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Retro Homebrew & Console News is a site that has the latest Retro Homebrew News, DCEmu Hosted Coder Releases, Interviews, History and Tutorials, Part of the
DCEmu Homebrew & Gaming Network.
THE LATEST NEWS BELOW
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September 8th, 2006, 22:43 Posted By: bronxbomber92
What goes into the process of programming an emu? Like understanding the hardware and knowing the specifics of the process needed for an emulator? Is there any article (maybe at gamedev) that describes this?
BTW, incase this post has any confusion, I'm not asking for actual code, but more of theory.
Thanks
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September 7th, 2006, 01:29 Posted By: wraggster
New from SuccessHK
Product Features of Digital Electronics Sony Cybershot DSC-T10
1/2.5'' 7.2 Megapixel Effective Super HAD CCD
3x optical zoom with Super SteadyShot stabilization
High sensitivity (ISO 1000) settings, less color washout
The 2.5'' LCD gives you a high-resolution view while shooting
Carl Zeiss lens: This specially-produced lens provides rapid auto focus with appealing zoom range
More Description of Digital Electronics Sony Cybershot DSC-T10
7.2-megapixel photos: The powerful Sony Cyber-shot?DSC-T10 digital camera gives you the freedom to create extra-large prints.
Ultra-slim body: The ultra-compact body—about the size of a credit card—makes this the perfect camera to tuck in a pocket or purse for high-quality photos almost anywhere.
2.5" monitor: The 2.5" LCD gives you a high-resolution view while shooting, with great brightness in direct sunlight and large, easy-to-read menus. This large screen also makes it easy to share images with friends.
Smart Zoom function: This camera features 3x optical, 2x digital and 6x combined zoom. Smart Zoom lets you focus on the subject of interest by cropping the image size—avoiding the image degradation of typical digital zooms.
Carl Zeiss?lens: This specially-produced lens provides rapid auto focus with appealing zoom range. It is housed entirely inside the camera body and does not extend beyond the camera body.
Capture MPEG movies: Take home movies with 640 x 480 VGA resolution at up to 30 frames per second. Go ahead and shoot away—the length of your audio/video clips is limited only by the capacity of your media card.
Slide show with music playback: The DSC-T10 lets you view in-camera images in Slide Show sequence, with one-button operation, selectable transition effects and up to four music background tracks.
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September 5th, 2006, 22:17 Posted By: zx-81
Hi All,
I'm working now to improve all emulators i've already ported, and to make them look better, we need good background and icons / images.
So, if someone wants to help me on this task, please send me a pm 
Emulators i'm working on are :
PSP Beeb (BBC Micro emulator)
PSP Colem (ColecoVision emulator)
PSP Int (Intellivision emulator)
PSP Msx (MSX emulator)
PSP Sim (Sam coupé emulator)
For each of them we need a small icon (144 x 80) :
A big icon (480x272) :
And background image, used in the emulator menu :
Thanks,
Zx.
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September 3rd, 2006, 21:27 Posted By: deniska
Map This! got 1st place in PSP APP division at NeoFlash Summer Coding Contest (http://www.neoflash.com/)
I'd like to thank you all for your help & support: votes, suggestions, beta testing, creating new content and supporting applications, hw research - expanding the number of compatible devices, etc...
Of course, I am going to continue developing and improving this application, so stay tuned for more updates!!!
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August 31st, 2006, 22:38 Posted By: wraggster
Today its our honour to interview the coder of Picodrive DS, which is a Genesis/Megadrive emulator for the Nintendo DS.
DCEmu Can you tell us where were you born, where you live,etc.?
RyanB:I was born in central KY, USA, and continue to live there.
DCEmu What qualifications do you have?
RyanB:I have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics, and just started my Master's in CS. My day job is being
the sole PC admin for a small/medium business, where I handle everything from managing our LTSP install to developing and maintaining intranet web apps.
DCEmu What made you get into computers/consoles?
RyanB:My parents got me an Apple IIe when I was a kid, figuring it would "last through college". Obviously it didn't, but that followed up with
PC-clones and trusty old BASIC, which is what got me interested in programming. As for consoles, my first (and for a long time only) was the NES.
DCEmu What projects/coding have you done previous to your Genesis Emulator for the Nintendo DS?
RyanB:Mostly stuff for school and work that wouldn't be of interest to most people, or small personal projects. Things like compilers, video
processing algorithms, large web apps, 3D engines, general OSS stuff, and Linux kernel hacking.
DCEmu What inspired you to code a Genesis Emulator to the Nintendo DS and what difficulties did you have getting it to run properly ?
RyanB:People complaining about the lack of a good one, mostly. I think there were one or two Genesis emulator ports, but they ran at about 1fps.
Thankfully I had a great codebase to work from with Dave's Picodrive, so really the only issues I had initially were figuring out DS-specific things like graphics and FAT access.
DCEmu Can Full Speed and Full Compatability be accessed with your emulator in the future ?
RyanB:I think 30fps is a reasonable goal, though that may be able to be surpassed. Compatibility is already pretty good, although memory usage in the latest version appears to have broken some 3MB ROMs. The next release should have some support for large ROMs on Supercards and in appended mode (and hopefully save states for appended mode as well). I know everyone has been asking about sound, but realistically it's probably not going to happen unless it's running on ARM7 (running it on ARM9 semi-works, but drags emulation down to 6fps), and moving it over is not going to be an easy task.
DCEmu Whats the good and bad points about developing for the Nintendo DS?
RyanB:Good:
-developing for a portable console is just cool
-writing and improving low-level code is very educational
-with devkitPro you have a very familiar development toolchain if you've already used GCC
Bad:
-difficult to debug (though I think masscat has picked up the wireless gdb stub project, which is good)
-difficult to use both processors to their fullest
-limited hardware resources
-limited documentation
DCEmu What got you interested in development for the DS?
RyanB:I fooled around with GBA homebrew at the very beginning of that kind of thing, and had some previous experience hacking around on ARM stuff and it's an architecture I like. I owned a DS at launch, and sort of paid attention to what was going on with the initial efforts to get code running, but didn't really get in to it myself until after I
found out about devkitPro/libnds.
DCEmu Do you have any projects, that you would like to start for the DS?
RyanB:I have a couple of ports I'm interested in doing, right now I'm mostly waiting for libfat to get dirent support so that I don't have to rewrite file code. I don't really want to talk about them though and inadvertently discourage someone else from working on them, or get anyone's hopes up. I'd also like to do some original things outside of
just ports.
DCEmu What would you like to see ported to the DS and what is realistically the limit to what can be done?
RyanB:I think someone talked a while back about working on a port of Cave Story to the GBA, I'd like to see that actually finished and the source put up, as I think a DS version would be nice as well (to take advantage of the added resolution and buttons, for example). Realistically I think all kinds of things are possible, as resourceful
homebrew developers have shown time and time again. Of course there's certain technical limits to what can be done from a processing standpoint, but what that imposes as far as what can be done overall I would be hesitant to say, since human ingenuity can get around that to a small degree.
DCEmu How could the DS Scene be improved ?
I think there just needs to be some more documentation, collaboration, and momentum. There seem to be some new resources coming around that might help, but at the moment there's not really any good "bottom-up" documentation on programming DS-specific things such as video hardware, sleeping, and so on.
DCEmu Whats your favourite games from each console you have owned ?
RyanB:NES: High Speed
Game Gear: Sonic Triple Trouble
Genesis: Sonic the Hedgehog
SNES: Chrono Trigger
GBA: Ninja Five-0
PSX: Vagrant Story
N64: Super Mario 64
DC: Soul Calibur
PS2: Tekken Tag Tournament
Gamecube: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Xbox: SSX 3
DS: Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!
PC (not a console, but I'm including it anyway): N
DCEmu Finally which of the Next Gen Consoles interest you the most and why ?
RyanB:Although I was pretty close to buying a 360 a little while ago, I realized I don't really spend that much time playing new games anymore
and chose not to. I think what they've been talking about with XNA and hobbyist development is interesting, but I'll wait and see what really happens with it. The PS3 kind of falls in to the same category. I'm pretty interested in the Wii as there seems to be some focus on more casual gaming there, and I'll probably wind up buying one at launch or preordering if Nintendo ever announces a date.
Thanks for the interview
wraggster
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August 31st, 2006, 19:34 Posted By: wraggster
New from Success HK
Product Features of Digital Electronics Blackberry 8700g
Factory Refurbished
GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900
Always-on push technology sends e-mails from your existing Internet accounts directly to your phone
It is specifically designed for heavy email and application use and moderate phone use
BlackBerry 8700 includes a full QWERTY keyboard for fast, easy and accurate typing and dialling
More Description of Digital Electronics Blackberry 8700g
The 8700g offers users a stronger overall experience over its predecessor, the 7290. The 8700g picks up improvements seen in the 7100t, for example speakerphone and a far brighter screen, and fuses these with the classic BlackBerry keyboard to create a new class of BlackBerry handheld. The 8700g boasts twice the memory of previous models, Polyphonic Ringtones, and an integrated Intel processor. This new processor delivers faster browsing and navigation on the device, and the extended battery gives up to 16 days of standby time; and this even with the new brighter screen. Other new features include an automatic screen light sensor and side convenience key to jump quickly to user profiles. The 8700g allows the user to choose the theme, offering text or the traditional icons with a choice of background to allow the user to customise the screen. Quadband operation allows you to roam globally. All the traditional BlackBerry features are delivered on this sleek new handheld; from push email from multiple accounts, browsing, calendar and contacts.
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August 31st, 2006, 19:33 Posted By: wraggster
New from Success HK
Product Features of Digital Electronics Blackberry 7100x
Factory Refurbished
GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900
Always-on push technology sends e-mails from your existing Internet accounts directly to your phone
Bluetooth hands-free headset and car kit support
SureType, the new keyboard technology from Research In Motion
More Description of Digital Electronics Blackberry 7100x
BlackBerry 7100x handsets provide the best combined wireless phone, email and data experience for users who prefer a smaller handset design. They offer complete BlackBerry functionality, wirelessly connecting users with important communications and information. The BlackBerry 7100x also puts top-of-the-line features, such as speakerphone, Bluetooth, polyphonic ringtones and an advanced call log, into a sleek and stylish business phone.
The BlackBerry 7100x is a breakthrough mobile device, delivering the power of BlackBerry within a sleek and stylish mobile phone design. It has been developed for active mobile professionals who want to be able to manage their work wherever they are and also keep in touch with family, friends and the latest news using a single, all-in-one handset.
In addition to top-of-the-line phone and messaging capabilities, the BlackBerry 7100x includes a large and bright, high-resolution color screen, a speakerphone, Bluetooth support, quad-band radio for international roaming, 32MB flash memory + 4MB SRAM and polyphonic ring tone support.
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August 31st, 2006, 19:31 Posted By: wraggster
New from Success HK
Product Features of Digital Electronics Blackberry 7100t
Factory Refurbished
GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900
Always-on push technology sends e-mails from your existing Internet accounts directly to your phone
BlackBerry 7100t keeps you connected whether you're in the office or not
Easy typing - The 7100t's innovative keypad is built for speed
More Description of Digital Electronics Blackberry 7100t
The BlackBerry 7100t is the first of its kind--a fully-featured mobile phone that delivers the power of BlackBerry e-mail. This is one sweet little phone, loaded with all of the cool features you want, like integrated Bluetooth connectivity, speakerphone, and downloadable ringtones. Plus, surf the Web the way it was meant to be surfed with an ultralarge, high-resolution color screen.
While the 7100t is a different kind of BlackBerry, it still delivers the legendary BlackBerry e-mail experience. With T-Mobile's BlackBerry service plans, you can receive e-mails instantaneously from up to 10 e-mail accounts (personal and enterprise). With BlackBerry push technology, you don't need to retrieve your e-mail all at once. BlackBerry devices are designed to remain on and continuously connected to the wireless network, allowing you to be discreetly notified as new e-mail arrives. Support is also built in for viewing e-mail attachments (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, and PDF formats).
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August 30th, 2006, 16:55 Posted By: wraggster
Probably not too hopeful about taking a big bite out of the PSP's or DS's market share, a company called Performance Designed Products is nonetheless releasing a new pair of portable 2.5-inch consoles that bring together the magic of Disney with the gaming excitement that only 90's era 16-bit processing can provide. Although not being advertised as such, the flame-adorned "Classic Pals" and all-pink, heart-shaped "Princess Pals" are clearly being targeted at either one gender or the other, a notion only furthered by the mix of characters chosen for these so-called Disney GAME iT! devices. Each product comes preloaded with 12 different, relatively simple games (suggested ages are six and up); boys get such titles as Mickey's Apple Cart, Pluto's Buried Bone Treasure, and the oddly-named Goofy's Loco Coconuts, while the girls' edition sports winners like Sebastian's Sea Urchin Symphony, Susie's Buttons and Baubles, and Flotsam and Jetsam's Potion Commotion. Although you can pick up a separate $15 kit that connects the $40 systems to your TV, there's no way to add additional games a la more traditional consoles -- which actually, will probably work out just fine, as chances are good that your kids will smash these portable units to bits before getting sick of the limited content.
Screen via Comments
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August 29th, 2006, 19:45 Posted By: deniska
Here is a little update to the original version:
NEW IN v0.2
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- compass bug fix
- CPU clock speed toggle between 222 & 333Mhz
- battery life display
- improved POI support (displays up to 400 closest POI on screen / works in "track up" mode too now)
- basic waypoint support
- new configuration paramaters (READTIME, WARNINGDISTANCE, etc)
People with slow baud GPS devices should try to adjust NMEA read timing (READTIME >1)
- some graphics tweaks and new sample map.
The binaries can be downloaded from following thread @ neoflash compo forums (page4):
http://www.neoflash.com/forum/index....c,2950.45.html
Once the contest is over, I'll post it here, on my site.
Here is a video, showing the routing feature:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uqzbWHOLLrc
[EDIT] Ups, I forgot to give credit to in7ane for making great map/POI/waypoints downloader tool for windows. Great work!
[EDIT2] it appears that 1.5 EBOOT.PBP that I compiled at home has problems displaying uncompressed jpeg maps.. (probably due to a old/different libjpeg version on my home PC). Please use the EBOOT from the map_This_v02_fw15_EBOOT.zip, attached to the release thread @ neoflash forums for 1.5 FW version.
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August 29th, 2006, 14:35 Posted By: wraggster
Heres the latest new rare retro games at Play Asia:
PC-Engine™
1943 Kai [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Advanced V.G. [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Adventure Island [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
After Burner II [pre-owned] JPN US$ 24.90
Akumajo Dracula X: Chi no Rondo [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Asuka 120% Maxima: Burning Fest [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Bomberman [pre-owned] JPN US$ 24.90
Bomberman '93 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Bomberman '94 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
PC Genjin 3: Bonk's Big Adventure [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
City Hunter [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Darius Plus [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Detana!! TwinBee [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Double Dungeons [pre-owned] JPN US$ 24.90
Dragon Saber [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Dragon Saber JPN US$ 34.90
Fantasy Zone [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Galaga '88 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 19.90
Gate of Thunder [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Godzilla: Fierce Legend Of Blasting [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Gradius II: Gofer's Ambition [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
Image Fight II [pre-owned] JPN US$ 79.90
Kabuki Itouryodan [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
Liquid Kids [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Moto Roader MC [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Mr. Heli no Daibouken [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Neutopia [pre-owned] JPN US$ 19.90
Ninja Spirit [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Ninja Warriors [pre-owned] JPN US$ 19.90
OutRun [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Pac-Land (HuCard) [pre-owned] JPN US$ 24.90
Parasol Stars [pre-owned] JPN US$ 84.90
Parodius Da! [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
PC Genjin [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
PC Genjin 2 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
R-Type I [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
R-Type II [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
S.C.I.: Special Criminal Investigation [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Salamander [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Snatcher CD-ROMantic [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Soldier Blade [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Splatterhouse [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Spriggan Mark 2 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 79.90
Star Parodier JPN N/A
Steam Hearts [pre-owned] JPN US$ 99.90
Super Raiden [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Super Star Soldier [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
Taito Chase H.Q. [pre-owned] JPN US$ 19.90
Toilet Kids [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Winds of Thunder [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
PC-FX™
Blue Breaker [pre-owned] JPN US$ 24.90
Der Langrisser FX [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Tenchi Muyou! FX [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
NeoGeo™ & NeoGeo CD™
Big Tournament Golf [pre-owned] JPN US$ 99.90
Futsal: 5 on 5 Mini Soccer [pre-owned] JPN US$ 69.90
Ninja Masters [pre-owned] JPN US$ 99.90
Pulstar [pre-owned] JPN US$ 89.90
Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers [pre-owned] JPN US$ 64.90
Real Bout Fatal Fury Special [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Samurai Spirits [pre-owned] JPN US$ 14.90
Samurai Spirits III: Zankuro Musouken [pre-owned] JPN N/A
The King of Fighters '94 [pre-owned] JPN N/A
The King of Fighters '96 Neo-Geo Collection [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
The King of Fighters '99 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 109.90
The King of Fighters '99 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 59.90
Twinkle Star Sprites [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Famicom™/NES™
Akumajo Densetsu [pre-owned] JPN US$ 59.90
Dragon Quest IV: Michibikareshi Monotachi [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Famicom Console - AV Version [pre-owned] JPN US$ 99.90
Final Fantasy I & II [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Gradius II [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
Parodius Da! [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Super Mario Bros. [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Zelda no Densetsu 1: The Hyrule Fantasy [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
Mark III™/Master System™
After Burner [pre-owned] JPN US$ 19.90
Alex Kidd in Miracle World [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Mega Drive™
After Burner II JPN US$ 19.90
Air Management II: Kokuou o Mezase JPN US$ 14.90
Awesome Possum JPN US$ 29.90
Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II JPN US$ 14.90
Chaotix JPN US$ 54.90
Ecco the Dolphin JPN US$ 19.90
Ecco the Dolphin 2 JPN US$ 24.90
Elemental Master JPN US$ 49.90
Gaiares JPN US$ 29.90
Ka-Ge-Ki JPN US$ 29.90
Ultraman JPN US$ 24.90
Whip Rush JPN US$ 29.90
Wimbledon Tennis JPN US$ 19.90
Wrestle War JPN US$ 19.90
XDR: X-Dazedly-Ray JPN US$ 19.90
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August 28th, 2006, 23:34 Posted By: wraggster
Introduction
Exophase is a newcomer to the PSP scene and what an entrance, to release a Full Speed GameBoy Advance emulator on your first day is an accomplishment like no other and the response from all corners of the PSP Scene has been breathtaking. So what better way to get to know more is for the webmaster of DCEmu to come out of retirement to interview Exophase.
Heres the latest DCEmu Interview:
Wraggster: Can you tell us where were you born, where you live,etc.?
Exophase: Born in Cleveland OH, USA. Right now I'm in Bloomington Indiana.
Wraggster: What qualifications do you have?
Exophase:Bachelors in computer science, going for a Masters at the moment.. no real work experience, although I've done a lot for the retro game creation system "MegaZeux."
Wraggster: What made you get into computers/consoles?
Exophase:I didn't actually own a computer until I was around 12. It's difficult to explain why, but long before that point I had a strong desire to know how computers work and how I could work with them.
As soon as I got my first (a Pentium 75MHz machine) I wanted to figure out how to program, by
naively opening up random executables in notepad and staring at awe at the mess of characters
that I thought someone must have hand inputed to make this thing. Anyway, I guess you could say
I was always interested in computers in some way.
As far as consoles go, that's pretty typical for all of us, although I didn't own an NES when everyone else did. First I had was the original Gameboy back in 1991 - someone let my mom play Tetris and after that she just had to have one. Eventually I got an NES and the other consoles (at budget prices) followed, like TG16 (good times..) and SNES at the very end of its lifetime.
Wraggster: What projects/coding have you done previous to your GBA Emulator for the PSP?
Exophase:Aside from projects for school (some of them kinda big and scary, like operating systems) I've mainly just worked on MegaZeux, as mentioned previously. gpSP is my first real emulator.
Wraggster: What inspired you to code a GBA Emulator to the PSP and what difficulties did you have getting it to run properly ?
Exophase:I wanted to do a GBA emulator because I figured it could be done, but that it'd take more than just a straight port of VBA. I've been interested in dynarec for a long time and from what I knew about ARM (GBA's CPU) I figured it'd be a great candidate for dynarec due to the large amount of decoding overhead necessary in interpreting it (at least in ARM mode, not so much in
Thumb mode). MIPS (PSP's CPU) was also an attractive target for a RISC recompiler. I had a lot of
other crazy ideas for GBA emulation involving the video code that mostly thinned out, I'm not sure
how much any of them would have worked out. Anyway, GBA seemed like one of the more in demand platforms to be emulated on PSP, and it'd make PSP that more comparable to DS which has native GBA playing capabilities.
Of course, there have been many difficulties, not much about this project was straightforward for
me. I spent hours comparing my debugger to the debugger of one of three other emulators (depending on the game), trying to find where mine goes wrong. Of course, I would have had a much harder time without such mature emulators to compare against. This was all on the PC, long before an initial PSP build was even made. I was always pretty intimidated about moving to PSP because I knew it'd be that much more difficult to debug. I only got a dynarec running on it by doing it in a very systematic fashion, starting with a rather weak but more platform independant approach that wasn't too difficult to port to MIPS, then eventually tuning the MIPS code into what it is now. It's
pretty similar to the approach StrmnNrmn took with Daedalus.
Wraggster: Can the Dynarec be used in any other Emulators ?
Exophase:It might be possible to use it for other platforms that use ARM7TDMI, although the memory interface would have to be revised, as well as the translation mapping functions. Moving to ARM9 would be a bit more work and anything with an MMU would be a headache as well. For other CPUs I don't think this would do much for anyone, even as a reference.
This is all assuming that MIPS is a target. Other platforms can be targeted (as x86 and MIPS are
now), but because of how the dynarec is designed it works best when the target platform has
significantly more registers than the one you're trying to emulate.
Wraggster: Can Full Speed and Full Compatability be accessed with your emulator in the future ?
Exophase:Hm, I don't think any emulator really achieves full compatability. I know the compatability can probably be improved... right now I'm not handling self modifying code as robustly as I should be, changing that might help things, I don't really know yet. I'm also not handling some things like code executed from VRAM. I know for sure that there are a number of dynarec bugs; the interpreter
has much better compatability (and is of course much slower). I'd say the interpreter has around
85-90% compatability, so hopefully one day the dynarec will approach that.
As for speed.. there are still things I can do to improve it. There are some techniques that I
believe will decrease the size of emited code which can improve speed massively if it's enough
(anything to improve icache performance). For games that use the BIOS heavily or games that use
a ton of interrupts (like FF awn of Souls in battle or Sword of Mana) HLE BIOS may offer
significant improvements. Beyond these things there are some things I can try to load balance
between the two CPUs on the PSP and utilize the ME's faster eDRAM. I don't think that the added concurrency (running different pieces of code at the same time) will offer much but having double the cache and better memory may.
Wraggster: The release of this emulator has been compared to the shock of Ultrahle and Bleem, emulators that werent thought possible until they were released, are you proud that your the first to get a decentplayable GBA Emulator out there ?
Exophase:Heh, well, I'm just glad that at least some people can play some games well. I know it was nice being able to play Castlevania: Circle of the Moon for a while when I had nothing else to do.
Wraggster: Making the emulator open source is great for everyone, do you envisage ports to other consoles or is the code too specific for the PSP ?
Exophase:The dynarec is very PSP specific, and in the current version the video, input, and file I/O code has PSP specific versions, but it'll still use SDL/stdio for non-PSP builds. If anyone wants to
port it to other platforms I can give them my x86 dynarec backend, which is much easier to port
to other platforms but will be much less efficient than the MIPS one. Writing a dynarec for a
different platform is still a lot of work, and my dynarec model isn't really best for all platforms (it was somewhat written with MIPS in mind).
Wraggster: Whats the good and bad points about developing for the PSP?
Exophase:Most developers use psplink, which would probably be a huge good point, but I don't use it so I don't know. All in all I don't think developing for the PSP is that much different than
developing for anything else. The PSP hardware does have some pros and cons... when working with
gpSP I think these have been relevant:
pros:
Fast hardware bilinear filtering, this is good for pretty much every emulator
Very fast VRAM that you can read from and write to
cons:
Very little cache for the CPU (no L2 cache)
LCD blurs dark colors
Scratchpad RAM doesn't make for a good addition to cache, it's too slow...
No MMU
Wraggster: In your opinion whats possible on the PSP in terms of Emulators, Media Players etc, bearing in mind you have just released a Full Speed GBA Emulator ?
Exophase:PS1 emulation, but we all knew that one because of Sony's upcoming emulator. When I first heard PSP's specs PS1 and N64 emulation immediately came to mind, although I think I underestimated N64 emulation a little, the CPUs aren't quite as similar as I hoped (PSP has a 32bit little endian CPU with only single precision FPU), but perhaps these differences aren't too big of a deal. I think StrmnNrmn will continue to impress us there, and someone besides Sony is bound to do a great PS1 emulator (not me ).
As for media players... the ones out now are pretty good, right? I don't exactly, but I think they're doing a good job for what they have. Eventually someone should reverse engineer the PSP's video/audio acceleration chips and we'll have media players on the same level as the firmware ones, if they're not already at that level.
Wraggster: What got you interested in development for the PSP?
Exophase:I was interested long before PSP was released, even though I've never done console/handheld dev before. I was hoping Sony would release something like this for a long time and PSP pretty much matched my expectations exactly, at least on paper. The fact that it was exploited pretty quickly and it's so easy to get stuff on it (without any mods or extra hardware) made it too appealing to pass up.
Wraggster: Do you have any projects, that you would like to start for the PSP?
Exophase:Nope. This one's gonna keep me busy for a long time >_>
Wraggster: What would you like to see ported to the PSP and what is realistically the limit to what can be done?
Exophase:I don't really have anything in mind. Honestly I'd like to see more original works for PSP than
ports. But, for people porting, they need to bear in mind that PSP is not a 333MHz Pentium 2, so
they shouldn't necessarily expect that level of performance from a straight port. The CPU is only
single issue and it has far less cache, but far faster main RAM and other useful resources that can be taken advantage of.
Wraggster: How could the PSP Scene be improved aside from the obvious that Sony want to stop it at all costs ?
Exophase:The scene looks pretty good by all accounts, there's a lot of active news and development. It's definitely one of the more active console dev scenes.
Wraggster: Whats your favourite games from each console you have owned ?
Exophase:This sounds like a really hard question.. okay, I'll try:
Atari 2600: Seaquest
Gameboy: Link's Awakening
TG16: Bonk's Revenge
NES: Kirby's Adventure
SNES: Chrono Trigger or FF6
GBA: Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Gamegear: Shining Force: Sword of Hajya
Lynx: Blue Lightning (okay, that was like the only game I owned)
PS1: (this is really hard) Xenogears or Suikoden 2.. maybe SaGa Frontier 2
PS2: Suikoden 5
Wraggster: Finally which of the Next Gen Consoles interest you the most and why ?
Exophase:I don't know if I'm going to buying any of them any time soon, what with my current trend of buying maybe one game a year, but from a dev standpoint PS3 looks the most interesting. It
might be the most open to dev for (ironically) and it has some really complex hardware that should be challenging to work through. XBox 360 will be somewhat open to dev for too, but at a yearly fee (which sounds a bit much to me) and with more straightforward but less interesting hardware. Wii is of course the more affordable and unique one, but probably won't be as interesting to dev for if/when anyone figures out how. Also, everyone's going crazy over the emulation of older games on Wii but we've all been doing that on other
platforms for ages, right?
Thanks for the excellent interview for the PSP Scene
wraggster
Please do not steal this interview for your site, please link only
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August 27th, 2006, 23:42 Posted By: zx-81
Hi All,
Holidays ended, and it's time now to go back to school, so here is another useful
thing to put on your PSP :
A new release of PSPX48 the Hp48 calculator emulator !
First i would like to thanks my friend jer666 for his beautiful icons
and background image .
What's new in this version ?
- Add new beautiful icons and background designed by Jer666 !
- New user interface with menus and usefull options
- Display battery usage
- Add Help window with all PSP shortkeys
- Save configuration file option
- Screenshot image option
- PNG images instead of BMP (smaller images)
- Toogle between analog and digital pad option
- New keyboard handler and new mapping
The HP48 documentation is there : user guide
As far as i know Helwet Packard graciously began allowing HP48 bios to be downloaded in 2000
(you need it, but it is NOT part of my PSPX48 package because it's not GNU !).
This rom can easily be found here : hpcalc
As always, the package is under GPL Copyright and sources are included.
Enjoy,
Zx.
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August 27th, 2006, 00:15 Posted By: zx-81
Hi All,
Holidays ended, and it's time now to go back to school, so here is something useful to put on your PSP
A new release of PSPXTI the TI-92 calculator emulator !!
* First i would like to thanks my friend jer666 for his beautiful icons and background image . *
What's new in this version ?
- Add new beautiful icons and background designed by Jer666 !
- New user interface with menus and usefull options
- Add Help window with all PSP shortkeys
- Save configuration file option
- Screenshot image option
- PNG images instead of BMP (smaller images)
- Toogle between analog and digital pad option
- New keyboard handler and new mapping
- Bug fix (keyboard freeze etc ...)
Many TI92 stuff can be found on the following urls :
http://www.ticalc.org
http://education.ti.com
You need the rom of your TI-92 or TI-92 plus,
but it is NOT part of the PSPXTI package because it is the property of TI !
This version works with 2.xFW. and 1.5FW.
It's distributed under GNU licence and sources are included.
Enjoy,
Zx.
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August 25th, 2006, 17:11 Posted By: wraggster
News from Play Asia:
Weekly Movie/Music update: Over 750 new J-Pop, Anime, Soundtrack & Movie releases - Valkyrie Profile 2 Silmeria Voice Mix Album, Grace Ip On My Own, Typhoon, Re-Cycle & more
Welcome to this week's Movie/Music news roundup, containing all new Japanese and Hong Kong Video and Music releases from this week listed at Play-Asia.com. Over 750 new items are covered in this week, including new J-Pop, Anime as well as Japanese, Hong Kong and Western movie releases and much more.
Here's a summary of all new releases that were published between Saturday, August 19th and Friday, August 25th. If some specific item that you are looking for is missing, please don't hesitate to contact our customer service with your request.
J-Pop Music releases (161)
ENKA Music releases (20)
Video Game Soundtracks (15)
Anime Soundtracks & Drama CDs (81)
Hong Kong Version Music releases (26)
Hong Kong Version Movie releases (37)
Japanese Movies (59)
Non-Japanese Movies / Japanese Version (111)
J-Pop DVD releases (8)
ENKA DVD releases (1)
Anime DVD releases (185)
Idol DVD (57)
UMD™ Video & Music (4)
Full listings here --> http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...9-en-84-n.html
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August 25th, 2006, 17:05 Posted By: wraggster
PLay Asia have a mass of Snes and N64 Games for those of you who like to collect those classics, heres the listing:
Super Famicom™
3x3 Eyes [pre-owned] JPN US$ 24.90
Akumajo Dracula XX [pre-owned] JPN US$ 69.90
Area 88 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Axelay [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Bahamut Lagoon [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Breath of Fire II [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Puzzle Bobble [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Caravan Shooting Collection [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Chrono Trigger [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Contra Spirits [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Cotton 100% [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Darius Force [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
Der Langrisser [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Doom [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Dragon Ball Z Super Butouden [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Dragon Ball Z Super Gokuden: Totsugeki-Hen [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Dragon Quest I & II [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Dragon Quest III [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Dragon Quest V [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Dragon Quest VI [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Final Fantasy V [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Final Fight [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Final Fight 2 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Final Fight Guy [pre-owned] JPN US$ 59.90
Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Front Mission Gun Hazard [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Ganbare Goemon: Yukihime Kyushutsu Emaki [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Jaki Crush [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Knights of the Round [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Mortal Kombat II [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Mother 2 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Parodius Da! [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
PC Genjin [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Pop'n Twinbee [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
R-Type III: The Third Lightning [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Ranma ½: Chougi Ranbu Hen [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Return of Double Dragon [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
RockMan 7 [pre-owned] JPN N/A
RockMan X [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Romancing SaGa [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Rudra's Treasure [pre-owned] JPN US$ 59.90
Rushing Beat [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Rushing Beat Ran [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
Seiken Densetsu 2 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Seiken Densetsu 3 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 54.90
Soul Blader [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Star Fox [pre-owned] JPN US$ 24.90
Street Fighter II Turbo [pre-owned] JPN US$ 24.90
Super Donkey Kong 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble JPN US$ 39.90
Super Fire ProWrestling 2 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 9.90
Super Mario Collection [pre-owned] JPN US$ 69.90
Super Mario Kart [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Super Mario RPG [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Super Metroid [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Tactics Ogre [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Tales of Phantasia [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Warriors [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Ys V: Ushinawareta Sunano Miyako Kefin [pre-owned] JPN US$ 49.90
Nintendo 64™
Akumajo Dracula Mokushi Hashumi [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Akumajo Dracula Mokushiroku: Legend of Cornell [pre-owned] JPN US$ 39.90
Bakuretsu Muteki Bangaioh [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Banjo-Kazooie [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Doom 64 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Excite Bike 64 [pre-owned] JPN N/A
F-Zero X [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Ganbare Goemon: Mononoke Sugoroku [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Ganbare Goemon: Mononoke Sugoroku JPN US$ 34.90
Ganbare Goemon: Neo Momoyama Bakufu no Odori [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Mario Kart 64 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
Mario Party [pre-owned] JPN US$ 29.90
Mario Tennis 64 [pre-owned] JPN N/A
Neon Genesis Evangelion 64 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 64.90
Pilotwings 64 JPN US$ 14.90
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire JPN US$ 14.90
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire [pre-owned] JPN US$ 19.90
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Virtual Pro Wrestling 2: Oudou Keishou [pre-owned] JPN US$ 34.90
Wave Race 64 Kawasaki Jet Ski [pre-owned] JPN US$ 19.90
Wonder Project J2 JPN US$ 19.90
Wonder Project J2 [pre-owned] JPN US$ 14.90
Yuke Yuke! Trouble Makers [pre-owned] JPN US$ 44.90
More Info --> http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...9-en-84-n.html
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August 25th, 2006, 06:52 Posted By: Shilo
Via Hello Gamer
A College student named Wim van Eck has created a version of Pac-Man which pits the player against real life crickets unwittingly controlling the ghosts in the game.
The aim of the project was to analyze the "advantages and disadvantages of real-time behaviour of live animals in comparison to behavior-generating code in computer games".
The color detecting system picks up the movements of the crickets in the model maze and then maps them onto the game.
And it seems the crickets put up a bit more of a challange than the computer controlled enemies, At one point a cricket was said to have shed its skin - effectively making it invisable to the color detector for a few seconds (cheat!).
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August 24th, 2006, 15:34 Posted By: deniska
Here is a few things, I did not mention in the original README file:
- format your MS as FAT32 (not FAT)- you'll be able to put much more map data on it
- if you use it with GPS receiver, make sure that UMD drive is empty and WIFI switch is OFF
- you can delete large maps much faster if you move all other apps out and format the MS
- use in7ane's visual tool to get maps and POIs
- you can generate maps with negative zoom value with some services,but check the preview to make sure the data is available for your area first.
-you can delete some zoom levels to save space by deleting Nx folders inside your map's folder. You cannot wipeout the 1x (base) zoom folder though.
 keep checking this thread for more tricks...
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August 24th, 2006, 13:01 Posted By: wraggster
New from Divineo China comes an excellent Ipod lookalike with MP4 capabilities and much more, heres the full Details:
Main Features:
- Built- in Memory: 2GB
- Display: 128x128dots 65536 color liquid crystal display
- ID3: 16 Multi Language
- Equalizers: Normal, Rock, Jazz, Classic, Pop, Bass
- Play Mode: Intro, Normal, Repeat One, Repeat All, Shuffle, Shuffle Repeat, Random
- FM Frequency Range: 76 Mhz -96 Mhz / 87.5Mhz – 108.0MHz
- FM Recording: Ready
- Digital Voice Recording: MP1/ MP2 /MP3 / AMV support ( MP4 movie )/ WMA / WMV / ASF / WAV
- Digital Voice Recording: ACT/ WAV
- Power Supply: 3.7V Li-Polymer Battery
- Connection: High speed USB 2.0
- Supported OS: Windows 98/ 2000/ ME/ XP / Mac OS 10.3 / Linux 2.4.2
- Dimension(cm)g: 4cm x 9cm x 0.8cm (g)
- Firmware Upgradeable: Ready
- Lyric Display: Ready
- S/N Ratio: > 85dB
- Output: 5mW + 5mW (32 OHM)
- Frequency Range: 20Hz – 20KHz
- Encoding Format: 5Kbps – 320Kbps
Accessories (included):
Earphone, USB Cable, Install CD, Manual, Line-in cable, USB adaptor connector, Warranty card
Looks an excellent Device and cheap at only $79.99 too. More info at Divineo China
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