Hacking NDSSFC/CATSFC revival

What sort of additional hotkeys do you want?


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BassAceGold

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Thanks, that did the trick!

It's kinda weird though, I was doing all the other versions of CATSFC with ARG loading just fine with the PLG in the plugin folder.

It was a newer addition to 1.29 or 1.28. But now you can move the entire CATSFC folder to the plugin folder using the ARG loading method since the folder is found based on the path of the .plg file.

If the path to the plugin is:
/_ds2plug/snesStuff/catsfc.plg

CATSFC will look for all its settings folders in /_ds2plug/snesStuff/ as if the snesStuff directory was the CATSFC directory.
 

Boriar

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Has CATSFC Extlink support?

Edit: Also, can you incorporate pictograms (like *A) for UP, DOWN, LEFT and DOWN?
 

Killermech

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Still getting the load state bug on the sound (left speaker, turns up the volume and gives out a distorted / crackling sound) in the new version.
I've tried different things to possibly finding a workaround like loading up save states with mute, then turning on the sound etc. But to no success I'm afraid.
 
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I've got a friend translating this into Japanese, hopefully I can figure out how to commit the translation otherwise I might just PM the result through to you Nebuleon, if that's ok. I don't know how long he'll be. I'm MasterofWaves on GitHub (I just created the account now :P)
 

Deleted member 319809

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Has CATSFC Extlink support?

Edit: Also, can you incorporate pictograms (like *A) for UP, DOWN, LEFT and DOWN?
What is an extlink?

Are the directions needed in the interface somewhere?

Still getting the load state bug on the sound (left speaker, turns up the volume and gives out a distorted / crackling sound) in the new version.
I've tried different things to possibly finding a workaround like loading up save states with mute, then turning on the sound etc. But to no success I'm afraid.
I do not experience this. Which game?

I've got a friend translating this into Japanese, hopefully I can figure out how to commit the translation otherwise I might just PM the result through to you Nebuleon, if that's ok. I don't know how long he'll be. I'm MasterofWaves on GitHub (I just created the account now :P)
Oo, Japanese. Excellent! I might just be missing a lot of hiragana and katakana though, and I'm not sure at all about the kanji.
 

BassAceGold

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Has CATSFC Extlink support?

Edit: Also, can you incorporate pictograms (like *A) for UP, DOWN, LEFT and DOWN?

CATSFC does not have EXTLink support. It grabs its launch parameters from the plgargs.dat file created by BAGPlug and iMenu/whatever other menu happens to create the file.
 

Killermech

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I do not experience this. Which game?

Oh I'm sorry, the only game I've used save states in so far is in Aladdin (U). So I assumed it was a problem with all games.
I tried it out on some of the games I had and they worked properly except:
Aladdin (U)
Mega Man X (1.1) (U)
Demon's Crest (U)

At first I thought it was just an issue with Capcom games. But Final Fight and Knight's of the round worked fine.
 

Boriar

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What is an extlink?

Are the directions needed in the interface somewhere?

EXTLinks are like arg parameters in BAGPlug/iMenu but for Moonshell2, but also BAGplug i can remember that support it

CATSFC does not have EXTLink support. It grabs its launch parameters from the plgargs.dat file created by BAGPlug and iMenu/whatever other menu happens to create the file.

May be too dificult to implement on CATSFC? I still use MS2 very often.
 

Deleted member 319809

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Oh I'm sorry, the only game I've used save states in so far is in Aladdin (U). So I assumed it was a problem with all games.
I tried it out on some of the games I had and they worked properly except:
Aladdin (U)
Mega Man X (1.1) (U)
Demon's Crest (U)

At first I thought it was just an issue with Capcom games. But Final Fight and Knight's of the round worked fine.
That might be down to the SPC700 save-state restoration code having bugs. Porting a version above Snes9x 1.43 into the code would solve a lot of problems, but 1.53 might not run as well on a DSTwo as well as on a PC... plus, 1.53 has loads of C++ that the DS2 SDK chokes on. I discussed this somewhat already from post #81 onwards, if you want a refresher or just haven't seen that part. :)

Additionally, as mentioned in the Snes9x 1.52 change log:
- IMPORTANT NOTICE: The structure of savestates (also known
as snapshots / freeze files) is incompatible with older
versions! Snes9x 1.52 cannot read the savestates created
by 1.51 or older. (zones)

So then, one would need to create a compatibility layer between the old and new save formats, allowing the "old APU" saved states to be restored with suitable variables in Blargg's SPC emulation, otherwise the problem becomes worse than garbled sound - it becomes loss altogether of your saved states.
 

Boriar

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Can MoonShell 2 launch .plg files?
Nop, that's a different way to launch files within Moonshell2 (MS2) like if the emulator will be a plugin.
MS2 is the OS (ala BAGplug), you lauch a .smc file and ms2 launch catsfc with the selected file like an argument.
 

Deleted member 319809

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Nop, that's a different way to launch files within Moonshell2 (MS2) like if the emulator will be a plugin.
MS2 is the OS (ala BAGplug), you lauch a .smc file and ms2 launch catsfc with the selected file like an argument.
Yeah, I know that, but in the course of looking for a suitable application for a file, will MoonShell 2 (DS code) be aware of the fact that it's running on a DSTwo and correctly launch CATSFC (MIPS code)?
 

Diego Liberal

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The emulator is working fantastic now, near all my games are perfect :D
But unfortunately all the Megamen X games are very slow, skips too many frames to the point you get hit by shot/enemies without seeing happening :(

I hope with time and code optimizations it gets better *crosses fingers* :)
 

Boriar

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Yeah, I know that, but in the course of looking for a suitable application for a file, will MoonShell 2 (DS code) be aware of the fact that it's running on a DSTwo and correctly launch CATSFC (MIPS code)?
That's beyond my knowledge and catsfc will be the first homebrew for ds2 to try it. BAGplug can use that system also, may be a good OS for testing
 

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The emulator is working fantastic now, near all my games are perfect :D
But unfortunately all the Megamen X games are very slow, skips too many frames to the point you get hit by shot/enemies without seeing happening :(

I hope with time and code optimizations it gets better *crosses fingers* :)
At least now that I know the DSTwo-DS communication problems are solved, that's less shaky code to base more optimisations on. However, what I would like to see right now are:
* fixing crashers (like >512-file directories, needs more dynamic memory allocation and the file selector code is a mess) and testing for file corruption (/CATSFC/gamerts had corrupted-named files in it before 1.29, but BassAceGold's filesystem access code is in now so it may improve);
* game compatibility for the esoteric game types and memory maps (SuFaMi Turbo, Satellaview, jumbo ROMs, etc.), as well as a proper way to specify BIOSes for those cart-in-cart games;
* game compatibility for heavily audio- or timing-dependent games (such as BS Zelda no Densetsu not booting);
* fixing audio glitches that come up every so often, including the saved-state audio bug (try this one: load BS Zelda no Densetsu, watch it not draw anything for a few seconds, then load Secret of Mana and listen to its intro);
* translations to even more languages.

It just so happens that a lot of the esoteric game support and audio stuff was added or fixed in later Snes9x versions, so what I really need now is some porters - people willing to look at later Snes9x code and integrate pieces of it into CATSFC as is needed to improve game compatibility. The porters could very well dump entire files from Snes9x into CATSFC, overwriting DS2-specific optimisations I've made over Snes9x 1.43, for all I care. Optimisations are easy to redo. First, make it work (compile and run correctly), then make it work well (run correctly and fast).
 

BassAceGold

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That's beyond my knowledge and catsfc will be the first homebrew for ds2 to try it. BAGplug can use that system also, may be a good OS for testing

Moonshell needs to be able to launch supercard plugins, which it can't, for extlink to be of use. CATSFC could be made to load something using extlink, but then you'd need something to boot the plugin after moonshell creates the file.
 

2ndApex

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I saw from the other SDK thread that the DSTWO can go above lvl 5 clock speeds now, will higher speeds ever be implemented into CATSFC?
 

Deleted member 319809

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I saw from the other SDK thread that the DSTWO can go above lvl 5 clock speeds now, will higher speeds ever be implemented into CATSFC?
That stuff's highly unstable, and if proper safeguards are not in place (such as telling the user that his/her game exited abnormally last time and offering to return to CPU 5), a faulty CPU speed may end up being selected by game configuration files for all future runthroughs until the user deletes the file. And for some reason, some of those higher CPU speeds run slower than the nominal 360 MHz - must be memory timings.
 

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