VMU Tool 0.7.3 - screenshots

[speud]

here are a few screenies, just to keep you updated :)
click on the thumbnails to see them in 640x480.

it shows the new gui and improvements.
the BG images are the new ones kindly offered by Mickey242.

the "DUMP_000.VMU" file is a dump of your whole VM saved in a compressed file.
http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool073_t1.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool073_1.png)

you can load the file and overwrite the current VM content with your backup from the actions menu.
http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool073_t2.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool073_2.png)

animated icons with alpha channel and kanjis are now supported.
http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool073_t3.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool073_3.png)

the new options menu. the BG image selector has been removed, instead you can use any BG image you want and define its path in a config file.
http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool073_t4.png (http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/vmutool073_4.png)

the previous bug that made the DC reboot or freeze has been fixed.
also the files list is pre loaded so its really faster and less annoying to browse your dirs.

the VM emu and the gameshark/codebreaker codes editors are the next things to implement, probably it will take a while.

the next version released should look really polished compared to the previous ones.

im waiting for your comments ;)

[Christuserloeser]

WOW, you keep us busy *;D This looks great! Can't wait to see it in action! I guess we should wait for finishing the DCEvo image with these VM files when this comes out...

[wraggster]

The screenshots look amazing :)

[speud]

I guess we should wait for finishing the DCEvo image with these VM files when this comes out...
i dont know exactly what you mean. do you mean it would be better for DCevo to wait for the next release before releasing an image with VM files included?

if so i think the best solution would be eventually to make a separate disc with your VM files, since the app supports swapping.
this way it could be used with any version of VMU Tool.
plus i dont know when ill release the next version, i want it to have the VM emu implemented but im waiting for dirtysanchez to reply, and after that it will probably require time to make the 2 compatible.

how many VM files do you have so far?


The screenshots look amazing
thanks :)
i couldnt show the animated icons in action but its a nice plus to me.

[M@jk]

wow! its a great news! cant wait to see in action :)
oh! one more thing... if you added more new text i can still translate it for polish.

[speud]

if you added more new text i can still translate it for polish
yes that would be appreciated, thanks :)
ill contact you when ill have finished all the menus so i dont need to add new text later.

[souLLy]

looks ace. this is an excellent piece of software. any news on the vmoo collaboration at all?

[speud]

looks ace. this is an excellent piece of software
cheers.


any news on the vmoo collaboration at all?
hehe, yes.
the VM emulator has been recently implemented and is fully working.
you can now choose a VM game from the filemanager and run it with the "Play" option of the actions menu.

the sound is not implemented, and the framerate is not always accurate, one of my favorite games aka powerstone is quite buggy, but thats an issue with marcus' emulator, not dirtysanchez' port.

apart from that its really good.
it runed all the games i tried so far, and im enjoying playing my VM games on the TV and the VM screen at the same time, without having to change the batteries.

im just optimizing the LCD rendering and implementing flash saving to the VM.
i think it will be ready for the release quite fast.
ill need to finish the other stuffs before though.

ill post screenshots soon ;)

[wraggster]

i cant wait for that, vmoo is one of my fave pet emus ive been keeping an eye on ;)

[Christuserloeser]

Short note: I'll keep you updated on the VM files collection progress. I did not collected that much so far, but I also didn't used all "channels" that are available for searching them atm, cause I am quite busy with all these DCEvo project, but as you said that you may do a release soon, I see what I can do to speed my work a bit up *;)

There's someone from OnlineConsoles that offered most stuff that's available over there for this release but I'll have to check if he's the person that's actually able to give me the permission for that...

http://dreamcast.onlineconsoles.com/phpBB2/cms_articles.php?cid=4

Then there's some guy who offered me a lot of gamebreaker codes for many games, but I don't have any expierence with that, since I never used cheat codes. Will you be able to use them without modification or must they be 'converted' to VM files (for v0.7.3) ???

Good news about VMoo! Is there any way to optimize the few flaws it has like with PowerStone that u've mentioned in the near future (or even for this release)?

I should really watch for more VMU games *;)

@ M@jik: Nice to see u arround! I didn't knew that u've done the Polish translation for VMUTool! Cool that is. Maybe we should work together for collecting some VM files over at the Polish DC scene too?

Chris

[DirtySanchez]

The timing problems are in the CPU core itself. Unfortunately, it's not really documented anywhere so it's gonna be really hard to fix. It's a problem in all VMU emus based off Marcus' original code.

The other problem that may be fixable is the occasional frame doubling that seems to occur. The VMU can do really weird process timings that don't map overly well to the DCs internal timers as far as I can tell.

Sound is not in the original emu either (blessing or curse?) so that's why it's not in here. I might be able to add that, but honestly I never even bothered to try. Everyone always seems to hate the VMU sound anyway....

Regardless, it's obvious I made the right decision to give the code to Speud... I see no reason to continue VMoo on it's own and will likely just help where I can here.

[speud]

There's someone from OnlineConsoles that offered most stuff that's available over there for this release but I'll have to check if he's the person that's actually able to give me the permission for that...
yes, double check every file you receive has really been dumped by the one who sent it to you.
especially if it comes from onlineconsoles, before i got banned i noticed they "borrowed" files from site of people i know, then when i told the webmaster it would have been nice to ask before doing that he said something like "its not illegal, he doesnt own them", thats exactly what i want to avoid.


The timing problems are in the CPU core itself. Unfortunately, it's not really documented anywhere so it's gonna be really hard to fix. It's a problem in all VMU emus based off Marcus' original code.
yer thats what i meant, the only problem i mentionned belong to marcus' emulator, not your port.


The other problem that may be fixable is the occasional frame doubling that seems to occur. The VMU can do really weird process timings that don't map overly well to the DCs internal timers as far as I can tell.
the problem with powerstone's plane mini-game is like the sprites are hidden until a specific part of the screen, i really have no idea what could cause that.
and like you said the docs dealing with the potatoe are quite rare so i dont know if anybody could fix that, but maybe marcus himself or someone from the (dead) vmu scene.


Sound is not in the original emu either (blessing or curse?) so that's why it's not in here. I might be able to add that, but honestly I never even bothered to try. Everyone always seems to hate the VMU sound anyway....
i must be an exception, i like it personnally :)
but only for a few games like soulcalibur's voldo mini-game.
most of the time it has no bg music, only sfx, and even with a poor quality i think they are useful sometimes.
now what would be neat would be to use the VM to output the sound directly, like we're using its screen to display the image.
but i dont think its possible with kos, at least for now. though if i remember correctly dreamsnes was using that, but it doesnt use kos anyway.


Regardless, it's obvious I made the right decision to give the code to Speud... I see no reason to continue VMoo on it's own and will likely just help where I can here.
thanks im honored :)
let me know if you want me to send you the current version with or without the source.

[DirtySanchez]

That's right, I completely forgot I got the VMU display code working while in game... heh...

I'll see if there's something I can find about sound....

As for the display stuff... yeah, *every* game does it on occasion. Tetris and Space Invaders do it too where it will stop and not display the next frame till input is sent. It feels like either the display register doesn't get updated for some reason or the control handler is blocking on something. That could possibly be alleviated by modifying the control handler a little. Maybe running a timer at the same time as the controller condition update, but it's such a small time frame...

As for the current version, I'd love to take a look at it.

[speud]

yes i noticed in all games the sprites are blinking, not so disturbing though.
but in powerstone you can't see the bottom part of the screen at all, maybe thats because of a different framerate for this game?

on a positive note there are several games that are more playable with the emu than on the VM, like tiny tetris, breakout, space invaders...

where can i send you the current version of VMU Tool?
the source is about 2.5MB and the elf file about 700KB.

[wraggster]

hmm i hang out on efnet and i speak to someone who made a vmu emu for windows, would it help if i asked him for his source so you could look and maybe compare?

[DirtySanchez]

hmm i hang out on efnet and i speak to someone who made a vmu emu for windows, would it help if i asked him for his source so you could look and maybe compare?

It all depends on if they based it off Marcus' code or not. The original VMU emu code had ports for X, Win32, DOS (what I based most of VMoo off of), and even Amiga. They all use the same general CPU core. I think that's where most of the problem is. That said, I'm sure either of us would take a look and go from there...

[speud]

softVMS 1.8 (http://www.deco.franken.de/myfiles/softvm18.zip) by alessandro sanassi (aka tyro) doesnt seem to have the bug in powerstone when i run it in DOS mode.
i dont think his version is open source, but ill try to contact him.
i already contacted him before when i needed help with another project and he was really helpful, so hopefully he will provide his core's mod without any problem.

anyway wraggster i would be curious to check the source.
though i think i own every VM emu made from marcus comstedt's, and alessandro sanassi's is the only one that has real improvements apart from the gui.

EDIT: just checked what alessandro sanassi says about his version of soft VMS, and actually it looks like he only changed the color.

also he says he used the latest source from marcus comstedt's site, which was (and still is if im not wrong) v1.8.

he mentions that the source used by other emulators made from marcus' are not using the latest source, thats why soulcalibur doesnt work with some emus.

what source did you use dirtysanchez?

[DirtySanchez]

I'm pretty sure it was off 1.8 or 1.9, but I'm not for certain at the moment. I did have to rip out a lot of odd comparisons in the timing to get it working as it is, so there's likely a much better way to do it.

[speud]

i dont think thats the fault of your port, i tried several emus based on marcus' and all have the same problem with powerstone.

like i told you that doesnt look like the framerate issue common to other games, theres like an invisible square in the middle of the screen that hides everything.

every emu i tried so far including VMoo have this problem, except alessandro sanasi's compile.

where did you get the source from? do you know if there's a sourceforge project for softVMS?

[DirtySanchez]

It's been too long for where I DL'd it... :(

[speud]

ok nevermind.
ill see if i can get better result with the source from marcus' site, that's the one tyro says he used, but that's v1.8 so that might be the same one you used.
ill try and let you know anyway.

oh and where should i send you the current version's files? :P

[wraggster]

that lad has lost his source code :(

sorry chaps