This is a bugfix release, fixing two issues in version 2.1.2:
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.
A new version of VICE PSP is now out. New in this version:
UPDATE Saving in NTSC mode will currently crash the emulator. This should be fixed shortly (UPDATE fixed)
It 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 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.
VICE 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 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 realized my description from the last post wasn’t entirely correct, the emulator isn’t actually new per se, it’s just new vis-a-vis those that I’ve already released. Most everyone guessed correctly that it was a Commodore 64 emulator – it’s VICE, to be exact. I realize a port of VICE already exists (called PSPVICE), but as I mentioned before, I port software because I enjoy doing it, not necessarily because it’s needed
To answer some of the questions that are already coming in, yes it will have a virtual keyboard (it’d be pretty stupid to have a computer emulator without some form of one), and yes, it does support CRT files. VICE PSP is based on the latest version of VICE, 2.1.
The amusing part of this is that VICE PSP would have probably been released half a year ago, if it wasn’t for a misinterpretation of its performance, on my part. Due to a variety of factors, I was getting what seemed like surprisingly poor performance from the emulator; work on it was shelved for months, until I decided to take another look.
I still don’t have a definite release date, but work is progressing well, and a release shouldn’t be that far off.
Thanks to all of you who responded to the Commodore message; I’ve tried to read responses on this weblog, as well as those at dcemu. My original question was regarding the C64 and VIC-20 systems, but it seems like most of you would rather see an Amiga emulator than a C64/VIC-20 emulator.
I’ve also noticed interest in the Spectrum series (ZX-81 certainly hasn’t missed any opportunities to remind me of the need for such an emulator 
), so I’ll keep both of these in mind.
I am interested in finding out why those of you interested in these systems don’t use PSPUAE and PSPectrum, however.
