LJX development updates

[Tinnus]

It's a LD. But it's solved already anyway, thanks again for all the offers and support

[Tinnus]

Bad news: I'm having a terrible time converting the SNES module because it's completely bloated with palm-specific code. REALLY. So my first new option will be to get the newest version of Snes9x and try to use it. This may be good since it will bring new bugfixes and all, but it's a lot more bad than good since all of the optimizations in LJP (and believe me, it's a LOT) will be lost

edit: another idea, maybe better, would be to use the code from SnesPSP_TYL, which *should* me more loosely attached to the platform, but even then it may be too much tied to the PSP.

Let's see what works best... not to mention the SNES is a complicated mess to emulate, and Snes9x is not the most beautiful framework in the world.

[icefire]

ZSNES?

[Tinnus]

Not an option. ZNES is mostly written in x86 assembly code, which obviously won't work in anything else but PCs. (as mentioned here a few times)

[samphex]

are thee any other snes emulators you can port? OR are you just going to try to port the psp one?

[_Em]

He's trying to port SNES9x, which is the only truly portable SNES emulator (the only one that counts anyway). Of course, there might be another ARM-based emulator that isn't fully portable, but then that wouldn't work with the whole idea of LJX.

[elpoco]

Maybe you could take a look at the emulators on GP2X. There's PocketSNES2, a mixture of SquidgeSNES and PocketSNES (both are port from SNES9X), there could be some ARM optimizations inside.

[Tinnus]

There are enough ARM optimizations in the one from LJP, believe me

I might have another try at it today, if it doesn't work I'm moving on to trying TYL.

[Tinnus]

*ahem*

yoyofr.proboards44.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1202087910

[_Em]

?
Samphex, I suggest you use the search feature to look for "firestorm" on these forums.
Firestorm is a closed-source commercial travesty.

[Tinnus]

News here: the NGP module just got fully implemented with sound, bells, whistles, SRAM, etc. And it's better than the LJP one since I re-did the port from the newest neopop source code. For one, you can go further than the first stage in Sonic

I've been bumping my head over a color conversion problem or the past 2 days, turns out I was looking in the wrong place, hehe Anyway the only thing that's still to be sorted now is the save states, for some strange reason the saved and loaded states are not the same

Kudos to the neopop developers though, the code is very well written, commented, and portable

Anyway after that, I must implement SNES (which will be a PITA), Atari 2600 and TG16. TG16 will also come from a new codebase (probably one for PSP). Atari 2600 might be the same as LJP or I might get a new codebase as well since the one in LJP has been hacked 3 or 4 times already by different frameworks. After all of those (hopefully including SNES) I might add Colecovision or something along these lines. What do you think? I'm pretty sure the Colecovision has some weird input devices and stuff like that, so maybe it's not very well-suited for our purpose?

Any other consoles you'd like emulated? (hint: no PS1 or GBA. Any suggestions must be below these )

[tgwaste]

PS2? j/k


guitar hero on your palm.. wh00p!

[Tinnus]

Imagine how you'd hold the thing.

What about Guitar Hero on iPod touch? So you can draw all the frets in the screen. Would be awkward to see the notes at the same time though ;D

[samphex]

gameboy. snes.(holds all my favorite games)

[Zer0linK]

no guitar hero on palm, you need a multitouch screen.

[countbuggula]

N64 is below PSX and GBA, right?

Just kidding, I know better. I remember trying to play Zelda64 on a Pentium II without decent 3d acceleration (had a crappy $10 glide card). Let's just say we're better off without it.

Someday we'll have decent PSX emulation in the palm of our hands, but just with full-speed SNES with sound via Lightspeed I've opened up so many new games to play that it'll keep me busy for a good long time (Just beat Super Metroid for the first time, working on Secret of Mana now. Next...Lufia maybe?).

Keep up the good work. I don't know how much LJX will affect us in the short term as LJP does the job pretty well, but knowing that if and when the new PalmOS comes out (or ALP or whatever else we end up having to switch to if Palm dies) we'll still be able to enjoy our favorite games is great piece of mind.

[_Em]

OK... here's my list of suggestions:
Sega Master System
Sega GameGear
Atari Lynx
Sega Megadrive/Genesis
MSX/MSX2 (Tinnus should be familiar with these, even if nobody else is
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Mattel Intellivision
Commodore 64 Games System (console version of the C64 - cart system, no keyboard)
Amstrad GX4000
Magnavox Odyssey^2
Sam Coupe
Sinclair Spectrum

Want me to link these to open source portable emulators for each platform?

[countbuggula]

Zer0linK wrote:

what about n64 ? i mean is it more possible than ps1?

Not without 3d acceleration, no. Until we start seeing devices running this isn't not gonna happen. At least not with current clock speeds.

edit: Erg! the guy deleted his post while I was trying to reply to it! Well for those who missed it he was asking about N64 emulation.

edit2: Muahaha! Nothing stays deleted from me!

[contradude]

I second _Em's list. I'm really looking forward to LJX and I hope you'll at least make a port for my poor Zodiac 2... Although I guess I could live with just having it on my 'modern' 755p. lol

[countbuggula]

I suppose you could probably make an N64 emulator that could run decently on one of these.

[contradude]

while we're on a tangent, the pandora project has a pretty good shot (if it comes to market the way it sounds it will) at a n64 emulator

[Zer0linK]

countbuggula said:

Zer0linK wrote:

what about n64 ? i mean is it more possible than ps1?

Not without 3d acceleration, no. Until we start seeing devices running this isn't not gonna happen. At least not with current clock speeds.

edit: Erg! the guy deleted his post while I was trying to reply to it! Well for those who missed it he was asking about N64 emulation.

edit2: Muahaha! Nothing stays deleted from me!

hahaha, I deleted it cause I read your previous post.

thx for answer

[Tinnus]

For running N64 good enough, you need something like a PSP

(hint: there's a pretty good N64-PSP emulator. But the PSP is *times* and *times* more powerful than any Palm device thanks to all the extra hardware which the emulator uses)

_Em's list:

- Sega Master System
- Sega GameGear
- Sega Megadrive/Genesis

Did you notice we have those?

- Atari Lynx
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800

I'm going to add Lynx likely, also any links for a 7800+5200+2600 Atari emulator or are there only 5200+2600?

- MSX/MSX2 (Tinnus should be familiar with these, even if nobody else is

Believe me when I say I've never seen one of those live

[_Em]

Playstation is basically beefed up SNES hardware with a larger data store (700MB CD instead of 64MBit cart), built in CD-audio decoder and an extra graphics processor.

N64 on the other hand uses a 64-bit (as opposed to the previous generation's 32-bit) processor with a parallel 3-D graphics processor with its own associated hardware. As I posted somewhere else, trying to shoehorn this into a 32-bit handheld with no GPU is a wee bit difficult.

Below I'm going to post the specs on a few pieces of hardware so you can draw your own conclusions:


Nintendo 64:
CPU:   MIPS 64-bit RISC CPU (customized R4000 series)
CLOCK SPEED: 93.75 MHz
CO-PROCESSOR: 64-bit RISC processor running at 62.5 MHz
MEMORY: Rambus D-RAM 36 Mbits
TRANSFER SPEED: Maximum transfer speed 4,500 M bits/sec.
running at 500Mhz.
RESOLUTION: 256 X 224 - 640 X 480 dots with flicker free
interlace mode support
COLOR: Maximum: 16.8 million colors, 32-Bit RGBA
Pixel Color Frames Buffer Support
& 21-Bit color video output
out of a 16.8 million color palette it can
display 32,000 on screen colors at once
VIDEO OUTPUT: RF, RGB, and HDTV compatible
AUDIO: Stereo 16-bit/64 PCM channels sampled at 44.1 kHz
BENCHMARK PERFORMANCE: Main CPU clocked at 125 MIPS (millions
of instructions per second)
Graphics Co-Processor clocked at
100+ MFLOPS (millions of floating point
operations per second)100,000 polygons per second,
with all hardware graphic features turned on.
CONTROLLER: Input for four controllers
Analog/Digital
Total of nine buttons

Sony Playstation:
CPU: 32-bit RISC (33.9MHz)
RAM: 2MB, 1MB Video RAM
Graphics: 3D Geometry Engine, with 2D rotation, scaling, transparency and fading and 3D texture mapping and shading
Colors: 16.7 million
Sprites: 4,000
Polygons: 360,000 per second
Resolution: 640x480
Sound: 16-bit 24 channel PCM

PERIPHERALS
   * Analog Joystick
   * Controller
   * Memory Card
   * Link Cable
   * Mouse with Pad
   * RFU Adaptor
   * Multitap Unit

CPU
   * R3000A
   * 32 bit RISC processor
   * Clock- 33.8688MHz
   * Operating performance - 30 MIPS
   * Instruction Cache - 4 KB
   * Data Cache - 1 KB
   * BUS - 132 MB/sec.

Palm T|X:
CPU: 32-bit ARM(RISC) 624MHz Intel XScale processor (underclocked to 312MHz)
Bus: max 208MHz
Graphics: 320x480, 16-bit color
Memory: 128MB internal Flash storage, external SD storage (up to 4MB)
20MB RAM
Max 13MB DB Cache (open file storage)
Peripherals: 4 hard buttons, 1 5-way controller, 1 power button, 1 reset button and 1 touch screen (single touch).

[_Em]

tinnus said:

- Sega Master System
- Sega GameGear
- Sega Megadrive/Genesis

Did you notice we have those?

Yeah, but I also noticed they weren't in the list yet for LJX, so I thought I'd mention them... just in case

tinnus said:

- Atari Lynx
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800

I'm going to add Lynx likely, also any links for a 7800+5200+2600 Atari emulator or are there only 5200+2600?

I actually haven't found much out there for the 7800... but then, there were very few titles made specifically for the 7800 -- most were for the 5200 (and the 7800 played those).

tinnus said:

- MSX/MSX2 (Tinnus should be familiar with these, even if nobody else is

Believe me when I say I've never seen one of those live

MSX was created in 1983 as a joint venture between ASCII and Microsoft (The MS X -- nothing like the MS XBox, but the names are similar). They were mostly sold into the South American market with most software written for Spanish and Portugese language speakers. It also had some traction in Asia and a bit in Europe.

It was a nice little system, designed to be an open architecture that took advantage of all the commodity parts on the market at the time.

Later versions were made specifically for the Japanese and Brazillian markets from 1986 to 1990.

There was a lot of software that was designed to work with a cartridge reader and joystick, using the MSX as a console-style gaming system. There were also full office suites etc. that used a keyboard, mouse and floppy drive. To me, this system was the descendant in spirit of the Apple ][.

[countbuggula]

tinnus said:

For running N64 good enough, you need something like a PSP

(hint: there's a pretty good N64-PSP emulator. But the PSP is *times* and *times* more powerful than any Palm device thanks to all the extra hardware which the emulator uses)

_Em's list:

- Sega Master System
- Sega GameGear
- Sega Megadrive/Genesis

Did you notice we have those?

- Atari Lynx
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800

I'm going to add Lynx likely, also any links for a 7800+5200+2600 Atari emulator or are there only 5200+2600?

- MSX/MSX2 (Tinnus should be familiar with these, even if nobody else is

Believe me when I say I've never seen one of those live

Haha, sorry for hi-jacking the thread like this. I wasn't really trying to pull everyone into a debate about N64, and I know it's not possible...I was just trying make a joke.

Anyways, the device I linked to on Ebay actually has a dedicated separate GPU with 3d capabilities (one of the few devices that have been manufactured with the nVidia GoForce chipset I linked previously). It's not a Palm though...it runs WM5. I'm not familiar enough with the Windows Mobile scene to know if anything's even been developed for that device to take advantage of its extra capabilities, but it's probably the only cell phone on the market that theoretically could play N64, were an emulator to be developed for that particular device.

[Zer0linK]

tinnus, are u still thinking in udmhness?

[_Em]

Do you mean is he still planning LJX to be UDMH-less?

[Tinnus]

Of course I'm planning this

[samphex]

Wit you mean UDMH or something will come with it, or it will not need UDMH?