fullspeed GBA/Nintendo DS emulator

[dmitrygr]

anyone interested/curious?

[LupeValenz]

Ohhhhhhhhh yeah! GBA games are still so much fun to play. :D. Though as for NDS, be very curious to see how that plays out on the palms

[ASHLEY75]

Very interested indeed. Especially the DS part although I don't know how to get games out of the DS and into a Palm.

[Creideiki]

Yup, interested.

<C>

[Rob_T]

Me too (interested that is).

[TheUltimate]

who wouldn't be interested??

[cheys03]

Registering my interest!! :-)

[dmitrygr]

who wouldn't be interested??


me. I just think that the technological challenge makes this project fun

[DoctorBri]

I've been hoping that Tinnus or Metaview would've brought this to LJP/LJR by now. I'd keep from selling my Zodiac if there were a serious attempt at GBA emulation, especially if you were behind it.

[idian]

anyone interested/curious?
What i would really love is Warpspeed upgrade to T680 compatible

[dmitrygr]

look around on 1src. a warpspeed beta was posted for t680

[jjesusfreak01]

Interested, there are a couple of GBA games I would love to play on my TX, but unfortunately, the only GBA emulator available now is quite slow. I would be interested to see a DS emulator, though I dont have a DS, so im not sure I would use it.

[dmitrygr]

ds is a long term goal as the 3-d hardware will be hard to emulate. but gba should be ok. my cpu emulator is currently 3x faster then the GBa is all should be well :-)

[Church Punk]

:eek: i would love to see GBA on my palm, of course! Now about the DS, i never thought it would be even possible to bring it to a normal palm (exept for a Zodiac?)...

So GBA interested DS curious :)

[dmitrygr]

zodiac in fact, is no help. it has 2d hardware. the only thing that worries me about the ds is 3d hardware. so no help.

[Church Punk]

i see, i thought zodiac had something like a graphic accelerator? or with the cpu or something like that... maybe i read something wrong :)

but hey, if DS is possible then 64 would be as well :P :D :rolleyes:

(now dont start dreaming with PS3 Wii etc etc etc...)

[dmitrygr]

the gba is just a coincidence that i made a processor emulator for the procesor gba uses :-)

[TheUltimate]

So are you going to try and take a stab at these emulators?? A lot of people have tried and basically failed...there is firestorm for gba but hell its so slow!

[dmitrygr]

well i already have a cpu emulator and so far it is too FAST not too slow
on 200 mhz te2 it outperforms what gba would do 3x or so

[Grandizer]

I think the Palm can handle GBA, but really doubtful about the DS. Palm doesn't have the hardware or power for such a thing (DS). That is, unless you're considering the pocket Linux devices.

Overall, this will be interesting to see.

[phreakonaleash]

What speed do the GBA processors run at?

[dmitrygr]

16.78MHz for GBA
66MHz Arm9 + 33MHz Arm7 for DS

[phreakonaleash]

Will be very intersting to see it done then, Dmitry.;)

[TheUltimate]

now being the great programmer you are, how long do think a project like this will take you for the gba and DS?

[dmitrygr]

DS is a far far possibility,if at all.

GBA... so far i am just playing around with the idea. Just seemed like a very good test of my fast ARM emulator.

Looking at how much there is to emulate - a few hundred hours

[idian]

look around on 1src. a warpspeed beta was posted for t680

Where ?
I couldn't find it. Anyone found it ?
If so, would someone kindly direct me to the correct link.

Thank you

[knank]

After the unsuccessful GBA emulator firestorm from crimsonfire, i would me very interested :D.

www.crimsonfire.com (it's practicaly dead, abandoned by their creatros and abandoning all people who bought it)

[yaniv79]

please post a link for Warpspeed t680 beta...

[thomas_92]

I'm interested ;)

[doeni]

that would be a really cool thing! veeery interested!

[cms]

same, im also interested

[truffles]

so this might be dmitry's new big project?

its a great idea - gba games are fun. it'll be another great use of our palm devices. we'll no longer envy those with ppc that get to play playstation / gba.

just also curious, what else did you have in mind?

[Palmsnipe]

Yes, I'm very interested too!!!!
Because Firestorm is not very fast.

[dmitrygr]

so this might be dmitry's new big project?

its a great idea - gba games are fun. it'll be another great use of our palm devices. we'll no longer envy those with ppc that get to play playstation / gba.

just also curious, what else did you have in mind?


My project was a fast arm emulator [for a reason that shall not be disclosed] but as i was thinking of good ways to test it, I thought of GBA emulation. so I thought i'd try it

[nameuser]

Me too! Interested.

[idian]

look around on 1src. a warpspeed beta was posted for t680


Where ?
I couldn't find it. Anyone found it ?
If so, would someone kindly direct me to the correct link.

Thank you

Dmitry,

Would you be kind enough to point us to the right link ?

Thanks

[bh77a]

The GBA emulator would be great... although I am not sure how to rip the ROM's. DS would be awesome, but not even sure conceptually how that would be implemented with dual screens, etc.

[MarkVI]

I'm definitely interested in this! It'll be most impressive coming from Dmitry. :rolleyes:

[vbrother]

look around on 1src. a warpspeed beta was posted for t680

What about the UX? I've already purchased UDMH, I'd like to buy a Clié HHE accelerator uf there's one...

[quadrac]

i'd love to have a GBA emulator for my Palm T3.
however, maybe it's time to write an emulator for the (soon to be mine) FOLEO?
:cool:

[zarazum]

GBA on Palm would be great! I will sell out my GBA Micro.

BTW, Dmitry I've launched your PowerClip on my Palm TX and it seems to be same clipboard limit. Should it work on TX?

[dmitrygr]

BTW, Dmitry I've launched your PowerClip on my Palm TX and it seems to be same clipboard limit. Should it work on TX?

it was made for a friend on zire72. it was never even tested on anything else

[Cyker]

Wait a sec, aren't PalmOS5 devices running ARM CPUs anyway?

What is your emulator actually doing? I'd have thought it would need to do more instruction translation than anything else, and given even my TH55 has a 123MHz CPU vs the 16.8MHz of the GBA that part shouldn't be a major problem...

The trouble will depend on how many coppers a GBA has - If it's built like an Amiga then forget it - A 1GHz Athlon can barely emulate an Amiga 500 (7MHz!) at full speed properly because of all the coppers...

[dmitrygr]

gba runs a heavily customized arm. and has graphics coprocessor. palmos runs standard arm and no such coprocessor.

[PalmSole]

another enthusiastic gamer here :D

[guada_sp]

emulate GBA will be cool, but Nintendo DS, man you are crazy.
I think that a good gba emulator its a great idea.
You can do it.

[intellidryad]

The interesting part would be that both are ARM processors, so you just need to do the modified part of the GBA, huh?

Sure sounds interesting :D

[zaoin]

Gba emulation?
Ds emulation?

I thought this is impossible in a Zodiac(at least). Perhaps more poweful palms...

[dmitrygr]

ds is hard, gba is not

[thomas_92]

I am always interesting in both gba and ds!!

GBA is very great, DS would be wonderful!!

A+ Thomas

[_Em]

It would be easier to write a PalmOS simulator for the DS than to write a DS emulator for PalmOS.

As for GBA: I'm waiting to see who gets a usable emulator going first ;)

[dmitrygr]

ds is hard same reason n64 is - a lot of specialized hardware support. gba is easier.


as for who gets it first - i wasnt aware of a race. i am just making it to test my arm emulation :-)

[_Em]

It's not really a race -- I'm aware of 5 different projects, all with different motivations. Out of those, only one of them has any interest in actually profiting off of GBA emulation, but that's Firestorm -- I doubt it'll become playable anytime soon. One of the others has been abandoned I think, and the other two are extremely low priority -- one has GBA emulation on PalmOS only as a windfall (when the rest of their project is finished, it will be trivial to build a GBA emulator for that target) and the other is looking more towards cycle exact emulation, which means it probably won't ever actually be playable on a PalmOS device.

[dmitrygr]

well i am not doing cycle exact. in fact my design cannot do that, but it does accomplish ~75% of host performance :-)

[Strife89]

I heard that LJR (which is supposed to be a complete, optimized rewrite or LJP) will include GBA emulation. I'm very excited, especially if it holds up to the speed promise. :)

Some of the details can be read here (http://yoyofr.proboards44.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1114193145&page=8).

As for DS emulation, that would be virtually impossible for a Palm to handle.

[guada_sp]

you don't know this guys, he said that DS is hard, but he never said that this is imposible

[dmitrygr]

nothing is impossible :-)
That doe snot mean i will do it, just that I can

[Strife89]

nothing is impossible :-)

I said "virtually impossible".

What I meant was that speed of DS emulation would be far too slow to be reasonably playable. Last I heard, some DS emulators give some PCs trouble.

[_Em]

I heard that LJR (which is supposed to be a complete, optimized rewrite or LJP) will include GBA emulation. I'm very excited, especially if it holds up to the speed promise. :)

Some of the details can be read here (http://yoyofr.proboards44.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1114193145&page=8).

As for DS emulation, that would be virtually impossible for a Palm to handle.

Nobody on the Little John team has committed to GBA emulation ;)

Oh, and LJR is dead. We call it LJX now :) Both the host and the target are multi-platform, and the only one that's been built so far is NES on Windows, so don't expect GBA for PalmOS from LJX anytime this year. We haven't even finished deciding what the general UI will be like yet.

[guada_sp]

what a crap.
And the PSX emulator???

[phreakonaleash]

guada_sp: pls don't be an *******.

See thats the problem: some of you just use things willy nillynot thinking of the hardwork that must be involved in CREATING these things that you abuse so much....
</rant>

[Modnar]

Yeah this would be interesting and fun to see :D

[_Em]

It's not part of LJX; it is its own project. Currently under development, but no public beta yet. Actually, I haven't heard anything about it in a few months.

[Strife89]

A PS1 emulator? Sure, if you want to use a 1GB card for every disc you emulate. Sorry, but I'm not about to buy a bunch of cards. $20 a pop seems cheap, but it adds up fast (my Zire 71 probably isn't powerful enough anyway).

[DoctorBri]

An app called PocketISO will shrink your ps1 iso's 2-3x. My iso's were generally around 200-300mb. I loaded Hot Shots onto my Z1 a while back, but it couldn't get past the title screen. It would've been too slow, anyways.

[Strife89]

Would this by chance be a practical method of archiving discs? Is it freeware?

[_Em]

1) no; it shrinks the ISOs by deleting the cutscenes and lossy compressing the audio. I believe it is free, by at least the price sense of the word.

PocketISO compresses the data down to the quality acceptable on a 320x480 screen; just as you wouldn't want to watch 320x480 video at a low bitrate on a 50" HDTV, you wouldn't want to try resurrecting a PocketISO'd image and burn it on to CD for use in a Playstation.

I've had good luck compressing PS1 CDs down to 80-200MB; the audio ends up at 128kbps MP3 and all the cutscenes are gone, but the actual gameplay stays the same.

[macintux]

Definately interested
I think it would be best to do native CPU emulation, since both the NDS and GBA are ARM based

[Acat]

a full speed GBA emulation is something worth paying good money for..

[ASHLEY75]

Just wondering what was happening with this and when there might be a beta to try out?

[dmitrygr]

done in my free time = beta whenever i have free time

[juananto]

Yeah, I would LOVE a gba on my TX

(wow, really I do)

[thomas_92]

I would love gba too, if did ds, you will be a god for me! :D

Thank you very much in advance, dmitry! :p

[HuwSy]

Oh... ye my votes in for this. Been after more games for my Zod for ages, a whole collection of gba ones would do the trick nicely.

[mrpropre]

Very interesting! It's a big project...Will you start a blog or something in order to see how is it going?

[wx710]

fullspeed，really?

[ASHLEY75]

Any news on this?

[Palmisok]

how would the DS part even work though? Since the DS has 2 screens wouldn't you need to divide the Palm's screen? Not literally, but in the same sense that the graffiti area is divided from the rest when called to.

[phreakonaleash]

I think you just answered your own question :-)

[Palmisok]

man, I don't even know how that would run at full speed then. It seems like something would have to be sacrificed IF the goal was full speed.

[ASHLEY75]

So, is anything happening with this?

[dmitrygr]

yeah, a little...

[ASHLEY75]

Well that's good to know that it isn't forgotten.

[juananto]

Yeah, I'm very anxious, I just can't wait to play GBA games on my palm (super cool) I really love the idea, specially if you have some free time and you don't know what to do... :D

[kocoman]

bump - any updates..

[guidud]

:confused: Has this project been forgotted ??

[cms]

dmitry is doing "stuffs", but I dont think this is one of them.

[icefireicefire]

Dmitry: anything new?

[dmitrygr]

one me...many projects...college classes...this is my last priority currently, somewhere between taking over the world and repainting my closet walls....sorry

[phreakonaleash]

My closet needs a good poainting too :)
(just a quick 'lol' moment there)

[kayge]

According to Dmitry Grinberg he has a full speed GBA emulator working on his own Palm TX, but just doesn't have the time/motiviation to polish it up for public release. he made the following comments in a rebuttal regarding the effectiveness and currency of the Palm OS. I clipped this one part of a longer quote from him, just because it refers to the GBA emulator in particular:

I like my PDA, and as long as that is so I will develop whatever software for it I damn well please. Usually I do not release my software. I only do if the money i'd make is worth the time it'd take to polish it up for release. The world outside of my house sees maybe 10%, if that, of what software I made for my TX. This is just another project I thought the worl out there would like. I have plenty of unrelease projects that are cool and just arent worth the time to polish up to be release worthy, but hat work fine for me. Of the main ones: I have a gba emulator working at more than 100% speed, my own palm-os-binarily-compatible custom OS on the tx based on my own kernel, a few games, a port of minimo, and a few other things. I dont release them because it is not worth it.

Interesting. I know he's going to be busy writing the SDHC driver, but I'd sure like to see some polish on the GBA emulator for public release.

Maybe one of the other capable palm-programmers like Tinnus or Metaview would be willing to add some polish to it for you if we all asked nicely.

[thomas_92]

have a gba emulator working at more than 100% speed, my own palm-os-binarily-compatible custom OS on the tx based on my own kernel, a few games, a port of minimo, and a few other things. I dont release them because it is not worth it.

WHAAAAAAT? :eek:

You are so lucky... (i know it's work more than luck :D )

but why it is so difficult to release those program if they are already wrote?

[I love my mom]

WHAAAAAAT? :eek:

You are so lucky... (i know it's work more than luck :D )

but why it is so difficult to release those program if they are already wrote?

Well chances are it's not completely written. It probably has little (if any) UI, and to launch a game you probably have to have the ROMS in a particular folder. The buttons to launch the game (if there are any) have to be tapped in a certain order. There's options missing that people want, like frameskip, audio, etc.

Of course, this is all speculation based on my similar habits. It's really a pain to polish up software enough to satisfy people. Then after you release it you get a million feature requests and lots of nagging :rolleyes:

It's just not worth it sometimes :-) after you prove to yourself you can do it, and you've had your fun with the project, it gets pushed to the back seat.

[_Em]

...and Tinnus already knows about Dmitry's ARM emulator... this was a project from over a year ago.

However, once the next version of Little John is out the door, there's another GBA emulator that Tinnus is looking to port... it won't be quite as fast as Dmitry's as it won't use his ARM code, but it should still be pretty decent.

[phreakonaleash]

Interesting. I know he's going to be busy writing the SDHC driver, but I'd sure like to see some polish on the GBA emulator for public release.
I think you guys need to lay off Dmitry a bit. Someone who does as much for PalmOS as him doesn't really deserve being constantly harassed about projects he isn't all too interested (ie SDHC, gba emulator, clie.org)

If he wants to release them and feels he can make money off of them, more power to him
If he wants to keep certain things to himself, I think it's the least you can do to let him have some peace....

just my two cents on the matter.

[brandon-wan]

i agree, phreak. do not anger the dmitry... :D

[icefireicefire]

I have an idea: why doesn't dmitry write the core of apps, then send off the core code to someone to have them polish it and make the UI? Then dmitry can RELEASE the other 90% of his apps...like the NetFront one, this one, and some others.

Good idea or not?

[dmitrygr]

no. bc the ui work is not worth the money the ui maker would ask for

[icefireicefire]

I think some people would do it for free if just to get to use the emulator first. Depending on how hard it would be though. BTW, I am posting this just because I REALLY want a GBA emulator, and i am trying to pressure you to give out an alpha :-)

[dmitrygr]

no such luck. i never do anything because of pressure :)

[icefireicefire]

Never ever?

BTW, does this "alpha" always open a certain ROM? and what is it's creator ID? if it does then a simple UI is already done :-)

[pruss]

one me...many projects...college classes...this is my last priority currently, somewhere between taking over the world and repainting my closet walls....sorry

I tend to dump projects that I'm not expecting to make money from into a cvs repository somewhere under a BSD license (typically at http://www.sf.net/projects/handypalmstuff). If someone picks it up, that's no loss to me (and could be a gain if they make something useful of it). If not, not much time has been lost uploading. Seems a nice thing to do. But you probably have more code that you want to keep confidential than I do, so that might not work for you.

[dmitrygr]

it is a lot of code that i might reuse later.

[phreakonaleash]

it is a lot of code that i might reuse later.

New from palmpowerups! ClosetClean 1.0!

Got a messy closet? Clean it up!

This software uses fast, completely native ARM emulation techniques to leave your closet sparkly clean and will even take care of those old smelly shoes!

ClosetCleaner 1.0 can be purchased from palmpowerups for 12.99

:) sorry I'm insane.

[icefireicefire]

Then upload an alpha :-)

[phreakonaleash]

Then upload an alpha :-)
i want a puppy.
Still insane :)

[OLD_HATCH]

Wow.

Just read this whole thread and it would be great to have a fully working GBA emulator for Palm. (Just another cool factor for my Treo. lol)

[icefireicefire]

Really dmitry, cant you just put it up on your experimental section? That is what its for, right? :)

[_Em]

Icefire, stop pestering him; he has very good reasons for not releasing his emulator core. Personally, I respect programmers who know when their code is not ready for the masses and hold it back. If he released it as-is, then he'd start having to deal with all the complaints by people who say it "doesn't work" -- and he's probably got all sorts of stuff in there that he's unable to release as source. Unfortunately, this is one of those projects whose demand curve doesn't match the effort curve needed to make it ready for publication.

He's been a great help getting Tinnus pointed the right direction with a number of issues though :)

[OLD_HATCH]

I agree.

From what ive gotten from my few emails with him for reg codes and issues, he seems to be very helpfull even though he has a very full schedule. I use a couple of his apps and if this gba emu winds up being as good as those i will be happy to wait. :D (still patiently waiting for a full release of skinui 2.1)

[dmitrygr]

Well chances are it's not completely written. It probably has little (if any) UI, and to launch a game you probably have to have the ROMS in a particular folder. The buttons to launch the game (if there are any) have to be tapped in a certain order. There's options missing that people want, like frameskip, audio, etc.

Of course, this is all speculation based on my similar habits. It's really a pain to polish up software enough to satisfy people. Then after you release it you get a million feature requests and lots of nagging :rolleyes:

It's just not worth it sometimes :-) after you prove to yourself you can do it, and you've had your fun with the project, it gets pushed to the back seat.


yes


do not anger the dmitry... :D

this is getting framed and it is going on my wall
:D

[_Em]

I suggest you add it to your sig :D

[icefireicefire]

Icefire, stop pestering him; he has very good reasons for not releasing his emulator core. Personally, I respect programmers who know when their code is not ready for the masses and hold it back. If he released it as-is, then he'd start having to deal with all the complaints by people who say it "doesn't work" -- and he's probably got all sorts of stuff in there that he's unable to release as source. Unfortunately, this is one of those projects whose demand curve doesn't match the effort curve needed to make it ready for publication.

He's been a great help getting Tinnus pointed the right direction with a number of issues though :)
I guess ill wait for tinnus to make one...shouldn't be long.

[guada_sp]

GBA we know that is possible but how about nintendo DS?

I really think that it can be posible, i could be very cool but i don't think it is possible

[Bla8]

Just buy a DS and some games legally. GBA and SNES games are already putting a huge strain on Palm devices, and even PC emulators are sometimes sluggish when Nintendo 64 games are concerned (My old pentium 4 laptop did not play a game smoothly either). Fact is, Palm hardware is just not designed to be able to play code for dedicated game consoles (Clock speed is no way of comparing which hardware is better). Unless you don't mind having a Slideshow of a game that is.

[_Em]

For reference, DeSmuME (cross-platform emulator) requires a high end PC in order to run. You would most likely need a PDA with a 2GHz+ processor and a separate GPU in order to emulate the DS, unless you had someone who was intimate with both handheld architectures and could write dynamic recompilation code in hex that was perfectly optimized. Even then, I don't think there are currently any handhelds being made that could handle emulating the audio controller, processor, two screens, hard inputs AND touch screen (not to mention the other parts).

[I love my mom]

...someone who was intimate with both handheld architectures and could write dynamic recompilation code in hex that was perfectly optimized...

You rang? :rolleyes:

[dmitrygr]

unless you had someone who was intimate with both handheld architectures and could write dynamic recompilation code in hex that was perfectly optimized.


I do not think anyone in this community can afford my standard contracting rate. :D

[guada_sp]

what it means?

[alt236]

It means that he could do it, if someone would contract him to do it.

Assuming the standard contract rate for a developer now (which is ~£50/hour or ~$100/hour), and that an emulator writing/optimisation will take about a month that gives us about (£50 x 8h x 5d x 4w) £8000 or $16000 :)

Of course, dmitry could ask for more, as it is a specialised job:)

(Bloody hell, I didn't realise that the dollar was this low.)

[JavaJiveJump]

Compare it to the Euro! I think I want my salary in Euros instead of American $$.

:)

So I guess no DS emulator. Way too pricey! ;-) Might as well buy a real DS!! :D

[Adad64]

Woah... this is pretty cool! Good luck with that! I'm just a flash game programmer... :( Wish I knew all this stuff.

[alt236]

Never too late to learn really.
Of course, attempting to write a modern system emulator might be a bit complicated..
If you know a language well enough (generally C/C++/Assembly, although I have seen a few interesting implementations over the years), you can start with something simpler (i.e. older).

Just keep in mind that the main problem when writing an emulator is finding accurate specifications for the emulated system (or reverse engineering it -always fun). The second problem is optimising your code so that the product is actually usable.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do it nor is there a book to show you how (perhaps a void in CS literature). You'll need to really learn a language, find how your target system works and have a lot of patience and preserverance (i.e be stubborn) :)

Here are a few relevant links:
http://fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/HOWTO.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator
http://everything2.com/e2node/Writing%2520an%2520emulator

[Bla8]

Don't worry, I will have one written up by April 1st 2009 :D

[_Em]

Well, this would probably be a fun place to start too...
http://bobrost.com/nes/
Of course, the NES is anything but a simple system to emulate. Gameboy would be easier.

[guada_sp]

thats why I'm learning programming i 'll make my own soft free

Maybe in 2 or 3 years i can make an emulator

[Adad64]

SUPAH COOL!!!
I usually stick to websites and games, but I'm learning C and Java now.

[icefireicefire]

Let this thread die, PLEASE. The GBA emu cant be released, it has the ROM compiled into it!

[zaoin]

Let this thread die, PLEASE. The GBA emu cant be released, it has the ROM compiled into it!

I don't understand the point. A lot of gba emulators out there. :confused:

Anyway Dmitrygr is a genius but a genius cannot do impossible things like a playable gba emulator for the Zodiac. I think zodiac doesn't have enough power. :)

[phreakonaleash]

I don't understand the point. A lot of gba emulators out there. :confused:

Anyway Dmitrygr is a genius but a genius cannot do impossible things like a playable gba emulator for the Zodiac. I think zodiac doesn't have enough power. :)
How many functioning ones? One, off the top of my head. and it was damn slow.

Dmitry can do more impossible things than anyone else in this forum, and if any device can do it, zodiac can.

[Alan_GP]

So, It has been over a year since you, Dmitry, teased us with this thread. A lot of people said that they are very interested. And... you just forgot about this project? I know you are busy with other things (really really happy with SDHC) but please, don't let the GBA project die.

[phreakonaleash]

Dmitry said he doesn't want to, and it isn't (at least imo, and possibly his) worth his time.

[montecristo1]

I currently have LJP launcher 1.2 on my Tungsten C working flawlessly. I am to play using Sega/Sega Genisis, GameBoy, and Super Nintendo. I have games installed on my SD card- top 90's games.