VBA-M

mudlord · Post by **mudlord** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:09 am

It would be appreciated if some of the Emulator+Gameboy specific options via the Options menu be clarified a little. There was a site that detailed some of an older VBA's info, but I can't remember where that was.

Currently, our focus is on the new Qt system and its accompanying components. I'll see about considering this when we work on our menu design more.

Also, why was DirectDraw dropped? Just curious.

For several reasons:

* Modern APIs can do 2D blitting if you use them right
* Direct3D and OpenGL are current APIs, whereas DirectDraw has stagnated somewhat
* With Direct3D and such, it offers more rendering capabilities, such as the potential to use shaders and hardware motion blur (which replaces the software motion blur filter, so that there is zero performance hit)
* With the new Qt system, QPainter is a fine alternative to DirectDraw, and its cross platform too. And anything that helps cross platform compatibility is a good thing.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:24 am

mudlord wrote:
It would be appreciated if some of the Emulator+Gameboy specific options via the Options menu be clarified a little. There was a site that detailed some of an older VBA's info, but I can't remember where that was.
Currently, our focus is on the new Qt system and its accompanying components. I'll see about considering this when we work on our menu design more.

I was looking for something in the form of documentation, but that menu section isn't quite newbie friendly for the most part. No biggie.

Also, why was DirectDraw dropped? Just curious.
For several reasons:

* Modern APIs can do 2D blitting if you use them right
* Direct3D and OpenGL are current APIs, whereas DirectDraw has stagnated somewhat
* With Direct3D and such, it offers more rendering capabilities, such as the potential to use shaders and hardware motion blur (which replaces the software motion blur filter, so that there is zero performance hit)
* With the new Qt system, QPainter is a fine alternative to DirectDraw, and its cross platform too. And anything that helps cross platform compatibility is a good thing.

Those reasons are fine.. I'm just disappointed because if you started an emu using DDraw, I'd hope to keep using it that way unless there's some really important reason. It kinda bothers me sometimes when an emu strictly goes 3D when it's simply rendering in 2D... that's just me though.

Did you verify my bug or no?

mudlord · Post by **mudlord** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:54 am

Did you verify my bug or no?

Yup, just did.

mudlord · Post by **mudlord** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:56 am

It kinda bothers me sometimes when an emu strictly goes 3D when it's simply rendering in 2D... that's just me though.

Oh alright, but when the Qt4 based GUI system is done, you'll get to use QPainter which is a 2D based API that Trolltech offers with Qt. So, it ain't all bad. But BSNES uses Direct3D and OpenGL, but I guess thats another matter.

etabeta · Post by **etabeta** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:58 am

mudlord wrote:

has anyone tried to compile vbam under macosx?

which parameters should I give to make not to have problems?

thanks
Hmm, I haven't personally tried, but in the makefile, there is commands for a OSX based compile..

ok. I tried by myself and I have some problem with png.h. it says:

Code: Select all

src/Util.cpp:25:17: error: png.h: No such file or directory

and then (of course) it complains about parts of 'bool utilWritePNGFile' like png_structp or png_infop not being

Code: Select all

declared in this scope

where should I have/put the png.h file to make the compiler happy? thanks.

mudlord · Post by **mudlord** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:47 am

Have you compiled libpng and put it in your GCC distribution?

etabeta · Post by **etabeta** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:56 pm

no (I mainly compile MAME and it builds its own libpng at compile time). is there a list of the necessary preliminary steps needed to compile? possibly with basic instructions as well...

anyway thanks for the answer

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 1:18 pm

mudlord wrote:
It kinda bothers me sometimes when an emu strictly goes 3D when it's simply rendering in 2D... that's just me though.
Oh alright, but when the Qt4 based GUI system is done, you'll get to use QPainter which is a 2D based API that Trolltech offers with Qt. So, it ain't all bad. But BSNES uses Direct3D and OpenGL, but I guess thats another matter.

I forget if I did complain to byuu about that too. The other part of this is that if the emu originally offered it, it should continue to use it unless something is really broken.

I'd still make the same gripe to any emu, including ZSNES, but that would be a minor gripe than anything.

I understand why the GDI mode wouldn't last either, but that's was meant to be deprecated ages ago. DirectDraw is being deprecated, but still has a wide distribution and still has a use for things not truly 3D... and it isn't as if we're still trying to support DOS.

etabeta · Post by **etabeta** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:59 pm

ok. compiled and installed libpng. now it build fine 'til sdl-config which doesn't work [*]...

notice that I have installed both SDL-1.2.13 and SDL-devel-1.2.13-extras (and indeed I can compile SDLMAME which requires both). anyway, I suspect that either it's not in one of the path my x11 looks for, or something is missing in the mac SDL distribution...

any hint?

[*] namely, it gives me

Code: Select all

/bin/sh: line 1: sdl-config: command not found
/usr/bin/ld: Undefined symbols:
_main
_SDL_CloseAudio
_SDL_CondSignal
(...many more _SDL_ symbols ...)

mudlord · Post by **mudlord** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:25 am

Hmmm, I'm not too sure about that since I don't use Linux. Maybe Nach might be able to offer some advice when compiling the Linux SDL version.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:39 am

quick suggestion:

could the first post be edited to have a quick summary and the latest stable version? kind of like what's done in the psX thread.

it's just a lot easier to know where to go instead of going through each page. i look forward to trying this out, though

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:03 am

Done.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:33 am

and i thank you

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:07 pm

where are save states stored under winXP?

etabeta · Post by **etabeta** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:24 pm

mudlord wrote:Hmmm, I'm not too sure about that since I don't use Linux. Maybe Nach might be able to offer some advice when compiling the Linux SDL version.

actually the problem is that there is no sdl-config in native Mac SDL. I'll dig a bit in the makefile to see what can be done to overcome this problem.

as is, one should install *nix SDL in addition to Mac SDL to build VBA-M on a mac, which is something that shall be fixed at a certain point. Anyway, I can easily understand that, since none of you dev is working on a mac, this is not a priority.

I'll try to see if I can come up with a clean fix to allow MacOSX build.

Thanks anyway for the support

EDIT: ok, I found a workaround to compile vba-m without sdl-config, but it's not a good solution, so I'll work on it a bit more.
OTOH, is the strip part working on other OS? according to
http://developer.apple.com/documentatio ... rip.1.html
it expects something like

Code: Select all

strip -s interface_symbols executable

while in the Makefile the interface_symbols file reference is missing, and the compiler tries a

Code: Select all

strip -s vbam

which fails...
anyway it's really nice to be able to launch VBA-M on my macbook. I'm really happy

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:38 pm

Mudlord, thanks for the shout out in your interview on NGEmu... I'm totally famous now! Haha. Unfortunately, as pumped as I am, I'm still not able to get the gui to compile... it throws all sorts of errors at me (probably the same as the previous posts, but I can paste the output of qmake/make here again if it's helpful). Which is weird, since no one else seems to be having any problem, especially other nvidia people. Perhaps I'm missing some dependency? It seems unlikely... the actual emulator is still building absolutely fine, the gui is the only thing giving me any trouble.

Any help would be appreciated, if you need any information from me I'd be more than happy to give it. If this does end up being a problem for other people, it would be great to be part of the solution.

Post by **Nach** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:20 pm

etabeta wrote:
mudlord wrote:Hmmm, I'm not too sure about that since I don't use Linux. Maybe Nach might be able to offer some advice when compiling the Linux SDL version.
actually the problem is that there is no sdl-config in native Mac SDL. I'll dig a bit in the makefile to see what can be done to overcome this problem.

Install SDL and development stuff from MacPorts or Fink.

etabeta wrote: OTOH, is the strip part working on other OS? according to
http://developer.apple.com/documentatio ... rip.1.html
it expects something like
Code: Select all
strip -s interface_symbols executable
while in the Makefile the interface_symbols file reference is missing, and the compiler tries a
Code: Select all
strip -s vbam
which fails...

Apple doesn't provide strip, but a hacked up version of strip which acts differently.

etabeta · Post by **etabeta** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:40 pm

Nach wrote: Install SDL and development stuff from MacPorts or Fink.

first of all, thanks of the answers (I realized the problem about strip when I finally looked for its man entry on linux)

about the macports SDL, is there any particular reason why I should keep two versions of the SDL libs on my mac?

if you read SDL FAQs it's a choice of the designers not to provide sdl-config on mac. many SDL programs solve the issue including SDLMain.m. would it be that bad to add native mac SDL support to VBA-M this way? (see my post on vbam board http://forums.ngemu.com/vba-m/101646-na ... pport.html )

it could be added as a compile option (but you're much more a makefile guru than mem so please enlighten me about any possible issue with such an approach)

otherwise, I'll keep it like this only on my local source

mudlord · Post by **mudlord** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:27 pm

Mudlord, thanks for the shout out in your interview on NGEmu... I'm totally famous now! Haha. Unfortunately, as pumped as I am, I'm still not able to get the gui to compile... it throws all sorts of errors at me (probably the same as the previous posts, but I can paste the output of qmake/make here again if it's helpful). Which is weird, since no one else seems to be having any problem, especially other nvidia people. Perhaps I'm missing some dependency? It seems unlikely... the actual emulator is still building absolutely fine, the gui is the only thing giving me any trouble.

Hmmm, I'm looking into setting up a dualboot with Linux on my machine, to see if I can reproduce it

.

Post by **Nach** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:56 pm

etabeta wrote: if you read SDL FAQs it's a choice of the designers not to provide sdl-config on mac. many SDL programs solve the issue including SDLMain.m. would it be that bad to add native mac SDL support to VBA-M this way? (see my post on vbam board http://forums.ngemu.com/vba-m/101646-na ... pport.html )

it could be added as a compile option (but you're much more a makefile guru than mem so please enlighten me about any possible issue with such an approach)

I haven't done it since I don't know much about the Mac setup, nor have any way to directly test it.

If you send me a patch where passing PLATFORM=darwin or something makes it work on the Mac setup, then I'll commit that.

Although you say you don't know how to work with Makefiles so much. That's fine too. Just take the Makefile from the latest SVN, fix it so that it works on whatever the official Mac SDL setup is, and send it to me, and I'll add the runtime option to pick the method via platform.

etabeta · Post by **etabeta** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:49 am

ok, as soon as I have half a day free from work I'll investigate a little bit about a couple of options I'm not sure are really necessary then I'll send it you

thanks again

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:05 am

mudlord wrote:Hmmm, I'm looking into setting up a dualboot with Linux on my machine, to see if I can reproduce it .

Thanks a bunch, I appreciate it.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:59 am

whats the difference between builds found http://vba-m.ngemu.com/vbam/vbacompiles/ and http://vba-m.ngemu.com/vbam/vbacompiles/msvc2008/ ?

spacy51 · Post by **spacy51** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:48 pm

The builds from the msvc2008 folder are currently created by me using Visual C++ 2008 as a compiler without SSE compiler optimizations and with zlib & libpng provided seperately as DLL files. The builds are currently x86 only.

The other builds still use Visual C++ 2005.

King · Post by **King** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:17 pm

Well, good to hear vba is being worked on more. It has never been in the same league as BGB as far as good GB emulation I think.

But someone really does need to step up and start throwing Super gameboy emulation in there.