VMU Tool 0.7.3 - screenshots

[DirtySanchez]

The timing problems are in the CPU core itself. Unfortunately, it's not really documented anywhere so it's gonna be really hard to fix. It's a problem in all VMU emus based off Marcus' original code.

The other problem that may be fixable is the occasional frame doubling that seems to occur. The VMU can do really weird process timings that don't map overly well to the DCs internal timers as far as I can tell.

Sound is not in the original emu either (blessing or curse?) so that's why it's not in here. I might be able to add that, but honestly I never even bothered to try. Everyone always seems to hate the VMU sound anyway....

Regardless, it's obvious I made the right decision to give the code to Speud... I see no reason to continue VMoo on it's own and will likely just help where I can here.

[speud]

There's someone from OnlineConsoles that offered most stuff that's available over there for this release but I'll have to check if he's the person that's actually able to give me the permission for that...

yes, double check every file you receive has really been dumped by the one who sent it to you.
especially if it comes from onlineconsoles, before i got banned i noticed they "borrowed" files from site of people i know, then when i told the webmaster it would have been nice to ask before doing that he said something like "its not illegal, he doesnt own them", thats exactly what i want to avoid.

The timing problems are in the CPU core itself. Unfortunately, it's not really documented anywhere so it's gonna be really hard to fix. It's a problem in all VMU emus based off Marcus' original code.

yer thats what i meant, the only problem i mentionned belong to marcus' emulator, not your port.

The other problem that may be fixable is the occasional frame doubling that seems to occur. The VMU can do really weird process timings that don't map overly well to the DCs internal timers as far as I can tell.

the problem with powerstone's plane mini-game is like the sprites are hidden until a specific part of the screen, i really have no idea what could cause that.
and like you said the docs dealing with the potatoe are quite rare so i dont know if anybody could fix that, but maybe marcus himself or someone from the (dead) vmu scene.

Sound is not in the original emu either (blessing or curse?) so that's why it's not in here. I might be able to add that, but honestly I never even bothered to try. Everyone always seems to hate the VMU sound anyway....

i must be an exception, i like it personnally
but only for a few games like soulcalibur's voldo mini-game.
most of the time it has no bg music, only sfx, and even with a poor quality i think they are useful sometimes.
now what would be neat would be to use the VM to output the sound directly, like we're using its screen to display the image.
but i dont think its possible with kos, at least for now. though if i remember correctly dreamsnes was using that, but it doesnt use kos anyway.

Regardless, it's obvious I made the right decision to give the code to Speud... I see no reason to continue VMoo on it's own and will likely just help where I can here.

thanks im honored
let me know if you want me to send you the current version with or without the source.

[DirtySanchez]

That's right, I completely forgot I got the VMU display code working while in game... heh...

I'll see if there's something I can find about sound....

As for the display stuff... yeah, *every* game does it on occasion. Tetris and Space Invaders do it too where it will stop and not display the next frame till input is sent. It feels like either the display register doesn't get updated for some reason or the control handler is blocking on something. That could possibly be alleviated by modifying the control handler a little. Maybe running a timer at the same time as the controller condition update, but it's such a small time frame...

As for the current version, I'd love to take a look at it.

[speud]

yes i noticed in all games the sprites are blinking, not so disturbing though.
but in powerstone you can't see the bottom part of the screen at all, maybe thats because of a different framerate for this game?

on a positive note there are several games that are more playable with the emu than on the VM, like tiny tetris, breakout, space invaders...

where can i send you the current version of VMU Tool?
the source is about 2.5MB and the elf file about 700KB.

[wraggster]

hmm i hang out on efnet and i speak to someone who made a vmu emu for windows, would it help if i asked him for his source so you could look and maybe compare?

[DirtySanchez]

[quote author=Wraggster link=board=dcapp;num=1085187016;start=0#14 date=05/23/04 at 09:34:05]hmm i hang out on efnet and i speak to someone who made a vmu emu for windows, would it help if i asked him for his source so you could look and maybe compare?[/quote]

It all depends on if they based it off Marcus' code or not. The original VMU emu code had ports for X, Win32, DOS (what I based most of VMoo off of), and even Amiga. They all use the same general CPU core. I think that's where most of the problem is. That said, I'm sure either of us would take a look and go from there...

[speud]

softVMS 1.8 by alessandro sanassi (aka tyro) doesnt seem to have the bug in powerstone when i run it in DOS mode.
i dont think his version is open source, but ill try to contact him.
i already contacted him before when i needed help with another project and he was really helpful, so hopefully he will provide his core's mod without any problem.

anyway wraggster i would be curious to check the source.
though i think i own every VM emu made from marcus comstedt's, and alessandro sanassi's is the only one that has real improvements apart from the gui.

EDIT: just checked what alessandro sanassi says about his version of soft VMS, and actually it looks like he only changed the color.

also he says he used the latest source from marcus comstedt's site, which was (and still is if im not wrong) v1.8.

he mentions that the source used by other emulators made from marcus' are not using the latest source, thats why soulcalibur doesnt work with some emus.

what source did you use dirtysanchez?

[DirtySanchez]

I'm pretty sure it was off 1.8 or 1.9, but I'm not for certain at the moment. I did have to rip out a lot of odd comparisons in the timing to get it working as it is, so there's likely a much better way to do it.

[speud]

i dont think thats the fault of your port, i tried several emus based on marcus' and all have the same problem with powerstone.

like i told you that doesnt look like the framerate issue common to other games, theres like an invisible square in the middle of the screen that hides everything.

every emu i tried so far including VMoo have this problem, except alessandro sanasi's compile.

where did you get the source from? do you know if there's a sourceforge project for softVMS?

[DirtySanchez]

It's been too long for where I DL'd it...