PicoDriveDS v1.5 - Genesis Emulator Port

[wraggster]

News from RyanB (http://cryptosystem.org/projects/nds/picodriveds-0.1.5/):


PicoDriveDS 0.1.5 is up! Changes:
Added support for appended ROMs. This should allow users with carts not supported by gba_nds_fat to use PicoDriveDS. Simply append a ROM to the PicoDriveDS binary, and it will run it (on *nix systems this can be done with "cat romname.ext >> picodriveds.ext", on Windows with "copy /b picodriveds.ext+romname.ext picodriveds-withrom.ext", substituting the appropriate filenames of course). You can only append one ROM at a time. In this mode, Genesis SRAM will be saved to GBA SRAM. Some patchers may work correctly with this and save the SRAM to your removable media, I have only been able to test with the EZ4 Lite software.

Fixed M3 reset code, added M3SD Mini insertion detection code (untested, may not work)

Massive code restructure and cleanup (though some cleanup is still in progress)

Added save state support, accessed via the X button. Due to the current size of the save states, this is only supported for FAT devices and is disabled in appended ROM mode. Currently there is only one save state per ROM (saved to romname.pds). This is still a very experimental feature and save states may not be compatible with future versions of PicoDriveDS.

Download and Give Feedback/ Compatibility Reports Via Comments

[battleroyalex]

is there a compatibility list for this anywhere?

[kcajblue]

does this release have sound? :confused:

[Bonic]

Why don't you check?

[ComixSans]

no sound but seems to be a good impovement in speed on some game.

[The Hombrew Hunter]

I need to upload this, this could be SWEET!

SAAAVESTAAAATES! Great for mortal kombat. Anyone know if those are working?

[Junixx]

Wow nice i see a pretty nice improvement on the speed

[Garrax]

Good News.... Great job! More speed its sound is great,
:D

[The Hombrew Hunter]

Someone tell me if the mortal kombat roms wooork!

I neeeeeeeeeeeed to know.

[Bonic]

I would check, but my MMD got screwed when I got AR O.o

[jmac777]

Does it work with G6 Lite>?

[ACID]

Nice work keep it up.

[Silas]

How this work in M3 sd mini???

[Xcliber]

still no speed improvement in sonic games

...nor can i play Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles

doesn't seem to support roms larger than 2MB

[dkjr83]

I can at least confirm that the save state is working for General Chaos and Landstalker, if anyone cares.

[nickmasterx]

Does this work with Supercard CF?

[Talka1ot]

Why are you people asking if it works. Just try it out yourselves.

I haven't yet, I really only want Gunstar and Sonic, maybe SF and MK. Thats it realy. So it may not be worth the hastle, yet.

[iball]

still no speed improvement in sonic games

...nor can i play Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles

doesn't seem to support roms larger than 2MB
That may be due to the DS itself.
With recent discoveries in obtaining more RAM from the Supercards, if RyanB can harness that same 'supercard-RAM' code then it might be possible in future builds to run larger ROMs.
Of course, it's all up to the developer and I'm sure he's concentrating on speed and sound first.

[The Hombrew Hunter]

What about the M3? Does THAT have any ram that's unused?

[iball]

What about the M3? Does THAT have any ram that's unused?
I don't know, I don't have one.
Go look it up.

[Sonny_Jim]

That may be due to the DS itself.
With recent discoveries in obtaining more RAM from the Supercards, if RyanB can harness that same 'supercard-RAM' code then it might be possible in future builds to run larger ROMs.
Of course, it's all up to the developer and I'm sure he's concentrating on speed and sound first.

I'm not a devver nor have I looked at the code, but I'm pretty sure that Picodrive would use the GBA ROM space as READ ONLY memory (this is easy to do) to store the cartridge, and you get 16M of that.

The whole Supercard RAM thing is about writing to it once you have loaded homebrew, reading from it is easy. See my post in the DSLinux expansion for more details.


If Picodrive needed more system ram, it is plausible, but tbh I don't think the megadrive had that much ram in the first place. 256K or something.

(Copied from Wikipedia)

Memory

Boot ROM: 2 KB

* Known as the "Trademark Security System" (TMSS)
* When console is started, it checks the game for certain code given to licensed developers
* Unlicensed games without the code are thus locked out
* If a game is properly licensed, the ROM will display "Produced by or under license from Sega Enterprises Ltd."
* Boot ROM is not present on earlier versions of the Mega Drive and Genesis
* Some earlier games not designed for the TMSS may not work in later consoles

Main RAM: 64 KBytes

* Part of M68000 address space

Video RAM: 64 KBytes

* Cannot be accessed directly by CPU, must be read and written via VDP (Video Display Processor - see below)

Secondary RAM: 8 KBytes

* Part of Z80 address space
* Used as main RAM in Master System compatibility mode

Audio RAM: 8 KBytes

Cartridge memory area: up to 4 MBytes (32 Megabits)

* Part of M68000 address space
* Game cartridges larger than 4 MBytes must use bank switching

[Ryan FB]

I'm not a devver nor have I looked at the code, but I'm pretty sure that Picodrive would use the GBA ROM space as READ ONLY memory (this is easy to do) to store the cartridge, and you get 16M of that.That's planned for the next version, but only for pre-processed appended ROMs. The only reason certain larger ROMs don't work right now is because it has to read them in to main RAM to byteswap them and/or decode from SMD, to get to the internal format Picodrive uses. The plan is to write a PC-side tool which will do this, so ROMs which are preprocessed can be read directly from GBA ROM space without hitting main RAM. This should allow some of the 4MB ROMs to work.

[The Hombrew Hunter]

Awesome. I'll wait for the massive UMK3 hack to work, hehe.

Can't wait for next version!

[Deburner]

so much better than the last version

[nickmasterx]

Why are you people asking if it works. Just try it out yourselves.

I haven't yet, I really only want Gunstar and Sonic, maybe SF and MK. Thats it realy. So it may not be worth the hastle, yet.

Because I don't see .nds file for supercard. How do I go about making a .nds?

[Bonic]

Does this thing work of MMD yet? I cant get Sonic 1 working

[Aldrikh]

Added support for appended ROMs. This should allow users with carts not supported by gba_nds_fat to use PicoDriveDS.

unfortunately, it still doesn't work with ewin2 (either that, or i can't copy/paste a command line, but i think it's ok :-))

i just get some text (one line at the top of the bottom screen) and then black screen ... (and i've no idea what is written, 'cause the line just disapear almost instantly)

[wraggster]

Hi Ryan B, thanks for the Great Genesis emulator :)

[Bonic]

Has anyone tryed adding MMD to this? I am, but I suck

(I'm using this http://www.sendspace.com/file/9cqy1b)

[bigwest]

woooo sonic the hedgehog on my max media dock!

[Trigger_Happy00]

Thank god Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Gunstar Heroes, and Sonic the Hedgy works on this. Those are the three main games I play without shutting down halfway through. They're nicely under 2MB. But wait, can you have more than one ROM, let alone more than three in at once? Or do you need one at a time?

[SmaMan]

I'm kinda new at this but how do you do this rom append thing with copy /b picodrive.nds and all that stuff?

[sailoranna]

How is anyone else getting this to work? I copy /b the rom to the end of the picodriveds.nds and it starts and says load rom but the list is black, if I hit a button it just appears to freeze. is there any other steps?

[Arimasen]

The setup instructions for this emulator on the first post are not newbie friendly... How do you use this program?

Edit: I found it out, here is a simpler guide:
1) Put the nicodriveds files and the Sega ROM in the same folder.
2) Browse to that folder in the Command Prompt (type cmd in Run)
3) Lets say your game is Sonic1.bin. You type "copy /b nicodriveds.nds+sonic1.bin sonic1.nds". What that does is combines both the emulator and the game into one file named Sonic1.nds.
4) Put that game onto your Memory stick and load it however you load NDS games.

I tested Sonic 1 on my M3 MiniSD and it runs. Framerate is pretty slow and no sound, but it runs, just very choppyly (eh is that a word).

[grimorum]

The setup instructions for this emulator on the first post are not newbie friendly... How do you use this program?

Edit: I found it out, here is a simpler guide:
1) Put the nicodriveds files and the Sega ROM in the same folder.
2) Browse to that folder in the Command Prompt (type cmd in Run)
3) Lets say your game is Sonic1.bin. You type "copy /b nicodriveds.nds+sonic1.bin sonic1.nds". What that does is combines both the emulator and the game into one file named Sonic1.nds.
4) Put that game onto your Memory stick and load it however you load NDS games.

I tested Sonic 1 on my M3 MiniSD and it runs. Framerate is pretty slow and no sound, but it runs, just very choppyly (eh is that a word).

I tried what you said but when the game never loads for me. All I see is Game Loading... on the screen and just freezes like that.

Can anyone help?

I use a nDS lite, passcard, and a m3-perfect-lite

[KeenCommander]

Try putting the rom through the M3 game manager software. I was having the same problem of it not loading on my M3 SD and this seemed to fix it. :)

Some compatibility:

Good:
Columns - Runs with playable speed
Columns 3 - Runs with playable speed
Streets of Rage - Runs with playable speed
Vectorman: Runs, a bit slow but still fully playable

Okay:
Sonic 1: Runs, slow but not unplayable
Sonic 2: Runs, slow but not unplayable
Alladin: Runs, slow but not unplayable
Gunstar Heroes: Runs, quite slow and minor glitches

Bad:
Sonic 3: Runs fine very, very slow
Sonic & Knuckles: Runs but very, very slow
Shinobi 3: Runs but extremely slow


All of the above tested on M3 SD. Most of these were not tested for a long time so there may be problems later in the games that I don't know about. Whether or not a game is labeled as playable is based primarily on it's speed and is only my opinion. Your milage may vary.

[Tennisgy]

DOH! i spent all tis time trying to do the command prompt thing when i realized all you have to do is open the bin in the picodrive menu

[funy56]

Hey guys

I'm new to this homebrew stuff, which directory/ folder should I put the emulator? Must I convert the smd file to nds? I have M3 adaptor. Thnks

[toymin80r]

I might be the only one to help you out because when i was new, nobody answered me. Im not sure if this works with the m3 because i own the 4GB HDD, but if it does, then just follow along.

[toymin80r]

Once you download pictodrive, make sure that you unzip it and create a folder in you m3 drive and name it sega or something. Then in that folder, create another folder thats called roms or games. Now thats where your gonna put the .bin or whatever type of file of the sega game into, so the roms go in the roms folder which is in the sega folder. So put pictodrive in the sega folder next to the rom folder. Now just launch pictodrive and it should tell you to pick a directory in which the roms are, which is in the roms folder thats inside the sega folder. Now just select the rom and it should load up. Im pretty sure that you noticed that i said the same things twice, but that was just to make sure that you put the emulator and the roms in the right place. If i didnt confuse you, then you should have pictodrive running in no time.

[kcajblue]

dont double post. use the edit button.

[pas]

When will there be a new version of Pivodrive ? :(

(Maybe with Sound... ? )

[Bonic]

....Why the heck are you bumping this?Dude, just WAIT, coding takes time man

[houseonfire]

When i try to load the .nds it just brings me to a white screen. I tried EVERY other format and none work.
Iv been trying the DOS thing but it still doesn't work.

I'm on supercard lite and with the newest firmware.

[Sigma83]

Has anyone noticed an issue with the larger bins in general? For example mortal kombat 3. The bin is slightly over 4 megs, and the rom does not run. Games under 4 megs do run, and from what I've heard, the ds lite has only 4 megs of ram corrrect? So is it safe to say this emulator doesn't take advantage of a supercard lite's additional ram, and simply tries to run off the ram built into your ds? If that's the case, are we essentially saying this emulator will not support roms where the bin file is greater than 4 megs?

Thank you

[voteforpedro36]

Sadly, no ROM over 3MB will work for me. Neither will it in vs. 1.6 or 1.7 (the more current).

[poohead]

hey, is anybody still reading this post? i need a little help - picodrive is awesome, i got the older release to work on my g6 (with something called the g6 megadrive converter) but that doesn t seem to work with the dldi supported newer release, so i put the picodrive program on my g6 card, i even tried to append it to a ndsmall.bin file so it was a nds.gba file, it just loads up with a black screen and the word load but with nothing to load up, i ve made a roms folder next to the picodrive program (which in turn is inside another folder on the route directory) i just don t know what i m doing wrong, i love pico drive and really want to test out some other games that i couldn t get to work before so i d really really really appreciate any help :D thanks guys,

i d also like to say that you programers do an amazing job, thanks to you guys i can re live my youth :D

[crookedmouth]

hey poohead, you sure your patching it correctly? I don't own a g6 so I don't know if it's the G6 Flash and don't know what version 0.17 means.
I myself used PicoDriveDS 0.1.7,patched it with the correct dldi patch, using gui version of the patcher.I created a folder called Genesis(I don't think the name matters) on the root of my card, then placed the patched .nds file and all roms in that folder.

some guy named gameO_Ofreak posted a g6flash working file on the other thread.

he uploaded it here
http://rapidshare.com/files/21180796/picodriveds.ds.nds.html

[poohead]

hey crookedmouth thanks for answering,

i found out the problem, for anybody using the g6 -the picodriveds.ds file doesn't work on the g6, even when patched, you need to use the picodriveds.ds.gba file and patch that with dldi.