So far I'm very pleased with my Pandora but I did notice that the 2 SNES emulators are um pretty low end. Pocket SNES would not work for me and Snes9x4D4P works well but it has plenty of sound bugs and the interface looks very very bad lol. Any suggestions for another SNES emulator?
Proper SNES Emulation?
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Prometheus
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That's all there is, for now. Of the two, Snes9x4P is the more accurate.
If you can get the current source for Snes9x working (I gather it simply displays nothing on ARM platforms, for some reason), more power to you.
If you can get the current source for Snes9x working (I gather it simply displays nothing on ARM platforms, for some reason), more power to you.
ChaosWarmech
Member
So SNES9x kinda sucks ! Is it just sound issues? Does it lag at all? One of the main reasons I want a Pandora is SNES emulation. Someone should port ZSNES. That emulator rocks!
! Is it just sound issues? Does it lag at all? One of the main reasons I want a Pandora is SNES emulation. Someone should port ZSNES. That emulator rocks!
ToastBucket
Very Active Member
I have honestly had no issue with a single SNES rom on SNES9x4P with the exception of Starfox 2.
bzar
A Commando
^ I've had some with Star Ocean (maybe it's just the ones with "star" in their name ), where the sounds sometimes bug funnily. When you level up it can let out some random noises. Same with the crickets in the beginning of the game at times.
), where the sounds sometimes bug funnily. When you level up it can let out some random noises. Same with the crickets in the beginning of the game at times.
Nintendo
Nintendo Switch
Maybe SNES via Ginge can be sorted out one day?
vadsamoht
Well-Known Member
Same here, although the SNES9x4P documentation has this to say:
Every other game I've tried runs fine.
milkshake
Advanced Member
So SNES9x kinda sucks
zsnes is windows only as far as im aware.
bzar
A Commando
^ No it's not. But it uses x86 assembly.
milkshake
Advanced Member
thanks for the correction B-ZaR
Poem58
Active Member
OH NO! The very game I am saving for Pandora play with proper controls! NO!!
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Blue Protoman
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Star Fox 1 works fine, haven't tested 2.
Prometheus
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Actually, Star Fox runs too quickly. Anyone who mastered it on a real SNES will more-than-likely find it unplayable here at this time, due to the excessive speed.
This is *NOT* the fault of Snes9x4P, however, I must stress that. It is just something inherent in the older version of Snes9x that it is based upon.
It is my understanding that the minor sound inaccuracies affecting some games exist for the same reason - that's just how SNES sound emulation was back in version 1.39, and this really isn't the fault of Snes9x4P, either. (My experience is that PocketSNES has this worse - it has bigger sound issues from way back, which back in the day were fixed by/before the time of Snes9x version 1.39.)
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milkshake
Advanced Member
someone should try and port the latest sourcecode that would be amazing.
Aethix
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Also, I think the sound in Star Fox 1 is a bit too low-pitched and slow. Of course, I've never played it on an actual SNES, so I wouldn't know for sure.
I didn't know about it going too fast, though. I just thought it was really hard with laggy, low-pitched sound.
I didn't know about it going too fast, though. I just thought it was really hard with laggy, low-pitched sound.
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Eric Jardim
Member
I agree with you that Snes9x4P is not perfect yet, but I think it should not be dropped. For me, Snes9x4P works fine, BUT, I think it has some little problems:
1 - Transparencies: Try playing Mega Man X3 at the Toxic Seahoarse stage. The game is fine at any regular level, but it gets pretty slow when transparencies show up. And boosting the clock speed do not solve the problem (and it is not an elegant solution).
I know that Snes9x is a portable pure C implementation. But I know that, somehow, it is possible to write ASM routines to replace slow C ones. Or use OpenGL for drawing.
2 - Poor interface: Notice that the interface is very simple, and it is quite similar to the Dingoo one. This is probably due to the fact that SiENcE ported the Dingoo version to the Pandora. I think it still lacks more save states, key mapping and more tweaks.
3 - Sound(?): I am not sure, but playing Secret of Mana I think hear a kind of humming or buzzing. I am not sure if this is normal or it is wrong sound emulation.
I suspect that, if the sampling rate is different than the original, the resample could yield sound artifacts.
---
IMO, Snes9x4P should be improved, not replaced. Maybe we could have a little help from SiENcE (http://crankgaming.blogspot.com/). As far as I know, he accepts donations
Eric Jardim
Member
Actually, I think he only ported the interface he did for Dingoo. The source code of Snes9x is pure C (by design) to be portable to any architecture. After you port it, you can make specific optimization for that platform (if needed).
In general, Snes9x works pretty fine for me. My main complain is about the slowdown at transparencies. My other complains are lesser ones.
Notice that it has a tranparencies switch at the menu, which means that it should be easy to fix if all the transparency code is concentrated together.
Other (harder, but not impossible) possibility is to rewrite the rendering module with OpenGL commands. This should make the whole emulator faster and less CPU consuming, transfering more work for the GPU.
I could try messing with it, but I never found the Pandora official toolchain
Prometheus
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The sample-rate is the same as a real SNES (32KHz). The issue, as I noted earlier, is that SNES sound emulation was this way back in Snes9x version 1.39. My understanding is that there's no way around it short of the most recent code being brought up and running on the Pandora, if it's possible.
If the Dingoo one had never have been touched, then we likely wouldn't have any damn-near-fully-working SNES emulation at all. I get the feeling that you would likely have been very unhappy with PocketSNES, if you don't think that *this one* should have been touched.
To answer your question, I would guess (and it seems fairly obvious, but please do correct me if I'm wrong) that it's at least partially to avoid reinventing the wheel. Bear in mind also that the Dingoo code is, itself, ported from computers and so on. It was skeezix who initially ported SiENcE's code over from the Dingoo to the Pandora (and he did so before the first units started shipping, if memory serves), and as we all know, he has a family to attend to, which is, I think, rather more important than an emulator! This is why I'm all the more grateful that he took the time to port it.
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craigix
Mega GP Mania
Are you sure it didn't slow down on the real SNES too? That would explain why it happens no matter what the clock speed.
Also, there are ASM cores for both the sound and CPU core. They are in the GP32 and GP2X versions, but for some reason it was decided to port the bloody Dingoo version!
I hate that sort of thing as much as you do.
