Beta Mupen64Plus

[bzfrank]

For Paper Mario the flickering gets much better when you enter the following
in the config file gles2n64rom.conf (using the 0.0.5 plugin):

rom name=PAPER MARIO
auto frameskip=0
frame render rate=1
update mode=4

Still you will run into issues with black/colored textures later and flickering reoccures in the castle when it gets dark.

 

[#1 GameMaster]

Thanks a lot for the help. Do you now if this will eventually have a save config file for each game option or not?

 

[bzfrank]

This applies to the GFX plugin:

For 0.0.5 you have two config files:

- The global configuration

gles2n64.conf

Settings in here affect all games. This file can be
opened and edited with Mupens 'Configuration' menu entry.

- The 'per game' configuration

gles2n64rom.conf

Settings in here affect only the respective game. Each
game 'inherits' the global settings from gles2n64.conf but
these options can override the settings in the global
configuration.

This file can only be opened externally (yet), there is no
GUI option to access it at the moment.

 

[fusion_power]

A Question about the save-file format of this Emulator:
From other (PC) Emulators I have old N64 Save Files in various formats, does Mupen support one of these? Endings are: .sra .fla .eep and .pj in zip file.
I hope at least the eeprom could be used in Mupen?

 

[bzfrank]

The Pandora version of mupen64plus currently does not really support save states, there is no way to access them in fullscreen mode. As a workaround you can load and save however when you set the GFX driver to windowed mode. To do so open the GFX configuration file and set fullscreen to 0. Place your savegames files in <sdcard>/pandora/appdata/mupen64plus-r1/config/save. Good luck.

 

[fusion_power]

The Pandora version of mupen64plus currently does not really support save states, there is no way to access them in fullscreen mode. As a workaround you can load and save however when you set the GFX driver to windowed mode. To do so open the GFX configuration file and set fullscreen to 0. Place your savegames files in <sdcard>/pandora/appdata/mupen64plus-r1/config/save. Good luck.

What has the display mode to do with a save state? :blink: Weird.
However, I thought more onto the "official" game internal saves, no emulator "cheated" quicksaves. I hope the Module internal save functions work, otherwise it doesn't make much sense to play Zelda or Mario.

 

[Schnatterplatsch]

I for my side can save in Mario and Zelda.

 

[bzfrank]

As Schnatterplatsch already said save 'in game' works of course.

 

[fusion_power]

As Schnatterplatsch already said save 'in game' works of course.

Nice, I guess the ingame save state format is identicaly on all Emulators, I want to use old ingame stats from "Project64" I've used onto the PC to continue these games onto the Pandora, I still have a long way to go in Ocarina of Time.

 

[PokeParadox]

As Schnatterplatsch already said save 'in game' works of course.

Nice, I guess the ingame save state format is identicaly on all Emulators, I want to use old ingame stats from "Project64" I've used onto the PC to continue these games onto the Pandora, I still have a long way to go in Ocarina of Time.

Yes... you just need to match the name of the save up to your rom name.
"native" game saves are pretty standard.

 

[fusion_power]

Next question because I don't find it...
How can I overclock the roms? I don't want to use the global OC function of the Pandora so I'm searching for per-game-OC.

 

[PokeParadox]

Currently... you can't.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Is work still being done on this?

 

[bzfrank]

Don't expect any weekly updates at the moment. I think Mupen64plus/gles2n64 reached a state where any progress is not revolutionary anymore, but evolutionary. Meaning: It works ok for quite a lot stuff and the things it does not work with at the moment are not working correctly in the PC version of Mupen64+/glN64 either and/or need game specific 'hacks' implemented.

Maybe you can tell what you like to see in future version? Please keep things realistic... ;-)

 

[Schnatterplatsch]

Of course performance is everything. I have a few games I want to play with Mupen and all of them run without bugs as far as I looked at them. Some of them are playable, some not that much. I like how Zelda performs but I don't want to start playing now if there is a chance that it works better in the future.


That said its impossible for the normal user to guess what is still possible in this direction. I've heard a lot of things about the dynarec being very efficient, how about the gfx-plugin?


Do we have a possibility to display the FPS? That would maybe something useful to find the right settings without testing to much.


How difficult is it to setup the emu for developement? I've heard a lot of complains about the menu, maybe an average dev could polish this a bit for our pandora and add things like per rom configs as menu dialogs.


Ingame saves are nice, but I normally don't need them. Again, they could be useful to find the best settings. The same would go for a possibility to quit a game without closing the emu.




EDIT:
2 points:

- I cannot find Mupen in the repo(http://repo.openpandora.org/) could it be uploaded there?
- The sourcecode url in the archive is 404.(http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi?0,0,0,0,71,345)

 

[ozzyfreakdude]

Of course, the most important area for improvement now is speed optimization - many games are still unplayably slow, even with frameskip (1/3 to 1/2 of the games I've tried) - but that's probably the most in-depth area of the emulator, and would probably require quite some skill in those regards.

Outside of further optimization, I think the other 3 main things that would greatly improve the emulator are:
-1-Save States
-2-A better menu, as has been stated before. A notaz-style menu (a-la pcsx and Picodrive) would be the best, but if nobody can do that, a return to Picklelauncher in the latest version would be better than nothing
-3-A better autoframeskip (I've read that the current one only increases the frameskip by 1 where necessary) - a good autoframeskip can make things much more playable.

Out of these 3 things, the only one that I can really see relating to the graphics plugins is the savestates (in case full screen mode blocks certain key events?).

I read that there are still a few glitches in Paper Mario, and I've seen there are still some graphic glitches on the ground/water in Pilotwings (although not nearly as imposing as that horrible black shadow bug), although the things in Pilotwings aren't so bad as to prevent it from being playable.

 

[Blue Protoman]

If we're up to par with the PC versions (for the most part), let's expand on the Pandora bits; a good interface, submission to the repo, and having the emulator remember where your ROMs are.

Also, yes, we need better frameskip.

 

[Schnatterplatsch]

If we're up to par with the PC versions (for the most part), let's expand on the Pandora bits; a good interface, submission to the repo, and having the emulator remember where your ROMs are.

Also, yes, we need better frameskip.

It does remember where your roms are?!? Just apply and restart the emu or something like that....

 

[Esn]

I actually don't mind the menu itself, and I prefer it to PickleLauncher which has very few options and therefore isn't very useful. What I don't like about it is that you can't quit back to menu; you have to restart the entire emulator if you just want to switch to a different game.

Also, saving your ROM directory by clicking "apply" and restarting the emulator isn't very intuitive, as can be seen by how many people still don't think the ROM directory can be saved. If you can't change this, you should at least write this out in text right beneath that "apply" button, tell people "after you click apply, restart the emulator".

I also think that the emulator should start by default in the mode at which games run best. I've heard Craig say that if you set it up so that it runs at the settings of the ORIGINAL N64 (that is, original resolution, not stretched to widescreen), it actually runs much faster. I haven't figured out how to test this myself; what settings would I need to change?

I think most people would prefer fullspeed games at the original N64 settings than jerky games at Pandora-optimized resolutions. (there are just a few like Mario 64 that work great in the new resolution)

Especially since there's no true auto-frameskip yet, only a limited one.

 

[bzfrank]

I also think that the emulator should start by default in the mode at which games run best. I've heard Craig say that if you set it up so that it runs at the settings of the ORIGINAL N64 (that is, original resolution, not stretched to widescreen), it actually runs much faster. I haven't figured out how to test this myself; what settings would I need to change?

Open the graphics settings in the menu, edit

framebuffer width=...the width of the resolution you want to set...
framebuffer height=...the height of the resolution you want to set...

framebuffer should be enabled (framebuffer enable=1) of course but thats the default now (otherwise the OpenGLES driver hangs in LOZ:OOT and other games). E.g.

framebuffer width=400
framebuffer height=240

(default is 800 x 480)

The original N64 had a resolution of 256 x 224, 320 x 240 and 640 x 480, depending on the game)

You can also set it in the 'per-rom' settings.

I'll see what can be done regarding better frameskip.