Homebrew Emulator NeoGeo Pocket emu for DS

[Indy13]

I can run all 4 Atari emus on both my R4i clone flash cards (two different manufacturers) as well as via hbmenu

That I've ssen in my tests, it depends also of the HBmenu version, all the recent emulators or homebrews (Atari, FluBBa's arcade emulators, NGPDS & cHeretic) I've tested these last weeks/months, don't work with HBmenu 0.4.1 but they work with the latest version 0.7.1

I'm not sure of the reason why it's like this but I think the reason comes from the libnds

 

[FluBBa]

Thanks again, it was quite easy now that I had the info, stupid mistake with my rewrite of the cpu core.
Please see if this fixes the Guru Meditations.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

Thanks again, it was quite easy now that I had the info, stupid mistake with my rewrite of the cpu core.
Please see if this fixes the Guru Meditations.

It's not stupid, you just didn't know, if experiences and change was considered stupid, then I reckon that most of the good changes in the world are also stupid, but that's not the case now is it. Sometimes in order to improve you have to hit a few brick walls here in there before you find the balance needed with some things. Don't call your changes stupid, just anticipate needing to adjust and improve on the original idea .

 

[Indy13]

Thanks again, it was quite easy now that I had the info, stupid mistake with my rewrite of the cpu core.
Please see if this fixes the Guru Meditations.

Thx @FluBBa for this update ! There is no more Guru Meditation Error under HBmenu with this latest version of NGPDS, I've just tested the games with the guru meditation problem and they work fine now, I'll test the complete list of the games in the list above to get a full confirmation.



Edit : here the results of my tests, all the games in this list (see the link below) works :
https://gbatemp.net/threads/neogeo-pocket-emu-for-ds.590633/page-2#post-9561815

Sometimes (but this is rare) it is possible that a game does not start and the screen remains frozen on a white screen, there are two solutions to solve this problem:

1. press Y and restart the game
2. turn off and turn on the ds


To speed up the speed, there are two very useful options which are in the options menus:

1. in the "options" menu --> "Machine" --> select "Half CPU speed" ON
2. in the "options" menu "--> "Settings" --> select "Speed " MAX, to avoid a launch bug with white screen, it is advisable to activate these options once the game has started and to deactivate them before changing the game.


Minor bugs observed:

Neogeo Cup 98 needs to be run twice to run properly without text display issues.

Rockman may have problems displaying background graphics depending on the level.

In Sonic the first level boss disappears.


Tests carried out with a DS lite + R4 gold pro SDHC 2016 with HBmenu 0.7.1

 

[Nikokaro]

Forgive me for intruding and going off-topic in an attempt to get the author's attention; I hope he will respond, even briefly.

This question has already been asked by others in other circumstances and seems to interest many, but it would seem to have gone unnoticed.

I'd like to ask if it is possible to improve the already excellent S8DS, adding the possibility to enlarge the image of gamegear games up to fill the screen in height but keeping the aspect ratio, as it happens excellently with Lameboy/Gameyob, maybe with the addition of a simple graphic filter.
I could have posted in an old, more pertaining thread, but I'm afraid I wouldn't have received a reply.

Thanks to the author, and to anyone else who wants to express his opinion.

 

[FluBBa]

Put up a new release, V0.4.7 with the latest cpu fixes plus auto power on/off fix that should work however the speed options are set.
Also clears VRAM and dirty map if not using a bios not sure it helps with anything.
* Various cpu fixes.
* Fixed auto power on/off.

re: upscale of small screens. Not on my prio-list right now, it can probably be done on the DS in fast way, but it will probably not look good.

 

[Nikokaro]

re: upscale of small screens. Not on my prio-list right now, it can probably be done on the DS in fast way, but it will probably not look good.

It would appear that this is an answer to my request. If so, then I thank you cordially and will wait patiently but enthusiastically for this to become a priority soon, also pointing out the need to apply a simple smoothing filter, to improve its appearance (maybe 2xSai?).

 

[wavemotion]

It would appear that this is an answer to my request. If so, then I thank you cordially and will wait patiently but enthusiastically for this to become a priority soon, also pointing out the need to apply a simple smoothing filter, to improve its appearance (maybe 2xSai?).

Video filtering is really hard on the old DS. With StellaDS I've got a "flicker free" mode (really flicker reduce) which does a simple OR of two frames together to help with the 30Hz flicker used in some games and that simple video processing takes up about 20% of the entire DS CPU bandwidth. I couldn't imagine 2xSai or similar linear filtering on this hardware. Remember - the original 67MHz processing speed is roughly equivalent to an old 386 desktop from like 1990. It's amazing these emulators run at all given the CPU.

 

[Nikokaro]

Video filtering is really hard on the old DS

Thanks for your remark, I appreciate it. Yet Gameyob/ Lameboy have a graphics filter, though I don't remember which one (mere linear filter?), that if applied doesn't cause any slowdown.

 

[wavemotion]

Thanks for your remark, I appreciate it. Yet Gameyob/ Lameboy have a graphics filter, though I don't remember which one (mere linear filter?), that if applied doesn't cause any slowdown.

I said it was hard... not impossible

 

[CrashMidnick]

To speed up the speed, there are two very useful options which are in the options menus:

1. in the "options" menu --> "Machine" --> select "Half CPU speed" ON
2. in the "options" menu "--> "Settings" --> select "Speed " MAX, to avoid a launch bug with white screen, it is advisable to activate these options once the game has started and to deactivate them before changing the game.


Minor bugs observed:

....

In Sonic the first level boss disappears.

Thanks for the tips mate Sonic went from 40-45FPS to 53-58 FPS ! But at the cost of some glitches and accuracy. But very playable.

Yes Eggman disappears when half CPU speed is enabled (Sonic stay here like a guy for his first date and the girl never comes )
When disabled before going to the zone, he wants to fight again Not a big deal.

 

[placebo_yue]

Anyone tested this on 3DS? i've been waiting for a neogeo pocket emulator for a while, all the available ones were too slow to be useable.

 

[CrashMidnick]

See previous page, I tested on my 3DS with flash card and wavemotion with TWL++ (on DSI but should be the same on 3DS with the extra speed). It is full speed in many games and for sure it is a better option compared to retroarch (Race! and beetle neopop), at least on O3DS, on N3DS beetle neopop is full speed AFAIR.

 

[placebo_yue]

runs great on O3DS! i used a forwarder since i dont have TWL++ installed. Only issue i encountered is the "ngsp(??) folder not found" when trying to save state. There should be a way to set a different path. Or just use whatever folder the roms are in!
Other than that, it runs smoothy, finally a way to run NGP properly

edit: i have a bios and the NGPDS folder on root, but neither savestates nor flash seem to work. I still lose all my progress whenever i reload the game. I tried with the autoload flash/savestate on ROM load, but it didn't make a difference either.
Any clues? is this expected behaviour?

 

[FluBBa]

-"neither savestates nor flash seem to work. I still lose all my progress whenever i reload the game. I tried with the autoload flash/savestate on ROM load, but it didn't make a difference either.
Any clues? is this expected behaviour?"

## How to use:
---
Create a folder named "ngpds" in either the root of your flash card or in the
data folder.---

 

[placebo_yue]

## How to use:
---
Create a folder named "ngpds" in either the root of your flash card or in the
data folder.---

i did, but it still fails. I'm using O3DS and a fowarder, i assume that might have something to do with it?
Before i created the folder it said "folder missing" now it says the save and loading is working, but it doesnt

 

[Indy13]

i did, but it still fails. I'm using O3DS and a fowarder, i assume that might have something to do with it?
Before i created the folder it said "folder missing" now it says the save and loading is working, but it doesnt

Maybe you should try going through a "data" subfolder, it works for me.

1.create a directory on the root of the SD card called: data

2. create in the "data" directory another subdirectory called: ngpds

3. in the "ngpds" subdirectory put the bios and roms

4.reset the emulator settings by selecting in the menu "option" -> "machine" -> neogeo pocket color (the bios that you put in the ngpds folder)

5. in the "files" menu select: save settings (to create a new .cfg file, don't forget to remove the old one)

6.turn off your ds, at this point, normally the emulator should recognize the new path (root -> data -> ngpds folders)

7. launch the emulator then select a game, during the game, touch the bottom screen or press L + R to access the "files" menu then select "save state" normally the emulator should create a file with an extension .fla

To resume a saved game, all you have to do is launch the selected game, start a game, access the menu and select "load state

Now all the files concerning the emulator will be in the ngpds folder (bios, roms, .cfg file, .fla files)

 

[placebo_yue]

Maybe you should try going through a "data" subfolder, it works for me.

tbh i didn't get time to go thru the folders to see if it created any files. I created the NGPDS folder on root, no data folder. I should try that. And i have the roms on a different folder (a roms folder in root, with subfolders for each console). Maybe that's the issue too.
Tbh i don't like having to create another folder on root, it's already kind of a mess, but if the emulator works that way...
I'll get back at you all with results later, since im probably the only one using it on O3DS and it.. might be relevant somehow?

 

[Indy13]

I think I understand how you organize your SD card because it seems very similar to the way I work, same for games, I also have a general directory in which all my roms are stored in subdirectories for each console, like you , I try to put as little as possible on the root of my SD card but honestly if you want to save space a "data" directory is really useful because it is in fact a common directory, a lot of emulator use a "data" directory like DSx86 or all the latest arcade emulators from @FluBBa .

In addition you can store all your emulators in .nds files in this data directory by sorting them in subdirectories and by type of console. Once you have put all your emulators and homebrews in your data directory, you just have to install HBmenu and you can start everything by HBmenu, like that, you have on your root an .nds file (HBmenu) for launch emulators and hombrews and all the rest of your root to put DS games in .nds format after obviously this is a simple example of using a data directory.

 

[FluBBa]

You can store your bios/roms in any folder you want since you select them by browsing to them.
I think your problem is that you're not using a bios, I haven't had time implement a high level emulation of the save routines and I probably never will. Will add that to the readme.