Sega GG + Nintendo GameBoy emulator for SP beta test

[Guest mikeeey]

Awesome, thanks.

I did some extensive testing on Turbografx games. One thing I'm definitely impressed by - is that this program seems to have the best compatibility with TG16 and PCEngine games. There was only one game - Samurai Ghost, that this program couldn't run - but XPCE could. Usually, it was the other way around. Everything else ran more consistently and faster than Morphgear and XPCE. Except for Legendary Axe 2 - for some reason, that game's painfully slow.

There's two things I wish could be improved.

1) The screen stretch is horrible at 90 degrees and 270 degrees. I rotate my screen to landscape mode so I can use my keyboard as buttons. That means I need the screen to be viewed at 90 degrees. Altering the size of the screen seems to do nothing. The top of the game screen wraps around to the bottom, so the image is badly split. At 270 degrees, things look a little better - or else I see nothing at all, the screen (as with Ninja Spirit) goes totally black.

2) What would set this emulator apart would be if you could configure buttons independently to Autofire (turbo). Masterall's done it with FinalBurn - but that'll set all your buttons to turbo. Certain games on TG16 are really only enjoyable if you can use this feature like you could with the actual hardware.

Overall I'm impressed with the performance. However, I wouldn't play it regularly unless the screen rotate and stretch could be solved. If that were done, and the "autofire" function were added - I'd be overjoyed. :-)

Great Job on this emulator!

remember, bitbank completely re made the code and is gonna release the newest version soon. it will have much more inprovement and im sure a lot of this will be fixed

[Guest dario69]

I'm glad you asked...

I've been busy with other projects, but SmartGear is still moving forward nicely. I've totally rewritten my 68K, 6502 and Z80 emulators as well as many of the core graphics routines. The new code is amazingly fast. On my old MPX200 (the slowest SmartPhone ever released), my new GameGear code can run at over 120fps with 44Khz stereo sound enabled and no frameskip. With a frameskip of one, it would be possible to run my GameGear code at full speed with sound on an ARM device running at less than 33Mhz. Genesis is running quite fast, except for the YM2610; I'll be working on that soon. If you want to see how it looks before it's finished, I could be convinced to release the current code once I fix a few more bugs.

L.B.

How much convincing do you need? You should know your emu is probably the best one out there right now. When I saw Gunstar Heroes running at full speed on my Dash I was a believer. I am interested in seeing more Genesis games running at full speed on such a slow device - compared to my older PPCs that ran at much faster speeds. Thanks for keeping the old stuff alive.

[Guest PolloLoco]

remember, bitbank completely re made the code and is gonna release the newest version soon. it will have much more inprovement and im sure a lot of this will be fixed

I know - I'm just providing some feedback so he knows what we'll expect in the next build. By the way - were you able to get ANY Genesis games to show on this current build? I currently use Pico Drive so it's no big deal, but I was under the impression Genesis would generally work for Smartgear.

[Guest mikeeey]

I know - I'm just providing some feedback so he knows what we'll expect in the next build. By the way - were you able to get ANY Genesis games to show on this current build? I currently use Pico Drive so it's no big deal, but I was under the impression Genesis would generally work for Smartgear.

why yes i have. genesis does work on smartgear. ive played some games and with sound off they work fine. for u they dont even show up? are u sure it's genesis games your using?

[Guest PolloLoco]

why yes i have. genesis does work on smartgear. ive played some games and with sound off they work fine. for u they dont even show up? are u sure it's genesis games your using?

Yep. It's really weird. I've played them all using Pico Drive and MorphGear. But when I open that folder (about 50 games) - none of them show up to be selected. I know I have the most recent version of Smartgear - so it's weird.

[Guest mikeeey]

Yep. It's really weird. I've played them all using Pico Drive and MorphGear. But when I open that folder (about 50 games) - none of them show up to be selected. I know I have the most recent version of Smartgear - so it's weird.

idk how different the pocket pc version of smartgear is but is there something at the top that lets u choose the file types? like tgetfile does on picodrive?

[Guest PolloLoco]

idk how different the pocket pc version of smartgear is but is there something at the top that lets u choose the file types? like tgetfile does on picodrive?

Nope. With Smartgear, it'll open up any file it recognizes. It's worked beautifully with everything but Genesis games. I'm really confused as to why that is.

[Guest mikeeey]

Nope. With Smartgear, it'll open up any file it recognizes. It's worked beautifully with everything but Genesis games. I'm really confused as to why that is.

even more weird, smartgear for me sees EVERYTHING. no it wont play everything, but it will see it. i can select gba, snes, mame, neogeo, anything. but most of that itl just say "unrecognized file" the rest will act like its gonna do something and itl quit the program. do u have ur genesis roms zipped?

[Guest PolloLoco]

even more weird, smartgear for me sees EVERYTHING. no it wont play everything, but it will see it. i can select gba, snes, mame, neogeo, anything. but most of that itl just say "unrecognized file" the rest will act like its gonna do something and itl quit the program. do u have ur genesis roms zipped?

Nope. :-) Mine doesn't see everything either. That's really odd. I'm not going to worry about it until the updated version comes out. I can't really play it until the screen rotate/stretch issues are fixed.

[Guest bitbank]

Nope. :-) Mine doesn't see everything either. That's really odd. I'm not going to worry about it until the updated version comes out. I can't really play it until the screen rotate/stretch issues are fixed.

PolloLoco,

The file selector looks for the following extensions: *.GG, *.GB, *.GBC, *.SMS, *.NES, *.PCE, *.ZIP. I didn't add BIN because there are many non-game files which use that file extension.

All of your games should be in ZIP files; there's no reason to waste disk space with uncompressed files. Games within zip files will be recognized for all supported emulators.

I'm not sure what you mean by the screen rotate/stretch issue. I fully support all stretch modes at 0 and 270 degrees angles. This covers all devices (portrait and landscape) at all resolutions. What device are you using and how do you want to view the image?

L.B.

[Guest PolloLoco]

PolloLoco,

The file selector looks for the following extensions: *.GG, *.GB, *.GBC, *.SMS, *.NES, *.PCE, *.ZIP. I didn't add BIN because there are many non-game files which use that file extension.

All of your games should be in ZIP files; there's no reason to waste disk space with uncompressed files. Games within zip files will be recognized for all supported emulators.

I'm not sure what you mean by the screen rotate/stretch issue. I fully support all stretch modes at 0 and 270 degrees angles. This covers all devices (portrait and landscape) at all resolutions. What device are you using and how do you want to view the image?

L.B.

Thanks for the reply BitBank. I just checked, and all of my genesis games are in BIN and SMD formats.

As to the screen rotate/stretch - as I posted above, I run any game at an orientation of 90 - which is important for me since I have a 6700 with the keyboard to the left of the screen. When I do so, for some reason, the top portion of the screen wraps around to the bottom. It's almost like the screen rotated off-center. In otherwords, if there's a power meter that's supposed to be at the top of the screen - that's now on the bottom, and everything else is shifted up.

If I rotate to 270 (opposite side), then usually there's less of a shift - but sometimes (in the case of ninja spirit for the TG16) nothing will show up instead.

I've tried to change screen size to alleviate the issue, but that seems to have no effect at all. My 6700 is a QVGA screen, WM5 device.

Having that work - is critical to my wanting to use this software. I'd be very happy. I'd be overjoyed, however, if you could install an autofire feature like in the original TG16 hardware.

[Guest mikeeey]

Thanks for the reply BitBank. I just checked, and all of my genesis games are in BIN and SMD formats.

As to the screen rotate/stretch - as I posted above, I run any game at an orientation of 90 - which is important for me since I have a 6700 with the keyboard to the left of the screen. When I do so, for some reason, the top portion of the screen wraps around to the bottom. It's almost like the screen rotated off-center. In otherwords, if there's a power meter that's supposed to be at the top of the screen - that's now on the bottom, and everything else is shifted up.

If I rotate to 270 (opposite side), then usually there's less of a shift - but sometimes (in the case of ninja spirit for the TG16) nothing will show up instead.

I've tried to change screen size to alleviate the issue, but that seems to have no effect at all. My 6700 is a QVGA screen, WM5 device.

Having that work - is critical to my wanting to use this software. I'd be very happy. I'd be overjoyed, however, if you could install an autofire feature like in the original TG16 hardware.

polloloco thats what i was trying to say, your roms need to be zipped.

[Guest mikeeey]

hey larry. sry if i sound impacient but when will your next realease be? im really eager to trying your newest version

[Guest bitbank]

Thanks for clarifying things Pollo, I have only been using smartphones to test SmartGear and hadn't noticed the lack of support for sliding keyboard devices. The 90 degree support was totally broken and I'm in the process of finishing the display code so that all size options are available in all directions. Unfortunately because of the way memory access works, drawing on the display in the "wrong" direction slows things down, but my latest code is faster so they sort of cancel each other out.

I'll release a new SmartGear when it at least properly supports the 90 degree orientation.

Other news is that I've just released Space Invaders Trilogy for SmartPhone and Pocket PC on Handango. This is a fully licensed emulation of Taito's Space Invaders, Space Invaders Pt 2 and Return of the Invaders. You can try it for free here:

Space Invaders Trilogy for PPC

Space Invaders Trilogy for SmartPhone

Enjoy,

L.B.

P.S. I just added the "rapid-fire / turbo" feature. You select which button (A,B,C). It works well and repeats at a rate of 15 shots per second. Is this basically the correct speed? Anyone have knowledge of how the TG16 did it?

Edited May 3, 2007 by bitbank

[Guest PolloLoco]

Thanks for clarifying things Pollo, I have only been using smartphones to test SmartGear and hadn't noticed the lack of support for sliding keyboard devices. The 90 degree support was totally broken and I'm in the process of finishing the display code so that all size options are available in all directions. Unfortunately because of the way memory access works, drawing on the display in the "wrong" direction slows things down, but my latest code is faster so they sort of cancel each other out.

I'll release a new SmartGear when it at least properly supports the 90 degree orientation.

Other news is that I've just released Space Invaders Trilogy for SmartPhone and Pocket PC on Handango. This is a fully licensed emulation of Taito's Space Invaders, Space Invaders Pt 2 and Return of the Invaders. You can try it for free here:

Space Invaders Trilogy for PPC

Space Invaders Trilogy for SmartPhone

Enjoy,

L.B.

P.S. I just added the "rapid-fire / turbo" feature. You select which button (A,B,C). It works well and repeats at a rate of 15 shots per second. Is this basically the correct speed? Anyone have knowledge of how the TG16 did it?

Wow! You've just made my day! Masterall had done that for ALL fire buttons, but the way you've done it is going to be useful for MANY games across systems. I'm not sure how fast the TG16 actually turbofired, but I'll be glad to test. I can't wait to use the new version.

Edited May 3, 2007 by PolloLoco

[Guest mikeeey]

Thanks for clarifying things Pollo, I have only been using smartphones to test SmartGear and hadn't noticed the lack of support for sliding keyboard devices. The 90 degree support was totally broken and I'm in the process of finishing the display code so that all size options are available in all directions. Unfortunately because of the way memory access works, drawing on the display in the "wrong" direction slows things down, but my latest code is faster so they sort of cancel each other out.

I'll release a new SmartGear when it at least properly supports the 90 degree orientation.

Other news is that I've just released Space Invaders Trilogy for SmartPhone and Pocket PC on Handango. This is a fully licensed emulation of Taito's Space Invaders, Space Invaders Pt 2 and Return of the Invaders. You can try it for free here:

Space Invaders Trilogy for PPC

Space Invaders Trilogy for SmartPhone

Enjoy,

L.B.

P.S. I just added the "rapid-fire / turbo" feature. You select which button (A,B,C). It works well and repeats at a rate of 15 shots per second. Is this basically the correct speed? Anyone have knowledge of how the TG16 did it?

lol yea ive tried that 90 degree orentation on my sda but i thought it wasnt working maybe because i was using a smartphone and not a pocket pc, but i guess that wasnt the case. well im glad to hear its really close to being done.

nice job on the space invaders game btw

[Guest Svoms]

Where do I get a code to register? I can only play for 4 minutes.. :rolleyes:

[Guest bitbank]

SmartGear 0.24 is finally out. Lots of important fixes and performance improvements. The registration key has changed so old registered users will have to re-register. All people who have sent valid bug reports, please email me your owner name for a registration code.

Sorry, still no installer; here's the contents of the readme.txt:

Smartgear 0.24 Readme

Changes for 0.24 - 5/7/2007

---------------------------

This release includes several important fixes and general performance improvement

for all games. Genesis has sped up dramatically, but I have disabled the FM sound

until I can rewrite it to be more efficient. Here are the major changes:

0) Fixed Samsung Blackjack "double-bar" problem.

1) Sped up all graphics routines

2) Added support for 90 degree rotated display.

3) Rewrote Z80 and 68K for improved speed (Genesis + GG/SMS)

4) Added rapid fire (turbo) support (see settings dialog).

5) Rewrote security model to be harder to hack and changed the encrption key.

6) Fixed WM5 display to hide the SIP.

7) Fixed key definition dialog (previously you got stuck on smartphones)

8) Added "C" button support for Genesis games.

9) Fixed the file open dialog to make best use of the available space.

10) Added Sleep() to timing loop to save battery life on fast machines.

11) Fixed volume level to be saved/restored

Please keep sending bug reports and comments.

You can download it from the Modaco link or from my website:

Smartgear.zip

Thanks,

Larry Bank

[email protected]

smartgear.zip

[Guest nothin]

if its working for 4 minutes, how i am supposed to test it for errors and troubles..:P

(erm..forget it, testin :rolleyes: ... )

Edited May 8, 2007 by nothin

[Guest PolloLoco]

Wow. This is an impressive release. Larry - I'm going to e-mail you in a few minutes.

I can say without a doubt that this is the best emulator for Turbographx 16 that exists for a PPC or a smartphone. The compatibility is far better than anything I've tried. There's only 3 games I've tried that play with any bugs. Legendary Axe 2 plays as if it's in slow motion for some reason (XPCE plays it perfectly) - and Ninja Spirit still has some screen rotation issues. I can't get any emulator to play Rastan Saga II past the start screen - but that's no big deal.

I've played some SMS and Nintendo games, and they seem to play perfect - Great Work! I'll test some Genesis games and get back to you - I'm curious to see if this might be more compatible than Masterall's Pico Drive. I know I tried to play Castlevania Bloodlines all the way through - but some of the graphics features were invisible on his emu, so I had to stop near the end. Unfortunately - I wouldn't be able to test that unless I got a registration that allowed me to play past 4 minutes.

The only way you could have incorporated autofire better - would have been a check mark next to each button, A, B and C. That would allow multiple turbo buttons as needed. But I won't complain - because as is, this is the best I've seen done. I can finally play Bonk's Adventure as it was meant to be played. :-)

[Guest PolloLoco]

OK - I have some sound problem reports.

Genesis - I can't get sound to work on any game yet. In Altered Beast the only sound I hear is that of Zeus's voice commanding you to rise from your grave. Everything else is silent except for when Zeus's voice speaks again. On all other games, all I get are random crackles and pops. Anyone else see this?

Turbographx - Very very minor. Maybe related to the Genesis problems. The sound randomly breaks up, loses fidelity. Most notable during Splatterhouse - where the sound breaks up and loses sync with the action. It's still very playable, just not perfect.

[Guest kcazretsof]

My games look great and seem to play fine. I have one problem though, for some reason on my Motorola Q, the screen is upside down. I have the settings at "Orientation: 0" and "Video Size: Fit2Win". If I set the orientation to 90 or 270, it turns it sideways. Is there a setting I am missing, or is this a glitch with the Q's?

[Guest bitbank]

My games look great and seem to play fine. I have one problem though, for some reason on my Motorola Q, the screen is upside down. I have the settings at "Orientation: 0" and "Video Size: Fit2Win". If I set the orientation to 90 or 270, it turns it sideways. Is there a setting I am missing, or is this a glitch with the Q's?

Sorry about that. My graphics fixes broke the Q and I forgot to retest on that device. I just fixed it and uploaded a new zip file, please try it again.

Pollo,

The sounds in Genesis are only DAC and SN76496 for now (no YM2610). This means that most games will have just a few beeps and boops. I'll add the YM2610 back when I've optimized it more.

L.B.

smartgear.zip

[Guest Radeon12345]

I seem to have a problem when running the smartgear with the screen orientation at 270 and fit to window on my SPV E650, sound works ok but I get no picture, yet running it in portrait mode or the orientation at 90 everything works fine :rolleyes:

Also, how can I activate the program :P

[Guest mikeeey]

Sorry about that. My graphics fixes broke the Q and I forgot to retest on that device. I just fixed it and uploaded a new zip file, please try it again.

Pollo,

The sounds in Genesis are only DAC and SN76496 for now (no YM2610). This means that most games will have just a few beeps and boops. I'll add the YM2610 back when I've optimized it more.

L.B.

works great! everything seems to work fine so far, the no YM610 thing, and it looks like not all of the graphics are displaying or displaying properly on genesis. o and the first time i tried to launch a genesis game the program exited, not sure what made it do that. il see if i can figure it out.

gameboy works great tho, havent tried anything else yet.