Vmoo News

[DCEmu_Newsposter]

The VMU Emulator for the Dreamcast has a new devver on board and its none other than Speud who his famous for his other VMU app. He has now joined together with Dirty Sanchez to carry the VMU Emulator for Dreamcast to new levels, heres the latest from Spued:[br][br] VMU Tool is now having a fully working VMU emulator to play your games directly from the filemanger. [br]this is actually dirtysanchez' port of marcus comstedt's emu VMoo that has been included in the current version. [br][br]the game is displayed on both the TV and the VMU screen in real time without major slowdown. [br][br]the games are running as well as when you run them on the PC emu, which means without sound and with a decent framerate but not too accurate. [br][br]once youve finished playing with your game the file is saved to the VM so the changes will be there next time you load the game from VMU Tool, just like when you quit the game with the VMU's "game" mode. [br][br]Check out all the newest screenshots of this great looking emu Here (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vmoo.shtml)

[wraggster]

does the scene get any better, :)

great screenshots Speud

[speud]

here are some fresh screenshots just for you ;)

the BG image was made by Amyoto.
the game is VMU mini Pacman by Alessandro Sanasi:

http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_t7.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_7.png)

http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_t8.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_8.png)

http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_t9.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_9.png)

[wraggster]

very nice screenshots Speud, ive posted the news at VGN, Emucamp and Emuhelp too.

They might not post but lots are very interested :)

[WHurricane16]

Wow, nice to see you and DS combine efforts. This is getting pretty handy :)

[wraggster]

ill say :)

will send me your avatar and ill upload to dcemu uk

[curt_grymala]

Is the download on the VMOO page a new download, or is it the old version of this emu? Has there been a new release with Speud's work included, or have we just seen screenies?

[wraggster]

Just screenies so far

has it been released /me has been at work all day

[speud]

no, nothing new released for now.

i didnt even send the current version to dirtysanchez yet (sorry).

i have other things to implement apart from the emu before a new public release of VMU Tool anyway, like the cheats editor or the defragment option.

the emu is also being worked on at the moment, im trying to get powerstone working, i contacted alessandro sanasi who released a version of softVMS that didnt have the bug the original source marcus comstedt released had.

i also fixed alien fighter with the game's author soeren gust's patch.

i tried other homebrew games, and the ones made by omar cornut are running way too fast, so ill see what i can do about that too.

anyway, dont worry, when it will be released i will let dcemu.co.uk know ;)
for now just have a look at VMoo/VMU Tool topics.

btw thanks for having spread the info wraggster ;)

[wraggster]

Thanks for the News :)

[WHurricane16]

ill say :)

will send me your avatar and ill upload to dcemu uk

Oops, I fixed it. I'll have to change the url back later, though, but thanks for the offer :)

Back on topic: any estimate on when the next version will be available, Speud?

[speud]

Back on topic: any estimate on when the next version will be available, Speud?
yes, when its done, hopefully ;)

seriously, i prefere not to give any date for now, i dont want to disapoint anyone nor to be rushed because im close to the delay i fixed.

i only gave an aproximate release date for the previous version when it was almost ready and i was doing the last tests.
thats not the case with this version, it still misses quite a few things before a release.

but this will worth the wait thats for sure ;)

hopefully its a matter of weeks, it also depends on tyro's reply to my mail.

[speud]

i started to read the docs from john maushammer's site http://www.maushammer.com/vmu.html to try and fix the small bugs that appear when displaying sprites (they blink sometimes), and eventually fix the bug in powerstone without alessandro's help (the more i wait the more i think he won't reply before a while).

i understand better how the emu's core work, and i understand what dirtysanchez was talking about with this kind of double buffering.

if i understood correctly the VMU has 2 banks for storing top and bottom parts of the screen, the banks are located at the same place and the VMU switches from one to the other before displaying the whole screen.

so those bugs might be due to the emu's "slowness" to execute some actions which would cause one bank not to be filled entirely before switching to the other one.

though i changed the emu's clock and it didnt affect the bug in powerstone. so that might be something else.

after looking at the screen and xram more carefully i noticed that the part of the screen that doesnt display anything starts at the 8th row from the bottom, and sometimes some sprites from the top part of the screen are displayed in the part below this "invisible" region.

it looks like the bug is something in the loop that have to identify each sfr and do necessary actions, i dont know where it is exactly and what i can do about that once i know where it is.

so i think i won't waste too much time trying to improve the emu for this release, since it could be very long.
instead ill start working on the other things i had to implement and fix in VMU Tool, and release the new version with the unperfect but still playable emu.
then hopefully ill be able to improve it in versions ill release after this one.

[wraggster]

Thanks for the update :)

[speud]

a few more screenshots ;)

EDIT: moved them to the next page.

[WaCk0]

hehe cool :)
hey speud, I have a big VMU picture with a good quallity for you. Please tell me if you want it.

[Christuserloeser]

8)

[speud]

ah, that was the end of the page :-/
i bet most people missed them so ill put them on this page instead ;)

http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_sc_t1.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_sc_1.png) http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_sc_t2.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_sc_2.png) http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_sc_t3.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool074_sc_3.png)

note that you can now choose the resolution between 240x160 (2 first images) and 480x320 (last image).
also a menu is being implemented to modify the emu's speed and gui (2nd image).


hey speud, I have a big VMU picture with a good quallity for you. Please tell me if you want it.
ok so in other words the one used in these screenies looks really bad and ill have to do everything again :P
nevermind, can you upload it somewhere? thanks :)

[WaCk0]

ok so in other words the one used in these screenies looks really bad and ill have to do everything again :P
nevermind, can you upload it somewhere? thanks :)
heh no you dont. Here is the image, ready to use ;)
http://www.geocities.com/wackoemu/vmoo.png (save as...)

[speud]

thats a lot better, thanks :)

also do you think you would be able to make a black/white mask where the screen and the buttons are in black and the rest in white?

something like this, but in better :)
http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmoo_mask.png

[WaCk0]

Here is the new VMU png and the mask. (with the screen size fixed, to fit the mvoo screen). Please delete the old one ;D

http://www.geocities.com/wackoemu/vmoo_mask.zip (save as...)

[speud]

ah thanks :)
the mask should use no more than 2 colors so no anti aliasing for the circles, but ill reduce the colors number by myself, no problem.

[Eric]

Hey i have been posting this mostly anywhere me and a few buddies have been trying to get the Vmoo selfbooted and for some reason i can't get it to work i have tried everything so as he if you or anyone has a selfboot file in nrg or cdi please send it to [email protected]

Thanks

Eric