jEnesisDS 0.7.4 - Genesis Emulator for Nintendo DS

[Lordus]

I remember the spin dash in Sonic 2 was a little deafening before, even though Sonic 3's was fine. Now they both are. Yes sorry i'm rambling a bit. Take it as a compliment that i play it enough to notice all the little things .


I still say you should include that as a disclamer in your original post. Every single time. In big red writing.

And yet, with every single release you make you get people asking about it at least 10 times ber thread. Make it huge and maybe people won't miss it.

Yes, the Sonic ring chimes and spin dash sounds are very sensitive to the sample rate. This is also one of the very few sounds that sound even better at 32KHz, while you otherwise mostly can't tell the difference to 28KHz.

I am not even sure a disclaimer in the post would help. Maybe i should add a Star Wars like scrolling text that you can't interrupt and that shows before every game you play? Well, maybe better not ;P

If you absolutely need to see the whole screen you can use PicoDriveDS. It is not nearly as polished as JenesisDS, and has no sound, but it scales games to fit on the screen. (The three scale options can be toggled using the L1 button.)
Now after reading Lordus' explanation of scaling on the DS, I am assuming PicoDrive uses software rendering. I'm learning here, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong

Yes, PicodriveDS uses software rendering. There was also a version of jEnesisDS (0.4a iirc) that uses software rendering and has scaling.

I just spend the last hour trying it.. FM sound is better than ever

congrats Lordus, I can not imagine how optimized your asm code is !

Thanks. I have a Gamecube here, too, but unfortunately no way to run code on it, so I couldn't try your emu(s) yet.

[Spidery_Yoda]

I am not even sure a disclaimer in the post would help. Maybe i should add a Star Wars like scrolling text that you can't interrupt and that shows before every game you play? Well, maybe better not ;P

Well then I guess the next best thing to do would be to type out a standard answer to 'why cant i see the whole screen', and keep it handy whenever you have a new release ready.

The one on the previous page should do. You could even ask a mod to keep it handy too. Heck i'll re-post it to anyone that asks myself if you like.

Keep it on a text file on my desktop

[jaws365]

This emulator is great, thanks alot!!!

I hope you will include scaling in the future too

[tylerbgood]

I hope you will include scaling in the future too

Sigh...please see Lordus' post on page 3 of this thread:

I'm trying to relax now, when i hear the scaling question for the 100th time, but it's not always easy
No, the screen can't be scaled like NeoDS does it. If I could do that, then I can tell you that I would, instead of having stupid workarounds like panning and the follow d-pad option.
The NeoGeo composes it's screen almost entirely out of sprites, that NeoDS renders in 3D. With 3D it's relatively easy to scale the whole thing.
The Genesis has 2 background layers and 1 sprite layer, each of which can have high or low priorities (selectable on a per tile basis). So effectively the screen can be composed out of 6 layers. To do this with the DS hardware i need all the 4 backgrounds it offers. Just 2 of those backgrounds can be scaled in hardware, and software scaling is out of the question.
The other alternative is software rendering, where you compose a bitmap out of all Genesis layers, which you can then draw on a single DS background and scale it in hardware.
The downside of this is, that it is incredibly slow. I can tell you, that a typical PC Genesis emulator probably spends about 50% of all its time in software rendering. That's a more than the emulation of the 2 CPUs takes (except the CPU cores are very unoptimized).

[Spidery_Yoda]

I was just reading this again and it made me go 'oh i seeeee'

I'm trying to relax now, when i hear the scaling question for the 100th time, but it's not always easy
No, the screen can't be scaled like NeoDS does it. If I could do that, then I can tell you that I would, instead of having stupid workarounds like panning and the follow d-pad option.
The NeoGeo composes it's screen almost entirely out of sprites, that NeoDS renders in 3D. With 3D it's relatively easy to scale the whole thing.
The Genesis has 2 background layers and 1 sprite layer, each of which can have high or low priorities (selectable on a per tile basis). So effectively the screen can be composed out of 6 layers. To do this with the DS hardware i need all the 4 backgrounds it offers. Just 2 of those backgrounds can be scaled in hardware, and software scaling is out of the question.

Is THAT why in Sonic some of the sprites are sometimes incorrectly displayed and so they're in front/behind things they shouldnt be. The Sonic intros where he pops up from behind the word 'SONIC', and a few cases in Sonic & Knuckles where for example a door slides open towards the ground, and you can see the sprite go underground.

And more importantly the one that actually affects the game, during the Lava Reef Zone Robotnik fight where the lava 'tilts', except in the emu it either doesnt move, or all the lava rises up and you cant see.

I always figured it would be something that was hardwired because of the DS hardware. The DS can only display 4 backgrounds you say? Hmm. Or am i completely wrong and rambling about nonsense.

Erm that sounds like a complaint. It isn't. Like i said I just assumed when I saw these things that there's nothing you can do about them. I'm just interested in how it works.

And if the DS can't display enough layers how do you get everything else to look so great?

[zzt]

Anyone got this to work on the Games'nMusic card yet? This version sounds so much better than 0.7...

EDIT: I still could not get this to work, but When I completely emptied my memory card and put just Jenesis 0.7.4 and one game (sonic 2) It still froze but the FPS counter in the bottom left of the touch screen finally did appear and started at 007 before dropping to 000...hope this is some kind of help.

[TechRat]

Anyone got this to work on the Games'nMusic card yet? This version sounds so much better than 0.7...

I have good news for Games 'n Music owners. If you set your DS system clock to 00:00 before running the emulator it will work fine. You can even run it directly without going through DSOrganize. I've let Lordus know about this.

[utz030303]

Thanks Lordus, I really love your jEnesis!! <3

[crookedmouth]

I have good news for Games 'n Music owners. If you set your DS system clock to 00:00 before running the emulator it will work fine. You can even run it directly without going through DSOrganize. I've let Lordus know about this.

It's good news but this workaround has always worked. It was just annoying to have to reset the clock every time you turned your DS on.
Good find though.

[TechRat]

It's good news but this workaround has always worked. It was just annoying to have to reset the clock every time you turned your DS on.
Good find though.

You are the second person who has told me this. If this workaround always existed, how come no one else posted it in this thread when people started saying that it froze on their GnM?

I mean, it's a little inconvenient, but it's better than nothing.