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.

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

A new emulator is currently in the works. If all goes well, there should be a release within the next couple of weeks.

Second, according to the folks at the MSX Resource Center, there is an MSX ROM mapper database, licensed under GPL. This may well mean the end of ROM type selection for fMSX. Special thanks to Manuel Pazos and Manuel Bilderbeek for their help.

If you can help with similar information for the Atari800 (ROM CRC and ROM type information), please let me know.

Great time to be part of open source development, to be sure.

This is mostly a bugfix release. Here’s what’s new:

• Bugfix - many games, especially MegaROM games did not load correctly in the previous version (thanks Victor)
• Added Fast Forward button mapping - while disabled by default, you can map any button to fast-forward emulation in the Controls menu
• Custom mapper types can now be embedded in source code. This version includes built-in support for Zanac Ex and Mon Mon Monster. Contact me if you’d like to add additional mappings

This version no longer includes a version compiled for firmware 1.50.

Download

The recent issue with fMSX 3.5.3 (fw 1.50 version) prompted me to rethink future support for 1.50/kxploit executables. One option was to regress to an earlier version of the library, dropping any of the adhoc functionality; another was to simply stop working on versions for 1.50.

I (grudgingly) decided to stop providing support for fw 1.50 - reasons for this being threefold - a) the ps2dev community recommends moving away from this firmware, as continuing support for it is getting more challenging (flash0 memory being one reason); b) running simple applications in kernel mode seems counter-intuitive, and c) it’s becoming exceedingly more difficult to cope with two distinct programming models.

The emulators that are currently up will probably be the last ones with support for firmware 1.50; all future emulators are likely to only run on firmware 2.00 and greater.

UPDATE Wow, what a coincidence

New features in this version:

• Games/applications that require MSX Audio/MSX Music will no longer crash the emulator if either is disabled in System settings - there will simply be no Y2413/YM8950 audio
• ROM type settings are now saved between sessions - up to 500 different ROM’s can be tracked by CRC32 value

The second feature requires some experimentation, and I welcome any feedback you may have. As mentioned, the limit is 500 ROM’s - this is not counting the “auto-detect” ROM’s, for obvious reasons. The list is updated when ROM type is changed via the System menu - to remove an entry from the list, simply set ROM type to “auto-detect”.

Searching through the CRC values is done in linear time, when a ROM is actually loaded, but for 500 entries, this is not likely to take long (I’m not sure how long reading/writing these entries will take to memory stick, however).

The list is loaded from stick when the emulator starts up, stored in memory while the emulator runs, and saved back to stick when emulator is exited.

Download

If you find this feature helpful and are willing to help, please see the previous post

UPDATE Version compiled for firmware 1.50 does not work. Please use the 2.00 version

One feature that both fMSX and Atari800 could use is auto ROM type selection, as I’m sure I’m not the only person who finds selecting correct type of ROM an annoyance. I’d like to ask those of you who are dedicated fans of fMSX or Atari800 for help.

The method I have planned involves mapping a ROM CRC32 value to specific cart type, maintaining the settings in a growing list. Bunch of these lists would eventually be consolidated into a larger “super list” that would be included with the emulators, effectively eliminating the process of cart type selection (for vast majority of carts, anyway).

If anyone is interested in working to create such lists, please let me know by leaving a comment. Alternatively, if you’re aware of an existing list (perhaps for a different port), it would be great if you could point out the location. Thanks

This is just a small note to let you folks know that work on wifi netplay is continuing as before.

For fans of fMSX, look forward to an update that will fix the crashing of the emulator when MSX Music/MSX Audio are accessed while disabled in System settings. Because this is a small fix, this release is not planned for the immediate future, but if enough people show interest, a bugfix release will follow. Those who know how to, or don’t want to wait can compile from svn.

Mislabeled settings are the reason why FMPAC games failed to run even with MSX Music enabled. Versions up to (but not including) 3.5.2 incorrectly labeled the MSX Audio engine as MSX Music and vice versa.

Version 3.5.2 fixes this issue and is now available for download. Note that if you don’t want to download it (it adds nothing but a correction to the typo), simply reverse your settings for MSX Audio and MSX Music and try running your favorite FMPAC-based games again. Note also that running FMPAC-based games with MSX Music disabled will hang the emulator.

The FMPAC diagnostic cartridge, Aleste 1 and 2 have all been tested and run fine and with sound. Please note, however, that the MSX Music engine requires more CPU power, so you will need to increase the CPU frequency (and disable vertical blanking/vsync) if you want full-framerate MSX goodness.

Special thanks to Victor Sartori for his help in tracking down the issue.

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In open defiance of all that is sane, I actually got a chance to lay some significant groundwork towards ad-hoc networking. The recent addition is pretty significant, and if all goes well, an ad-hoc capable emulator should not be too far off. (And yes, that is ridiculously vague, but my work and family obligations make precise estimations all but impossible. And let’s not forget about the greatest game ever made being out.)

It has also been brought to my attention that FMPAC still doesn’t function correctly in fMSX PSP, so look forward to a fix of that as well.