Gpsp (dynarec) Beta Testing

[PokeParadox]

To quote what a wise man once said:

EDIT: Videos! I try using the unscaled mode but it seemed too squashed vertically... these are all scaled 3:2.
Metroid Zero Mission (U)
Super Mario Advance (U)
Pokémon Fire Red (U)

These videos are all with 0.9003b

EDIT: PS I'm on FW 2.1.1

 

[wiseguy109]

PokeParadox: I saw you're earlier videos and they were on par with what I got with the versions you used. Have you made v9003b videos? I'd like to see some of Super Mario Bros if possible, just to get a comparison. I'm wondering why some get better performance than others. It may very well be bad rom dumps or different region roms. I usually use US roms, as they will run MUCH faster usually than EU/JP roms on gpSP2X.

The legendary Squidge got me up to speed on how to use the MMU patch. It may be implemented wrong the way I currently have it, so I'm going to see if I can make things faster. I'm using Firmware 3.0 so it may be that the MMU patch is working for me but not others as well.

Any beta testers using FW 3.0 ? If not, it could be the difference.

I'll definitely check into this now as it makes a big difference when using HW SDL.

I am using 3.0, also I wasn't overclocking correctly with the newer releases. Now that I am things have sped up considerably. Has anyone been able to get the Golden Sun games to work? Whenever I try to load either of them they just hang on a black screen (they are US roms).

 

[Julius]

Well I am on 2.10 and I am definitly getting a much higher speed than shown in the Mario Advance video @266mhz. I just double checked to make sure. And my rom seems to be the european version, oh and no ram optimisations here either.

Edit: No luck with Golden Sun so far, either

 

[___]

omfg this is seems amazing. I can hardly wait for a public release. Zelda Minish Cap on gp2x. Pure pwnage. Hope that the mmu patch adds some speed when implemented correctly.

 

[purple_goat]

@Poke

thanks for the 0mission vid

 

[PokeParadox]

Well I am on 2.10 and I am definitly getting a much higher speed than shown in the Mario Advance video @266mhz. I just double checked to make sure. And my rom seems to be the european version.

The video was captured using 240MHz ... so there will be a tiny variation due to that. I've had a quick check now (without TVout) and There is definately dropped frames due to encoding/capturing I think there was some background activity on my pc when made the newer videos.

I'll capture some more videos tomorrow and make sure my comp isn't trying to download antivirus updates or anything in the background. But for now, goodnight

Note:
Those with GMenu2X can use RAMTamings(in the latest test version) and overclock. just set gpsp as a link and overclock as normal and set ramtimings in the link. When you launch gpsp it will be overclcoked and ram timings enabled just press start through the cpu_speed.

 

[slaanesh]

If someone could do a Mario Kart Super Circuit video that would be great. Love to see that in action.

 

[sam fisher]

Well I am on 2.10 and I am definitly getting a much higher speed than shown in the Mario Advance video @266mhz. I just double checked to make sure. And my rom seems to be the european version.

The video was captured using 240MHz ... so there will be a tiny variation due to that. I've had a quick check now (without TVout) and There is definately dropped frames due to encoding/capturing I think there was some background activity on my pc when made the newer videos.

I'll capture some more videos tomorrow and make sure my comp isn't trying to download antivirus updates or anything in the background. But for now, goodnight

Note:
Those with GMenu2X can use RAMTamings(in the latest test version) and overclock. just set gpsp as a link and overclock as normal and set ramtimings in the link. When you launch gpsp it will be overclcoked and ram timings enabled just press start through the cpu_speed.

Can you point me to these ram setttings please?

 

[PokeParadox]

Just edit the link and turn "Tweak RAM Timings" to ON

 

[zodttd]

Glad to hear some of the confusion is clearing up. So FW might not make much difference, but I'm still going to fix the MMU patch as I probably have it wrong.

*** YOU SHOULD PUT GAME_CONFIG.TXT INSIDE THE DIRECTORY WITH GPSP.GPE ! ***

The biggest thing that will make games faster is if you are able to match the game rom to the game_config.txt listing. Here's a very quick guide:
1. Games that match the game_config.txt in the gpSP directory will run considerably faster due to idle loop elimination. To find out if your current rom matches first open game_config.txt in a text editor of your choice.
2. So let's say we're testing SUPER MARIO ADVANCE, do a search in game_config.txt and you'll see:
# Super Mario Advance (U)
game_name = SUPER MARIOA
game_code = AMZE
vender_code = 01
idle_loop_eliminate_target = 08001cf2

3. (U) means United States, (E) means Europe, and (J) means Japanese.
Now open up the Super Mario Advance rom in your favorite text/hex editor. For a text editor, do not use notepad as it has a hard time with large files, use Wordpad instead. In the editor at the very top of the file there is a game_name and game_code that gpSP2X checks for.
If you don't see the game_name+game_code in the top of the file then you don't have the optimizations for that rom. In our case we'd want to find:
SUPER MARIOAAMZE01

4. Editing the rom file to match the game config is definitely NOT recommended since the idle loop elimination is looking for a specific part of the rom and the variances between regional roms is too different.

So there you have it. A simple way of finding out if you have a rom that has been optimized for gpSP2X. If your favorite rom isn't optimized yet, I will try to get a tutorial out for finding out addresses for idle loop elimination.

 

[Julius]

@PokeParadox: Ok I tried it with 240mhz, and it is still pretty smooth, maybe a bit slow, and the sound definitly laggs a bit, but it is still very smooth.

That isn't the case in your videos, where everything seems to jump sometimes, as if the automatic frameskip would skip lots of frames. Could you confirm that that is just a video artefact, and not visible on the screen of your gp2x?

Edit: My Super Mario Advance rom isn't even the optimized version according to that description ZodTTD just gave us.

 

[shinneri]

I don't know if I pointed out my testing is done at 200mhz. I don't like overclocking.

 

[zodttd]

The optimized Super Mario Advance runs fullspeed for me easily at 240-260.

 

[PokeParadox]

@PokeParadox: Ok I tried it with 240mhz, and it is still pretty smooth, maybe a bit slow, and the sound definitly laggs a bit, but it is still very smooth.

That isn't the case in your videos, where everything seems to jump sometimes, as if the automatic frameskip would skip lots of frames. Could you confirm that that is just a video artefact, and not visible on the screen of your gp2x?

Yes I've confirmed that on the GP2X it runs smoother.

 

[sam fisher]

@PokeParadox: Ok I tried it with 240mhz, and it is still pretty smooth, maybe a bit slow, and the sound definitly laggs a bit, but it is still very smooth.

That isn't the case in your videos, where everything seems to jump sometimes, as if the automatic frameskip would skip lots of frames. Could you confirm that that is just a video artefact, and not visible on the screen of your gp2x?

Yes I've confirmed that on the GP2X it runs smoother.

YOu spoke ok a "link" earlier? To get ram timings. What link do you mean?

Edit: at 266mhz Mario Vs Donkey Kong is not far from full speed. It has some stuttery audio, however.

 

[gaterooze]

Sam, he's talking about using the new beta of Gmenu to do the RAM timings.

To use the internal RAM timings in gpSP, try these values:

CAS 2
tRC 6
tRAS 4
tWR 1
tMRD 1
tRFC 1
tRP 2
tRCD 2

(save them to the SD (hit Y on the menu) so you don't have to reenter them each time, and be sure to hit select to boot gpSP)

 

[zodttd]

Ok, I'm going to fix MMU patch loading so it works in the next release. It's currently not working. This will add some speed, not sure how much yet.

Also, I have a lot of optimization room to work with on the dynarec. I plan to add something called static register allocation so I don't have to do some time consuming non-dynareced code. This will add QUITE a lot of performance.

Time to work on this. They'll probably be a v9004 today. Feel free to check for it as the day progresses.

 

[SiDCrAzY]

You're a machine zodttd

 

[Rivroner]

MMU PATCH will speed up things a lot
At least in the others emus the boost was of 20 frames

 

[sam fisher]

Sam, he's talking about using the new beta of Gmenu to do the RAM timings.

To use the internal RAM timings in gpSP, try these values:

CAS 2
tRC 6
tRAS 4
tWR 1
tMRD 1
tRFC 1
tRP 2
tRCD 2

(save them to the SD (hit Y on the menu) so you don't have to reenter them each time, and be sure to hit select to boot gpSP)

Thank you, there is definetly some sort of improvement using these Mario VS Donkey kong has no glitches. It's just a little slow.