RACEPSP! - Neo Geo Pocket (NGP) and Neo Geo Pocket Color (NGPC) emulator for PSP

[wraggster]

Flavor announced in our Forums (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=2148030240#post2148030240) that he has now released his NeogeoPocket Colour Emulator for the PSP.

Heres the release details (http://cfc2english.blogspot.com/2008/03/testing-release-imminent-i-hope.html)


I must let you know that I have been sidetracked lately with fixing up the PSP version of RACE!. It is now in a state that I think is ready for release. It seems to run all NGPC ROMs just fine, thought it does have a couple graphical and audio glitches with a select few ROMs. Hopefully, sometime in the next few days, I think you might find it in the usual PSP homebrew/emulator places.

Download and Give Feedback and Compatability Reports Via Comments

[DarthPaul]

Nice!

A new emulator is always welcome to my PSP. And better if it emulates something that I haven't tested.

[wraggster]

yeah im hoping that flavor also releases an updated version on dreamcast too

[Zombo]

I have been waiting so long for this and finally it has come...Full speed Neo Geo Pocket Color!!! :D
Cant wait until they release the Card Fighter Clash 2 Patch!

[juiceface]

awesome man, can't wait to test this.

thanks for all the hard work

[juiceface]

metal slug, samuri showdown and baseball stars all work great.. nice!

[NovaKane]

Very cool emu. I hope customization options (screen size, button config etc) get added in the future though.

Keep up the great work!

[danknugz]

great emu! heres hoping for a full screen option in the future!
runs smooooth!

[sirhax0r]

Wow, it's been released! It works excellently too!

[mcdougall57]

meatal slug!! :D

[Baboon]

Nice release! ...everything works great and is at full speed! :)

I personally think the options on the emu are fine. If you had the option to stretch the screen it wouldn't look right blown up on the psp.

[onetwentyeight]

neopop for the psp never could do sound and getting it fullscreen turned into a stuttering slideshow usually. here's to fullscreen and full sound! long live my little ngpc who lives somewhere in my closet, won't read any of my carts anymore, but will tell me my fortune if i feed it some button batteries.

[gelon]

AWESOME, best NPGC emulator out there, the speed is incredible

Many thanks man, if you go to NeoSpring you have my vote

:thumbup:

[Flavor]

Thanks for the kind words guys!

[kharaboudjan]

i really have to try this one out! thanx for releasing this emu for the psp =)

[darknight88]

Thanx so much!! I have a NGPC of my own but having batteries is so old gen and im lazy to buy any. If one day i can play all my games that i do own on my psp with this, im gonna cry like a baby with joy.

Hope Feselei works 100%!!!

[M Dash]

Simply Magnificent.
Sonic runs like a charm...

[Baboon]

Hope Feselei works 100%!!!


Faselei! seems to work spot on! :thumbup:

[ninjablde]

Sweet!!

[darknight88]

Hey Flavor, I got a major request that i think everyone here will want also. You see, your current GUI is really basic and I really like what "Akop Karpetyan" (aka uberjack) did with his own port called "NeoPop PSP v0.71.15". So i was just wondering if you could take some code from his GUI with his permission or something because that GUI he has is awesome. The only bad thing about his emu/port is that it doesnt run the games fullspeed like yours!! So please do that or are you working on your own?

http://dl.img.qj.net/uploads/files_module/screenshots/14721_neopop.png

[KaliKot]

ohmygod. SVC is it time?

[Veskgar]

Well, this is certainly appreciated. Really cool emulator addition to PSP homebrew. I can't wait to spend a lot of time with it.

[Napalm-Death]

Finally I'll get to play Card Fighters! Thank you so much!

[darknight88]

Yes, this emulator is up there with Picodrive from Notaz, Flavor has done a great feat since i always heard neo geo pocket was really hard to emulate on PSP so he deserves mad props!!

Hope he keeps this project alive and releases updates and such.

[UltimaDude]

It auctually seems worth it even if it's just playing the only Neo Geo Pocket Color game I own(Sonic Pocket Adventure)

[KaliKot]

The emulation is great! although I can't find the OPTION button somehow? so there's no way to pause the game.

I found out that Pressing L+R goes back to the rom list.

I hope future releases will have the button along with state saving.

Great work! Finally I have been anticipating this day. Full speed SVC MOTM on my PSP

Edit: OPTION button is Triangle, I found it :D

ARGH it crashed on the SNK vs CAPCOM MOTM continue screen =(

[hounddog]

sweet we finally got a full speed neo geo pocket emulator yea this dude deserves some mad props indeed now if only someone would just come out with a full speed snes emulator all of the sudden

[kharaboudjan]

its a fantastic emulator! it will stay on my psp forever. its only 50 MB with all ROMs so its worth it ;)

[ED13]

Thanx heaps man, have been waiting for something better than "NeoPop PSP" to come along :D, cant wait for the next release :D. Keep up the good work ;).

[pkmaximum]

Awesome I was kinda surprised to just find a full speed Neo Geo Pocket/Color emulator suddenly released without hearing about it once before this. I look forward to more updates.

AWESOME JOB!!!

[P1R4T3R]

we need updates!but im good for now... finally

[gelon]

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=h3FhEbiHnQg

Video!

[kharaboudjan]

nice video! now we have one more fantastic emulator for the psp and that feels amazing! =)

[Baboon]

All we need now is for Amiga and N64 to be 100% on the psp and then I'll be happy! ...well I'm already very happy with what I've got on the psp - but with those two cracked I'll be over the moon! lol :)

Wouldn't it be great if a fully PSP optimised N64 emu came out of the blue like this emu or picodrive, gpsp etc? ...and theres nothing wrong with being optimistic! lol

[No_one_in_particular]

Yeh, cheers for the video. I can only agree with the masses, that this is a fantastic release. Not only is it 100% emulation, it was completely unexpected. Thanks again Flavor; hope you'll stick around. :)

[NovaKane]

Cool video, now I can see what other interesting games I should put on my memory stick.

[paladinja]

Because he said it best, I think i have to quote Peter Griffin here:
"Holy... frikin... crap!"

Seriously, huge thanks to all involved with this! I check this site everyday for a lot of reasons, but full speed NGPC is tied for first priority with CPS3 (I still believe in you NJ!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!)

I can't wait to try this out tonight! Does anyone know if gamesaves from any other NGPC emu will work in this? ... cuz i have a ton of hours clocked in in ALL of them.... and my actual NCPC carts. But whatevz, if there are games more fun to grind in, I don't know them.

[Flavor]

RACE should use the same gamesave format as NeoPop.

[paladinja]

Wow, you are the person I'm most impressed with on Earth right now Flavor, thank you. I swear I'll spend at least half of the time that you just saved me (with that much appreciated answer) telling people how cool you are! Cheers! I hope you keep up the amazing work... you know, at your leisure.

[Flavor]

Ok, I noticed that after one looses a match in SNK vs Capcom something is written to the MS and takes long, the looks like it freezes for a momment and then works well again.

When you're in the ROM selection menu, hit O. You should then get the options menu. If you don't like these pauses while it's writing save-game data, you can turn off the feature "Write Savegame File Periodically". This will make the emulator wait until you quit to write the NGF file. When it's on, it writes whenever it thinks there's new data to save.

[KaliKot]

But it still loads annoyingly even with the save turned off

I need savestates for SvC and the annoying character unlock system

but this emulator has kept me busy throughout the week :D

[JOYBEBA6679]

Well I think this emu just needs savestate feature, a nicer GUI and ability to put borders instead of the black frame of the PSP.

I just have to say: Great work, I was hoping for someone to port this and have a good working emu for the NGPC, thank you again.

[Nocuddle]

yeah Save State would be very nice indeed. and also buttons config if possible. i kinda got annoyed with the "Select" button at the moment.



I need savestates for SvC and the annoying character unlock system

for the mean time, use cwcheat to hack/unlock the game. :thumbup:

[Panini]

yeah Save State would be very nice indeed. and also buttons config if possible. i kinda got annoyed with the "Select" button at the moment.



for the mean time, use cwcheat to hack/unlock the game. :thumbup:


I've never really used cwcheat. Is there any chance you could upload your unlocked save game for Svc? ..or pm it to me? :D

[KaliKot]

I've never really used cwcheat. Is there any chance you could upload your unlocked save game for Svc? ..or pm it to me? :D

yeah I can edit some hex but I dunno how to hack for cheats :( some help would be nice

[darknight88]

Hey Flavor, I got a major request that i think everyone here will want also. You see, your current GUI is really basic(not that its bad or anything) and I really like what "Akop Karpetyan" (aka uberjack) did with his own port called "NeoPop PSP v0.71.15". So i was just wondering if you could take some code from his GUI with his permission or something because that GUI he has is awesome. The only bad thing about his emu/port is that it doesnt run the games fullspeed like yours!! So please do that or are you working on your own?

http://dl.img.qj.net/uploads/files_module/screenshots/14721_neopop.png

Im just quoting myself cuz i think you missed my post Flavor. Would you be interested in making a GUI for your emu or is it not something you might like to do? Like i said, both you and Uberjack could share code to come up with a "killer, be all, end all" NGPC emus!!!

[Flavor]

Im just quoting myself cuz i think you missed my post Flavor. Would you be interested in making a GUI for your emu or is it not something you might like to do? Like i said, both you and Uberjack could share code to come up with a "killer, be all, end all" NGPC emus!!!

Sorry. I didn't miss it. At first I wasn't sure how to reply, and then I kinda forgot about it.

I am not really interested in making a GUI. I don't mean to be rude or anything. It's just that I know what I'm like. I get into low-level stuff, and I don't put GUIs on my stuff. The PSP version of RACE will compile for the PC, but I haven't released it because there is no UI for it. I just don't get into that part of the coding, sorry.

Actually, what I already did for the PSP version is way more than I wanted to do. :rolleyes: The testers kept asking for better options and whatnot.

I don't know Uberjack, but I have seen his page before. His emu ports do look nice, and it seems like he's kinda into porting emus and putting nice UIs on them. If he has interest in putting that sort of thing on RACE, I have no problem providing the code. Maybe he'd even do a UI for the PC version. :)

[KaliKot]

I really like Neopop's GUI and wouldn't mind a similar one.

A gui is not really necessary but its adds to the "flavor" for example

Everytime i boot up MasterBoy im really excited because of the slick GUI it adds to the experience. And I think a gui would be nice so that I'll have a menu to turn back to when I want to change config and load a new rom for example without quitting my current game first

(random rant: the only thing wrong with it is that there's no netplay and the button configuration is screwed up since it has button 1 for GG as button A for gameboy and the same with button 2/B so you have to change configs if you use GB and change to GG/vice versa.../end rant)

[Flavor]

KaliKot:
I assume your rant isn't about RACE, so I'll ignore that.

Also, I'm not sure if your other comments are about RACE or not. In RACE, if you're playing a game, hit L+R shoulder buttons, and you'll exit the game and be back in the menu.

[KaliKot]

Sorry bout that. yeah its about the masterboy stuff. Except for the rant portion those were mostly about race. Yeah I know L+R quits the game but It would be helpful to have a menu in case I want to "Pause" my game without actually Pausing in game?

I really appreciate your work and im really excited for the completion of your CFC2 project and I hope you will have more options in the emulator in the future :)

[kharaboudjan]

thanx for your honest answers about GUI Flavor! i mean the best written emus for the psp have no GUI to talk about. look at gpSP, Picodrive and NJs emus (CPS2, CPS1, NEO GEO etc).

thanx for your emu, its still on my psp and it will stay there :D

[darknight88]

Sorry. I didn't miss it. At first I wasn't sure how to reply, and then I kinda forgot about it.

I am not really interested in making a GUI. I don't mean to be rude or anything. It's just that I know what I'm like. I get into low-level stuff, and I don't put GUIs on my stuff. The PSP version of RACE will compile for the PC, but I haven't released it because there is no UI for it. I just don't get into that part of the coding, sorry.

Actually, what I already did for the PSP version is way more than I wanted to do. :rolleyes: The testers kept asking for better options and whatnot.

I don't know Uberjack, but I have seen his page before. His emu ports do look nice, and it seems like he's kinda into porting emus and putting nice UIs on them. If he has interest in putting that sort of thing on RACE, I have no problem providing the code. Maybe he'd even do a UI for the PC version. :)

LOL, i hear you man! not that im a tester but it might get a little frustrating with all the request you must get. Also the netplay/adhoc stuff might be cool but what really matters is the emulation at hand and you really nailed it with your released so mad props to you :)

Couple months back, i heard it would be too complicated for a NGPC emu to run smoothly on psp but here you are Flavor, proving that wrong.

I really appreciate the work you put into this emu and the CFC2 Eng patch as well! So thanx again!

[JOYBEBA6679]

I really dont care for a GUI, if its implemented on the future it will be welcomed but the one that it has right now its nore that enought.

What this does need is savestate feature, other than that, this is great!

[Bartman3010]

Sorry for bumping this possibly old topic, but I'm having a problem running Sonic Pocket Adventure.

For some reason RACE leaves the debug options for the game to 'on' (I think its been that way since the beginning) and I think its the reason for interfering with the save system. Every time I go to complete a stage, the game will save. However it never lets me continue from where I last left off.

Also, does the emulator officially support the save function? Personally all emulators (and programs for that matter) should support the function, because it gives that pick-up-and-play feeling and an advantage to owning some of these original systems in the first place...

Hope its okay to bump the topic. Great work on the emulator otherwise.

[Flavor]

For some reason RACE leaves the debug options for the game to 'on' (I think its been that way since the beginning) and I think its the reason for interfering with the save system. Every time I go to complete a stage, the game will save. However it never lets me continue from where I last left off.

What "debug options" are you talking about? You mean the FPS counter? Do you have "Show Frames Per Second Counter" set to ON? What about "Write Savegame File Periodically?" How are you exiting the game? How are you exiting the emulator?

Do you only have problems with Sonic?


Also, does the emulator officially support the save function? Personally all emulators (and programs for that matter) should support the function, because it gives that pick-up-and-play feeling and an advantage to owning some of these original systems in the first place...

What "save function" are you talking about? The emulator should save just like the NGPC did. It does not save the state of the emulator.

I understand that you think all emulators should have save-state functionality. Personally, I think the real advantage is that you don't have to own the original system, and you can put many games on a single system+emulator. Save-states are nice, but they're icing.

Also, I suggest that you play http://cfc2english.blogspot.com/ instead of Sonic.

[Bartman3010]

Er, whoops. When I said "does the emulator officially support the save function?" I meant to say the "Sleep" function of the PSP. Sorry.

Also, The debug options I'm talking about are Sonic Pocket Adventure's Debug function. If you hit the option button on the Sega logo, you go into the debug options. Where you can select any level and what not. I think it was a leftover from R.A.P.E. (At least, thats what the emulator used to be named)

Anyway, when I select 'Continue' from the game's normal menu, it always starts at the first zone. It still keeps the puzzle pieces collected in the game.

[Flavor]

Er, whoops. When I said "does the emulator officially support the save function?" I meant to say the "Sleep" function of the PSP. Sorry.

Also, The debug options I'm talking about are Sonic Pocket Adventure's Debug function. If you hit the option button on the Sega logo, you go into the debug options. Where you can select any level and what not. I think it was a leftover from R.A.P.E. (At least, thats what the emulator used to be named)

Anyway, when I select 'Continue' from the game's normal menu, it always starts at the first zone. It still keeps the puzzle pieces collected in the game.

Yeah, parts of this emulator did, in a kinda/sorta way, used to be "R.A.P.E?".

When you continue, can you select other zones (I think you hit right/left)?

Also, I think it does support sleep. Have you tried it?

[Bartman3010]

When I hit 'Continue' it jumps straight to the first zone, no matter how far I go in the game. I'm not sure what the problem is here.

Also, as far as I can tell, Sleep works. Changing the CPU clock speed causes the emulator to crash (After putting it to sleep, waking itup, then changing the CPU speed)

I've tried one other emulator and Sonic Pocket Adventure saves fine in that one. Neo Pop PSP I think it was. (The one with the fancy menus and such) Too bad it doesnt run games as fast as this one.

[kharaboudjan]

i think the only thing this 99 % perfect emu needs is an aprrox. 10 % speed up. there are many games that would run much smoother then ;)

it wont be needed becuz im so grateful i have gotten the chance to play so many cool ngpc games on my psp. but the emu would be perfect with that speed up =)

[Bartman3010]

I've been meaning to ask. Though I'm sure the answers are all different. Like how is it that some of these programs for PSP can use the sleep function correctly and some others, the program would do something eratic or crash? Most of the emulators I put on my PSP can go to sleep just fine. But trying to use something like Doom or ScummVM, those just do something odd before crashing.

Also, I think there are a few problems with Sonic on this emulator. As you collect puzzle pieces, the different pieces are laid out in one screen, then pressing B takes you to a screen where you can place them. Though after placing them, backing out, the system saves the game. If the game is reset, the puzzle pieces go back to the first page and scattered out, again.

Also, the pause 'bar' doesnt appear when pausing the game. Which means for Time Trial mode, you cant see the pause bar's 'menu' in-game.

Again, I think these are problems with the original emulator, but it'd be nice to have these things fixed...its much easier seeing these games with a backlit screen...

[zerojfbpt]

FLAVOR! DEWD!!!! I just ran RACE for PSP and it's totally awesome! it kicks ass! Excellent job! I'd like to suggest two things for it to be perfect:

1. give the option to play the original size, along the present 4x3 scalled
2. snapshot option

If you're still working on improving Race! for PSP and take donations, just tell me where the money goes. As you may have noticed, i'm a complete SNK (under T. Nishiyama) fan.

And just started CFC2 English. It rocks! Kudos to you, bro! You made it happen. Nishiyama would be (or maybe already is!) proud and flattered.

Anything i can do to help out in any future iniciatives, just say the word!

PS: Noticed a mistranslation on CFC2: when you use shingo's ability, the message is all wrong. It's fine by me. But just in case you're looking for the perfect translation, here's the heads-up.

[zerojfbpt]

Wassup, Flavor?

I tried to use the format that Race for psp saves in and use in NeoPop for PC and it isn't compatible. Do you any emulator for PC that has state compatibility?

One other thing. How hard would it be for you to translate another NGPC game that's only in japanese? programming wise. assuming you already have a full translation.

thanks for your time

[Flavor]

Okay guys. I'm sorry for the lack of replies. I've been out of comission for a while. I'll try to address the main points.

Bartman / Sonic Debug Mode:
I really have no idea why this happens. Unfortunately, that means that I don't know how to fix it. I wonder if other versions of RACE (like on the GP32/GP2X/etc.) have the same problem. If so, we might get Thor to look at it.

kharaboudjan / speedup:
There has been a fair ammount of work put into speeding things up. Have you tried some of the speedup options? Other versions of RACE have some nice ARM assembly code optimizations (used on GP32/GP2X/DS/Gizmondo), but I'm not able to use that stuff on the PSP. Those would probably get 10% more speed, but I doubt that anyone wants to re-write them for the PSP.

Bartman / sleep function:
I really don't know. I didn't do anything special to support it. I assume it has more to do with the version of the devkit or toolchain that was used to build the app/game.

zerojfbpt / options:
The original size just seems really small. I did have it that way at one point. All I do for the current release is to set the screen to a lower resolution. That way the NGPC takes up most of the screen. Internally (to the PSP), this might just be stretching, but I didn't want to rely on SDL to do the stretching because I think it'd be slower. As far as the snapshot goes, I just don't see myself implementing it. I know it's what people want, and I completely understand why. The emu just isn't coded to easily support it and I honestly don't see myself putting in the time/effort to change it.

zerojfbpt / CFC2 stuff:
First of all, thanks. I have received a couple of donations from others, but if you (or anyone else) wants to donate, I prefer that it goes to Calden, the translator. If you're interested in doing that, send me a private message and I'll get you the info. If you have any translation fixes/suggestions, first make sure that you're running the latest CFC2English. If you are, then I need the exact sentence that is currently displayed on the screen and then you can tell me what you think it should say instead. If you just say that it's the message "when you use shingo's ability" it's way too hard for me to track down due to how the text is dumped.

zerojfbpt / savegames:
The NGF files should be the same format between NeoPop and RACE. I know that I have used NeoPop NGF files on RACE. There is a chance that I've never moved one from RACE to NeoPop, but I don't think that's the case. I'm pretty sure I've tried it both ways. Sometimes they are a bit tricky and you have to get the file in the right directory. Run NeoPop and make a savegame first. Then run RACE and make a savegame. Then you'll see where and how the files are created and you can copy over the top of each other.

zerojfbpt / another translation:
I answered this on the http://cfc2english.blogspot.com/ comments. I don't think it'd be real difficult, but it would take a fair ammount of time.


To be honest, I don't forsee myself putting a lot of time and effort into RACE (or any other programming project) for a while. I just had a new baby, and I've had some new projects come up. This is how things go with me. I might pick it back up later, but for now I need a break. I don't mind answering questions, though. I just don't expect to be coding anything for a while.

[kharaboudjan]

thanx as always for your answers Flavor! i wish other psp developers could be as honest and great as you! i noticed that most of the games actually runs fullspeed if you turn HiColor off. but my question is what is the diffrence between HiColor on / off? i mean i havent seen any diffrence in the games :P

thanx again for the emu Flovor :)

[Flavor]

In some games, you will notice graphical differences/glitches if you turn HiColor support off. For example, if you play CFC2 with HiColor off, the text box (bottom of screen) looks a bit funky.

In general, I haven't seen the HiColor option cause any issues that affect gameplay.

[Flavor]

FYI, there's a new release of RACE! PSP.

Announcement: http://0xff.akop.org/2008/09/10/race-psp-version-20-released/
Download: http://psp.akop.org/race

[discombobulated]

Does anyone else have a problem with this site dropping download connections a lot? I don't get it from any other site.

6 times I've had to re-download on FF3 and Vista.

[paladinja]

Whatzup FLAAAVOR! Is this new release something you worked on, or no? Hard to tell from the posts... Either way, thanks for posting this on one of the (only) 3 threads I subscribe to (Yes, I love your emu THAT much), or I would've missed it! Two questions:
#1: What are the improvements? Cuz it's like frikin near-PERFECT (but yo, don't stop working on it, haha)
#2: Is there ANY chance I can talk you into porting this over to iphone? Seriously, it would be the BEST app EVER! NES & GBA emu's suffer from a bit of chop, but frame rate never stopped Card fighters clash from thieving HOURS of my life BEFORE RACE came along! I think you hear me knockin', and I think I'm comin' in.

Thanks again

[Flavor]

Whatzup FLAAAVOR! Is this new release something you worked on, or no? Hard to tell from the posts... Either way, thanks for posting this on one of the (only) 3 threads I subscribe to (Yes, I love your emu THAT much), or I would've missed it! Two questions:
#1: What are the improvements? Cuz it's like frikin near-PERFECT (but yo, don't stop working on it, haha)
#2: Is there ANY chance I can talk you into porting this over to iphone? Seriously, it would be the BEST app EVER! NES & GBA emu's suffer from a bit of chop, but frame rate never stopped Card fighters clash from thieving HOURS of my life BEFORE RACE came along! I think you hear me knockin', and I think I'm comin' in.

Thanks again

Well, I didn't really work on it, no. It is based on my source code. For this first release, Uberjack has mostly just fixed up parts of the user interface. Now, I believe that he's working on save-states (which would be nice). Speaking of that, I think I still need to reply to an email he sent to me.

As for the iPhone deal, it's doubtful. If I got an iPhone donation, maybe. :rofl:

[pralaut]

"Error loading cartridge"

What should i do? :confused:

[Flavor]

"Error loading cartridge"

What should i do? :confused:

I would ask at http://0xff.akop.org/2008/09/10/race-psp-version-20-released/

Just post a comment there. He's really the maintainer, and I haven't looked at this in quite some time. Did you try any other ROMs?