SnesPSP_TYL 0.2 is Out!

[laxer3a]

Hi,

For mario kart, I would suggest (I dont have the PSP right here, so I do it from memory) (you should try) :
- Remove the audio (completly, may not work on some games)
- Setup the clock to 333 Mhz

Then PSP + Approx for the rendering mode. Or may be better in some cases, full Software Approx mode.
(In games using fully mode 7, it may be faster to be full software)

Then go into the debug menu and setup Fast Mode7 : On, then
disable transparency...

Normally I get 59 / 61 fps with FZero at FrameSkip ZERO.
The rendering is a bit different from the original (no gradation on screen)

EDIT :
I just did the test with the emu on a PSP available from a guy at work.
I cannot get more than 45/46 fps at frameskip zero with Mario Kart.
I bet mario kart is really sucking more power than FZero then...
Well I believe I need to find a way to increase the mode7 rendering by 33% ! (take this sentence as a form of humor !!!)

For the moment the "fast mode7" using no transparency got us a 15% increase in the best case. Even if I rewrite the mode7 in assembly I dont think I can get 33% more
So it seems that even if I do a full assembly rewrite of the mode7 routines, we can hope a merely 10 to 15% again which should bring
Mario Kart at 50 / 51 fps...

Hum... That's sucks. I will rethink my strategy about mode7

See you.

[Smiths]

Hum... That's sucks. I will rethink my strategy about mode7

Map it on a poly!

Well honestly I guess we can hope at some point for a hardware function native to the PSP to be able to be used for Mode7.

If I recall, didn't the Final Fantasy Anthology for PSX have problems with the Mode7 scaling on the world map?

It was also a function that was removed from the WonderSwan Color FFIV (made the world map look like this weird funky planar thing).

I just like saying "Map it on a poly".... sounds like fun.

Keep it up and good job

[laxer3a]

He he he... :-) Sounds good !!! But only virtually.

The problem is you can't map it on a poly...
We have, of course, thought about it.

This would work only for games like Actraiser, Pilot wing on the parachute scene and so on.(=You have only one A,B,C,D transformation 2D matrix per frame)

You could then create a 512x512 texture in VRAM and then display the texture on a poly

The problem in game like FZero or Mario kart is that you take a 2D poly, do a rotation, DRAW ONE LINE OF THE POLY, do a new rotation, DRAW ONE LINE OF THE POLY...x200 lines. Software is just simply faster :-)

But yes, for simple zoom, pure 2D rotation (like the first boss of mario, or the second boss of axelay), this is a possible option.

If you actually notice, using the PSP hardware has just increased our rendering speed by 2 or 3 max. for stuff that were very heavy in software and without useless rendering.(=add/sub)

But, I dont think drawing the same poly clipped at each line of the rendering buffer 224 times is really a good idea :-)

I also spare you here the problems of map repeat, tile repeat or fixed color used in mode 7 (=whats happen when you draw outside of a map ??? Do you loop the map ? Use a special tile ? These are modes that are all possible to be setup in the Snes chipset.)

So to be honnest on the graphic side, I don't think we can expect a lot of increase except some rewriting in assembly and in the software mode7 logic.
All the other rendering have all been passed to hardware.

Mode7 is going to stay software for a while (probably some deeper look at the algorithm, and may be some assembly tuning).
Then may be a PURE 2D mode7 in hardware.

But I dont think it is possible to do more :P

Now if we implement the pure2D hardware mode, it will be VERY EASY to test the rendering per scanline in hard and see the result. But theorytically speaking, from start it does not seems a good idea to us.

[ganon]

Gogo Team Tyl

[buffy_lover]

I absolutely love this emulator but i'm having a problem with some roms loading up. Super metroid and mario rpg freeze or something. In super metroid its right after the nintendo sign pops up, the screen just goes balck and absolutely nothing happens. In mario rpg, its just after the title screen and exactly the same thing happens - darkness. Any help would be much appreciated because i really want to play these games.

[goonjamin]

Hey Laxer3a, On your board Yoyofr mentioned that you were working on using the media engine for sound emulation and that it looked promising Just curious how that's going (included in .3 maybe?) and what kind of result you think it will have on performance?

I read a bit over at ps2dev about the media engine but am not really clear about how it works. It sounded like it is just a seperate processor but can you use both media engine and main cpu all at the same time?

[laxer3a]

Hi...

About the ME (Media Engine), it is a second MIPS r4000 processor (if I am correct).

The only difference is :
- This cpu can not access VRAM (from what is said on ps2dev forum from other tester)
- This cpu run at the bus frequ. (as an ex. the main cpu run at 333 Mhz while the ME run at 166 Mhz)
- This cpu can not do system call (as said by people on the dev forum)

The main problem is :
A - Snes APU and Snes CPU are closely emulated (= run instruction of each chip one after the other).
---> As a result nearly impossible to separate completly the cpu and apu on each processor in a generic manner.
---> May be possible technically to run the ME chip as a complete Snes APU accepting risk of freezing game in the emu. (Ex. Axelay would not run at all)

This could lead to a "special" solution for lets say half of the games that would work with it and put a great push in performance.

- If you accept to seperate the CPU+APU on the main psp cpu and the sample generation (=audio data for the psp) on the ME, then you have problem of having some emulator memory that need to be shared between the main cpu and the ME. So the code run with UNCACHED data for some stuff.
Result :
I did some limited test (not sure of the quality of the test I run) and got mario fall from 105 -> 75 fps (but still simulated everthing on one cpu)

I also manage to have a small C programm to use the ME based on the forum example to understand the ME...

So this is something we are of course thinking about, but this research stuff takes a lot of time !!!
I managed to tune the mode7 in 5 hours... and I spent roughly 3 days on the ME since the beginning of this project (the double actually but it was not time put efficiently at use). As you can see, I was so pissed off that Yoyo wrote all the code of the first version so I decided to do some usefull (=usable right away) tuning just before we release the 0.2

I also spent time 2 month ago about making a JIT for the Snes emu and just gave up the idea for the moment...

So for the moment I continue to look at the optimize of the mode7 and finish it before going back to the ME stuff.

I dont know about yoyo... We are thinking about Netplay and ME as next optimisation, BUT PLEASE DONT SAY ITS GOING TO BE SOON or IN THE NEXT RELEASE... Leave the time to people to look for the answer they need.
Coding that stuff is not easy (I mean it is not SO hard, but I have a job, yoyo too)

I take on my sleeping time to do this snes stuff actually

Again, thanks everybody for their warm support !!!

[goonjamin]

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Sounds like you guys have a lot of cool stuff in the works. I was really just curious about close it was to working No worries about expecting anything I know that everything will be done when it's done and really there is no rush, 0.2 for the couple hours I played with it last night is plenty awesome already!

Thanks again for everything!

[parabolee]

I have a good idea that you may want to consider.

How about having config files in the next build with the best setups you've found for the tougher games. For example you could take them right of your own PSP's and put them in the zip file so we could run them as the default settigns for those games and we can then change them ourselfs to our own preference. i'm sure you guys know when is the best time to use Mode 7 fast mode and other speed hacks that we don't think of. For instance using Mode 7 only with approx software.

So people trying out the EMU for the first time (or even just the first time with this update) will see what is possible on games like Mario Kart, Mario RPG, Star Ocean etc.

What do you think Laxer and Yoyo?

[buffy_lover]

I worked out what was wrong. Once i put the sound on it started working, this is quite a big problem. Has anyone else had it or is it just my psp.