Picodrive 1.51


notaz

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Yep, yet another release of my Genesis/MegaDrive/SegaCD emu.

So what's new this time?
I've added some support for Sega Pico, which was not-so-famous Sega toy, based on MegaDrive hardware. I think PicoDrive is the first emu (remember SVP) to have some kind of support for that system. I've done this just because of the emu name (hey fDave, why have you named it like this?).

I've managed to improve performance again, after some more talks with Lordus (jEnesis/jEnesisDS author) and Exophase. Many games, which needed some push to run fullspeed (full 50/60fps) with accuracy settings enabled (like Comix Zone), should do that fine @ 200MHz now. SegaCD games should perform a bit better too.

I've also removed "accurate*" settings, as disabling them no longer gave any significant improvement with the new code. Now all games should just work, without any messing with options, and "bug" reports, which were configuration issues really, should go away, I hope. Unfortunately this is not yet true for SegaCD, but I hope to improve that in the future.

Another new thing is the bin_to_cso_mp3 tool, which converts cue/bin rips to cue/iso/mp3, made from Exophase's bin_to_iso_ogg. This is the tool I recommend using to get best rips for this emu.

Complete changelog:
  • Added some basic support for Sega Pico, a MegaDrive-based toy.
  • Added proper support for cue/bin images, including cdda playback. .cue sheets with iso/cso/mp3/wav files listed in them are now supported too (but 44kHz restriction still applies).
  • Added bin_to_cso_mp3 tool, based on Exophase's bin_to_iso_ogg. The tool can convert .cue/.bin Sega CD images to .cso/.mp3.
  • Greatly improved Sega CD load times.
  • Changed how scheduling between 68k and z80 is handled. Improves performance for some games. Credits to Lordus for the idea.
  • YM2612 state was not 100% saved, this should be better now.
  • Improved renderer performance for shadow/hilight mode.
  • Added a hack for YM2612 frequency overflow issue (bleep noises in Shaq Fu, Spider-Man - The Animated Series (intro music), etc.). Credits to Nemesis @ spritesmind forum. Works only sound rate is set to 44kHz.
  • Implemented some sprite rendering improvements, as suggested by Exophase. Games with lots of sprites now perform better.
  • Added better idle loop detection, based on Lordus' idea again.
  • "accurate timing" option removed, as disabling it no longer improves performance.
  • "accurate sprites" was removed too, the new sprite code can properly handle sprite priorities in all cases.
  • Timers adjusted again.
  • Improved .smd detection code.
  • ARM: fixed a bug in DrZ80 core, which could cause problems in some rare cases.
  • ARM: fixed a problem of occasional clicks on MP3 music start.
  • Minor general optimizations and menu improvements.
  • Fixed a bug in Sega CD savestate loader, where the game would sometimes crash after load.
  • Fixed a crash of games using eeprom (introduced in 1.40b).
download here

Jul 17: bugfix release:
  • Improved bin_to_cso_mp3 tool, it should no longer complain about missing lame.exe even if it's in working dir.
  • Fixed a regression from 1.50, which caused slowdowns in Final Fight.
  • Fixed some regressions from 1.50 related to sprite limit and palette handling (caused graphical glitches in some games).
  • Added ABC turbo actions to key config.
  • Some other minor adjustments.
download here
 
Yeah, brilliant. It's always a pleasure to test a new PicoDrive version!
Many thanks.

Regards,
Stephan
 
Pandowhat!!!! ? GP2X NOW!!!!! xD Impressive as always Notaz ^_^
 
Awesome!

Better than 'best'... umm... bestest? :lol:

Thank you very much.

[offtopic] Is a gpfce update coming soon?
 
Wow impressive list! Thanks Notaz and Exophase for this great update. Just as I thought this emu was perfect it got "perfecter". If only SNES was half as good as this on GP2X. Sega Nomad to be sold soon :p

Thanks for the great work :)
 
Manjuu said:
Awesome!

Better than 'best'... umm... bestest? :lol:

Thank you very much.

[offtopic] Is a gpfce update coming soon?

DaveC said:
Wow impressive list! Thanks Notaz and Exophase for this great update. Just as I thought this emu was perfect it got "perfecter". If only SNES was half as good as this on GP2X. Sega Nomad to be sold soon :p

Thanks for the great work :)
Haha, exactly what came to my mind when reading the news, perfect -> perfecter? :)

You rock, notaz! B)
 
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Thank you so much !
PicoDrive (along with gngeo) is the emulator that makes me believe in the GP2x.
I was really impressed when I first tried PicoDrive (v1.35), I will try this new version this evening !
 
jbrodack said:
I can't get the converter to work though. It keeps saying that it can't find lame.exe though i put the file in the same directory as the converter.
Strange, works for me. Maybe it's asking for ciso.exe, as it needs it too? Does lame.exe start without errors?

As for perfect becoming "perfecter", the project is complex enough to be improved and optimized to death, there are still plenty of things to improve. But i'll leave it as is for a while, and move on to something more Pandora related.
 
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notaz said:
jbrodack said:
I can't get the converter to work though. It keeps saying that it can't find lame.exe though i put the file in the same directory as the converter.
Strange, works for me. Maybe it's asking for ciso.exe, as it needs it too? Does lame.exe start without errors?

As for perfect becoming "perfecter", the project is complex enough to be improved and optimized to death, there are still plenty of things to improve. But i'll leave it as is for a while, and move on to something more Pandora related.


Just tried it again with running the converter from the command line and it also asked for ciso.exe. I thought back to exohpase's orignal converter which required the ogg conversion file be in root:\windows and copied both lame and ciso to windows directory and everything worked fine. So the instructions for windows just need to be updated to indicate that lame.exe and ciso.exe should be in the windows directory, everything else works fine.

Back to the actual emulator, everything seems to work great with cd games loading quicker and everything running a bit better. Also I'm very happy to seem the micro machines games working again.
 
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