StrmnNrmn Blog update

Via http://strmnnrmn.blogspot.com/

It's been a fairly slow week for progress on Daedalus. I've had a few busy days with work, and I was away over the weekend so I've not had much time to work on Daedalus since my last update.

One thing I have managed to implement is viewport scaling however. After the previous release I received an email from Chris Meyer-Rassow which had a couple of interesting points. He suggested that I should have a look at providing a setting to allow the emulator to run with an aspect ratio of 4:3, rather than strecthing everything to fit the PSP's 16:9 (or 15.88236:9 to be accurate :)

I had been meaning to add this option for some time, and as it was only a small change I decided to implement this feature for the next release. I've added 3 different modes, as shown the in screenshots below. The first mode simply scales the graphics up to fit the PSP's screen (this is no different from the current release of the emulator):
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2254/quest641yj4.png

This renders at 480x272. Notice how the vertial lines for the 't' and 'f' characters look slightly too heavy. This is as a result of scaling the graphics up to fit the PSP's screen. (As an aside, this screenshot clearly shows another issue that I need to address - the zfighting which is clearly visible in the carpet. I have a couple of ideas for fixing this.)

The next shot shows the same scene with the new unscaled 4:3 viewport setting:
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/4205/quest643ud8.png

This renders at 320x240, and so avoids scaling up any of the graphics. You can see that the problems with the 'f' and 't characters has gone. On the downside, there's a lot of 'wasted' space around the screen.

The final settings shows the new scaled 4:3 viewport setting:
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/989/quest642ew1.png


This maintains a 4:3 ratio (so we maintain the correct aspect ratio), but scales things up to 362x272 to make full use of the screen's height. We waste a little less space with this mode, but some of the original problems with the text are still visible.

In the end all three options are a trade off between making full use of the screen and quality. In the next release it will be possible to adjust this setting as the emulator is running so you can pick whichever one looks best for the rom you're currently running.

As a result of doing this work with the viewport, I also fixed a couple of bugs related to how I was emulating the N64's viewport. When I originally wrote the graphics code for the PSP version of Daedalus, I forgot to handle the N64's viewport scaling/translation, which causes problems rendering certain scenes, as demonstrated in Aerogauge below:

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/1...ebrokeneo1.png



Notice how the car is being rendered off-centre (it should be in the top right hand corner). After my viewport fixes, the same scene now looks like this:
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/6...gefixedyx7.png

The same change also fixes various minor glitches in a number of other roms (including Mariokart and Waverace), so it's a nice bugfix to get in for the next release.

-StrmnNrmn

NICE NICE NICE NICE NICE

Thanx for the update.:)

cool i love bug fixes :D

yay

Noice! :)

sweet, it just keeps rollin' along. Mario64 now runs almost fullspeed, I wonder when sound will be implemented?

This is the most exciting emulator to me! :)

ive gotta say its a tie between this emulator and the psx emulator. just because its still a complete mystery to everyone.

Great news. Hope sound will be next in the list.

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Originally Posted by Nafogel

sweet, it just keeps rollin' along. Mario64 now runs almost fullspeed, I wonder when sound will be implemented?

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WHAT? If thats true, this is really coming along great.

I think gpSP has the most potential as far as emulators but this could really be something if sound can be implemented.

Awesome!

hope people don't forget about the n64 emu after the psx one comes out ><

this great, keep up the good work StrmnNrmn :)

also, does anyone know what game that is on the top 3 pics? It looks like a dragon quest game...well i assume it's a dragon quest game for the Abott name. :)

This is excellent news. Glad you got the viewport rendering fixed up and everything is looking great. Can't wait for new release (fast enough for sound yet? the last release runs mario really fast so uhh, yeah, sound would be awesome.)

Fookin tops!!!

the 1st three pics are of quest 64

great work cant wait for r9 ~!!

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Originally Posted by pibster

hope people don't forget about the n64 emu after the psx one comes out ><

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I dont think that will happen for the pure fact that N64 roms are easy to get and PSX isos you have to rippe your self or get lucky with a torrent server. Witch by the way there about 800mb to up to 1.6gb per game thats just to much.:eek:

This is great news... this emu is really comming along nicely! :)


Sound would be great in new release please! :)

Always great to see an update for this emu. It´s coming along real nice.:)

maybe this means therell be no slurred graphics in oot like the hyrulian sheild

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Originally Posted by Acidburn05

I dont think that will happen for the pure fact that N64 roms are easy to get and PSX isos you have to rippe your self or get lucky with a torrent server. Witch by the way there about 800mb to up to 1.6gb per game thats just to much.:eek:

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The PS1 games came on normal CDs, so that would be a maximum of 700MB per CD. And few games used more than 1 CD... on top of that, most games used a lot less than the full 700MB, mostly occupying it with videos and music tracks, which can be ripped to make the image much smaller.

I wonder if the change with the scaling will speed up emulation. So if you use no scaling, I wonder if it will run faster.

By the way, Mario64 is half speed now, not full. Extremely playable of course, and a wonderful accomplishment. But I wouldn't want people who never tried this to think Mario64 was full speed.

would it be possible to do the same thing that was done with Gpsp to the N64 emulator...?

Good news Strmn Nrmn :D Keep up the good work :D

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Originally Posted by Basil Zero

would it be possible to do the same thing that was done with Gpsp to the N64 emulator...?

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if u mean build a N64 emu just for the psp it was being done by PSmonkey but since his new job he can't make anymore public releases cuz of his contract, so Daedalus is all we got left

Yeah, pretty much an N64 emulator will have to be written from scratch. Which would take some time to do.

From what I understand, there were simularities in the PSP HW to the GBA HW. Therefore it was simpler to write an emu from scratch to adress certain issues.

These similarties don't exist with the N64, so development from scratch would take a very long time. So you can have full speed N64 emulation in 1 to 2 years, or you can port and see how close you can get to full speed in half the time.

i thought the n64 was more similar to the psp than the gba one?

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Originally Posted by Alucard

By the way, Mario64 is half speed now, not full. Extremely playable of course, and a wonderful accomplishment. But I wouldn't want people who never tried this to think Mario64 was full speed.

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I said almost full speed, but I do have to agree with you. It runs roughly half speed in a lot of places, but the speed varies greatly. There are actually many places where it runs much faster than normal speed:eek: , and a lot of places where it runs 80 to 90 to almost 100 percent speed. The only places where it runs kinda slow are areas like underwater, or places where a lot of action is going on, or places where there is a lot of scenery to load.

I know with more work it can be perfect though.

i finally tried this last nite and was amazed!!!!!!!!
sure mario was a little bit slow in some areas and has no sound but it was a blast to play too.
strangely, i could almost hear the sounds and music too (i played the hell outta mario64 when it came out)
can You save on it though???? i am using a zipped rom, does that make a difference??? regardless i was blown away by how good the emulation was and so far, the only glitches i found were the eyes of some of the larger characters (the big eels and the big penguin so far) and the fade in and fade outs messed up on the left sides but who cares...this is amazing!!!!!!

The only major difference between a zipped rom and an unzipped one is that a zipped rom takes longer to load, because the emulator has to decompress it and store it to a temporary file. Also, yes saving is supported, although i've found that sometimes it won't save(about 1 out of 10 or so)

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Originally Posted by felonyr301

i thought the n64 was more similar to the psp than the gba one?

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In terms of the processor yes you are correct the GBA has an ARM chip whereas both the N64 and PSP have custom MIPS chipsets.

Both GPSP and Daedalus are using similar methods to speed up emulation (Just In Time/Dynamic Recompilation).

SO is this EMU being entirely written from scratch with a JIT/Dynarec? Or is it mostly a port?

If its mostly a port and has advanced this far, the future is filled with optimism with possibility of a full-speed EMU maybe.