Port Request - Lemonboy

[DrasticNerd]

Could some kind programmer please port Lemonboy for Pandora for me?

Lemonboy is a super/color gameboy emulator. It is based off gnuboy source and includes a SDL based frontend. Lemonboy is designed to run on gp2x/wiz handhelds in mind.

Code is here (sourceforge link)


Q. Why port YET ANOTHER Game Boy emulator to Pandora?!

A. Yes, there are many Game Boy emulators on the repo are there not? Although this one does lack features that others have (e.g. cheats), it does have some rare features:

1. Nice GUI. The file lister uses preview images. It is designed to be very easy to set titlescreen/gameplay screenshots to the preview. (Use the preview option after loading the rom and the screenshot is automatically linked) (With a bit of scripting magic, it would be possible to set all rom previews to display box cover art)(Alternatively I'm guessing you could just copy/paste RetroArch cover art - no scripting required)
2. Super Game Boy support. (Very few emulators on linux handhelds emulate SGB. The few that do mostly fake it. e.g. borders only. No emulator on a linux handheld emulator can emulate SGB perfectly but Lemonboy is by far the best)(I've compared Lemonboy on Wiz and numerous other emulators on Pandora, GP2X & Wiz)
3. Frame Support (optional) You can load a rom with SGB and save the SGB border. You can then change the setting to GBC, load the same rom and set its custom frame to its SGB border. (Game settings are saved on a per-game basis. So the selected frame can be saved for next time without needing to go through this each time)
   1. I also found another unusual but very useful use for custom frames. Suppose the game uses passwords to progress. You can create a custom frame to record all the level passwords for a game. When loading the rom, the passwords appear in the custom border so you don't need to look them up! (I'd be happy to share all my custom password frames once Lemonboy has been ported)

(BTW Is the pickle136 on sourceforge the same person as @Pickle ? )

 

[DrasticNerd]

There are several things that I would like changed (if possible) when Lemonboy is ported to Pandora:

EASY CHANGES

1. File Filtering - A small QoL tweak. The file picker should only show files with the following extensions: .gb|.gbc|.sgb|.zip
2. Remember last folder when loading roms - Another QoL tweak. When loading another rom, the Wiz port I'm playing keeps defaulting back to directory <sd card>/roms/gameboy/ This approach is fine if you keep all the roms in one directory but I have my roms separated into subdirectories. (e.g. Translations / Unlicensed / Prototypes / Hacks / No-Intro / SGB Enhanced) I also keep my GBC roms in a separate folder tree to GB roms.

HARD CHANGES

1. Cheat Support - Would it be possible to add support for cheat files? Perhaps by integrating cheat source code from another gameboy emulator?

INSANELY HARD CHANGES

1. Allow more than one screenshot per rom - Currently Lemonboy lets you take a screenshot and it will automatically set that file as the rom preview in the file lister. This is a unique feature and a very handy one. However if you want to save more than one screenshot, no dice. It will automatically overwrite the existing screenshot for that rom. (Why would you want to save more than one screenshot? Passwords. You reach the end of the level and recieve a password. With screenshots, you can snap the password for later use. Yes, you could manually rename the image after exiting the emu but it would be easier on the end user if the emulator had two screenshot options - a) Save Preview image b) Save a screenshot (Non-Preview)
2. Improved Super Game Boy emulation - In my experience Lemonboy has the best overall emulation of SGB on a portable linux handheld device. It allows displaying SGB borders, saving SGB borders (so they can be used as a custom frame when playing the same game in GBC mode), it partly emulates the custom color pallettes of the SGB & SGB2, it plays most SGB enhanced games at mostly playable performance. The downsides are: some SGB games will not play (freezes when load), the pallette isn't fully emulated and I'm not certain that the custom SGB audio has been emulated. However it is the 2nd most accurate emulator of SGB. The only SGB emulation that I have found to have greater accuracy is in BSNES and that isn't playable on Pandora 1 GHz. Would it be possible to merge BSNES SGB emulation into Lemonboy? Or would attempting to do so kill its performance level?

 

[Pickle]

yes thats me, do you have a pandora to run it or you just want to see it running on it?

I only put those projects on sourceforge as ports I did a while ago, i didnt create the originals.
I think those were for wiz/cannoo, maybe i put some pandora code in them. I dont remember.

From what i recall its basically a recompile, im surprised it wasnt ported to the pandora. but like you said its another gameboy emu and i tended to use the .EMU ones now.

 

[DrasticNerd]

yes thats me, do you have a pandora to run it or you just want to see it running on it?

I only put those projects on sourceforge as ports I did a while ago, i didnt create the originals.
I think those were for wiz/cannoo, maybe i put some pandora code in them. I dont remember.

Yes, I do own a Pandora. I have been using Lemonboy a lot lately on my Wiz and would love to see this emulator ported to the Pandora.

From what i recall its basically a recompile, im surprised it wasnt ported to the pandora. but like you said its another gameboy emu and i tended to use the .EMU ones now.

Same here! I have been mainly using .EMU (Emu Ex Plus Alpha) packages on my Pandora as I like their features (cheat support, screenshots) and their consistent look & feel. Special thank you to @ptitSeb for updating these ports.

However Lemonboy is special as it has the best SGB emulation on GPH/Pandora (Several other GB emulators include partial SGB emulation. However LB is the best in terms of balancing performance + accuracy + scope of SGB emulation. i.e. it doesn't just stop at emulating the SGB borders and calling it a day )


Besides the SGB aspect, the emulator contains features that other emulators on GPH/Pandora systems rarely include:

• preview images while browsing the rom loader
  • Not essential but a nice to have feature. It certainly makes it easier to choose which game to play next. I can only think of 2-3 other emulators on GPH/Pandora that include this feature.
  • Lemonboy stands out as it has the added benefit of being extremely user friendly to adding the previews.
  • I must try copy/paste the preview images from RetroArch into Lemonboy some time. Should work. Would be very useful as it would save the need to save each preview and you could have the choice of preview to display i.e. cover art / titlescreen / ingame screenshot
  • (I have held off testing the RA art as I find the 'add to preview' feature perfect for reminding me which games have emulation issues. I take a preview of their glitched screen so I am prewarned not to load it again)
• custom borders/frames
  • Very few emulators support this feature.
  • LB makes it very easy to save the SGB border so it can be reused while emulating the same game in GBC. For example, you could play Zelda: Link's Awakening DX in GBC while still displaying its SGB border - if that takes your fancy
  • I also abused the custom frame feature to do something unique - I made several custom borders to record level passwords. When loading these games, their custom frame lists all their level passwords so I don't need to memorise them or look them up
• support for GBA mode
  • To be fair, this feature is not as rare as it used to be. IIRC most of the recent GBC emu ports to Pandora include this.
  • This feature is almost essential for certain GBC games that were released around the time of the GBA release. Several games had locked features that could only be unlocked while playing that cartridge on a Game Boy Advance. Most notable examples are the Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons & Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages duology which contain the ring shop which can only be accessed while playing on an Advance. (Before anybody says it, I am aware of rom hacks that unlock GBA features on these games - including others that have GBA locked features such as Shantae. I just prefer to have GBA mode as an emulator feature instead of a rom hack)

I'm not overhyping Lemonboy. I mean it doesn't include some features that I miss when using it (i.e. cheats, unlimited screenshots) and there are small QoL that I would love to see tweaked (e.g. file filtering, remember last folder etc.) I won't go into these in detail as I would be mostly repeating what I wrote in my previous post above. That said, the SGB aspect of LB more than makes up for these negatives. (I used to be a proud owner of a Super Game Boy for my Super Nintendo.)