Gp2X Emulation

[elitistlinuxuser]

Me and my friend need some help. A friend of mine is developing an original gp2x emulator for the gp2x wiz I was wondering does anyone know where I can find the hardware documentation for the original gp2x (aka f100, f200).

 

[Mr.TwisT]

Sorry, but it makes no sense to "emulate" a similar system on the wiz. Both systems run linux and have almost an identical set of emulators - i.e most of them are ported + new ones had been written. Moreover - the wiz is faster than the original GP2X. Besides, how can you "emulate" something that is basically already there? It's linux. Making a GP2X emulator for the wiz would be almost like developing a gba emulator for the gba, that would run in a different OS - slow, unpractical and useless.

 

[Exophase]

Right here dude: http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Getting_started_with_GP2X_hardware_hacking

Am interested in knowing the exact plans before I give my opinion (not that you asked for one)

 

[elitistlinuxuser]

Sorry, but it makes no sense to "emulate" a similar system on the wiz. Both systems run linux and have almost an identical set of emulators - i.e most of them are ported + new ones had been written. Moreover - the wiz is faster than the original GP2X. Besides, how can you "emulate" something that is basically already there? It's linux. Making a GP2X emulator for the wiz would be almost like developing a gba emulator for the gba, that would run in a different OS - slow, unpractical and useless.

The gp2x wiz has plenty of emulators, but the problem is that several native gp2x games haven't been ported to the gp2x wiz including payback, Secret Maryo chronicles, and metal blob solid. Besides it wouldn't be that slow each processor was only 200mhz. In my opinion it would very practical.

 

[elitistlinuxuser]

Over clocking will be a necessary option

 

[Hooka]

Just to clarify, secret maryo chronicles and metal blob solid are open source and can be ported! There are a few GP2X exclusive commercial and homebrew titles that are available, but it boils down to are these few titles worth it? With payback you can emulate both amiga or GBA versions if you own the originals for those systems... now Vektar, there's a game I would love to see brought to the Wiz!

First try your hand at porting some of these games that you are thinking about emulating if they are open source and see where things go from there

 

[senquack]

Maybe a better route would be to provide a hacked version of the Wiz kernel that can optionally provide hacked versions of the mmap command. It would expose a section of memory different than what the GP2X libraries (SDL or minlib) of the binaries request and thereby provide a way of emulating the GP2X video hardware and GPIO lines for button input. That has the potential to be very fast, I would imagine.

I think Vektar might have used the second core, can't remember but Dzz had done work getting sound onto it, at least for some demos he did. Can't remember if Payback used the second core.

 

[Mr.TwisT]

Oh... well... if you put it that way

 

[Exophase]

Once Pandora and iControlPad are out you guys should ask craigix if he's willing to open source it. Could end up getting quickly ported to all the relevant platforms that way. I don't think craig is interested in selling it anymore so..

 

[elitistlinuxuser]

Just to clarify, secret maryo chronicles and metal blob solid are open source and can be ported! There are a few GP2X exclusive commercial and homebrew titles that are available, but it boils down to are these few titles worth it? With payback you can emulate both amiga or GBA versions if you own the originals for those systems... now Vektar, there's a game I would love to see brought to the Wiz!

First try your hand at porting some of these games that you are thinking about emulating if they are open source and see where things go from there

Well the emulator will be there just save time by not having to port a bunch of titles.

 

[Hooka]

Maybe a better route would be to provide a hacked version of the Wiz kernel that can optionally provide hacked versions of the mmap command. It would expose a section of memory different than what the GP2X libraries (SDL or minlib) of the binaries request and thereby provide a way of emulating the GP2X video hardware and GPIO lines for button input. That has the potential to be very fast, I would imagine.

I think Vektar might have used the second core, can't remember but Dzz had done work getting sound onto it, at least for some demos he did. Can't remember if Payback used the second core.

I wondered if something like this would be feasible, just modifying the kernel and simulating the hardware In a setup like this could the kernel module used to access the 940 be recoded with an emulated cpu in a thread or something to that effect? (ignoring the potential performance hit just for "what if"-type discussion). Probably have to use the older kernel and glibc that the GP2X used for something like this wouldn't it?

as for the second cores use in Payback, sounds like it wasn't used (source: http://hooka.gp2x.de/5970/ Don't mean to quote my own interview I just knew it was in there somewhere )

Just to clarify, secret maryo chronicles and metal blob solid are open source and can be ported! There are a few GP2X exclusive commercial and homebrew titles that are available, but it boils down to are these few titles worth it? With payback you can emulate both amiga or GBA versions if you own the originals for those systems... now Vektar, there's a game I would love to see brought to the Wiz!

First try your hand at porting some of these games that you are thinking about emulating if they are open source and see where things go from there

Well the emulator will be there just save time by not having to port a bunch of titles.

... *shrugs* what do I know, I'm just a fool in a double beer cap! As a note though, a port will out perform emulation any day and allow a person to customize and optimize.

 

[Pickle]

Once Pandora and iControlPad are out you guys should ask craigix if he's willing to open source it. Could end up getting quickly ported to all the relevant platforms that way. I don't think craig is interested in selling it anymore so..

Ive asked about it, but either the message never made it or I was ignored. I have a suspicion that Craig may not have the source, only bins, and Dzz has disappeared...

 

[senquack]

I wondered if something like this would be feasible, just modifying the kernel and simulating the hardware In a setup like this could the kernel module used to access the 940 be recoded with an emulated cpu in a thread or something to that effect? (ignoring the potential performance hit just for "what if"-type discussion). Probably have to use the older kernel and glibc that the GP2X used for something like this wouldn't it?

Since Payback didn't use the second core I can only think of four other programs that did: Picodrive, Egoboo2x, rRootage (my port), and maybe Vektar.

Picodrive and rRootage have Wiz ports (my entry to the PACC competition is a port of rRootage) and Egoboo2x is open-source and so would be easily ported. That leaves Vektar unless I am mistaken and I hardly think it'd be worth the huge effort involved in emulating a second core just to enable playing that one game. At the most, it'd probably be enough to hack the binary to not wait for the handshaking mutex that it might use to communicate with the second core and change all the setup code for the second core to NOPs. If Vektar did use the second core, it was to play OGGs so you would still even have sound effects, just no music so it's no big deal.

I think emulating the GP2X video hardware and hacking the mmap system call might be something I'd like to try to add to my port of Open2X to it, it would certainly be the next step in my programming evolution but to be honest it would be a challenge for me, I'd have to learn a bit more and it would probably take me a while.

One problem that might exist is that the Wiz uses the 2.6 linux kernel and the GP2X used the 2.4 kernel. I think they are mostly still compatible (same ABI) since I can use the same toolchain and libraries for both. Dunno if any commonly used system calls changed much between them though. Maybe Exophase can chime in here about what he thinks

 

[Pickle]

I wondered if something like this would be feasible, just modifying the kernel and simulating the hardware In a setup like this could the kernel module used to access the 940 be recoded with an emulated cpu in a thread or something to that effect? (ignoring the potential performance hit just for "what if"-type discussion). Probably have to use the older kernel and glibc that the GP2X used for something like this wouldn't it?

Since Payback didn't use the second core I can only think of four other programs that did: Picodrive, Egoboo2x, rRootage (my port), and maybe Vektar.

Picodrive and rRootage have Wiz ports (my entry to the PACC competition is a port of rRootage) and Egoboo2x is open-source and so would be easily ported. That leaves Vektar unless I am mistaken and I hardly think it'd be worth the huge effort involved in emulating a second core just to enable playing that one game. At the most, it'd probably be enough to hack the binary to not wait for the handshaking mutex that it might use to communicate with the second core and change all the setup code for the second core to NOPs. If Vektar did use the second core, it was to play OGGs so you would still even have sound effects, just no music so it's no big deal.

I think emulating the GP2X video hardware and hacking the mmap system call might be something I'd like to try to add to my port of Open2X to it, it would certainly be the next step in my programming evolution but to be honest it would be a challenge for me, I'd have to learn a bit more and it would probably take me a while.

Your missing some dosbox and wolf4sdl use the second core to offload fmopl emulation. (Although these dont matter since the normal versions are already running)
Cavestory would be a nice game that would benefit from such an emulation layer.

 

[liveevil]

Offtopic, while your here PICKLE is there a way to get HAM images to display correctly on your Amiga UAE4All port and if not could you please please fix the emu so they display properly ?? That's all I ask of this emu. Thanks.

 

[liveevil]

Oh well, I thought you'd ingnore that. I think i'll just sell my Wiz and get a Netbook. The PC emulators are far superior.

 

[Pickle]

Oh well, I thought you'd ingnore that. I think i'll just sell my Wiz and get a Netbook. The PC emulators are far superior.

I sent you a PM you dope, so that this thread wouldnt have to go OT.

 

[senquack]

Your missing some dosbox and wolf4sdl use the second core to offload fmopl emulation. (Although these dont matter since the normal versions are already running)
Cavestory would be a nice game that would benefit from such an emulation layer.

Sorry about that Pickle! I wasn't aware you had offloaded the sound, and I even play wolf4sdl so my bad

Oh well, I thought you'd ingnore that. I think i'll just sell my Wiz and get a Netbook. The PC emulators are far superior.

haha what in the hell!?!

 

[Hooka]

gotta admit it sounds like me that liveevil is trying to punish us by leaving the scene, but imo from comments like that I think he'd be doing us a favor...

P.S. Sorry for off-topic!

 

[MkidTrigun]

Back on topic, I could see myself using this for two programs: Cave Story and the GP2X NES emulator. While we already have GpFCE running on the Wiz, I feel that the original was a bit more polished, and it wouldn't be that much of a performance hit, either.