From the creators of Gens and Neo4All comes... Gens4All!!

[fox68k]

I am proud to announce the first release of the excellent Gens emulator to the Dreamcast. Chui, Stef and I have been working on this port about a year and a lot of assembly code had been translated into C. It is been a great effort but i really think it is worth it. At last, you can see all our finest in one shot.

The project is intented to bring high quality genesis emulation to the DC, not to mention game compatibility.


At the moment, this alpha version features the following:

- Two SH4 assembly engines especially design for the DC.
* FAME: Very fast M68000 emulation core written 100% in SH-4 assembly code.
* FAZE: Z80 emulation core written 100% in SH-4 assembly code.

- Accurate Genesis VDP emulation:
* DMA transfers with accurates timings
* Window plane
* Sprite plane
* Vertical Interrupt
* Horizontal Interrupt
* All rasters effects
* Highlight/Shadow effects
* Interlaced mode

- Raw binary (.bin) and interleaved (.smd) ROM format support.
- GZip, Zip and 7-Zip compressed file format support.
- YM2612 emulation core by Stef.
- PSG emulation.
- SDL Dreamcast implementation by Chui.
- The sound is being emulated but not output yet, though.
- On-screen menu.


Finally, I would like to thank Chui and Stef for everything they have accomplished to make this a reality.


The sources and binary for the DC can be found here:

http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/releases/gen...ew-src.tar.bz2
http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/releases/gen...ha-preview.rar (unscrambled, for DemoMenu, dchakker)
http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/att...8&d=1205164538 (scrambled for selfbooting, with /data/ folder)

Cheers.

[Guaripolo]

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH SEEMS THAT YOU HAVE KEEP IT IN SECRET (but i have heard about it somewhere...)

CONGRATS, I WILL TRY IT TODAY, HOPE THAT BE SO GOOD LIKE THE NEO4ALL!!!

[Basile]

It`s great. Wow!
Waiting for beta release.
May be you make video player for DC ,eh ?

[wraggster]

awesome release for the Dreamcast Scene

[Christuserloeser]

Woohoo, my head's spinning! Great, great work!


At first I couldn't get it to work though, until I checked the source for the /data/ folder that's missing in your plain files upload. I attached a complete archive to this post (and linked to it in your post).



I got a few technical questions: Do you have plans on porting the FM emulation to SH4 or do you think there is a way of using the AICA ?

In GenesisPlusDC, the main problem speed-wise seems to be FM emulation, and I noticed that this is a huge problem with Gens4All too.



Oh, and what do you think of a close collaboration ?

One option could be to merge Gens4All and GenesisPlusDC into 1 emulator ( "GensPlusDC4All" ) . An other option could be to continue both, the port of GenesisPlus and Gens4All, but with helping each other on slowest parts.

[gxb]

Just as I guessed, your secret project is GEN4ALL! GOOD JOB,GUYS!

[Maturion]

Wow, awesome release!

[vbt]

Impressive work :thumbup::thumbup:

[fox68k]

I got a few technical questions: Do you have plans on porting the FM emulation to SH4 or do you think there is a way of using the AICA ?

At the moment, I am not thinking about that. As far as we know, in terms of speed the major issue is the VDP rendering code. So the next step is an assembly core, which hopefully will boost the emulator dramatically.

In GenesisPlusDC, the main problem speed-wise seems to be FM emulation, and I noticed that this is a huge problem with Gens4All too.

I do not think so. The sound is being fully rendered but we did not enable the output for synchronisation issues. But just in case it will be, you can be sure it will be sorted out.

Oh, and what do you think of a close collaboration ?

One option could be to merge Gens4All and GenesisPlusDC into 1 emulator ( "GensPlusDC4All" ) . An other option could be to continue both, the port of GenesisPlus and Gens4All, but with helping each other on slowest parts.

To be honest, i do not want to compromise accuracy for speed. I want Gens for Dreamcast as accurate as it is under Windows. GenesisPlusDC is all about shortcuts and trickeries to avoid get our hands dirty. I bet Gens will on DC. This does not mean we can take advantage of each other sources and experience when it pops up.

[Christuserloeser]

At the moment, I am not thinking about that. As far as we know, in terms of speed the major issue is the VDP rendering code. So the next step is an assembly core, which hopefully will boost the emulator dramatically.

Sounds like a plan.

The sound is being fully rendered but we did not enable the output for synchronisation issues. But just in case it will be, you can be sure it will be sorted out.

Hehe, great to hear

This does not mean we can take advantage of each other sources and experience when it pops up.

Hm, do you mean "This does not mean we can't take advantage" ?

- English is pretty crazy with these double negative no/no things ^ ^



Anyway, so your plan is to rewrite Gens entirely in SH4 ? - That's insane !