NeoPop SDL

[GPF]

http://s101533388.onlinehome.us/GPF/NeoPop.jpg

Still needs some work, its slow and only works in Chankast so far. But hopefully I will get that resolved soon.

Troy Davis (GPF)
http://www.storm-studios.net/GPF/

[Darksaviour69]

news posted ;)

do u think u can get better speed than ganksoft neogeo pocket emu?

[GPF]

I haven't tried that emulator. So I can't compare it. I have to get it working on a real dreamcast first :)

Troy

[Cereal]

Because 2 unfinshed projects werent enough....

[wraggster]

you try and code them, its not as easy as just wave a wand >:(

[Cereal]

I didnt mean it like that at all. Don't take a bigger bit than you can chew and he's certianly took alot of bits.

[DCDayDreamer]

Will there be sound implemented with this at all?, Neopocott didn't have sound but still was a little slow on some games.

[GPF]

its has sound already. Still needs alot of work because of the speed and the fact it works in Chankast only right now.

[DCDayDreamer]

Sound already! - great, good luck with it GPF...

and take your time, don't let the impatient minority dampen your spirits.

[Cereal]

You know that its possable to just add the sound code to neopocket right guys.

[DCDayDreamer]

You know that its possable to just add the sound code to neopocket right guys.

Have you tried it?

[quzar]

I have a strong feeling that you are having the exact same problem as i am having with it (but i have never tested it with chankast).

[Cereal]

Have you tried it?
No but its a damn good Idea. I might.

[DCDayDreamer]

No but its a damn good Idea. I might.

Well, if it works just upload a binary, we'll be glad to host it - it might also help out GPF and quazar in the process.

[GPF]

I have a strong feeling that you are having the exact same problem as i am having with it (but i have never tested it with chankast).

I wonder if its a compiler flag issue? When I was porting the NeoGeo CD emulator, Ian and I were having simialiar problems, but Ian came up with the correct gcc flags and that fixed the problem.

Troy

Quzar- I sent you a PM about it

[Cereal]

Well, if it works just upload a binary, we'll be glad to host it - it might also help out GPF and quazar in the process.
It's impossable. It's wrote in WinCE and LibDream and theres no source to improve... Unless someone has a link to the soucre code.

[DCDayDreamer]

It's impossable. It's wrote in WinCE and LibDream and theres no source to improve... Unless someone has a link to the soucre code.

why did say this then?:


You know that its possable to just add the sound code to neopocket right guys.

It doesn't help the coders at all, they'll just be led up a blind alley for nothing.

[Cereal]

I'm sorry I thought it was open source. I didnt know anyone still kept closed source projects becides DreamSnes. I guess I should of looked before I ran my mouth.

[wraggster]

any updates on this emu?

[quzar]

a few days ago i sent gpf the sources to my failed port of it.

[wraggster]

maybe their will be a piece of the puzzle missing :)

fingers crossed

[GPF]

I got it working tonight.

I guessed right,it was a memory alignment problem. I'll post details later tonight.

Troy

[Cap'n 1time]

you know i have a soft spot for the ngpc.... i love you :-* .

this was not intended to be a sexual message.

[GPF]

OK its working on my dreamcast now too. :)

For some reason sound is not working though :( , and still is pretty slow, so it will still need to be optimized.

Troy

[WHurricane16]

good luck, Troy

Sorry it took me so long, but official forums are up:

http://www.storm-studios.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=31

Also, you made an error in your initial post, Troy. The url in your sig goes to "storn-studios" :D

[GPF]

OK sound is now working on the dreamcast, the emulator still need heavy optimization, and probably need to remove SDL to make it faster.

Troy

[Eric]

This is really sweet now i may have to throw away the ganksoft emu no offense to them cause they did release it and gave people a new thing to look at but this one is going to be wicked and worth a download

Thanks

[Cap'n 1time]

I want neogeo pocket! RAWR!
ganksofts emu was about 60% efficiant. With this new neopop i hope it fixes alot of graphical problems that the previouse versions had, i havnt used neopop but once because... well i own a neogeopocket color. *BUT* it would just be cooler to play it on dreamcast! oh my god! i dont think i have ever been this excited about an emulator before! ngp is the greatest handheld ever! quiet you gamegear people!
this is the greatest year for dc homebrew and emulation!! wonderswan in our future! amiga 500! beats of rage! open lynks! A FREAKIN SNOW BROS CLONE!!!! ahhhhh im freakin out man!

now that i have finished brown nosing, i will return to my usual quiet, witty, and may i add sexy self.

[Eric]

hey now you are right about everything except one part the sexy part i am sexy lol

[Cap'n 1time]

that really hurts.... at least i think im sexy :'(

if you need any beta testers... you know.

[Eric]

Alright this is some status of the Neo Geo Pop emu created by the one and only GPF. So far the screen is not centered its at left top corner. It is also visually irritating for the eyes at the moment but I was told by GPF he is going to get that fixed. Also sound is working but is making things really slow.

The menu system is amazing its the one being used for the Dreamcastaway Emu. But at the moment nothing in the menu except load game is able to be used.

So you cannot turn off the sound and this means not being able to know how the games run without sound but that will be something GPF is working on. We will give more info as we get more and still a release is unknown.

Also if people need to know the progress with games I have tested 3. Allstars Baseball (working),Sonic The Hedgehog (working) and Puzzle Bobble (working).

Eric

[Cap'n 1time]

I only had a chance to try metal slug 1 before dchacker decided to myseriously not let me load it anymore.
it worked slowly with some flickering problems. it dosnt seem to have the gfx errors that the old neo geo pocket emulator from ganksoft had.

[Cap'n 1time]

i finaly decided to use selfbootinducer (dont ask me why i didnt in the first place) and i got it running. here is all that i had time to test.

Fractal v1.0 (PD) - crashed ??? white screen
Hardware Test (PD) - works
Invaders by Tomasz Slanina (PD) - works
SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millennium - crashed ???

all of these work very slowly and with some flickering problem

[GPF]

The menu system is amazing its the one being used for the Dreamcastaway Emu.

The menu system is from the chui's GP32 GBA port, and since he's working on Dreamcastaway it probably a similiar codebase :) I love the menu system Chui did.

Troy

[Darksaviour69]

great work man, sounds like its coming along just swimmingly ;D

[GPF]

here is another Chankast Screenshot, which is also running on my dreamcast with sound. *To me its playable without sound, with no frameskipping.

I will need to add some frameskipping/throttling code so that its playable with sound :)

Troy

[wraggster]

is the emu on a par with Ganksofts emulator now?

[Eric]

with sound yes the speed is the same but without sound it would probably be a lot faster GPF said it already that its more playable without sound so i am going to give that test as soon i can

[Christuserloeser]

That's so great! ;D

Good work, GPF!

[Cap'n 1time]

i havnt tried the new beta, but the one i just tried was pretty similare to the ganksoft emulator, cept without all the graphical errors.
GPF do you have any idea on how to increase the speed a bit more without hacks?

[M@jk]

when we can expect any test release ?

[Cap'n 1time]

PM convo between me and GPF
please dont quote me as i have about 10000 errors.

I wrote:



the new beta is an improvment. Is there a way to return to the main menu that i have yet to notice? also holding "r" and "l" no longer seems to work. I dunno if you made the resolution to support pal or not but for me it would be about perfect if it were pushed up +y just a little bit. personaly i perfered the smaller resolution and i know you probably have plans to make some kind of customization option later. anyways you probably already know all this but a list might be kind of helpful. so as far as the gui is...

"r" and "l" reset seems to be broken
the 256x256 looks nice but it needs to be pushed up
it needs some kind of button combo to return to the menu

though the speed is slow and the sound is scratchy, you may concider a public beta once thoes things are completed.

it would be nice if eventually...

you included customizable the video res
customizable controll settings were added
save states sram were supported
and of course if the video and sound were a little cleaner.
added artwork - pretty it up

GPF wrote:


still working on fixing the getting back to the menu, it appears like its going back to the menu, but its not drawing the screen.

I didn't even think about pal support, I guess I will have to look into that Smiley right now I am stretching the screen to 320X240. I have been thinking about centering the screen instead, and maybe drawing a background around it, kind of like the other np emulator. I don't know how to draw a background yet though or have one Smiley

what are some example of customizable controller settings?

I have to look into using the vmu still shouldn't be to difficult ( i hope )

I need to fix the lower third corruption problem still, and sound I don't know about yet, one of the problems is its hard coded to 19.95 fps, still need to implement a frame counter so I can sync up the sound.

I am a horrible artist, hopefully someone will provide a splashscreen etc.


Please post your review on the forum so people get an idea of what going on.

Thanks,
Troy

[GPF]

R&L triggers now take you back to menu, frameskip(all but auto) and enabling/disabling sound works, press start button to return to previous menu or back to emulation.

The screen is now centered and is sized at 160X152 to match screen np resolution.


Troy

[Cap'n 1time]

It seems we are in need of an artist for a splash screen for this emulator.

I had a pm convo between gpf and myself. The convo was over me trying to push just a tad for a public release and to help remove any possible frusteration. Here is what the convo looked like.

ME

This new release is alot better!

as i said before, when the gui is a little more complete you may concider a public release. I think its important to finish the menus before you really concentrate on the nuts and bolts of the support.

I read somewhere some idiot say something like *yet another hyped emu that wont be released by GPF* not sure if you quit on the gba emu, and i dont really care but it would probably do you some good and increase your reputation as a programmer if you made a release. So many programmers get frusterated before they make a release and dump projects because of it. dont want to see that happen to you. Smiley

GPF

I am still working on the GBA emulator, it was just put on hold for a couple of months because I didn't have my dreamcast setup to develop with. Should resume probably after I release the neopop emulator.

I need a splashscreen graphic still and need some ideas for other menu options. The sound still needs serious work, and I am currently researching that.

I am going to be offline for awhile after tonight since I am moving, Ill try to post one more build tonight.

Troy


I got more than one good message out of this reply. Not only am I going to get to test a new build later on tonight ;D , but also that the gba project will be resumed!

Anyway, if any artists are willing to come up with a splash screen, or if you have any ideas. Post em here! GPF will surely have a look at them.
Thanks.

[obelisk]

Hey, GPF, do you Have/ need or would you like by any chance any music for the NeoPop and GBA emus? *I'm messing w/ some new electronic stuff and polishing it up a bit, I may have some fun bits for you, let me know if yer interested, and I'll snag you some nice trax. *- obelisk * PS, i haven't any site or DL's currntly, I've been quite busy as of late. Oh, and btw, Good Job & thanx.

[Cap'n 1time]

I tried the latest release today. The frameskip option now works and everything is pretty much connected. I didnt mess with throttle but i dont think that works yet and neither does some other non esential stuff. the vmu now displays NEO POP on boot. Frame skip can improve the speed a bit but its still not quite up to snuff as they say. I imagine that everything on the gui will be connected by the next release and that GPF may begin work on speed improvments.

At this moment i would say that this emulator has pushed a little past ganksofts emu. One annoying factor is that the sound still makes an annoying clicking noise.

GPF said in a pm that he is in the process of moving and might not update for a few days.

I also wanted to remind you artists that we are ineed of a splash screen. anything you can do to help (music, art, etc) will most likely be appreciated. HELP OUT! thanks.

dont ask me about a release date. GPF will make his release when GPF is ready. :P

[obelisk]

10-4, good buddy. I'll be going over rough cuts and some down mixed junk thiis wknd, some new trax, expect to hear from me next week w/ results, this weekend I'm doing some sound checks @ the studio and making sure i didn't possibly lose a 16 track ready to go da street album. Yay, sound techs, yay.

[Neo_Matrix_IV]

how big do u need the splash screen to be? 320x240?

just tell me, and i'll try to do my best :)

[Christuserloeser]

Just go with 640x480 - it could always be downsized if needed ;)

[Neo_Matrix_IV]

Here are 3 splash screens i have come up with... they are all based on a similar idea... hope u like em! :)

www.elrincondepablo.com.ar/neopop.rar

[Eric]

i would go with the third splash screen just cause it includes the the dreamcast swirl and makes it look kind of original if there is something wrong with copyright the first looks alot more colourful second is good aswell but its all about the 3rd,1st screen

[Cap'n 1time]

this'll be up to GPF whenever he returns. thanks for the help, Im sure he mutch appreciates it. :)

[Neo_Matrix_IV]

i would go with the third splash screen just cause it includes the the dreamcast swirl

The 3 screens have the dreamcast swirl ;D

And in case my vote counts, I like the 1st one more than the others ^_^

[Cap'n 1time]

I kind of like the first 1, I just hate that "powered by sdl" watermark.

[Neo_Matrix_IV]

it's just a way of giving some reward to the sdl lib... if u people want it out, i'll take it out ::)

[Alexvrb]

Well, SDL (meaning its implementation on DC) often holds developers back for certain things, like emulator rendering code. So its not that its bad or anything, its just that ultimately, it may not be SDL powering the more intensive parts at all. You could always put "Powered by KOS" or "Powered by GPF" eventually. ;)

[Neo_Matrix_IV]

I got rid of it now... you can grab the new ver @ the same url (http://www.elrincondepablo.com.ar/neopop.rar)...
I also increased the quality a little bit, so that it looks better if it needs to be resized

[Cap'n 1time]

i love the first one.

[GPF]

well Im back at work, so heres the latest update.

I prefer the 3rd splash screen, love the eye.

I have implemented zip rom loading support.

fixed the flash rom saving and loading code, and have implemented the state saving and loading code from the game menu. Still need to implement zlib compression for the vmu saves though, since the flash rom is 15 blocks and state saves are about 98 blocks, I have only tested it with Bustamove pocket rom.

I increased the sound output to 44100k and I think that got rid of the ticking sound. Still need to port sound to kos sound stream.

Hopefully my cable modem will be setup tonight, so I can upload a new version for betatesters.

Troy

[GPF]

cable modem is up :)

new beta version sent in PM to betatesters.

Troy

[Cap'n 1time]

pretty much everything is working well with the exception of too much flash rom being used.

mabey some more speed will come next... i hope.

The splash (thanks to Neo_Matrix_IV :) ) looks very nice on the tv screen. and the sound is vastly improved... no more of that damn ticking. things seem to be moving smoothly and its nice to have GPF back. ;D

[milfzor]

i havent seen this emulator yet, but from the sounds of it, it seems pretty cool....i cant wait till its completed :)

[Neo_Matrix_IV]

Nice to hear things are improving :)

remember that if u need help with some images, the only thing you have to do is ask ;)

[GPF]

Nice to hear things are improving :)

remember that if u need help with some images, the only thing you have to do is ask ;)

Will do.

Thanks again for the awesome splash screen.

Troy

[RockinB]

Hi folks!

I'm currently porting NeoPop to a SuperH2 CPU architecture.

There where a couple of problems involved, because the TLCS900h CPU core of NeoPop is only for LSB (like x86) architecture and got no (unlike the sound CPU z80 core) MSB compile flag.

Yes, I've tried very hard to fix this alone, but now help would be very appreciated.

I got it already running, but had only graphics with one homebrew demo. Some tiles are missing and it was really hard to find the reason for that. Now that my fix still doesn't work, I really need help.
All accesses to memory with _u16 and _u32 pointers are converted to return MSB value format and furthermore proper alignment is established.
Now my last problem - I thought - has something to do with incorrect register access.

Remember these bunch of mapB mapW and mapL files in the TLCS900 core?
Looking into these I saw accesses to 32bit register values with word and byte pointers, expecting to have it in LSB format. Of course the LSB access to the first byte of a 4 byte MSB register will return the last byte instead.
So I decided to modify these .h files to be compilable for both, MSB and LSB.

Now please, can you give some hints to me, what fixes you established regarding alignment and endianes?

Thanks,
Rockin'-B

[Christuserloeser]

That's great news, Rockin'-B! Wish you all the best & welcome to DCEmuUK :)

[GPF]

Hi folks!

I'm currently porting NeoPop to a SuperH2 CPU architecture.

There where a couple of problems involved, because the TLCS900h CPU core of NeoPop is only for LSB (like x86) architecture and got no (unlike the sound CPU z80 core) MSB compile flag.

Yes, I've tried very hard to fix this alone, but now help would be very appreciated.

I got it already running, but had only graphics with one homebrew demo. Some tiles are missing and it was really hard to find the reason for that. Now that my fix still doesn't work, I really need help.
All accesses to memory with _u16 and _u32 pointers are converted to return MSB value format and furthermore proper alignment is established.
Now my last problem - I thought - has something to do with incorrect register access.

Remember these bunch of mapB mapW and mapL files in the TLCS900 core?
Looking into these I saw accesses to 32bit register values with word and byte pointers, expecting to have it in LSB format. Of course the LSB access to the first byte of a 4 byte MSB register will return the last byte instead.
So I decided to modify these .h files to be compilable for both, MSB and LSB.

Now please, can you give some hints to me, what fixes you established regarding alignment and endianes?

Thanks,
Rockin'-B

I suggest you look at the ngage port of neopop. if that doesn't help send me your email and i'll send you my code. But dreamcast is LSB so I dont know if my code would help or not.

Troy

[RockinB]

My problem is fixed now, NeoPop runs on real Saturn, although the colors are slightly shifted to red.

As for the N-Pop source: I don't know what to think about it: Subbie made some changes to the windows version which one would only apply to a MSB port. But to run on an MSB machine, there are a lot more fixes to do.

Beware: subbie made some little experimental changes to the TLCS900 core, which do not behave like the original. I took only a part of them over, untill NeoPop runs correctly.

[GPF]

Beware: subbie made some little experimental changes to the TLCS900 core, which do not behave like the original. I took only a part of them over, untill NeoPop runs correctly.

Yeah I didn't use those TLCS900 core changes, I only used the mem.c changes for 4 byte allignment and the gfx_scanline_colour, BGR swap to RGB .

Troy

[Alexvrb]

My problem is fixed now, NeoPop runs on real Saturn, although the colors are slightly shifted to red.
Hmm, funny that I would read this on dcemu uk before I do on SX. I should probably check out the SX saturn boards, shouldn't I? ;)

[wraggster]

any updates on this emu for public info ?