GimliDS

[wavemotion]

So... after 3 failed attempts over the last two years, I finally got one hacked version of FrodoDS to compile and run. Took about 8 hours to get it to build and get rid of the 'GURU Meditation' crashes.

But it works... and I spent another few hours just doing a high-level pass at optimization to gain about 25% more speed which allows me to drop the frameskip (at least on the DSi) and it's also had a positive effect on the SID chip music (not running full speed is always a disaster for sound).

I hesitated to post anything as I don't want to get anyone's hopes up... but that's a huge first step for me.

The first thing that I'm jettisoning is the 'tiny key' keyboard. I can't use that at my age... so I'll work on something.

This key layout isn't entirely correct yet... but I think it will be something like this:

That gives almost enough room for the required 56 keys of a C64 keyboard and provides for a status line between the keys and the logo.

I'll see if passion strikes on this... it's still a long uphill battle to get it into modern sensible shape. I'm not calling it FrodoDS - there are already 1.3 million versions of that floating around... and none of them are particularly great. I'll probably rework the whole thing into a spin-off of FrodoDS called... wait for it... GimliDS.

 

[djleviticus]

Whoop whoop. Thankyou so much. First the speccy now this. Happy days

 

[wavemotion]

Okay... make some progress last night. A bit frustrating just coming to grips with the existing code base.

I added a proper frame/speed counter and improved the frame-to-frame timing.

I've also integrated a prototype version of the new keyboard - it's nowhere near final version.

I also enabled the more accurate emulation of CPU as I found almost 50% failure rate in loading up d64 disks... with the more accurate emulation, the load rate is well above 80% now. But it comes at a cost of speed.

I've also got some debug registers - and you'll see that in the upper left and that number is the number of bytes we're moving around in memory when the screen draws... yes, that number is 11 million and only represents like 10 seconds of gameplay.

And that's the crux of the current problem - we're moving so much memory around when the screen scrolls that it's killing the emulation speed. And when the frame rate varies with scrolling, that also has a deterimental effect on the SID music chip output (even when running at full speed it's only passible sound... but it gets much worse when the emulator gets hammered with memory moves).

So next step is to figure out how to speed up (or partially eliminate) those memory moves and see if I can't get it all running at 100%.

 

[Chillimonster]

AWESOME work so far, looking forward to seeing this develop.

 

[QuestionEmulation]

This is why the government wants to control access to everything. I'm gonna wake up one day and see macOS Monterey or something running on Nintendo hardware.

 

[wavemotion]

More progress...

Speed is just about 100% for the DSi and above... the DS-Lite/Phat will have to wait.

Border colors are now mapped to the lower screen.

New joystick icons that let you toggle between Joystick Port1 and Port2.

I bumped up the sound fidelity for the SID chip so it's starting to sound pretty nice. Not perfect but better than anything I've heard out of any previous FrodoDS version.

And since the heart of this emulator is still the Frodo codebase... I feel it would be disrespectful to not align with that theme... but there are far too many FrodoDS compilations floating around so my reworking will likely be called GimliDS.

 

[CrashMidnick]

Wow !
Thanks Dave, this is great ! I hope that your passion will strike on this, C64 is one of the best computer ever made and our beloved DS derserves such an emulator with your well known ability to deliver something very polished. I wish you all the best with this new project.

 

[wavemotion]

Thanks Crash... working hard on this but it's a tough nut to crack.

Emulation accuracy is still a notch below where I'd like it. Speed is coming along - I've roughly doubled the speed of the original versions of FrodoDS - and on the DSi it can keep up at full frame-rate with no frame-skip except for the hardest hitting games. The DS-Lite support is... well, it's a work in progress

Next up is the disk menu to allow mounting of Drive 8 and Drive 9.

 

[Flame]

As much, I love Commodore 64 as much as the next guy. DS64 makes me think this is a N64 emulator.

but looking forward to your work my bro.

 

[wavemotion]

As much, I love Commodore 64 as much as the next guy. DS64 makes me think this is a N64 emulator.

Yeah, totally! I thought the same thing.

And as this is still heavily based on the open-source Frodo, it would be a disservice to not give it some kind of nod to the original. So I'm going to call it GimliDS - feel free to change the title of the thread.

 

[Flame]

Yeah, totally! I thought the same thing.

And as this is still heavily based on the open-source Frodo, it would be a disservice to not give it some kind of nod to the original. So I'm going to call it GimliDS - feel free to change the title of the thread.

View attachment 499945

done!

 

[wavemotion]

Okay... more improvements today - true drive emulation is now working and is about 50% faster than any previous version of FrodoDS. This should allow more games to run properly.

I've also fixed the keyboard handler - in some games (especially pre-game Trainer/Cheats/Cracks menus), the keys were not very responsive. But this should be quite solid now.

Need to add back in Save States and some per-game configuration settings and I think it might be available in a week or so for a semi-public beta release.

Right now, @djleviticus has been helping me run the alphas through some paces... it's been rough in spots but hopefully he will agree this is coming along nicely despite plenty of early problems to fix. It's not easy to watch the sausage get made

 

[djleviticus]

This emulator is real good. Especially with true drive emulation. It's going to be worth the wait. Thanks for letting me help do some testing in this project

 

[wavemotion]

Won't be long now!

 

[Chillimonster]

Awesome news!

Can’t wait to try this!

 

[wavemotion]

I should have a public beta within a day or so...

Sometimes people ask how they can support my efforts - and while I never take any sort of compensation for my hobby efforts, one thing that would help and costs you nothing is to 'star' my emulators on GitHub:

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave

Specifically GimiliDS if you want to just support the upcomming release:

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/GimliDS

I hate to be a shill - but these stars do mean something to me.

 

[Flame]

I should have a public beta within a day or so...

Sometimes people ask how they can support my efforts - and while I never take any sort of compensation for my hobby efforts, one thing that would help and costs you nothing is to 'star' my emulators on GitHub:

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave

Specifically GimiliDS if you want to just support the upcomming release:

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/GimliDS

I hate to be a shill - but these stars do mean something to me.

I star'd you. You are a star, my bro.

 

[djleviticus]

Amazing developer.

 

[FanNintendo]

Fantastic Job! Commodore 64 was my 1st when I was kid, Every month in mail I get Ahoy! magazine and i would fill it in computer to make a game.

 

[wavemotion]

Thanks guys! I've got the start of the readme file for GimliDS - of primary importance is the BIOS files you will need to find (yourself!) - might be worth hunting them down soon

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/GimliDS