PCE - PC Engine Emulation

[sareks]

Hi, I wanted to share my experiences for PCE Emulation so far.


I have a Pandora 1GHz Edition. Feel free to respond, so we can help ppl that don't know much about it yet.


1) Hugo-1.1.0 - supports 800×480 resolution, save and load states, has some problems with the sound (channel's missing), or graphical issues with some games


2) Mednafen r3 pce - supports save and load states, no 800×480 resolution


3) Temper - I would recommend this one out of the 3 mentioned as it supports save and load states and nearly 800×480 resolution


Hope this helps newbies (like me), would appreciate supporting comments. Thanks


PS: If there are more PCE Emulators, please add them to this topic

 

[yoshi41dragon]

2) Mednafen r3 pce - supports save and load states, no fullscreen

Mednafen supports fullscreen (do you mean stretched fullscreen?) and has the best compatibility for CDROM games. The current version of Temper has issues with some CDs.

 

[sareks]

Yes, I mean stretched to fit the Pandora screen, for me it didn't stretch, what do I have to do to make it work then?

 

[TrashyMG]

The term full-screen means that it's hiding the desktop as opposed to having it in a window where you see the GUI's desktop.


Most emulators in the options will have terms like aspect ratio, scaling or just setting it to a widescreen resolution... changing those will most likely get you what you need.

 

[sareks]

The term full-screen means that it's hiding the desktop as opposed to having it in a window where you see the GUI's desktop.


Most emulators in the options will have terms like aspect ratio, scaling or just setting it to a widescreen resolution... changing those will most likely get you what you need.

Ok, by fullscreen I meant stretched to fit the Pandora screen. Most emulators offer this option as long as there is a menu to change things, some don't though (or I haven't figured it out and


that's one of the reasons why I am posting here, also to share my experiences and get your ppl opinions on your favorite emulators and so on)

 

[yoshi41dragon]

Yes, I mean stretched to fit the Pandora screen, for me it didn't stretch, what do I have to do to make it work then?

Since I avoid fullscreen stretching whenever possible, I did not change the Mednafen config so far.


Anyway, it has quite a big configuration file for such things, on the Pandora it's here ---> /pandora/appdata/mednafen/.mednafen/mednafen-09x.cfg


I tried to change the stretch mode, but for some reason, it doesn't work on the Pandora.


On the PC, it works fine. Either change the config file or pass it as a parameter.

mednafen.exe -force_module pce_fast -pce_fast.stretch full "game.pce"

If you mess up the config file (eg. Mednafen does not start anymore), just delete it and the default file will be copied again, when you start the emulator.

 

[captain_coconut]

Yes, I mean stretched to fit the Pandora screen, for me it didn't stretch, what do I have to do to make it work then?

Since I avoid fullscreen stretching whenever possible, I did not change the Mednafen config so far.


Anyway, it has quite a big configuration file for such things, on the Pandora it's here ---> /pandora/appdata/mednafen/.mednafen/mednafen-09x.cfg


I tried to change the stretch mode, but for some reason, it doesn't work on the Pandora.


On the PC, it works fine. Either change the config file or pass it as a parameter.

mednafen.exe -force_module pce_fast -pce_fast.stretch full "game.pce"

If you mess up the config file (eg. Mednafen does not start anymore), just delete it and the default file will be copied again, when you start the emulator.

It's best not to touch the mednafen config regarding scaling and stretching because the actual scaling is done through hardware scaling by SDL.


The '#' key can be used to toggle between integer scaling and stretching to 4:3 aspect ratio. I did not add any way to stretch beyond the original aspect ratio.

 

[sareks]

Yes, I mean stretched to fit the Pandora screen, for me it didn't stretch, what do I have to do to make it work then?

Since I avoid fullscreen stretching whenever possible, I did not change the Mednafen config so far.


Anyway, it has quite a big configuration file for such things, on the Pandora it's here ---> /pandora/appdata/mednafen/.mednafen/mednafen-09x.cfg


I tried to change the stretch mode, but for some reason, it doesn't work on the Pandora.


On the PC, it works fine. Either change the config file or pass it as a parameter.

mednafen.exe -force_module pce_fast -pce_fast.stretch full "game.pce"

If you mess up the config file (eg. Mednafen does not start anymore), just delete it and the default file will be copied again, when you start the emulator.

Thanks for the hint, I tried to change it like this (thx to Powergod):


1) Start some mednafen emu and leave open the browse window


2) open thunar and go to /mnt/utmp/mednafen/


3) copy all the file "mednafen-*.sh" to your "<SDname>/pandora/appdata/mednafen/" directory


4) close the emulator that was open


5) edit the content of every one of the copied files like this "export SDL_OMAP_LAYER_SIZE=800x480"


For PCE it didn't work, though. Starts normally as usual. There must be another way.

 

[sareks]

Yes, I mean stretched to fit the Pandora screen, for me it didn't stretch, what do I have to do to make it work then?

Since I avoid fullscreen stretching whenever possible, I did not change the Mednafen config so far.


Anyway, it has quite a big configuration file for such things, on the Pandora it's here ---> /pandora/appdata/mednafen/.mednafen/mednafen-09x.cfg


I tried to change the stretch mode, but for some reason, it doesn't work on the Pandora.


On the PC, it works fine. Either change the config file or pass it as a parameter.

mednafen.exe -force_module pce_fast -pce_fast.stretch full "game.pce"

If you mess up the config file (eg. Mednafen does not start anymore), just delete it and the default file will be copied again, when you start the emulator.

It's best not to touch the mednafen config regarding scaling and stretching because the actual scaling is done through hardware scaling by SDL.


The '#' key can be used to toggle between integer scaling and stretching to 4:3 aspect ratio. I did not add any way to stretch beyond the original aspect ratio.

Thanks for the hint, THIS is what I was looking for

 

[yoshi41dragon]

It's best not to touch the mednafen config regarding scaling and stretching because the actual scaling is done through hardware scaling by SDL.


The '#' key can be used to toggle between integer scaling and stretching to 4:3 aspect ratio. I did not add any way to stretch beyond the original aspect ratio.

Thanks for this hint.

Thanks for the hint, I tried to change it like this (thx to Powergod):


1) Start some mednafen emu and leave open the browse window


2) open thunar and go to /mnt/utmp/mednafen/


3) copy all the file "mednafen-*.sh" to your "<SDname>/pandora/appdata/mednafen/" directory


4) close the emulator that was open


5) edit the content of every one of the copied files like this "export SDL_OMAP_LAYER_SIZE=800x480"


For PCE it didn't work, though. Starts normally as usual. There must be another way.

There is an easier way to get (and modify) the content of a .pnd, check PND Tools. After you opened a .pnd, the content can be found in the temp2 directory. If the .pnd doesn't open, it's an ISO file which can be opened with 7-Zip.

 

[sareks]

Seems that neither Mednafen nor Temper are able to play PCE CD files...

 

[Exophase]

Seems that neither Mednafen nor Temper are able to play PCE CD files...

Maybe not your PCE CD files, but certainly not true in general. Read the readme.

 

[sareks]

Seems that neither Mednafen nor Temper are able to play PCE CD files...

Maybe not your PCE CD files, but certainly not true in general. Read the readme.

hm, where exactly do I find the readme as I only have a pnd

 

[mcobit]

Look into the documentation section in the xfce menu.

 

[sareks]

I have no clue where this is. A bit more precise please, I am a newbie

 

[moxie]

Open the pandora menu (the one in the bottom left corner). One of the choices here is "Documentation". Go there. Find the proper choice. Choose it.

 

[sareks]

Open the pandora menu (the one in the bottom left corner). One of the choices here is "Documentation". Go there. Find the proper choice. Choose it.

Didn't find any help there. How about your experiences, guys? Do Temper or Mednafen play PCE CD roms?

 

[Exophase]

Does this mean you've read the readme and haven't found it helpful for your problem or that you haven't been able to find it still?


Temper definitely plays PCE CD games (although some are broken in the current version). Your problem is probably either that your images are in an unsupported format or you don't have the syscards in the syscard directory. Mednafen needs syscards too; I don't know how it's configured on the Pandora port but on PC you have to either specify a path in the config file or supply it as a command line argument.

 

[sareks]

Does this mean you've read the readme and haven't found it helpful for your problem or that you haven't been able to find it still?


Temper definitely plays PCE CD games (although some are broken in the current version). Your problem is probably either that your images are in an unsupported format or you don't have the syscards in the syscard directory. Mednafen needs syscards too; I don't know how it's configured on the Pandora port but on PC you have to either specify a path in the config file or supply it as a command line argument.

Thanks that helped, yes looked in the file but didn't find an answer (also had problems to scroll through the file, it scrolled to fast)

 

[Exophase]

If you're having problems reading it on your Pandora try it here:


http://exophase.devzero.co.uk/temper_readme.txt


It explains the syscards and acceptable CD image formats but you do have to actually read it