VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Hello, All!

I have just released the official, non-beta version of VGBA-Maemo 3.5. You can get it from

http://fms.komkon.org/VGBA/

or from this post, but further updates will be published at the above web site. The new version moves directional "buttons" to the left of the touch screen and the fire buttons to the right of the touch screen (enable display cues to see the layout). I have also rewritten image scaling and scanline simulation code in pure ARM assembly for speed. Finally, VGBA-Maemo should now automatically open any .gba or gba.gz file when you click on it in the File Manager.

Anyway, give it a try and report any bugs here or here:

http://groups.google.com/group/emul8/

PS: VGBA-Maemo is currently free, but the best way to contribute to its development would be to buy a Symbian or Windows version. You will have an additional advantage of being able to play VGBA on your smartphone or desktop. See the above web site for details.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Thank you so much! It works great. Please continue the hard work!

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

I'd be interested to know what compiler you used for the C version and what's the amount of the speedup by using assembly.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Standard GCC toolchain that installs as part of MaemoSDK+. Usual optimizations (-O2 or -O3).

This majorly depends on what scaling factor is being used. I have not measured it specifically with graphics on Maemo, but rewriting ARM7TDMI emulation in ARM assembly sped things up by ~80% on Symbian/S60. Most of the speed benefit comes from optimizing memory accesses: ARM-based chipsets have notoriously slow SDRAM access times and GCC does not know how to optimize these well.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

This is really impressive. And fms is to be thanked (and supported) as the only real emu developer to have ever visited these forums.

The worst part about the emulator is not the emulator but the brain-damaged maemo file-browser. Opening a directory with subdirectories containing a couple thousand files will lock up the file browser as it indexes each subdirectory. Boo Nokia. We can't even turn that behavior off!

To work around this, it'd be preferable if vgba remembered the last directory visited.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Sound still doesn't work with VGBA emus right?

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Sound works; it just isn't stunning.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Sounds is there, but there is barely enough CPU power to emulate it, so it is far from being top quality.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Cheers fms, great to see you working on maemo! :)

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

This is clearly a bug though: the browser should only scan contents of subdirectories that are shown. Are you sure it is scanning the whole tree? In this case, opening my external memory card would take forever, but it opens just fine.

Well, if the actual FM bug is with thousands of files in the current directory (not subdirectories), then remembering that directory name will not help. Just place files into multiple subdirectories in this case. Having said that, I intend to add saving current directory and other settings, just not right now: need to release a few other emulators and the EMULib-Maemo library suite.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

IMHO isn't that file browser part of the hildonisations?

What about replacing with the standard GTK file browser which I see when apps are not hildonised.

(BTW: I cannot develop so I am talking utter rubbish please ignore me)

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Just to report that Riviera RPG is working beautifully :)

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Sorry, my choice of words was a mistake. I did not mean to imply that it scans the complete subdirectory tree. It scans every child directory of the current directory before letting you click-on and proceed to the next subdirectory.

Thus, for me, opening a new game involves

Click VGBA Maemo
Click 'Open file'
Scroll left window down to 'removable memorycard'
Click 'Removable memory card'
...Wait ~3 seconds
Click 'games'
...Wait ~10 seconds
Click 'console'
...Wait ~5 seconds
Click 'GBA'
Scroll right window down to the game of choice,
(right window shows only three (!) files at a time)

To reduce most of these steps, remember last directory accessed (store to ~/.vgba or gconf?)

I don't know hildon, but looking at libhildonfm2-dev_1%3a1.9.49_all.deb, it seems possible:

in hildon-fm1-compat.h

gboolean hildon_file_selection_set_current_folder (HildonFileSelection *self, const GtkFilePath *folder, GError **error);

GtkFilePath * hildon_file_selection_get_current_folder (HildonFileSelection *self);

in file hildon-file-chooser-dialog.h

GtkWidget *hildon_file_chooser_dialog_new_with_properties(Gt kWindow * parent, const gchar * first_property, ...);

One of the .h files references the gtk file chooser help page
http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/u...leChooser.html

Additionally, when selecting a game, it is impossible to differentiate between the actual game, the save file (.sav) and the state file (.sta) without comparing the file creation dates because the browser only shows fifteen (!) characters of the filename (on an 800x480 screen, this is quite an 'accomplishment'). So it would be helpful if you could set "open File" to only show .gba (or supported compressed file types) in the chooser, or alternately put save and state data in a subdirectory of the game dir.

Performance
-------------
Very impressive speed ...

However, it is possible to scale 3x in hardware (GBA 240x160 to Nokia 720x480) without speed penalty. This is normally exposed via Xsp extensions ('pixel doubling'), but ssvb (Siarhei Siamashka) sets an arbitrary screen resolution in mplayer using ioctls.

See the mplayer svn for implementation details.

Some useful information can also be found here:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/list...threaded#34480

Again, thanks for the great emulator.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Got it. All right, remembering the last directory should probably help here.

I have not found how to do it properly yet, but will try. In the meanwhile, you may want to use the built-in config menu to open files: it is simplistic but free from these problems.

In fact, I can just write a piece of assembly code that does x3 scaling, same as I have done with other scales. may be a bit slower, but will cause less interference with other applications.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

I think i'm not the only one who'd appreciate that, thanks!

(edit) Well it's pretty good as-is with 2x scaling, but fullscreen 720x480 would be a lot more immersive.

The emulator seems to run 20+ fps at least for some games; This is near the limit of lcd controller bandwidth at 720x480 @ 16bpp. Since vgba is almost (not quite) able to play sound without stuttering, I think improving speed would be preferable to degrading speed. 3x scaling requires 9x the memory transfer of 1x and may impact cache negatively.

Now i have to add that I haven't had time to figure out how to do this myself. So I probably should code more and post less.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

What strikes me most is that the emulator is working on 770 with OS2008HE too! Not only that, but without sound and with scanlines is close to the speed of N800! And thats with a 32MB ROM file :)

So, another use for your old 770 - turn it to a GBA :)

Thank you fms!

EDIT: This means you didn't even use processor specific optimization...

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Of course I use processor specific optimization. I just don't use OMAP2-specific optimization. All the optimized code in there targets plain vanilla ARM7+ CPU.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

I really meant OMAP2.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

I must admit it, the game is working VERY nicely:D

Unfortunately Golden Sun and Gt Advance 3 dont work very well :(
Should we do a new thread reporting which games work ?
Im tempted! :rolleyes:

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

F-Zero works very well. Very fast, but it eats cpu. The small xkbd keyboard works ok. Anyone try the dosbox versions that cover the right or left side of screen. Here is a suggestion for a developer, can someone make a small on screen joystick with left/right, accelerate/decelerate, front/back, etc... buttons. Dan

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Guess what? It is already there. Select "Show cues" from the menu and you will see the joystick layout displayed.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Thanks, I never played VBGA. I was deprived of that as a child. I got a lot of catching up to do thanks to your great port. Hehehehe. Dan

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

So that Everyone can see how amzing this application is, here a couple of screenshots:

Fzero
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...Amir/Fzero.png

Riviera
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...ir/Riviera.png

Street Fighter 3 Alpha
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...mir/STA3-1.png

More will come if requested :)

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

whenever i try to open a rom, the emulator closes. No error message or anything. Am I missing something?

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

You are probably missing something.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Does it work on a OS2007?

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Wow, I just tried this new official released version. Really amazing how well this works. It totally rocks!! :cool: Thanks, fms!

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

I had the same issue, until I realized it could not handle zip'd roms it appears.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

I'm having some problems with colors being displayed correctly in all editions of pokemon. I attached a screenshot of ruby running as an example. A fix would be great.

http://ocirs.com/images/pokemon-color.jpg

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

same problem... i think deal with it or get a ipod touch and hack it

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Is there a way I can bind the volume and other buttons on my N800? I am stuck using the stylus cues, which is horrible. Also, does this run any faster? Street Fighter 2 Revival barely runs at 2-3 frames per second.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Not currently. The directional buttons are already mapped to your N800 directional pad though. Also, I doubt that using volume buttons as fire buttons is going to be more comfortable than using touch screen.

Yes, it runs faster on faster hardware :)

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

I will try fixing it as time allows. This bug does not appear on Windows version, so there is a very limited set of possible causes.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

man somebody fix this pokemon thing.. it works whenever there is a enviroment change but changes back when something talks to you or causes a change in scenery. dawg this would be the most kick *** thing ever if it wo8uld play poke

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

I have just released VGBA-Maemo 3.5.1. You can get it from

http://fms.komkon.org/VGBA/

It will also appear in the Extras repository, as soon as it gets through approval process. Changes:

* Fixed frame rate synchronization.
* VGBA no longer uses 100% CPU.
* Provided an A+B touch screen area.
* Now cleaning gconf config when installing.
* Made [,] generate SELECT and [.] generate START.
* Directional pad center now only works as START when SHIFT, CONTROL, ot ALT is pressed.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

fms: Are you going to fix the Pokemon game problem?

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

just realised the maemo download page for this program is using the screenshots i provided earlier in this thread :D

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Probably. The exact timing depends on the amount of free time and how easy it is going to be.

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

i love fms

Re: VGBA-Maemo 3.5 Now Officially Released
 

Hello,

First, thanks a lot to FMS for his work !
My questions :
- is it possible to rescale the screen ? I've try to lanch vgba in command line with -scale option, but no change...
- what's the use of freeze options in the menu ?