Picodrive 1.56

[darionapole]

are we using a propietary megadrive emulator? OH SHI....XD

instresting questions, would like to know the answers =P

 

[noonc]

are we using a propietary megadrive emulator? OH SHI....XD

instresting questions, would like to know the answers =P

Well, I would personally have no problem with whatever (open) license for as long as I could build my own binaries for my A320 from the most recent sources.

 

[notaz]

I wonder what license you are releasing this?

The licensing situation is a bit of a mess. PicoDrive was originally written by fDave and released under simple "free for non-commercial use" license. That version was pretty basic with buggy CPU core and no sound (no Z80 core and basic/no sound chip emulation). Later I took over the project and added MAME sound cores (MAME license) and DrZ80 core by Reesy, which has unspecified license. The improved CPU core and core emu code remains under "free for non-commercial use", like the headers state. Even later some C cores were added for PSP version, which are FAME/C and CZ80 which don't have license specified either.

There is a copy of the GPL included but nowhere does it say what it applies to. It's not mentioned in the headers of most source files as it usually would be either.

It applies to Symbian UIQ parts (the UI code). I know the GPL is not compatible with "free for non-commercial use", it is a bit of a gray area, but the UI code and emu are compiled to different binaries there.

So my questions are:
1) What license is PicoDrive released under?

"free for non-commercial use"

2) Why is there no source package available for any version after 1.35 if not all of them?

Because I don't want to see forks until I'm done with the project, I don't want to compete against my own software. For more insight read about gpSP siuation. Some low quality ports that I really hated to see (namely iPhone version, first version released rebranded without any mention it as PicoDrive port, nor any credit) also contributed to this decision.

Future plans are finishing it up and releasing the code under MAME-compatible open source license (after getting ACK from fDave).

 

[noonc]

First of all, thanks for the background information!

The licensing situation is a bit of a mess. PicoDrive was originally written by fDave and released under simple "free for non-commercial use" license. That version was pretty basic with buggy CPU core and no sound (no Z80 core and basic/no sound chip emulation). Later I took over the project and added MAME sound cores (MAME license) and DrZ80 core by Reesy, which has unspecified license. The improved CPU core and core emu code remains under "free for non-commercial use", like the headers state. Even later some C cores were added for PSP version, which are FAME/C and CZ80 which don't have license specified either.

Indeed, all that makes it quite complicated to pin it down to a one license kind of model.

Because I don't want to see forks until I'm done with the project, I don't want to compete against my own software. For more insight read about gpSP siuation. Some low quality ports that I really hated to see (namely iPhone version, first version released rebranded without any mention it as PicoDrive port, nor any credit) also contributed to this decision.

Future plans are finishing it up and releasing the code under MAME-compatible open source license (after getting ACK from fDave).

I'm fine with all that, I just wish to be able and try the latest version on the Dingoo. From my understanding none of the binaries would work, would they? I'd happily contribute binaries even if that would mean some sort of NDA.

 

[notaz]

The internal interface has changed a lot, Dingoo port would need to be redone (simply recompiling GP2X/Wiz version with ARM code disabled would not work because it doesn't use any libraries and hits hardware directly). I'll see if I can get dingoo from somehere and do the port myself.

 

[christo930]

The internal interface has changed a lot, Dingoo port would need to be redone (simply recompiling GP2X/Wiz version with ARM code disabled would not work because it doesn't use any libraries and hits hardware directly). I'll see if I can get dingoo from somehere and do the port myself.

I think your time would be much better spent bringing the gp2x snes emulation up to the standard of Genesis emulation, which you yourself set.

 

[darionapole]

it would be awesome to have a snes emu with your software scaler, and using the second cpu for sound, and all your magic to make things go fast ^_^
Or maybe you would like to work on the psx emu,and make it work? i still think that most of psx game would work playables on the gp2x. i'm not talking about playing gran turismo 2, full speed, but residen evil 123 sure would work =)

 

[notaz]

The internal interface has changed a lot, Dingoo port would need to be redone (simply recompiling GP2X/Wiz version with ARM code disabled would not work because it doesn't use any libraries and hits hardware directly). I'll see if I can get dingoo from somehere and do the port myself.

I think your time would be much better spent bringing the gp2x snes emulation up to the standard of Genesis emulation, which you yourself set.

I never owned SNES so I'm not interested, sorry. Yes I know it is a great machine with better graphics chip than Megadrive's, many really good games, etc., but that is not enough to motivate me. I've (mis)spent most of my childhood playing NES clone, Megadrive and a bit of PSX (but no I'm not going to attempt PSX because it would be huge amount of work and wouldn't run too well on GP2X/Wiz anyway.

 

[paradroid]

it would be awesome to have a snes emu with your software scaler, and using the second cpu for sound, and all your magic to make things go fast ^_^
Or maybe you would like to work on the psx emu,and make it work? i still think that most of psx game would work playables on the gp2x. i'm not talking about playing gran turismo 2, full speed, but residen evil 123 sure would work =)

I was thinking the same things as you.
A better snes emulator would be very appreciated in the gp2x community.
I hope that Notaz can reach motivation to do a better release of pocketsnes

 

[Jaguarandine]

Notaz, once again, thank you for all your work.
There was recently a death in my family so I had to fly to the funeral. I dusted off my GP2X and loaded your newest Genesis and NES emulators, and of course they worked fantastically. It was a sad time for me and your programs helped me through it. I really appreciate everything you've done for the GP2X community and I'm sure others do as well.
You and the others inspired me to try my hand at GP2X programming. I only hope I can create something half as good as your efforts.

Anyway, Notaz could conceivably be kept busy for years with his current projects. AFAIK he's still workiing on the 32X emulator. Plus, Famicom Disk System emulation is missing it's sound channel. Personally, I'd like to see touch screen support for mouse-supported games. Most of all, I'd like to see fan translations of Mega-CD games like Shadowrun, Shin Megami Tensei, and Record of Lodoss War. There's been an issue of dumping the kanji in those games I think.

 

[Exophase]

I think your time would be much better spent bringing the gp2x snes emulation up to the standard of Genesis emulation, which you yourself set.

Emulator authors are almost always going to work on the platforms they want to, for whatever reasons they have. It's unlikely that anyone is going to start working on something else because it's requested, unless they ask for requests. Temper is a special exception to that ;p (also helped that I owned TG16 and enjoyed it)

I think you're being too hard on the SNES emulators. It's true that PicoDrive is more heavily optimized for ARM, particularly in the rendering department. However, you can't expect both SNES and Genesis emulation to have the same requirements. It's the same way on PCs, back in the day Genesis emulators ran better on the same lower end hardware than SNES emulators did, and this is with both sides highly optimized. Genesis video is not a walk in the park, but SNES just has more layers, effects, sprites, and the ever daunting mode 7. This is before special chips even come into consideration.

 

[bomberman]

A quick thank you. Popful Mail now saves instantly with the sram fix. no more waiting for save states. Yahoo.

One ... minor ... annoyance. When going to menu it autosaves sram. So if I do saveslot and restore and enter menu it writes the sram from the save. so any sram from other gameplay is overwritten. Any option to not autosave sram? Maybe an option to "Save sram now". Does this make sense or is useful for anyone else? Like I said ... minor. Thanks

 

[coolbros]

Hi,
Thanks for continuing to support the Gp2x
Picodrive is an amazing and wonderful emulator, I love it
However, I have a few issues with a few Unl Megadrive games in this update:

Top Shooter (Unl) doesn't work 100% However, rom works ok but cannot play the game
its a funny basketball game originally for the Arcades produced by Sun Mixing Co., Ltd but uses Megadrive hardware
but it doesn't use Megadrive control inputs.

Mulan (Unl) crashes after the title screen.

It seems a few Realtec Unl games like Whac-A-Critter and Earth Defend (Unl) have some kind copy-protection employed
so the good [!] dump will not work properly, have to use the fixed dump [f1] instead

Could you check them please?
I can send you the files to test. Keep up with the great work, notaz!

 

[flagrant99]

Hello, Picodrive is great.

Could you add back command line support. I use Gmenu2x to launch and it worked fine back in 1.51. I tried 1.55 and 1.56 and launching with command line argument "/mnt/sd/game/Genesis/PicoDrive/Roms/Sports/Hockey/nhlpa nhl '93 (rev 01) (u) [!].zip" always gives "Failed to open ROM/CD Image". But it works fine again when I put back in 1.51 version.

 

[notaz]

Top Shooter (Unl) doesn't work 100% However, rom works ok but cannot play the game
its a funny basketball game originally for the Arcades produced by Sun Mixing Co., Ltd but uses Megadrive hardware
but it doesn't use Megadrive control inputs.

Interesting, will have a look.

Mulan (Unl) crashes after the title screen.

It had some non-trivial protection device in cartridge, I'm not sure it's worth spending time trying to figure out how it worked. There are hacked [f1] [f2] ROMs anyway..

It seems a few Realtec Unl games like Whac-A-Critter and Earth Defend (Unl) have some kind copy-protection employed
so the good [!] dump will not work properly, have to use the fixed dump [f1] instead

That used to work some time ago (PD has Realtec mapper support), will have a look too.

Could you add back command line support. I use Gmenu2x to launch and it worked fine back in 1.51. I tried 1.55 and 1.56 and launching with command line argument "/mnt/sd/game/Genesis/PicoDrive/Roms/Sports/Hockey/nhlpa nhl '93 (rev 01) (u) [!].zip" always gives "Failed to open ROM/CD Image". But it works fine again when I put back in 1.51 version.

Ah it's because of the new wrapper script. Just copy this file on top and it should work again.

 

[flagrant99]

Ah it's because of the new wrapper script. Just copy this file on top and it should work again.

Yup that did the trick. thx