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zx-81
July 17th, 2006, 20:30
Hi All,

I copy here the post of my friend tommydanger ... It's better to see this thread here :)


Hi
I would have postet this thread in Zx's own forums if i had got the right privileges to post in there.
(Cause this thread is dedicated to pspvba development)

Anyway, my question is, what would you like to see in pspvba in terms of handling/features?
I don't ask for replys like "faster!!!111111, fullsp33d, multiplayer or better sound"
Cause that's what everybody would like to see I think even Zx ;D

To give you a direction I tell you what I've implemented so far:
I have tweaked the rombrowser, so it displays the filesize next to the rom, if the rom is bigger than 16MB (pspvba currently only supports roms up to 16MB) it paints it in red and gives a warning that it will most likely crash when you try to load it.

Another stuff i want to inplement is IR stuff, so you can exchange roms with your friends psp over IR or AdHoc (would be faster)

So thats roughly the direction I ask for :)
Give me some work guys :D

tommydanger
July 17th, 2006, 20:41
to sum it up from the old thread, here are all the gathered suggestions so far:
-improved rombrowser (now marks roms that will likely crash your psp/doesn't work) - done
-multiple settings (every rom has its own settings) - in development
-IR support(transfer roms via IR)
-more rom compatibilty

kpaul_nyc
July 18th, 2006, 00:24
How about cheatcode support? (E.G gameshark)

Dementia7
July 18th, 2006, 03:04
Mono/stereo sound option if possible.?

kpaul_nyc
July 20th, 2006, 19:35
Cheat codes would be awesome and its included in the original VBA

Uruz 6
July 20th, 2006, 20:02
I would say support for 16+ MB roms;
I really want to play Riviera the Promised Land!!

Shadowblind
July 20th, 2006, 20:20
I agree with Uruz, on the grounds of wanting 32mb ROMs playable. And by far, full sound support.

Dementia7
July 20th, 2006, 22:11
someone else posted GB/GBC support as well. that would be nice. an all in one Game boy emu, with the exeption of DS. i agree too, with the cheats.
also, I think sound should come last, i mean..would you rather have great sound or great speed? personly u can play the game without sound and have the same fun.

ACID
July 20th, 2006, 22:32
Right now the processing speed i think is the most important. Everything else is good but what good is it if you cant play a game at descent speed. I see people are asking for GB & GBC support but from what i know i think the CPU will take a good speed hit that way. Plus theres already a GB/GBC emu that works basically at full speed so why try to add something that we already have.

Illegal Machine
July 20th, 2006, 23:47
How about optimizing pspint a little for smoother gameplay and increased compatability?

Glenaruto
July 21st, 2006, 00:03
zip support.

jwilds73
July 21st, 2006, 00:04
I'm patient but I hope that pspvba will take full advantage of Kernel mode and move sound emulation completely to the Media Engine. Not knowing anything about coding myself I only imagine that moving the sound emulation off the cpu and to the me would help not only the sound get better but speed things up as well.

nigelrigel
July 21st, 2006, 00:07
somewhere in the code, there is a flaw, in sonic the hedge hog the character selection screen if screwed up

shadowhawk22
July 21st, 2006, 00:09
I feel like the problem right now is speed. If a game was fast enough, but not perfect graphics, I would still enjoy it. Right now the speed is so slow that I can't really enjoy a game. All I want is a GBA emulator that plays a game quick enough. Zip support, better graphics, etc, are all secondary issues in my mind.

Hawk

pkmaximum
July 21st, 2006, 00:18
Well of course we need speed and greater sound quality ;). But I think we need to put some spin on things like kernal support from the media engine and drop 2.xx suport due to the fact most poeple have downgraded any way (sry to you TA-082 users =[ ) Hmmm there isn't much more to say but I guess functionality so as if you were playing on Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advanced, Game Boy Advanced SP, Game Boy player for Game Cube, And Game Boy Micro. Not a big feature to add but there isn't much more stuff you can add. Due to everybody's opionon I think speed is very important and we do have to see a decent frame rate unfort. do reiieve optimal game play =]

Good work ZX-81 I hope to see great work from your emulator!

dublas1980
July 21st, 2006, 00:20
what about Auto Frame Skipping it will be great for all games to play it in fast mode. Turbo is nice but it only work it some 2D games but not in all 2D3D games run slow. graphis are great. Thanks ZX-81 for doing this great work. thank you for making this emu to be the best........ Thanks againg :)

borikua_rocks
July 21st, 2006, 00:22
Im actually quite fond of the user interface utilized in snes9xTYL. If something like that can be implemented it would surely make it a nice. I guess speed would be a commen issue that could be adressed. More than compatability or sound. If it plays a majority of games smoothly, than sound can be optional. After speed (fps) is adressed, I would imagine compatability would be next and last sound. after that special things can be added for example .zip support, Auto-Installer (for the noobz) and even a "backwards compatability" option where its possible to play GB and GBC games. of course, like I said, the first and formost should be Speed.

kayhanbakid
July 21st, 2006, 00:26
How about removing all traces of code for sound and free it up for something else. I don't know much about coding emulators but it doesn't seem to get much faster when you turn sound off. I remember earlier versions of snes emulators on PSP and there was massive difference when you turned of sound. I just don't feel that in this emulator.

Support for 32MB would be awesome too. I don't know how possible it is. The N64 emulator does something that deconstructs the rom on the memory card. I don't know how similar N64 and GBA roms and if that would be possible for GBA.

Voltron
July 21st, 2006, 00:48
1.) Enhanced User Interface. (NJ's Neo Geo & Snes9xTYL are examples of stellar UI's.)

2.) Thumbnail image support so when a game is selected, you could see a thumbnail of the games title screen in the top right corner or something.

3.) Fun animated intro like what Snes9xTYL has. Of course there should be an option to turn off the intro if one so desires.

Dementia7
July 21st, 2006, 00:54
yea Rin is a pretty good GB/GBC emu, im just saying an all in one wouldnt be bad idea, but if its not possible or too much of a hassle its not worth it. also, i was wondering about being able to change the sound quality for better gameplay, like in the Snes emu.

shenske37
July 21st, 2006, 02:13
(i'm not sure how to say this) 2 in 1 button mapping

ex: the triangle and the square could both be used for the B button

not necessarily those buttons. but it would be nice to have the gba shoulder buttons on the psp shoulder and face buttons

hope you know what i mean:confused:

sroon
July 21st, 2006, 02:30
nicer gui like the Snes9x, sound frequency managment, and ME!

kikin 69
July 21st, 2006, 02:52
How about cheatcode support? (E.G gameshark)
yes pleas:cool:

jOeBrO
July 21st, 2006, 02:52
would it possible after the sound is fully emulated on the ME, to put some other operations on the ME, the whole point to my idea is ot equally stress both the media engine and the CPU.

or would sound alone stress the ME enough?

psp411
July 21st, 2006, 03:44
well I would much like it if the speed was increased because i like tp play all the megaman battle network titles. those games are soo cool+ pokemon rocks. the speed in your previous release was vewry good for that game adn thank you for this.:)

sroon
July 21st, 2006, 05:34
lets make ds emu!!
use the anolog stick for bottom half of screen and soo on!!
it would be psdsvba!
lol

Shadowblind
July 21st, 2006, 06:05
I really wish some1 would make a DS emu, but isnt it something like.....PSP doesnt have enough processing power or something?

Mr. Shizzy
July 21st, 2006, 06:32
First of all I just gotta say thanks to Zx-81 for all his hard work and dedication. You've brought alot of fun memorys back to life. Hell, I'm having so much fun on my PSP, I've sold my PS2 to buy that 4GB ms. Here is my GBA wishlist. I'm not even sure what's possible, and whats not, but here goes:

1) A stellar UI. I love the snes UI.

2) Of course, better sound.

3) Larger ROM support.

4) Ability to take screenshots. (JPEG preferably)

5) Also screenshots for use with the ROM selector.

6)Ability to delete ROM from ROM select menu.

7) Zipped ROM support.

8) AD HAC

9) ROM compatibility w/ GB & GBC.

10) XMB icon w/ Background pic & GBA themed music.

11) mp3 support.

12)Border selection for the smaller screen ratios.

13) A Mario themed intro on boot-up of emulator. (like on the SNES)


Like I said, who knows what's possible. This is just a quick list to help w/ creativity. Zx - thanks again for everything!!!

Pumped'Up
July 21st, 2006, 07:05
Other than speed and sound, there isn't much else to improve on.

The current UI is quite fantastic. I would stay away from the SNES style - it's just too much overhead/frills and is not needed. I personally like the PSPVBA UI which is similar to RIN or NesterJ...just simple.

Is the 1:1 screen size the actual size for the GBA games? It looks a bit small, but if it is possible to increase the native size of the screen, that would be awesome.

Nevertheless, thanks for such a wonderful emu ZX.

Festizzio
July 21st, 2006, 07:16
Well, besides speed, I'd have to say support for saving games in-game instead of having to use save state. Sram saving I think it's called.:)

siulmagic
July 21st, 2006, 09:43
reduse the X of the screen to make the screen een smaler ames like castle vania woult improve n speed cus the dotn need much screen to the sides =),wish i coud test the next release but my psp is briked =/

ACID
July 21st, 2006, 10:54
I really wish some1 would make a DS emu, but isnt it something like.....PSP doesnt have enough processing power or something?
If im not mistaking PSP has more power but doesnt have dool screen and touch screen. That alone will be the hardest part to emulate.

R4mbo
July 21st, 2006, 12:57
I would be very glad to see GB/GBC Support in the Emu, i tried out this a few days ago and i found out that it doesn't work yet :*(.

nexus68
July 21st, 2006, 14:27
7) Zipped ROM support.


already implemented.

drquack02
July 21st, 2006, 17:10
The exchanging roms idea over IR / Ad Hoc is a pretty cool idea. I would love to see that.

I take it it already has widescreen \ 4:3 options, save states \ save game...

Just a technical question, but I know Monkey64 has issues with larger roms than the PSPs RAM, and I'm assuming the issue with roms 16MB+ is the same?

How come a GBA is able to read it? I mean it can't have nearly as much ram...., but either way streaming the rom like the N64 emulators would be cool...not sure how hard that is to impliment though..

fnx
July 21st, 2006, 17:53
I would like to see VBA movie player that plays .VBM-format (to view tool-assisted speedruns :D)

More info here:
http://tasvideos.org

ArchAngel
July 21st, 2006, 18:57
What about .rar archive support? Would that be able to shrink the usage of roms on the memory stick without hitting speed bumps?

kfish2oo2
July 21st, 2006, 18:58
Speed should be your first priority, obviously.

But other than that: Total compatability with PC VBA save files etc etc. Cheats would be cool too.

I agree with whoever it was: get rid of sound code to help with speed. Or maybe you could make a version with all the sound code taken out, bundled with your next release, like you have for the 1.0 and 1.5 fw versions?

Basil Zero
July 22nd, 2006, 05:53
Most Important is:
Speed
Sound

But there should also be:
----Better Rom Browser
----Ability to delete roms
----Ability to delete save states
----Ability to save states(work on it better)
----Gameshark or some other cheat device added
----Ability to play 16+ mb roms
----better backgrounds and icons on menu
----GB/GBC Support IS NOT NEEDED(that will only slow down the process of the emulator)(and besides we already have GB/GBC emulators
----Kernal mode if possible
----To show more than 10 frames per second(so annoying all roms show 10 frames)
----In other words, similar to what SNES9x TYL has been doin lately.

Keep up the good work though!

zx-81
July 22nd, 2006, 11:23
How about optimizing pspint a little for smoother gameplay and increased compatability?

This is not the subject of this topic ... but after pspvba i will rewritte most of my emulator (sound and graphics) using all hints i've learned porting PSPVBA ;) ...

zx-81
July 22nd, 2006, 11:40
So if i try to summarize :

Mandatory items :
- speed
- better sound quality

Optional features :
- improve rombrowser (delete/bad rom size icons etc ..)
- Ability to delete save states
- multiple rom settings (every rom has its own settings)
- IR support to transfer roms via IR
- more rom compatibilty (see earlier version of the VBA source code)
- Cheatcode support
- >16+ MB roms
- Auto Frame Skipping
- Mono/stereo sound option
- Sound frequency managment
- AD Hoc
- Border selection for the smaller screen ratios.
- reduse the X of the screen


Already implemented features : :rolleyes:
- zip support
- the triangle and the square could both be used for the B button
- Ability to take screenshots.
- increase the native size of the screen
- saving games in-game
- .rar archive support

Features i will never do myself ;) :
- Auto-Installer (for the noobz)
- New User Interface (like snes)
- Thumbnail image support / screenshots for use with the ROM selector.
- Fun animated intro like what Snes9xTYL
- mp3 support.
- VBA movie player


So, see you in few months :D :D :D. I don't promise anything, it was just to sum up suggestions ...

Dementia7
July 22nd, 2006, 17:18
thats awsome Zx, looking forward to it all. but uh..few months? where ya going?

Irfaan
July 22nd, 2006, 17:56
Isn't there anyway you could work the emulator through the internet browser on the psp? Using a loading system, it sounds bizzare but may be possible, it makes the 2.7+ firmware useful.

zx-81
July 22nd, 2006, 22:54
thats awsome Zx, looking forward to it all. but uh..few months? where ya going?

lol, i was joking :).

Dementia7
July 22nd, 2006, 23:09
haha, ahhh, well you got me.:D :D

robe
July 22nd, 2006, 23:13
Support for tiff exploit in fw 2.0 would be great!!!

:)

Dementia7
July 22nd, 2006, 23:16
I think he finished working on the 2.xx FM, either way, you should downgrade.

tommydanger
July 22nd, 2006, 23:19
so far I've implemented a better rombrowser and multiple rom settings, just need to give it the final touch then I'm able to release it :)

Dementia7
July 22nd, 2006, 23:22
Hey thats awsome, when do u think that will be? no rush i mean, just wondering.

robe
July 22nd, 2006, 23:28
Don't feel like downgrading at the moment, kinda like fw 2.0. And I don't have GTA.

And it wouldn't be any difficulties to program tiff support for zx since he is a great coder.

Pretty please with sugar on top... ;)

zx-81
July 22nd, 2006, 23:35
Don't feel like downgrading at the moment, kinda like fw 2.0. And I don't have GTA.

And it wouldn't be any difficulties to program tiff support for zx since he is a great coder.

Pretty please with sugar on top... ;)

Unfortunatelly, tommydanger has already debug it intensively to figure out why it crash on 2.0 ... the answer is simple : not enough / unstable memory, so sorry but there will be never any release of PSPVBA working on 2.0 with tiff exploit, even for small rom :(

BTW, i don't work anymore on 2.x for PSPVBA, since i'm using ME now ...

robe
July 22nd, 2006, 23:43
Ok. thanks for your reply zx. :)
So it's downgrade or no pspgba...
:(
excuse a newbie question: what is ME? :confused:

Anyway thank you for your contributions for the psp scene! :D

Dementia7
July 22nd, 2006, 23:50
right..but the thing is, i dont think he will. but if he does then hey, good for you. but he downgraded himself wich is why i dont think he's gonna. but who knows.
edit- i didn't read the replies above, so i guese your out of luck on that. and ME stands for Media Engine..I THINK. i heard it somewhere.

correct me if im wrong.:)

Grannd
July 23rd, 2006, 13:35
Hey zx-81 you mentioned this in another thread:



The Media engine seems to be completly busy with the sound emulation, so i don't think we can make it emulate anything more (such as gfx stuff) .

Could you make it so that if you disable sound in the emulator menu, the emulation will go faster? Because if I play pokemon I don't care if it's crappy sound from the emulator of just some of my mp3's with irshell.

(sorry if my english is bad, I'm dutch)

zx-81
July 23rd, 2006, 14:14
Hey zx-81 you mentioned this in another thread:



Could you make it so that if you disable sound in the emulator menu, the emulation will go faster? Because if I play pokemon I don't care if it's crappy sound from the emulator of just some of my mp3's with irshell.

(sorry if my english is bad, I'm dutch)

Yes, we can imagine to use the media engine for GFX emulation instead of sound emulation.

daibo
July 23rd, 2006, 15:18
So what is the biggest bottleneck now? CPU emulation?

kpaul_nyc
July 24th, 2006, 04:49
Yes, we can imagine to use the media engine for GFX emulation instead of sound emulation.OMG do that like, now lol. no im just kidding. But is that possible, like have 2 different versions? Cuz im itching to playing pokemon games again lol I gotta gba sp and all but I dont wanna look stupid carrying around a ds or gba sp.

Dementia7
July 24th, 2006, 05:05
yea...GBA SP..hella oldschool. haha j.k id still play mine if i had it. though..i dont have any games exept mario

katarn_86
July 24th, 2006, 10:01
Hey i downloaded pspvba from zx-81's webpage but i cant get it to work, it says the gamecannot be started, data is corrupt? how do you mak it work?

katarn_86
July 24th, 2006, 10:19
can anyone please tell me how to make the pspvba work? i downloaded it from zx's site but cant get it to work :(

Kramer
July 24th, 2006, 10:29
what firmware do you have katarn

jwilds73
July 31st, 2006, 06:44
Ok in Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga there is a horrible flickering in the intro when the evil people are walking down the carpet to greet the princess and steal her voice. Anyway's I remembered this post by StrmnNrmn about Daedalus and Paper Mario. I wonder if this game is doing the same thing hence the horrible flicker


Firstly, I managed to fix the horrible flickering that happened when running various roms (Paper Mario was a good example). It turned out that I was making an assumption that roms executed exactly one display list per frame. I assumed that each display list would clear the screen, render everything, and then wait for the screen to flip. As it turns out, some roms execute multiple display lists per frame. In the case of Paper Mario it executes 2 display lists per frame (one which clears the screen, then another which renders everything). By making sure that I only flip after the second display list executes, I avoid the flickering (the actual solution is a little more involved but this is the general idea).

kpaul_nyc
August 4th, 2006, 06:32
Hey ZX why dont you form a team to help you make this. I'm tired of seeing you working so hard without alot of help (Especially with a problem like this). If you work in a group you might even be able to make a dynamic recompiler:eek:

Dementia7
August 4th, 2006, 10:04
^ i agree with you in a way, but i also think he likes working on it on his own cuz..its his? I dunno, even I like to work on my own projects on my own, he may feel the same despite how much can be acomplished with others if you know what i mean.

XioN980
August 4th, 2006, 10:26
Right now the processing speed i think is the most important. Everything else is good but what good is it if you cant play a game at descent speed. I see people are asking for GB & GBC support but from what i know i think the CPU will take a good speed hit that way. Plus theres already a GB/GBC emu that works basically at full speed so why try to add something that we already have.

Just like daedalus i really think performance is what should be optimised, follow the same pattern as Snes9x TYl its pretty much at full speed with most games and now their adding a wikid cool GUI with lots of cool features.

silver32
August 8th, 2006, 13:31
when version that supports rar will be released? I saw the you have already implented this freature.

dagger89
August 8th, 2006, 17:29
I'm hoping for larger rom support. Kingdom Hearts is too big:(.... Other than that, full speed is most important to me, then sound

Video_freak
August 8th, 2006, 17:31
i think speed should definently come before sound. i can stand playing games without sound, while i speed is more important for the overall playing quality :)

Bear_XI
August 10th, 2006, 21:36
ZX-81 what i would really like is a comfirmation when Saving/Loading/Deleting a save slot cause i deleted my game mistake and would like somthing tha say:

Are you shure you want to delete this save slot or
Are you shure you want to overwrite this save slot or Are you shure you want to load this save slot.

Thanks i would really apreciate Thanks.

P.S Nice job whit PSPVba Thanks

Cheers,
Bear_XI/Zereo_X(QJ's Name)

Uruz 6
August 10th, 2006, 22:31
So: speed, large roms support, (3rd distant but still there) sound.
Wouldn't a dynamic recompiler solve the first two?

Dementia7
August 11th, 2006, 07:47
maybe, but i dont think he's gonna do that. he already said its too time consuming. but he might, in away i gotta feeling its gonna come down to that.

Shiesty
August 11th, 2006, 21:10
ZX-81 what i would really like is a comfirmation when Saving/Loading/Deleting a save slot

Are you shure you want to delete this save slot or
Are you shure you want to overwrite this save slot or Are you shure you want to load this save slot.

Bear_XI/Zereo_X(QJ's Name)
i would really like this option as well because i know eventually i will save over my slot when i really mean to load it


also, maybe when you load a game i would like it to stay at the menu instead of going to the game cause i have to go back to the menu anyway to load my saved game

not an important suggestion, just something that gets kinda annoying

zx-81
August 12th, 2006, 11:48
i would really like this option as well because i know eventually i will save over my slot when i really mean to load it


also, maybe when you load a game i would like it to stay at the menu instead of going to the game cause i have to go back to the menu anyway to load my saved game

not an important suggestion, just something that gets kinda annoying

It's simple to do it, so i will add this request in my to-do list :) :)

Bear_XI
August 12th, 2006, 15:54
Maybe have a settings to chose if you want to load and going to the game or load and stay at the menu.

zx-81
August 13th, 2006, 13:34
Maybe have a settings to chose if you want to load and going to the game or load and stay at the menu.

And another settings to choose if you want to have have an option setting to choose if you want to load ... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

ACID
August 13th, 2006, 13:41
Great to know your still with us ZX

Lagnus
August 15th, 2006, 01:11
Hey ZX. Could you compile ME and no-ME versions for Fw1.5. Also could you enable and try the low pass filter feature to see if it stops some of the clicking and popping. Also disabling channel 3 and directsoundB might be good. ( hopefully, commenting out the function calls might be all you need to do)

I would do this myself and try it out but there are alot of compile problems and missing headers atm (which i will sort out later). Hope everything is going well.

Take care.

Bog
August 15th, 2006, 01:34
I love Fire Emblem its fun and the style of game I like to play, but I also want to get everything I can out of it so often I will use gamefaqs and tips. I can very easily get on my laptop and look up the faq and print it out or just look it up for that moment, but then the whole convienance of having a handheld is the ability to put a web browser/game/movie player in my pocket.

I could just exit out of pspvba load up dev hook get on the web browser connect take a long time to load up game faqs get to the faq read the walkthrough to the point I want which is annoying with the way that the browser loads text. and then reset reload pspvba and fire emblem load my save file then do what I intended on doing (mostly forgetting what i read in the process)

A very simple addition to this emu and all emus could be a little .txt file reader that would allow me to just exit to the pspvba menu load up my saved walkthrough text file read it and then simply switch back to the game.

I know that its not as easy as it seems, but man would that be an awesome addition. No need to make the txt editable just simply able to be read while the game is still in the background for easy switching back and forth.

kvnswords101
August 17th, 2006, 01:49
hmm could u try using cache files like how NJ used on his cps2 emulator im not sure if it will make it run faster but it might i dunno i dont know much about coding lol