Sunday, November 25, 2007

R14 Progress

It's been a while since I talked about R14 so I wanted to post a quick update on what I've been doing.

The Media Engine work has been going well. The job manager I talked about last week is now fairly functional and handles executing the audio upsampling code in 3 different modes: synchronously, asynchronously on the main processor, and asynchronously on the ME.

It's taken me a little longer to get the audio upsampling code working smoothly on the ME. I decided to focus on this initially (rather than Azimer's Audio HLE code) as it's a lot simpler and more self contained, but getting it working on the ME without any glitches required a little bit of work. I had to rewrite the simple ring buffer I was using to be lock-free. This is straightforward when dealing with a single reader thread and a single writer thread on the same processor, but a little more care is required when the reader and writer are operating on separate cores without cache coherency. I think getting this running glitch-free has helped prepare me well for the bigger task of getting Azimer's HLE code running asynchronously on the ME. I'll be working on this next.

Besides the ME work, I've had an interesting diversion getting some new font rendering working in Daedalus. I saw on the ps2dev.org forums that BenHur had released a library for rendering text using the PSP's built in fonts. I've always been a little unhappy with Daedalus's text rendering, and thought this would be a good opportunity to improve it. Here's a screenshot of the UI using BenHur's intraFont library (click through for a better-looking unscaled version):




I think this is looking a lot better than the previous font. The drop shadows really help make the text more readable. I also support multiple fonts for the first time, so the header text actually looks like header text :)

-StrmnNrmn

69 comments:

Unknown said...

awesome any idea for a release date on r14 i love the font gives the GUI a whole different feel

Anonymous said...

sounds great!

today i tested "the world is not enough" on daedalus r13... this game has a widescreen option, so the aspect ratio is perfect on the psp with fullscreen, and the speed is also okay... but you can only play deathmatch vs. cpu... single player missions dont work, the emu crashes... so sad... hope it works with r14... just like wave race... works great with r13, didn't work with r12...

keep it up, great work, hope you will make this emu nearly perfect... you'll surely get a memorial in the emulation scene.

cya

Unknown said...

Thanks for the update strmn! :)

Hope my email was some help to you :)

Morgan said...

Great I love the new GUI, Daedalus gets better and better every day. I'm glad your not having too hard of a time with the ME process, wish you all the luck. A release date target would be nice to hear, but I'll let you be. I appreciate all the work you do and I can't wait for R14.

Rodrigo said...

good! How about a background in the rom selection screen??? =D It could be based on the Patrick´s art. =)

Morgan said...

I forgot to tell you in the image you posted the "DynarecSupported" text is touching and has no space. I realize this is because of lack of room for those long words, but maybe you could change the wording or something so the text doesn't look garbled. Oh and lastly I wanted to know if you finished making the cog loading graphic so you could post an image of what that looks like, or if you haven't made it yet, maybe a rough draft of what you want it to look like.

Unknown said...

Rodrigo:
I think that's a good idea. Thought of it too since i saw the new GUI. So Norman, if you're interested in a new GUI layout (maybe based on the Background.png) just catch me via mail or so. (:

Can't wait for R14, the new things sounds cool, are there going to be speed improvements too? Would be fine. :D

Just keep up the good work!

Yoshi Party said...

Why don't you answer me about the extended Super Mario64 ROM?

GmDude66 said...

Holy crap, your work with the ME so far sounds GREAT!

Maybe you could have the user load their own image as the background, or if that background file does not exists, just use the default blue one.

Wish you all the luck for R14, man.




PS: Yoshi, stop bugging him about that damn rom...

Unknown said...

fatastic strmn! hope the ME work will work well!

if it does work good this will be the best emulator after sonys psx emu =)

many thanx from sweden =)

jesus said...

@gmdude66, Yeah that would be awesome, there could be like a background.png or something with the eboot which is the default but you can change it by uploading your own background to replace it with the same name. I'm sure strmnnrmn could easily do that.

For now though im glad to see a very pretty facelift of this great emulator :).

Unknown said...

strmnnrmn:
I've followed your work on daedalus almost since the start and find the whole idea of emulating really interesting, especially since I'm working on my comp sci. degree. I know you're probably busy, if not with daedalus then with other everyday things, but could you give me some sort of a start to understanding your program? I've taken a quick look at some of the source code, but mostly during the time I was first learning c++, so much of the structure I couldn't piece together mentally. It's not the fact that the emulation is done on the PSP that interests me, but rather the fact that you constantly improve the emulation to work better and better on a considerably low end processor. If you'd rather focus on R14 than help out a wanna-be-emu-coder I totally understand :) Great work so far, I wanna see how far you can take this.
Thanks for any help,
Saeed

Rodrigo said...

Hey "Yoshi Party", take it easy :(

Unknown said...

I know this has probably come up before, but...

A) is it possible for you to say where you get your roms from?

and/or

B) are all roms going to act the same reguardless of where you get them from?


Very good work on everything from what it sounds like. Looking forward to R14 very much.

Dustin (Elessar) said...

The new library/font looks amazing. Any word on compatibility? Perhaps you could start a wiki where people can report the games that work, and ones that don't or have problems?

Can't wait for R14!

Unknown said...

I love the new font and how your gonna make the ME work so it can finally support sound. R13 was so good, on Mario 64 the sound almost worked perfectly, I actually played it with sound for a while!

Keep up the great work, I (and the rest of everyone who owns a PSP) really appreciate what you've done.

First a great update with Savestate and some Dynaric hacks, now this, Daedalus is the best emulator, no scratch that, PSP application out there! And the fact that the N64 isn't that old, just awesome!

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

aam sssooooooooooooooo exxatteeeeed!

lol







(i spelt that wrong on purpose its from Cat in the Hat)

i cant wait for R14 it is gunna be sweet

Yoshi Party said...

sorry-.-

I couldn't behave myself...

I should thank you for the great work on the emulator and not go on your nerves.

When do you think, will you release R14? Of course some months, but how many?

And IF you have some time left over, it would make me very very happy, if you could check the problems with the compatibilty of the extended ROM and Paper Mario;)

thanks

tt2004 said...

I love the new design great work man, this is a huge step in the PSP HB Scene, I mean I have played this emu since you first came out with it, sound or not I'm still heavily impressed with this, so much so I went out and bought an actual N64 with all the games I could find so I could use the ROMs all the time! Keep up the great work!

Unknown said...

Never thought I'd hear anything like this in the market:

"...and thanks to Playstation Portable's very own home-brew genious, StrmnNrmn, Nintendo64 sales are actaully up by .1%."

...okay, not really a newsfeed. But, it very well could be.

Unknown said...

Yoshi please stop going on about that extended rom, no one cares. In the current unreleased build super mario 64 is practically running full speed anyway so there is no need whatsoever for that damn extended rom.

Get over it.

Shroomage said...

Looks Great!
I've got a question, if PAL games run at a lower frame rate than NTSC games, does that mean the pal version of games should run smoother than ntsc.

Anonymous said...

Danny: I love you you just read my mind before I could tell Yoshi to get over it, he has posted that spam every since R8.

Yoshi Party said...

Who of you cares, if I post my comments?

Its not your blog, its StrmnNrmn's blog! And I already said sorry to him:|

And for those, who don't know it(like danny)
I'm not just talking about the speed improvements-there are also some other things different->just look on youtube;)

Unknown said...

ive just updated the daedalus ini. fixes a few display names and adds boxart in the preview window for many games.

Check it out here :

http://zionmax.com/index.php?topic=9.0

Chiraag said...

Nice Job!!
I have noticed some test shadow clipping on the top and bottom of the rom list, the UI would look a little nicer if you could blend the edges so it is smoother on the eyes, thats just a little issue though.

THANKS,
C

ps: Yoshi plz stop!!!

Dkiller11 said...

i have a m33 firmwire and i tried r13 and it dint work i need help to work it and i need sites for roms plz thx (:

Marc.A (:

Devin said...

hey, i don't know alot about coding and making emulaters and stuff but, you know how the super smash bros n64 main screen with the 1 player option and the 2 player option and the other options? the sound and the music will go very fast on the main menu and the training mode menu. it's kind of annoying with the music going too fast. is there any way to change that? what i mean is, is there any way to make the music go at a normal speed? honestly, i don't really care about the super smash bros glitches. its just the fast music at some screens that kinda get me a little upset. But, i think you are doing amazingly awesome! keep it up =D

my email is: devin.robertson@yahoo.com

and if you know about aol instant messenger, my name on that is:
lightside legend

(oh yeah, there is a space in that name) thank you =)i hope R14 is amazing =D

signed,
Rakuen

Jody said...

I tried posting a comment on the PSP browser but it wouldn't post. anyway, what I was typing...
ummm.. I forgot.
oh yea, this emu's looking good.

lightning09 said...

wow strumn it just shows how awesome you are if you already have started on r14. Good luck with that man. I like the ideas people been giving you. Hopefully in r14 audio will work and more games will work.( maybe Legend of Zelda, donkey kong, command and conquer, and much more!) im looking forward to this release good job keep it up.

Unknown said...

Ive just completed another ini update.

This update contains full A-N boxart and all names from A-N fixed.

More info here : http://zionmax.com/index.php?topic=23.0

Unknown said...

forgot to specify in last post.

Its a ini update for daedalus. that includes name fixing and full A-N boxart.

(O-Z boxart will be done upon next update)

again info and download here : http://zionmax.com/index.php?topic=23.0

Unknown said...

Daedalus ini update v3.0 :

Ok I have fully finished the ini update now (bar adding jap boxart)

It now features full A-Z Boxart for every Us/Eu game ever made for the n64.

Download it and read more info here

http://zionmax.com/index.php?topic=25.0

(downloading requires registration)

Jody said...

looks good, danny

DaniPoo said...

This is great! ^^ I like the new font but I hope that you work even more with the meny dessign. I belive you could improve the background and stuff without loosing that clean style.
And please keep your hard working soul alive! :) I think a lot of people, including me hope that you to work with this emulator untill it works 100% with all N64 roms.
Take care

user name said...

R13 will support Golden Eye at full speed?

Unknown said...

@ User Name

First off R13 is already released.

Second, if you meant to say R14 then probably not just yet. Who told you that?

Unknown said...

i have found a bug, I dont know if it is just me, but when I load a savestate of Super Mario 64 from the main menu of daedalus the controls get disabled, but when I load the rom and then load the savestate it works fine.

user name said...

@ Danny

Greetings

Nobody told me anything, just asking. Golden Eye is a great title that I would like to play in my PSP, Killer Instict is another.

Thank you for your work.

UN

Z. Patrick Lewis said...

I want to learn.

Please don't criticize me for this comment, but honestly, I want to learn how to create a Nintendo 64 emulator of my own with the prospect of going for accuracy first. The problem is that I have no idea where to begin; I have gathered some documentation on Nintendo 64's hardware and development libraries and some open-source emulators and tried observing the code, but it is a lot to try to comment and follow.

I've seen several times on the Internet where people say that if you even have to ask, you shouldn't attempt to code an emulator; however, as silly as this sounds, this is one of the things I've always wanted to do ever since I learned that emulation was possible. Could you please point me in the right direction, let me know what I should do first? I can't even seem to find enough documentation about the inner workings of the Nintendo 64 to even begin to learn about registers and interfacing the reality co-processor with the main MIPS processor and the like.

Any help would be greatly appreciated; feel free to e-mail me at thepat@unc.edu.

Rodrigo Cardoso said...

@Z. Patrick Lewis

first, try emulate a simpler system, like Chip 8 (space invaders)

gotenksman said...

Hey, im new to homebrew psp stough and was wondering if u ever planed on making a version of ur program that is compatiable with firmware 2.81 cause me and all my friends are huge N64 fans and even bigger Super Smash Bros fans, do u see this happening if so ur my hero

mbeck said...

gotenksman:
why don't you and your friends just downgrade to 1.50 and get custom firmware?

strmn:
any idea when we might be seeing this update? i can't wait to get my hands on it! :)

Morgan said...

Zion (danny) this is CaptainMorgan4, when you see this could you hit me up I need to talk to you. My email is VolcomStone463@aol.com, R14 will be a very nice release cosmetically and the speed as of now is a little faster.

Unknown said...

sorry for being rude. but who cares about if the release will be more cosmetically?

the best written emulators for the psp has very basic GUI. look at gpSP, Picodrive and CPS2!

thanx for all your work strmn! hopefully the ME will work on R14 and the sound wont slow down the emu :)

I love your work said...

Thanks for the update strum
Would you more preview screen ?

jaimehackermapsp

CR. said...

for strmnmnmnmnmnmn (hehehe)
pleeeease, be cool with us and make a process to goldeneye be playable "for real" on r14 or r15..!
and congratulations for your work!

hugs

I love your work said...

The r15 and r16 will be best in compatibility but the r14 isn't for compatibility

ryan90 said...

Alot of people are sayig that the firmware 1.0 version of daedalus worked with the psp slim can someone please confirm this as i am thinking of buying a psp slim and would love to play zelda on psp.

I love your work said...

I confirm you the 1.0 version of daedalus worked with the psp slim

Original Lemon Tang said...

Were you gone?? its been a wile, but anyway i was browsing thure psx games and i found that some show a short video on the eboot icon at the psp menue, i did an experement and found that you can put them on most homebrew apps. Well just thowing it out there, if you want to have a play around with it, thought it might be cool :)

cant wait for R14

Anonymous said...

strmnnrmn is still around :) He's just working on the ME :)

I'll keep you guys updated while he gets busy :)

There's a few changes in the audio and the project structure so its easier to maintain and fiddle with.

The Audio is now using a more expensive process, to be used on the ME, the audio now cuts off 4FPS or more when enabled (until its used on the ME this will be the case).

The ME is starting to mould together, even though i havent seen the ME work yet :P

If you have any more questions please do post on the Bug / Feature Requests Tracker which is here
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=57977

Thanks!

Wally

Unknown said...

i wonder if i could be a betatester?

hopefully there will be other things than just audio to put on the ME as well. if so there will be even more speedup with the ME! :)

I love your work said...

thx for the good news wally

Anonymous said...

I cant let everyone beta test the build,
however you can download and compile the SVN build yourself if you have the PSP toolchain / SVN set up. Its not stable enough for a public release.

The only improvement we will see with the ME at the moment is the Audio, and the Audio only.

R14 does seem a tad faster for now :)

Any more questions, just ask :)

Jody said...

Wally, how do you know Strmn's progress on this? Are you working with him? it's cool if you are.

Anonymous said...

Jody: Sorta :) Just giving him feedback on bugs etc :)

Im also looking after the bug tracker on sourceforge

Jody said...

Sounds like fun. good luck. I'm gonna go play my axe

titium said...

hey wally any change that you could get Strmn to have a look at the sprite alignment of the characters in mario kart 64???
Because everytime you turn you end up with this black area around your player quite annoying

Anonymous said...

Post any bug's / features you wish for the next version

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=57977

Please :)

Unknown said...

Hey guys, really really appreciate all your hard work! i've never been able to get D-R13 to work on the psp slim, so im hoping this new version works ok :)... keep up the good work!

Unknown said...

Wow MAn this its looking AWSOME I can't wait to see this release...I know its hard but when you get it Finally done it will be THE BEST EMULATOR EVER.

JujuXD said...

Hey! I'm not a programmer and, actually, not even close... I've just bought the psp and now I downloaded the R13.

First of all, congratulations on the job! I really admire your work!

Although, I'm a little lost here... what should I do to make it run? I'm still afraid to install R13 considering that I don't know wether I should program anything or not... pls, give me a lil hand!

Fiska said...

Anything new in the last 5 months?

Unknown said...

Anyting new? =)

Lee said...

Checking in to see if anything new has come out of the pipe... nope. :(

The Evolution Of Life said...

Is anyone going to attempt to get No Mercy "best n64 wrestling game ever" working on the next beta?

Unknown said...

wich daedalus is the actual daedalus?, i dont get it.

BMG said...

I think this is looking a lot better than the previous font. The drop shadows really help make the text more readable. I also support multiple fonts for the first time, so the header text actually looks like header text :)
RS3 Gold