Picodrive 0.95 Released

[DaveC]

Genesis has 64 color palette, but 8 bits can fit total of 256 colors, so there was 192 colors remaining. So I used these for shadow/hilight effects and mid-frame palette changes. But that does not work well in some cases, for example when game switches shadow/hilight mode in the middle of the frame (Castlevania) or when it does both palette changes and shadow/hilight effects (Street Racer). Also palette sometimes does not get updated in time and some flickering or wrong colors are shown for a few frames. That's why 16bit renderer is still there.

Cool emu.

A couple of things would be nice to have.

One is a brightness control as it is way too dark on the M2. You could nick the code from DrMD possibly as the brightness was done well there.

Also the updating sound more per frame for sound should be an option as it slows down the emulation and in many games it is not really needed. The water level for Thunderforce III is one case where you would use it. Sonic for example doesn't need it, so it just slows down the emu with no benefit. In DRMD that is set in sound options as a choice in sound menu as sound off, sound on, sound accuracy 1 , 2 etc.

Also could you have it so that it saves all of these parameters *per game*? It is much too hard to remember what combination works best with which game. As you stated above there are almost infinite combinations and it would take alot of time to set up each game's parameters everytime you play, if you can remember what they are. DrMD does this and it is great. You can save the button configs and all of the sound and rendering parameters per game so you can tailor each one to run optimum.

Thanks for the great work.

 

[Manya]

this release really improved MK3, I was getting slow down all over the place with the last version, now it's faultless. I do run it at 260mhz but I don't mind

 

[darkman]

This emu is turning out to be great. I am running everything that would not run, or half way ran, on DrMD.

 

[reiboul]

Except when you get a bit too excited during a game and accidentally restore a previous save

or even worse : save a state instead of loading, in the intro menu! h34r:

 

[nik166]

you don't need shortcut buttons to do that: i did it sometimes with save menus, just trying to go to fast because gotta validate 3 times etc

 

[ryosaeba]

Except when you get a bit too excited during a game and accidentally restore a previous save

or even worse : save a state instead of loading, in the intro menu! h34r:

Yeah that's what I thought when I saw that feature, I'm sure this will happen sooner or later...
I would put at least a confirm dialog...

 

[___]

hehe that actually happened to my zelda: Oracle of seasons savestate on gnuboy. Dammit!!!

 

[notaz]

...
the minimal menu is fine but the key configure screen is pretty bad. i can't tell if it's a bug or not, but when you have more than one key associated with an action, picodrive doesn't require a combo of these keys (as you would expect),

That is what I intended, can make it a combo if others think this is good too.

...
or even worse : save a state instead of loading, in the intro menu! h34r:

Yeah that's what I thought when I saw that feature, I'm sure this will happen sooner or later...
I would put at least a confirm dialog...

You can disable save/load in key config then.

As about game specifig config and brightness, I think that can be added. There is hardware-based brightness control in minimal SDK, probably I will use that.

 

[DaveC]

As about game specifig config and brightness, I think that can be added. There is hardware-based brightness control in minimal SDK, probably I will use that.

Just be careful, you don't want to increase the brightness of pure black (color 0) though. That makes things look washed out especially space type games. Just look at how it is done in DRMD that works well and the source is available.

 

[starpause]

...
the minimal menu is fine but the key configure screen is pretty bad. i can't tell if it's a bug or not, but when you have more than one key associated with an action, picodrive doesn't require a combo of these keys (as you would expect),

That is what I intended, can make it a combo if others think this is good too.

to me combo is the only thing that makes sense.

you have a limited number of keys on the gp2x. in what case would you waste one of your rare keys by assigning two keys to do the same thing?

on the other hand, if you implement combos, then many keys are freed up!

for example, you can hold PUSH down to enter a shift mode for all save state business, where PUSH+L goes back a save state, PUSH+R forward, PUSH+whatever else for load and save ... with buttons left over for doign 6button emulation

 

[reiboul]

...
the minimal menu is fine but the key configure screen is pretty bad. i can't tell if it's a bug or not, but when you have more than one key associated with an action, picodrive doesn't require a combo of these keys (as you would expect),

That is what I intended, can make it a combo if others think this is good too.

to me combo is the only thing that makes sense.

you have a limited number of keys on the gp2x. in what case would you waste one of your rare keys by assigning two keys to do the same thing?

on the other hand, if you implement combos, then many keys are freed up!

for example, you can hold PUSH down to enter a shift mode for all save state business, where PUSH+L goes back a save state, PUSH+R forward, PUSH+whatever else for load and save ... with buttons left over for doign 6button emulation

i'd rather use Vol+ + Vol-, because I (and other guys here) don't want to use the Stick button, for it seems quite fragile...


Actually my opinion is, I'd rather use incremental save states, that way you can't screw your save states
Incremental, I mean : you have, say 5 states : you save for the first time in state 1, and you aotomatically switch to state 2. Then you save again, in state 2, and it automatically cycle to state 3, and so on. That way, if you do a wrong save, you always have the 4 previous saves

 

[DaveC]

for example, you can hold PUSH down to enter a shift mode for all save state business, where PUSH+L goes back a save state, PUSH+R forward, PUSH+whatever else for load and save ... with buttons left over for doign 6button emulation

No stick push.

Yes is does wear out the stick sooner and those with D-pad mods may not be able to use either.

We should get away from using that stupid stick button.

 

[krosfyah]

The volume buttons should always control the.. volume.. in my opinion.

 

[Iorgy77]

The volume buttons should always control the.. volume.. in my opinion.

Yeah, but what about pressing both of them at the same time.

 

[krosfyah]

The volume buttons should always control the.. volume.. in my opinion.

Yeah, but what about pressing both of them at the same time.

Personally, I'd like that to be a mute button.

 

[reiboul]

The volume buttons should always control the.. volume.. in my opinion.

Yeah, but what about pressing both of them at the same time.

Personally, I'd like that to be a mute button.

sadly the other keys are already in use

 

[gaterooze]

I personally prefer all saving/loading to be done through a menu.

 

[Wolfsclaw]

I love the quickload/save feature via L / R, using it in Theme Park all the time however, i have to watch out for not pressing load while not having saved for a long time or saving after a rom reset....
a confirm box would be great

 

[DaveN]

You could remap the L and R-Button and load/save via the menu. Would take the same time as pressing l/r and then confirm this.

 

[markiej]

I did a quick search & nothing came up, so I'll go ahead and ask. Is there anything resembling v-sync or dbl-buffer in picodrive. While I appreciate the accuracy, the bottom line is that a huge majority of genny games were scrollers, which didn't look as good on pico, as drmd - IMHO.

Maybe there's something I'm missing.

It's still more than a little amazing. thanks!-mike

ETA - Just to pipe in on the save thing. I am a huge fan of the menu-based save, because it cuts way down on the accidental overwriting of critical savegames. visual boy advance has the misfortune of an F1 to save and shift-F1 to restore (or is it the other way around ). Anyhow, I have killed lots of saves due to that. The convenience of the quick save key is overshadowed by the danger.

ETA - And my two cents on the volume button. I invested about $3 on a Radio Shack headphone volume dongle, which I keep permanently attached to the GP2X. That's my volume control, and it should be yours too (it will save your eardrums in the long run).