Homebrew Large NeoGeo games support and CPS3 tests

[kdash2k11]

Today test R3 version was positive. Some weird black screen when save states or load states and some dsi screen or black screen when loading or after the bios screen. Again thanks for the amazing job!.

 

[seam]

Wiimpathy,thank you so much for this, this is incredible! and has anyone tested the other cps3 games? is third strike the only playable one? what about sf3 and second impact, and jojo 1-2, and red earth? thanks again!

 

[kdash2k11]

Reporting a strange bug: touching Set VI Screen Width causes crash.

Testing SFIII 3er Strike, impresive to see wii even try to runing this game. Waiting for new version of CP3 core.

This is incredible!!!. Thanks!!!

 

[spielvan]

I surely miss something but which CPS1/2 games are too large to fit in RAM?
That could work in MAME too even if the code is quite different and doing it per driver is a tedious task.

Hello, my dear, firstly congratulations for the great work, the neogeo mod is fantastic, and shows us that the Wii has a lot to give us still in the homebrew scenario, in case of CPS1 there is a game that ale even loads in the core cps1 of retroarch , but can not give "START" Forgotten Worlds, as for FBA games in general, the Data East games run very slow that knows with a better virtual memory, as for mom, I wonder about games like Area 51, Killer Instinte 1 and 2 , Star Blade running on Wii, would be a dream, Killer Instinct 1 and 2 they made a similar scheme, to run on Xbox classic with Ultra64, who knows how to do something like the Wii. Always a hug and success.

 

[kdash2k11]

Ultra 64 on wii is like a dream. Make it happen!!!.

 

[ploggy]

Can this be added to the main Retroarch?

 

[kdash2k11]

Any news of the CPS3 core?

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

Hi there, big thanks to Wiimpathy for doing this.

I am currently going through the sources and I'll try to add them to the libretro core repos so that these will be part of the rolling nightlies. I'd love to be able to work together as well with Wiimpathy in any future endeavors to make the FBA cores better and more usable for Wii.

The version of RetroArch used is a bit old but I assume there weren't any real changes made there? Can't see much so far, even MEM2 manager is left unaltered. So my guess is the entire VM manager is handled on the core side rather than RetroArch side.

In any case, a huge thanks for doing this, and hopefully users will be able to enjoy the fruits of this labor in rolling nightlies once I have successfully backported this to the main repositories.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

As for CPS3, it's only fullspeed on the Wii U. You'd need a SH2 dynarec written for PowerPC and backported to FBAlpha in order to be able to run that at fullspeed.

Speaking of which, one of our colleagues @notaz just made it possible to use the SH2 dynarec used in Picodrive on x86 (both 32bit and x64). So it now has a 32bit ARM backend, and x86 (both 32bit and 64bit). All that is missing is a PowerPC backend.

 

[ploggy]

Hi there, big thanks to Wiimpathy for doing this.

I am currently going through the sources and I'll try to add them to the libretro core repos so that these will be part of the rolling nightlies. I'd love to be able to work together as well with Wiimpathy in any future endeavors to make the FBA cores better and more usable for Wii.

The version of RetroArch used is a bit old but I assume there weren't any real changes made there? Can't see much so far, even MEM2 manager is left unaltered. So my guess is the entire VM manager is handled on the core side rather than RetroArch side.

In any case, a huge thanks for doing this, and hopefully users will be able to enjoy the fruits of this labor in rolling nightlies once I have successfully backported this to the main repositories.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

As for CPS3, it's only fullspeed on the Wii U. You'd need a SH2 dynarec written for PowerPC and backported to FBAlpha in order to be able to run that at fullspeed.

Speaking of which, one of our colleagues @notaz just made it possible to use the SH2 dynarec used in Picodrive on x86 (both 32bit and x64). So it now has a 32bit ARM backend, and x86 (both 32bit and 64bit). All that is missing is a PowerPC backend.

I should have tagged you
It would be good to finally get 32X on WiiU. I read the convo on Github about porting his PS1 Dynarec shame. but still cool about Picodrive on x86/x64 though

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

I should have tagged you
It would be good to finally get 32X on WiiU. I read the convo on Github about porting his PS1 Dynarec shame. but still cool about Picodrive on x86/x64 though

Wii U can run CPS3 games at fullspeed with an SH2 interpreter, however, CPS3 in FBAlpha uses some idle loop hacks and other speed hacks, so I am not confident it would be able to run 32X at fullspeed in interpreter mode without a dynarec.

BTW, there is another problem with Picodrive - the codebase right now assumes a little-endian CPU architecture. On big-endian right now (Wii, WiiU) it can't start up a game yet. So that would have to be fixed as well before 32X can even be looked into.

 

[ploggy]

Wii U can run CPS3 games at fullspeed with an SH2 interpreter, however, CPS3 in FBAlpha uses some idle loop hacks and other speed hacks, so I am not confident it would be able to run 32X at fullspeed in interpreter mode without a dynarec.

BTW, there is another problem with Picodrive - the codebase right now assumes a little-endian CPU architecture. On big-endian right now (Wii, WiiU) it can't start up a game yet. So that would have to be fixed as well before 32X can even be looked into.

So closer but not close enough? Oh, I saw the news on Twitter about the UWP port to Xbox.. Nice one. Cant wait to try it out

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

I managed to create a diff of what changed inbetween 43b6ce416e2a0aef2b011a93328a4382521212e3 and Wiimpathy's RA version -

https://hastebin.com/xojonozido.pl

@Wiimpathy - just out of interest, are the changes to joypad_connection necessary. All I see is that one of the function arguments is changed from unsigned type to uint32_t - some toolchain issue here?

 

[Wiimpathy]

All the VM code in handled in the FBA core. The changes in Retroarch, including the uint32_t were made to compile with DevkitPPC 28+. I went back to DevkitPPC 26 and the previous libogc though because the sound was bad. Maybe it's the same issue as this : https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha2012_neogeo/issues/13

If you use the latest Retroarch to compile, there's less Ram available and Kof2003 won't fit. The Vm could be allocated differently but it was convenient to calculate this way : 32M fixed Ram and what's left in VM.

I tried to build a pgm and psikyo cores too. I'll post some tests build and source code later. For pgm, it doesn't seem worthy, only Knights of valour starts and runs rather well. The psikyo runs gunbird 2 (other games not tested) but it would require a cache file and I can't find a way to split the sprite files like what is done for the Neogeo core.

As you said a fullspeed CPS3 is not realistic, a bit of frameskip would help but I'm not sure you like the idea.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

@Wiimpathy does @tueidj allow us to use this code or not? I see this copyright in the files wii_vm.c and wii_vm.h -

'
/* Copyright 2013 tueidj All Rights Reserved
* This code may not be used in any project
* without explicit permission from the author.
*/'

I'd like to make sure we have his permission first before I commit this.

 

[Wiimpathy]

I can't speak for him but I asked him through a private message in https://www.gc-forever.com and he said it wasn't a problem to use his code. I only told him about releasing some gxgeo and fba tests builds here, so perhaps you should ask him once again.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

I can't speak for him but I asked him through a private message in https://www.gc-forever.com and he said it wasn't a problem to use his code. I only told him about releasing some gxgeo and fba tests builds here, so perhaps you should ask him once again.

OK, I went on there and sent him a PM. It still shows up in Outbox but I assume it'll be sent soon - pressed 'Send Reply' so I assume it will be underway.

 

[seam]

All the VM code in handled in the FBA core. The changes in Retroarch, including the uint32_t were made to compile with DevkitPPC 28+. I went back to DevkitPPC 26 and the previous libogc though because the sound was bad. Maybe it's the same issue as this : https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha2012_neogeo/issues/13

If you use the latest Retroarch to compile, there's less Ram available and Kof2003 won't fit. The Vm could be allocated differently but it was convenient to calculate this way : 32M fixed Ram and what's left in VM.

I tried to build a pgm and psikyo cores too. I'll post some tests build and source code later. For pgm, it doesn't seem worthy, only Knights of valour starts and runs rather well. The psikyo runs gunbird 2 (other games not tested) but it would require a cache file and I can't find a way to split the sprite files like what is done for the Neogeo core.

As you said a fullspeed CPS3 is not realistic, a bit of frameskip would help but I'm not sure you like the idea.

I think having a frameskip option in your standalone cps3 would be a good idea wiimpathy, as it would probably be the only way to ever have remotely "fullspeed" cps3 emulation on the wii. Though its definitely not something that should be added to the official retroarch repo. If frameskip 1 could make things playable it would be worth it(though not to diehard fighter fans im sure), and anything over frameskip 1 would probably be awful though.

 

[Wiimpathy]

FBA PGM & PSIKYO Cores


PGM

Two more games are supported now : Knights of Valour 1 and Oriental Legend. Other games are too slow, they will crash.

PSIKYO

VM is only implemented in the d_psikyosh driver. Games supported : Daraku Tenshi (slow), Gunbird 2, Strikers 1945 III.

Source Code

I don't think I'll ever touch the cps3 code once again. If there are volunteers, I'll be happy to test though. To be honest, the goal was a fully funtional Neogeo core. There's surely room for improvements, mistakes etc. but it seems it's 'mission complete' now.

 

[Gamecuber]

FBA PGM & PSIKYO Cores


PGM

Two more games are supported now : Knights of Valour 1 and Oriental Legend. Other games are too slow, they will crash.

PSIKYO

VM is only implemented in the d_psikyosh driver. Games supported : Daraku Tenshi (slow), Gunbird 2, Strikers 1945 III.

Source Code

I don't think I'll ever touch the cps3 code once again. If there are volunteers, I'll be happy to test though. To be honest, the goal was a fully funtional Neogeo core. There's surely room for improvements, mistakes etc. but it seems it's 'mission complete' now.

Isn't striker 1945III having another name as striker 1999? If so, that game can run on Gamecube too with full speed at most of time. I have complied it for Gamecube long time ago by splitting drivers of FBA.

 

[Wiimpathy]

How can it run on GameCube? I'm not very good at maths but with gfx and sound roms we're already at 60MB plus about 8MB for the core etc...
However, I thought it could run on Wii as a seperate core but it was crashing(?). It could be useful to have vm anyway if we wanted to have a full fba with all the drivers. In theory, it should be possible to reallocate memory differently, there would be even more loading time though. Now, it's about 1 minute for cache creation and about 20 seconds the second time.