GBA Emu for DC Update

[GPF]

[quote author=curt_grymala link=board=dcemu;num=1084378886;start=60#69 date=06/20/04 at 08:55:31]The graphics for the menu system could probably use a little work[/quote]
Well if anyone wants to design some graphics for me I would be like to check them out.

The background graphic that is tiled across the screen is 32X24 256 colors.
The menu background which overlays the background graphics and has the writing on top of it is also 32X24 256 colors
and the Splash Screen is 160X120 256 colors which I would like to incorporate Visual Boy Advance/ Visual Troy Advance and the dreamcast Please only homebrew/freeware not copyrighted images only. thanks

The graphics sizes and colors are not that important except that they can't be bigger than 320X240 32 bit color, and the background images will be tiled across the screen.

I am currently working on fixing the controls when you start a second rom.
[quote author=curt_grymala link=board=dcemu;num=1084378886;start=60#69 date=06/20/04 at 08:55:31]
The "Exit - Reboot Dreamcast" command seems to be currently only set up for people using coder's cables[/quote]

Yeah that what I use it for, but I think if you boot up the emulator from demomenu or something like that it should return you back to it. I think I maybe I should change the text to "Exit Emulator".

thanks again Curt for your excellent review - very helpful and informative.

Troy

[guymelef]

do your thing man, do your thing

[curt_grymala]

[quote author=GPF link=board=dcemu;num=1084378886;start=60#70 date=06/20/04 at 22:27:25]
Well if anyone wants to design some graphics for me I would be like to check them out.

The background graphic that is tiled across the screen is 32X24 256 colors.
The menu background which overlays the background graphics and has the writing on top of it is also 32X24 256 colors
and the Splash Screen is 160X120 256 colors which I would like to incorporate Visual Boy Advance/ Visual Troy Advance and the dreamcast Please only homebrew/freeware not copyrighted images only. thanks

The graphics sizes and colors are not that important except that they can't be bigger than 320X240 32 bit color, and the background images will be tiled across the screen.[/quote]

I will see what I can come up with. I don't know if I'll be able to come up with anything great or not, but I will probably give it a try.

[Christuserloeser]

Ive played the (Super) Bomberman Demo by Subbie and it runs too fast with Autoframeskip ;D

Good work it is!

About the other games that I've tested, Nebulus ran slow but flawless. SonyC Demo by Manuel Pazos was slow, somewhat playable but had a graphic display error: It didn't show the grass at the 'Green Hill Zone' (1st stage) and displayed a white border for it instead.

As this port of VBA is based of Chui's VBA32 for GP32 it might still have a lot of tweaks and optimizations applied that were specially made for the GP32 CPU. Further code changes and SH4 optimizations will allow a huge speed up, I guess

I'll give you some bugreport on other games soon. GBC seems to run at full speed without any acceleration and and frameskip turned off, sound & music turned on. I'll post a extended report about all my GBC games soon.
Currently I am not completly sure if the sound playback isn't already at a comparable level with DC GNUBoy, as I've only tested one game so far: Toki Tori (U) (seems that it crashed after I played around with the settings)
But as the sound playback of DCGNUBoy is flawless it might be a good idea to add the GNUBoy sound emulation to VBA32, so it switches the sound core when a GBx game is detected. Just an idea that I'll come back to if I checked my other games with it.

The GBC screen is centered so it's okay. I'd suggest the same with the GBA display. It would look pretty good, just to center the display. Stretching the screen would be the next step.

As a first little report I'd like to mention the following critics and suggestions for the frontend (menu), as it would speed up bug testing:

I had problems opening any directories, so I placed all my GBA PD ROMs in the root folder. Might be just me not finding the proper controls/buttons to open a directory, though ;D

If I scroll thru the game list, I've recognized that I had to push (left) on the d-pad to scroll from A to Z but with all the other emus that I am used to it's (right) on the d-pad.

Also it would be fantastic to allow more space for the game names like NesterDC v7.x does.
GoodTools adds descriptions to the ROM versions (like e.g. author or version number) so testing different ROMs would be easier if you can actually differentiate between them, atm it allows 18 letters, 29+3 would be great!

About the menu discussions: I am aware that it's a bit early to discuss it, but it would be fantastic if you'd allow a special user customizable menu like e.g. SuperFamicast or GenesisPlusDC v01 ( that's similar to the one of NesterDC or DCGNUBoy) has.


Chris

[Cap'n 1time]

there is absolutly no point to this.. but i drew a gba crossed with a dc, and its really really small. i have a high quality one saved. this is mainly just to look cool to me but any one that wants the high quality one can use it. or draw your own.

[Christuserloeser]

that's nice

[curt_grymala]

[quote author=1timeuser link=board=dcemu;num=1084378886;start=60#74 date=06/23/04 at 08:44:38]there is absolutly no point to this.. but i drew a gba crossed with a dc, and its really really small. i have a high quality one saved. this is mainly just to look cool to me but any one that wants the high quality one can use it. or draw your own.[/quote]

That's kind of a cool idea. I was thinking of working on a new splash screen for this emu, so I may incorporate that idea into it.

Nice thought 1time.

/*me runs off to Boob!Covers Central to get some GBA hardware pics. */

[Christuserloeser]

mmh seems I can't reply to this topic anymore!?
???

Edit: Okay I can, it was just my browser...


Chris

[curt_grymala]

Wasn't your browser - it was just the whole server issue that LyonHrt explained a few days ago.

[curt_grymala]

BTW - I sent GPF a PM with this image, but I thought I would show it off here, too, so that 1timeuser could see what I came up with, using his idea (damn that's a long run-on sentence).