Homebrew Snes9xGX Cover+ & co

[themanuel]

I too would love to see cover mods on the latest release of these emulators.
SNES9x and FCEUGx now support accurate pixel scaling with unfiltered graphics.
You can see read more about why this is a significant addition, in this post.

 

[catuligbat]

Only have wait this version with cios202

 

[Bladexdsl]

i always use the hq2x filter it just makes the games look so much better. except for a few games like super metroid when you get hit you go invisible for 5 secs.

 

[PolloDiablo]

i always use the hq2x filter it just makes the games look so much better. except for a few games like super metroid when you get hit you go invisible for 5 secs.

hey china! listen!.... here is an idea for you:
manufacture an Wii2HDMI adaptor with hq2x 3x 4x filters

 

[Arm73]

i always use the hq2x filter it just makes the games look so much better. except for a few games like super metroid when you get hit you go invisible for 5 secs.

That happens because of the frame skipping. It used to happen a lot on my old laptop which wasn't powerful enough to smoothly run Zsnes, so frameskipping was necessary in order to avoid any slowdown.
By enabling any hq filter, there is extra processing required therefore the frame skip has to be enabled to preserve the speed and timing, as a result, bullets in Metroid ( which are displayed any other frame ) tend to disappear, not to mention the choppy scrolling of the screen, which I really hate the most.
But I agree, the games lookk so much better with the HQ2X filter ! Especially on my TV.
On the PC I'd rather enable scanlines, with a 25%-50% intensity ( toally black,100% scanlines also look bad ) , makes the games look nice and still crispy. Too bad we don't have such a filter un Snes9xGX, that might look good on TV and maybe even perform better without any frameskipping, whi knows...........

 

[Bladexdsl]

well i just turn it off in metroid and a few others if its going slow doesnt bother me if its on or off i prefer on but if not than i'ts not life threatening

 

[MarcusRaven]

So, any plans to get the coverflow mod for the latest versions? Also, when do we think they're going to get around to fixing the frame skipping? Its been so long. If it wasn't for the coverflow being such an awesome GUI, I'd stick to playing on my PS3. >.

 

[kylster]

Doesn't PS3 (MultiMan) support covers? but I do have to agree the cover mod is simply amazing! I got one for all the available emulators. Keep up the good work

 

[themanuel]

It would be great if Wiimpathy would give us one more update. I love this mod and want to be able to use the new scaling features of SNES9x and FCEUltra.
Maybe someone with the right skills can apply the latest emu source code to this mod's source code (source files are included in the first post), and updat it that way...

 

[kylster]

I though giantpune already gave a tutorial on how to apply albeit I never gave it a try LoL

 

[themanuel]

I though giantpune already gave a tutorial on how to apply albeit I never gave it a try LoL

Does it work for the programming challenged?

 

[kylster]

Not sure but he stated it was easy to apply

 

[Wiimpathy]

Not sure but he stated it was easy to apply

Ahem... well, easy, everything's relative. For someone who has C programming basics and knows a little devkit, libogc, yeah that's easy. (For me I won't say easy even if it's just copy/paste and compiling after all).

The steps to compile are like any other homebrew :

- Install DevkitPPC http://wiibrew.org/wiki/DevkitPPC
- Take the source code.
- Copy or add your in files.
- Type/click (depending on the operating system) make to compile.

I know it's only blah blah and simplistic. Finding the good libraries is often a pain in the ass specifically on amateur platform.
Ok, enough bullshit...

Snes9xGX 4.2.9 Cover v1 : http://dommagemais.f...0Cover%20v1.zip

Snes9xGX 4.2.9 Cover v1 cios202 : http://dommagemais.f...1%20cios202.zip

Now, maybe if you want a challenge, want to learn and share with others, you could try to compile a FCEU-GX version (I can help you).

 

[themanuel]

Excellent!!!
Thanks for updating your mod.

By the way, what is the benefit of the 202 cios?
Doesn't the emulator already support SDHC, USB 2.0 and all that goodness through ios58?

 

[Tantric]

Excellent!!!
Thanks for updating your mod.

By the way, what is the benefit of the 202 cios?
Doesn't the emulator already support SDHC, USB 2.0 and all that goodness through ios58?

Some drives only work on 202, some only work on 58. Most work on both. If yours already works on 58 there's no advantage.

 

[themanuel]

Some drives only work on 202, some only work on 58. Most work on both. If yours already works on 58 there's no advantage.

I see.

By the way, it's hard to find you these days so I'm glad you stopped by. I simply wanted to thank you for implementing the new scaling. As I shared with others in the forum, I love being able to use the unfiltered graphics and still get the correct pixel shapes and aspect ratio. It's win-win for me. Filtering was a decent solution but it makes the graphics too blurry. In my MAME setup, I get around this by using a prescale option that upscales everything before handing it over to the gfx card for trampling, I mean, filtering. You seemed to have solved the issues in some other way on your emu ports and it works wonders.

I hate to ask, after what your apps have done for the Wii homebrew scene but, can the same scaling method be easily applied the VBA emu?

There is a combination of zoom parameters someone found, that delivers correct pixels shapes for GBA, but forces the screen size (89% x 70%, maintain aspect ratio) and your 16:9 TV has to be set to 4:3, in order to get the overall 1.5:1 aspect ratio approximately correct.

Best regards.

 

[themanuel]

So, any plans to get the coverflow mod for the latest versions? Also, when do we think they're going to get around to fixing the frame skipping? Its been so long. If it wasn't for the coverflow being such an awesome GUI, I'd stick to playing on my PS3. >.<

What is the frame skipping issue?

 

[Tantric]

I hate to ask, after what your apps have done for the Wii homebrew scene but, can the same scaling method be easily applied the VBA emu?

I don't know. I'm sure something could be done here but if I had wanted to do this you would've seen a VBA GX release alongside the other two.

 

[Jacobeian]

So, any plans to get the coverflow mod for the latest versions? Also, when do we think they're going to get around to fixing the frame skipping? Its been so long. If it wasn't for the coverflow being such an awesome GUI, I'd stick to playing on my PS3. >.<

What is the frame skipping issue?

Most games are running fine, it's just that some heavy CPU games sometimes slowdown the emulator, which is not able to keep full framerate (60fps) as emulating one frame takes more CPU time than it takes to the Wii to refresh the screen.
There is nothing that can be done except optimizing the emulator code IN GENERAL, and I guess if it has not been done yet is because it's not easy work and would require investigating original snes9x code

 

[themanuel]

I don't know. I'm sure something could be done here but if I had wanted to do this you would've seen a VBA GX release alongside the other two.

Ha, ha! Fair enough.
I had been wondering if there was a technical limitation but personal choice is a perfectly good explanation.
Thanks.

Most games are running fine, it's just that some heavy CPU games sometimes slowdown the emulator, which is not able to keep full framerate (60fps) as emulating one frame takes more CPU time than it takes to the Wii to refresh the screen.
There is nothing that can be done except optimizing the emulator code IN GENERAL, and I guess if it has not been done yet is because it's not easy work and would require investigating original snes9x code

So, which games give you slowdowns? I haven't played an exorbitant amount of games, but everything I've run has done so silky smooth. As for code optimization, it is time consuming and difficult to get results. A couple of years ago, I requested volunteers to help optimize the VBA code for the Wii, not expecting much, but dancinninja took up the task. He worked for several months on the code and found many basic coding expressions that could be optimized. Tantric implemented most or all of his optimizations, but in the end Metroid Zero Mission (the game I was using as benchmark), still ran with a good amount of frameskipping. I'm only telling you so that you don't build your hopes up. Besides, Tantric is bascially done with the emulators and whatever updates he does make I see as a bonus.
Remember those emulators' humble beginnings?
They've come a long way for sure.