My Wiz Came Today!

[frolik]

Hi gp32x massive!

It's been a while since I was here, since the gp32 days in fact, but I couldn't resist the urge to get back into some retro handheld action and ordered a Wiz from GBAX.

Ordered it about 2pm yesterday, paid for 24hour delivery and the postie woke me up at 9am this morning, I hadn't realised what the package was for a good 10 minutes before the excitement kicked in! So thanks GBAX for the efficient service! Never had a problem with them so they get my seal of approval.

First impressions, the buttons are a bit loose and rattly - kinda letting down the otherwise sturdy build of the unit, but it looks good and feels solid. Tried out a few of the preloaded games and was happy to see some decent and professional looking presentation. Some nice simple stuff there just right to complement the package.

I got straight on with testing some emulators, the main reason for my purchase, and started copying roms off my old GP32 SMC's. I realise many of the emulators are ports of mature gp2x emu's so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect here. PicoDrive is a dream to play with if you're into the Genesis, fully featured emulator that seems to run full speed UNDERCLOCKED at 300Mhz! Nice! Vice, the C64 emulator, which was one of the main reasons for my purchase, is rather dissappointing. I hadn't researched into this one but had seen some positive sounding posts and naively assumed it to be good enough. I can't get some games to work at all, and when they do they take an age to load - this wouldn't be such a problem if it had working savestates, but some of the menu options seem to be just plain buggered! Changing joystick mappings menu has no way of returning to the main menu, and reset option doesn't work at all. SNES emu works well, and fully featured, although there is a nasty flicker on the menus which loses points for presentation. NES emu, although it's an alpha (iirc), actually cuts the mustard quite nicely. Temper, the TG16 emu, has some nasty sound emulation, and doesn't seem very smooth - I recall the GP32 emulating this pretty perfectly so this was quite a surprise. Finalburn alpha and Mame - AMAZING! These really show it off, and give me faith in my new purchase.

One thing that bothers me somewhat is the usb cable, it doesn't clip into the unit firmly and wobbles around, I wonder if it's just a bad cable I've got, but it does seem to do what it's supposed to.

Oh, an honourable mention goes to Giana's return - fantastic to see this updated from the gp32 version, only had a quick go so far but I know I'll be putting in some time with it. Looks great!

So there you have a brief braindump of my findings, might be of interest to anyone looking to get one! Looking forward to seeing what happens next to this groovy little device.

See you around the forums no doubt

frolik

 

[DaveC]

If the TG-16 emu sound is bad (stuttery) then you have the clock speed set wrong. The Wiz default is 533 MHz and Temper runs fine underclocked at around 350-400 MHz. Check your settings because Temper runs perfect if set right.

If I remember right Temper comes "out of the box" set at 200 MHz and at that speed you will have issues.

 

[Spykez]

usb cable is naturally like that.

 

[frolik]

If the TG-16 emu sound is bad (stuttery) then you have the clock speed set wrong. The Wiz default is 533 MHz and Temper runs fine underclocked at around 350-400 MHz. Check your settings because Temper runs perfect if set right.

If I remember right Temper comes "out of the box" set at 200 MHz and at that speed you will have issues.

Hi Davec, thanks for the reply. It defaults to 533, I have re-copied the files to default the settings, but it's still a bit choppy, it's not just the sound actually, on occasion it pauses for half a second, the timing just seems generally off. I also tried copying temper and the roms to the internal memory in case it was to do with a slow SD card, but just the same.

I just noticed Geise69 appears to be having the same problem as me (Link), it does seem to improve if I underclock it, but the problem is still there.

Maybe a prob with the firmware I'm using, not sure how to find out what I'm on yet. Shame because I can't play it like that, it's too frustrating!

 

[Exophase]

If I remember right Temper comes "out of the box" set at 200 MHz and at that speed you will have issues.

Not a chance, it'll only be like that if you copied it from a GP2X.

The problem here is probably because Temper waits for vsync and GPH went and changed the timings inbetween firmware versions. Temper only changes some of the timings, because I didn't know that they'd go and change the other ones, which throws off the overall frame timing. I imagine you can use notaz's utility to fix this.

I'd fix it if I could use my Wiz.

 

[DaveC]

If I remember right Temper comes "out of the box" set at 200 MHz and at that speed you will have issues.

Not a chance, it'll only be like that if you copied it from a GP2X.

The problem here is probably because Temper waits for vsync and GPH went and changed the timings inbetween firmware versions. Temper only changes some of the timings, because I didn't know that they'd go and change the other ones, which throws off the overall frame timing. I imagine you can use notaz's utility to fix this.

I'd fix it if I could use my Wiz.

Are you ever going to fix the Wiz or have you just decided not to bother with it ever again? It seems to have dead since it was released officially. I didn't think it was that hard to do it as others that bricked theirs have seemed to have fixed it and some had less coding knowledge.

I guess if Temper is never updated again the FW will need to stay at 1.0.0 to make it work right. Either that or you could release the source to someone specifically (if you don't want to do it public) so they could fix it, and maybe even add anti-tearing to it. Sure would be nice.

 

[Exophase]

It hasn't been bricked THAT long, but a while now. No one who has REALLY bricked theirs like mine is has fixed it. It's not trivial. Right now I'm waiting on DJWillis to get back to me because he has more experience/resources with dealing with this sort of thing on MES chipsets than I do. But he's very busy. Of course I would like to fix it, but I have other things I want to do too, and trying to fix it on my own represents an unknown amount of time commitment. I hate starting things when I don't even know how much work I'm getting myself into. I could spend several hours that end up being good for nothing.

Like I said, you can use notaz's utility to fix it, just make a script that runs it before Temper, using the settings for 120Hz that I'm sure he's written about before. I can do a fix for this myself and someone else can test it since I can't, but I don't want anyone to do the kind of "fix" Picodrive implements because I'm not in favor of it.

 

[frolik]

Like I said, you can use notaz's utility to fix it, just make a script that runs it before Temper, using the settings for 120Hz that I'm sure he's written about before. I can do a fix for this myself and someone else can test it since I can't, but I don't want anyone to do the kind of "fix" Picodrive implements because I'm not in favor of it.

I'd be happy to test a fix (even happier if it works!), I don't know anything about Notaz utility but if you can give me some guidance I'll work it out.

By the way what is the fix that picodrive uses that you aren't in favour of?

 

[frolik]

Just had a look at the picodrive script, are these environment vars what you are against using? I saw another thread someone fiddling with these timings and getting good results...

export LD_PRELOAD=

export POLLUX_RAM_TIMINGS='ram_timings=2,9,4,1,1,1,1'
export POLLUX_LCD_TIMINGS_NTSC='lcd_timings=397,1,37,277,341,0,17,337;clkdiv0=9'
export POLLUX_LCD_TIMINGS_PAL='lcd_timings=428,1,37,277,341,0,17,337;clkdiv0=10'

 

[Exophase]

I'm not in favor of post-rotating the framebuffer in software. Actually, I don't know what Picodrive does, but I assume this is it or it probably wouldn't even be optional. That script won't do anything with Temper, since Picodrive is interpreting those values. You'd have to use a standalone program to fix them instead (and use the NTSC ones). I think he released one...

 

[DaveC]

Like I said, you can use notaz's utility to fix it, just make a script that runs it before Temper, using the settings for 120Hz that I'm sure he's written about before. I can do a fix for this myself and someone else can test it since I can't, but I don't want anyone to do the kind of "fix" Picodrive implements because I'm not in favor of it.

I have no clue how to write scripts. I am dumb about linux and stuff like that. At least if you did a script (could be included in the Temper archive) others that use your emu won't unfairly think it is crap when actually it is a great emu.

A Picodrive style fix would still be better that no fix at all. I would rather be able to play games and maybe have to go from 350 MHz to 400 MHz and get rid of that annoying tearing. It would be worth it to me and I am sure others would be fine with it too.

 

[Exophase]

I don't care if it'll be worth it to you and others or not. There are better ways to do it and I refuse to spend time implementing it in a way I consider inferior.

I'm sure someone else can write the script. Until I have a working Wiz I'm not going to bother with a thing like that.

 

[DaveC]

I don't care if it'll be worth it to you and others or not. There are better ways to do it and I refuse to spend time implementing it in a way I consider inferior.

I'm sure someone else can write the script. Until I have a working Wiz I'm not going to bother with a thing like that.

While there may be better ways, I still say that an inferior fix is still much better than none at all.

By now your Wiz may never work. When the charge in a Li-ion drops to a certain point due to non use and lack of charging they become non-chargeable.

 

[Exophase]

I'm pretty sure it'll still work, given that it has only been a couple months and it has been charging via the BoB most of that time...

 

[frolik]

I've managed to get Temper running smoothly with Notaz pollux_set utility. Here's a howto:

I copied the 'pollux_set' file into the temper folder, get it from the Neogeo emulator archive:
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/wiz.cgi?0,0,0,0,71,179

The script should contain the following:

#!/bin/sh

# From Notaz Wiz Ram Timings Test thread on gp32x forums:
./pollux_set 'lcd_timings=397,1,37,277,341,0,17,337;dpc_clkdiv0=9;cpuclk=800;ram_timings=2,9,4,1,1,1,1'

./temper.gpe $*

cd /usr/gp2x
exec ./gp2xmenu

Save the script as temperfix.gpe (or similar) in the Temper folder.

Ok so I tried the pollux_dpc_set file from Notaz thread but it didn't work, which is why I got the one from the Neogeo emulator, the filesizes are different so I'm not sure what the difference is but pollux_dpc_set certainly didn't work. I wonder if it needs chmoding to make it executable (is this even possible on FAT formatted SD?)

Anyway it works, had a good session on Parodius to celebrate!

Thanks to Exophase and Notaz!!!

 

[frolik]

So, I noticed the cpuclk parameter I added above (cpuclk=800) and was concerned I'd forced the cpu clock speed at 800Mhz. I did some tests in Temper and it seems now I can lower the clock speed to 100-150Mhz before it starts slowing down the emulation! I guess that pollux_set has not forced the cpu clock speed.

Hopefully that means increased battery life while playing with temper