zodttd
Solving your premature emulation since the Tapwave
New release of GP2PSX...Definitely one to check out!
Get GP2PSX v0.35 at http://www.friggingames.com/gp2psx035.zip
We're making progress on GP2PSX...
From the quickly written changes.txt:
UPDATED February 8th, 2006
New in version v0.35:
*** LARGE UPDATE ***
- Speed increase due to figuring out how to still read and write to memory cards with faster timings of the psx's "root counters". Enough of a change in speeds of games that I released this as a new version.
- Speed increase in games where stretch blit occured. Reason? Well for 640x480 games, I scaled down by 2 with better code. And for games with resolution only slightly larger than the GP2X screen, I centered the screen and removed the edges. Also, for screens smaller than the GP2X screensize, instead of stretching the screen, it leaves the resolution intact, not only making things look cleaner, but speeding that up as well. So see if it's ok enough to live with. If not, let me know.
- Hopefully the timings didn't screw stuff up, if they did, let me know and I'll fix it.
- The B button now selects a game. Chose to do this by request.
- SELECT button now works! This means games like R-Types are playable! Yay!
- All blitting code except certain instances where stretch blit is required, is done in assembly, thanks to AntiPasta. Thanks AntiPasta!
- INCLUDES A SECOND VERSION OF V0.35: I included Unai's "work in progress" GPU revisions in a seperate GPE file. Try it out and you should notice about 3 or more FPS in actual gameplay. Note that this version has a bug in a certain type of graphic routine so some graphical glitches will most likely occur. Once the bug is fixed it will be merged into the main release. This is more of a preview.
- Too busy to note all the minor changes. ;P
My main interest in this release is to see:
A. How performance is in this release.
B. Any graphical glitches that weren't in previous releases in this one?
C. Any memory card issues?
D. Does frameskip seem to work better now? If so, how large a frameskip was optimal? I have a feeling frameskip still sucks all round.
Some stuff I already know about this release:
A. The sound still sucks, working on getting it timed right. For now, it's recommended you turn off sound and get the performance boost.
B. Movies, and the sound that accompanies them, are still very choppy. Working on fixing this.
C. If the framerate goes over 80 FPS, things get choppy. Use frameskip if this happens. it shouldn't occur as much as the GPU timings are set so the GPU doesn't hog all the resources.
D. If sound is turned off and then back on, the emulator screws up and will most likely crash.
E. If frameskip is used in certain parts of certain games, you will get a flickering image of the previous frame. Turn off frameskip if this happens. :/
What's to come in the NEXT release:
- Progress has been made in translating my crappy C blitting code into ARM assembly. I'm learning it as I go, and AntiPasta and Tinnus have been great help. If the assembly version of the stretch blit code is fast enough, I'll put it back into the emulator.
- Hopefully sound will be cleared up a bit. Right now it's pretty choppy.
- Bug fixes...I have a feeling this release will uncover a bunch of bugs. :/
- Merging of Unai's GPU revisions into the main code. For now, try out Unai's version, and if it works well for your game, enjoy the speed increase!
Now that the timings can be changed easier, I've allowed more frames of animation to be blitted, meaning stuff doesn't skip as much. I seemed to have unclogged a bottleneck in the psx emu core, and hopefully this will give Unai some room to optimize his GPU. Some games REALLY sped up with this release, while others didn't. Frameskip isn't working as well as it could so far, mostly due to the CPU emulation as a bottleneck. This is why a dynamic recompiler is so important, as it will allow room for the GPU to shine.
There's a good amount of improvements to be done. Expect the coming releases to be good ones.
*** THERE WILL BE SOME CLIPPING OF THE SCREEN IN SOME GAMES ***
I hope you understand the changes being made to the emulator in this release are more expieremental than anything. I'm trying to see what games are sped up by what optimizations made in this release. There are quite a few graphical issues to be dealt with, such as clearing the screen before drawing a screen that is smaller than the GP2X screen, but I left it too see if it gives performance gain... so bear with me.
I really appreciate the flood of help I've received. Thanks especially to Unai, AntiPasta, Urielka, and Tinnus.
ZodTTD
P.S. Just tested a few more of my games with this release. Final Fantasy Tactics is almost playable at about half full speed when the GP2X is overclocked. Einhander is playable if the GP2X is overclocked. Games seem to run much smoother as well. What was once 8 FPS in Buster Bros is now 25+ FPS with frameskip 0.
Get GP2PSX v0.35 at http://www.friggingames.com/gp2psx035.zip
We're making progress on GP2PSX...
From the quickly written changes.txt:
UPDATED February 8th, 2006
New in version v0.35:
*** LARGE UPDATE ***
- Speed increase due to figuring out how to still read and write to memory cards with faster timings of the psx's "root counters". Enough of a change in speeds of games that I released this as a new version.
- Speed increase in games where stretch blit occured. Reason? Well for 640x480 games, I scaled down by 2 with better code. And for games with resolution only slightly larger than the GP2X screen, I centered the screen and removed the edges. Also, for screens smaller than the GP2X screensize, instead of stretching the screen, it leaves the resolution intact, not only making things look cleaner, but speeding that up as well. So see if it's ok enough to live with. If not, let me know.
- Hopefully the timings didn't screw stuff up, if they did, let me know and I'll fix it.
- The B button now selects a game. Chose to do this by request.
- SELECT button now works! This means games like R-Types are playable! Yay!
- All blitting code except certain instances where stretch blit is required, is done in assembly, thanks to AntiPasta. Thanks AntiPasta!
- INCLUDES A SECOND VERSION OF V0.35: I included Unai's "work in progress" GPU revisions in a seperate GPE file. Try it out and you should notice about 3 or more FPS in actual gameplay. Note that this version has a bug in a certain type of graphic routine so some graphical glitches will most likely occur. Once the bug is fixed it will be merged into the main release. This is more of a preview.
- Too busy to note all the minor changes. ;P
My main interest in this release is to see:
A. How performance is in this release.
B. Any graphical glitches that weren't in previous releases in this one?
C. Any memory card issues?
D. Does frameskip seem to work better now? If so, how large a frameskip was optimal? I have a feeling frameskip still sucks all round.
Some stuff I already know about this release:
A. The sound still sucks, working on getting it timed right. For now, it's recommended you turn off sound and get the performance boost.
B. Movies, and the sound that accompanies them, are still very choppy. Working on fixing this.
C. If the framerate goes over 80 FPS, things get choppy. Use frameskip if this happens. it shouldn't occur as much as the GPU timings are set so the GPU doesn't hog all the resources.
D. If sound is turned off and then back on, the emulator screws up and will most likely crash.
E. If frameskip is used in certain parts of certain games, you will get a flickering image of the previous frame. Turn off frameskip if this happens. :/
What's to come in the NEXT release:
- Progress has been made in translating my crappy C blitting code into ARM assembly. I'm learning it as I go, and AntiPasta and Tinnus have been great help. If the assembly version of the stretch blit code is fast enough, I'll put it back into the emulator.
- Hopefully sound will be cleared up a bit. Right now it's pretty choppy.
- Bug fixes...I have a feeling this release will uncover a bunch of bugs. :/
- Merging of Unai's GPU revisions into the main code. For now, try out Unai's version, and if it works well for your game, enjoy the speed increase!
Now that the timings can be changed easier, I've allowed more frames of animation to be blitted, meaning stuff doesn't skip as much. I seemed to have unclogged a bottleneck in the psx emu core, and hopefully this will give Unai some room to optimize his GPU. Some games REALLY sped up with this release, while others didn't. Frameskip isn't working as well as it could so far, mostly due to the CPU emulation as a bottleneck. This is why a dynamic recompiler is so important, as it will allow room for the GPU to shine.
There's a good amount of improvements to be done. Expect the coming releases to be good ones.
*** THERE WILL BE SOME CLIPPING OF THE SCREEN IN SOME GAMES ***
I hope you understand the changes being made to the emulator in this release are more expieremental than anything. I'm trying to see what games are sped up by what optimizations made in this release. There are quite a few graphical issues to be dealt with, such as clearing the screen before drawing a screen that is smaller than the GP2X screen, but I left it too see if it gives performance gain... so bear with me.
I really appreciate the flood of help I've received. Thanks especially to Unai, AntiPasta, Urielka, and Tinnus.
ZodTTD
P.S. Just tested a few more of my games with this release. Final Fantasy Tactics is almost playable at about half full speed when the GP2X is overclocked. Einhander is playable if the GP2X is overclocked. Games seem to run much smoother as well. What was once 8 FPS in Buster Bros is now 25+ FPS with frameskip 0.
