Sega GG + Nintendo GameBoy emulator for SP beta test

[Guest bitbank]

I don't know if it's my device or not, but when I play Pokemon Silver, it sometimes just crashes unexpectedly and it's a bit annoying (obviously), on top of being time consuming. It didn't crash like this in the old version, so maybe it has something to do with that. Also, the main reason I got this emulator was for Pokemon on my cell phone, I'd appreciate it if somehow you could get the save games to work so I could play it as it's intended or a cheat system that could edit the date and time. I think just a cheat system would suffice and be a huge improvement on the system. (Since there are some Pokemon I can't get on my version and the point of me playing the game is so I can fill my Pokedex; which I can't do without being able to trade. I thought maybe ActiveSync could act like a link cable or maybe having a functionality to run two states at once and have them linked?)

I'll try a couple other games besides Pokemon Silver and across different platforms to see if it's the emulation or my phone, though I would like some suggestions as to what games I could test this accurately with; something with a similar play style or that goes on continuously I guess. Maybe I should downgrade to the last version instead and see if that prevents the crashing too (Good idea actually, I'll do that, if I still have the installer for it, if not; hopefully there's a way I can get it?)

All in all, GameGear is pretty awesome; and I hope I payed the ten dollars to someone who will continually try to improve upon it and add new systems and features (even if it means compromising file size); the fact you've updated it and it's 4 (or 2?) years from when you first posted tells me that I probably didn't set aboard a train that's already slowing to a stop.

I hope you keep up the good work! I'll post again or edit this post when I have some more to add.

P.S. I recommend this emulator; in spite of the lack of some features, it gets it's job done well enough. Works alright on the Pantech Matrix Pro, if any users of that are out there looking.

If I can reproduce the problem, I can fix it. Please send me a note ([email protected]) with the specifics so that I can recreate the problem:

1) What phone are you using?

2) How many minutes into playing does it have a problem? Is it always in the same place/time?

3) What video options are you using (orientation, size)?

4) What options are set (e.g. autoload)?

Thanks,

L.B.

[Guest hockeyfan]

I don't have NES mapper #5 (MMC5) working properly, so those games currently will not run (Romance of the three kingdoms 2).

Thanks for the reply.  Just out of curiosity...do you have a timetable for when the emulation of Mapper #5 will be completed?

Might and Magic 2 works correctly. You need to check that you have a good ROM dump. The correct size of the BIN file is 768k, not 1.5MB.

I just tried about a dozen different ROM dumps of Might and Magic 2 acquired from various websites.  I can confirm that none of them worked -- not even the 768k dump.  IIRC, didn't you write some time ago in the SmartGear thread that you were having some problems getting the Genesis sound module working properly with certain CPUs?  As I'm sure you're aware, the unlocked GSM Palm Treo Pro has a 400MHz Qualcomm MSM7201 CPU -- I'm not sure if SmartGear is completely compatible with this particular chipset...?

Would it help if I made a video/audio recording of the sound problems?  Virtually all of the Genesis ROMs I have exhibit at least some sound anomaly -- high-pitched screeching, repetitive scratching, and a constant tick-tick-tick sound.  None play with satisfactory sound.  Maybe it might help you diagnose the problem if you actually heard the weird sounds it was making.

Thanks!

[Guest TheElf]

Hi!first sorry my bad eng<img>ish, im Spanish. I downloaded latest version of smartgear (http://www.bitbanksoftware.com/SmartGear.html) 1.1.6

My cellphone is a Toshiba G810, QVGA .

Smartgear open, and i can load a rom. (i try NES, GG roms), i hear the music, but black screen. But when i tap and the emulators is paused, i can see the game image!! like a screenshot. The same problem in portrait and landscape mode.

I try all options, GDI, etc no luck

But i think the emu works great, because the sound have no skiping, and in landscape mode, the keys of the phone are very well recognized

Only that i cannot see nothing that black screen

Thanxs!

[Guest naveth]

Hey just wanted to say this is an amazing program, that said I've been trying to use it on the HTC touch pro 2. The one thing that's concerning me is whenever I try to remap any of the keys they become unuseable with no way to revert the configuration back to it's default settings. Is there something i'm just not getting here?

[Guest Jesster]

Hi,

Just registered SmartGear, and thought I'd make a suggestion:

For those of us using it on devices with QWERTY keyboards, it would be nice if you could map certain keys to the diagonal inputs on the D-Pad. WASD works fine for the cardinal directions, but if you regularly need to input diagonals, Hitting W and D at the same time for up-right diagonal is not so convenient. However, if I could map E to Up+Right, it would be much easier to hit that diagonal.

-=The Jesster: Gatchaba Goose=-

[Guest Maximum Carnage]

I have a Moto Q9h and I was wondering about the key input when 2 buttons are held down like (run and forward) in Super Mario Bros and then I press down a 3rd button (jump). The 3rd button is completely ignored. The same thing happens in Contra, trying to run across pointing diagonally and then trying to fire a gun. I'm afraid this is a Q9h feature along with the garbled screen on the SNES emulators.

I've been using the arrow keys and spacebar and 0/+ to play.

I've been having an issue with this as well when I was running a gameboy rom. I play around with LSDj for the gameboy. It's a music tracking program and I need to be able to hold down whatever button I've assigned 'select' to and change values on the tracker using the d-pad but the emulator doesn't recognize that I'm holding down 'select' and using the d-pad. I know for a fact that it's not an issue with the original Silver MotoQ because the other emulators I used do not have this issue. PocketGnuboy allows me to hold down select plus the d-pad and it works just fine, plus it's free. PocketNester also doesn't have issues. I've played the games that you're having issues with on PocketNester and I don't recall having a problem with holding down plus forward and pressing fire so I'm pretty sure that it's the way that SmartGear was programmed to handle the controls.

Edited September 27, 2009 by Maximum Carnage

[Guest hockeyfan]

Hi Larry,

I'm wondering if you could add a minor UI tweak to SmartGear for the next version.  Would it be possible to have the date and timestamp of the saved files  be displayed next to "SlotX" when you go to "Load" a saved game?

Right now, when you click on Load, all you see is Slot1 through Slot 5.

Is it possible to add something like:

"Slot 1 - Oct 11, 2009 - 1:03:49 PM"

"Slot 2 - October 13, 2009 - 7:42:16 AM"

and so forth?  This would help a great deal with differentiating between the different saved files for a particular game.

Thanks! :)

[Guest bitbank]

Hi Hockeyfan,

Excellent idea. I try to add this for the next release.

L.B.

[Guest Ztous]

I just have to say great program. I have a Q9h and it couldn't run pico due to the graphics problem but smartgear runs great. I hope you do a SNES emulator for smartgear in the future. You've done great so keep up the good work.

[Guest tgwaste]

another neat little feature would be a way to store the registry for smartgear to a file or something and then be able to reload it.

then you only have to do your settings once and if you reinstall or something you can get them back quickly.

right now im accomplishing this with Mortscript. if anyone is interested in this script let me know.

is SNES still a plan? :)

[Guest lion2]

Does Smartgear support GameGear codes? Are it's save states compatible with save states from PC emulators?

[Guest realaxed]

Hey Bitbank, just wanted to say that your program is really great. I also wanted to know if smartgear will ever be able to run games as fast in fullscreen mode on VGA & WVGA devices as it can for QVGA devices? About two years when I owned my little HTC vox smartgear ran great at fullscreen. Now on my Xperia X1i, with a faster cpu, games run much slower fullscreen. I know the speed issue probably has something to do with the screen size and stretching the images, but I figure most touchscreen phones are coming out with larger screens. Is there a workaround that you just haven't gotten to or maybe I just have the wrong settings.

Edited October 26, 2009 by realaxed

[Guest wryunj]

Something very strange is happening on my recently purchased JAMA 201 (320x240, no touchscreen). The emulation works fine... as long as I never press a key. If I press one - or, God forbid, press and hold a key - it starts turning into a jerky mess (completely unplayable).

I'm guessing something very odd is going on with the way this device is sending key information. Or it has some horrible key input routine which ties up the CPU; Picodrive acted in the same way (yes, I'm after a working Mega Drive emu :-) ).

Also, probably unrelated, when I tried rebinding the keys I initially pressed 'Ok' instead of enter. Doing that simply immediately changed the binding to my Ok button, except in the case where I quickly pressed another key, which resulted in the '*' being noted against that key.

EDIT: Tried a Doom on the phone. It didn't have key problems apart from the occasional 'stuck' key (missed the key up, somehow, so I had to press that key again for it to stop doing that action).

EDIT2: Hmm, it is slowing down on keypress. Just not as noticeable as in other games (tried a scrolling shooter and a platformer, both behaved like SmartGear). Looks like it's a problem with either the JAMA 201 or I have a defective phone. Annoying either way.

Edited October 27, 2009 by wryunj

[Guest fluffyvt]

Quick question. how does this save battery ram and where to? with pocketgnuboy and morphgear, it saves .sav or .save files from battery. makes it great to transfer that universal save file to pc to do codes or trading or emulator on pc gaming. i have searched everywhere on my pocket pc and could not find where it's saving the battery ram.

[Guest munozyoshi]

Hello everybody! I was going to say I am new to this webpage, but for some reason it seems I have an account open?? I tried to sign up, but turns out I already was. Talk about wierd. Well anywho, I bought a HTC touch pro 2 a while back, and I tried getting some emulators set up on it. I pretty much tried several upon discovering smartgear... and I love it!! I pretty much like it to play my nes classics, like pacman and galaga, which look beauuuuuutiful on the 3.6 inch screen on my TP2. I am looking forward to any progress on the genesis portion, because the graphics look awesome, but it lags significantly.

I have to say that this emulator is great! I have used other emulators on my old smartphones, such as my HTC dash. But this emulator is really nice, something about having several emulators in one app is sweet. I know there are other users with the HTC TP2. Have any of you tested the gameboy and gameboy color emus? I haven't gotten around to that. What are your results with this particular phone?

See you all later! I'm off to play some galaga. I haven't gotten past level 15...

[Guest tgwaste]

Hello everybody! I was going to say I am new to this webpage, but for some reason it seems I have an account open?? I tried to sign up, but turns out I already was. Talk about wierd. Well anywho, I bought a HTC touch pro 2 a while back, and I tried getting some emulators set up on it. I pretty much tried several upon discovering smartgear... and I love it!! I pretty much like it to play my nes classics, like pacman and galaga, which look beauuuuuutiful on the 3.6 inch screen on my TP2. I am looking forward to any progress on the genesis portion, because the graphics look awesome, but it lags significantly.

I have to say that this emulator is great! I have used other emulators on my old smartphones, such as my HTC dash. But this emulator is really nice, something about having several emulators in one app is sweet. I know there are other users with the HTC TP2. Have any of you tested the gameboy and gameboy color emus? I haven't gotten around to that. What are your results with this particular phone?

See you all later! I'm off to play some galaga. I haven't gotten past level 15...

i have the TP2 as well and smartgear gameboy stuff works like a dream. the only kind of bug ive found is that you have to open smarthgear in Portrait mode and THEN slide out the keyboard in order for the controls to work properly, but ive gotten used to it. games do look great on this screen. :D

[Guest munozyoshi]

Thanks for the response! Yeah I've noticed that you have to stay in portrait... AND THEN slide out the screen. But that's no problem. I'm off to get me some good gameboy games. I'm so excited hehe.

[Guest jeiyuu]

Larry,

I know it may take some time, but I hope with the next update you consider on-screen controls. There are still a good handful of users that do not have adequate hardware keys Vogue/Diamond/Touch HD. Nevertheless, keep up the great work!

[Guest roy_drage]

Picked up SmartGear emulator last night. Works beautifully on my HTC Rose /S740, with the slide out keyboard the whole thing works great and looks ace as well!

Considering it's an emulator for multiple platforms, all rolled in to one, and it works better then any other I tried, I had to get it.

Very good work to the developer and I highly recommend it, looking forward to SNES being added as well.

Edited November 3, 2009 by roy_drage

[Guest Dybenko]

hello :)

I have take the free version of Smartgear for try, and i think that is the best gbc emu for wm 6.1

My problem is the sound that is disturbed!

My phone is a samsung c6620 non touchscreen whit wm 6.1 (i think similar to blackjack).

[Guest tgwaste]

just a small suggestion for the next release (if there is going to be one :)). can you make the quick save/load slot save to file .sv0 instead of one of the menu'd slots?

still happily playing smartgear on my touch pro 2.. still praying for SNES. :D

[Guest TheElf]

Hi!first sorry my bad eng<img>ish, im Spanish. I downloaded latest version of smartgear (http://www.bitbanksoftware.com/SmartGear.html) 1.1.6

My cellphone is a Toshiba G810, QVGA .

Smartgear open, and i can load a rom. (i try NES, GG roms), i hear the music, but black screen. But when i tap and the emulators is paused, i can see the game image!! like a screenshot. The same problem in portrait and landscape mode.

I try all options, GDI, etc no luck

But i think the emu works great, because the sound have no skiping, and in landscape mode, the keys of the phone are very well recognized

Only that i cannot see nothing that black screen

Thanxs!

(sorry my english)

Hi, time ago posted this problem of Smartgear and Toshiba portege G810.

I want to give more info. I have same problem (sound, but black screen) in many emulators and games, but if the emulator have a option of "gapi" video, all works OK.

In pocketcult mame, i have the same problem of smartgear, sound ok, but black video. But if i chose the "force GAPI" option, the emu works great.

A GAPI video option in smartgear would be great!!

Edited November 27, 2009 by TheElf

[Guest ScreamingFalcon]

Sadly, though it was barely working on my Moto Q9c, now the program refuses to work at all on my new HTC Ozone. it doesn't detect any button presses on the keyboard. Any possiblity on a fix for this?

[Guest bitbank]

Larry,

I know it may take some time, but I hope with the next update you consider on-screen controls. There are still a good handful of users that do not have adequate hardware keys Vogue/Diamond/Touch HD. Nevertheless, keep up the great work!

I just bought a T-Mobile Touch Pro 2 (Rhodium). I have mixed feelings about it, but I'm trying to use it as my daily phone to force me to improve SmartGear and other apps for it. I'll add a better on-screen control setup. What makes it more challenging is that not all of the 4 physical buttons on the front of the phone don't work properly for gaming. I tried using the G-Sensor for controlling games, but it's just too difficult to use for most games. Does anyone have experience using the Zeemote bluetooth controller with this phone? Does it response quickly or is there noticeable lag?

Here's my feelings about the TP2:

good:

Large display

browsing the web

viewing photos

typing on the keyboard

watching youtube and other videos

bad:

Using the phone - dialing and managing the calls with the touchscreen truly sucks

Size/weight - the thing feels like carrying around a brick in your pocket

No d-pad :)

I've got the "EnergyROM wm6.5" on there and it's got lots of strange problems. When T-Mobile USA releases a rom update I'll use that because the "cooked" ones are full of strange problems.

[Guest bitbank]

(sorry my english)

Hi, time ago posted this problem of Smartgear and Toshiba portege G810.

I want to give more info. I have same problem (sound, but black screen) in many emulators and games, but if the emulator have a option of "gapi" video, all works OK.

In pocketcult mame, i have the same problem of smartgear, sound ok, but black video. But if i chose the "force GAPI" option, the emu works great.

A GAPI video option in smartgear would be great!!

GAPI stopped working properly in WM6 and newer devices. I use the "RAWFRAMEBUFFER" method and you have the option of using GDI (BitBlt). I'll double check that the GDI method is working. Those 2 methods are really all that should be needed to display properly on most devices. Usually using the deprecated GAPI functions produces strange results because it doesn't report the proper video resolution, but I have seen devices (e.g. HP 2190) which behave the way you describe. Try using the GDI option and if that doesn't work, I'll see if I can fix it in another way.

L.B.

Edited December 26, 2009 by bitbank