Msx Emulator And Snatcher

[panana]

Hi,
I am searching an emulator to play Snatcher one of the best games that have ever been released.
I am using fmsx sand when i load the rom into the emulator it starts with the blue MSX display but then nothing happens.

The display remains blue and there stands this text:

MSX BASIC Version 2.1
Copyright 1986 by Microsoft

Disk BASIC version 1.0
Ok

 

[Nickmon]

Hi,
I am searching an emulator to play Snatcher one of the best games that have ever been released.
I am using fmsx sand when i load the rom into the emulator it starts with the blue MSX display but then nothing happens.

The display remains blue and there stands this text:

MSX BASIC Version 2.1
Copyright 1986 by Microsoft

Disk BASIC version 1.0
Ok

Sounds like you need to tell it to load a rom instead of the default boot rom IE BASIC

 

[grahf]

Nickmon is right. Its been a while since i used the MSX emu, but you need a script or frontend to tell it to load a rom. I cant remember the details exactly.

 

[Artemio]

You need to define a disk image, and not only that. You need to set up the emulated machine to have enough ram to run the translated version.

I had to modify the PSP fMSX emulator to run our translation back in the day.. might give it a look later if it doesn't boot right away. No promises though ^^

 

[panana]

Well i am using selector to chose a rom and i don't know how do use more ram hope u can help me :/

 

[Artemio]

Ok, firt of all you need to press Y on selector to chaneg teh command line to the one that has the -diska option and then you need to select the snatche0.dsk disk file.

The problem is that it doesn't run correctly, since the default settings do not allocate enough RAM for this game to run. I recompiled teh emulator with those options as default, and since I was doing that already I put the optimization flags and linked with the great HW accelerated SDL libs. I did notice a speed increase, but the problem is now (as it had always been anyway) key mapping (keyboard and joystiq).

I didn't went deeply into it since I have a Japanese exam tomorrow for which I haven't studied one bit, But maybe it will be worth it to give it mapping support and a menu as the PSP version. I believe it might take some time, but it would be worth it.

It might also be possible to update the code to use another Z80 core (one in arm asm, as other emulators are doing).

Now you can get up to the screen that asks for key input (pressing either 1 or 0) and the next problem to sort would be inserting the second floppy to the drive...

Here is the link to the file I built.

http://junkerhq.net/gp2x/

Please notice that my changes were minimal:

On MSX.c

byte MSXVersion = 2; /* 0=MSX1,1=MSX2,2=MSX2+ */
byte JoyTypeA = 1; /* 0=None,1=Joystick, */
int RAMPages = 16; /* Number of RAM pages */
int VRAMPages = 8; /* Number of VRAM pages */
byte UseDrums = 1; /* Use drms for PSG noise */

Opt Flags:

-O3 -Wall -ftracer -fstrength-reduce -Wno-unused -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -fstrict-aliasing -ffast-math

 

[panana]

You are great and thanks for ur work.
The emulator seems to be buggy and playing snatcher won't be so funny.

So i have to wait for a better version :/

Good luck with your exams and thanks anyway

 

[Artemio]

I don't believe the emulator is buggy.. it is simply "bare bones" (without features)

Anyway, you got my curiosity working...

teh file that I uploaded (it has been updated just now) does run Snatcher... it is a bit tricky though, since keyboard input is not really implemented. I made a quick modification and got that executabel to run Snatcher. You need to run it with the following command line:

./fmsx.gpe -diska snatche0.dsk -diska Snatche1.dsk -diska Snatche2.dsk -diska Snatche3.dsk

After doing so (via a script or directly on the command line), you will need to boot teh game as always. I made the following key mappings:

Pad -> U, D, L, R
A -> Button 1
B -> Button 2

and the L button is a "modificator", when pressed if you press:

Vol Up- Vol Down -> Select floppy to use
B -> Key 0
A -> Key 1
Start -> Reboot
Select -> Exit

It is not a great setup, but it works and I have Snatcher running nicely...

 

[panana]

omg u are rly amazing!
i luv snatcher its such a fabulous game

EDIT://
Where do i have do add this line
./fmsx.gpe -diska snatche0.dsk -diska Snatche1.dsk -diska Snatche2.dsk -diska Snatche3.dsk

The Emulator doesn't support save states so playing snatcher doesn't make sense

EDIT2://
added the command line into the selector_config but snatcher doesn't boot anymore :/

 

[Artemio]

The Emulator doesn't support save states so playing snatcher doesn't make sense

It can support them, it would be a matter of working on it.

added the command line into the selector_config but snatcher doesn't boot anymore :/¨

I'd advise to cerate a specific script for this. the contents should be:

#!/bin/sh

./fmsx.gpe -diska snatche0.dsk -diska Snatche1.dsk -diska Snatche2.dsk -diska Snatche3.dsk

sync

cd /usr/gp2x/
exec /usr/gp2x/gp2xmenu

Save that to Snatcher.gpe and you should be set

This assumes that the dsk files are unzipped and on the same folder. If you have them on a different folder simply modify it to reflect that:

./fmsx.gpe -diska ./Snatcher/snatche0.dsk -diska ./Snatcher/Snatche1.dsk -diska ./Snatcher/Snatche2.dsk -diska ./Snatcher/Snatche3.dsk

assuming that the dsk files are in the Snatcher folder.

Hope that helps. of course you need to edit that on an editor that supports unix files.

 

[panana]

thx but will have to wait for savestates and now go learn for ur exam

 

[Artemio]

Just in case you've never the ran trasnlated version of Snatcher, you first need to boot from floppy 0, then press '0' (L+B in this case) and it will ask for Disk 1. Then you have to select the disk 1 image (L+Vol- until you find it) and '0' again. That will get you game booted.