Psx4gp2x Dynarec Status Update

[zodttd]

FF7 video looks great!
It runs even a bit better for you than me! (Its usually the opposite)

From my expierence with FF7, it's playable except for battles. But it's still a few frames short of it's 30 FPS of fullspeed.

If you want to see something cool try Wipeout 1.

Btw, I noticed you can get about 4 more FPS in-game by underclocking to about 35% - 40% in FF7. Same is true in most, but not all games. For instance some games like to actually just like 100% underclock.

Keep in mind the default clock rate is at 80%. Might need to be raised to 100% to get some games working!

 

[zodttd]

EDIT: Thanks to Mudi, with some modifications I bring you...
http://www.spookysoftsite.com/psx4gp2x/

You may now browse work in progress builds as soon as they are available.

 

[UMXPrime]

many thx zodttd !

WipeOut : 9-11 fps with :

PSX clock @ 40%
2X OC @ 240
RAM TWEAK ON
INTERLACE 0
SOUND OFF

Will test more soon !
Keep the good work !

 

[zodttd]

Welcome. Glad to see people getting it to work so easily. I figured I'd have to explain things more.

 

[Cruel]

Batman Forever 15-25FPS

Silent Hill 12-15FPS and hangs at startup

Cool. Wanna try more.

 

[hackgrid]

Damn FF9 crashes during the intro :/

 

[PokeParadox]

If it's the PAL version it most likely crashing because of the copy protection, you'll have to search for a PPF patch.

 

[UMXPrime]

Other tests :

Destruction Derby 2 PAL
freezes with any options, displaying same VsincRate & FrameRate , when the loading screen has rotated to the main menu.
Ex : VSincRate: 18.38 FrameRate: 18.38 ( 50, 2)ms

Music : Music Generation for the Playstation PAL
Will be nice to test sound someday. Tested with sound on.
Actually runs @ 17 fps in the sequencer on pause & 13 fps on sequence play.
BTW what are the L1,L2,R1,R2 Buttons on 2X (we have only L & R)

Front Mission 3 NTSC/J
@ 5-9 fps on main menu. Froze after last FMV before real game start.

Will post more test soon editing this message.

 

[hackgrid]

If it's the PAL version it most likely crashing because of the copy protection, you'll have to search for a PPF patch.

It is already cracked and worked with an older version.

 

[euro48k]

again that hard-to-choose-an-option menu
please zod, fix that a la picodrive menu
thankyou

 

[zodttd]

euro48k: I'll definitely get right on that. Making a pretty menu system for an emulator that runs games at 1/3rd their speed will be my top priority.

 

[ninja_sauce]

R-Type Delta sticks at the flashing "Now Loading" bit - but on the upside, does so at 34 frames....

Star Ocean doesnt load up though, just goes to a black screen with out the vsinc etc info at the top.

...and while i am all for nice menus - i think they should be impliemented at a stage when the emus are passed beta phase and considered stable - just a sense of "work in progress" and then a "ta-da! - here you go!" when released proper..

 

[reiboul]

Many games runs smooth (like Oddworld, FF Tactics or FF7) but they are still slow...

I had ~20FPS in the first battle in FF Tactics, sound off, Interlace 1 270Mhz

What about Unai's GPU? :rolleyes:

By the way, Oddworld still has graphical errors and Castlevania SotN didn't worked (compressed ISO)

 

[Julius]

Does sound emulation make a big difference?

 

[reiboul]

Does sound emulation make a big difference?

A few frames, depending on the game

 

[fusion_power]

euro48k: I'll definitely get right on that. Making a pretty menu system for an emulator that runs games at 1/3rd their speed will be my top priority.

Just ask other people to make the menus. I'm sure here enough guys with talent so they can concentrate on the menus (for GPSP to!) and you and Exo can concentrate on the more important stuff! (For me a good Menu also is important)

The progress of the PSX-Emulator sounds promissing. I hope, some day 3D fighter's like Tekken3 or DBGT final bout will be fully playable. ^^

Question: will there be "config presets" in the Future for the games? So everyone can start a game without spending much time in tweaking emu core clocks or all the game-specific settings (only GP2X CPU has to be done manual)? Would be cool such "noobie-save-programms" :lol:

 

[reiboul]

there are not so many options... Ram timings should always be enabled, interlacing will be useless (or I hope so )
What about Unai's new renderer? He was speaking about using the 2nd core, any news recently? B)

And zod, why don't you implement frameskip? is there any reasons? because FF Tactics @ 20FPS with FS1 (virtually 40FPS) or 2 should look muuch faster or is there any reason why you haven't done it?

As usual, you're doing a very good job looking forward!

 

[una-i]

What about Unai's new renderer? He was speaking about using the 2nd core, any news recently? B)

Lately, put much of my work on improving the emulator timing, and fixing underclocking, thats why now we can underclock thil15% and games still work.

As I have told with zodttd and other many times, I'm tryin to iron out all graphic issues out firts and puttin some more asm, because its easier to debug this way than latter in the other core.
On the other hand its nonosense to move gpu to the other core if we can even emulate !/ psx cpu with the full gp2x cpu.
And thats why I have been more centered on cpu things like interrupts and timings, and now trying to discuss with zottd the best steps we can take with the recompiler.

And zod, why don't you implement frameskip? is there any reasons? because FF Tactics @ 20FPS with FS1 (virtually 40FPS) or 2 should look muuch faster or is there any reason why you haven't done it?

Cpu cant be frame skiped, cpu has to be fully emulated the best that can be done about cpu emulation is to improbe the recompiler and male underclokin stable.
On most 3d games i I even dont draw a single poligon you wont get much more that 15 fps and that is 1/4 of the real speed, you can figure that out if you disable progresice and put a big number into interlace.
Frame skip is a must when drawing has more codt than cpu emulation.... if tis not the case then frameskip is not that useful.

Hope this helps to understand every body frameskiping thing...

 

[reiboul]

OK I think you both know what's best for PSX4GP2X

Cpu cant be frame skiped, cpu has to be fully emulated the best that can be done about cpu emulation is to improbe the recompiler and male underclokin stable.
On most 3d games i I even dont draw a single poligon you wont get much more that 15 fps and that is 1/4 of the real speed, you can figure that out if you disable progresice and put a big number into interlace.
Frame skip is a must when drawing has more codt than cpu emulation.... if tis not the case then frameskip is not that useful.

Too bad it's like underclocking a SNES CPU to gain performance?

 

[Exophase]

euro48k: I'll definitely get right on that. Making a pretty menu system for an emulator that runs games at 1/3rd their speed will be my top priority.

Just ask other people to make the menus. I'm sure here enough guys with talent so they can concentrate on the menus (for GPSP to!) and you and Exo can concentrate on the more important stuff! (For me a good Menu also is important)

I'm perfectly capable of doing a sufficient menu myself thanks ;P gpSP's base menu is fine, it just needs to be tweaked more for GP2X. I don't know why everyone is so in love with PicoDrive's menu, its cursor speed is poor, it fakes autorepeat instead of doing it generally (by making it go faster after several movements, but then it's STILL too slow). gpSP's menu as of the version I have sitting on my GP2X does auto-repeat correctly and the file list menu is better than PicoDrive's if you know how to use it.

Oh, and just to elaborate Una-i's post..

It's a common misconception that a frameskip of N will divide the frame period by (N + 1) and thus multiply the framerate by (N + 1) times. In reality what it does is divides the render period by (N + 1). This is only a portion of the overall frame period, not the whole thing. The time it takes to emulate the CPU, sound, and anything else figures into here as well. So if the CPU takes 75% of the CPU time and the renderer takes 25% of the CPU time (we'll assume nothing else you're doing is taking an appreciable amount, so sound's off) then going to frameskip 1 will make the renderer only take 12.5% of the previous time. So overall you have 87.5% of the time you had before, yielding a percentage improvement of only 14.3%, not 100% like many anticipate.

For old platforms like SNES frameskip is a huge win because the video rendering is complex and expensive, while the CPU emulation is slow and simple (and the sound can be thrown out if desired). But for PS1 it's not as if the rendering comes for free. I think that the frameskipping Una-i has in mind only involves not doing a final blit update on the screen. Doing real frameskipping on PS1 is tricky because you have to know when rendering occurs and ends (determining where the backbuffer/framebuffer are flipped can help this). The old Virtual Gamestation emulator uses this to good effect, and the PeOpS soft plugin does it, but the automatic detection is way off.