Fuse PSP 0.10 now compiles and runs fine, and is getting very close to a release — ideally, before the New Year. What’s fixed:

Bugs reported by ewgf:

• Multiple files in a ZIP archive does not crash the emulator
• TRD files should no longer persist after the emulator is shut down (although as before, Fuse may change the selected machine, if it’s necessary. This setting will persist until it’s changed again)
• On-screen keyboard should work as expected under supaplex.trd

Improvements, suggestions:

• Tape fastloading can now be toggled on and off, to support some of the finickier TZX files
• Issue 2 keyboard support can be toggled on and off
• Loading sound can be toggled on and off (only works with fastloading disabled — fastloading turns off sound while it’s active)
• New button options are now available (square/circle/triangle/cross with L/R held down)
• Virtual keyboard speed has improved a bit
• State exporting has been added, for support with other Fuse ports
• Tape autoloading, to begin loading tape immediately when selected

What’s still being worked on:

• Compressed disk loading — still not trivial

Also, virtual keyboard is likely to undergo some changes, but most likely not in the next release.

Look forward to some interesting releases in the upcoming days.

I’m not sure how many of you are curious/impatient enough to snoop around the svn repository occasionally, but if you are, you’ve probably noticed that work on Fuse PSP 0.10.0 has already started. The upgrade is complete, what’s remaining now are fixes for old bugs, and new ones, that are a result of the upgrade.

As anticipated, the change in the code is considerable - Fuse 0.10 no longer uses lib765 by John Elliott; instead, it uses its own 765 driver.

On the SMS Plus adhoc/wifi front - if any of you have access to Chris Swindle’s version of SMSPlus PSP, and can run some quick adhoc performance tests, please see if you can respond to this post I left in the emulation forum.

For those who are wondering, I’m not dead - just swamped with work and an unhealthy obsession with Fable II. Which is unusual for me, considering that I’m really not much of an RPG buff.

Some great news in the PSP-3000 hacking front came and went, the most promising one being the motherboard of the new system — it’s a TA-90, hence “pandorizable”, though currently with some sort of protection. Let’s hope not for too long.

In other news, I’ve noticed that while Atari800 has not seen any releases since mid-last year, work on it has been ongoing. While the changes are mostly structural (code reshuffling, etc…), they have made me consider an intermediate, possibly beta release of Atari800 PSP, based on code in the CVS repository. If that happens, I’ll most likely post a build in the forum for those interested to test (I’ll post an update here as well).

For the Fuse fans, here’s the situation on future releases: Philip Kendall, the principal developer of Fuse, commented earlier about changes coming to a future release; these changes will be substantial (from the sound of it, and at least from a structural standpoint), going so far as to change how extended disk support functions. Fuse PSP is being actively developed, and will be updated when the next version of Fuse is released, or shortly before.

There are other things being worked on at the moment, but as I’m not certain of their status, I’m going to keep any comments to myself, until I know for sure.

The forum has started to get bombarded by spam from China; this has led me to block a number of IP ranges, as well as add spam protection - full details here. I’ve also added a new forum for posting bug reports — if you have any bugs to report, please do so here.

In the upcoming month or so, expect to see updates to a number of existing emulators - Fuse and fMSX are likely to be some of those updated. Updates are likely to range from very small fixes, to new (and hopefully interesting) features.

If you also own a GP2X, good news — I’ve been contacted by the author of the GP2X port of RACE!, who plans to use RACE! PSP’s state saving code his port. Speaking of which, all signs indicate that state saving works without a hitch — if you’re interested in details, here’s a list of tested games.

My initial attempt at implementing state saving in RACE! turned out to be more successful than anticipated. I was able to save, then load Sonic The Hedgehog: Pocket Adventure successfully, with the exception of sound, and I have a fairly good idea where to look to fix the problem (possibly the program counter of the Z80 chip).

Thanks to NeoPop’s existing state saving code (and thus neopop_uk), for pointing me in the right direction.

Flavor recently posted news that he considers RACE! PSP the official PSP port of RACE, and that he doesn’t plan on continuing another port. He also mentioned a new undocumented button (not present on the consumer handheld) discovered by FluBBa, the author of an NGPC emulator for GBA that enables hidden debugging features in several NGP games (namely, Card Fighters’ Clash, Card Fighters’ Clash 2, and Dokodemo Mahjong); this feature will be added in the next release of RACE! PSP; ideally, with the ability to save state.

For a while now, I’ve been seriously considering utilizing PSP’s Media Engine (ME) processor in fMSX PSP, to (potentially) enable full-speed emulation with MSX Audio and MSX Music enabled. Currently, enabling any of the two requires emulation at 333 MHz, while enabling both makes the emulator near-unplayable. Of course, utilizing the ME opens up a whole new slew of issues, not the least of which is the challenge presented by parallel programming. If fMSX/ME succeeds, Handy may be finally coaxed to run full-speed.

RACE! PSP was one of the emulators I reported to be working on; another one is still in the initial stages. If things pan out, there may be another pre-release riddle, which should give you an idea of which system it will emulate. Thankfully, I received my replacement video card yesterday, so I can finally continue work again.

Finally, I’ve added a new poll; if you have some time, please take it.

CORRECTION The discoverer of the undocumented button was not porting RACE to NDS, he’s actually writing a new emulator for the GBA (thanks Flavor)

UPDATE The poll should now be fixed

If there’s one thing that’s more annoying than malfunctioning hardware, it’s fried hardware. In a laptop.

The Nvidia card in my Inspiron 9300 (my main development machine) is fried - the display is a mess, and the system hangs shortly after starting up. I’ve already ordered a replacement card, but that’s probably going to take a while. For the last couple of days, I’ve been relegated to developing on a remote machine via NoMachine NX, then downloading the compiled binary for testing. This is ridiculously inefficient, but it hasn’t been without fruitful results.

As in, “I wish I had more of it”.

There are at least two emulators that I’m currently working on. Neither is yet definite; I’m trying to split my time between the two to keep things interesting. It’s fairly certain that at least one of them will be finished some time in the near future.

Unfortunately, my free time has been decreasing almost exponentially. Because of this, the successor library to psplib is likely not to be finished; I will do my best to just upgrade the current version. Parts of the UI code make the video rendering library extremely sensitive to change; I would like to rewrite the UI component, but that is a rather hefty task, and one that will require a considerable amount of time.

On an unrelated note, if you like puzzles and have an XBOX 360, try Braid. It’s very rare to see an original game these days; Braid is as brilliant as it is unique.

Most of the bugs/known issues from the last release of Fuse PSP have been fixed (the sole exception being the speed of tape loading, and there’s not much that can be done about that).

Next version will also include a bunch of new features and improved hardware support — exact details are currently being worked out.