Hacking TempGBA: NDSGBA revival

[Deleted member 319809]

Replying inline in bold.

• Going into some menus sets the cursor to the back button, while going into other menus sets the cursor to the first item in the list, providing inconsistency in the placement as well in the face that when it starts on the back button you need to hit B twice to back out, whereas if it starts on a normal menu item you only need to hit B once to back out.
  Neb: I don't really see that happening, but I'll investigate when I'm up to GUI modifications.
  
• In Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon, pressing Select to bring up the map causes graphical issues during the transitions in and out. I took some screenshots... but the screenshots I took during the graphical issue all came out blank! The ones showing the screen before I accessed the map, and the map itself came out fine.
  
  Neb: Might be a gpSP core issue. I'll investigate that after the GUI.
  
• The audio does sound a bit better when fast-forwarding, the poppiness isn't ear-killing, but if it's going to be a hassle for you or the system I can just turn the volume down when fast-forwarding to avoid it.
  Neb: That's the best I can do without forcing fast-forward to sync its sound, which slows down the rate of fast-forwarding. It discards audio if it's being emitted faster than the DS can play it, but I preserve 8 buffers worth to prevent the bubbly sound. If I preserve any more, it's like fast-forward isn't even there anymore.
  
• Frameskip... how does "Keep up with the game" judge things? It seems to consistently set it to 1-in-3, whereas most games seem to run fine at 1-in-2 (judging on the lack of audio skipping/popping). Is 1-in-3 just default to avoid the whole invisible-while-flashing thing that 1-in-2 creates?
  Neb: What you said is correct. Auto frameskip is forced to be 2 or above, never below. I think it's for the flashing, yeah, but the input may be skipped if the DSTwo-DS link is congested and frameskip is 1 or 0, much like CATSFC.
  
• In Wario Land 4, when you hit the frog switch in each level, everything gets terrible slowdown and lag, almost to the point where the game is unplayable. I recorded a video at frameskip 0 on purpose just to show the speed difference before and after hitting the switch in a level. This is the intro level where you only need to deal with the effect for a few seconds, but in some levels you need to play upwards of 3/4ths of the level with the effect going.
  
  Neb: Ouch. Well, you can set the CPU clock to [5] 396 MHz, and see if that will do anything. Or keep the frameskip on auto. Is it still bad on auto?
  
  
• Could some FPS counter option be added?
  Displayed / Rendered / Real
  Or
  Displayed
  Rendered
  Real
  Neb: I think all frames are rendered that are displayed, and vice versa. See this code:
  

            if(to_skip >= SKIP_RATE)
              update_scanline();
  /* later... */
              if(to_skip >= SKIP_RATE)
              {
                  flip_gba_screen();
                  to_skip= 0;
              }
              else
                to_skip ++;

  It "flips" the upper screen if frameskip isn't cutting the current frame, which is a fancy way of saying that the DSTwo sends the DS those screens. It's also stopping rendering of a frame if frameskip is cutting it. I'll look into adding a FPS counter option in the beta.

[...]

 

[Rydian]

• Video & Audio starts at the back button, Options starts at the first option (CPU speed). Looks like needing to hit B twice to go back is related to the input timing/missing issue? It only happens sometimes when a ROM isn't loaded.
  
  
• Yay.
  
  
• I prefer more speed over sound for fast-forward anyways.
  
  
• Alright.
  
  
• That was at CPU 5, auto frameskip negates the slowdown for the most part, of course by making the video pretty choppy.
  
  
• Yay again.

 

[2ndApex]

Can we switch TempGBA over to a more normal naming convention in the TempGBA folder like "Roms" and "Screenshots" instead of the weird "gamepak" and "gamepic" thing it's using right now?

I have the same request torwards CATSFC, and it's not that big of a deal but I'm sure why folders were named like that in the first place.

 

[Deleted member 319809]

For technical reasons I'd rather not start using long file names for folders on the card, like your example of 'Screenshots'. In my opinion, that's like asking for your card to be torn to pieces by corruption.

Perhaps GAMES, SCREENS, CHEATS and SAVES, all of which fit in 8.3?

 

[DiabloStorm]

For technical reasons I'd rather not start using long file names for folders on the card, like your example of 'Screenshots'. In my opinion, that's like asking for your card to be torn to pieces by corruption.

Perhaps GAMES, SCREENS, CHEATS and SAVES, all of which fit in 8.3?

Or just "Pics" instead of screens

 

[2ndApex]

For technical reasons I'd rather not start using long file names for folders on the card, like your example of 'Screenshots'. In my opinion, that's like asking for your card to be torn to pieces by corruption.

Perhaps GAMES, SCREENS, CHEATS and SAVES, all of which fit in 8.3?

Yeah, that's the idea.

 

[Maverick Lunar X]

version ALPHA 5

official mascot of this version:

is there a compatibility chart that I missed? I assume its the same as 1.30.

 

[Deleted member 319809]

By Wednesday, if no one has reported any save (either .sav or saved state) corruption issues or bad preservations of settings for games or the emulator, I'll begin making beta versions with GUI changes. Beta 1 will have the new folder structure and I'll start posting the beta releases on Filetrip, indexed in the right category.

 

[Deleted member 319809]

official mascot of this version:

is there a compatibility chart that I missed? I assume its the same as 1.30.

It's the same as 1.30, yes. However, with TempGBA you can use game_config.txt, which you couldn't in NDSGBA 1.30 (but could in 1.21 (?!)), so you can refer to the game_config.txt column of the compatibility list.

 

[Maverick Lunar X]

ah, I had thought the game_config.txt was also used in 1.30. Thanks!

 

[SuzieJoeBob]

Don't know yet, haven't found its code.

Alright guys, I want to get everyone's opinion on something.

Should I hook in rewinding, given that I also plan to have a quick save-state hotkey? Rewinding is essentially a special case of save state creation, and if the player can control when a saved state is made and loaded very quickly, rewinding may be less essential.

Edit: I'll also hook rapid fire along with all the other button remapping options later, because rapid fire is a special case of button remapping and I want to redo how it's presented in the user interface.

I would say to just make a temporary save-state, then press a hotkey to load that save-state. Just make sure the coding only deletes the save when the system is turned off, not after 1 reload.

 

[Deleted member 319809]

I would say to just make a temporary save-state, then press a hotkey to load that save-state. Just make sure the coding only deletes the save when the system is turned off, not after 1 reload.

This thread moves really quickly; for your information I'll say that rewinding is already copy-pasted from NDSGBA 1.21 and creates saved states in the DSTwo's memory

 

[Mikesahhh]

I just quickly tried out your alpha 5 and very impressive stuff! couple things though
1. Whilsting rewinding in TempGBA it doesnt show as many images whilst its doing it compared to NDSGBA, is it possible to load more images whilst its rewinding?
It makes it easier to know exactly when to stop rewinding then. Dunno how to word this question exactly so hopefully that made enough sense
2. Can Fast Foward be added to a global hotkey same as rewind e.g L+X or something for quicker/easier access to this function

 

[Deleted member 319809]

I just quickly tried out your alpha 5 and very impressive stuff! couple things though
1. Whilsting rewinding in TempGBA it doesnt show as many images whilst its doing it compared to NDSGBA, is it possible to load more images whilst its rewinding?
It makes it easier to know exactly when to stop rewinding then. Dunno how to word this question exactly so hopefully that made enough sense
2. Can Fast Foward be added to a global hotkey same as rewind e.g L+X or something for quicker/easier access to this function

1. You can set the amount of time it rewinds per keypress in the Tools menu. Beware: only 14 rewinds fit in memory, so if you set it to rewind fewer seconds per press, you'll also have fewer total seconds to rewind.
2. That'll come in the beta. For now I just want to make sure the basic stuff works, and I hooked the rewind key into the CATSFC hotkey system just for everyone to check how well it worked.

 

[Deleted member 319809]

TempGBA alpha 6 is available: http://filetrip.net/dl?l0CY5vml1P
* Fixes a bug whereby the user-selected rewind interval was halved (e.g. if you selected 0.25 second to rewind, it would actually do 7 frames instead of 15 per step).
* Attempts to alleviate sound crackling by enlarging the audio buffer to its previous size. It also requires 1 buffer to be full most of the time to try to prevent underflows.

 

[Rydian]

Preliminary tests show much less severe sound crackling, yay.

 

[CookiePee]

I hope you can make the sav like in VBA! That would be really great.

 

[Gh0sti]

so on compatibility and features as of A6 is this better than NDSGBA1.3?

 

[Deleted member 319809]

I hope you can make the sav like in VBA! That would be really great.

I don't get what you're saying here. A .sav is always just a raw dump of the save memory, and should be made identically by all emulators for a certain console. Am I missing something?

 

[CookiePee]

The sav types of NDSGBA and VBA are different. You can't load NDSGBA savs in VBA. (There isn't a converter and renaming the ending doesn't work). I would like to play Pokemon on the 3DS AND trade, but that would mean I either play Pokemon on 3DS and can't trade or I play Pokemon on PC and can trade.