I Got Gpsp (gba) Running With Sound!

[kamakazieturtle]

More games tested.

1.LEGO Star Wars II - The Original Trilogy (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 2) It had fast menus but the game runs rather slow with glitchy sound, almost playable.
2.Dungeons & Dragons - Eye Of The Beholder (Overclocked to 250) It was almost fullspeed, had glitchy sound, playable.
3.Eragon (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 2-4) It ran really slow and the sound was crapy, not really playable.
4.Gundam Seed - Battle Seed (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 2-4) Ran at about 3/4 of the speed in the menus and froze on gameplay, sound was glitchy, not playable.
5.Kirby & The Amazing Mirror (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 2) It was kinda slow and the sound wasn't good, pretty much playable.
6.Lunar Legend (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 2-4) Ran slow about 1/2 to 3/4 speed, bad sound, almost playable.
7.Tales Of Phantasia (Overclocked to 250) Kinda slow and chippy sound, almost playable.
The Legend Of Spyro - A New Beginning (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 2) Ran kinda slow, bad sound, I'd say playable.
8.Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 2-4) Ran really slow and had bad sound, not playable.
9.Mario Kart Super Circuit (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 2-4) It ran really slow in the gameplay with bad sound, but the menus were fast, almost playable.
10.Kirby - Nightmare In Dreamland (Overclocked to 250 with frameskip of 1-2) Ran pretty fast in the gameplay and in the menus, sound was bad, but still playable.

 

[Hanz™]

I think i would prefer a plain black bg, a coloured boarder makes the game "appear" smaller, at least to me.
that's why i replaced the one in squidgesnes with black.

I made that in SNES Too, and in all emus i prefer a black background.And of course 1:1 ratio screen.

yep

although that daveC thing is pretty sweet looking, especially the black coloured one.

 

[bbodin]

thanks clone, must have missed that discussion.

Another question. It was mentioned a few pages back that zip format works, but it needs to be zipped in a particular way. Any info as to what way they need to be zipped (with winrar, winzip, etc?).

None of my zips work, but I had more success once I extracted them (but of course limits the # of games I can test since I can't fit as many on the card at a time)

 

[ryosaeba]

Ryo: I made the same suggestion a few pages back

I know but my suggestion is to modify gPSP to do this automatically and not manually.
If your suggestion was still the same then ok

Anyway, I'm doing some modifications to gpsp.
Nothing related to the emulation, but something to solve annoying things.

Already implemented:

1. Added a sync() to the end of the save process, so that savestates are written to disk immediately to avoid losing the progress if batteries fail.

2. Skip the oveclock selection if a rom is launched from command line. This is tipical gmenu2x selector use, and since gmenu2x can overclock that screen anoyed me.

3. Removed the hardcoded launch of the default menu. It'll be replaced by a simple script that ensures relaunch of the menu if the emu crashes and it allows for gmenu2x to use its wrapper feature.

I'll try to implement my previous suggestion and I'll look in a couple other trivial things.
If there is some interest in this modifications I may publish my version, I'll contact zodttd anyway when I finish everything, maybe he'll like them.

 

[k3nn]

Holy crap, this emu is frickin' awesome! I can run Golden Sun at a very playable rate, and Pokemon Ruby is almost perfect

(both at 240MHz and without sound, cos I can't oc to more than that and I prefer to listen to my own music )

Keep up the good work zodttd and exophase, we wubs you

 

[Blah]

I found a bios with proper checksum, but when I load a game it doesn't get past the GBA logo, even bust a move (which is suggested in the readme as a tester).

edit: Nevermind, apparently zips don't work yet.

 

[clone]

Ryo: I made the same suggestion a few pages back

I know but my suggestion is to modify gPSP to do this automatically and not manually.
If your suggestion was still the same then ok

Still the same.

I'm really getting into playing Zone of enders on this thing. It's awesome...

 

[zodttd]

Ryo: Good fixes! I forgot about the sync()'s! If you want, send the source or patches over here or just post the code snippets. Credit given where credit due.

I have been working on Release #4:
- A few more bug fixes.
- I also got rid of the frameskip menu graphic artifacts by placing the menu where it should be, over the center of the screen.
- The background is now black.
- The B/A buttons are now X/B like on the GBA
- Some performance gained by reducing some "Debug" type information in the interpreter.

I also fixed/figured out the zip issue. Zip files do not work in Release #3, but save states work fine. There's another issue stopping zip files from working currently, and depending on the changes Exophase sends me, it may be working in Release #4.

So far I got some more performance out of the interpreter, polishing it up, and fixing up things. Exophase has some really good stuff for me soon, such as fixes for Mario & Luigi, and he might be able to squeeze out more performance from the interpreter if I haven't done so already just now.

Critical: gpSP for the GP2X is almost a sure thing for being as fast as the PSP or possibly faster. With some games running for me at 266MHz with sound in sync and fully playable with fs1, and games like Mariogolf being playable now, and Mario Kart just about playable...with an interpreter and a week of work...It is more than reasonable to say this emulator will be up to the task to play games just as well as the PSP, within a short span of time. Exophase is doing the dynarec, and he feels this emulator only requires a fairly basic dynarec, nothing over-the-top. If he works on it in reasonable time you have it in reasonable time.

And yes, Mario Golf is fun on the GP2X!

I wonder if the "fast" version can be made slightly faster...time to test.

 

[hackgrid]

Nice

 

[zodttd]

Oh, as for the BIOS being loaded before a game...That fix shouldn't be needed soon. As a side effect of this fix, there will be MUCH less access to the SD card during the running of a game, and potentially faster framerates. In short, it's being fixed in a cleaner manner.

 

[DaveC]

Concerning background images, I was listening to an interview with David Crane (Inventor of the platformer with Pitfall and co-founder of Activision), who said a trick they always used on the Atari 2600 games was to give the screen a black border, because due to the way your eyes work this makes the colours of the game appear more vivid.

So I'm sticking with black borders if possible

That is why they should just be a regular png file. This way you can have the background any color, and image, or just black as well.

I think it would be nice to have the option to put any type you would like in there rather than forcing you to not have any or to make it only have one choice.

 

[cowai]

Zodttd is awsome. I just can't wait to play mario kart without stuttering sound and a high overclock.

Zodttd: Is implementing tighter ram timings an easy thing to do? And is there much to get from it, performance wise?

AND: when is exophase getting his GP2X? Has it been shipped already?

 

[zodttd]

DaveC: PNG/PCX/BMP support is fairly easily done. I like BMP/PCX usually since I have supported them without libs in the past. I wouldn't want to require a library for something as "minor" as this. I really don't think it's a direction that should be taken with the gpSP code right now though. If I know how I'm going to handle scaling, then I'll know what to do about backgrounds. One step at a time I guess.

cowai: I haven't tried changing RAM timings. It might help... I have a feeling firmware 2.1.1 will help improve performance though, since Release #1,2,3 don't load the entire ROM into memory, instead using a paging system.



I think Exophase is getting his GP2X within a week.

 

[ryosaeba]

In short, it's being fixed in a cleaner manner.

Surely much better!

You have a PM.

 

[epitaph]

Aight, some test results (all conducted using release 3 fast at 266 MHz):

Sonic Advance - runs OK, choppy audio (FS 2).
Sonic Advance 3 - same as SA, not exactly playable but still impressive (FS 2).
Pokemon Emerald - plays somewhat well (FS 2), very choppy audio.
Final Fantasy IV Advance - black screen (with choppy music playing in the background) after Nintendo health warning/Square-Enix title screen.
Final Fantasy VI Advance - runs, but very choppily (FS 2).

 

[pioj]

Hey!, it's my first post here!! Nice to meet you guys!

I did another possible frontend for gpsp. It's based on Liquido, so it keeps the menu' style.
I hope you like it:

piojete@gmail.com
http://pioj.hina.es

 

[___]

Cheers! Okay, google is my friend... should have known that before. Thanks for the three people who pm´d me anyways.

That frontend looks great.

God, can´t wait for the next releases!!!

 

[cowai]

Now I can't refresh anymore.. I'm getting sick. But if I stop now, maybe zodttd comes around and make a post?!? I need to be here! The ultimate dilemma.

 

[Emu&Co]

Now I got time to read the new post in here.
ZodTTD: When I said I'll donate money to you and Exopause, it was not meant the "Hey I am the Best, I donate my Money!" style. More in the "If a poor Student can do this, why not you?" Style Just to lessen the misunderstandings. ;-)

 

[wipeout2000]

Hey zottd, I think implementing a frame counter would be ideal for a next release. I tested out the star wars III revenge of the sith game. It was barely playable but I did not really see a performance boost with fs2. Maybe cuz of mode 7 or something, but i think it will really give ppl an idea how things improve when they tweak things