Visual Boy Advance needs your help!

[Robert]

Any more progress with this?

[MasterPhW]

Any more progress with this?

Yeah, a lot progress lately!

Sorry for not updating here, it seemed that nearly nobody in 1emu was interested in GBA emulation!

 

The latest progress:

We have a new site: Hosted at NGEmu

There's also a build repository: VBA-M-SVN-Compiles

 

All implemented features so far:

Improved video modes and filters (Spacy)

VBA 1.8.0 GB/GBA emulation cores (VBA Team)

7zip support (Blargg’s excellent File_Extractor library, added by Kode54 and DJRobX, mods by mudlord)

Sound interpolation (Kode54)

Assembler-core HQ3X and HQ4X modules (Maxim Stephen, added by DJRobX)

VBA Linking (denopqrihg, originally added by mudlord)

Multi key assignment: Assign both a joypad and keyboard (or multiple keys) to one function. Also no longer erases joypad settings when joystick is unplugged.

Fixed vsyncing issues in Direct3D mode caused by lockable backbuffers (DJRobX)

Monitor sound buffer and skip frames when it gets low, prevents sound corruption when sound clock is slightly faster than video clock and using vsync (DJRobX)

Linux / SDL port (Nach)

Mac OSX port (peterb)

Polygonal based rendering in OpenGL mode (mudlord)

 

ATM: I am working on a html help based help file.

 

There's also a list of known issues and ToDo roadmap

General Issues and Todos....

 

Issues

In D3D mode, if one alt-tab's out of the emulator and back to it, it sometimes does not go back to full screen.

D3D does not have triple buffering in the official 1.8 code, it needs to be ported back in.

In DirectDraw Triple Buffer mode the menu sometimes disappears when the emulator is started

When command line loading a game with menu auto-hide enabled, the menus appear on screen and blink a couple times before the games start. For cleanliness with frontends, we should not display the menus at all if autohide is true and a rom is loaded from the commandline.

Per Squall, OpenGL is running "like ass" and needs work.

VBALink has issues. DJRobX has emailed the author of vbalink but heard nothing. Would be great if we can convince them to release their newer code.

VBALink needs emulator to support opening VBAx.ini and save states to .sa2, .sa3 etc. I suggest we use standard filenames

for first the instance (vba.ini, vba2.ini, vba3.ini, .sav, .sa2, .sa3 )to maximize compatibility for people who won't use the linking feature.

VBALink should be completely disableable.

 

 

Todo List

Other integrations pending: VBA-H, VBA-Rerecording, VBAEd

Requested features:

===============

INI-based translation

Fixing save type detection

Adding anisotropic filtering

AVI recording with memcoder

 

VBALink Issues

The linking code is in there, and can work as well as it did on the 1.6 build. But there are issues:

 

1) The DMA hacks that are used slow the emulator way down (search code for CPUDmaHacks2)

2) The StartGPLink() function (see GBInline.h) seems to break Sonic Advance 1 & 2. Starting those games will greet you with

gray bars and a "Press start" message with background music. Link code is probably making Sonic think it's connecting to something!

 

For now I've commented the call out so Sonic works, but I'm thinking at a minimum we need to add the option to disable link support entirely from the UI. Then people can enable linking on a per-game basis in VBA-Over.ini if they desire.

 

One plus with the 1.8 merge is 1.8 inherently supports out-of-focus input, so we don't have to worry about adding that in!

[ken_cinder]

Robert, your sound distortion is probably the lack of a Bios. I know with the Metroid games, a Bios is required for proper sound.

[Agozer]

Robert, your sound distortion is probably the lack of a Bios. I know with the Metroid games, a Bios is required for proper sound.

Hm. Strange. I have both Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion, no BIOS. The sound is fine.

 

Using kode54's build.

[ken_cinder]

I require one for the vanilla VBA, and XboyAdvance, which I mainly use. I don't play much on my PC anymore with regards to emulators, so I most certainly don't use specialty builds.

[Agozer]

I require one for the vanilla VBA, and XboyAdvance, which I mainly use. I don't play much on my PC anymore with regards to emulators, so I most certainly don't use specialty builds.

Oh, I see. Good to know.

[Haldrie]

I had seen this about a month ago but never did post. However seeing the progress that has been made (at this point I have not yet tested it myself but just reading about it is making me like it) I think it's time I show my support. Since I too have been waiting for a project like this and have made a name for myself here with my knowledge of the official VBA builds. I don't know any technical knowledge but I have been working with the official VBA versions since 1.3 and have seen the progress they have made over the years before the project suddenly died.

 

I will at this time port the build links from the first post to my website for hosting so you don't have to worry about loosing the current links and to give people an ad-free alternative download. I will post the links here once I've got them all uploaded. I will also see what I can do about testing the builds on my PC since I have the entire no-intro GBA set at my disposal (and anyone asking for links and downloads will get the same treatment from me that the mods have been giving to people here...read the rules if you have a problem with that).

 

[EDIT]

I got them uploaded (took less time then I thought).

Mudlord's VBA Builds (hosted on Haldrie's World)

 

I did play around with it a bit and the first thing I checked was to see if you had the e-Reader build in it and it seems you don't. Do you want me to get you the source for it? The build I have only allows for US e-Reader card dumps to work. I've seen that the dev of no$gba managed to get both the US and JAP version working on his emulator so unless someone has made another build for VBA that I don't know about you could always find out how he did it.

Edited November 26, 2007 by Haldrie

[mudlord]

Any source code relating to derative builds of VBA is more than helpful in my and the other dev's causes. I'd be glad to have a copy of this source code for e-Reader support.

 

Thanks for the mirror too. The current one should not have ads though...which is here:

 

http://vba-m.ngemu.com/vbacompiles/

 

Sorry for not replying earlier, I have been extremely busy with coding this and other things...

Edited November 30, 2007 by mudlord

[Haldrie]

Ok finally found that site again and the download of this build includes the source.

http://www.caitsith2.net/ereader/emulators.htm

 

Hopefully you'll be able to use it to your advantage. It'll be nice to take full advantage of the e-Reader and link support combined to see how the special e-Reader cards for Super Mario Advance 4 - Super Mario Bros. 3 work along with many others.

[mudlord]

Thanks! Also, it seems CaitSith2 kept his patches minimal, which will help me a lot when I implement this functionality to the new 1.8.0 beta 3 core. It seems to be based on the 1.7 core, but that hasn't stopped us from adding support for the various VBA buiilds.

[Haldrie]

When you get a working build please send me a link. I'd be more then willing to test it out for you.