The Catboy likes this and shall use this so I can play my Mario RPG on the go.
How many other games have been fixed?
How many other games have been fixed?
Hacking CATSFC released
- Thread starter ShadauxCat
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Update - CATSFC 1.1
I've just released a new version, CATSFC 1.1, that enables touchscreen support for the in-game menu and corrects some of the poor English (such as "CPU Frequence" being corrected to "CPU Frequency"), and corrects the previously improper display of the language setting (i.e., when you are using the English display, it will now show "English") The game will also now remember your recent games even if you power off without hitting "exit."
That said, I'll address some other posts that came in while I was working on that...
This is going to be a lot harder than it sounds, at least to make it playable. Shrinking a 16x16 tile to an 8x8 tile will effectively mean cutting out every other pixel both horizontally and vertically. I can't imagine any text will be readable after that, but I will certainly see what I can make happen. That said, though, there are other things I want to get done first because they apply to more games and will take less effort to get going to an acceptable level.
I've just released a new version, CATSFC 1.1, that enables touchscreen support for the in-game menu and corrects some of the poor English (such as "CPU Frequence" being corrected to "CPU Frequency"), and corrects the previously improper display of the language setting (i.e., when you are using the English display, it will now show "English") The game will also now remember your recent games even if you power off without hitting "exit."
That said, I'll address some other posts that came in while I was working on that...
Killermech said:I gave this a testdrive mainly with games that suffered alot of slowdown before
C = CATSFC
B = BAGSFC
Super Mario RPG (About 1 hour playing)
C = HUGE improvement. Although it still suffers from slowdowns, mainly when a dialogue or a cutscene is active. Some minor/medium slowdowns when walking around areas, which improves if you enable
fast forward during those times. Some minor slowdowns in battles as well, but since it's mainly turnbased, it's still fully Playable as it seems for now if you don't mind the slowdowns.
B = Alot of slowdowns, can slightly be improved by disabling sound and enabling fast forward after the castle part. But Imo still very Unplayable.
Super Mario Kart
C = Has alot of slowdown but you can actually play it. Although I wouldn't recommend it. Unplayable
B = Lag spikes all over the place along with huge slowdowns, Unplayable
StarFox
C = The improvements blew my mind in this one. Although it has alot of slowdowns, it's actually playable as in you can aim, steer etc. Like it's running at 5-10 FPS. Although it's still in a Unplayable state.
B = Once you get ingame, it runs at like 0.1-1 FPS. Unplayable
Axelay
C = Very Playable with some slowdowns. This is a very action packed game, so I still wouldn't recommend playing it, but if you don't mind the extra difficulty level the slowdowns brings, then it is playable.
B = Major slowdowns, although it is playable as you can steer your ship and shoot etc. But considering the slowdowns would bring the game to some kind of an impossible difficulty mode, I wouldn't recommend it. Unplayable
Super Star Wars (So I decided to try out a game that worked near perfect before to compare if there was any difference) Playable
C = At first it seemed just fine. But after trying it again after trying it with BAGSFC, I noticed there was a tiny tiny lag in the game. As it were running at frameskip 1.
B = Runs perfectly smooth. Just some minor slowdowns if there are alot of enemies on screen, same for both versions.
After discovering that tiny lag in Super Star Wars, I noticed there was a tiny lag in general in all games. As if the emulator is running at frameskip 1 now.
So basically my conclusion after the tests is:
- All games that ran poorly with alot of slowdown, were improved GREATLY to an almost very enjoyable playable state.
- All games that ran (near) perfect before, suffers from a tiny tiny lag now.
Anyways, very amazing work ShadauxCat! Just wondering if you still have any tricks up your sleeve to make this even better? Again, very good work!
I already addressed this one, but I'm coming back to it: I didn't notice this problem. I played Super Star Wars and it ran flawlessly for me even at CPU Frequency 2. I don't know what's different between us, since we are theoretically running on identical hardware in nearly identical running environments, but I simply didn't have this issue. THAT SAID, however, I'm going to be doing as much as I can to improve performance across the board and hopefully eventually get games like Mario Kart and SMRPG to a fully playable level through some hard core code optimization. I can't guarantee I'll accomplish that, but that is my goal.
Freezer6 said:Thx for your smooth work! Playing Super Mario RPG is cool!
Everything worked great, so far no bugs appeared.
Question: Is it possible to enabled Touchscreen for choosing options in the menu?
and
Remebering the last game played were cool,too!?
Both options in GBA EMU,too=Awesome!
Greetz and many thx
Answer: Yes.See above.
Fixing the GBA emulator, however, isn't really possible, as I have no source code for it. I'm tossing around the idea of coding a new GBA emulator from scratch after I finish tweaking CATSFC, but if I do, expect it to be a long time before anything playable comes out of it.
RPG Hacker said:
My answer to this is: I don't really know, as I didn't write the emulator from scratch and I haven't tested that. But I do know that the emulator was built from the source code of snes9x, so maybe? If the original supercard NDSSFC didn't support it, then the answer is no, I haven't explicitly added support for that; I'll look it up and see what I can find out.
The letters were indeed cut out in the old version. I didn't want to make it sound like an assumption, sorry. There reasons for this is that in most BG Modes on the SNES, a tile is 8 pixels width. In mode 5, however, tiles are always 16 pixels width (height can either be 8 or 16 pixels). This makes it possible to have a screen of double the width without needing more tilemap space in VRAM. The games I mentioned used this mode to put more text on the screen. What I think the emulator does right now is still treating the tiles as tiles of 8 pixels width, therefore skipping a few tiles. Well, what am I telling you this, anyways? I have screenshots somewhere. Look at this:
So basically the solution would be to emulate the width of 16 pixels and then scale the screen width to half, to make it fix on the screen again.
In case you want to look into this problem: I reported the bug (along with a few other bugs and more details) here:
http://forum.supercard.sc/viewthread.php?t...extra=#pid48036
This is going to be a lot harder than it sounds, at least to make it playable. Shrinking a 16x16 tile to an 8x8 tile will effectively mean cutting out every other pixel both horizontally and vertically. I can't imagine any text will be readable after that, but I will certainly see what I can make happen. That said, though, there are other things I want to get done first because they apply to more games and will take less effort to get going to an acceptable level.
<!--quoteo(post=3501106:date=Mar 7 2011, 12:11 AM:name=ShadauxCat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShadauxCat @ Mar 7 2011, 12:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3501106"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>Update - CATSFC 1.1</b>
I've just released a new version, CATSFC 1.1, that enables touchscreen support for the in-game menu and corrects some of the poor English (such as "CPU Frequence" being corrected to "CPU Frequency"), and corrects the previously improper display of the language setting (i.e., when you are using the English display, it will now show "English") The game will also now remember your recent games even if you power off without hitting "exit."
That said, I'll address some other posts that came in while I was working on that...
<!--quoteo(post=3499876:date=Mar 6 2011, 07:26 AM:name=Killermech)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Killermech @ Mar 6 2011, 07:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3499876"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I gave this a testdrive mainly with games that suffered alot of slowdown before
C = CATSFC
B = BAGSFC
<u><b>Super Mario RPG</b></u> (About 1 hour playing)
C = HUGE improvement. Although it still suffers from slowdowns, mainly when a dialogue or a cutscene is active. Some minor/medium slowdowns when walking around areas, which improves if you enable
fast forward during those times. Some minor slowdowns in battles as well, but since it's mainly turnbased, it's still fully <b><!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->Playable<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b> as it seems for now if you don't mind the slowdowns.
B = Alot of slowdowns, can slightly be improved by disabling sound and enabling fast forward after the castle part. But Imo still very <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->.
<u><b>Super Mario Kart</b></u>
C = Has alot of slowdown but you can actually play it. Although I wouldn't recommend it. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
B = Lag spikes all over the place along with huge slowdowns, <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<u><b>StarFox</b></u>
C = The improvements blew my mind in this one. Although it has alot of slowdowns, it's actually playable as in you can aim, steer etc. Like it's running at 5-10 FPS. Although it's still in a <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> state.
B = Once you get ingame, it runs at like 0.1-1 FPS. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<u><b>Axelay</b></u>
C = Very <b><!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->Playable<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b> with some slowdowns. This is a very action packed game, so I still wouldn't recommend playing it, but if you don't mind the extra difficulty level the slowdowns brings, then it is playable.
B = Major slowdowns, although it is playable as you can steer your ship and shoot etc. But considering the slowdowns would bring the game to some kind of an impossible difficulty mode, I wouldn't recommend it. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<u><b>Super Star Wars</b></u> (So I decided to try out a game that worked near perfect before to compare if there was any difference) <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro--><b>Playable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
C = At first it seemed just fine. But after trying it again after trying it with BAGSFC, I noticed there was a tiny tiny lag in the game. As it were running at frameskip 1.
B = Runs perfectly smooth. Just some minor slowdowns if there are alot of enemies on screen, same for both versions.
After discovering that tiny lag in Super Star Wars, I noticed there was a tiny lag in general in all games. As if the emulator is running at frameskip 1 now.
So basically my conclusion after the tests is:
- All games that ran poorly with alot of slowdown, were improved GREATLY to an almost very enjoyable playable state.
- All games that ran (near) perfect before, suffers from a tiny tiny lag now.
Anyways, very amazing work ShadauxCat! Just wondering if you still have any tricks up your sleeve to make this even better? Again, very good work!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I already addressed this one, but I'm coming back to it: I didn't notice this problem. I played Super Star Wars and it ran flawlessly for me even at CPU Frequency 2. I don't know what's different between us, since we are theoretically running on identical hardware in nearly identical running environments, but I simply didn't have this issue. THAT SAID, however, I'm going to be doing as much as I can to improve performance across the board and hopefully eventually get games like Mario Kart and SMRPG to a fully playable level through some hard core code optimization. I can't guarantee I'll accomplish that, but that is my goal.
<!--quoteo(post=3500348:date=Mar 6 2011, 12:15 PM:name=Freezer6)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Freezer6 @ Mar 6 2011, 12:15 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3500348"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Thx for your smooth work! Playing Super Mario RPG is cool!
Everything worked great, so far no bugs appeared.
Question: Is it possible to enabled Touchscreen for choosing options in the menu?
and
Remebering the last game played were cool,too!?
Both options in GBA EMU,too=Awesome!
Greetz and many thx<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Answer: Yes. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> See above.
Fixing the GBA emulator, however, isn't really possible, as I have no source code for it. I'm tossing around the idea of coding a new GBA emulator from scratch after I finish tweaking CATSFC, but if I do, expect it to be a long time before anything playable comes out of it.
<!--quoteo(post=3500449:date=Mar 6 2011, 01:00 PM:name=RPG Hacker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RPG Hacker @ Mar 6 2011, 01:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3500449"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=3500132:date=Mar 6 2011, 04:37 PM:name=ShadauxCat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShadauxCat @ Mar 6 2011, 04:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3500132"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=3499556:date=Mar 6 2011, 03:24 AM:name=RPG Hacker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RPG Hacker @ Mar 6 2011, 03:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3499556"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Great news!
I didn't have time to test it yet, will do so once I get home today. Just one question: Does it support BG Mode 5 (I think it was 5, may also be 4)? That's a mode used in a very few games, like for example for menus in Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3. What it does is basically giving screens double the width. In the previous versions of the SC2DS Emulators it wasn't emulated well, causing every second letter in those menus to be cut out. Is it emulated yet? If it isn't I could help you by giving more information.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My answer to this is: I don't really know, as I didn't write the emulator from scratch and I haven't tested that. But I do know that the emulator was built from the source code of snes9x, so maybe? If the original supercard NDSSFC didn't support it, then the answer is no, I haven't explicitly added support for that; I'll look it up and see what I can find out.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The letters were indeed cut out in the old version. I didn't want to make it sound like an assumption, sorry. There reasons for this is that in most BG Modes on the SNES, a tile is 8 pixels width. In mode 5, however, tiles are always 16 pixels width (height can either be 8 or 16 pixels). This makes it possible to have a screen of double the width without needing more tilemap space in VRAM. The games I mentioned used this mode to put more text on the screen. What I think the emulator does right now is still treating the tiles as tiles of 8 pixels width, therefore skipping a few tiles. Well, what am I telling you this, anyways? I have screenshots somewhere. Look at this:
<img src="http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/1783/glitch1.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /> <img src="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1310/glitch2a.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
So basically the solution would be to emulate the width of 16 pixels and then scale the screen width to half, to make it fix on the screen again.
In case you want to look into this problem: I reported the bug (along with a few other bugs and more details) here:
<a href="http://forum.supercard.sc/viewthread.php?tid=6320&page=19&extra=#pid48036" target="_blank">http://forum.supercard.sc/viewthread.php?t...extra=#pid48036</a>
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is going to be a lot harder than it sounds, at least to make it playable. Shrinking a 16x16 tile to an 8x8 tile will effectively mean cutting out every other pixel both horizontally and vertically. I can't imagine any text will be readable after that, but I will certainly see what I can make happen. That said, though, there are other things I want to get done first because they apply to more games and will take less effort to get going to an acceptable level.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure, take your time. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
It would be awesome, if you could fix it somehow sometime. (that's what I was talking about btw)
I've just released a new version, CATSFC 1.1, that enables touchscreen support for the in-game menu and corrects some of the poor English (such as "CPU Frequence" being corrected to "CPU Frequency"), and corrects the previously improper display of the language setting (i.e., when you are using the English display, it will now show "English") The game will also now remember your recent games even if you power off without hitting "exit."
That said, I'll address some other posts that came in while I was working on that...
<!--quoteo(post=3499876:date=Mar 6 2011, 07:26 AM:name=Killermech)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Killermech @ Mar 6 2011, 07:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3499876"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I gave this a testdrive mainly with games that suffered alot of slowdown before
C = CATSFC
B = BAGSFC
<u><b>Super Mario RPG</b></u> (About 1 hour playing)
C = HUGE improvement. Although it still suffers from slowdowns, mainly when a dialogue or a cutscene is active. Some minor/medium slowdowns when walking around areas, which improves if you enable
fast forward during those times. Some minor slowdowns in battles as well, but since it's mainly turnbased, it's still fully <b><!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->Playable<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b> as it seems for now if you don't mind the slowdowns.
B = Alot of slowdowns, can slightly be improved by disabling sound and enabling fast forward after the castle part. But Imo still very <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->.
<u><b>Super Mario Kart</b></u>
C = Has alot of slowdown but you can actually play it. Although I wouldn't recommend it. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
B = Lag spikes all over the place along with huge slowdowns, <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<u><b>StarFox</b></u>
C = The improvements blew my mind in this one. Although it has alot of slowdowns, it's actually playable as in you can aim, steer etc. Like it's running at 5-10 FPS. Although it's still in a <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> state.
B = Once you get ingame, it runs at like 0.1-1 FPS. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<u><b>Axelay</b></u>
C = Very <b><!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->Playable<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b> with some slowdowns. This is a very action packed game, so I still wouldn't recommend playing it, but if you don't mind the extra difficulty level the slowdowns brings, then it is playable.
B = Major slowdowns, although it is playable as you can steer your ship and shoot etc. But considering the slowdowns would bring the game to some kind of an impossible difficulty mode, I wouldn't recommend it. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>Unplayable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<u><b>Super Star Wars</b></u> (So I decided to try out a game that worked near perfect before to compare if there was any difference) <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro--><b>Playable</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
C = At first it seemed just fine. But after trying it again after trying it with BAGSFC, I noticed there was a tiny tiny lag in the game. As it were running at frameskip 1.
B = Runs perfectly smooth. Just some minor slowdowns if there are alot of enemies on screen, same for both versions.
After discovering that tiny lag in Super Star Wars, I noticed there was a tiny lag in general in all games. As if the emulator is running at frameskip 1 now.
So basically my conclusion after the tests is:
- All games that ran poorly with alot of slowdown, were improved GREATLY to an almost very enjoyable playable state.
- All games that ran (near) perfect before, suffers from a tiny tiny lag now.
Anyways, very amazing work ShadauxCat! Just wondering if you still have any tricks up your sleeve to make this even better? Again, very good work!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I already addressed this one, but I'm coming back to it: I didn't notice this problem. I played Super Star Wars and it ran flawlessly for me even at CPU Frequency 2. I don't know what's different between us, since we are theoretically running on identical hardware in nearly identical running environments, but I simply didn't have this issue. THAT SAID, however, I'm going to be doing as much as I can to improve performance across the board and hopefully eventually get games like Mario Kart and SMRPG to a fully playable level through some hard core code optimization. I can't guarantee I'll accomplish that, but that is my goal.
<!--quoteo(post=3500348:date=Mar 6 2011, 12:15 PM:name=Freezer6)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Freezer6 @ Mar 6 2011, 12:15 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3500348"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Thx for your smooth work! Playing Super Mario RPG is cool!
Everything worked great, so far no bugs appeared.
Question: Is it possible to enabled Touchscreen for choosing options in the menu?
and
Remebering the last game played were cool,too!?
Both options in GBA EMU,too=Awesome!
Greetz and many thx<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Answer: Yes. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> See above.Fixing the GBA emulator, however, isn't really possible, as I have no source code for it. I'm tossing around the idea of coding a new GBA emulator from scratch after I finish tweaking CATSFC, but if I do, expect it to be a long time before anything playable comes out of it.
<!--quoteo(post=3500449:date=Mar 6 2011, 01:00 PM:name=RPG Hacker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RPG Hacker @ Mar 6 2011, 01:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3500449"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=3500132:date=Mar 6 2011, 04:37 PM:name=ShadauxCat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShadauxCat @ Mar 6 2011, 04:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3500132"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=3499556:date=Mar 6 2011, 03:24 AM:name=RPG Hacker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RPG Hacker @ Mar 6 2011, 03:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3499556"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Great news!
I didn't have time to test it yet, will do so once I get home today. Just one question: Does it support BG Mode 5 (I think it was 5, may also be 4)? That's a mode used in a very few games, like for example for menus in Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3. What it does is basically giving screens double the width. In the previous versions of the SC2DS Emulators it wasn't emulated well, causing every second letter in those menus to be cut out. Is it emulated yet? If it isn't I could help you by giving more information.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My answer to this is: I don't really know, as I didn't write the emulator from scratch and I haven't tested that. But I do know that the emulator was built from the source code of snes9x, so maybe? If the original supercard NDSSFC didn't support it, then the answer is no, I haven't explicitly added support for that; I'll look it up and see what I can find out.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The letters were indeed cut out in the old version. I didn't want to make it sound like an assumption, sorry. There reasons for this is that in most BG Modes on the SNES, a tile is 8 pixels width. In mode 5, however, tiles are always 16 pixels width (height can either be 8 or 16 pixels). This makes it possible to have a screen of double the width without needing more tilemap space in VRAM. The games I mentioned used this mode to put more text on the screen. What I think the emulator does right now is still treating the tiles as tiles of 8 pixels width, therefore skipping a few tiles. Well, what am I telling you this, anyways? I have screenshots somewhere. Look at this:
<img src="http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/1783/glitch1.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /> <img src="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1310/glitch2a.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
So basically the solution would be to emulate the width of 16 pixels and then scale the screen width to half, to make it fix on the screen again.
In case you want to look into this problem: I reported the bug (along with a few other bugs and more details) here:
<a href="http://forum.supercard.sc/viewthread.php?tid=6320&page=19&extra=#pid48036" target="_blank">http://forum.supercard.sc/viewthread.php?t...extra=#pid48036</a>
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is going to be a lot harder than it sounds, at least to make it playable. Shrinking a 16x16 tile to an 8x8 tile will effectively mean cutting out every other pixel both horizontally and vertically. I can't imagine any text will be readable after that, but I will certainly see what I can make happen. That said, though, there are other things I want to get done first because they apply to more games and will take less effort to get going to an acceptable level.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure, take your time. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />It would be awesome, if you could fix it somehow sometime. (that's what I was talking about btw)
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Killermech said:
I was playing with it and I noticed the games were running as it were frameskip 1. What I did, though, was change my microSD for a faster one. Then CATSFC worked without any lag, just perfectly.
Holy crap, you actually made Star Fox playable
! That's quite a feat, especially for a DSTWO emulator. Also, great job on SMRPG, it's still pretty slow, but plays much better than SNemuL and snesDS.
If you can somehow implement the speedhacks used by SNES Advance for the GBA ($42 and $DB opcodes, which are otherwise unused by SNES games), I can provide speedhacks that will get SMRPG up to a faster, more playable speed. At least this was the case for the SNES emulator for the PSP after they implemented the speedhacks.
EDIT: just for the sake of it, here's the relevant line that implements the speedhacks:
This means that when you ignore the 512-byte header for the *.smc file, byte 0xA41 should be replaced by 42, byte 302FF should be replaced by 42, bytes 0x202E9 and 0x202EA should be replaced by 42 and DB, respectively, and byte 0x9F5 should be replaced by 42. This is when you implement the 42 and DB speedhacks as described by http://www.snesadvance.org/files/txt/technotes.txt
The basic idea here is that because the SNES runs at a fixed 60 fps, many games make use of an idle loop (simply going back and forth between two instructions constantly) when they're done with their work for each frame until they reach vertical line count #225. If we can find this loop, we can skip it, thus increasing speed. Since Opcodes 42 and DB are a part of the SNES's CPU though they are never actually used by any game, we can arbitrarily assign new meanings for them.
The SNES Advance source code should provide details on exactly how these new "made-up" opcodes are used to skip these idle loops, though it would be up to you to translate the ARM assembly code for the GBA that Loopy created to whatever the Supercard SDK is expecting.
EDIT 2: Applying the speedhacks can also be done via the "GGT" took, aka Game Genie Thing, though this is a permanent procedure. This directly modifies the rom itself, so it's not really recommended. Something like Snezziboy's/SnezziDS's patcher is probably better, as it only applies the speedhacks to a copy of the file.
EDIT: just for the sake of it, here's the relevant line that implements the speedhacks:
QUOTE said:
This means that when you ignore the 512-byte header for the *.smc file, byte 0xA41 should be replaced by 42, byte 302FF should be replaced by 42, bytes 0x202E9 and 0x202EA should be replaced by 42 and DB, respectively, and byte 0x9F5 should be replaced by 42. This is when you implement the 42 and DB speedhacks as described by http://www.snesadvance.org/files/txt/technotes.txt
The basic idea here is that because the SNES runs at a fixed 60 fps, many games make use of an idle loop (simply going back and forth between two instructions constantly) when they're done with their work for each frame until they reach vertical line count #225. If we can find this loop, we can skip it, thus increasing speed. Since Opcodes 42 and DB are a part of the SNES's CPU though they are never actually used by any game, we can arbitrarily assign new meanings for them.
The SNES Advance source code should provide details on exactly how these new "made-up" opcodes are used to skip these idle loops, though it would be up to you to translate the ARM assembly code for the GBA that Loopy created to whatever the Supercard SDK is expecting.
EDIT 2: Applying the speedhacks can also be done via the "GGT" took, aka Game Genie Thing, though this is a permanent procedure. This directly modifies the rom itself, so it's not really recommended. Something like Snezziboy's/SnezziDS's patcher is probably better, as it only applies the speedhacks to a copy of the file.
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I do NOT want to have this come off as harsh or ungrateful.
Its a dream Shadaux is continuing work on the beloved idea of SFC on DS.
Anyways. I quick tried out two games.
Super Bomberman 2. Emulates fine. However, I think its still slow. Compared to BAG, no improvements really. Playable but slow.
Donkey Kong Country 2 still suffers from a sound glitch in the over-world music. It also is still a little slow. Playable but slow.
Gonna try out some more later. I've had a lot of experience with Earthbound on BAG, so I gotta get my current save state over and try that one too. Give Illusion of Gaia a whirl, another slow but playable on BAG.
Its a dream Shadaux is continuing work on the beloved idea of SFC on DS.
Anyways. I quick tried out two games.
Super Bomberman 2. Emulates fine. However, I think its still slow. Compared to BAG, no improvements really. Playable but slow.
Donkey Kong Country 2 still suffers from a sound glitch in the over-world music. It also is still a little slow. Playable but slow.
Gonna try out some more later. I've had a lot of experience with Earthbound on BAG, so I gotta get my current save state over and try that one too. Give Illusion of Gaia a whirl, another slow but playable on BAG.
No problem, I'm always glad to see retro games being emulated better. Also consider looking at the SNEmulDS source code, as it somehow implemented automatic speedhacks without the need for a static database as I described. Of course SNEmulDS never had support for SNES games with special chips but the basic method should be the same.
EDIT: complete side note, but the Donkey Kong Country series is the only set of games I know of to use the STP instruction, which essentially acts as a built-in speedhack as it pauses the CPU until the next frame comes along.
EDIT: complete side note, but the Donkey Kong Country series is the only set of games I know of to use the STP instruction, which essentially acts as a built-in speedhack as it pauses the CPU until the next frame comes along.
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Keine: Can you post those and any other rom-specific problems you find on the issue tracker linked in the first post? It'll make it a lot easier for me to keep track of. Thanks!
DanTheManMS: That's what I'm planning on doing, creating a hard-coded database for each game and automatically patching the games in RAM when they're first loaded. If you have any speedhacks for other games, I'd appreciate your sharing them with me. Could you send them via PM if you have them?
DanTheManMS: That's what I'm planning on doing, creating a hard-coded database for each game and automatically patching the games in RAM when they're first loaded. If you have any speedhacks for other games, I'd appreciate your sharing them with me. Could you send them via PM if you have them?
And as long as I'm at it, here's a tiny bit more additional info:
If you do implement the spedhacks used by SNES Advance and Snezziboy for the GBA, there's an important distinction to be made with the "snesadvance.dat" speedhack databasse. Anything that looks like "xxxx=EAEA" isn't a speedhack, and is instead a means of preventing the game from calling out to the SPC engine. Since these emulator did not support sound at all, sometimes the game would call out to the sound engine and refuse to continue until it got a response. By replacing these calls with EAEA ("EA" = "NOP" = "no operation") we can make the games continue to play.
In short, speedhacks take the form of "xxxx=42xx" or "xxxx=DBxx" while anything of the form "xxxx=EAEA" should be ignored since that's based on a specific emulator that doesn't support sound. Since the Supercard's emulator does support sound, this is a non-issue.
If you do implement the spedhacks used by SNES Advance and Snezziboy for the GBA, there's an important distinction to be made with the "snesadvance.dat" speedhack databasse. Anything that looks like "xxxx=EAEA" isn't a speedhack, and is instead a means of preventing the game from calling out to the SPC engine. Since these emulator did not support sound at all, sometimes the game would call out to the sound engine and refuse to continue until it got a response. By replacing these calls with EAEA ("EA" = "NOP" = "no operation") we can make the games continue to play.
In short, speedhacks take the form of "xxxx=42xx" or "xxxx=DBxx" while anything of the form "xxxx=EAEA" should be ignored since that's based on a specific emulator that doesn't support sound. Since the Supercard's emulator does support sound, this is a non-issue.
Eh, forget PM, here's the latest speedhack database I have available, which should be a compilation of mog123's latest speedhacks plus the ones I added for SMRPG and a couple other games: http://www.zumodrive.com/share/1x9RODc4Yz
Fields are separated by a vertical pipe (|). First field is the CRC checksum of the rom file, 2nd field is a human-readable rom name, the next few fields are specific to SNES Advance and can be ignored, and the last field is the actual speedhacks which represents the bytes to patch in the rom itself. Once again, ignore anything of the form xxxx=EA or xxxx=EAEA as these are specifically for SNES Advance and aren't actually speedhacks at all.
EDIT: see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yws1r7N2HQ which I had set as Private up until now. Might be useful, might not be, but insightful nonetheless.
EDIT 2: this databasse was built off of the one found at http://www.pocketheaven.com/ph/boards/view...asc&start=0 with only a few changes. Flubba and Mog deserve most of the credit here. I merely found a few speedhacks for games that wouldn't run in the Snezziboy debugger like SMRPG. I did try to speedhack Star Fox but unfortunately the hacks didn't appear to affect anything. Same thing with some DBZ game, Kirby 3, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and Yoshi's Island. If there's enough interest I'll attempt to speedhack these games again but I don't think I'll find much.
Fields are separated by a vertical pipe (|). First field is the CRC checksum of the rom file, 2nd field is a human-readable rom name, the next few fields are specific to SNES Advance and can be ignored, and the last field is the actual speedhacks which represents the bytes to patch in the rom itself. Once again, ignore anything of the form xxxx=EA or xxxx=EAEA as these are specifically for SNES Advance and aren't actually speedhacks at all.
EDIT: see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yws1r7N2HQ which I had set as Private up until now. Might be useful, might not be, but insightful nonetheless.
EDIT 2: this databasse was built off of the one found at http://www.pocketheaven.com/ph/boards/view...asc&start=0 with only a few changes. Flubba and Mog deserve most of the credit here. I merely found a few speedhacks for games that wouldn't run in the Snezziboy debugger like SMRPG. I did try to speedhack Star Fox but unfortunately the hacks didn't appear to affect anything. Same thing with some DBZ game, Kirby 3, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and Yoshi's Island. If there's enough interest I'll attempt to speedhack these games again but I don't think I'll find much.
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That zumodrive link isn't working for me. It just gives me a blank page with a message box that says nothing on it.
I don't know about the others, but I know I personally would be interested in the Yoshi's Island hack, as that's one of my favorite SNES games.
I don't know about the others, but I know I personally would be interested in the Yoshi's Island hack, as that's one of my favorite SNES games.
Thanks for improiving this emulator! I haven't tried it yet but I will really soon. SMRPG will be cool to have it run better.ShadauxCat said:
As for Yoshi's Island, I usually just play on the GBA. I do know that there are some Yoshi's Island hacks for the SNES version though, right? I tried one on BAGSFC but it was just a black screen. So you would try to get some SNES Yoshi's Island hacks working? I think one hack is by someone who goes by the name "Golden Yoshi."
Thanks!
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In the new 1.1 if you tap on the language to change it, the text changes but the language doesn't actually change, you have to used the D-Pad....
If someone can give me an upload service that isn't as flaky as Zumodrive I'll use it. I must emphasize that it won't do much unles the emulator itself supports the opcodes used.
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Try Mediafire.
I'm working on adding support for that (I'm going to hard code all of those opcodes and patch the roms in memory). It's not going as well as I'd hoped.
Can you verify that those opcodes you gave earlier significantly speed up Super Mario RPG? I think I may have implemented it improperly, as I'm not noticing any speed improvements at all.
I'm working on adding support for that (I'm going to hard code all of those opcodes and patch the roms in memory). It's not going as well as I'd hoped.
Can you verify that those opcodes you gave earlier significantly speed up Super Mario RPG? I think I may have implemented it improperly, as I'm not noticing any speed improvements at all.
They helped significantly on the PSP, but that's all the verification I can give. I don't have much coding knowledge so I can't explain why exactly the codes provide speedups.
http://www.mediafire.com/?i3wl1qwzh4ylxrl
http://www.mediafire.com/?i3wl1qwzh4ylxrl
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