterwards. That's what I didn't think to do for Dzz

 

[TKF15H]

Normally I just use notepad. >_<

 

[TKF15H]

(Today's) Daily Update:
More core rewriting, I'm stopping for now on opcode SMULL line 3,063.
Since arm-new.h has 7,192 lines, one can estimate that I am 43% (3063/7192*100) done with this file. After that there will be a little bit that optimizes the code and dumps it to a file. This morning I started with 35%.
Now I'm going to try and figure out this SourceForge thing, as I can't stand looking at opcodes right now.
How am I supposed to upload a file?!

 

[iignotus]

I'm so excited! I can't wait to see what you've been up to

And on sf.net you have to log into your shell account and upload a file to the public space. Then you have to use their webpage to add that public file to your private project. At least, that's the convoluted way it was done last time I uploaded something.

 

[A_SN]

(Today's) Daily Update:
More core rewriting, I'm stopping for now on opcode SMULL line 3,063.
Since arm-new.h has 7,192 lines, one can estimate that I am 43% (3063/7192*100) done with this file. After that there will be a little bit that optimizes the code and dumps it to a file. This morning I started with 35%.
Now I'm going to try and figure out this SourceForge thing, as I can't stand looking at opcodes right now.
How am I supposed to upload a file?!

depends what you mean by upload a file. if you mean a file as in something to download then you gotta upload via FTP (iirc) and then one some page you gotta pick which file is yours.

if you mean upload web page files, you need to use some app like WinSCP3 to do the job, but all of this must be described on some documentation page on sourceforge.

anyways, thats opcode thing you're doing sounds like a long and kind of repetitive task. is there any way someone with a good knowledge of C and a good understanding of how CPU's get the job done but with no emulation writting experience could help? if so then i'd be glad to help with that.

 

[TKF15H]

I managed to use gFTP to upload some stuff to SF. Those who want to check out the changes made so far should have a look at:
http://illexboyadvance.sourceforge.net/

A_SN: Have a look. arm-new.h is the original VBA interpretor and arm-out.h is the one I'm working on.

[edit] I just uploaded a temporary WIP webpage there. Serious case of programmer's art. Don't worry, it's temporary. Took me a while to battle those senseless tables (add a bit of text in and BOOM, everything breaks up >_< ). Oh, and did I mention it's temporary??

David Beoulve: Do you have anything in mind for the site? HTML ain't for me.

 

[Franxis]

Wooo, good luck

 

[A_SN]

A_SN: Have a look. arm-new.h is the original VBA interpretor and arm-out.h is the one I'm working on.

errr, i am sure i can NOT help i never even ever dealt with a header file before.

anyways, nice main page, good to see a main page, alot of project admins out there overlook the importance of a main page.