Psx4gp2x Public Beta 2 Released.

[DaveC]

A quick update on the progress of the dynarec (the code I'm writing to give a large performance increase to psx4gp2x and other ports of psx4all for ARM based platforms)...

I wrote the entire dynamic recompiler. It doesn't work yet, and will probably take a good long time to get it working, but it does compile. So now I am beginning the process of debugging the many mistakes I've most likely made coding this dynarec.

I am fairly certain a 2x performance increase will be noticed in games with the dynarec, and 3x possible. The GPU is going much faster, but the CPU emulation is a huge bottleneck, and this will help CPU emulation go much faster.

I hope to have the dynarec done within a month, but no promises. So maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe a year, either way I'm working on it as much as possible.

Thanks for the great feedback on Public Beta 2. Let's hope for the dynarec to be ready for Public Beta 3.

The amount of work you have done with this is impressive I must say. While it will never be anything near full speed with sound on this particular handheld due to the slowish CPU it has come pretty far, much farther than one would think. I just wish that you liked SNES. I would bet you would have had that full speed w/sound even on the GP2X by now..

 

[wwwadios]

saving is unstable, isn't it?

 

[STTrife]

I'm pretty sure that snes can and will be emulated at full speed, even if it isn't zodttd who makes it. The squidesnes with mmu hack has good speed. The snes9x WAS faster then squidesnes but it doesn't have the MMU hack I think (and no sound?)
anyway I hope too that snes will be emulated 100% fast soon, but I think zodttd (and co.) should contiunue their amazing PSX emulator

 

[X-Code]

zodttd - unai - tinnus - chui ... AND Squidge

You're all doing a great job on the emu, after running a few tests I'll daresay that it has drastically improved on the graphics front, the 2x / 3x speed improvement will give this emu the final boost that it needs for most if not all 2D games and it'll make quite a few 3D games run anywhere between 6 / 30 FPS at least... May not sound like much, but some 3D games will work near fullspeed, I'm quite sure of that.

What steps will be taken after the dynarec is finally implemented ?... That is the question B)

 

[Deed]

The amount of work you have done with this is impressive I must say. While it will never be anything near full speed with sound on this particular handheld due to the slowish CPU it has come pretty far, much farther than one would think. I just wish that you liked SNES. I would bet you would have had that full speed w/sound even on the GP2X by now..

You know everything, isn't it ? :rolleyes: Why don't you just let the developers talk about what is possible themselves, don't you think they are better qualified than you in this area ?

 

[trixom]

In ff7, the opening sequence is much faster I agree, but I can't say it was running smooth. But what about the fighting scenes? I get about 3-7 fps... can somebody have a look at their framerate in ff7 fighting scenes?

Me too... running at 226 mhz, how much did you OC?

T.

 

[STTrife]

I use 270 usually (or sometimes 266 or 280)

I agree that we can not say yet if the GP2X will be able to emulate the PSX at full speed. The CPU of the playstation runs on 33 Mhz, while the GP2X has 2 CPU's of 200+ hmz (of which only one is used now).

The crew mentioned that it could be possible to make a multithreaded emulator that could be able to make some use of the coprocessor.

I DOUBT that this emulator will be able to play ALL games at full speed ever. In theory it would be possible I think, but I guess at some point it gets to much work for the crew to be worth optimzing it more.

But I have faith in the creators I have no doubt that in a year or so FF7 will be playable at decent speed

 

[Shaun]

Gotta admit, I stopped using Psx4gp2x for the past few days. I just hate the new interface. It's a nightmare to get through the horrible new menu (before I just had to go into 'bin' and select a BIN image) and when I finally managed to find FFVII's BIN file it didn't load.

Sounds like some good stuff's been happening but I'll wait until the next release.

 

[hannanshah]

I DOUBT that this emulator will be able to play ALL games at full speed ever. In theory it would be possible I think, but I guess at some point it gets to much work for the crew to be worth optimzing it more.

But I have faith in the creators I have no doubt that in a year or so FF7 will be playable at decent speed

I guess once (if!) this emulator gets close to emulating certain games very well with sound then it would be best to focus on certain popular games (ie. FF7 lol) to ensure that they work well. Of course if these guys can go further and get the emu working well for most games then that would be even better but these guys have already exceeded my expectations so anything further is a bonus.

 

[Vollgasasi]

that's exactly what i think. fullspeed is theoretically possible but it takes time and work (and donations) i've just received my gp2x and so far i tried snes and psx and snes is already damn near fullspeed for me (at 275mhz) and psx is still slow but its going in the right direction! and ff7 should be very playable soon as its not that taxing and can easily be played at 25 frames. i gues we will see full speed psx sometimes and i also think that n64 emulation could be possible (and playable) but this also takes time and better knowledge about this console.


think about it, we're still at the beginning and how the gp32 was at the beginning!

 

[gamefan999]

I have a Q about use of compressed ISO's. How much success, in general, have you all had using images that have been processed by PocketISO, for example? I found that the same images that worked when uncompressed, woiuld not run after they had been put through PocketISO, as it was recommended here.

The GUI actually does say "load success" or something, but the emu then locks with a black screen.

I have only tried it with two games, that I had full success with when uncompressed.

Is there a proven history of success using the compressed ISO's? I haven't heard that much being said about it here, just tiny comments and asides, nothing thorough or conclusive. I think it is a prettyy big deal, since we are dealing with the difference ultimately between having three games on a SD card, or thirty!

 

[X-Code]

WIPEOUT 2097 PAL ( IMG ) [ With Public Beta 2 ] :

OC : 250
VSYNC : Intro 37 / 43 , menu 31, Ingame 30 / 35
FPS : Menus 15, intro between 6 / 7, Ingame 5 / 7 ( mostly 6 )... Funny, it's quite playable at this speed :lol:
INTERLACE : 0
PROGRESSIVE : OFF
UC_PSX : No changes

 

[Damien]

Is there a proven history of success using the compressed ISO's? I haven't heard that much being said about it here, just tiny comments and asides, nothing thorough or conclusive. I think it is a prettyy big deal, since we are dealing with the difference ultimately between having three games on a SD card, or thirty!

All Games i tried so far i used as files made with pocket iso. First of all its important to have both files created (ZNX and ZNX.table) in the dirctory for your roms.

Also its better to use normal compression instead of maximum. It seems the emulator gets some kind of problems reading them.

Since the Emulator does not support sound yet i usually ripped the music of the isos, but on alot of games you CANNOT remove the videos or they stop working.

Diablo for example works fine as a compressed file as long as you leave the videos in.

I also tried a few other games i have laying around for my old trusty psx, and every game i tried to rum compressed worked fine so far, minus Tobal #1, that was the only one out of 20 or so so far.

 

[gamefan999]

All Games i tried so far i used as files made with pocket iso. First of all its important to have both files created (ZNX and ZNX.table) in the dirctory for your roms.

Also its better to use normal compression instead of maximum. It seems the emulator gets some kind of problems reading them.

Since the Emulator does not support sound yet i usually ripped the music of the isos, but on alot of games you CANNOT remove the videos or they stop working.

Diablo for example works fine as a compressed file as long as you leave the videos in.

I also tried a few other games i have laying around for my old trusty psx, and every game i tried to rum compressed worked fine so far, minus Tobal #1, that was the only one out of 20 or so so far.

Thanks for that reply. I never would have thought to include the .table file too. Also, is it ok to leave the .znx extention? I thought that was only for the PocketPC, so I changed it to .iso! I will also try the "music, but not video" idea.

Again, I would have thought that info like this would have been more widely shared. Am I the only one who thinks it is not entirely intuitive to get a working shrunk PSX iso here?!?!

 

[Shikaku]

All Games i tried so far i used as files made with pocket iso. First of all its important to have both files created (ZNX and ZNX.table) in the dirctory for your roms.

Also its better to use normal compression instead of maximum. It seems the emulator gets some kind of problems reading them.

Since the Emulator does not support sound yet i usually ripped the music of the isos, but on alot of games you CANNOT remove the videos or they stop working.

Diablo for example works fine as a compressed file as long as you leave the videos in.

I also tried a few other games i have laying around for my old trusty psx, and every game i tried to rum compressed worked fine so far, minus Tobal #1, that was the only one out of 20 or so so far.

Thanks for that reply. I never would have thought to include the .table file too. Also, is it ok to leave the .znx extention? I thought that was only for the PocketPC, so I changed it to .iso! I will also try the "music, but not video" idea.

Again, I would have thought that info like this would have been more widely shared. Am I the only one who thinks it is not entirely intuitive to get a working shrunk PSX iso here?!?!

It never was and will never be intuitive to get a PSX emulator working right =)

 

[zodttd]

Some good news everyone!

I got a the first 3 instructions of the BIOS to recompile!
So the recompiler's structure is now working!
Only thing left to do is fix some bugs in (hopefully) a few of the instructions and the recompiler will be able to be used...

So what might of been once a month or more of work, might only be a weeks worth to get a dynamic recompiler. Will be sure to keep everyone updated on it's progress.

ZodTTD

 

[Vollgasasi]

zodttd i love you

 

[X-Code]

And that's supposed to make him happy ? :lol:

( only joking )


That's great news zodttd B) , congratulations.

 

[Goity]

Some good news everyone!

I got a the first 3 instructions of the BIOS to recompile!
So the recompiler's structure is now working!
Only thing left to do is fix some bugs in (hopefully) a few of the instructions and the recompiler will be able to be used...

So what might of been once a month or more of work, might only be a weeks worth to get a dynamic recompiler. Will be sure to keep everyone updated on it's progress.

ZodTTD

what about sound?

 

[hackgrid]

Great! Wipeout doesnt work for me with the current release, it freezes in the menu.