Old Computer Emulators


G

Goemon4

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i have a few questions about them

1. which ones support an external keyboard (Via B.O.B.?)
2. Which are the best (im currently hooked on the atari st, so im curious about more)
3. what are some good games to try out?


Thanks
-Goemon4
 
1= dont know that
2= I really like the 8bit computers, personal favorites are spectrum, amstrad, commodore plus 4 and commodore 64. The emulators I use for these are gp2xspectrum, caprice and vice for both commodore machines. (I really like the Dragon 32 aswell but im waiting for a port of xroar for the 2x (hint hint anyone))
3= now then, there are hundreds - some I can think of off the top of my head:
Speccy = Batman the movie, manic miner, jet pac, super robin hood, wizball (ofcourse), batty, atic atak, myth(my favorire), antiriad etc etc ......
There are loads for the other systems aswell, but I am addicted to G-Man on the plus 4, such a simple game, but keeps you comming back for more.

I will try and think of some others........ :)
 
more speccy ones:
Biggles, Batman: The Caped Crusader, Robot Messiah, Nonterraqueous, Grumpy Grumpy Superslueth, Super Stuntman (codemasters), One man and his droid, Starion, gift of the gods, tapper, Bounty Bob strikes back, Chuckie Egg 2, rocky horror picture show, alien (the film), halls of the things, On the run, bc's quest for tyres - if you can find a working version please pm me!

atari st:
terry's big adventure, rogue trooper, judge dredd, kid gloves???, ikari warriors, barbarian (both versions), the blues brothers, knightmare (the eye of the beholder version), nebulus, eliminator, sleepwalker, beverly hills cop, pacland

don't know what else you're in to
 
I use fmsx on GP32 to emulate MSX (Which I still own btw :) ) but I never looked if there is a port for it or any other MSX emulators for my GP2X.
My favourite games are Penguin Adventure, Alpha Roid and Skooter.
 
i actually have a msx emulator working (to bad the MG roms i have dont work)

and ill check out the spectum (sounds interesting)...
 
dosteridge, when you say you use Caprice, can you get any games other than the ones it comes with to work on the gp2x? I know it only loads snapshots, and when I tried creating my own snapshots in another emulator it really didn't like them on the gp2x. How do you do it?
p.s. Jet Set Willy is also very good on the Speccy (sequal to Manic Miner) but you'll need to use Savestates if you're going to get anywhere in it ;)
 
dosteridge, when you say you use Caprice, can you get any games other than the ones it comes with to work on the gp2x? I know it only loads snapshots, and when I tried creating my own snapshots in another emulator it really didn't like them on the gp2x. How do you do it?
p.s. Jet Set Willy is also very good on the Speccy (sequal to Manic Miner) but you'll need to use Savestates if you're going to get anywhere in it ;)

Yes, all I did was load up a game on the pc version (caprice 32) and make a savestate on the game title screen and the copy and paste the SNA thats made from the programme file on my pc to my sd card. It worked for most games, but didnt for others. For example, super robin hood = worked fine buy Myth = didnt work. I assume its because a game like myth would need to be a tape or disk file as it needs to keep reading it.(most games were fine though :) )

I dont know if anybody is still working on caprice?
 
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dosteridge, when you say you use Caprice, can you get any games other than the ones it comes with to work on the gp2x? I know it only loads snapshots, and when I tried creating my own snapshots in another emulator it really didn't like them on the gp2x. How do you do it?
I don't remember releasing a CapriceGp2x version with snapshots included, but anyway, my collection of snapshots comes from ftp's which have been working for a decade with no legal issues about those games, so I don't mind if someone has made a "just copy to SD and play" pack :D Also my snapshot pack is uploaded to the SymbOS 8 bit operating system yahoo group for testing the snapshot loader (Under a real CPC!!)

If we are talking about the same snapshots, they are "standard" ones. My own collection have been made from Arnold under MacosX, CPCE and WinAPE under windows... and loads ok under Caprice32. Also my snapshots load ok under a real CPC with special external hardware, the symiface board (and the SNA are loaded from HardDisk!!)


I can give you some hints to make good snapshots:

-Media independent: Make snapshot when everything is loaded into memory and no more is needed from disk/tape. Multiload games wil NOT work because need to load new level data from disk/tape.

-Standard CPC configuration: Plain CPC6128. Just 128K memory, CPC6128 firmware+BASIC1.1+AMSDOS. Rest of the emulator ROMslots free

-Playable throught Space, Enter, Fire 1/2, key 1 and 2: These are the only keys mapped onto the GP2x buttons. In some games I have loaded it, reach to menu, define controlls, like selecting Joystick normaly with key J, option 3, 4 or whattever options, redefine keys in some cases (usefull for second action key for Space key...) and let the game be started with some of the mapped keys. Example 1: BombJack. Load game, wait for menu, pres J to select joystick. Save snapshot and you have keys "1" or "2" to start single or two players using the triggers ;). Example 2: Batman the movie: Load game, whait for menu. Save snapshot. Press right trigger for key "2" (joystick) under CapriceGP2x. Example 3: Ikari Warriors: menu shows control selection for players 1 and 2. Define player 1 as joystick, and Space key for "toogle" (So you can lock/unlock your angle with X or Y key, I don't remember which one is...), redefine keys or joystick 2 for player 2, and at main menu use key "1" from the left trigger for starting single player. :)

-Cosmetic appereance: Try to save the snapshot just at the moment the game finished loading and music is going to start. You will make a nice snapshot that loads just like a console ROM. No cutted music at the start :). After redefining keys/controls under your PC emu, you can wait to the music restarting (should be a loop, normaly), or wait for a in-game demo finishing restarting the music and/or reappearing the menu the same way as first time... this is not important, just for having a good looking snap :)

p.s. Jet Set Willy is also very good on the Speccy (sequal to Manic Miner) but you'll need to use Savestates if you're going to get anywhere in it ;)

Now I'm testing CDT (Tapes!) under CapriceGP2x, but I have many problems... First of all, it loads "realtime" so you have to wait 3 or 4 minutes for loading... Tried to implement fast load but mostly all emulators rely on unlocking the "1:1 speed" limiter, and I don't have 1:1 speed under GP2x!!! (with normal timings). I have tried disabling totaly the video system on the emulated CPC (CRTC chip not working at all) 99 from 100 frames (that's it, drawing only 1 frame for "2 seconds for the CPC" but it only speeds it to 112%... just gain 12% speed...So CDT loading is a pain... And also I have some problems reading most of the CDT files under GP2x... Same source code under Windows loads fine.... :angry:

Maybe I could disable all the TAPE stuff and continue it at a not to far future, work under snapshot saving under GP2x and give you savestates for SNA games for a next release... Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner looks nice under CPC also :D

Now I have autotyping feature (For the |TAPE and RUN" commands for tape) so DSK games should be added near in the future, with some kind of rustic but, I hope, usefull keyboard... ;)

I dont know if anybody is still working on caprice?
Yes, slowly but yes... But in summer I was most dedicated to real CPC's and now I'm giving priority to speed , bugs and tapes... I hope i will finish playing arround with the code and release something usefull soon!! ;)

Now i'm just fullspeed (200Mhz) with no sound... I have gain the missing 6% to reach the 100% on most games. I have lot to study for porting the full YM audi chip to second core :p so please be patient...

I have discarted the use of DrZ80, because there are many timing related instructions under the Z80 C core for syncing the other chips that it will be a hard job... :( also under PC the Z80 core only took a 12-16% of the proccess, but the CRTC takes a 36%!!!!!! It's a heavy duty work tracing the image pixel by pixel as Caprice does, thats because the display may change mode or palette in the middle of the frame, I can take the video RAM from the CPC and interpret it. that only works with displays which palette and mode doesn't change till the frame is finished, and under very few "screen modes". CPC can also alter it's screens geometry. I must let Caprice work as it was designed, tracing the pixels... Take a look at old emus like CPCemu 1.3... some games loose colors, scrap graphs or have weird palette changes, because the in-game windows can have a 4 color palette, and the info/hiscore zone can hace othe 4 independent colors, or even the in-game windows be in 16 color and the info/hiscore in more detailed 4 color mode... CPC has been always a hard to emulate machine because of it's timings :(
 
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Spectrum games are freely available (and legal) from www.worldofspectrum.org , go to the archive and either look through the huge list of games or if you scroll down theres a list of top 100 most popular games.

In just 48k it was amazing what people could do with the Spectrum.

Check out ...

Cobra
Bombjack
Commando
Chuckie Egg
Manic Miner

Knight Lore - back then this was an amazing game on the Spectrum, 3d isometric game which blew everything away back then.

WOS is a great site, on every game you can read the original reviews from the mags from the 80's, get tips/cheats etc. Very very popular machines in the UK
 
yeha i was on there, got a few roms, but none worked (then again i have no idea how to work the emu :D ) any help would be nice!
 
i actually have a msx emulator working (to bad the MG roms i have dont work)

and ill check out the spectum (sounds interesting)...


how well is the msx emulated? the msx emulator (fMSX?) never gets updated, is there someone still working on it and/or is there another one in the works?
 
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Yes, slowly but yes... But in summer I was most dedicated to real CPC's and now I'm giving priority to speed , bugs and tapes... I hope i will finish playing arround with the code and release something usefull soon!! ;)

Thanks for the news, I was a bit anxious about the Cpc emulation on gp2x.
I will wait for your next release then B)
 
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KaosOverride, thanks so much for the big post... and Thanks for still working on Caprice. That's the emulator I'm most interested in seeing working well on the gp2x. Please keep up the good work.

Also the copy of the emu here comes with nearly 30 snapshots. I'll have a go at making my own soon... cant wait to get Manic Miner and Treasure Island Dizzy going :)

p.s. can you mention your paypal name please, so I can make a tiny donation :)
 
yeha i was on there, got a few roms, but none worked (then again i have no idea how to work the emu ) any help would be nice!

If you are using the speccy emu I am, the GP2Xpectrum, then I know that it doesn't seem to like the tzx extension for most games. I use the .tap files instead, they work just fine.

I would like to see an option to enable the loading of the games on the speccy, I do miss the loading screens - no matter whether it was a 3 minute load or not!
 
yeha i was on there, got a few roms, but none worked (then again i have no idea how to work the emu ) any help would be nice!

If you are using the speccy emu I am, the GP2Xpectrum, then I know that it doesn't seem to like the tzx extension for most games. I use the .tap files instead, they work just fine.

I would like to see an option to enable the loading of the games on the speccy, I do miss the loading screens - no matter whether it was a 3 minute load or not!

thant must have been my problem then (all tzx extensions!) ill try some more later (thanks)
 
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KaosOverride, thanks so much for the big post... and Thanks for still working on Caprice. That's the emulator I'm most interested in seeing working well on the gp2x. Please keep up the good work.

Also the copy of the emu here comes with nearly 30 snapshots. I'll have a go at making my own soon... cant wait to get Manic Miner and Treasure Island Dizzy going :)

p.s. can you mention your paypal name please, so I can make a tiny donation :)


yeah caprice will be cool once i get .dsk files running on it.
having trouble converting .sna right now.

i use winape for that and they never seem to work so any pointers will be very very appreciated B)
 
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yeha i was on there, got a few roms, but none worked (then again i have no idea how to work the emu ) any help would be nice!

If you are using the speccy emu I am, the GP2Xpectrum, then I know that it doesn't seem to like the tzx extension for most games. I use the .tap files instead, they work just fine.

I would like to see an option to enable the loading of the games on the speccy, I do miss the loading screens - no matter whether it was a 3 minute load or not!

thant must have been my problem then (all tzx extensions!) ill try some more later (thanks)

Don't rely on .tap - a great many games are not available in .tap format (nor will they be without extensive hacking of the original tape image).

.tzx files are a much more authentic "image" of the original tape, whereas .tap can only store ROM loaders (and loaders that have the same timings as the ROM loader).

.sna/.z80 files should be ok, but you won't get any loading sounds with those, as they're state images.

Can we please stop referring to Spectrum games as ROMs? There were about 10 games released in ROM form, the rest were on tapes or disks. Thanks :)

D.
 
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