Gigadrive

[johnnyskullhead]

strider & revenge of shinobi work brilliantly
streets of rage says time up
streets of rage 2 seems ok but u cant see your energy bar :rolleyes:

 

[Nightripper]

Anyone tried Contra: Hardcorps and Bare Knuckle 3 (Japanese version of SoR 3) yet?

 

[Antiriad]

Is there any pattern to what region Gigadrive likes?

 

[GPJosh]

I think it's region and battery powered save carts.

 

[hando]

Anyone tried Contra: Hardcorps and Bare Knuckle 3 (Japanese version of SoR 3) yet?

Bare Knuckles 3 works and looks amazing

 

[BaDToaD]

Excellent job so far keep up the good work.

Ecco the Dolphin had my girfriend glued to her GP32 for half the evening.

 

[fdave]

Is there any pattern to what region Gigadrive likes?

i tried to add a region auto-detect, but i could have messed up...

which roms dont play, European, US or Japanese?

 

[fdave]

Genesis Specs:

Model Number: MK-1601 (r1), MK-1631 (r2).
CPU: Motorola 68000 at 7.61 MHz
1 MByte (8 Mbit) ROM Area
64 KByte RAM Area
Co-Processor: Z80 @ 4 MHz (Not Present in MK-1631)
Controls PSG (Programmable Sound Generator) & FM Chips
8 KBytes of dedicated Sound Ram
Graphics:
64 simultaneous colors of 512 color pallete.
Pixel resolution: 320 x 224
VDP (Video Display Processor)
Dedicated video display processor
Controls playfield & sprites
64 KBytes of dedicated VRAM (Video Ram)
64 x 9-bits of CRAM (Color RAM)
3 Planes: 2 scrolling playfields, 1 sprite plane
Sound:
PSG (TI 76489 chip)
FM chip (Yamaha YM 2612)
6-channel stereo
8 KBytes RAM
Signal/Noise Ratio: 14dB

Hmm it says that the Z80 is not present in "MK-1631"... is that another genesis model or what? Well I guess the Z80 core would take some stress off the 68k, wouldn't it? I don't know all that much about Genesis hardware...

Yep the mark 3 Genesis was made in Brazil I believe it looked different and they chucked out the z80 as they did in the nomad. This made it not possible to play master system games anymore and also the sound was not as good quality because the z80 helped with the sound processing. Also a few games stopped working like around 10 I think wouldn't work. Anyway we will have a z80 core so is all I can say

I heard that too but that's actually a myth. For the Genny 3 and the Nomad they chucked out the Master System compatibility i.e. the Z80 is wired up for MD only, but the z80 is still there I assure you

...or you wouldn't get 99% of the sound

 

[fdave]

GigaDrive is certainly impressive, I can't believe the speed! I know its a work in progress, but just a few suggestions for the next version:

1. Sound (I know)
2. Save States
3. Support of longer filenames & better GUI (Loads of files named SONICT~1 are pretty confusing!)
4. Custom button config (remembered by emulator)
5. improved Compatibility! (Speedball 2 doesn't work!)

I know that these elements are being worked on as we speak, just my opinion. GREAT WORK!

®

About the 8.3 filenames - how does that work on the GP32? I wasn't expecting it but as soon as I started dragging files across is wouldn't allow them longer than 8.3 - am I using the wong PC-Link program or something? or is the GP32 stuck with 8.3?

 

[kotd]

Use GP Drive dave that makes your SMC like a removable hard drive and lets u have full names

 

[Daz_Genetic]

If you use a card writer, or GPdrive, filenames can be longer, but I don't think the official SDK will deal with them that well. Perhaps mr.mirko's SDK deals with them. I know at least one person has programmed support for them. I bet squidge would know the answer.

 

[Efompor]

Hmm... would it be possible to make the "R" shoulder button a kind of modifier button where when you hold it down it makes A B and C work like X Y and Z? Many fighting games are impossible to play on this emulator because you cannot punch (they require the X Y and Z buttons). Or you could have something like OPENSPES's "tap select" to switch between button modes, but I think holding down R would somehow feel better. Like you know it's off and that you're back to A B and C when you let go.

 

[IntenseWage]

SoR 2 and 3 have a problem with the enemy AI. The enemies will move around and punch you when you walk right in front of them, but they never take the initiative to attack you. It's a really odd bug. Otherwise, they're perfect.

Also, I think there could be a problem with using Select as A. You don't seem to be able to combine Select with any other button presses. Maybe that can be fixed.

 

[TandeM]

At least Start+A works (yay for Sonic 2 debug mode!)

 

[Alpha2]

I'd very much like to be able to use the select button as an action button... then you could hold the left trigger to get the X,Y and Z (if needed).

 

[Squidge]

Yes, it's possible, but the easiest way to do this is to just pack every rom into a seperate zip file. Have the zip files 8.3, but only display the contents of the zip files in the rom browser.

It's possible to view the long filenames on the SMC, but this is a lot more work than just opening a zip file and displaying the contents, to which all source code is already provided.

 

[Antiriad]

i tried to add a region auto-detect, but i could have messed up...

which roms dont play, European, US or Japanese?

Well, id say its working fine. Its only been other people saying different regioned versions of games imporve compatibility.

 

[EvilDragon]

About the 8.3 filenames - how does that work on the GP32? I wasn't expecting it but as soon as I started dragging files across is wouldn't allow them longer than 8.3 - am I using the wong PC-Link program or something? or is the GP32 stuck with 8.3?

Usually, the GP32 only used 8.3 (like the old DOS). (GP32 = Fat12, DOS = Fat16)
When Microsoft created Win95, they invented the long filenames.
But Win95 still used the same FAT16 as DOS - so basically, there are only 8.3 filenames possible.

So MS developed a system, how the long filenames are included somewhere into the file (I don't know if this is done by using unused free attributes in the FileSystem, in the file, etc.).

That's why you can still have long filenames on the SMC using a cardreader, but they will be abbreviated to 8.3 (like DOS) when you use them under your GP32.

Basically, you just have to write a routine to read out and display the long filename.

You can find more infos on the FAT file system here
and the definition of the LFN (Long File Names) here.

Another way (which most emulator coders chose) is to implement one of the large game databases (which use CRC) and cache the directory, displaying the database names.

 

[Tobriand]

The problem is that the place where the long filenames are stored is in another file with attributes that technically are impossible - hence showing up as invisible most of the time. Which might cause a problem unless you purpose-coded something without the SDK, I suspect...

Interesting, btw, that GPDrive already allows long filenames to be copied over and back... I wonder if that bit could be taken forth from the driver and used. Somehow I doubt it...

 

[Knuckles500]

How about RF Mode for the emulator