jEnesisDS 0.7.4 - Genesis Emulator for Nintendo DS

I cannot belive this, the 00:00 setting works, I thoght it just worked on the MMD.

It is still annoying to have to go back to set the clock 00:00 each time, but I can play it now and it seriously ROCKS:)

I just hope that Lordus can fix this, then it would be the best emulator ever!

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Originally Posted by juiceface

figured id throw this in as well, in shinobi 3 return of the ninja master the soundtrack is speeded up heavily, just thought id pass that on

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I can't reproduce that with any setting. I played along for a while with Kega, and they stayed almost perfectly in sync.

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Originally Posted by Spidery_Yoda

I was just reading this again and it made me go 'oh i seeeee'


Is THAT why in Sonic some of the sprites are sometimes incorrectly displayed and so they're in front/behind things they shouldnt be. The Sonic intros where he pops up from behind the word 'SONIC', and a few cases in Sonic & Knuckles where for example a door slides open towards the ground, and you can see the sprite go underground.

And more importantly the one that actually affects the game, during the Lava Reef Zone Robotnik fight where the lava 'tilts', except in the emu it either doesnt move, or all the lava rises up and you cant see.

I always figured it would be something that was hardwired because of the DS hardware. The DS can only display 4 backgrounds you say? Hmm. Or am i completely wrong and rambling about nonsense.

Erm that sounds like a complaint. It isn't. Like i said I just assumed when I saw these things that there's nothing you can do about them. I'm just interested in how it works.

And if the DS can't display enough layers how do you get everything else to look so great?

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Oh, the things you mention have multiple causes.
In Sonic for example, you have to emulate sprite limits, because it is used to mask out a portion of Sonic in the intro screen, for example. The Genesis can just display a certain number of sprites and/or sprite pixels per line. Even sprites that are not visible on screen count for this limit. (The DS, or any console have that limitation, too, just that the DS can display a lot more sprites per line). Maybe i can handle that later.

Another problem is priorities. The sprite priorities on the Genesis work differently than for the DS. Normally sprites are displayed in the order they appear in the sprite table (from front to back), so sprite 0 will be above sprite 1. This is true for the Genesis and the DS, but the sprites also have a priority flag, which determines, if they are in front or behind a background layer. The problem is, that on the Genesis, the inter-sprite priority (list position) is more important than the sprite priority flag. So if sprite 0 has low priority and sprite 1 has high priority (flag), and they share the same space, then sprite 0 will still be displayed on top of sprite 1. If there are background pixels between them, this will cause sprite 1 to be masked out where it collides with sprite 0 and you will just see the bg there. (I hope that is somewhat understandable).
Some games use that exactly for that purpose, to mask out portions of sprites.

The DS has double the amount of layers than the Genesis, so it should be enough. Besides the 4 layers it has, you can also display sprites in 4 planes. I just need all of those 4 layers, because of the per tile priority in the Genesis layers (which make it possible to place the 2 layers in practically 4 planes). On the DS, you can just set the priority for the complete BG layer.

The biggest problem though is, that the DS has "just" 1024 tiles that can be used PER layer. Altogether that's more than the Genesis can use, just that it can address all 2048 tiles in any BG. The tiles are dynamically allocated and deallocated to make up for that, but if a game really uses more than 1024 tiles at once, there is a problem. In cases like that, jEnesisDS constantly "recreates" the whole screen, if "Force Update" is ON. Still there will be glitches, like in the Comix Zone title screen.

Any hope for a Games'n'Music fix Lordus?

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Originally Posted by zzt

Any hope for a Games'n'Music fix Lordus?

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I'm pretty sure that there is hope. I just don't know yet, what exactly causes the problem.
Of course, I'll try to fix it, though.

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Originally Posted by Lordus

Oh, the things you mention have multiple causes...

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Well I think I understood most of that thanks :).

I got a bit lost on the last paragraph, but after reading it a few times I think I understand. Are you saying that the Genesis has fewer tiles than the DS, but the Genesis can address all of its at once while the DS can't?

Well thanks for the big reply. After reading that i'm quite suprised that these sprite errors are as rare as they are. It sounds like a nightmare trying to get everything in the right order.

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Originally Posted by Spidery_Yoda

Well I think I understood most of that thanks :).

I got a bit lost on the last paragraph, but after reading it a few times I think I understand. Are you saying that the Genesis has fewer tiles than the DS, but the Genesis can address all of its at once while the DS can't?

Well thanks for the big reply. After reading that i'm quite suprised that these sprite errors are as rare as they are. It sounds like a nightmare trying to get everything in the right order.

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Sorry, maybe i went a bit overboard ;) Basically it's like you say. The problem is that the DS can use 1024 tile indexes per BG, the Genesis 2048. In practice it can't, because that would take up all of the VRAM, but as long as it uses more than 1024, it's a problem. Normally a game doesn't do that though, mostly just in start screens or intros, where detailed images are displayed.

It's actually very simple with the sprites, i just order them in the same way, they are on the Genesis, just that this doesn't always look like intended, due to what i described before. I will look into improving it later.

Lordus thanks for updating this great emulator. I think Racketboy is going to feature it soon. I find it disappointing the DS isn't so hot tech-wise for emulation (though jEnesisDS, SNEmulDS and NeoDS have done wonders).. I hope you're on board with the next iteration of Nintendo's handheld (I don't think it'll be long now, thanks to the PSP's recent strong performance) :)

Games N Music users, try running this version through Spinal's Menu 1.2.Worked for me without needing to use clock reset method. I attached it to help.

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Originally Posted by crookedmouth

Games N Music users, try running this version through Spinal's Menu 1.2.Worked for me without needing to use clock reset method. I attached it to help.

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This worked for me too. It even ran other apps that I normally had to launch through DSOrganize (Arcomage, ApprenticeMinus), and it looks great. I'll be using this as my app loader from now on. Thanks so much for pointing this out!

Cool glad to hear it!
Thank you Spinal, and of course thank you Lordus!

Save States work with this too, where as before you would lose your save states after a power down. :)

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Originally Posted by puslar_t

Lordus thanks for updating this great emulator. I think Racketboy is going to feature it soon. I find it disappointing the DS isn't so hot tech-wise for emulation (though jEnesisDS, SNEmulDS and NeoDS have done wonders).. I hope you're on board with the next iteration of Nintendo's handheld (I don't think it'll be long now, thanks to the PSP's recent strong performance) :)

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Ah, it's most of the fun for me, to get around the limitations. I hope Nintendo's next handheld has a bigger screen, though, that makes it more suitable for emulation.

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Originally Posted by crookedmouth

Games N Music users, try running this version through Spinal's Menu 1.2.Worked for me without needing to use clock reset method. I attached it to help.

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Thanks for the information. Seems like a relatively easy way to make it work, until i find a proper solution.

woot! .. thank you , i love being able to play NHL94 anywhere! :] .. well NHL94 -07 mack hack that is.

i didn't read through this whole thread so appologies if this has already been suggested. can you make the bottom screen shut off while playing ? save battery , less light ..

thanx again!

Lordus I was just wondering about something.

Your previous (main) goals with jEnesis have been fairly obvious.

1. Get Genesis games to run at a good speed and with as few errors as possible

and then later on

2. Get sound in the emulator without having a negative impact on the speed they run.

Now you've managed to complete both. The first person in the world to do so in fact :). You must feel pretty damn proud with your work so far.

So whats next? Is there more you feel you can do?

You've said you're working on getting the 3Mb games working. So thats one thing. Anything else?

Just curious :)

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Originally Posted by Spidery_Yoda

Lordus I was just wondering about something.

Your previous (main) goals with jEnesis have been fairly obvious.

1. Get Genesis games to run at a good speed and with as few errors as possible

and then later on

2. Get sound in the emulator without having a negative impact on the speed they run.

Now you've managed to complete both. The first person in the world to do so in fact :). You must feel pretty damn proud with your work so far.

So whats next? Is there more you feel you can do?

You've said you're working on getting the 3Mb games working. So thats one thing. Anything else?

Just curious :)

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Thanks.

I am not really that satisfied yet. While 2. is probably pretty close, 1. isn't as much as i wanted.
There are still games that are not always full speed, and that bugs me ;)
But I'm working on it. I will also focus a bit more on compatibility now, and on improving things with the renderer.

I'm not really working on >3MB support directly, but something completely different. In the process of that, 3MB will be supported, too, though.

I'm quite curious myself, about what else can be done. But i intend to find out.

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Originally Posted by Lordus

I'm not really working on >3MB support directly, but something completely different. In the process of that, 3MB will be supported, too, though.

I'm quite curious myself, about what else can be done. But i intend to find out.

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Again this sounds mysterious, :)
Sorry I'm a curious guy, but you wouldn't happen to be attempting something crazy like 32X support or something?
Since you mentioned Jenesis is a Genesis/32X emulator, is the only reason I'm asking. :)

Again,thanks Lordus!

very nice emulator, thanks for making it.

but SSF2(NOT SF2) has glitches problem still now?

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Originally Posted by crookedmouth

Again this sounds mysterious, :)
Sorry I'm a curious guy, but you wouldn't happen to be attempting something crazy like 32X support or something?
Since you mentioned Jenesis is a Genesis/32X emulator, is the only reason I'm asking. :)

Again,thanks Lordus!

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Never, that's too crazy ;) There is no chance to get anywhere with that. The 32X is not so much weaker than the DS in processing power.
jEnesis has 32X support, but the DS version will never get it.

Are you working on incorporating the GBA-slot RAM packs then maybe?

I don't have one of them.

Good thing, these updates. Bad luck for my DS, no more touch screen response, even after putting in a new one...no more save states for me then.

Using an R4? Works fine unless I run through DSO.

Maybe try pre-patching unstead of auto?

This is my first post, so hi I'm Venazard.
Thanks for the update Lordus, but I was was just wondering if you were gonna make a JenesisDS update that would allow players to play bigger files than just 3MB? Thank You. Oh yeah before I forget would that udate be for the M3 DS Real, because that's the device I'm using. Thanks

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Originally Posted by Venazard

This is my first post, so hi I'm Venazard.
Thanks for the update Lordus, but I was was just wondering if you were gonna make a JenesisDS update that would allow players to play bigger files than just 3MB? Thank You. Oh yeah before I forget would that udate be for the M3 DS Real, because that's the device I'm using. Thanks

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He's working on getting the 3Mb+ games running.

Here's a quote from this very thread:

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Originally Posted by Lordus

I'm not really working on >3MB support directly, but something completely different. In the process of that, 3MB will be supported, too, though.

I'm quite curious myself, about what else can be done. But i intend to find out.

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So there you have it :).

As for the card, all future updates work on all cards so don't worry about that. Some cards have compatability issues sometimes, but they're usually solved with a few fixes.

Thanks. I guess I should've checked all the other pages first. Thanks Again.

brilliant app, i tip my hat to you young dev!

btw that dpad following thing, how do you activate it? is it automatic?

also in all of the sonic games i find that sonic has a few rows from the centre of its sprite missing while running is this due to any vertical scaling going on or just general graphics glitching?

one last thing the Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic 2 & Knuckles roms dont appear to run on this emulator, could it be that they are not 'clean' roms? (as in ones generated using the dumps from Sonic and Knuckles and Sonic 3 cartridges to emulate the physical link that there would usually be as the sonic 3 cartridge used to fit into the Sonic and Knuckles cartridge)(btw im not sure if these roms are under 3mb :P

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Originally Posted by zondajag

btw that dpad following thing, how do you activate it? is it automatic?

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While playing touch the small gamepad icon at the top left of the bottom screen. It brings up a menu and from there you can select 'follow d-pad'.

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Originally Posted by zondajag

also in all of the sonic games i find that sonic has a few rows from the centre of its sprite missing while running is this due to any vertical scaling going on or just general graphics glitching?

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That'll be the vertical scaling. You can turn it off to get it to look right but then you can't see much at all.

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Originally Posted by zondajag

one last thing the Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic 2 & Knuckles roms dont appear to run on this emulator, could it be that they are not 'clean' roms? (as in ones generated using the dumps from Sonic and Knuckles and Sonic 3 cartridges to emulate the physical link that there would usually be as the sonic 3 cartridge used to fit into the Sonic and Knuckles cartridge)(btw im not sure if these roms are under 3mb :P

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They're both over 3Mb. And as you probably know the DS simply doesn't have enough RAM to load them. Which is a shame because in my opinion Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the best thing on the system. So yes they don't work because they're too big sorry. They might work in a future version.

brilliant! thanks for the info! maybe the next release could support vertical dpad following and perhaps a setting that you can adjust the speed at which the emulator follows so that the screen doesnt jump around to fast. Wonderful emulator! perfect now, im very happy to have got rid of the graphical glitching :)

also could a ram cartridge in a gba slot be utilised in the next release to play games over 3mb? thatd be awesome!

Well he's said that he's working on something that will indirectly allow >3Mb ROMs to play.

It sounds to me like he's working on something like that, yes.

Does sound work on this?

I have been using 0.5 and I can't get any sound.

Yes, this has sound ;)

Is there any way to change the screen settings so that the whole screen fits in? At the moment part of each side is missing.

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Originally Posted by dm1983

Is there any way to change the screen settings so that the whole screen fits in? At the moment part of each side is missing.

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Please read the thread next time. You'll find the answer you're looking for without us having to repost it over and over again.

It's horizontal scaling that is needed for the screen to fit, and this is why it can't happen. Ever:

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Originally Posted by Lordus

I'm trying to relax now, when i hear the scaling question for the 100th time, but it's not always easy ;)
No, the screen can't be scaled like NeoDS does it. If I could do that, then I can tell you that I would, instead of having stupid workarounds like panning and the follow d-pad option.
The NeoGeo composes it's screen almost entirely out of sprites, that NeoDS renders in 3D. With 3D it's relatively easy to scale the whole thing.
The Genesis has 2 background layers and 1 sprite layer, each of which can have high or low priorities (selectable on a per tile basis). So effectively the screen can be composed out of 6 layers. To do this with the DS hardware i need all the 4 backgrounds it offers. Just 2 of those backgrounds can be scaled in hardware, and software scaling is out of the question.
The other alternative is software rendering, where you compose a bitmap out of all Genesis layers, which you can then draw on a single DS background and scale it in hardware.
The downside of this is, that it is incredibly slow. I can tell you, that a typical PC Genesis emulator probably spends about 50% of all its time in software rendering. That's a more than the emulation of the 2 CPUs takes (except the CPU cores are very unoptimized).

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Originally Posted by Lordus

I decided to release a little update, although most of the things I wanted to do for the next version are not done yet. jEnesisDS 0.7.4 has no new features, but I think it's still worth the update, as the speed is improved by up to 30% and the sound is substantially better, too, in my opinion ;)

Changelog:
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v0.7.4 *
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- Changed scheduling of M68000 and Z80.
- Some changes in M68000 internal memory handlers.
- YM2612 FM core mostly rewritten in ASM.
- Some bugs in FM core fixed (Operator 1 was sometimes not considered in certain cases).
- Fixed reset bug for FM core resulting in unstable sound for every game loaded except the 1st one.
- Raised sample rate for FM emulation from 16KHz to 28KHz (28, because a few games can't do 32KHz)
- Sound is completely mixed in hardware now, meaning every FM channel, PSG and DAC have their own DS sound channels.


Download Here and Give feedback & Compatability Reports Via Comments

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:thumbup: I love it!!!!! 2 thumbs up
I hope when you make a new release that you can make support for stuff like:
gamegenie&pro action replay,and make sound quality selections in the configuration. EDIT:I also hope the next release includes the savestate sound bug being fixed.

The screen scrolling idea is ingenius! Perfect for side scrolling games like Sonic. Is a rewind function possible?

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Originally Posted by xneoken

The screen scrolling idea is ingenius! Perfect for side scrolling games like Sonic. Is a rewind function possible?

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rewind function? thats madness!

Okay if anyone tried Maximum Carnage he or she would notice a full-scale screen running at normal speed and using the newest audio engine! Is the game running in a natively lower res to accommodate the cartoon sprites or does it run in hardware scaling mode? One could hope Lordus has been experimenting with new methods in this build since I don't think full-scale is included any longer!

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Originally Posted by Lordus

I decided to release a little update, although most of the things I wanted to do for the next version are not done yet. jEnesisDS 0.7.4 has no new features, but I think it's still worth the update, as the speed is improved by up to 30% and the sound is substantially better, too, in my opinion ;)

Changelog:
********
v0.7.4 *
********
- Changed scheduling of M68000 and Z80.
- Some changes in M68000 internal memory handlers.
- YM2612 FM core mostly rewritten in ASM.
- Some bugs in FM core fixed (Operator 1 was sometimes not considered in certain cases).
- Fixed reset bug for FM core resulting in unstable sound for every game loaded except the 1st one.
- Raised sample rate for FM emulation from 16KHz to 28KHz (28, because a few games can't do 32KHz)
- Sound is completely mixed in hardware now, meaning every FM channel, PSG and DAC have their own DS sound channels.


Download Here and Give feedback & Compatability Reports Via Comments

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:) can you,in your next release,implement
sega cd support and fix the genesis romsize limit for sonic3&knuckles will work.

P.S. sonic3&knuckles does'nt work because
the filesize. :( sorry bout the text size

EDIT:I hope also that there is a way to fix checksum bugs for some roms like the newer version of sonic megamix,a famous/legendary romhack,won't even run with its original checksum or autofix,just shows red screen. It works fine with
gens+ on my computer.

Oh,and what is casino cash
<-
supposed to be for?

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Originally Posted by ds benjmin

can you,in your next release,implement
sega cd support and fix the genesis romsize limit for sonic3&knuckles will work.

P.S. sonic3&knuckles does'nt work because
the filesize.:(

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You might consider making your fonts smaller. I think Lordus can read :p
From what I understand, the SEGA CD adds a more powerful 68000 processor to the Genesis's 68000, which is already being emulated. With how much CPU time jEnesisDS is taking already, Lordus would have to super-optimize the code, and even then, on the DS's limited hardware, you'd be lucky to get a playable framerate.
He's already said he's working on a paging system to load big ROMs. For now, why don't you try Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles alone? You've got practically the same game... just minus a few features.
Here's the tl;dr: SEGA CD, probably not next release or even EVER. Big ROM support: probably jEnesisDS 0.8.

Oh, and thanks for the emulator, Lordus. It rocks on my EDGE, and while I have to take a few workarounds to get it to work on my Games n' Music, that's not too much of a problem. It looks great, it sounds great, and it's fast. I can play Dune on the go now :)

I just wanted to textingly be heard,and I did try them alone but wish to have them together for debug mode.

Sonic 3 and Knuckles doesn't work because the DS simply doesn't have enough RAM to load the larger filesize.

Its a shame because I think the 2 together are the best game on the system.

But yeah Lordus is indirectly working on it apparently.