jEnesisDS v0.4 - Genesis Emulator for the Nintendo DS

[fkhan]

@ Lordus

I have not tested 0.4a but sometimes game ran(Golden Axe 3) above 60fps, so I was wondering if you could please lock fps to 60 so it does not ruin our play by running too fast.

**Will see if this is fixed in 0.4a**

Thanks anyways

[FOXit2U]

This is pretty good! :thumbup:
But with HW renderer version, there are still many bugs in Sonic games! Sonic 3 is a real buggy thing! And after I completed the first Zone Of Sonic 3 and I come in the second Zone of the game, you know, by falling from the sky, It freezes! Also some bugs in Sonic 1 and 2! And Sonic 3D Blast doesn´t even run.
But I think, you will fix this stuff in newer releases in the future!
Well, now all we need is screen scaling in HW Renderer and Sound!

Now the Software renderer, well, its good, but the framerate isn´t as good as in HW renderer, but, thats normal I think! SW renderer in PC games is also not the best in fps!
But the SW renderer hasn´t the annoying bugs in Sonic 1 and 2, I havent truly tested Sonic 3 with SW renderer yet, but the Intro runs whithout bugs (not like HW renderer where you see alot of pixels and the moving hand only)!
At least I know how the scaling works and looks like, And I must say It looks very good!
So, please keep it up and if you can, try to make a build with sound emulation and include it in one of the next releases! :thumbup:

Greetz,
FOXit2U

[DanTheManMS]

FOXit2U:
I too get the freeze in Sonic 3 when falling from the sky. Just use the Software renderer for that stage and then you can go back to using the hardware renderer.

Screen scaling in HW mode is unlikely, as is explained in the ReadMe file.

The Software renderer is made to be more accurate graphically at the cost of speed, so yes the FPS drop is expected.

[Lordus]

There are several games that can occasionally freeze with the HW renderer. That is a bug ill be working on until the next release.

As for graphical glitches: I'll try to minimize them in the HW renderer as much as possible, but it wouldnt be realistic to think it could ever accurately emulate the Genesis.
It is meant to make games more enjoyable at a higher framerate, but not to be pixel perfect.
There are some features of the Genesis VDP that just cannot be directly virtualized by the DS hardware (i.e. vertical column scrolling or sprite priorities/masking/limits). To implement those things would probably make the HW renderer slower than the SW one.
There are some things that can be optimized to make the SW renderer faster, and i am working on that, but it wont ever reach the HW renderer either.

As i got many mails about that and it also got asked here ill try to explain, why scaling is not possible with the HW renderer:
1. The Genesis has 2 BG layers, the DS has 4. The Genesis however has per tile priorities, meaning that a single tile of one layer that is behind another one can still be drawn in front. The DS is not capable of doing that, so i have to use all 4 BGs to emulate this behavior.

2. The Genesis can assign 2048 unique tiles per layer, the DS 1024 (with the BG being in Text mode). Tiled rotation BGs (the ones that can be scaled in Hardware on the DS, and there are only 2 of them!) have another format that just assigns a maximum of 256 unique tiles per layer.


Sonic3D is over 3MB, which is the maximum filesize jEnesisDS will load atm. The DS just has 4MB of RAM, so games like this would need some kind of paging to work. I am planning to add support in the future, but its not quite high in my list.

[FOXit2U]

How good will be the framerate in SW renderer when you put it to the maximum limit? better then now or noticeable better and smoother? Can you say some details on that?
At the moment the sw rendere feels like it has only a framerato of 15fps - 20fps.
And How good will be the framerate when you implement sound, because, this may need much of the cpu´s power (as you said some time ago)!?

Well, how good maybe the sound emulation? May it cause in extrem slowdowns in both renderer versions when turning on sound?

Greetz,
Tobibrocki

[Zarigis]

Amazing release! Unfortunately the fact that scaling is not possible with the hardware rendering makes some games unplayable, seeing as your life bar or such get rendered off-screen (such as beyond oasis). Would it be possible to have some sort of offset feature where you could choose to view the top-left portion of the screen rather than render just the center?

EDIT: Also, because of the control scheme some games "eg, 'Lost Vikings'" are unplayable because some buttons they use aren't implemented.

[Tripsk8er333]

AWSOME, I like the interface and the "Genesis" feel Great work!


p.s. can't wait for sound.

GREAT WORK!

[cruton]

I downloaded it and patched it up for my GnM, and I put that in my root directory of my card. Now, tell me if I'm doing this wrong... I also put my games in the same directory. When I boot up the emulator, I can't find the games so that I can play them. What am I doing wrong? Please help! The SNEmulDS doesn't do this!

[Lordus]

EDIT: Also, because of the control scheme some games "eg, 'Lost Vikings'" are unplayable because some buttons they use aren't implemented.

The only button that is not implemented is the 6-button pad's "Mode" button. So as long as you dont need that it should be fine...
Buttons are mapped like this:
A=[Y]
B=[B]
C=[A]
X=[X]
Y=[L]
Z=[R]
START=[START]
L,R,D,U= directional keys

[totocorp]

jEnesisDS rocks !:thumbup:

The idea of Zarigis is pretty good. There was a fabulous Master System emulator for GBA named DrSms, now discontinued.

It proposed 2 modes for screen scaling :
- the mode scaled which corresponds to the jEnesisDS_SW screen scaling,
- the mode unscaled which corresponds to the jEnesisDS_HW with no scaling screen.

The description of the 2nd mode (the best for me) is : "This option leaves the background and sprites unscaled. This means that you will have to scroll the screen up and down using the GBA L and R buttons. But it does give the best quality of graphics." One precision : it runs in game.

Lordus, do you think an option of this type (to scroll the screen up and down using the L and R buttons or use the tactile screen if these buttons are already used) would be possible to implement in a future release of JEnesisDS_ HW ?

One other question : I'm a fan of Wonderboy and it was a great surprise to see the 5th and 6th episodes working !!! The problem with these 2 games is that the saving possibility (and necessity to really play) doesn't work yet. Do you envisage to implement an save state option in a future release (which solve the problem without EEPROM support) ?

Thanks a lot for your amazing job and, please, excuse my poor english (I'm french). I hope my questions doesn't offend your work