VICE PSP 2.2.1 is now out – it adds EasyFlash emulation, among other things, making games like Maniac Mansion now playable.
Maniac Mansion
Archive for the ‘VICE’ Category
VICE PSP version 2.2.1 released; includes EasyFlash emulation
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011Future PSP and Android plans
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010Things are starting to settle somewhat since my move to Southern California, and that can only mean one thing – time to speculate.
PSP fans may be happy to learn that version 1.3.1 of SMS Plus PSP should be out soon. It fixes a handful of issues, and includes support for a few games that are unplayable in 1.2.x. It’s completed already, but there are issues with saved games that need to be worked out. VICE PSP should also receive a maintenance update shortly afterward.
VICE PSP version 2.1.21 released
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009This is a bugfix release, fixing two issues in version 2.1.2:
- Bugfix: Saving state while in NTSC mode resulted in a crash
- Bugfix: An extra line from the screen border appeared while in NTSC mode
Please note that any existing NTSC save states you may have from 2.1.2 may still crash the emulator – if that happens, delete the save state.
VICE PSP version 2.1.2 released
Monday, June 1st, 2009A new version of VICE PSP is now out. New in this version:
- Added 4:3 (fit screen height) stretch mode, visible in NTSC mode or when border is disabled
- Added border toggle – shows/hides the border surrounding the main display area
- Added PAL/NTSC/Old NTSC mode selection
- Added vertical blanking (VSync) support, only available in NTSC mode
- Bugfix: PRG loading now works
- Bugfix: “fit screen” stretch mode aspect ratio was incorrect; now fixed
- Minor fixes
UPDATE Saving in NTSC mode will currently crash the emulator. This should be fixed shortly (UPDATE fixed)
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- Stretched display (4:3 ratio)
Tape and disk image options in VICE PSP
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009It seems that in my hurry to put the emulator up for download, I forgot to mention some important usage details about tape and disk image loading. As you may have noticed, VICE PSP normally resets the system, anytime you attempt to load a game from the Game tab. This is behavior that’s consistent in all my ports, and it’s intended to make most games easily loadable. VICE PSP also provides some fine-tuning options, for games that require multiple disks or tapes.
To load tapes/disks without resetting the system, go to the System tab, select the Tape or Drive 8 menu option (depending on whether you want to load a tape or disk image), then press CROSS to load another image. If a tape or disk image is already loaded, it will be ejected, and another one will be loaded in its place. To eject a loaded image, select an option, and press TRIANGLE.
To autoload a program, first load the image, then go to the System tab, highlight the Tape or Drive 8 menu option, and press RIGHT. Select a program from the list, and press CROSS to autoload it. Note that this will reset the system.
VICE PSP version 2.1.1 released
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009VICE PSP is now out. The sound lag seems to be fixed; however there are some issues: for one, the FPS counter sometimes reports incorrect data after frame skipping goes into effect (showing 4 FPS, when the emulator’s actually rendering at 50), and annoying stuttering noise while frames are being skipped.
I would like the sound engine to be more polished prior to release, but I’ve only had a few hours to work in the last two weeks (not likely to improve any time soon), and I feel like it’s in a suitable enough state.
VICE is a series of Commodore emulators; for now, I’ve only ported the C64 emulator. I’ve wanted to port a C64 emulator for a while now; as a fan of chiptunes/demoscene music (I recommend Kohina, by the way), I’m familiar with the popular SID chip that gave talented musicians like Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard and Ben Daglish an outlet to produce some of the most brilliant sets of bleeps and bloops to grace one’s ears.
Now it’s almost 4 AM, and I should probably turn in.
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- New Zealand Story
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- Spellbound
VICE PSP status
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009VICE PSP is largely complete; I say “largely,” because the main thing holding it back at the moment is intermittent sound lag.
What is definitely going to be in the release:
- The usual features present in my other computer emulator ports: virtual keyboard, state autoloading, per-game configurable input, peripheral indicators, state saving/loading
- Support for tape images, disk images, cartridges. Each can be “inserted”, “ejected”, and auto-run (by which I mean that a specific program on tape/disk can be automatically run) separately
- Several other things that are a side-effect of being a port of VICE, so to speak
The sound lag issue presents itself when emulator begins to skip frames – sound works perfectly (as far as VICE is concerned, anyway) otherwise. It would be fairly safe to say that once this is fixed, a release is imminent.
I'm a programmer with too much interest in programming, and not enough time.