Homebrew [Release] uae3DS (Amiga 500 Emulator for Nintendo 3DS)

[Doczu]

You're telling me it will be (or already is) possible to play Cannon Fodder, Benefactor, Space Hulk, Space Crusade and Alien Breed on my n3DS?!
Holy shit i have to try it at home!

 

[Badda]

You're telling me it will be (or already is) possible to play Cannon Fodder, Benefactor, Space Hulk, Space Crusade and Alien Breed on my n3DS?!
Holy shit i have to try it at home!

Yes, should be already possible. If not, any feedback is appreciated :-)

 

[Deleted member 42501]

@Badda

First impressions

Great compatibility for an early release

Graphics look accurate on the n3DS screen

Works perfectly on Luma 6.6

Standard button mappings are very intuitive

Simple but effective UI

Save states are perfect



Issues


Audio playback sounds 10% slower than it should be across the board with standard n3DS Clock. Clock/L2 the same, almost like its a NTSC running in PAL issue?



Suggestions

Concentrate purely on optimising vanilla A500 experience first

Map power and disk lights to charge and wifi LEDs on 3DS

Ability to bind keyboard presses to buttons/remap

Scanline overlay

Disk read speed option

Map mouse pointer 1:1 with top screen cursor location



Overall a really good early release, surprised no one else has noticed the sound issue though.

 

[Badda]

@Badda

First impressions

Great compatibility for an early release

Graphics look accurate on the n3DS screen

Works perfectly on Luma 6.6

Standard button mappings are very intuitive

Simple but effective UI

Save states are perfect



Issues


Audio playback sounds 10% slower than it should be across the board with standard n3DS Clock. Clock/L2 the same, almost like its a NTSC running in PAL issue?



Suggestions

Concentrate purely on optimising vanilla A500 experience first

Map power and disk lights to charge and wifi LEDs on 3DS

Ability to bind keyboard presses to buttons/remap

Scanline overlay

Disk read speed option

Map mouse pointer 1:1 with top screen cursor location



Overall a really good early release, surprised no one else has noticed the sound issue though.

Thanks for the feedback - what's a scanline overlay?

 

[PetePetePetePete]

version 0.2 seems much better. Lionheart has still some graphical glitches. Agony - it seems emulator doesnt use extra half-brite mode with 64 colours, Agony has loading screens in this mode.

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Thanks for the feedback - what's a scanline overlay?

Scanline overlay - scanlines are visible on old crt displays. Winuae or retroarch use shaders overlay for this, but with cost of performance

 

[Badda]

Ah, ok, understood. I'm not very fond of CRT or scanline emulation in general. Here a post from @spinal_cord in the vice3DS thread regarding exactly this topic.

No matter how 'close' to a crt screen the effect give, a lot of people prefer images to be pixel perfect. On a screen that can easily create a 1:1 pixel image from the C64, that option should not be ignored. It's similar to saying new DVD players should blur the image on purpose just because old TV weren't as clear as new LCD ones.
Defending an unintended gfx issue should never be the way to deal with a simple request and lets remember, artificially blurring a screen will never look the same as viewing an image on an old computer monitor or TV.

I totally agree with his point. A scanline overlay would be emulating a defective (or rather: once unavoidable) screen behavior, which is fixed on todays LCD screens and that is a good thing! Apart from this, a scanline overlay would take away precious space on the small 3DS display.

 

[PetePetePetePete]

I totally agree with his point. A scanline overlay would be emulating a defective (or rather: once unavoidable) screen behavior, which is fixed on todays LCD screens and that is a good thing! Apart from this, a scanline overlay would take away precious space on the small 3DS display.

I have several crt displays, including VGA 15khz capable, ideal for Amiga. Real scanlines are best on real crt and I love it. Emulating on lcd is possible, but disputable. Winuae has several shader options with pal colors, scanlines etc. Playing with these settings can produce very good results, but still it is not like crt, in my opinion. And 3DS has 240 pixels high screen, for better scanlines - resolution would have to be doubled? (if I am wrong, correct me somebody).

By the way, I tested Agony again. Loading screens with smaller amount of colour, everything is cca 20% slower, but after long loading, main game is perfect - speed, sound, and animations are as it should be (ok, in half of first level was short glitch). Agony is exact timed game and good for emulator tests, so this is good news

 

[Deleted member 42501]

Yeah, good points. The 240p screen on the DS is perfect for Amiga as it makes the games look how they should/as remembered.

@Badda what is causing this across the board slowdown? It really does feel like when a 60hz game is played at 50hz as its not stuttering just everything is happening at less speed than it should?

I'm just using regular A500 games to test so far and I've noticed it across the board with pitched down sound etc..

 

[Badda]

Yeah, good points. The 240p screen on the DS is perfect for Amiga as it makes the games look how they should/as remembered.

@Badda what is causing this across the board slowdown? It really does feel like when a 60hz game is played at 50hz as its not stuttering just everything is happening at less speed than it should?

I'm just using regular A500 games to test so far and I've noticed it across the board with pitched down sound etc..

Hm, no idea TBH. I'm checking though ... maybe I can find the cause ...

 

[MarioKartFan]

Hm, no idea TBH. I'm checking though ... maybe I can find the cause ...

This same issue occurs on your excellent C64 emulator too.

 

[Deleted member 42501]

Hm, no idea TBH. I'm checking though ... maybe I can find the cause ...

I get the feeling its something to do with your frameskip code, all of the options cause varying degrees of acceleration with auto causing the perfect sync but slowed down issue so maybe something in there about the clock rate needs to be tweaked as it seems to be running correctly just at the wrong number of cycles. Aside from the slower rendering its quite good emulation as is so if that were fixed it would be a great leap.

 

[ChibiMofo]

Thank you for working on this; it is very appreciated.

To be fair, I'm not sure the basis for judgement on such Emulators.
There are already very functional MAME cores on Arcade Emulators for the 3DS so why would anyone try to play the exact games on anything inferior.

The Adventure games are what this machine had over the Consoles and Arcade machines.

I already have the C64 Emulator in my Homebrew and I came looking for this because of the great Pixel Art this generation of machines had.
They fit so well on the handheld form factor and the 3DS does a much better job of creating the computer feel with its two monitors compared to the Switch.

Looking forward to its full development.

Whoa! You think the Amiga was just about "inferior" arcade ports and adventure games? You really have a LOT to learn about the Amiga, my amigo. Sheesh. I can't remember any of my Amiga friends getting excited over any adventure games (Defender of the Crown and other Cinemaware games were pretty, but unexciting and not among the best Amiga games of their day), and our arcade ports like Marble Madness not only were the best of any contemporary platform, but due to the controls of Marble Madness in particular, better than MAME can even achieve now. Lastly, games were a minor reason the Amiga sold, at least in the states. It was a multimedia production machine first, with Lotus-compatible spreadsheets, the first-of-their-kind databases that supported graphics and sound, and even WordPerfect for Amiga. Earl Weaver Baseball was by far best on the original Amiga version and, as late as 1994, appear in one magazine's list of the top 50 games ever. This was a 16 bit machine with separate co-processors for graphics and sound. No PC and no console in 1987 could touch it for arcade ports, arcade-style games, nor anything else.

 

[Badda]

@Badda
Issues
Audio playback sounds 10% slower than it should be across the board with standard n3DS Clock. Clock/L2 the same, almost like its a NTSC running in PAL issue?

I've been able to fix this for Turrican by increasing the trottle in the menu to 60.
Can you check if increasing the throttle fixes the issue?
Chui's uae4all page states throttle values and compatibilities for a lot of games:
http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/uae4all.html

 

[Deleted member 42501]

I've been able to fix this for Turrican by increasing the trottle in the menu to 60.
Can you check if increasing the throttle fixes the issue?
Chui's uae4all page states throttle values and compatibilities for a lot of games:
http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/uae4all.html

Played around with that and the sound is still off no matter what you do. Which source code did you port as the Dingoo one has the same issues. Have you looked at UAE4ALL2 source?

https://github.com/rsn8887/uae4all2/releases

As thats a great implementation on Vita.

 

[Zense]

I used the source code from https://www.emutopia.com/index.php/emulators/item/324-commodore-amiga/501-uae4all
That was actually the only code that compiled without a lot of changes. I tried with other versions as well, e.g. the gp2x version 0.7.2 from https://notaz.gp2x.de/other.php#GP2X. This one would not compile because it contains a lot of proprietary code which would have been too much effort to fix.
I checked uae4all2 as well (https://github.com/lubomyr/uae4all2 - this is what the switch-version is based on). I actually got it to compile ok but it always crashes :-(
Do you have any info on the pros and cons between the different version? If I switch to another base version, I would want to do it before I include too many 3ds-specific changes in the current one ...

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Thanks for the info - good to know that the 256kb version works as well. I updated the OP.

Played around with that and the sound is still off no matter what you do. Which source code did you port as the Dingoo one has the same issues. Have you looked at UAE4ALL2 source?

https://github.com/rsn8887/uae4all2/releases

As thats a great implementation on Vita.

Don't know it that's the same uae4all2 source you're both talking about.

 

[Badda]

Don't know it that's the same uae4all2 source you're both talking about.

Yes, that is basically the same code, I actually got it to compile by now but it is way too slow for the 3DS. In the end, the mentioned version is made for PS vita or Nintendo Switch which both have way more processing power

 

[daemonspudguy]

I'm curious how this will pan out.

 

[CrashMidnick]

I hope your project will be similar to what have been done on Switch. I love the Amiga. Thanks for this.

I am waiting for KS 3.1 support and HDF to load my WB

 

[Mirqq]

I've just checked and it works with kick 2.05.

 

[Deleted User]

Whoa! You think the Amiga was just about "inferior" arcade ports and adventure games? You really have a LOT to learn about the Amiga, my amigo. Sheesh. I can't remember any of my Amiga friends getting excited over any adventure games (Defender of the Crown and other Cinemaware games were pretty, but unexciting and not among the best Amiga games of their day), and our arcade ports like Marble Madness not only were the best of any contemporary platform, but due to the controls of Marble Madness in particular, better than MAME can even achieve now. Lastly, games were a minor reason the Amiga sold, at least in the states. It was a multimedia production machine first, with Lotus-compatible spreadsheets, the first-of-their-kind databases that supported graphics and sound, and even WordPerfect for Amiga. Earl Weaver Baseball was by far best on the original Amiga version and, as late as 1994, appear in one magazine's list of the top 50 games ever. This was a 16 bit machine with separate co-processors for graphics and sound. No PC and no console in 1987 could touch it for arcade ports, arcade-style games, nor anything else.

Maybe try figuring out context before jumping on a rant.
There is a chronological order to comments and replies here, and if you gave half a second to see the comments that preceded mine, it wouldn't take much of an intellect to see where mine came from.

But you do you, man.