Squidgesnes 0.35 Hack

[DaveC]

this is so awesome, i cannot even comprehend the awesomeness... i hope you keep going at it and help squidge optimize the whole thing! Looks like we are damn close to seeing perfect snes emulation come true!

Edit: @godathell: 16bit is only the classification of the processor, not the graphics. Snes does 16bit memory allocations and such but displays 8 bit graphics (256 colors)... somebody correct me if I am horribly wrong...

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You need the 16 bit mode on the GP2X if you are going to emulate the transparencies. There are only 256 colors but the alpha channel effects would need more color registers to play with.

Since speed issues pretty much rule out transparencies anyway you could use 8 bit rendering for better speed.

 

[TelcoLou]

* Warning: 3-word review ahead, not for the easily offended *



























Holy. Fucking. SHIT!!

I've been using Donkey Kong Country as a benchmark, and in this version, it runs damn-near fullspeed with sound!! Reesy, you are amazing!!!

 

[sand_man]

This version doesn't work for me.

 

[Mudi]

Trying zipping your roms, apparently uncompressed roms don't work at the moment.

 

[whiskthecat]

This is amazing. I just cant figure out how to get back to the menu. I tried the volume buttons. Maybe Im not doing it right.

 

[TelcoLou]

This is amazing. I just cant figure out how to get back to the menu. I tried the volume buttons. Maybe Im not doing it right.

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Hold down select for 3-4 seconds ... that works for me ... all I did was place this hacked version in the same folder as the other version, then point my script to the new version ...

 

[god_at_hell]

@xnopasaranx: like the users before pointed out, i ment the colourdepth. For a 100% accurate display, the 15bit palette needs a 15bit rendering on our gp2x. Since 15bit is a more or minder unnormal bitdepth, 16bit is the next.
To be a kind of a smartass ... i have to tell you, that the CPU of the SNES isn't 16bit at all ... it's more 8bit than 16bit in fact. But the onebillion custom-chips waive it .

 

[sand_man]

Trying zipping your roms, apparently uncompressed roms don't work at the moment.

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I just tried zipping them and that didn't work either.

 

[rokdcasbah]

i have no problems with loading roms. fw 1.4, uncompressed roms. tried smw and mega man x. i just put the new binary in my squidgesnes folder. haven't tried with the alternate settings yet.

it does run a bit slower than the beta (i'm assuming that that was reesy's beta?) but the palette problem has been solved. and the sound has been improved from the original.

this is great. thank you to squidge and reesy.

 

[DaveC]

The sound does seem pretty much better than before. There seems to be a huge amount of frameskip maybe it is the auto frameskip code going crazy? I am not overclocking though. Zip files are a great addition too. Thanks for that, saves valuable card space. Thank, cool to see that it is being worked on. Cheers.

 

[mooseknuckle2000]

^^ What have you done with the real DaveC?!?

 

[primeris]

Ok, I was growling for a while as it refused to run any ROMs, even zipped ones.
So I played with the old version (which will let me back out to the menu screen easily, I couldn't figure out the volume thing baalim mentioned), even letting it glitch by trying to get it to load zips.
THEN I tried the new versions again, and finally it would load zips. I later also tried smc and sfc files, and these would load also. Not always though, but I can't figure out the magic dance these new versions require for things to work.
Ok, using Chrono Trigger as benchmark.
In the old squidgesnes, the pendulum and title would move kindof smoothly, but sound was terrible.
Menus, dialogs, all worked ok.
Hacked sqidgesnes: Pendulum and title motion are choppy. Sound is very good. Backgrounds are messed up, and dialog windows do not show up.
New squidgesnes: Same choppy motion for stuff involving scaling/rotation/mode7 or whatever they use in the title screen. Sound is great. Backgrounds seem ok. Dialog windows fill up at an odd choppy rate. This one's the definitive upgrade for me, but it definitively needs work.

Verdicts:
-squidgesneshack: I saw no game benefit from this, scrambled most I tried.
-new squidgesnes: keeping it. Really like it, thanks!
-Transhack option: screws up some games, don't see the benefit.
-Old squidgesnes: keeping it to help me load the new one, as I still have trouble, even with zips.

Problems with game performance on new SquidgeSNES with sound:
Castlevania IV gets horrible framerate drops when there are too many sprites on the screen.
Demon's Crest gets stuck at the intro, as the big sprite dragon fails to show up. Scene loops. Plays fine with sound disabled, although did not try flying in the overworld.
F-Zero outright freezes graphically at "Go!" , then resumes to move after I crash. Audio continues throughout.

I'll play with CPU clock settings see if these affect anything...

Many games do run really well, as long as there's no mode7 or whatever.

 

[iignotus]

Nope, this version doesn't work at all whatsoever as far as loading roms. I tried running Space Invaders first, I tried running the old squidesnes first, I tried using .zip files, I tried using .smc files.... nothing works at all. Cramfs 1.4.... didn't have any problems before Good thing the older hacked version still works pretty nicely.

 

[Reesy]

When everyone says that games will not load, what exactly is happening? Do you get the skin border around a black screen? I've seen this happen and I believe the cause is low batteries...believe it or not. I think it is to do with the 2d accelerator chip, currently Squidge uses it to clear large chunks of memory. Its quicker than clearing the memory using an ASM function by 1 or 2 fps.

I spent ages trying to work out what was causing this problem. It seemed that a version of code that was working 5 minutes before would suddenly not work. I changed the batteries and away it went, very wierd. So if anyone gets this error, try new batteries and see if it cures the problem.

Anyway that aside, I'm currently working on a 8bit mode. I'm going to add some techniques I use in DrMD to see if I can really get a speed boost, it should be alot faster than current 16bit mode. I don't know how long it will take to complete but I'll keep at it until its done.

 

[primeris]

GRRRRR!!!!

After rebooting the GP2X six times, I'm giving up for tonight to replay this emu. The old one can still load roms, but the new ones are refusing to do anything right now. They freeze at a black screen with zip, smc, or sfc, and will not back out by pressing reset, or volume or anything.

THAT's why I keep this throwable device tied around my neck while I play.

EDIT: And yes, black screen with SNES skin.

Trying with the 2X plugged to the wall it will freeze with the skin and no screen on the new SqSNES

reboot

Interesting. I go into old SqSNES, start up Actraiser, reset out. Start new SqSnes, try Chrono.ZIP, frozen again, skin and no screen. Held down every button for 10 seconds to quit. No luck.

sigh... reboot

AHA! Went into old SqSNES, ENABLED SOUND. Loaded CastlevaniaIV and Actraiser,
quit, started new SqSNES, loaded Chrono.ZIP, and I'm now listening to its fine intro jazziness.

I'm now gonna try with my tired(?) batteries.

???????? I start old SqSNES, load CastlevaniaIV, quit start new SqSNES load Chrono.ZIP, NO SOUND. W.T.F.
I quit (yay, no rebooting!) go back to old, try chrono.smc, has sound, I quit, go back to new SqSNES, try chrono.SMC HAS SOUND, I quit, try chrono.ZIP, HAS SOUND.

<_< I should go to bed....


And I have regular firmware 1.4.0 (thank you, robster), my crappy NAND will not boot from SD, so no cramfs

 

[iignotus]

Believe it or not, I actually thought it might've somehow been the batteries, so I put freshly-charged ones in... no difference at all; the old hack works, and neither of these new hacks do.

As far as what constitutes "working", the binary loads fine, I get the menu, I can access every option, I go to the Load ROM screen, it 'loads' the rom, it shows the black screen with the power and reset graphics flanking it, but the fps is stuck at 0 so it doesn't even start to render anything. It just sits there, doing nothing, for as long as I let it run for, and no button combination can get me back to the binary's menu.

 

[CoinOp]

I was getting the screen border and black screen on loads too. I then tried the Commander Keen fix mentioned by Tobriand here, and all was well. Smc, zip, all works as it should under cramfs 1.4.

Hope this helps.

CoinOp

 

[Reesy]

It must be to do with the changes I've made to Ryleh's sdk. The older hack version I released does not use minimal.c, it uses my own sdk which is based on minimal but doesn't have all of the extra stuff. Has anyone had a problem with the older hack version I (or Nobody58565 )released in the beta section?

 

[iignotus]

I was getting the screen border and black screen on loads too. I then tried the Commander Keen fix mentioned by Tobriand here, and all was well. Smc, zip, all works as it should under cramfs 1.4.

Hope this helps.

CoinOp

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I don't have Commander Keen... is there anything else that works the same way?

 

[primeris]

Try stuff from my previous post. I just retried starting Chrono.smc on old sqidgesnes, and then chrono.zip on the new one, and that worked.
Nothing seems consistent, though...