Picodrive 1.40

[notaz]

There are two major features in this release:

1. SVP (Sega Virtua Processor) support for Virtua Racing at playable speeds (often fullspeed).

2. Greatly improved streaming for Sega CD games. Read-ahead buffer must be disabled for this to work.

Other then that, some other things were fixed or improved.
More detailed changelog below:

• Added support for SVP (Sega Virtua Processor) to emulate Virtua Racing, wrote ARM recompiler and some HLE code for VR. Credits to Exophase and Rokas for various ideas.
• Changed config file format, files are now human-readable. Game specific configs are now held in single file (but old game config files are still read when new one is missing).
• Fixed a bug where some key combos didn't work as expected.
• Fixed a regression in renderer (some graphic glitches in rare cases).
• Adjusted fast renderer to work with more games, including VR.
• Fixed a problem where SegaCD RAM cart data was getting lost on reset.
• Greatly reduced SegaCD FMV game slowdowns by disabling read-ahead in the Linux kernel and C library (thanks to Rokas and Exophase for ideas again). Be sure to keep "ReadAhead buffer" OFF to avoid slowdowns.
• PicoDrive now comes with a game config file for some games which need special settings, so they should now work out-of-the-box. More games will be added with later updates.
• Files now can be deleted by pressing A+SELECT in the file browser.

Update: 1.40a with some config fixes
Update2: 1.40c with fixes for some recently reported issues
download here

________

Note that Virtua Racing needs some special settings to run well, but the new config system should handle all that for you. In case it doesn't, switch renderer to "8bit fast", disable "accurate timing", and enable "SVP dynarec" in advanced options. You will also need to overclock a bit.

The majority bug reports I get are actually configuration issues (people mess up their configs), there are far too many options in PD. To solve that, I could simply remove most options and force them to accuracy mode. But that is not a good idea, because those opts allow doing things like extreme underclocking for some games, and I know some people do that (I will probably do that for Pandora, though). So I decided making a single file for game configs, and ship PD with that file. The file contains special settings for some games which need them, so those games work out-of-the-box. I haven't prepared it for every game out there though (that would need far too much time), so users can update and share it. The games are detected using headers, so there is no need to worry about filenames differing.

 

[suppafly]

Thanks for the update!!! I definitely didnt expect picodrive to be updated again!

BTW..do you think that 32x emulation would be possible on gp2x? Its just a question..

 

[thumpgun]

will any other games like virtua fighter work with this ?

 

[Manjuu]

Excellent!

Good work, and thank you very much.

EDIT: I tried out Virtua Racing, and it was very impressive. Thanks again for this.

 

[suppafly]

will any other games like virtua fighter work with this ?

I dont think that virtua fighter 32x would work because picodrive doesnt currently emulate 32x games.

You could still play virtua fighter 2 (the genesis rom) even though its not real 3d.

The Only game that used the SVP chip was virtua racing

 

[Rivroner]

Awesome, thank you very much NOTAZ ^_^!!!

 

[DaveC]

Wow thanks Notaz, Rokas, and Exophase . Just as I thought this emu couldn't get any better, it does

Thanks for the great work.

 

[zacaj]

Yay! Finally another racing game! Thanks

 

[Rivroner]

It´s amazing to play VR in my little GP2X ^_^

Notaz must be aclaimed like a God between mortals

 

[shinra]

Awesome weekend already tnx notaz.

 

[senquack]

Played quite a bit of VR just now, what a blast from the past. Still remembered some of the track layouts. Nice feat emulating the SVP, Notaz

 

[garengarch]

quite simply, brilliant.

Thank you.

 

[Manjuu]

I seem to have encountered 2 (minor) problems:

- Can no longer bind Up/Down in the controls; holding Select to bind them does not work like before.

- The included predefined game configs will use the original config for the settings that are not specified in the game config, which can cause some confusion as the controls and other settings would revert back and not follow the one in your own custom default config. Editing is required for each of the predefined games to have them follow your own settings for the controls and others.

 

[naples39]

Notaz, I think I love you (in a totally non-gay way ).

Now that you have conquered another milestone, when can we expect your fullspeed PS3 emulator for GP2X?

 

[Rivroner]

I was wondering what will do this coder beast in the Pandora

 

[slaanesh]

Wow. Utterly superb! Was playing some Virtua Racer of course and blown away!

This is very nice - surely one of the most impressive ROMs to be emulated on the GP2X!

With all that work on emulating that SVP, and a believer in re-using code, is there anything else that uses this hardware?

 

[gruso]

The best, most polished emu on the GP2X has been improved? Tell me you're joking. Actually, take my first born.

Virtua Racing working straight out of the box - awesome. The menu interface upgrade is very nice too. Thanks so much for this!

 

[spookyln]

bombastic,
thats im waiting for.

 

[imhotep]

Can't wait to try this. I remember loving Virtua Racing at the arcades and I thought the home conversion was very good considering the machine's limitations.

Edit: Virtua Racing was so good it almost left me speechless and then I thought I'd test the Sega CD FMV.... OMG I'm playing Dragon's Lair on a handheld!

 

[sbock]

This is madness! The simply best emulator for the GP2x getting better and better.
Virtua Racing looks and plays great and the new CD streaming works flawlessly e.g. with the Sonic CD intro movie. There are no more stuttering viewable.

Impressive work, notaz!

Regards,
Stephan