Homebrew lolSnes -- SNES emulator for DS

[the_randomizer]

I wonder if this even works on Desmume 9.10. All I get is a crash and when it doesn't, I get two blank screens. Unless there's an issue with the slot 1 and 2 settings...?

 

[Arisotura]

'Crash' as in?

Probably your desmume config. Or perhaps the autobuilder broke somehow. Can someone else check this?

 

[the_randomizer]

'Crash' as in?

Probably your desmume config. Or perhaps the autobuilder broke somehow. Can someone else check this?

I'm using the most recent version of Desmume, with the slot 1 config set to retail and slot 2 set as MPCF Flash Device (and "use path of the loaded ROM"). Probably a PEBKAC error on my part, this is version 9.10 and not the previous 0.99 version.

Crash as in the typical Windows 7 crash and forced-to-close-the-program error

I'll try a build I tested before.


Edit: Tried a 10/27/13 on 0.99 and it works, trying recent one now.

Edit 2: Yep, it works now, I don't think it likes the most recent version of Desmume. Sorry to worry ya I get white screens with the bottom 1/4 of the screens black. 0.99 it is I guess. Methinks something with the slot loading broke in 9.10.

 

[the_randomizer]

I posted a bug report on the Desmume forums describing how the emulator runs on 0.99 but not 9.10, hopefully I'll get a response.

Edit: I reset the ROM but I get a "FAT init failed" error. The Desmume programmer, Zeromus alleges that it works on the most recent version using the same set up as with 0.99, which I think is BS, so I made a video.

 

[ipwndeveloper]

'Crash' as in?

Probably your desmume config. Or perhaps the autobuilder broke somehow. Can someone else check this?

Auto build works, so does manually compiling with the latest git.

I Have not been able to run losSnes in DeSmuME, as it reqires DLDi/FAT access(have not used emulated flash cart).

 

[the_randomizer]

Auto build works, so does manually compiling with the latest git.

I Have not been able to run losSnes in DeSmuME, as it reqires DLDi/FAT access(have not used emulated flash cart).

I spoke with the Desmume author, it's easy to fix. Under the Emulation tab (I think) there is an option called "ROM loading". From there, change it to "Load from RAM" and it will work. I just tested it and it runs just fine The problem is that a lot of people won't know why it doesn't work. Don't touch the Slot-1 settings, but Slot-2 needs to be the MCPF Flash Device, with the bottom radio button option selected.

 

[ipwndeveloper]

I spoke with the Desmume author, it's easy to fix. Under the Emulation tab (I think) there is an option called "ROM loading". From there, change it to "Load from RAM" and it will work. I just tested it and it runs just fine The problem is that a lot of people won't know why it doesn't work. Don't touch the Slot-1 settings, but Slot-2 needs to be the MCPF Flash Device, with the bottom radio button option selected.

Wow, that will make testing a bunch easier, thanks mate!

 

[the_randomizer]

Auto build works, so does manually compiling with the latest git.

I Have not been able to run losSnes in DeSmuME, as it reqires DLDi/FAT access(have not used emulated flash cart).

I spoke with the Desmume author, it's easy to fix. Under the Emulation tab (I think) there is an option called "ROM loading". From there, change it to "Load from RAM" and it will work. I just tested it and it runs just fine The problem is that a lot of people won't know why it doesn't work. Don't touch the Slot-1 settings, but Slot-2 needs to be the MCPF Flash Device, with the bottom radio button option selected.

Wow, that will make testing a bunch easier, thanks mate!

Keep in mind that it will be more CPU intensive to use an emulator in an emulator, so it won't be quite full speed, but we don't need that. I just use it to see what games run, and what error messages appear and I write those down Glad I could help! Also make sure that the roms are in a folder called snes in the same directory where lolsnes is located

 

[Arisotura]

I'm fairly certain that the anti-piracy messages could be quickly solved by including an option to specify how much SRAM each game has, but I'm not sure about the more graphical errors.

I don't think that will be needed unless some games purposely have a wrong SRAM size value in their headers.

SRAM support may be what is breaking DKC, though. Many games, including DKC, only have 2K of SRAM, however lolSnes' memory mapping table has a granularity of 8KB. That means that if the game tries to write 'out of bounds' to check for mirroring, stuff will be written out of bounds instead of mirroring properly. I need to work around that no matter what, having games overwrite potentially important memory is bad bad bad.

Relatedly, I was able to get Tetris Attack to work by applying some SRAM related fixes. The game has no SRAM, but lolSnes was still mapping SRAM. Not only was it mapping a 1-byte buffer, but also apparently Tetris Attack attempts to write to SRAM, probably as an anti-piracy measure... so yeah you figure the consequences of all that.

 

[Arisotura]

Tons of fixes ahead! SRAM, graphics, SPC700... should definitely improve compatibility quite a bit.

However I temporarily disabled the mechanism that tries to prevent flickering during lag, because it caused some rather annoying issues. I'll try to fix that before the release.

Now, have some cool screenshots! Those showcase some of the fixed priority cases. lolSnes should get many priority cases right. Of course, not all, because I use a (very) hacky way to detect blank tiles. But detecting those properly would be rather complex.

There are some of the cases below where SNemulDS in its default config would fail.

Earthbound also seems more stable. Hope it'll stay this way because it seems there are still some weird timing issues.

 

[zero2exe]

Wow those pics look really nice MM. I'm gonna give it a try on my flashcart now

Edit: My compatibility list using a DSTT flashcard.

Tetris Attack - Gameplay is quite slowed down but totally playable (although that could be because of my card?), the story sequences are complete black screens although the sound lets you know the game is being played so you can directly skip to the actual challenge and play normally.

Breath of Fire II - It shows up pretty good without graphical glitches. Sounds is disabled and the game speed is veeeery slow. Also the game freezes in a black screen as soon as you leave for the overworld.

Breath of Fire I - Unplayable

Earthbound - Works as described in MM's post. Blacks out upon entering a battle though.

SMW - This one is really odd case. With the new build, there are a series of black strings/thrash lines where text is supposed to be (Title screen, file selection, stage name), also the water in Yoshi's Island 4 stage, well it's there but the waves are replaced by the same black strings, it's odd but at least you know it's there, finally I see an improvement in gameplay speed as it doesn't lag as much as it used to do during a stage (Vanilla dome 1 used to drop fps heavily in the room where you ran with the invincibility star, now it's about 90% better). What strikes me as odd is that when I played this game on one of the earlier losnes builds all the text mentioned above displayed correctly, so I'm thinking about trying the older builds again and see what I get.

 

[Arisotura]

The issue you got with SMW sounds like some case of corrupted ROM or other weird issue. I just tested SMW on the last Git build and it works fine.

 

[zero2exe]

The issue you got with SMW sounds like some case of corrupted ROM or other weird issue. I just tested SMW on the last Git build and it works fine.

I just tried the same rom with build "Revision 3a0e5b8010b23abfdf5b3d7b50280524f96ca77a" which dates from 10/24 and all the text stuff including the waves showed up perfectly (also the blue item box above mario showed up while in the last two builds it went missing leaving the item hanging in the air).

 

[Arisotura]

That sounds like something caused BG3 to shit itself. But again, it works fine here, I can't reproduce the issue. Maybe your flashcard's launcher not resetting all memory before loading a .nds... but then older lolSnes builds would fail too. I didn't touch the memory initialization shit.

 

[zero2exe]

beats me as well, the best I can do is track the last working version (?), luckily builds don't conflict with each other as long as they got different names so I'm gonna try them all at once and hope for the best lol.

Edit:
Sooo it works up to "Revision a745cf70e3e3b11f981b26c1abce29194e170818" (10/27) with my flashcart and it starts to get buggier by each subsequent version (like the water waves showing but not overlapping structures in the following build until they finally disappeared altogether).
I'd love to blame my old flashcart for this, and it probably has something to do since you don't get the problem, but still if it works fine with older builds then something must have changed along the way... hmmhmm

 

[the_randomizer]

Test results with 12/12/13 build:

Aladdin: No errors, shows Capcom logo, lockup

Animaniacs: Boots, flickering backgrounds, HCOUNT IRQ ENABLE: B1, 16x16 tiles not supported

Castlevania Dracula X: Boots, flames do not animate and are opaque, obscuring foreground

EarthBound: Boots, crashes at first battle

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Unsupported VRAM MODE 84, Read OPVCT, BRK@ 00: B864:52091AB8

Kirby's Avalanche: Boots, laggy audio, Read OPVCT, BGs intact

Killer Instinct: Immediate crash, no errors

Mega Man 7:Crash after logo, HCOUNT IRQ ENABLE: B1

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Shows logo and options menu, working audio, crashes after char. select

Return of Double Dragon: Boots, no transparency so you can't tell what option is being selected

Super Mario World: Perfect as far as I can tell

TMNT IV Turtles in Time: Mostly playable, 16x16 tiles not supported

TMNT Tournament Fighters: Boots, BGs mostly intact, crashes in-battle

 

[Shicky256]

My test results:
Donkey Kong Country still has the same graphical errors, but Cranky Kong shows, albeit glitched on the intro. When I start a game, there's some glitchy text, and the characters are otherwise invisible. After exiting to the stage select screen after I die, the screen becomes a glitchy mess.
There's no difference with F-Zero.
NBA Jam is odd. The copyright text is no longer overlapped by the NBA logo, but when I start a game the summary text overlays the screen, and the actual court doesn't display at all. Because of this, the game is unplayable. However, the voice samples play fine.
Rock N Roll Racing now displays the text correctly, so shop and other screens work fine. The gameplay is almost perfect, but looks faster in the intro screen than during gameplay.
In SimCity, the black bar that goes behind the buttons is now gone.
Street Fighter II still locks up, but now says "read OPVCT" on the bottom screen.
Super Famicom Wars black-screens at "vram = 0206253C : 02079E8C". This game doesn't appear to have any special chips in it, so I don't know what's happening.
Super Ghouls & Ghosts has no changes.
Super Puyo Puyo's clouds no longer overlay the menu. The border for my side of the screen flashes before the whole screen slides over. This has the coincidence of making the bar in the middle's left side cut off.
Tetris & Dr. Mario now starts. However, the Tetris item on the main menu is just a yellow square, and the Dr. Mario screen is missing the Player 1 or 2 select. Both games play fine.

 

[the_randomizer]

This emulator is looking better all the time, keep it up

 

[user64]

Haven't watched this for a while, seems like this emulator has really come a long way!

Those screenshots are really nice, by the way.

 

[NES_player4life]

Keep up the good work.