Gp2x Psone Emulator Running Realy Fast

[zodttd]

Soooo sorry about the lack of updates!
I've been really busy with some commercial PDA work, and every chance I had went to working on my PSX emulator ports. In the midst of everything I forgot to give oesf.org a visit for an update.

I have a new team of developers for my PSX codebase.
-Unai from Chankast (DC emulator) fame is working hard on a new GPU from scratch. He's been making really good progress.
-Chui, a DC developer is now onboard.
-Me, trying to work on a dynamic recompiler
-Possibly Fox68k for assembly work

I *really* could use as much help as possible on a dynamic recompiler. Even though the higher end Zaurii can handle some games at full speed with my development version, there's still a large room for improvement for performance, at least until the new GPU is ready.

I've been writing ARM assembly for a few functions and it's improved performance slightly more as well.

I could use a fully featured SVN, that allows multiple users and 3+ projects. If you can supply one for my PSX projects, psychoman, please PM me! Thanks!

I'm also working on an in-game menu for my PSX emulators, but since the Zaurus has a keyboard, a quick keymapping is all that's truly needed. So I'll try to get everyone a WIP release tommorow.

I've also worked hard on compatibility though I haven't tested PAL games yet.

Has there been any updates in the pdaXrom/Zaurus/SDL area that would help benefit ZPSX? If so let me know and I'll pay close attention. I really would like the SDL port for the Zaurus to display full screen 320x240 when inside pdaXrom.

I'll keep everyone posted and try to get a release out tommorow.
I really believe a full speed fully features PSX emu will turn out from this project.

Thanks,
ZodTTD

[stuffman]

Whew! I was worried that this project just fell off of the face of the earth. Glad to know that's not the case! Keep up the great work!

[MONVMENTVM]

yeah me too... but you made my day now... looking forward to test the next version.

thx in advance,


MONVMENTVM

[danboid]

Thanks for the status report zodttd!

What I'm REALLY interested in now is seeing zpsx running under OpenZaurus- have you tried the alpha release of 3.5.4.1 zod? If not, I'd wait a few days as alpha2 will be out shortly but I was staggered by the huge performance gains the 2.6 kernel (and newer GCC probably) made to my C3000- it really was like a new machine compared to cacko or pdaxrom. In 15+ years of computer use I'd never seen such a big performance boost purely through software.

The big problem for zpsx under OZ is that no-one has integrated the pxa27x video acceleration patches into the kernel yet and so video playback and gaming isn't much cop at the moment. I've just asked RP- the SOLE c7x0 and cxx00 kernel hacker- about it but he's got too many other things to be working on and its not a priority for him. Could none of the ARM assembly wizards on the zpsx team have a go at this? I'm sure RP wouldn't mind giving some pointers as he said it shouldn't be that hard to do. OZ will then be the platform of choice for zpsx.

[zodttd]

Hi danboid! I just got done taking a look at Cacko for the first time. It was quite confusing hunting down the library's needed for the BVDD enhanced SDL, so I switched back to pdaXrom. I'm currently looking for solutions to speed up ZPSX performance, which is what is delaying the release of ZPSX.

Here's a couple questions I have:
#1 Is the SDL 1.2.9 for pdaXrom "BVDD enhanced"? If so, then it would speed up my development time since I just implemented BVDD support by hand but it's a bit of a ways from complete. If BVDD support is already inside the SDL library for pdaXrom, then it would be a good thing since people would have the option of using BVDD if its supported on their Z.

#2 OpenZaurus is definitely an option. I will check it out now. I'm fairly new to ARM assembly, but maybe I can mash out a kernel that supports bvdd with a bit of help. I'd still make a pdaXrom build as well, if this option is feasible. Any help is appreciate with regards to the BVDD kernel patch.

Thanks for the kind reply's. I'll eagerly wait for a reply.

[danboid]

I'm very happy to hear you're willing to give kernel hacking a go zodttd- the oe team obviously needs all the help it can get and I can confidently say that every cxx00 owner will be very grateful if you can get us smooth video under a 2.6 kernel. I will be even happier if this gets done in time for the next test release of OZ!

If I knew where these pxa270 video patches are I'd tell you but I don't so I'd just recommend that you join the openembedded mailing list

http://oe.handhelds.org/contact.php

And ask on there and/or ask RP (Richard Purdie) in the #oe channel. If you're new to OZ, you need to know that there are 2 main flavours of the distro- OPIE (which is much akin to Qtopia that you saw under Cacko, its a fork) and GPE-the GNOME Palmtop Environment which is probably the one you want as it runs an X server (with SDL libs available) so getting zpsx compiling under it should be a breeze.

You can download the current alpha at

http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/tmp/hrw/3.5.4.1-test/alpha1/

(zodttd- I think its the akita image you want for the C1000)

and install instructions are over at

http://openzaurus.org/wordpress/installation/

That current alpha has a few issues (like the package manager not being set up properly, some packages just didn't work or install when I tried it, some USB bugs apperently etc.) but it does give you a good idea of how powerful your Z really is and how cool it will be when all the kinks are worked out.

I gave up with SDL under Cacko because I could not find a version that would work outside of Qtopia and SDL under Qtopia would only work at 640x480 for me.

Good luck zodttd- keep me posted!

[bmxer55]

Is there anyway of getting this to work on a SL-5500 with the sharp rom? I would really like to be able to play psx games on it. If there is a way will someone please post how?

[Ferret-Simpson]

You've got absolutely no hope in hell I'm afraid.

Neither do I, on my 5600. (Cmon for being able to make that plural! Why haven't I been ruddy paid yet?)

The earlier Zauri than the CXXXX series use lesser processors, (On the 55/50-00 only 200mhz SA) that simply cannot handle the high-powered emulation software.

Sorry!

[stuffman]

Hey, just a quick feature idea. The interlace option is a good idea, but sometimes the "progressive" mode doesn't work right. I don't mean the artifacts it makes - that's expected - I mean, for instance in the battle sequences in FF8, it seems to only write on every other line (like the non-progressive mode), except sometimes they flip around. This may have something to do with the different resolution of the battle sequences as opposed to menus and other stuff. What I suggest is to add a half-vertical resolution mode along with the regular interlace and progressive modes- basically, the interlace "1" option, but duplicate the line to fill in the blank lines. This way, we can play with the added speedup of the interlace (and there are some situations where it seems to help *a lot*), but not have the weird artifacts of the progressive mode. Sure, it'd still be ugly with only have the vertical resolution, but I myself wouldn't mind the compromise in certain situations.

[stuffman]

Just bumpin' the thread... it's been a few weeks. Any progress? I'm well into disc two of FF8, this is amazing!

[zodttd]

Lot's of progress has been made to the psx4all codebase.
I'll try to find some time to get the newly named psx4zaurus updated.

I have made a dynarec for PSX R3000A MIPS -> ARMv4, but right now it only works somewhat. It can recompile the BIOS dynamically, but crashes shortly after. I could use some help from those who know ARM assembly quite intimately, and can help me debug a issue with forming the prologue and epilogue of the recompiled function. Since it's being recompiled, I currently use some handy macro magic to form the bytecode for each converted ARM instruction. For the prologue I currently use the equivelant to "stmfd sp!, {r4-r10, lr}" and for the epilogue "ldmia sp!, {r4-r10,pc}" ...If its not the recompile function, it could be the way I'm calling a function, which is basically loading a 32bit immediate to R4,...through an optimized way of going about mov, orr, orr, orr...then doing a "mov lr, pc" and "mov pc, r4" to do the long branch.

So basically the dynarec is being worked on, and I have made a lot of progress on it by myself, though help is always appreciated.

Tons of work has been done to the GPU, as well as the interface.
I've just been focusing on the GP2X version as of late...I prioritize based on donations, but I realize the Zaurus is due for an update.

ZodTTD

[stuffman]

Thanks Zod! Great to hear of the progress. I really wish I were in a position that I could help you out, both on the technical front and the monetary front (I still am, oh, a few thousand short on *last* semester's tuition... let alone the upcoming semester's...). As always, keep up the great work!

[ninjafoo]

Does anyone have a DL URL for this?

[sifourquier]

I made a copy since my zaursu
http://cortexet.free.fr/zaurus/zpsx/zpsx.rar

[zodttd]

Hi everyone,

I was away for the past week and couldn't get more work done on the dynarec. I will give another update once I see the status of psx4all (our codebase that zpsx is based on), as other members of the psx4all team have been working on it while I was away.

It's doing well, but needs some polishing, and I want to get it working on more Zaurus OS's first. If you don't hear from me tommorow, give me a PM and remind me to post.

Thanks.
ZodTTD