The state of GBA emulation -- best emu?

07-16-05, 07:51 PM

I keep wanting to fiddle with GBA emulation, but keep getting turned off so never fiddle much; today I thought 'heck, I'll try them all out again and figure out why they're bugging me..'. In the end, it seems none of the available emus are really usable :(

Anyone have better experiences?

(Specifically for GBA emulation.)

ie:

Morphgear is of course the most polished, but seems to be the slowest. ie: Scaling of 100% and audio disabled, it seems ot be running around 60fps for R-Type III for instance, but still feels sluggish.. and at frameskip 3 is still skipping a lot. With audio enabled, its rough. I was hoping to fiddle with Advance Wars, but it seems to run about 30fps or so after you get into the menus a bit and audio lags a few moments behind events. So probbaly playable withot audio, but still chuggy. So MG is an okay choice, but still not really a great option.

VBadvanceSE -- pick a ROM, and then it exits. Ah well, no good.

PocketAdvance and PocketGBA -- these guys seem to run nice and fast, much smoother and lower frameskip than in MG. Sadly, they offer no sound whatsoever... doh! I'm rather hoping for sound..

(Naturally, R-Type III is also available for SNES, but I was hoping for Advance Wars. I also write emus, so I know all about the issues, but I usually code and never play. Thought I'd look from a players perspective and maybe play some stuff, but GBA on PoPC still seems a turn off in the end :(

(So back to RPGs for SNES as best candidates :)

(OKay, Military Madness for TG16 is pretty good.)

jeff

07-16-05, 10:06 PM

Morphgear sound is dissapointing though so mine is off anyways... if pocket advance and pocketgba is fast ill try those.

da1writer · 07-17-05, 02:36 AM

Since we may be cutting ties soon with Marat (who creates our commercial modules ie Gameboy Advance), If anyone wants to jump up to port a patch/module of a better Gameboy advance module, then jump aboard. We at Morphgear are planning something big soon but we will keep it in the bag for now. For people who want to do heavy/lite development on Morphgear, there may be some money involved

;)! Just a little news i would throw out for you all.

MrKlaatu · 07-17-05, 04:18 AM

Originally Posted by skeezix

-- best emu?

I used to have an Emu.......her name was "Later".

She was a good Emu, but she was a crafty little critter and escaped into the wilds of the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. I still receive emails from folk who say she was seen running across the plains and drinking in the Gila River.

I only hope she has managed to hook up with one of the Male Emus I know who have escaped from those Evil Exotic-meat-breeders in the area and has started a renegade Emu Flock roaming wild and establishing a new enclave in the Northern hemisphere!

...c'ya...

"Later"

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....she's a good bird, I miss her dearly! :love:

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07-17-05, 04:34 AM

Welcome back MrK :approve:

da1writer · 07-17-05, 07:13 AM

Oh... Skeezix, SeanX/Mr.X, Tala, and Emulamer, and anyone else can reply to the post i made above by either emailing me or just tossing word on the forum ;)...

07-17-05, 10:59 AM

Why would Marat bail? Obious reasons.. 1) Figures he might as well go it alone with his own frontend instead of MG, 2) Wants out altogether, not enough time and/or payback. Why w0ould he break ranks after all this time?

I've not nabbed the MG source, but I've not a lot of time; I'd just hack it so that certain areas do certain button presses, without being configurable.. since making UIs is where the 'time' goes sucked away and time is what I have little of ;) But its tempting, so I find the X50vs controls pretty nasty unless its held sideways with screen tapping :)

How easy a buld is MG's frontend?

jeff

07-17-05, 08:01 PM

Oh thats sad to hear marat is giving up.

Out of curosity, what programming language would morphgear use? Its not like I can program for it though... Unless it is easy to use code with lots of comments ^_^

07-17-05, 08:10 PM

Sad to really see the lack of freeware alternatives to gameboy emulation. I'm really not too crazy about paying for an emulator...

PocketNESter is awesome [for NES emulation]. I luv it.

da1writer · 07-18-05, 04:40 AM

Originally Posted by skeezix

Why would Marat bail? Obious reasons.. 1) Figures he might as well go it alone with his own frontend instead of MG, 2) Wants out altogether, not enough time and/or payback. Why w0ould he break ranks after all this time?

I've not nabbed the MG source, but I've not a lot of time; I'd just hack it so that certain areas do certain button presses, without being configurable.. since making UIs is where the 'time' goes sucked away and time is what I have little of ;) But its tempting, so I find the X50vs controls pretty nasty unless its held sideways with screen tapping :)

How easy a buld is MG's frontend?

jeff

Try it out, we do give the source code out freely, after you agree to the disclaimer. If you have any other questions in building/patching an emulator towards Morphgear, drop us an email!

07-18-05, 11:19 AM

I looked awhile back and I remember it was the MG license, and not a usual one like the GPL or BSD or Apache or the like - that caught me as curious, as its work to define a proper license, so more likely its off the cuff and pieces of other licenses. So why not a regular well known license? I'll take a look if I get a moment.

jeff

07-18-05, 11:27 AM

I never have the time to match my ambition here, but since the GBA is ARM like the PDA I thought of using a more "Software Dynamic Translation" approach than pure interpretation.

For those unfamiliar with SDT:

Basically, you take the GBA code, and translate out the GBA specific stuff, replacing it with PPC code, and save that whole translated code to run rather than reinterpreting it each time. It's much faster, especially since you can eliminate a lot of jumps and calls in the code.

I have some experience working with SDT, but no ARM assembler (only x86, MIPS, PowerPC, and a tiny bit of SPARC.) Maybe someday I'll have the time.

I always wondered if anyone does this, and if not, what are the drawbacks, other than a bit of complication and a bit of memory overhead.

Jon

AndreyK · 07-19-05, 12:53 AM

Originally Posted by awdark

Morphgear sound is dissapointing

Does x50v has the same problems? Doesn't sound nice :(

kronchev · 07-19-05, 09:54 AM

Its always going to be an issue, but I think the biggest issue, which isnt of course a fault of the programs, is the controls of the axim. They just dont lend themselves to games, especially ones that can have 3 or more buttons pressed (as GBA games can get). Advance Wars, yes obviously thats a better game for it as its turn based and slower, but other things...like R-Type...just kind of anger me when I try to play so I give up.

I have a GBA:SP and a flash cart anyway so its not a huge problem...for other things that dont work on the GBA (SNES, genesis, etc) I have my PSP...so yeh if I want it all with me thats 3 devices. Oh well.

MrKlaatu · 07-20-05, 04:12 AM

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What about Later!!??

Do any of you even care about Later??!!??

The poor, defensless, young bird?

She's not even 2 years old!
Fending for herself in the harsh New Mexico sun. Fending for herself against coyotes, wolves, bears........Humans!!!

Sleeping all alone in the cold, arid Desert nights.
Hoping against hope to find a mate in this genetically foreign place.
Nothing being as it seems it should be,
no others of her kind to talk to.........lonely, forsaken.........lost in a lost world.

You truly are heartless, to not even acknowledge her plight..........

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