GP32 Gp32 Software "emulation"
- Thread starter Gab1975
- Start date
StarG
Member
Well it's true that we can now use binaries compiled originally for gp2x (using Ginge) but employing that technique for gp32 emulation is a complete different story. They both share a cpu core with a quite similiar ISA (some earlier variant of ARMv5) however both the underlying hardware was different and the OS was homebrewn by GP back then (dubbed GPOS) which is not compatible with Linux used across GP2x/Wiz/Canoo. You basically have binary blobs with firmware calls which lead to nowhere and possibly direct hardware calls to hardware which does not exist.
Getting a functional GP32 emulator running means probably to write an emulation for the firmware calls, a technique usually known as HLE. This works if programms stay on track and do not access the hardware directly. To intercept those calls you would probably patch the gp32 binary on the fly, exchanging jump adresses to firmware calls with wrapping functions.
It should be clear however that apart of firmware wrapping a full emulator is needed (qemu comes to my mind, which might well run on wiz - anyone worked on this yet?) however this comes at the cost of pretty poor execution speed.
To summarize it: Ginge is a library call hooker which intercepts and modifies calls to typically used gp2x libraries and translates them to their newer counterparts. Its OS dependant and does not work out for GP32 emulation. However the basic idea of an HLE is quite similiar so you were not too far off
Hope this outline was helpful.
Getting a functional GP32 emulator running means probably to write an emulation for the firmware calls, a technique usually known as HLE. This works if programms stay on track and do not access the hardware directly. To intercept those calls you would probably patch the gp32 binary on the fly, exchanging jump adresses to firmware calls with wrapping functions.
It should be clear however that apart of firmware wrapping a full emulator is needed (qemu comes to my mind, which might well run on wiz - anyone worked on this yet?) however this comes at the cost of pretty poor execution speed.
To summarize it: Ginge is a library call hooker which intercepts and modifies calls to typically used gp2x libraries and translates them to their newer counterparts. Its OS dependant and does not work out for GP32 emulation. However the basic idea of an HLE is quite similiar so you were not too far off
Hope this outline was helpful.
Optimus
Member
Well, there isn't even a good GP32 emulator on PC that can get full speed.
I remember GeePee32 which unfortunatelly the author discontinued.
Then I see this video of a good GP32 demo running with sound and full speed on what's supposed to be a port of GeePee32 for MESS.
I imediatelly download MESS and try to run this emulator. I think I had problems running some stuff for it and the speed on the menu was too slow anyway. It generally seemed much slower than what I remember GeePee32. How does the video on youtube is so fast? Maybe just a prerendered test? Maybe the Mess port has the purpose of preservation of the old GeePee32 code and not speed.
I am still dreaming for a good, easy and fast GP32 emulator for the PC.
I remember GeePee32 which unfortunatelly the author discontinued.
Then I see this video of a good GP32 demo running with sound and full speed on what's supposed to be a port of GeePee32 for MESS.
I imediatelly download MESS and try to run this emulator. I think I had problems running some stuff for it and the speed on the menu was too slow anyway. It generally seemed much slower than what I remember GeePee32. How does the video on youtube is so fast? Maybe just a prerendered test? Maybe the Mess port has the purpose of preservation of the old GeePee32 code and not speed.
I am still dreaming for a good, easy and fast GP32 emulator for the PC.
Optimus
Member
CKeichel said:
AMD Athlon 64, 2300Mhz, Dual Core
4GB Ram
GeForce 450GTS
Maybe I haven't configured something right on the emulator? Anyone has a more positive experience of running GP32 on Mess?
Last edited by a moderator:
