View Full Version : Full Speed SNES Emulator
There's a very fast Super-Nintendo emulator for GP2X (which uses a similar CPU to the nokia tablets).
DrPocketSNES is a fullspeed SNES emulator. Reesy combined the current SquidgeSNES with the renderer of PocketSNES and now we've got an SNES Emulator that runs most games fullspeed (with some framskip) with sound at 250 MHz - INCLUDING transparencies and partial SuperFX chip support!
http://reesy.gp32x.de/DrPocketSnes.html
http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/DrPocketSNES
AFAICT it should be possible to port, but it does need some work.
It writes to gp2x framebuffer directly, so this would need to be changed to render to SDL, or to framebuffer using the mplayer framebuffer hack.
A few other minor changes are also necessary. This would be the non-plus-ultra emulator for the N770 and N800, IMHO.
I've made some progress but it's ... it might be beyond me.
So this is a call to interested parties. I can share my partial results if anyone wants (it's a mess atm).
-----------
(edit: links to other ARM-Optimized snes emulators, possibly slower)
http://notaz.atspace.com/snes9x_uiq.html
http://yoyofr92.free.fr/os9xgp/index.html
cheers
*Gives moral support*
Can't port for nuts, but i hope to see this work!
hmm.. no one wants picking this project up?
guess im gonna have to wait a long time before i get to play final fantasy on my IT.
You aren't going to get a full speed SNES emulator on the N800 regardless of optimizations or ports and even if you did, it would be damn near unplayable.
ifallacy
2007-07-14, 05:28
@arnimS - the screen res of the gp2x is only 320x240 - which might be good, because assuming we use the hardware x2 scaling to 640x480. that leaves us with 160x480 (if the screen really is 160 dpi, around an inch by 3 inches) of room for screen press buttons
random question: does the touch screen return X events? how do we get the touch screen input (you've probably already thought of this, i'm thinking of a background script similar to xmodmap that maps screen taps in certain areas to keypresses (like on your qwerty keyboard))
i'd really like to help, but other than being a casual gentoo user, i can't do much
random question: does the touch screen return X events? how do we get the touch screen input (you've probably already thought of this, i'm thinking of a background script similar to xmodmap that maps screen taps in certain areas to keypresses (like on your qwerty keyboard))
yes, it's been done with fceu (nes emulator) already!
I have a GP2X, and I've been wondering if anyone was going to try to port the emulators to the N800. The nes, snes, genesis, neo-geo, and mame emulators are all excellent.
The GP2X has weaker hardware, so in theory, better performance is possible on the N800. Bluetooth controller, FTW?
I have a GP2X, and I've been wondering if anyone was going to try to port the emulators to the N800. The nes, snes, genesis, neo-geo, and mame emulators are all excellent.
The GP2X has weaker hardware, so in theory, better performance is possible on the N800. Bluetooth controller, FTW?
i believe a port is long overdue now!
DrPocketsnes should yield playable RPGs on the 770 and action games on the 800. It is a *lot* faster than snes9x, which gives about 5 fps on the 770 for games that use transparencies and pallete-changes and the raster effects.
... To answer your questions yeah on-screen buttons are the answer - see tak's excellent work on FCEU.
Onscreen taps generate normal X and SDL mouse events (leftclick). So you just detect for taps within a rectangular region. This is not difficult.
Here are the buttons i drew for uqm.
http://pupnik.de/buttons3.png
You can see em in action in this demo game.
http://pupnik.de/aliens-1.0.2_Nokia.tgz
I did make some progress porting DrPocketsnes v6. If anyone wants to take a stab at it, I'd be glad to help. I've uploaded my work-in-progress (Codenamed "The Horror") to my site here.
http://pupnik.de/DrPocketSnes_Nokia_The_Horror.tgz
The basic idea was to substitute the gp2x specific stuff with snes9x code. You can get the original DrPocketSnes9x code at Reesy's site.
what makes you say that?
Experience. Also, touchscreen buttons really suck.
Experience. Also, touchscreen buttons really suck.
Well as far as speed on an N800 goes, here's some figures for various games on the (slower) ARM 920
http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/DrPocketSNES
aleksandyr
2007-07-17, 16:58
N800 graphics access is extremely slow relative to the GP32. This is fixable with PowerVR drivers. N800 memory bandwidth is relatively low compared to the GP32. This is probably fixable with engine tweaking.
The N800 -could- "emulate" games at full speed. The trick is to write a compatible SNES opcode translator and rewriter: it's the difference between a VM and a JIT. I'm sure the ARM work generalizes nicely, but the graphics layer is more of a problem.
Touchscreen buttons do suck, especially without multi-touch.
N800 graphics access is extremely slow relative to the GP32. This is fixable with PowerVR drivers. N800 memory bandwidth is relatively low compared to the GP32. This is probably fixable with engine tweaking.
The N800 -could- "emulate" games at full speed. The trick is to write a compatible SNES opcode translator and rewriter: it's the difference between a VM and a JIT. I'm sure the ARM work generalizes nicely, but the graphics layer is more of a problem.
Touchscreen buttons do suck, especially without multi-touch.
I haven't even thought about the fact that multi-touch isn't possible on the N800 screen. Yeah, I'll just stick with my PSP for emulation.
N800 graphics access is extremely slow relative to the GP32.
It depends if you are thinking 640x480 at 60fps or 320x240 at 25 fps. For the latter, graphics bus performance is unrelated as it is asynchronous operation and there is plenty of bandwidth.
This is fixable with PowerVR drivers.
How is this relevant? Is this even going to be implemented? If so, how would it accelerate blits compared to SDL or Framebuffer + Xsp pixel-doubling?
N800 memory bandwidth is relatively low compared to the GP32. This is probably fixable with engine tweaking.
Yes, there are hacks to make the gp2x Emus use the MMU, which speeds up the PPU tremendously. I have Nokia-optimized memmove and memcpy that can give around 2x performance boost over standard c libs.
The N800 -could- "emulate" games at full speed. The trick is to write a compatible SNES opcode translator and rewriter: it's the difference between a VM and a JIT. I'm sure the ARM work generalizes nicely, but the graphics layer is more of a problem.
Are there any SNES emus that use this JIT technique?
Touchscreen buttons do suck, especially without multi-touch.
[/QUOTE]
I agree, but they are the only alternative to a BT keyboard or Controller. They work ok for me for RPG games.
Lets hope nokia makes a tablet that has better dpad and right-hand side buttons.
DataPath
2007-07-18, 13:56
Are there any SNES emus that use this JIT technique?
It wouldn't provide much, if any, benefit for SNES. The opcode emulation is simple enough - the huge performance killer is that you have to emulate from 3 to 5 different processors running simultaneously at different clock speeds, that must all be synchronized.
Almost all emulators, and ALL of the popular ones, fudge this synchronization since it doesn't matter for most games.
The one emulator that I'm certain keeps all the individual processors properly synchronized (bsnes) requires a really beefy desktop system to run at full speed. And although he doesn't fudge the synchronization, he does fudge the PPU internals a bit with a line-based renderer instead of a dot-based renderer.
aleksandyr
2007-07-18, 15:28
IIRC SNES opcode JIT techniques power the PSP emulator, although they call it dynamic recompilation or something. Likewise for the NDS-based SNES emulators.
It makes sync a much saner prospect.
Btw for some interesting code for ARM optimizations (memory, graphics)
svn checkout http://arm1136j-s.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ arm1136j-s
I haven't even thought about the fact that multi-touch isn't possible on the N800 screen. Yeah, I'll just stick with my PSP for emulation.
Don't need multi-touch for the slow/rpg style games. Fast games would suck with the dpad anyway.
{bump] Who wil be our hero?
http://reesy.gp32x.de/DrPocketSnes.html
http://pupnik.de/DrPocketSnes_Nokia_The_Horror.tgz
DataPath
2007-10-28, 14:32
IIRC SNES opcode JIT techniques power the PSP emulator, although they call it dynamic recompilation or something. Likewise for the NDS-based SNES emulators.
It makes sync a much saner prospect.
Do you have ANY clue what you're talking about? Dynarec would do NOTHING for synchronizing emulation of the different processors. Really. Absolutely nothing.
If you want to make a snes emulator faster, follow the basic rules of optimization - find out what the slowest part is, and optimize THAT. I promise you - it's not the opcode emulation.
In fact, the least accurate/fastest emulators fudge the synchronization between the different processors, doing it as rarely as possible without breaking games, and then try to make up the difference with hacks that fix some of those games.
The most accurate/slowest emulators synchronize all the emulated processors _every_ bus cycle of every chip, and is capable of bringing low-end modern systems to their knees.
aleksandyr
2007-10-29, 01:09
My understanding was that the sync was fudged via a set of interlocking JITs: the different chips are given different threadlike constructs, and an adaptive scheduler handles the rest.
I don't claim to be an expert on this, but that sounds like a sane way of fudging (with reasonable accuracy) the actual system, given that true sync is prohibitively expensive.
I imagine on the N800 the blocker will be, simply, memory bandwidth to the screen: the PSP emulator was fairly unusable (except, of course, for certain games) until people figured out how to leverage the graphic accelerator / media engine.
Honestly, I don't see why this isn't possible. I have a Palm Treo, which uses an ARM processor running at 312 mhz. (Intel Xscale PXA270 I believe.) Its SNES emulator (well, it has SNES, Genesis, NES, GB, and a few others) runs quite a few games at decent framerates even with a ton of background processes (phone radio turned on, bluetooth on, email constantly connected for push, etc), so I'd think that a faster processor, if you turn off some of the stuff running in the background, would work at least as well, especially since it has much more RAM too.
DataPath
2007-10-29, 12:41
Actually, Aleksandyr, the screen bandwidth limitation shouldn't really be a problem - render everything to the snes-native resolution, and let the screen do its pixel doubling, and it should be possible to render full-framespeed or nearly so.
There shouldn't be any need to do anything wild like trying to implement a dynarec emulation core.
After I get my N800 (for Christmas), I should be in a position to help get a snes emulator working on the N800.
Bump. Breastkitten is sad. :(
http://pupnik.de/DrPocketSnes_Nokia_The_Horror.tgz
That's a partial conversion/port... mashing together snes9x frontend code in with optimized gp2x code.
Do you have ANY clue what you're talking about? Dynarec would do NOTHING for synchronizing emulation of the different processors. Really. Absolutely nothing.
If you want to make a snes emulator faster, follow the basic rules of optimization - find out what the slowest part is, and optimize THAT. I promise you - it's not the opcode emulation.
In fact, the least accurate/fastest emulators fudge the synchronization between the different processors, doing it as rarely as possible without breaking games, and then try to make up the difference with hacks that fix some of those games.
The most accurate/slowest emulators synchronize all the emulated processors _every_ bus cycle of every chip, and is capable of bringing low-end modern systems to their knees.
DataPath is wise. Also in the case of SNES, there are possible big optimizations in the GPU, which emus like Squidgesnes use for faster speed but lower compatibility.
"DrPocketSNES for ITOS is mostly dead - that's not fully dead." Just need the right scorceror.
/me waves smelling salts under Datapath's nose...
DataPath
2007-12-23, 15:45
/me waves smelling salts under Datapath's nose...
'tain't Christmas, yet.
Hedgecore
2007-12-23, 16:16
... and you're about to drink a cup full of ioccane.
;)
Thesandlord
2008-02-26, 07:29
ok, im not sure if this thread is dead or not, but it seems the most relevent. After growing impatient waiting for DrPocketSnes, i decided to make a GUI for the current Snes9x! There are no tuchscreen buttons, so im guessing that this will only work on an N810 or N800/770 with a keyboard...
This is how to install a full-ish speed Snes emulator (but no sound as explained earlier in the thread) for all those noobs out there like myself
1) Download Snes9x from http://pupnik.de/snes9x.html
2) Extract the binary's (both snes9x_opt2 and snes9x), and move both to /usr/bin ( i used emelfm2 for both uncompressing and moving, id recomend xarchiver though) I think you have to run it as root user, not sure...
3) I had to use chmod a=rwx filename on both so i could use them, i dont know why...
4) You now have a hopefully working Snes emulator now, but it can only be accessed from the terminal.
5) I moded the GUI from pyboy, the python frontend for gnuboy on the NITs, and made it run the snes emulator instead.
6) all you have to do now is unzip the attached file, move PySnes.desktop (I have no imagination) to /usr/share/applications/hildon/
and move pysnes to /usr/bin
7) I highly recomend installing PyBoy, because the menu shortcut uses a icon from it, and its a great GBC emu.
everything should work, but im no programer so dont ask me!
1032
READ: This is the first time i have attached something to this form, and i didnt know it didnt accept tar files, so i renamed it pysnes.txt. I think u cant rename it to pysnes.tar using the built in file manager, so use emelfm2. im sorry, but i dont know how to zip files on my n810
ps: u need python to run the GUI, fyi
brendo8686
2008-03-03, 21:04
MeBoy is an emulator which lets you play gameboy and gameboy color games (roms) on a mobile phone with java support (just about all new phones do)
The only two links im aware of are here
http://www.techagesite.com/Free_mobile_games2.htm
You aren't going to get a full speed SNES emulator on the N800 regardless of optimizations or ports
And why is it so?
spirytsick
2008-03-06, 08:05
FMS, are you working on porting one of your emus to the tablet (fmsx and speccy are already running beautifully) ?
FMS, are you working on porting one of your emus to the tablet (fmsx and speccy are already running beautifully) ?
I am porting VGBA at the moment. Should run at full speed, with some frame skippage and probably without sound.
unique311
2008-03-06, 09:33
I am porting VGBA at the moment. Should run at full speed, with some frame skippage and probably without sound.
you are the man.
DataPath
2008-03-07, 00:36
I am porting VGBA at the moment. Should run at full speed, with some frame skippage and probably without sound.
mudlord and crew are doing a pretty major rewrite of the VBA core - have you checked out their work?
https://vbam.bountysource.com/
mudlord and crew are doing a pretty major rewrite of the VBA core - have you checked out their work?
Yes, I have seen VBA, but VGBA is a different program. I have already done a partial rewrite (using ARM assembly) when adapting it for Symbian. So, the Maemo version is a relatively painless port of that work.
freelikegnu
2008-03-21, 00:50
I'm attempting to pair and use my PS3 bluetooth joypads with my n800. They work great on my linux laptop and are very portable. Compiling the pairing app and performing the USB based sync is the first step. I would have to see what is available to create the /dev/input/js0 devices next. But I think this would be the best game interface for the lack of cables makes it easy to have more than one player without the use of hubs.
Sorry for stupid question:
How start snes9x in full screen mode?
I see only small game image in left up coner of window.
Thesandlord
2008-05-11, 01:12
use snes9x_opt2
Hey sorry for leaving you guys hanging so long. Real Life (tm) has intruded here in pupnikland :(
There is some good news: i did get DrPocketSnes stripped down to the point where it runs and loads a ROM on the tablet (this was in January).
Can't wait to prove zerojay wrong :P Well - strictly speaking I expect he's right - we can't get 60fps in real screen updates until we figure out how to manually control vsync and possibly bypass SDL - and the fast (tile based) emulation from Squidge is not 100% compatible... so yeah it won't be 100% compatible at 60fps....
But it should be a solid 30fps with frameskip1 on N8x0 at the very least..
i babble - sorry again about no releases - i'm not dead yet
Hey sorry for leaving you guys hanging so long. Real Life (tm) has intruded here in pupnikland :(
There is some good news: i did get DrPocketSnes stripped down to the point where it runs and loads a ROM on the tablet (this was in January).
Can't wait to prove zerojay wrong :P Well - strictly speaking I expect he's right - we can't get 60fps in real screen updates until we figure out how to manually control vsync and possibly bypass SDL - and the fast (tile based) emulation from Squidge is not 100% compatible... so yeah it won't be 100% compatible at 60fps....
But it should be a solid 30fps with frameskip1 on N8x0 at the very least..
i babble - sorry again about no releases - i'm not dead yet
Please do prove me wrong. There is nothing I would rather see than having a fully functional SNES emulator on a tablet.
I am certainly hoping to see Chrono Trigger on my n800. Can't help much except for moral support but good luck!
It should be possible to get this working - I'm not denying the work behind it (and that it is beyond me).
But we have to remember that emulators have been happening since the days of <200MHz CPUs. Regardless of their larger instruction sets there's still a lot of horsepower to be accounted for even after a conservative opinion of the hardware of the N8x0es.
I remember running SNES emulators on 100MHz 486DX/2s. I find it hard to believe that a 400MHz arm capable of running Warzone 2100 can't be expected to emulate an SNES -- even at full speeds.
I'm guessing the problem is not horsepower but how to use it towards the game, there's work being done towards a PSX emulator so SNES should be very possible. :p All I can do now is cheer for the guys who are wasting free time to bring kinda stuff to our tablets.
Underscore
2008-07-30, 04:35
The fact that I could run a decent, well, working snes emulator on a Nintendo DS should be a good enough example...
Indeed and of course I feel the same. While none of this type of programming is my focus, I will gladly cheer for anyone making the efforts.
Looking at the comparison still, I bet you maemo uses a comparable amount of resources as Windows 95/98 running on my aformentioned 486. Keeping in mind the 486 also had a fraction of the RAM as the tablet.
This is possible, it just has to be optimzed.
Another issue is that it appears the N8X0 devices have a rather crippled 2D acceleration architecture...PowerVR, but no access to it?! Maybe someone can fill me in on that? Seems kinda boneheadded.
The fact that I could run a decent, well, working snes emulator on a Nintendo DS should be a good enough example...
You'd think. Although the DS has two CPUs and no overhead of a mini Linux distribution...
But it also has a fraction of the remaining resources (RAM especially) and I don't think it has any specialized video acceleration.
General purpose seems to be making a comeback in the name of affordability these days - especially in small devices. The novelty is almost addicting!
Mysticode
2008-07-30, 22:42
Another issue is that it appears the N8X0 devices have a rather crippled 2D acceleration architecture...PowerVR, but no access to it?! Maybe someone can fill me in on that? Seems kinda boneheadded.
The graphics hardware in the n8x0 devices could be the limiting factor. I recall reading that the bus wasn't fast enough to transfer full-screen video at 30fps - this was impacting video playback. Now it seems that some work arounds have been done here since we can play back video "decently" at least.
In terms of the PowerVR chipset, from what I understand, there are no drivers that support 3D acceleration at least (and possibly 2D as well - that wasn't mentioned in the discussion I read) despite there being hardware support.
This thread (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11811&highlight=bus+video+bandwidth) has some more details about the hardware limitations in terms of graphics performance.
Mysticode
2008-07-30, 22:53
But it also has a fraction of the remaining resources (RAM especially) and I don't think it has any specialized video acceleration.
Actually, the DS, like the GBA, does have specialized 2D acceleration. You can read some details here (http://patater.com/files/projects/manual/manual.html#id2739090).
So really NEC is restricting access on a basis that Nokia doesn't find worth pursuing.
Are there any free implementations of the drivers? Similar to equivalent projects being done for ATI and nVidia chipsets?
My last ARM based device also suffered from a very slow bus. I'm surprised device makers are continuing to stick with such a shoddy architecture. Here's hoping Nokia fixes this up in the next one or two generations. Bus speed is everything and I hope they've learned that it is one corner that shouldn't be cut.
Thesandlord
2008-07-31, 00:05
Guys, the current port of Snes9x works fine with most games. Its not 100% speed, but its easily playable. Obviously 3D games like starfox don't work very well, but whatever. Once I learn how to make a .deb, I will make a package with ArminS snes9x port and my front end. I have no idea why this is not already done...
The only problems are it is not optimized for the tablets. So it can go much faster.
Also, there are no controls, so without a N810, keyboard, Wii Remote, or a virtual keyboard, its going to be difficult (impossible?) to play...
30 fps, 20 fps, whatever, as long as it works...
Do you know where could instructions be found to install it? I really wanna play Chrono Trigger :P or one of the more advanced guys coul make the deb so we can try in the meanwhile while the optimized port is released ^^ (yes i ask for a lot, sorry about that :P)
aestylis
2008-08-23, 02:44
Would a project like this one http://little-john.net/ be feasible for porting? this is an emu for PalmOS that has source available runs on an arm platform and emulates several systems including snes.
JustNick
2008-09-21, 09:10
ok, im not sure if this thread is dead or not, but it seems the most relevent. After growing impatient waiting for DrPocketSnes, i decided to make a GUI for the current Snes9x! There are no tuchscreen buttons, so im guessing that this will only work on an N810 or N800/770 with a keyboard...
This is how to install a full-ish speed Snes emulator (but no sound as explained earlier in the thread) for all those noobs out there like myself
1) Download Snes9x from http://pupnik.de/snes9x.html
2) Extract the binary's (both snes9x_opt2 and snes9x), and move both to /usr/bin ( i used emelfm2 for both uncompressing and moving, id recomend xarchiver though) I think you have to run it as root user, not sure...
3) I had to use chmod a=rwx filename on both so i could use them, i dont know why...
4) You now have a hopefully working Snes emulator now, but it can only be accessed from the terminal.
5) I moded the GUI from pyboy, the python frontend for gnuboy on the NITs, and made it run the snes emulator instead.
6) all you have to do now is unzip the attached file, move PySnes.desktop (I have no imagination) to /usr/share/applications/hildon/
and move pysnes to /usr/bin
7) I highly recomend installing PyBoy, because the menu shortcut uses a icon from it, and its a great GBC emu.
everything should work, but im no programer so dont ask me!
1032
READ: This is the first time i have attached something to this form, and i didnt know it didnt accept tar files, so i renamed it pysnes.txt. I think u cant rename it to pysnes.tar using the built in file manager, so use emelfm2. im sorry, but i dont know how to zip files on my n810
ps: u need python to run the GUI, fyi
I followed your instructions, but it doesn't work: on launching the game from pysnes I get a "sh: sintax error "(" expected" (or something very similar, my n800 is charging right now and I cannot check it)
pity i have no keyboard....when i get mine fixed or get a new one i'll try. looks complicated though :D thanks anyway.
Thesandlord
2008-10-07, 23:02
Umm, ok did you try using just snes9x and not PySnes. Try it using the command line.
Btw, I believe some kind of semi-multitouch is possible.
You see, the touchscreen averages the touch pressure between all pressure points. For button combination, setting the combination in the average between the combined buttons would work.
For example, here's 2 buttons "O" and the average between the 2 buttons "x". Pressing the 2 buttons would output the coordinates of the "x".
O x O
Here's a 4 button setup.
B
x1 x2
A D
x3 x4
C
A + B = x1
B + D = x2
A + C = x3
C + D = x4
Sure thing, no physical feedback is really bad about buttons, but some sound/visual feedback would be the least that could be done.
Can't any coder try out this idea? XD;
Thesandlord
2008-11-17, 06:38
maybe, but lets get a better SNES emu out first no? It seems no work is being done. Liqbase does this "fake" multitouch, but this is even easier.
Problems, how do you press A+D or B+C ? They are the same! Its too difficult to predict how much force each finger is pressing, because each finger needs to press the exact same amount or there has to be approximation software. Its possible, but a keyboard or Wii Remote is a much more nicer solution.
qwerty12
2008-11-17, 07:24
Hehe, I managed to compile snes9x-gtk but when I choose to load a rom, nothing displays on the screen...
thanks for trying, anyways. Its good to see its getting some attention.
cardyology
2009-02-19, 12:07
I know this is an old thread but has any progress been made on this emulator? Are we now at a stage where we can get snes games working on N810 with hard-keyboard support? chrono trigger? :D
I think the person to talk to would be Marat (http://fms.komkon.org/) because of his other excellent emus. I don't know how available or interested he would be though, just a thought.
I would also be interested in a good snes emu. Someone said it wouldn't be possible, but I find that hard to believe as I was running a snes emu on a 75mhz box back in the day and it worked well.
vBulletin® v3.8.8, Copyright ©2000-2025, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.