PSP: N64 Emulator "Daedalus" update - Release 9 Coming This Month

[tsurumaru]

Yes Strmnnrmn lives.

This ought to show people to have a little more patience.

http://strmnnrmn.blogspot.com


Behold! An update!

Wow, it's been a long time since the last update. A really long time. How did that happen?

I've always found it quite hard to find the time to update the blog. Usually when I have some free time in the evenings (that's free time spent doing things other than eating, socialising, and getting stuff ready for work), the choices I have are:

* Do some new development on Daedalus
* Play games/watch TV/relax
* Reply to a few emails/comments, post a new entry here

Unfortunately over the past half year or so the first two bullet points have won out. So, apologies for neglecting the 'outside world' for so long. On the plus side, the existance of the first bullet points means that I have lots of exciting new developments to talk about over the next few days :)

I'm going to finish off this reintroduction with a broad overview of some of the stuff I've been working on. This is all stuff that will be present in R9, which I'd like to release this month.

* Added support for RGBA 4444 and 5551 textures, saving a bunch of memory in the front end.
* Tidied up all the texture conversion code, fixing a few bugs in the process
* Fixed the width/height of FillRect calls in 1 and 2 cycle mode (fixed a few small graphical issues)
* Fixed a blending bug (fixed a few small graphical issues)
* Use 16-bit textures on the PSP to represent 16-bit N64 textures. Saves time converting, saves memory, and faster rendering
* Added mirrored texture support (this fixes lots of small graphical glitches)
* Fixed a LoadTile bug, allowing a couple of hacks to be removed (this also fixes various small graphical glitches)
* Added some new blend modes for various roms
* Fixed the Tri2 command for F3DLX microcodes
* Fixed a bug in busy-wait detection (this wasn't working correctly with dynarec code, net result is a small speedup)
* Fixed a few dynarec stability issues (relating to exceptions occuring mid-trace)
* Added audio support :)
* Added the ability to dump textures (developer builds only at the moment)
* Fixed screenshots. Again.
* Implemented cmp.s, cvt.s, cvt.w, mtc1, mfc1, bc1f, bc1t, j, cfc1, ctc1, daddu, trunc.w.s, bc1t, bc1f, bc1tl, bcifl, bnel, beql, blezl, bgtzl, bltzl, blezl in dynarec (this gives a decent speedup)
* Avoid setting the branch delay flag and current PC in generated dynarec code unless absolutely necessary (this gives another small speedup)
* Much better memory access handling in dynamically recompiled code (this gives a BIG speedup :)
* Use a second code buffer for generated dynarec code, to avoid polluting the instruction cache (this gives another small speedup)
* Further improve the memory access handling in generated dynarec code (another small speedup)
* Fix register usage analysis for lwc1/swc1/mfc1/mtc1 which was preventing base registers used in these instructions from being cached (another small speedup)
* Have compensation blocks restore nobbled registers, so on-trace code does't need to reload (another small speedup)


There's quite a lot in that list, so I highlighted the two most significant points. In summary R9 will be much faster, with audio support. I'll write a bit more about these changes in particular over the next few days (promise!)

-StrmnNrmn

Now show the guy a little respect, don't hassle him with trivial things and let him get on with the coding! ;)

[acn010]

umm.... sooooo now what?

[tsurumaru]

umm.... sooooo now what?

So this month release 9 will be out running much faster and with sound.

Any takers?

:p

[SuperNovaBova]

Great news!!! Keep up the good work! I can't wait to download.

[M-Lin]

I'm in - good to see you and your baby back!

[FrostyTheSnowman]

Nice! Hopefully I will be able to play Super Smash Brothers with full speed and sound in the near future. :D

[Torak]

God must love homebrew...

Yes FINALLY!! One step closer to ull n64 Emu!

[imagecko]

sweet n64 emu is still being worked on

[acn010]

a warm hug for you??
glad hes back, but i feel funny

[tsurumaru]

Nice! Hopefully I will be able to play Super Smash Brothers with full speed and sound in the near future. :D

Lets not carried away, if you build up huge expectations you are likely to disappoint yourself ;)

Remember this still a work in progress.

[xg917]

yepp, and we were just talkin about n64 earlier! well im glad there is an update comming soon!

[wolfpack]

Lots of people thought the project was dead. I kinda figured StrmnNrmn would make a comeback, this also means more spiffups from wally :P

[Festizzio]

Wow nice! It's been so long since we've heard anything, I'm glad he's still working on it. :)

[carlitx]

one question. will i finaly be ablr to play super smash bros with out all the grapical errors. but even so man this sounds awsom i think soon maby at relase 10 it will rival popstation!

[gunntims0103]

This is great news!, Iv personally posted in his blog :)

[xg917]

one question. will i finaly be ablr to play super smash bros with out all the grapical errors. but even so man this sounds awsom i think soon maby at relase 10 it will rival popstation!

possibly one day. we will find out =]

[Wally]

awesome news BTW!

Back to Dcemu for me! :D

Im all fuzzy all over.. and just ate a box of M&M's

[ryanMWolfe]

Yeah mario 64 was close to full speed before and with all these little speedups and the BIG SPEEDUP it should be full Freakin SPEED WWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOO OOOOOOO

[ExcruciationX]

Awesome! :D

[Tetris999]

I LOOOOOOVE YOU STRNRMN!!!

great work man keep working on it im so happy!

[tsurumaru]

Yeah mario 64 was close to full speed before and with all these little speedups and the BIG SPEEDUP it should be full Freakin SPEED WWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOO OOOOOOO

LOL it was nowhere near full speed! If its anywhere near 30fps I'll be impressed (and overjoyed)!

Stop hyping it up otherwise it won't meet your expectations lol ;)

[acn010]

niiiahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
he's my new hero :P now ill wait here and will not move till i get the new version

[S34MU5]

Yay!

[Emeriastone]

Crazy cool. Aweseome.

[xg917]

sometime this month... someday.. we will see, ill be checking everyday! o and also mario runs at like 20 fps so yea it should be full speed in this release. i shall be beating the game again but this time... ON PSP!! lol

[mavsman4457]

This is great news and many people have been looking forward to this thing for a while. Hopefully we can get someone to rival Strmnnrmn in this endeavour so that they can share secrets of the N64 emu and compete with each other to release a great emulator.

[Jonesyxxiv]

this is an awesome suprise. best news in awhile

[acn010]

omg, this will bring the whole community to excitement!!!

[On The Rise]

I just made a thread yesterday figuring out where you were. The whole scene welcomes you back as alot of us were getting worried about you were leaving the emu behind. It sounds like you have been working alot on the emu the past 5 months or so and im looking forward to Mario as it was running very smooth last time around 15fps out side and 10-13 in game. This greats news

[PSP 101]

Yeah! My favorite coder is back and R9 looks to be awsome. Your the man strmnnrmn!

[lockrock]

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

i hope all my faves will be playable

[pibs]

OMG u RULE! audio support kicks @SS!!

[Zargon]

Yay! Best news I've heard all day!

[DarthPaul]

Sound!!!!!!!!!! Faster!!!!!!!!!!

[BrooksyX]

:thumbup: Thank god, I knew he wouldn't just give up on us without saying something. I am just dying for the next release!:D

[fucht017]

Great to hear you still working on this fantastic emu StrmnNrmn...Nice that there is sound now...I would be happy if only Mario 64 runs fine with sound...Superb news...Take your time..And it will come.:thumbup:

[Veskgar]

I saw audio support listed in the updates and flipped out.

This is a very nice surprise.

[lordnibbla]

First off, That ROCKS!!!!
secondly i agree here:

Lets not carried away, if you build up huge expectations you are likely to disappoint yourself ;)

Remember this still a work in progress.
Thinking that your favorite games will suddenly run at 30 fps seems like wishful thinking to me at this point (with the exception of the few that are likely to reach near fullspeed with this release) being that he didnt mention any specific games speeds.
But hopefully, and I'd really hope he put this in, you can turn sound off to see the full potential of the new speedups for r9.

But at the same time, VERY excited about audio support :D

[razorak]

This is worth waiting for :)


with audio support
I like the sound of that

[MicroNut]

This scene is so fortunate to have someone like StrmnNrmn.

They are rare.
Audio support in Daedalus on the PSP... amazing.

[jurkevicz]

I hope he releases it soon!

[Sterist]

if anyone has a contact with that God, plz mention frameskipping :)

once the fps is 12~15, frameskip becomes beneficial

[pkmaximum]

OMG seriously can't wait Im really looking forward to trying out the new release!

[Kramer]

Omg yay. Dont know what to say.

[the_eternal_dark]

OMFG, he's back! This is going to only get better, and since wally is making spiff-ups, this just gets even better.

[Kamon]

All I have to say is Zelda OOT

if u dont love this game its likely it was to hard 4 U

[pkmaximum]

Zelda OOT my favorite game in the whole world, I really hope that game runs in a playable state with sound.

Don't be afraid to dream people ;)

[devdj]

well at least it's being updated but the great thing about nintendo 64 games is there file size they are very small like most of good games are above 32 mb.

[xg917]

ZELDA + N64 = BEST GAME EVER


i wonder if there is an option to take sound off, and also to change the aspects of screen. that would be nice

[Shadowblind]

:)

Good to see your back. good to see it.

[SSaxdude]

Godspeed brotha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DarthPaul]

Did you ever thought of playing games of 2 Rival Consoles on 1 console?? No? Me Neither..But here it is!! We can Play PS1 and Nintendo 64 on our PSP's!! Oh Hail Sony! Oh Hail PSP!!

[hrt]

So, any ideas on when the release will be?

[Kramer]

So, any ideas on when the release will be?


He said that he would like to release R9 sometime this month.:rolleyes:

[classicgmr]

Wow this is one of the last emulators I need for my PSP. I can't wait to see it! :)

[YourStillWithMe]

Yo, I'm glad you are back dude. I was beginning to think you died ;-) Good to have you back on the scene. I'm ****in amped about this. Mario Kart running good with sound=amazing.

Can we POSSIBLY expect perfect dark to run?

[IamAbe]

AWESOME!!!!! Keep it up!!! Cant wait for the release!


Did you ever thought of playing games of 2 Rival Consoles on 1 console?? No? Me Neither..But here it is!! We can Play PS1 and Nintendo 64 on our PSP's!! Oh Hail Sony! Oh Hail PSP!!

Obviously you havent ever seen a modded xbox ;) . PS1&N64,Genisis&SNES,and pretty much any other system you could think of thats more than 5 years old :thumbup:


NOTE TO MODS: Very sorry about the double post before, My bad.

[factor remix]

yay..!!!

sound and faster, cant wait for zelda and goldeneye 007...!!!

[johnston829x]

wow...i think i just crapped myself...amazing

[Shadowblind]

Duke Nukem Zero Hour doesnt work past the intro through the Project 64 (Emu for comp)

Do you think it'll work with PSP Daedalus 9?

[shenske37]

this is great news, i knew r9 wouldbe released eventually. I can't wait to test out this new release!

Also, i don't mean to let anyone down but this release won't be full speed (probably not full speed even 5 more releases down the line), hopefully sometime in the future though.

Keep up the great work Strmnnrmn! We're all really looking forward to the release.

[pkmaximum]

I think most people know not to expect full speed. Heck the next version might not even be playable to the extent were we can literally enjoy Mario 64 from beginning to end. Lets just hope for the best, and that Strmmmn will pull through for us in the end with his N64 emulator. Though I do think Mario Kart will run pretty decent, because that was close to full speed in the last release.

[drock82]

welcome back baby-hopefully wwf no mercy can become playable and also zelda

[ICE]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! heres hoping smash bros. works better!!!

[AtariFreek]

N64:PSP
Audio
Speed Up
All Equal
KICK @$$

[BrooksyX]

I am not expecting any game to run at full speed, I just hope Mario 64 and Mario Kart run at like 23 - 28 fps with audio. This seems possible because Mario 64 ran at like 18 fps on R8 and he said there was a huge speed improvement.

[CaptainMorgan4]

And the sudio won't slow this emulator down since it's run through kernal and with these small speed upgrades and that BIG speed upgrade well I think we might have a pretty fast emulator here in black history month!

[Sterist]

I am not expecting any game to run at full speed, I just hope Mario 64 and Mario Kart run at like 23 - 28 fps with audio. This seems possible because Mario 64 ran at like 18 fps on R8 and he said there was a huge speed improvement.


M64 already runs that speed.

Mario kart only goes about 15 tho

[Wally]

Duke Nukem Zero Hour doesnt work past the intro through the Project 64 (Emu for comp)

Do you think it'll work with PSP Daedalus 9?


Already works in R8

see www.spiffup.org/daedlist/

[BrooksyX]

M64 already runs that speed.

Mario kart only goes about 15 tho

Nah its only like 18 in most spots in Mario 64. I have found a few that are like 22 - 23 but again there are just a few.

[felonyr301]

Man it's great to have you back I was getting worry something happen to you man, but what a comeback i'll say lol. Also i had mroe fun with the n64 than the ps1 so this means alot more to me than the ps1 will ever be. Like most had said ill be more than happy if mario and zelda was the only games to be in a playable state but damn now with sound you are the man THE Man!!!

[psiko_scweek]

and i still find it funny...

when PSMonkey said N64 emulation on the PSP everyone called him a liar!

lets hope this release comes quick and after audio, lets work on AdHoc!!!

lol.

[Ranmax09]

Infrastucture would be cool for this emulator, so I can own all of you in Super Smash Brothers :).

[Heero808]

that is great but I have one question on my mind is that audio support going to slow it down.
Besides that its great about audio

[pichon]

So now after popstation, if we can really get a really playable N64 daedalus with sound, PSP will be for me the ultimate gaming device.

However just to know that Strmnnrmn is alive and well, and still working on daedalus, whatever the impreovements be, is by far the second best news of this year (after popstation of course).

I'm counting the days until release, can't wait! :eek:

[psiko_scweek]

audio support usually should slow the emulator down, but reading the notes that strmnnrmn had written it looks like he optimized the code in a lot of places and made it run a lot faster so it should balance out and hopefully be faster than R8

[guardiansnowman]

yeas!!! he's back! im downloading this :D

[starogre]

so how much faster does all this make it run?

[XioN980]

TO: Desturbed and Thedman

You have noooooo right in hell to download this when it comes out, should of thought of that before you spammed up the blogg saying the project was dead cos Norm decided to have a life

[S34MU5]

Nice! Hopefully I will be able to play Super Smash Brothers with full speed and sound in the near future. :D

there are like no emus that run smash bros, not even p64 for pc...

[gr42178]

YESSSSSSSSS!!!!! Been waiting for this for a long time!!!! Welcome back man and good luck, well be watching!:thumbup:

[Baboon]

This is fantastic news! :)

I cant beleive that its an ickle bit faster and its going to have fookin sound! ...amazing! ...I cant wait!!! :)

[siulmagic]

omg omg i cant wait for this wow great work stermn

[Mr.Denny]

Great news!

Body Harvest on PSP, Body Harvest on PSP *crosses fingers*

[kharaboudjan]

Fantastic news!!! im so exited!
i mean i could fit like 100 N64 games on my MS if i want.. that is far better than like 4-6 PS1 games :D

We all love you becuz you continues this emu!

[ExcruciationX]

there are like no emus that run smash bros, not even p64 for pc...
Yes, there are.

I've been able to run Super Smash Bros just fine on PJ64.

[Beansta2k7]

audio support is amazing...but the slowdown that will create (even with all the graphical cleanups and speed gain from cleaner code), will slow it down!!! but with the sound off tho...should be gr8 :D

[NovaKane]

I hope the wrestling games will work. WCW Revenge baby!

[Lumir]

Perfect dark, Golden eye... If i can play these with full sound and speed in the future my psp's value will reach higher then the DS/ipod.

[jimmi]

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh ! man , reading all these posts has got me so excited ! you own strm. :) thank you.

[NoQuarter]

great news!!!,It's good to know strmnnrmn is still working on this project.

I can't wait to see how the improvements are :)
Good job strmnnrm!!.

[porchemasi]

Obviously audio sync will match the fps rate ....


With that in mind .... 8-20fps with matching audio would sound crap no, not to mention slow down the fps rates ....

Maybe two builds are necessary. 1. With Audio, 2. Without Audio ..

Without Audio should i theory be faster .... + his speed improvements .... wouldnt be half bad ...

With Audio i assume r8 speeds with audio which aint bad either

GOOD WORK!!! CANT WAIT FOR RELEASE! ANYONE WANAN CODE A SEGA SATURN EMULATOR :)

[starogre]

i'm not complaining or anything but hopefully this release will be better than the last one, where like it was still unbearably and unplayably slow.

i don't see how one can play mario at 12 fps

although updating the compatability would be nice for people to try and test more games. super smash bros, dk64, and diddy kong racing are mainly the games i'd want to name a few.

[kiariki]

i'm not complaining or anything but hopefully this release will be better than the last one, where like it was still unbearably and unplayably slow.

i don't see how one can play mario at 12 fps

although updating the compatability would be nice for people to try and test more games. super smash bros, dk64, and diddy kong racing are mainly the games i'd want to name a few.

Not to mention that it seems that Mario 64 crashes at some points! :P

But still, you have to commend this person for all his troubles- Not many people have tried coding an N64 emulator for the PSP!

Maybe if he checked out Popstation and found a way to somewhat convert .n64, .v64 files to .pbp! :P

Anyhow, keep it up!!! I, too, wanna play Smash on my PSP... :( (I'd be nice to allow players to map the controls to their liking though...)

[mavsman4457]

Hopefully the sound can sometime be emulated by the ME so that it doesn't take away any speed from the emulator as it is.

[xg917]

ST never said anything about slow downs when audio was added. all he mentioned was speed ups which is nice!

[gimpyjr]

Man it is so awsome to hear from you again. I am totally looking foward to this new release. I would anticipate that the addition of sound support is pretty taxing on the hardware but, with all the speed ups we probably wont be able to notice that much.

great work :-)

[idapimp]

i am happy as hell about this

[ExcruciationX]

Perfect dark, Golden eye... If i can play these with full sound and speed in the future my psp's value will reach higher then the DS/ipod.
I doubt these games would work, especially on PSP.
These games pushed the N64 to it’s limits, so you can imagine that it would be hard to emulate successfully.

[nmkrapper]

Yes !
I'm been waiting for Strmnmrmn six whole months !
He's our hero !
Thanx pal !

[xg917]

man there is a page 11 on this thread but i cant view it!

[Shadowblind]

DIdnt he say there was a MAJOR speed update? That said, Mario cart ran about 14fps when we tried it with the old daedalus... I cant wait for the new speed. :)

[xg917]

mario kart was running great on R8 but the only problem there was is that it was so choppy or skippy lmao!
but i suppose that R9 should definately fix that choppyness and speed up again. o and yea is there a fps limit to how fast the rom is emulated, because in R8, during the pick a level in mario 64, the star was spining super super fast.

[mcvader]

This is the news I've been waiting for, awesome.
here's hoping for Goldeneye.

For the record both Duke Nukem - Zero Hour and Super Smash Bro's work perfect on Project64.

[xg917]

wow i just counted. ST pointed out that there were......... 6 small speed ups, i wonder how small!!
and 1 BIG SPEED UP. now add that up. and i wonder how much in total the speed up will be in gameplay.

[blackrave]

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this news earlier today. It's fantastic.
I hope it comes out soon, but StrmnNrmn should take all the time he needs to make it a fine release, which I think is inevitable anyway.

Good luck, and thanks for the update, StrmnNrmn! :)

[tael]

wholly molly! I love this; I remember the R8 release and I saw the major potential in it and wondered why it never got updated. At that point, games were playable but at a painstakingly slow pace(10 FPS) , no sound, and some graphics would not load. I recall trying some N64 emulators on the computer and I discovered that it was faster (but not super fast), did have music, and LOTS of textures were not working. From the looks of things, I think this update will match or maybe even exceed the emulator for PC (the textures area are allready surpassed in the emulator for PSP). I just love this soooo much. Finally. thankyou

[Shadowblind]

This is the news I've been waiting for, awesome.
here's hoping for Goldeneye.

For the record both Duke Nukem - Zero Hour and Super Smash Bro's work perfect on Project64.

How did you get DN Zero Hour past the screen after the helicopter leaves?

[Harshboy]

Can't wait! Maybe our dreams of almost full speed N64 emulation will come true!

[Jpdeathblade]

This is awesome, with this the psp will be the gratest gameing device ever! I thought about something tho:

For pokemon stadium, you would need a way to take the pokemon game save from gb or gba emulators to use our own in the game (thats right i play, and i got mew, WHAT!)

and if resident evil 2 works i will finaly get to play it =P

[xg917]

stop using gameshark!!!!! lmao, unless u got green version. but green version isnt compatible wit pokemon stadium. hey how did pokemon stadium run in R8? i never tried it

"StrmnNrmn said...
zodionic: I'll post a bit about the audio support and what to expect (and not expect) over the weekend.

I'm going to put together a detailed post showing a comparision of the framerate between R8 and R9, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait for that too :)

As for compatibility I have made a couple of bug fixes that will help in some cases, but in general I've been focusing on speed over the past few months so don't expect too much here this release.

As for technical discussion, I realise that this blog appears to two different groups of people - those who are just interested in news on the emulator, and those who are interested in all the techical details. To that end I'm going to try to keep a decent balance between posts which appeal to both audiences. We'll see how it goes."

Fri Feb 09, 03:07:00 AM PST

WE WILL FIND OUT MORE INFORMATION Of THIS NEXT RELEASE OVER THE WEEKEND!! aka 2morrow and sunday. =D :D

[AtariFreek]

:D I Can't wait!!! I hope strmrnrnerasjlhrjk (Can't ever get his name right) doesn't rush it just 'cause people want a release. Can't wait for the BIG speedup aswell.

[homemade]

wow i just counted. ST pointed out that there were......... 6 small speed ups, i wonder how small!!
and 1 BIG SPEED UP. now add that up. and i wonder how much in total the speed up will be in gameplay.

Actually there's 6 small speedups, a "DECENT" speedup, and a BIG speedup which makes it even better, this release should be great!

[Shiesty]

this should be good.

[R4mbo]

You are my God :D

[tallica]

Woot! Welcome back m8, keep up the good work :)

[SpacemanSpiff]

Speed comparison update: http://strmnnrmn.blogspot.com
Looks like most games are getting at least 40% increase, very nice! But that's with sound disabled though :/

[Kramer]

Cool Mario should be very playable so should Quest.
Cant wait to hear a bit about the audio.

[SpacemanSpiff]

StrmnNrmn responded to my question on his blog about sound emulation on the Media Engine :D :swoon
Here's what he said:

The audio processing is a perfect job for running on the ME: it's asynchronous (i.e. daedalus can be processing audio lists on the ME while emulating the n64 cpu on the main PSP processor), and the jobs are fairly self contained (so I can essentially just set up a single chunk of memory for processing on the ME, rather than having to synchronise lots of separate data structures). Potentially I can move all the display list processing to the ME too, although I suspect this will be a lot more challenging.

The problem at the moment is that I've not yet spent enough time investigating the ME in much detail, so it's hard for me to estimate how much work is involved. Once I've got this release out of the way I'll have to spend some time playing around with the ME :)

[kharaboudjan]

thats fantastic news! if it would have been 40 % faster with sound i would be in heaven :P

1 step closer to N64 on the psp :)

[pkmaximum]

This is good so we at least can expect sound quality for N64 without losing speed in the main N64 process, because right now I'm asumming he is running audio out of the main PSP CPU. Which means its only natural that its going to cut down on the speed. I really hope we can achieve a long dream (from PSmonkey) to have Super Mario 64 running at 30fps with sound. Strmmmmn is definently getting really close to that.

[xg917]

certainly!! before we know it... we will be playing n64 at full speed one day. PSP is the best system ever!! it can play anything!!!

[emuking]

cool sound, good thing he is alive :)

[Hansetranse]

Oh man, i'm really looking forward to this. But on the other hand, the later it's out, the better it will be, so don't hurry, StrmnNrmn! Thank you so much in advance:thumbup:

[Pøîñtßlåñk]

Wow this is great news for the N64 freaks out there.

[jurkevicz]

I can't wait!

[skatepopwar182]

this is gonna be so tight thanks for your hard work!!!!