CPS2 Emulator for PSP test 3!

[b8a]

For those of you wondering if NJ's going to be doing a MAME port, the question's been answered a lot of times. The answer is no. It's not possible. NJ does use MAME code however, so what he's doing by releasing these specialized emulators is effectively porting MAME in chunks, filling in the gaps that a general MAME app for PSP could never cover on it's own. Pretty good strategy as far as I'm concerned. It's not like you could ever hope to fit EVERY arcade game on your memory stick anyway. A full version of MAME is unnessecary (not to mention that people asking for a PSP port is very irritating for the core MAME team).

Anyway, I've translated the release notes for anyone interested:

Since it's very likely that there'll be a major change in the implementation, I'm keeping this as a test version for the time being.
Just don't hate me if I give up on it along the way.

I've fixed several major bugs.
I've updated rominfo.dat so don't forget to update.
I'll be doing fine-tuning and minor bug fixes, so as long as there are no fatal bugs, I don't plan on updating this for the time being. Other than the cache portion, at it's current state, it's been optimized as much as possible, so I'll try a few things but if it looks like it can't be further improved, I may end it here.

-Fixed the sound. I think it's gotten quite a bit better.
-Made it so that the video and sound settings are saved for each game. Since all of the settings are initialized on launch, don't forget to make your settings again.
-Made it so that the screen size is 24:17 by default (since the screen display for both vertical and horizontal games is shrunk and gets messed up when it's 4:3). Further, the screen is only enlarged at 24:17 for vertical games.
-Changed the inital button values for Quiz Nanairo Dreams (qdream). (swapped Button 2 and 3, and allocated L trigger for player switching)
-Fixed the cache handling of ssf2tb as well as ssf2t clone sets.
Since the parent set is ssf2, when you have the ssf2 cache, that set is read in and there was a problem with a portion of the BG not being displayed, I performed a fix. The effected games are below.

parent set: ssf2tb
ssf2tbr1 Super Street Fighter II: The Tournament Battle (World 930911)
ssf2tbj Super Street Fighter II: The Tournament Battle (Japan 930911)

parent set: ssf2t
ssf2ta Super Street Fighter II Turbo (Asia 940223)
ssf2tu Super Street Fighter II Turbo (US 940323)
ssf2tur1 Super Street Fighter II Turbo (US 940223)
ssf2xj Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge (Japan 940223)

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Since it's a hassle, I haven't made one, but if you construct zipnamej.dat in the same manner as the CPS1 Emulator, and copy it along with the resource_jp.zip folder that comes with CPS1PSP to the cps2psp folder, Japanese is displayed in the file browser.
If you're interested, give it a try.

Performing a QSOUND check on Vampire Hunter, there were a few tracks where the sound was funny. Something like, Continue, Dimitri's Stage, Anakaris Stage, and Felicia's stage.
addendum 1: When at 44100Hz, for some reason it's fine... Hmm.
addendum 2: Even in MAME it sounds funny when you change the sample rate. Looks like it's a bug with the QSOUND emulator.
addendum 3: It looks like other emulators which use the base AMUSE QSOUND emulator are all bad. I'll try out a different MAME QSOUND emulator.
addendum 4: I've become even more tone-deaf (ha ha) Hmmmm, what's going on
addendum 5: I've completed the fix for the time being... I've got a feeling that it's meaningless to playback at 11KHz or 22KHz.

Plans from here on
-Adjust the sound volume. It's kind of all over the place in some games.
-Fix drawing bugs and do a final adjustment
-Change the texture region size for each game to an optimal value
Since I've got to check them all, this will take a while.
-Change the memory cache for each game to an optimized format
This is also going to take some time.

About the ROM set
The ROM files are based on MAME 0.106 and later.
For older MAME ROM set's and other emulators sets, you need to fix the zip file name. Basically, all encrytpted ROMs that have been unencrypted will run. Encrypted ROMS that haven't been unencrypted are displayed in grey in the file browser. If it's not displayed in grey but won't operate, then the ROM set in different from MAME's.
With one exception. It looks like choko will launch in MAME, but I've made it so that it won't launch in this emulator.

Reasons why CPS2 emulation is difficult on the PSP
Basically, there's no where near enough memory.
It would've been fine if only there wasn't a XOR table for breaking the ROM encrytion. The PSP has 32MB of memory built in, however since 8MB is used by the PSP's OS, etc..., in reality you can only use 24MB. Since around 4MB is used by the program's portion, it's only feasible to use about 20MB for the ROM's data partition.
...If only there were an additional 32MB, or at least 24MB, it'd be sooo easy.

There's also not enough VRAM.
In only 4MB, you need to allocate space for the display frame, drawing frame, and composition frame as well as allocating space for textures for sprites. So, it's pushing it just allocating space for the frame being currently drawn and you can't allocate memory for cache. Even still, you can construct a virtual frame in main memory for screen compositing (same methoud as MAME and other emulators for Windows), but then the speed only drops more than the current state.

Finally, there's the CPU processing power.
But since the drawing power is fairly good, I'm using that to cover the overall speed.

[bosanova_x]

I've just had the test 1 version of this and now a test 3!!

I love this!!

nj is a robot.

[MicroNut]

Sweet!
I got 19XX, Mars Matrix, GigaWing, Darkstalkers and Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom running great.

[Zombo]

A full version of MAME is unnessecary

Actually it wood be quite fun to play a few 80's games,but sadly I knew this wasn't possible (then again there are a few MAME emulators on the PSP but they're rarely updated)

[b8a]

Actually it wood be quite fun to play a few 80's games...

Which is why I wrote:

filling in the gaps that a general MAME app for PSP could never cover on it's own. Pretty good strategy as far as I'm concerned.

Great to play all your old favorites, but one single emulator isn't really nessecary. I don't think there's anything wrong with having many different optomised emulators as opposed to one single under performing one.

[oblivioner]

Awesome, NJ for me he's the best PSP coder ever.

I've got almost all games to work with good speed and sound, however I'm having problems with Cybots and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, can anyone please tell me the size and name of their rom and cache files for this games, I would be eternally grateful; I've got Super Street Fighter II to work but Turbo doesn't like me.

About laggy games, I suggest the obvious, turn off auto frameskip but put frameskip to 1 or 2 for some improvement without the weird performance of the afs

[wilbur]

anyone recomend me the best street fighter game?

can't be bothered to try em all out or have 8 kinds on my emu

Ta

PS -no multiple answers plz

[oblivioner]

The best street fighter game ever is Street Fighter III 3S, but on cps1/cps2 as pure street fighter game, super street fighter 2 turbo, however the best fighter overall on those platforms is marvel vs capcom imho.

[knownX]

i love it and its going to better wow nice job guys

[bosanova_x]

has anyone managed to find a rom of hyper sft the anniversary edition.or did this never come out for the cps2.

I've looked on various web sites and they say that the game is cps2.

If anybody knows if it is available could you post it.

thanks.

and last but not least thanks NJ for this most amazing emu.