[Announce] Fceu-gui (including fceu) for N900

[ade]

Fceu-gui is a graphical frontend for FCE Ultra, a NES/Famicom emulator.

After some playing around with FCE Ultra (fceu, recently mentioned in http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=83070&highlight=fceu), I experienced it as a better emulator than the already available iNES emulator (at least in terms of speed and sound quality). So it deserved some graphical interface ;)

The key configuration is done by calling fceu itself. Roms must be in ".nes" format (game roms) or ".nsf" format (NES Sound Format). They can be (g)zipped or non-(g)zipped.

Reserved(?) in-game keys:
f = toggle fullscreen
q = quit
o = savestate
r = reset
l = loadstate

Both fceu and fceu-gui can be found in the extra-devel repo.

Extensions:
Game Genie:
This was a cheating cartridge made for several consoles.
In order to use it: find the Game Genie rom for the NES and place it in "/home/user/.fceultra/", giving it the name "gg.rom".
Then after starting Fceu-gui, it should be checkable in the config screen. Starting a game then, will bring you in the Game Genie screen first. There you can enter your cheat codes that can be found on the internet. Uncheck it in the config screen if you no longer want to use it.
Famicom Disk System:
This was an extension to start games from some kind of floppy disc system. It was only released in Japan. Only a limited amount of games was released this way.
To use it: place this system rom (disksys.rom, 8kB) in "/home/user/.fceultra/" and start your .fds game, (g)zipped or not.

FCE Ultra cheat files:
Can be found on http://www.zophar.net/cheats/nes.html
Put the ".cht" files in "/home/user/.fceultra/cheats/"

Version history:
0.0.1-1
* Initial version
0.0.1-2
* Added option for TV Blur effect (only in 16 & 32 BPP)
* Added option for Game Genie
0.0.1-3
* Fix TV Blur effect
0.0.1-4
* nsf files also selectable
* remember and preselect last used file
0.0.1-5
* fds,gz,nez,unf and unif files also selectable
* added easy switchable 2nd rompath
0.0.1-6
* fixed saving 2nd rompath when selecting external SD
0.0.1-7
* option to activate and deactivate fceu cheats
0.0.1-8
* small change of game selection interface

Have fun :)

[aliman]

just what i've waited for^^
many, many thanks to you:D
the only thing i miss is configuring savestate and loadstate button and maybe exit button too because i'm using gamegripper and the inconfigurable buttons makes it hard to play with gamegripper on ;)
but all in all, great thing :D

[Addison]

Your GUI looks super cute and adorble.

Excellent job dude. :)

[ade]

just what i've waited for^^
many, many thanks to you:D
the only thing i miss is configuring savestate and loadstate button and maybe exit button too because i'm using gamegripper and the inconfigurable buttons makes it hard to play with gamegripper on ;)
but all in all, great thing :D

Same goes for me, I also use a gamegripper, which means removing the gamegripper for quitting and stavestates.

I did not take the time to study all the (working or not working) options of FCE Ultra, but I am afraid it are hardcoded keys. I will have a look at it nevertheless.

[ade]

Your GUI looks super cute and adorble.

Excellent job dude. :)

Thanks, it is a combination of some images found on the internet. I am also quite pleased with the result.

Too bad the emulator does not work on your N8x0..

[D@vIcHoJD]

I have a problem setting up the keyboard, you can help me please:D

The screen goes black and I can not do more.

[aliman]

I have a problem setting up the keyboard, you can help me please:D

The screen goes black and I can not do more.

look at the top bar, it says that you should press a button for A then the number in brakets changes to two (i think this means player two should press a button for A). you repeat this until the window disappear and then you save your changes.

hope this helps ;)

[OMOIKANE]

Ooooo, what a beautiful day. Thank you for the frontend, fren!
Now only few steps left to make it perfect -
1 stretched fullscreen
2 save last rom position in list
3 configurable save/load buttons (or re-hardcoded to t/u)

Perfect speed fullscreen with 8bpp BTW, i am happy.

[emorace]

thank you very much, i was waiting for this for a long time, ines is not my cup of tea in aspects of handling.

an streched fullscreen option would be realy nice,
save/load state function even more :)

[ade]

thank you very much, i was waiting for this for a long time, ines is not my cup of tea in aspects of handling.

an streched fullscreen option would be realy nice,
save/load state function even more :)

I have been experimenting with serveral resolution parameters, but it didn't lead to a stretched screen. I will try some other combinations this evening. It already has a save/load state function, are you talking about the key definitions?

[emorace]

thanks for your efforts!

didnt recognize the fixed keys for save/load,
as your reply, it would be nice to configure them, becouse im using the emulator and your gui with an gamegripper.

[ade]

Added support for the options of "TV blur effect" and use of the Game Genie. For more info see the first post.

No luck with stretching the screen so far and had no time look at the control keys any further :(

Edit: little mistake so blur option did not work. Should be fixed in the now uploaded 0.0.1-3 version.

[fft750731]

this EMU is much better than iNES. but it needs a gui that support der-menu, or else the roms are too many, we can't find quickly.

even we can use keyboard to choose the first word, but when I need to play nsf files, the .zip file will be the same name as the game itself, so we have to set rompath oncemore

[ade]

this EMU is much better than iNES. but it needs a gui that support der-menu, or else the roms are too many, we can't find quickly.

even we can use keyboard to choose the first word, but when I need to play nsf files, the .zip file will be the same name as the game itself, so we have to set rompath oncemore

What is a "der-menu"? My rom collection is very humble, so I can find a rom no-time :). The list is sorted alphabetically.

Nsf files are Nes Sound Files, right? I just filter zip and nes files. But if FCE Ultra can play then and it conflicts with the game zip name, I could define a second rompath...

[fft750731]

FCEU supports .nes .fds .nsf and .zip format, so if we compress the .nsf file to .zip format, it will be the same name as the game itself, such as Contra (j).zip, so that we must put them in different rompath. Yeh, wish the second rompath can be used easily

[ade]

@fft750731:
I added the option for a second rom path. Switching can be done on the fly via the drop down menu. When the save button is pressed in the config menu, it will save the currently selected rompath as default at startup.

@all:
It will now also show all supported file extensions.
I have given up on the following two points:

Stretching the screen at full screenwidth.

I was able to get a stretched screen in no-fullscreen mode, but because of the offset caused by the status bar, the lower part of the screen was not totally visible.

Reconfigure non-control keys (quit, reset etc.)

It is just hardcoded somewhere in the fceu binary

There might be some other options left like alternative controllers and netplay, but they are not tested by me and consequently not incorporated in the gui. For now, I am also not interested in those options.

[fft750731]

That's PERFECT, thx.

Now our N900 only need one tg16 emu

[emorace]

@fft750731:
I added the option for a second rom path. Switching can be done on the fly via the drop down menu. When the save button is pressed in the config menu, it will save the currently selected rompath as default at startup.

@all:
It will now also show all supported file extensions.
I have given up on the following two points:

Stretching the screen at full screenwidth.

I was able to get a stretched screen in no-fullscreen mode, but because of the offset caused by the status bar, the lower part of the screen was not totally visible.

Reconfigure non-control keys (quit, reset etc.)

It is just hardcoded somewhere in the fceu binary

There might be some other options left like alternative controllers and netplay, but they are not tested by me and consequently not incorporated in the gui. For now, I am also not interested in those options.

thanks for your efforts, great gui anyway :)

[aliman]

would it be possible to implement onscreen gamepad (i don't know, if onscreen gamepad is handled outside the emulator)?
if yes, it would be awesome to have the option to use some kind of fake multitouch (it's like when you press on the left sceen side and the right screen side it recognizes the touch in the middle of the screen -> eg. if i press left and a the touch is recognized somewhere in the middle of the screen and there it says as keyconfig left+a)
this would really be awesome and this would be the first emulator to support that

[ade]

would it be possible to implement onscreen gamepad (i don't know, if onscreen gamepad is handled outside the emulator)?
if yes, it would be awesome to have the option to use some kind of fake multitouch (it's like when you press on the left sceen side and the right screen side it recognizes the touch in the middle of the screen -> eg. if i press left and a the touch is recognized somewhere in the middle of the screen and there it says as keyconfig left+a)
this would really be awesome and this would be the first emulator to support that

There are several emulators that support onscreen touch control (picodrive, maybe even iNES), but not exactly in the way you describe it. The idea is not bad and should technically be possible.

But I can't adapt fceu itself (I only have the binary), and even if I had the code, I would out of my league to make such changes (at least with my current knowledge).

[aliman]

was just a thought of mine, not that important:D

[fft750731]

ROMPATH2 can not be saved……

[ade]

ROMPATH2 can not be saved……

Just tried it, it works fine with me. The new rompath2 is stored as expected (an not even the need to restart fceu-gui).
You did use the save button after setting the new rompath2?

If the problem still persists, maybe some error is shown. See if starting
/usr/bin/fceu-gui.sh
from the terminal gives you any errors when setting rompath2 and saving it.

[fft750731]

not found??it does exist

[ade]

not found??it does exist

The exact message is "not found"? Please write down the litteral messages, else it is hard to see where it goes wrong.

What is your rompath2 location? Then I can create the same path for testing.

[fft750731]

I just forgot root, ok it ran, but critical rom2_path 'notset' not found.

While I set roms 1 as /media/mmc1/games/nes

roms 2 as /media/mmc1/games/nsf, and it calls me to use save botton to save. but it has no save botton, except I enter from fceu-gui>config. and even I use config to set rompath2, then close, save, back to main memu, nothing changed, no roms was found. Only the rompath1 is useable

[ade]

I just forgot root, ok it ran, but critical rom2_path 'notset' not found.

While I set roms 1 as /media/mmc1/games/nes

roms 2 as /media/mmc1/games/nsf, and it calls me to use save botton to save. but it has no save botton, except I enter from fceu-gui>config. and even I use config to set rompath2, then close, save, back to main memu, nothing changed, no roms was found. Only the rompath1 is useable

The save button from the config menu has to be used...

Now that I am testing with the external SD card, I seem to encounter the same issue. I will take a closer look later this day.
Thanks for noticing.

Edit: fixed the error in version 0.0.1-6

[fft750731]

Bingo it does, that's great.

May I hope ade if you can make the emumaster like N9 runs well on N900?

[Acidspunk]

Bingo it does, that's great.

May I hope ade if you can make the emumaster like N9 runs well on N900?

I thought of this too. Ade, wouldn't you be interested in applying one of your great UIs to Emumaster? The one it has now isn't very usable as it is on fremantle...

[ade]

I thought of this too. Ade, wouldn't you be interested in applying one of your great UIs to Emumaster? The one it has now isn't very usable as it is on fremantle...

At the moment I am working on another (gui) project :)

I haven't looked at Emumaster yet. All I heard is that is uses QML, which I am not very familiar with at the moment. Is the graphical interface separate from the emulator part? If integrated, it means adapting the current one (= likely a big time investment for me :() .

In due time I may download it (just to have a look at it), but for now I have other priorities for sure.

[bocephus]

Ade, thanks a lot for making the GUI. After trying it out I will echo the sentiment expressed above that fceu beats iNES hands down where it counts. I have three questions for you:

1. Is it possible to switch savestate slots, on the fly or otherwise? Or are we limited to one?
2. Is there a way to disable cheats for a game other than to go into the /cheats folder and renaming the cheat files so as not to have the same name as the game rom? If not, this would be a feature request for the GUI from my side.
3. You said there might be an option of alternative controllers, but that you haven't implemented it. Does this mean it's not possible to use SIXAXIS controllers with fceu? Also, with the hardcoded buttons, I'm assuming you at least could never assign those to the controller anyway (like save/load)?

[ade]

Ade, thanks a lot for making the GUI. After trying it out I will echo the sentiment expressed above that fceu beats iNES hands down where it counts.

Glad you like it :)


I have three questions for you:

1. Is it possible to switch savestate slots, on the fly or otherwise? Or are we limited to one?

I really have no idea. It creates separate files per game afaik, so that would suggest one savestate. But we could investigate further.
edit: looks like it only supports one saveslot


2. Is there a way to disable cheats for a game other than to go into the /cheats folder and renaming the cheat files so as not to have the same name as the game rom? If not, this would be a feature request for the GUI from my side.

I will try to come up with someting smart, who knows :)
edit: the new version will have the option to switch on/off fceu cheating. It simply renames the cheat folder for the time the cheat option is switch off


3. You said there might be an option of alternative controllers, but that you haven't implemented it. Does this mean it's not possible to use SIXAXIS controllers with fceu? Also, with the hardcoded buttons, I'm assuming you at least could never assign those to the controller anyway (like save/load)?

I was refrerring more to arkanoid controlllers etc, meaning alternative emulated controllers for the NES itself.
As long as you map Sixaxis controls to keys, it should work like in any other emulator.
I suspect that reserved keys cannot be overwritten, but I have not tested that.

[bocephus]

I really have no idea. It creates separate files per game afaik, so that would suggest one savestate. But we could investigate further.
edit: looks like it only supports one saveslot

Yeah, I haven't been able to deduce anything else myself. I found the save files but figured fceu could easily number them according to slots. Also, the fceu slot is numbered, which led me to believe that like in miscellaneous other emulators slots could be swapped - on the fly or otherwise. No big deal though; one slot is alright.

I will try to come up with someting smart, who knows :)
edit: the new version will have the option to switch on/off fceu cheating. It simply renames the cheat folder for the time the cheat option is switch off

Ah, great! Easier and faster than doing it manually. Thanks for implementing my suggestion.

I was refrerring more to arkanoid controlllers etc, meaning alternative emulated controllers for the NES itself.
As long as you map Sixaxis controls to keys, it should work like in any other emulator.
I suspect that reserved keys cannot be overwritten, but I have not tested that.

Ok, hopefully I will find time before too long to hook up a sixaxis and play around a bit myself.

[Bazza]

nice work ade this works really well much better than the other version.

has anyone else had a slight issue when playing any rom it will freeze then catch up after a second or so?

[ade]

nice work ade this works really well much better than the other version.

That's a remark I find here more than once. Good to know I made the right choice to give Fce Ultra a frontend.


has anyone else had a slight issue when playing any rom it will freeze then catch up after a second or so?
Just played Castlevania 3 for a while and tried to pay attention to it. I did not notice it (or the freeze was shorter with my 805 MHz clockspeed ;)).

[Bazza]

Just played Castlevania 3 for a while and tried to pay attention to it. I did not notice it (or the freeze was shorter with my 805 MHz clockspeed ;)).

I will try again with a freshly booted phone it may just be that my phone has got sluggish over a few days use.

Good work again ade keep it up.:)

edit

the atari lynx (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=58421&page=6&highlight=lynx) emulator could do with a front end as well.......hint hint

[ade]

the atari lynx (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=58421&page=6&highlight=lynx) emulator could do with a front end as well.......hint hint

You are referring to mednafen? I could not find it in the repos, so I compiled it myself. It supports a lot of handhelds on the good side, but its weak point is its sound. Setting it to SDL gives a result that is a little bit acceptable, at the cost of much cpu. The result for the Lynx emulation is the less worse of all.

In the mean time started compiling the Lynx emulator Handy/SDL. It's sound is a lot better. I also started working on it's controls. It may be an emulator worth of the N900 in the future :)

[Bazza]

Yes mednafen,

i still have an atari lynx in my garage but the power socket broke many years ago and there is no way i'm throwing 8 batteries in it to re-live my child hood memories, so this emulator would be a welcome addition to the n900

I look forward to testing your efforts.

[danzo]

hey guys^^
@ade, cool emulator gui ;D
you could implement last-state function.
here is the method i'm thinking of, the gui could handle (mario is an examplename):
if the emulator exits, the gui renames the savesstate of the loaded game to sth like "ssmario.ss0" (or whatever) and it saves the laststate as "mario.ss0".
When the game is reload, optionally you get asked if you want to load laststate.
If yes, it loads "mario.ss0", deletes it and renames "ssmario.ss0" to "mario.ss0" (so the normal savestate can be loaded).
If no, it deletes the laststate and just renames "ssmario.ss0" to "mario.ss0".
That should be a method, which should be 100% operatable off the gui (but i'm not a developer, so i am not that sure).
This renaming method could also solve the "there is only one savesslot" problem ;)
I hope my thoughts will help you with developement of a new feature :D

best regards,
danzo^^

[ade]

hey guys^^
@ade, cool emulator gui ;D
you could implement last-state function.
here is the method i'm thinking of, the gui could handle (mario is an examplename):
if the emulator exits, the gui renames the savesstate of the loaded game to sth like "ssmario.ss0" (or whatever) and it saves the laststate as "mario.ss0".
When the game is reload, optionally you get asked if you want to load laststate.
If yes, it loads "mario.ss0", deletes it and renames "ssmario.ss0" to "mario.ss0" (so the normal savestate can be loaded).
If no, it deletes the laststate and just renames "ssmario.ss0" to "mario.ss0".
That should be a method, which should be 100% operatable off the gui (but i'm not a developer, so i am not that sure).
This renaming method could also solve the "there is only one savesslot" problem ;)
I hope my thoughts will help you with developement of a new feature :D

best regards,
danzo^^

Don't know if I can follow your reasoning for 100%, but I would indeed be something with backing up / renaming savestates.

At the moment I don't want to focus on this, because it is something that will not be used a lot. But thanks for the tip anyway :)

[misiak]

Hello, Ade, I just wanted to let you know (and all of you people) that if you push an update now, there may be problems. According to http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-devel_free_armel/fceu/0.0.1-1/ , one of dependencies is "libxau6". I'm worrided about the no version part, becuase, as reported today in thread http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=83939 , there is newer version of libxau6 in extras-devel (someone forgot to change the name of newly uploaded package), so if package builder uses that new version, you're ****ed. You may want to change it to use specific version (dependecies with "=version") for now, unless the issues are resolved or repo admins remove duplicate package with errors from extras-devel. Cheers! :)

[Temporal]

I know that this might be somewhat of an overkill, but for the ones using gamegripper like me, I fixed the fixed keys problem by creating a subset of the keyboard mapping.

By adding this:

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
partial alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "fce" {
include "nokia_vndr/rx-51(english_base)"
include "nokia_vndr/rx-51(arrows_4btns)"

name[Group1] = "FCE_Ultra";

//original T now L
key <AD05> { [ l, T, 5, t ] };
//original U now O
key <AD07> { [ o, U, 7, u ] };
//original O now U
key <AD09> { [ u, O, 9, o ] };
//original L now T
key <AC09> { [ t, L, exclam, l ] };
//original R now H
key <AD04> { [ h, R, 4, r ] };
//original H now R
key <AC06> { [ r, H, parenleft, h ] };
};
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
to the file:
/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/nokia_vndr/rx-51
(backup first, and DO NOT reboot unless the command worked!!!)
Now I am able to play using gamegripper by reseting the keys using the fceu-gui after invoking:
setxkbmap -layout fce
and then after I'm done playing I invoke:
setxkbmap -layout us
This works for me because I use the US keyboard, If you are an AZERTY or russian or other you'll have to modify my changes to accomodate your layout.
PS: You'll HAVE to change the "r" button to some other that has no function like I did because when you hit w+d+l+left, it will bring an "r" from nowhere (at least does on mine).
As a failsafe (if you are stuck with t as l, u as o, r as h and vice-versa, by locking the caps and hitting shift+fn+key it will spill the lowercase of those six changed chars.)
Maybe this could be incorporated as an option in a possible future version of fceu-gui?
Hope this helps someone else.