Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

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Ian Micheal
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#131 » Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:11 pm

Ro Magnus Larsson wrote:Mega Drive Hacks & New Games Collection (2021 Z80 update)

https://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewto ... 22&t=14320


Have you remade it with the new release last week with raster and full save support ? It's even better now mate..

If you look above makes the older release not needed..


Raster games now work

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Ian Micheal
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#132 » Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:12 pm

TapamN wrote:Here's the new version of Gens4All with rasters and a game list browser. Both a precompiled ELF and a 1ST_READ.BIN are included with the source. The 1ST_READ also has the in-game menu from the last version accessible, so now you can also save, reset, and change controller and rendering settings, like you were supposed to be able to in the last version.

There's also some performance improvements, but slowdown still occurs in some games (usually audio related). Tilemap shadow and highlight have not been updated to work with the improved window map and rasters yet, so you might get the wrong shadows or shadows over HUDs. For some games, like Toejam & Earl, you might want to turn S/H off in the video settings.

The game list is an improvement on the file browser from the previous version. It loads the file "gamelist.bin" from the disc, which stores the titles, ROM filenames, SRAM and controller settings, and enabled hacks for the list of games. There's an index option, accessed by pressing X, that lets you jump to a certain letter to navigate the list faster.

A game list can be made using the included "glc" program. The source is located in "src/glparse". There's no precompiled version included, but it's a normal PC program. You don't need a DC dev. setup, just GCC/Clang. Run "make" in that directory to compile it. It has two modes, one mode takes a list of ROMs and generates a text file containing titles from the ROM header as a starting point, and the other mode takes that text file and generates the binary game list file. It's split into two parts so that someone can clean up any issues with the titles and customize save filenames and controller settings.

If there is no gamelist.bin on the disc, the file browser from the last version is used. You can also hold A while pressing Start on the title screen to force the file browser, even if there is a gamelist.bin.

If you run a game from the file browser and create a save file, he filename is generated by a hash of part of the ROM. If you run that game from a game list that specifies a different filename, it won't find the right save. You'll have to rename the save with something like VMU Tool to access it.

I'll explain how the "glc" program works later, I don't have time to fully explain it right now. If someone wants to try to try it out blind, the rough idea is to run "glc -g list.txt [ROMS]" to create the list source file, edit the source to fix bad titles, change save data, or customize controls/hacks, then run "glc -c list.txt" to generate gamelist.bin.

There are a bunch of defines in the Makefile that might be helpful for anyone messing around with it, to enable debugging features or loading gamelist.bin from a PC over dcload for testing. There's a partially working option for aspect correct 256 pixel wide mode, but it only works on VGA at the moment (it uses a custom 640x240 resolution, and I haven't made and tested an NTSC version of the video settings).


Best version please dont use the older releases now..

MastaG
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#133 » Thu Dec 02, 2021 3:50 pm

Yeah, an updated image with the latest release and a nice compilation of games would be nice.
Also one that's patched for running on Dreamshell/Retrodream would be welcome :)

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MoeFoh
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#134 » Thu Dec 02, 2021 4:06 pm

MastaG wrote:Yeah, an updated image with the latest release and a nice compilation of games would be nice.
Also one that's patched for running on Dreamshell/Retrodream would be welcome :)



viewtopic.php?f=51&t=14933
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
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MastaG
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#135 » Thu Dec 02, 2021 4:27 pm

MoeFoh wrote:
MastaG wrote:Yeah, an updated image with the latest release and a nice compilation of games would be nice.
Also one that's patched for running on Dreamshell/Retrodream would be welcome :)



viewtopic.php?f=51&t=14933


Awesome bro!

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MoeFoh
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#136 » Thu Dec 02, 2021 9:27 pm

MastaG wrote:
MoeFoh wrote:
MastaG wrote:Yeah, an updated image with the latest release and a nice compilation of games would be nice.
Also one that's patched for running on Dreamshell/Retrodream would be welcome :)



viewtopic.php?f=51&t=14933


Awesome bro!


Or awesome BroFoh! :lol:
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
- Charles Bukowski

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KmusDC
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#137 » Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:13 am

for some strange reason I can't get it to work in retrodream ... previous versions worked in ISO with no problem. :(

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Ian Micheal
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#138 » Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:31 am

KmusDC wrote:for some strange reason I can't get it to work in retrodream ... previous versions worked in ISO with no problem. :(


Maybe because i compiled it and i have bios reactivation in my code for kos.. and patch for dreamshell

Not sure i would have to see

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Ro Magnus Larsson
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#139 » Sun Dec 05, 2021 12:45 am

Ian Micheal wrote:
Ro Magnus Larsson wrote:Mega Drive Hacks & New Games Collection (2021 Z80 update)

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=14320


Have you remade it with the new release last week with raster and full save support ? It's even better now mate..

If you look above makes the older release not needed..


Raster games now work


Yes, Updated
Ro Magnus
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TapamN
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Re: Gens4All with Z80 Emulation

Post#140 » Sun Dec 05, 2021 6:22 am

Ro Magnus Larsson wrote:Mega Drive Hacks & New Games Collection (2021 Z80 update)

https://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewto ... 22&t=14320

If you're not using the game list feature, there are probably going to be sound issues with some of the hacks. My version of Gens4All has problems with the sound driver in Sonic 2, 3, & Knuckles, and 3D Blast. There's a work around for it, but it's only enabled when the name in the ROM header matches the original games' (the work around causes problems in other games). If the Sonic hack changed the title in the ROM's header, then the work around won't be enabled and the music will have timing problems.

A game list allows the work around to be enabled for games that don't have a matching ROM header.

I meant to describe how to make game lists, but I was side tracked working on fixing the CPU usage of MP3/Vorbis decoding in KallistiOS. I'll work on finishing a write up on how to do it soon.

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