• HomeBoards
  • RulesRules
  • HelpHelp
  • WikiWiki
  • Donate

Author Topic: ReGBA, GBA emulator version 1.45.5 (hardware scaling)  (Read 166939 times)

Skyline969

  • Posts: 279
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 6]
« Reply #100 on: October 09, 2013, 06:33:29 am »
A fantastic emulator, I must say. Games that ran horribly before on gpSP run nice and smooth on ReGBA. I have, however, noticed some issues with several games. The most recent issue being from Dragonball Z: Buu's Fury.

Using the stock GBA BIOS (to test with gpSP, since Normmatt's seems to not work with gpSP), BF runs fine, albeit a little choppy and requiring the use of frameskip. With ReGBA, it runs nice and smooth, but will crash from time to time, seemingly randomly. I've seen it crash while transitioning from menus and dialog boxes.

With Normmatt's BIOS, it's stable, but the graphics will get completely garbled and render the game unplayable. As mentioned before, gpSP boots to a white screen when using Normmatt's BIOS.

I mentioned this on the IRC as well a little earlier, but I figured I'd mention it here too. Other than a few complaints with a few games, I love ReGBA and vastly prefer it over gpSP for most games. Great work so far!

Nebuleon

  • Guest
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 6]
« Reply #101 on: October 10, 2013, 12:09:05 am »
A fantastic emulator, I must say. Games that ran horribly before on gpSP run nice and smooth on ReGBA. I have, however, noticed some issues with several games. The most recent issue being from Dragonball Z: Buu's Fury.

Using the stock GBA BIOS (to test with gpSP, since Normmatt's seems to not work with gpSP), BF runs fine, albeit a little choppy and requiring the use of frameskip. With ReGBA, it runs nice and smooth, but will crash from time to time, seemingly randomly. I've seen it crash while transitioning from menus and dialog boxes.

With Normmatt's BIOS, it's stable, but the graphics will get completely garbled and render the game unplayable. As mentioned before, gpSP boots to a white screen when using Normmatt's BIOS.

I mentioned this on the IRC as well a little earlier, but I figured I'd mention it here too. Other than a few complaints with a few games, I love ReGBA and vastly prefer it over gpSP for most games. Great work so far!
Ah, another crasher a few more crashers, probably up to a hundred by now. Please put it them on my GitHub repository issues, and I may find out how to fix this all the bugs that make each game crash in late 2014, hopefully without breaking more games or making everything slower. This is a performance emulator, after all, so it takes lots of shortcuts that break easily.

Alternatively, if the file game_config.txt had an entry for this game these games in gpSP/PSP but not in ReGBA, pass it to me and I'll add it give me the sections and I'll add them.
« Last Edit: October 10, 2013, 12:14:20 am by Nebuleon »

Nebuleon

  • Guest
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 6]
« Reply #102 on: October 14, 2013, 10:50:02 pm »
ReGBA alpha 7 is available.

Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106475413/gcw-zero/regba-alpha-7.opk

New in this build:
  • The black screen that appeared for up to 7 seconds in alpha 6 when loading a (32 MiB) game, immediately after gmenu2x's "Launching ReGBA" screen, now hosts a progress indicator regarding the loading of the game.
  • A short black screen may also appear immediately after saving in-game, staying on-screen until the data is completely queued for writing. It states "Writing saved data". It also appears when exiting the emulator, if saved data was accessed by the game.

I toyed with memory-mapping [mmap] the ROM into ReGBA's process, but the on-demand loading is not fast enough, and the GCW Zero has 512 MiB, of RAM so I continue loading it fully before the first frame like in alpha 6. The Dingoo A320 has 32 MiB of RAM, so I use memory-mapping there.

mth told me that the microSD access driver could not be made to service memory-mapped files fast enough to avoid sound underruns, even after cleanups and optimisations, because the accesses are scattered everywhere in this emulator. I wonder how well 32 MiB ROMs work on the Dingoo A320, then, using any access method. Loading the entire ROM swaps some of the OS out, so that slows it down; loading it on-demand is not fast enough...

The last commit that went into this build is commit 1d04000: "GCW Zero: Load entire ROMs into memory again. Dingoo A320: Keep memory-mapping files due to the device not having enough memory to hold 32 MiB ROMs in private allocations.".
« Last Edit: October 14, 2013, 11:52:36 pm by Nebuleon »

naxeras

  • Posts: 191
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 7]
« Reply #103 on: October 17, 2013, 12:15:56 pm »
Thanks for your work.

I'm tested in my Dingoo with 386 mhz overclock.

Aspect ratio scaler is very good, thank you for add it.

The emulator works very good but the performance in this alphas is worse than native emulator even with overclocking.

Without scaling, when borders load, performance of emulator drops, ?It's a bug?

I try to test conflictive games soon.

Regards.

pcercuei

  • Posts: 1698
    • My devblog
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 7]
« Reply #104 on: October 17, 2013, 01:39:11 pm »
The emulator works very good but the performance in this alphas is worse than native emulator even with overclocking.
The native emulator over-clocks to 408 MHz.

naxeras

  • Posts: 191
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 7]
« Reply #105 on: October 17, 2013, 07:48:00 pm »
The emulator works very good but the performance in this alphas is worse than native emulator even with overclocking.
The native emulator over-clocks to 408 MHz.

This is impossible my dingoo only admits over 390MHZ, 396MHZ freezee my console.

Native emulator runs in stock clock 336 MHZ.

Regards.

Surkow

  • * Administrator
  • Posts: 681
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 7]
« Reply #106 on: October 17, 2013, 09:38:22 pm »
It varies per unit (for the Dingoo a320). My old unit could overclock far higher than the unit I received afterwards.

Nebuleon

  • Guest
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 7]
« Reply #107 on: October 17, 2013, 11:29:08 pm »
Thanks for your work.

I'm tested in my Dingoo with 386 mhz overclock.

Aspect ratio scaler is very good, thank you for add it.

The emulator works very good but the performance in this alphas is worse than native emulator even with overclocking.

Without scaling, when borders load, performance of emulator drops, ?It's a bug?

I try to test conflictive games soon.

Regards.
The Dingoo A320 is a contributed platform; I don't support it officially. I only attempted to make it work well on the Dingoo A320 with automatic frameskipping, and alpha 3 was much better than alpha 2 (which had no ability at all to skip frames) according to Gaku_Kano.

If you'd like some more optimisations for the Dingoo A320 on OpenDingux, you could do one of two things:
a) Wait for someone with a Dingoo A320 and the knowledge to edit ReGBA to pick it up.
b) Donate a Dingoo A320 to me, perhaps pooling with other interested people to get enough cash. This will allow me to see for myself how to optimise for the platform.

I already have a working version of ReGBA that can issue flawless audio at 30 FPS in Golden Sun on the DSTwo, which has the very same processor (JZ4740, 336..396 MHz). But I had to have lots of knowledge about the DSTwo SDK and how it draws to the screen and issues audio to get that performance. I can do it, given a Dingoo ;)

Nebuleon

  • Guest
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 7]
« Reply #108 on: October 22, 2013, 08:16:58 pm »
ReGBA alpha 8, the "input edition", is available.

Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106475413/gcw-zero/regba-alpha-8.opk

New in this build:
  • Rebinding for all GBA buttons (A, B, L, R, Start, Select) and rapid-fire. Regular buttons have mandatory bindings; rapid-fire buttons have optional bindings. See the Input Settings submenu.
  • Rebinding for the Menu button, now as a hotkey (which means you can require more than 1 button to enter the menu). Additionally, the Menu hotkey is not recognised if more than just its button is pressed (for example, set the hotkey to Y and R+Y won't trigger the menu, only exactly Y). The default Menu hotkey is Y. See the Hotkeys submenu.
  • The Fast-forward hotkey can now be rebound. The default is to have none, so if you want one, go set one :)
  • There is now a Fast-forward target setting. It allows you to set the maximum speed of fast-forwarding while its hotkey is pressed; values are from 2x to 6x. See the Display Settings submenu.
  • (GCW Zero) The analog nub can now be bound to the GBA d-pad. This helps bird's-eye view pixel-movement games like the Zeldas and the Golden Suns. See the Input Settings submenu.
  • (GCW Zero) The analog nub has a sensitivity setting. See the Input Settings submenu.

Changed in this build:
  • Saving the game on the GBA now does not display a short progress screen with "Writing saved data" in the middle.
  • Display settings, which were formerly shown in the Main Menu, are now in a Display Settings submenu.
  • A display optimisation whereby the border is not drawn every frame if all back-buffers of the N-buffered surface are guaranteed to be filled. This may help the Dingoo A320 in the bordered and aspect-ratio-preserving scaling modes. However, pcercuei reports it crashing in the Display Settings submenu on the Dingoo A320.

The last commit that went into this build is commit bf509fc: "OpenDingux: Add a remappable mandatory Menu hotkey.".
« Last Edit: October 22, 2013, 08:25:09 pm by Nebuleon »

gustavolatil

  • Posts: 131
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 8]
« Reply #109 on: October 22, 2013, 11:03:10 pm »
devs are gods! thanks!

gamefreak_joey

  • Posts: 138
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 8]
« Reply #110 on: October 22, 2013, 11:21:24 pm »
Regarding fast forwarding, can we toggle it yet or can it only FF while the set key is pressed down? I was hoping that eventually we could just toggle in steps, as in each time the hotkey is pressed it would raise the speed level up a notch (normal speed >> x2 >> x4 >> x8 >> normal speed)

Nebuleon

  • Guest
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 8]
« Reply #111 on: October 22, 2013, 11:26:39 pm »
Regarding fast forwarding, can we toggle it yet or can it only FF while the set key is pressed down? I was hoping that eventually we could just toggle in steps, as in each time the hotkey is pressed it would raise the speed level up a notch (normal speed >> x2 >> x4 >> x8 >> normal speed)
Only while the hotkey is held; it stops afterward. I don't really know of a case where holding the hotkey is not feasible; can you give me one example in a game you play?

gamefreak_joey

  • Posts: 138
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 8]
« Reply #112 on: October 22, 2013, 11:34:25 pm »
Just preference. Some extended grinding in games like RPGs and Pok?mon.

Nebuleon

  • Guest
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 8]
« Reply #113 on: October 22, 2013, 11:47:12 pm »
Just preference. Some extended grinding in games like RPGs and Pok?mon.
I already have an option like that on ReGBA/DSTwo, it's in the menu and lasts until it's undone in the menu. Would that do for extended fast-forwarding?

With a good target speed (say 4x), it should be both fast and manageable. Unless you're going for broke with 6x ;)

gamefreak_joey

  • Posts: 138
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 8]
« Reply #114 on: October 23, 2013, 01:24:33 am »
I'm not the rain man of gaming to go past 4x! :P I know I sound like an ingrate but I do it on the fly so much that entering the menu each time would become annoying. At any rate it's probably more of a hassle so it's ok if it can't be implemented. I really like where this emulator is going so far even without it.

Edit: I just got home. Time to try out this update! ^_^
« Last Edit: October 23, 2013, 01:27:41 am by gamefreak_joey »

Nebuleon

  • Guest
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 8]
« Reply #115 on: October 23, 2013, 04:05:39 am »
I'm not the rain man of gaming to go past 4x! :P I know I sound like an ingrate but I do it on the fly so much that entering the menu each time would become annoying. At any rate it's probably more of a hassle so it's ok if it can't be implemented. I really like where this emulator is going so far even without it.

Edit: I just got home. Time to try out this update! ^_^
Your suggestion is indeed much better in Pok?mon. Since you need to slow down to have a strategy against some particularly tough wild Pok?mon, you would need to enter the menu quite often, and having a toggle hotkey that can work with the while-held hotkey is better.

So... ReGBA alpha 9, the "second input edition", is available.

Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106475413/gcw-zero/regba-alpha-9.opk

New in this build:
  • A fast-forward toggle hotkey, defaulting to none. You can press the fast-forward while held hotkey and it will work regardless of toggle. If you toggle fast-forwarding and press the while-held hotkey, it will not go faster, however. See the Hotkeys submenu.

The last commit that went into this build is commit c3a5e47: "OpenDingux: Add a hotkey to toggle fast-forward until it's next held.".

gamefreak_joey

  • Posts: 138
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 9]
« Reply #116 on: October 23, 2013, 07:54:08 am »
Oh my! That was unexpectedly fast! It looks like I'll be spending even more time with this emulator!
Personal life? Who needs one of those?
                  ʅ(?◔౪◔)ʃ

That was very awesome of you to actually do that! Thank you!
But, uh oh, Do Alphas usually extend into the 10s? ^__^

Gab1975

  • Posts: 1165
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 9]
« Reply #117 on: October 23, 2013, 08:47:59 am »
Thanks for your work! This emulator is very cool... I tried several ROMs and all works fine (full speed and without glitches)... of course the original GBA bios is needed for a better compatibily ...
with the add of Load and Save State this emulator will be near the "perfection" ! ;)
« Last Edit: October 24, 2013, 10:28:46 am by Gab1975 »

RupeeClock

  • Posts: 234
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 9]
« Reply #118 on: October 23, 2013, 03:07:27 pm »
Oh brilliant, the long awaited button remapping! Now I can really dig into GBA goodness on the Zero! :)

Nebuleon

  • Guest
Re: ReGBA, GBA emulator [alpha 9]
« Reply #119 on: October 25, 2013, 07:52:02 am »
ReGBA alpha 10, the "saved states are awesome edition", is available.

Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106475413/gcw-zero/regba-alpha-10.opk

New in this build, which needs wider testing:
  • The appearance of a Saved States menu in the Main Menu. As in gpSP-Exophase 0.9, you can select your state, see screenshots that were saved along with existing states, load a state, write a state and delete a state. You get a confirmation before overwriting or deleting a state in this menu.
  • Quick load and save state (slot #1) hotkeys, defaulting to none. You get no confirmation before anything when using these hotkeys. See the Hotkeys submenu.
  • Errors occurring while performing file operations (loading the BIOS, loading the ROM, loading or saving a state) now appear on the screen, not only in the Log Viewer. For example: "Writing saved state #1 failed: No space left on device" or "Reading saved state #3 failed: No such file or directory".



Saved state file details:

There are 100 saved state slots. The states are saved in /boot/local/home/.gpsp as files named like the ROM but the extension ".sNN", where NN is between 00 and 99. Each saved state is 506,963 bytes (495.1 KiB).

Users of TempGBA/DSTwo can use their saved states from TempGBA betas 6-15 and versions 1.43-1.45 in ReGBA/GCW0. It is the very same format.

Users of gpSP/PSP cannot use their saved states in ReGBA/GCW0. gpSP/PSP's saved states referenced locations in the PSP's RAM, and as such would have corrupted the GCW0's RAM or crashed ReGBA when loaded, if the format had stayed the same. Users of gpSP/PSP can save in-GBA on their PSP and transfer the SRAM file (.sav) via storage cards instead.

The last commit that went into this build is commit 08273f6: "OpenDingux: Add quick load and save state hotkeys.".
« Last Edit: October 25, 2013, 08:03:51 am by Nebuleon »