PSP-Tribe Downloads: gpSP v0.6

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PSP TRiBE Files :: Emulators :: GameBoy Advance :: gpSP v0.6

gpSP v0.6

-- gameplaySP Gameboy Advance emulator for Playstation Portable --

-- Release log --

(legend: # bug fix, + feature addition, @ optimization)

v0.6 - (still beta quality, look out for new bugs)

NOTE: Please include gpsp.cfg with EBOOT.PBP, this shouldn't be
necessary but I think it is right now.

# Fixed a nasty bug that shouldn't have made it into the initial
release; a lot of games that TECM.. erm.. crash won't anymore.
NOTE: This doesn't mean that no game will ever crash, freeze,
otherwise not work.
# Fixed some crashes in the GUI and the ability to "go up" past
ms0:/PSP. Made the "go up" button square like it was supposed to
be (instead of cross).
+ There's now a menu that you can access, by default press right
while holding down triangle for the frameskip bar.
+ Menu option: resize screen aspect ratio, the default is now
"scaled 3:2" which makes it look more like a normal GBA. You
can use "fullscreen" (what it was like before) or "unscaled 3:2"
(tiny but pixel for pixel like a GBA)
+ Menu option: You can now load new games while the current one
is running.
+ Menu option: You can now restart the currently running game.
+ Menu option: Frameskip variation - this defaults to "uniform"
whereas it defaulted to "random" last release. Basically, turn
it on random if you find that frameskip causes flickering
animations to make things disappear. Other than that it will
generally look better on uniform.
+ GUI and file loading now have "auto repeat" on the buttons so
they're not such a pain to navigate.
+ Menu option: Added support for 128KB flash ROM, some games
require it (Pokemon Firered/Leaf Green, Super Mario Advance 4),
turn it on before running the game to make sure it works.
NOTE: There are some versions of these ROMs that have been
hacked to get around their 128KB flash, and may not even work
properly at all. Look out for them, these games should save
128KB save files after you set the setting to it, IF they use
128KB flash.
+ Menu option: Added ability to make the .sav files only update
when you exit the emulator, use with extreme caution (in other
words, it's not a good idea to use something like this in beta
quality software if you care about your saves). Does NOT update
if you exit through the home button, don't use the home button
if you can help it.
+ Zip support thanks to SiberianSTAR. It will load the first file
with the extension .gba or .bin that it finds.
+ Menu options are saved to gpsp.cfg. Note that it does not save
frameskip options or flash ROM options because these are very
per game particular.
+ The emulator will now try to save backup files to something
more matching the backup size than a fixed 64KB.
@ Loading ROMs and the auto save of the .sav files is MUCH faster
now. Thanks for the heads up on how to improve this from pollux!
@ While coding for the screen resize code I found that SDL just
wasn't cutting it and had to code for the GU myself. Turns out
the new code is faster (but because it is render code any
improvement will be diminished to nothing as frameskip is
increased). Special thanks to Zx-81 for the tips on this one
and for his GU code in the PSPVBA source as an example.
@ Added some games to game_config.txt. Note that not all versions
of these ROMs will work with these options, try to use the USA
version if possible.

8-19-2006 v0.5 - Initial release (public beta quality)

-- About --

gameplaySP (gpSP for short) is a GBA emulator written completely from
scratch. It is still pretty young (only having started a 3 months ago)
and thus rather immature, but it does a decent job of playing a number
of games. It is currently very minimalistic, in the sourcecode,
presentation, and features. Its number one focus is to deliver a GBA
gaming experience in the most playable way that PSP can manage, with
frills being secondary.

Having said that, optimization was the important way in achieving this
goal, with overall compatability being a near second. Because of this
some games may not run at the favor of running more games significantly
better. Of course, the compatability will improve with time.

Many games will run at their best out of the box, but some games will
run very slowly unless idle loops are taken care of. There is a supplied
ROM database, game_config.txt, that gives idle loop targets and other
settings that may help a game to run better (or at all) on a per-game
basis. Currently (as of the first release) only a very small number of
games are entered. This number should improve dramatically over time.

gpSP currently requires an authentic GBA BIOS image file to run. It will
make no effort to run without one present; this file is 16kb and should
be called gba_bios.bin and present in the same location as the EBOOT.PBP
file. Please do not ask me where to obtain this, you'll have to look
online or grab it from a GBA. Note that it is not legal to have this file
unless you own a GBA, and even then it's rather gray area.

-- Features --

gpSP mostly emulates the core Gameboy Advance system. As of right now it
does not emulate any special hardware present on various GBA cartridges.

What it emulates:

GBA CPU: All ARM7TDMI ARM and Thumb mode opcodes except block memory w/
s-bit (probably aren't used in GBA games)
Video: Modes 0, 1, 2 almost completely, basic 3-5 support, sprites,
windows/OBJ windows
Interrupts: HBlank, VBlank, all timers, all DMA channels, keypad
DMA: Immediate, HBlank, VBlank, sound timer triggered
Sound: Both DirectSound channels and all 4 GBC audio channels
Input: Basic GBA input delivered through PSP controls
Cartridges: Currently supports up to 16MB large ROMs (32MB will not load)
Backup: 32/64kb SRAM, 64kb flash, 512bit/8kb EEPROM

What it lacks:

Video: No mosaic, bitmap modes lack color effects (alpha, fades),
there might be some minor inaccuracies in blending...
Cycle accuracy: Very cycle innacurate; CPU is effectively very
overclocked, meaning games with rampant idle loops will probably run
very poorly. DMA transfers effectively happen for free (0 cycle).
Please do NOT use gpSP as a first source for developing GBA homebrew,
try No$GBA instead.
Backup: 128kb flash is not currently supported.

-- Controls --

The control scheme is very simple and currently can not be changed.

At the ROM selection screen:

Up/down: navigate current selection window.
Left/right: switch between file window and directory window.
Circle/start: select current entry.
Square: go one directory up.

In game:

Up/down/left/right: GBA d-pad
Circle: GBA A button
Cross: GBA B button
Square/start: GBA start button
Select: GBA select button
Triangle: Adjust frameksip

In frameskip adjustment:

Hold down triangle to keep up, press up/down to increase/decrease
frameskip, respectively.

-- Frameskip --

Frameskip will only render one out of every (n + 1) frames, where n
is the current frameskip value (so 0 will render everything). Increasing
the frameskip can improve speed, especially with very graphically
intensive games.

-- FAQ --

Q) How do I run this on my PSP?

A) Provided is an EBOOT.PBP which will run as is on a 1.0 firmware
PSP or custom firmware that can run unsigned EBOOTs. On 1.5 firmwares
you must use a kxploit tool to run it (try SeiPSPtool). On 2.0
firmwares and higher further exploits must be used - see
http://pspupdates.qj.net/ for more information. Note that I have NOT
tested this emulator on any firmware version besides 1.5, and it's
very possible that it doesn't run well, or at all on higher versions.
Therefore I strongly recommend you downgrade if possible, and use
Devhook to run games that require > 1.5 version firmwares.

Be sure to include in the same directory as the EBOOT.PBP file the
game_config.txt file included and the gba_bios.bin file which you
must provide yourself.

gpSP does not run on PSPs with version 2.71 or higher firmware yet,
nor does any other homebrew executable.

Q) What is a BIOS image file? Why do I need it to run gpSP? Other GBA
emulators don't require this...

A) The GBA BIOS image file is a copy of a ROM on the GBA system that
has code for starting up the GBA (it shows the logo), verifying the
game, and most importantly, providing utility functions for the games
to use. It is the latter that gpSP needs the BIOS present for. It's
possible to replace all of these functions with equivilent code, but
this will take time - in the future gpSP may not require a BIOS image.

Q) I can't find this BIOS image.. please send it to me.

A) Sorry, but you're on your own.

Q) How do I know I have the right BIOS?

A) If you have md5sum you can check if it has this hash:
a860e8c0b6d573d191e4ec7db1b1e4f6
That BIOS should work fine. Others might too, I really don't know at
this point. It's possible that other images will only have partial
compatability. It's also theoretically possible to use custom
(and free) BIOS replacements, but I don't know of any publically
availablone ones.

Q) My favorite game won't run.

A) There probably isn't anything you can do about this, although a
change to game_config.txt might help. gpSP is still an emulator in
its infancy so the compatability is not superb. I don't have time
to test too many games so I'm releasing it as a public beta to get
a feel for some things that don't work. The next version could
perhaps fix it, or it might never run. There are always other
emulators of course, please try one.

Q) My favorite game is very slow.

A) Emulating GBA takes a number of resources and getting it done well
on PSP is no simple task by any means. Some games are just going to
overwhelm the emulator completely. Of course, there is one special
case of game (a lot of early generation games fall under this
category) that can be made much faster by a simple addition to the
game_config.txt file. Wait for a new version of this file or the
next version of the emulator and the game may be improved.

That aside, there are still numerous optimizations that can be done,
and I sure you future versions will be faster (I just can't tell you
how much)

Q) The emulator crashed!

A) Most games that don't run will probably take the emulator down with
it, or it could be an emulator bug completely unrelated to the game
(but unlikely). Press home and wait for the next version.

Q) How do I change image quality (resizing), sound quality, controls?

A) Right now, you can't. Wait for a later version. For those wondering,
sound is locked at 44.1KHz (sounds a bit high? It is, but it's
currently necessary to play everything correctly.. it'll probably be
different in the future but this does NOT make as much of a difference
as one might think)

Q) Other emulators use the PSP's graphical hardware to accelerate the
video emulation. Is this possible for gpSP?

A) I'm honestly not too sure at this point. It's definitely a rather
complicated procedure, and I don't think it'll be possible to
accurately accelerate alpha blending. On the other hand, affine
transformations could perhaps receive a speed boost this way. Any
solution would have to be hybrid hardware/software, which might be
possible due to the nature of the PSP's VRAM. Maybe someone will
be willing to help me think of possibilities here?

Q) Other emulators use the PSP's second CPU to offload the sound
emulation. Is this possible for gpSP?

A) Yes, but it wouldn't improve it nearly as much as say, SNES9x TYL.
This is because most of the processing that goes into sound on a GBA
game is done in the CPU, not in dedicated audio hardware. It could
help a little, but probably not a lot. Maybe enough to be worthwhile.
It might also be possible to split the video rendering to the main
CPU and the main emulation to the secondary one, but there are a lot
of coherency issues involved.

Q) Why can gpSP only load ROMs up to 16MB in size?

A) This is due to the limited amount of memory on PSP. In the future it
will be possible to load them by swapping chunks of the ROM in and out
of memory; in fact, gpSP is designed with this in mind. I just haven't
gotten around to it yet (and I don't know what the speed impact will
be like, but I do know that loading from memstick is very slow right
now...)

Q) Savestates?

A) Sorry, not yet. Probably later.

Q) So when WILL the next version be released?

A) Sorry, but I almost never announce release dates. Furthermore, I'll
probably be pretty hush hush on internal development, just to keep
people from nagging me about it and building too much suspense.

Q) I don't like this emulator. Are there other alternatives?

A) Yes. Try PSPVBA by Zx-81 (http://zx81.dcemu.co.uk/). It probably
has vastly superior compatability across the board.

Q) I heard there was a version of gpSP for PCs. Is that true?

A) I developed this emulator internally on PC. It might have a speed
advantage over other PC GBA emulators, although the PSP version has
more sophisticated optimizations. Most people have fast enough
computers to run better GBA emulators for PC and gpSP lacks some
important features (screen resizing) that the PSP version kinda
hides. Even though gpSP spent a majority of its development
gestation as a PC app it was always developed with the PSP in mind,
so the PC version will probably not see the light of the day unless
I get overwhelming demand for it. (for those looking to build it
yourself, sorry, it's missing one of the requisite files for this..)

Q) I want to modify gpSP. How can I do this, and am I at liberty to do
so?

A) Yes, you are, under the terms of the GPL (see the included
COPYING.DOC). You can download the sourcecode from whereever you
downloaded this; if you can't find it please e-mail me and I'll give
you a link to it. I would appreciate it if you contacted me first
before forking my project, especially if you're just looking to gain
recognition without adding much to it. It's better to keep all changes
tidy in one branch of development.

Q) How do I build gpSP?

A) make -f Makefile.psp will build it. You need to have SDL for PSP
installed, as well as the standard PSP toolchain and PSPSDK. gpSP
isn't much of a "build it yourself" program so please don't bother
me much about how to build it unless you have a good reason for
wanting to do so.

Q) Donations?

A) Very appreciated. exophase@gmail.com on PayPal. <3

Q) How can I contact you?

A) exophase@gmail.com, Exophase on AIM. I'm a very lonely person so
don't be afraid to get in touch ;P But don't nag me about ROMs or
BIOSes, and if you hate me and my crappy emulator try to be nice
anyway, okay?

-- Special thanks --

Quasar84: He's helped me in so many ways with this. We both kinda learned
GBA together, he did little demos for me and I got them emulated. It was
great trying out your more advanced code for your own projects once you
got to them, it was equally rewarding to see your work and to be able to
run it at the same time. Least of all I wouldn't have been able to do any
of this without your constant support and presence. I really owe this
release to you.

gladius: You are an amazing GBA coder. I wouldn't have been able to get
through some tough parts without your help. Its been good talking about
ideas with you.. I'm sure you're glad to see that there's finally a GBA
emulator with dynarec ;)

Many, many others of course, probably too many to name, and I don't want
to make anyone feel bad by putting others above them (well, except those
two, heh) so if you think you should be on here, you probably should be!
Just pretend you are for now, and maybe I'll put you here next time.