Homebrew [Release] Vice3DS (C64 Emulator)

Elwyndas

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Such a pity that Nintendo themselves have given up releasing games for the systems, the 2DSXL model is only 2 years old after all.

Well who cares. My daughter abuses my N3DS to play Mario Kart, Kid Icarus and Kirby. She really likes Kirby because that sprite can suck in bad people and blast them out to hurt other bad people. Cheers to Nintendo for that idea. There is so much game material on the 3DS, and with Twilight you can also access the gigantic library of NDS. So there really is enough stuff already on that limited system. It's all good. On top, all vintage systems can be emulated. It's not perfected though. Badda job. :)
 

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BUG: Auto-fire is always on, once I press the right shoulder buttons. No way to turn them off.
After playing with it a little I think it would be best to assign auto fire to the unused X and Y buttons, and have right shoulder be assigned to something else by default, like saving/loading state.
Auto fire should definitely not be locked in, like caps lock. X should be auto fire for A, and Y auto fire for B.
On the left shoulder we have the C64 mouse buttons assigned, and while it's important to be able to do that for perfect emulation, let's face it, who is ever going to use a mouse on GEOS on an emulated C64 on a 3DS? It should be an option for those who want it, but by default it should be assigned to something more commonly used. Like L assigned to toggle bottom back light, and ZL to Pause, something like that.
 

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Sorry me again. About that bug, auto-fire can't be turned off - this only happens in Fort Apocalypse, so far. I tried two different cracks of that game. Once you hit the auto-fire button and let go, it will not stop firing.
EDIT: This does not happen on Citra. On Citra, running Fort Apocalypse, only one of the shoulder buttons work for auto fire. The other one does nothing after switching inputs. Maybe this is a hint of what's wrong.
 
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Elwyndas

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I can replicate this on Turrican on the actual N3DS.

If anyone is interested in doing testing on Citra, here is the quick and dirty way to get that 3DS emulator working on Windows 10.

https://citra-emu.org/download/

Put the Vice3DS cia file into the "games" folder you designate during install. From there you can install it through the File menu option, once you put it into that location.

Next, also under File, select "Open Citra Folder", and open the sdmc folder. Bookmark this, because this is the virtual SD card. Put all your "backup" ROMs there and other toys you want to try out.

To make sound work, you must copy the file dspfirm.cdc which is located in the 3ds folder of your real N3DS to the 3ds folder inside that virtual sdmc folder.

If you want to start with a reboot of the 3DS emulation, select Emulation -> Stop, and then you can launch Vice3DS again.

To learn which keys on the PC keyboard to press that represent the N3DS keys, just go to Emulation -> Configure -> Controls, where you can also setup an Xbox controller or whatever.

EDIT: Wait, are we emulating the Commodore 64 home computer on an emulated Nintendo device (lame in the 80's) that runs on a Microsoft environment (lame in the 90's)? Crazy... Russian emulation dolls.
 
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Sorry me again. About that bug, auto-fire can't be turned off - this only happens in Fort Apocalypse, so far. I tried two different cracks of that game. Once you hit the auto-fire button and let go, it will not stop firing.
EDIT: This does not happen on Citra. On Citra, running Fort Apocalypse, only one of the shoulder buttons work for auto fire. The other one does nothing after switching inputs. Maybe this is a hint of what's wrong.
other games have this autofire bug too. r-type, turrican.. You can press select twice, to turn this off.

Thanks for the great testing efforts! I was able to replicate the bug and fix for the next version. Was another libSDL-bug :-(

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On the left shoulder we have the C64 mouse buttons assigned, and while it's important to be able to do that for perfect emulation, let's face it, who is ever going to use a mouse on GEOS on an emulated C64 on a 3DS? It should be an option for those who want it, but by default it should be assigned to something more commonly used. Like L assigned to toggle bottom back light, and ZL to Pause, something like that.
Mouse is not just for GEOS - have you ever played Arkanoid with the touchpad? Thats really fun :-)
 

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I have no flashkart, but after hour of playing with ramdisk image, and renaming game names to 8.3 format, it works :) Renaming to short names is essential, like Gadget 2006 writes in his post. But emulator still crashes too often, mainly after trying to load another game from file menu. Natively port for 3DS is nice idea, so maybe somebody can do it? I have too weak programming experience for do this. Retroarch's Fuse does not work for me (I did try many versions)


To have ZXDS run via a CIA would be amazing, i had the same problem running ZXDS through RAMDISK. Please please somebody get it running !!!!!!

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OMG
you did it! This is the ultimate release! All the other handheld retroarchs and whatevers are paling now. Actually this is the best implementation of VICE for sure. It's so neat to have multiple controllers at your finger tips, easy switching between options, a keyboard, and so on. It beats the desktop emulators where you need to connect controllers and start an antiquated windows menu that pauses the emulation. The real C64 also doesn't stop running when you insert a disc into the floppy drive! True emulation should account for this, and Vice3DS does. Huge step! In fact this should inspire 3DS ports for other emulators to follow suit. I remember that seeing the ZX Spectrum emulator for DS (ZXDS, by Patrik Rak) was a great inspiration. It's the only other emulator I know that makes good use of the double/touch screen. Perhaps give them some credit. I certainly got some ideas from it that I posted here. If anybody is interested in running ZXDS on the 3DS, I got it to run by starting it through TwiLight Menu++ from one of those hacker carts. I will post detailed instructions if anybody cares.


That would be great if you could give a detailed instruction for ZXDS as i have tried and when i go to load a different game it crashes :)
 

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To have ZXDS run via a CIA would be amazing, i had the same problem running ZXDS through RAMDISK. Please please somebody get it running !!!!!!

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That would be great if you could give a detailed instruction for ZXDS as i have tried and when i go to load a different game it crashes :)
Wrong thread I believe ...
 

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@Badda I have a question regarding Quickload and Quicksave soft buttons on the lower screen. Currently this is only applicable for one title. Wouldn't it also be possible to save this snapshot.vsf file in the name of the respective image so that the last snapshot could be loaded immediately after a title change? I know that this possibility exists via the snapshot options, however it would be easier and faster to do this via the soft buttons....or can this already be set accordingly?
 
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@Badda I have a question regarding Quickload and Quicksave soft buttons on the lower screen. Currently this is only applicable for one title. Wouldn't it also be possible to save this snapshot.vsf file in the name of the respective image so that the last snapshot could be loaded immediately after a title change? I know that this possibility exists via the snapshot options, however it would be easier and faster to do this via the soft buttons....or can this already be set accordingly?
You can easily map the other snapshot menu entires to a soft button. Or are you asking to change the quicksave filename? Is yes, how would this work exactly? What should be the filename when quicksaving and what when quickloading?
 

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Or are you asking to change the quicksave filename?
That's exactly what I meant. The filename of the snapshot should be the same as that of the image. As an example:
Arkanoid.d64 ---> Arkanoid.vsf (under /3ds/vice3ds)

Each image would then have its own snapshot and could then be loaded or saved directly via the soft button if the corresponding title has been loaded. (if this should be feasible).

I think I can remember that this was possible under Frodo3DS at that time. It would certainly be advantageous if this would also be possible under Vice3DS.
 
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That's exactly what I meant. The filename of the snapshot should be the same as that of the image. As an example:
Arkanoid.d64 ---> Arkanoid.vsf (under /3ds/vice3ds)

Each image would then have its own snapshot and could then be loaded or saved directly via the soft button (if this should be feasible).

I think I can remember that this was possible under Frodo3DS at that time. It would certainly be advantageous if this would also be possible under Vice3DS.

I have a couple of questions to this:
- What about if multiple images are attached (in multiple drives)? What if no image is attached?
- What if I'm playing e.g. Ultima which consists of multiple disks - all with different names?
- Which filename should be chosen if I just started up the emulator and click on quickload?
- Which name should be chosen if I have a disk, tape and a cartridge attached at the same time?
 

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- Which filename should be chosen if I just started up the emulator and click on quickload?
An image must of course have been started before. Currently it only works if an image has been attached before. If something has to be reloaded, a game would hang if this is not the case.

Hmm...to the other questions I have unfortunately no answer... and these situations also not considered.


You can easily map the other snapshot menu entires to a soft button.

Could you please explain to me in more detail how this is meant and how it should be applied?
If this has something to do with the option: Misc --> Unmap hotkey - this option always causes a crash of my consoles (tested on 3 different devices - N2DS XL, N3DS XL & O3DS)
 
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Elwyndas

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I think it would be possible to create CIA injects of C64 games so they can be launched straight from the home screen? No?
 

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I think it would be possible to create CIA injects of C64 games so they can be launched straight from the home screen? No?
Currently, there is no such way. I could, however, add a resource name so you could specify an autostart image in sdl-vicerc (similar to command line option -autostart in original VICE).
Maybe this way, you can create a game specific CIA with a tool to modify the original vice3DS CIA and change some files in romfs:
Include a sdl-vicerc file that specifies your C64 game as autostart image and include the image in romfs.
Apart from this, you would of course need to change the banner, icon and sound.
 

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Currently, there is no such way. I could, however, add a resource name so you could specify an autostart image in sdl-vicerc (similar to command line option -autostart in original VICE).

I get the impression that forwarders are ultimately the thing almost everybody wants. Somebody has now managed to get it done for PS1 on 3DS which is really amazing.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-ps1-forwarder-creator.550175/
The forwarder optimizes the retroarch settings for 3DS (which you have already done) and offers only a very limited menu to get rid of the confusing mess of the retroarch menu option. In your case this is also not really necessary because your menu is already lean.

My daughter likes playing Boulderdash on her 2DS, but she is not a fan of starting the emulator and then finding the game. In fact I always have to start it for her.

In other words, whoever does this, does it for my little baby :)
 

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View attachment 181976
This is a port of the VICE C64 emulator to 3DS.

Just registered to say thank you for this!

I just installed it tonight. I loaded up "Panther" to see if the music sounded as good as I remembered - it did. Then I loaded up "Encounter" to see if played like I remembered - it was amazing.

I had a problem with a couple of other games, but I'm so new to the emulator I don't know if it's something I did wrong. After more playing around I'll log bug reports if they do appear to be bugs.

Thanks again:)

PS: I had a C64 (Frodo?) emulator for the DS and sadly this had to skip lines due to the screen resolution - it's great to now have a pocket C64 which shows everything!
 
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Just registered to say thank you for this!

I just installed it tonight. I loaded up "Panther" to see if the music sounded as good as I remembered - it did. Then I loaded up "Encounter" to see if played like I remembered - it was amazing.

I had a problem with a couple of other games, but I'm so new to the emulator I don't know if it's something I did wrong. After more playing around I'll log bug reports if they do appear to be bugs.

Thanks again:)

PS: I had a C64 (Frodo?) emulator for the DS and sadly this had to skip lines due to the screen resolution - it's great to now have a pocket C64 which shows everything!
Thanks for the feedback. The current version (2.RCx) is still in pre-release state, I'm trying to get all the bugs fixed - which are actually a lot :cry: ...
If you want a stable version, use v1.6

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Could you please explain to me in more detail how this is meant and how it should be applied?
If this has something to do with the option: Misc --> Unmap hotkey - this option always causes a crash of my consoles (tested on 3 different devices - N2DS XL, N3DS XL & O3DS)

Uh, thanks for the hint w.r.t. to unmapping a hotkey - that is another bug :-(
Please keep reporting crashes - this will help me get rid of all the bugs!

EDIT: Found it - will be fixed in next version - either 2.RC3 or 2.0

Mapping a hotkey is a way to create a shortcut from a button (hardware or soft button) to a menu entry in VICE menu. To map a hotkey, open the menu, navigate to the menu entry that you want to map (but do not activate it), press the R-button and then the the button which you want to use in the future to activate this menu entry.
 
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Muxi

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Mapping a hotkey is a way to create a shortcut from a button (hardware or soft button) to a menu entry in VICE menu. To map a hotkey, open the menu, navigate to the menu entry that you want to map (but do not activate it), press the R-button and then the the button which you want to use in the future to activate this menu entry.

Thanks for this hint. This works great, but also here, as with the Quicksave snapshot, a selected image is always overwritten by the newer version. Wouldn't it also be possible (as for example with Windows) to set auto numbering behind the file name when saving, so that older savegames are preserved?

As an example:
The title cauldron.d64 is selected under "save snapshot image --> select filename and save snapshot". A file cauldron.d64.vsf is created. Later a second snapshot of the same game will be created, but without overwriting the first snpshot: cauldron.d64(1).vsf and so on. Then it would be worth considering adding a "Delete selected snapshot" option. But this could also be done with 3DShell if it would be too difficult to implement it.
You could also simply create files manually to use them as snapshots. This would also be a possibility, although a bit cumbersome.

The idea behind this is that often an older save can be helpful if irretrievable mistakes were made in a later state of a game. This principle is also used in other emulators in the form of "savestate slots".
 
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AMJ

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Thanks for the feedback. The current version (2.RCx) is still in pre-release state, I'm trying to get all the bugs fixed - which are actually a lot :cry: ...
If you want a stable version, use v1.6

I forgot to say I was using the latest release candidate, in an effort to get the latest good stuff and hopefully spot bugs!

I eventually got all the games working. I found it helped quite a bit if I pressed the correct things in the correct order. So no game-specific bugs found.

However: I guess you've spotted this already but it seems to crash, requiring a reboot, when I use the "stretch to fit screen" feature. If you don't get this, let me know what info you need about my specific system.
 

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