Regen for Linux and Windows

[Nightcrawler]

AamirM shouldn't have to justify the validity of his emulator. Let's be happy it exists and use it or not use it. Everybody is a critic these days...

[Snark]

thanks, i would be willing to do a bughunt when you feel your emulation is mature enough, so far it seems perfect, but you are not using your own core's yet.

Does anyone else here van a genesis flash cart?

I do actually.

[tetsuo55]

thanks, i would be willing to do a bughunt when you feel your emulation is mature enough, so far it seems perfect, but you are not using your own core's yet.

Does anyone else here van a genesis flash cart?

I do actually.

Cool, hardware confirmation of bugs

[byuu]

Ah, and before I forget, someone mentioned the UI earlier ... I actually rather like the Regen UI :)
Especially the gray background color instead of black.

AamirM shouldn't have to justify the validity of his emulator. Let's be happy it exists and use it or not use it. Everybody is a critic these days...

Who is questioning the validity of its existence, and who is being a critic? Someone asked about accuracy for whatever reason, and a few of us made some comments among those lines. I think people just wanted to know since it's hard to tell without the code to reference. Nobody is saying his emulator is any better or worse for any of his choices. It's up to AamirM, and he should obviously do what he wants to do first and foremost.

[tetsuo55]

AamirM shouldn't have to justify the validity of his emulator. Let's be happy it exists and use it or not use it. Everybody is a critic these days...

Who is questioning the validity of its existence, and who is being a critic? Someone asked about accuracy for whatever reason, and a few of us made some comments among those lines. I think people just wanted to know since it's hard to tell without the code to reference. Nobody is saying his emulator is any better or worse for any of his choices. It's up to AamirM, and he should obviously do what he wants to do first and foremost.

Exactly, just try regen and you'll be amazed!

[King Of Chaos]

Besides the constructive criticism in this topic, I'd like to say that I am quite impressed with this emulator. I know I've said this in the Eidolon's Inn topic, but I'd like to say it again.

This emulator is in the real early stages, but it's pretty damn impressive with 3 releases out so far. The accuracy in the early stages is pretty impressive, and you should pat yourself on the back for it. I can also help with bughunting (or beta testing) if needed, and of course ideas and suggestions I have floating around in my head. =P

P.S. I'm surprised nobody has sticky'd this topic yet. I for one thinks it deserves it, since it's following in the footsteps of other accurate emulators like Kega and bsnes.
-- Admin agrees

[Boozle061083]

Yeah I really think if this keeps up AamirM will reach his goal of being as good if not better than Kega sooner than later. Usually out of this early of a release you see preliminary compatibility which is to say this emulator is very impressive. My main thing is fullscreen doesn't seem to have any way to stretch to fill the screen. I'm loving VR in a screen bigger than what Picodrive had. That thing was tiny O.o

AamirM shouldn't have to justify the validity of his emulator. Let's be happy it exists and use it or not use it. Everybody is a critic these days...

Well I think AamirM is looking for criticism. How else can he learn how to make it better and evolve it? Just patting someones back and giving them a 'ol "attaboy" isn't going to help him or the community. Just saying good job and never giving constructive criticism leads to things like Jar Jar Binks or Cops with walkie talkies for guns.

[Neo Kaiser]

This emulator is doing great for just being a baby.

[Boozle061083]

This emulator is doing great for just being a baby.

*Drools at the thought of full speed, full screen Virtua Racing with NTSC filter*

[AamirM]

Hi,

Thanks again for all your nice feedback. I appreciate it very much. And also thanks for making this topic sticky. I will be releasing version 0.4 of my emulator in a day or two. This version will include the much wanted debugger and all the known non-working games fixed. There are also few minor fix-ups. And guess what I managed to get Dino Dini's soccer run even more perfectly than Kega . The only major part that remains right now(besides integrating my CPU cores) is the DMA timing. The compatiblity will be more higher than it was previously in that version.

stay safe,

AamirM

[neo_bahamut1985]

Holy crap, as if this emulator wasn't good enough (and it is very impressive if I say so myself)!

[DancemasterGlenn]

I don't suppose a linux version is in any way possible? Not really expecting a yes, but I figured I'd ask. I'd certainly use it, if it's as awesome as everyone else is making it sound...

[mz]

This version will include the much wanted debugger and all the known non-working games fixed. There are also few minor fix-ups. And guess what I managed to get Dino Dini's soccer run even more perfectly than Kega .

That sounds amazing! Can't wait to try it.

[King Of Chaos]

Whoa, awesome!!! Question, does that Sesame Street Counting Cafe game work? I know Steve Snake spent a good deal of time getting that one game to work. Anyways, I'll be trying the new Sonic prototype ROMs in it, just for the fun of it. =D

Edit: Nope, Sesame Street Counting Cafe does not work in Regen. Not surprised, since Kega is the only emulator that supports that one game.

Here's some information about that quoted from Kega's history readme...

Spent the last 11 days writing and rewriting and rewriting the following
until I was happy enough with it to release it:

* New Event System that allows me to trigger certain events on a cycle
accurate basis, WITHOUT making any noticable performance hit. This code
is still very experimental, and so far is enabled for Genesis/MegaDrive
games only (its disabled when the 32X is in use.) I still need to refine
this and make sure it doesn't break anything before I consider it done.
The upshot of all this is basically that Sesame Street Counting Cafe now
runs exactly as on a real console, for the first time. A lot of work for
one (not very good) game? Hell yes I don't think it will affect any
other game but I guess we'll see.

* Altered some other video related timings in order to make the above stuff
work. This affects all consoles, hopefully in a positive way

[Boozle061083]

Nope, Sesame Street Counting Cafe does not work in Regen

Damn it all! Now how the hell am I supposed to brush up on meh book learnins with the fun and lovable Big Bird and Oscar?

Oh well...at least there is still a use for Big Bird...

[AamirM]

Hi,

Uploaded the new 0.4 version. Download link is in the first post.
The list of changes is also there.

Ah, I didn't knew about Sesame Street Counting Cafe not working. I will try to fix it in the next release. Thanks for telling though.

stay safe and enjoy,

AamirM

[AamirM]

Whoa, awesome!!! Question, does that Sesame Street Counting Cafe game work? I know Steve Snake spent a good deal of time getting that one game to work. Anyways, I'll be trying the new Sonic prototype ROMs in it, just for the fun of it. =D

Edit: Nope, Sesame Street Counting Cafe does not work in Regen. Not surprised, since Kega is the only emulator that supports that one game.

Here's some information about that quoted from Kega's history readme...

Spent the last 11 days writing and rewriting and rewriting the following
until I was happy enough with it to release it:

* New Event System that allows me to trigger certain events on a cycle
accurate basis, WITHOUT making any noticable performance hit. This code
is still very experimental, and so far is enabled for Genesis/MegaDrive
games only (its disabled when the 32X is in use.) I still need to refine
this and make sure it doesn't break anything before I consider it done.
The upshot of all this is basically that Sesame Street Counting Cafe now
runs exactly as on a real console, for the first time. A lot of work for
one (not very good) game? Hell yes I don't think it will affect any
other game but I guess we'll see.

* Altered some other video related timings in order to make the above stuff
work. This affects all consoles, hopefully in a positive way

Hi,

I just tried fixing it and I *fixed* it . Doesn't seem to break any other interrupt sensitive games. If you had told me earlier I would have fixed it earlier. Anyways thanks again for telling me. So I guess Kega won't be the only emulator to run it. It will be included in v0.5.

stay safe,

AamirM

[tetsuo55]

Yeah !!! thanks for allowing removal of the scanlines, fixing the screenshots and making Regen even more accurate!! :D

Also a big hand of applause for fixing Sesame street in under 30 minutes!

[mz]

* Dino Dini Soccer runs perfectly now. Even more accurate than Kega Fusion and Gens!

Excellent news! Thanks a lot!

Now, there seems to be a bug with the controllers configuration dialog: P2 saves as P1d. And... It looks like Teamplayer doesn't work at all. I've tried Mega Bomberman and Dino Dini's Soccer, but both have random bugs with it.

And hey, you added command line support! Thanks a lot for that, too; now I'm finally able to use my frontend with your emulator.

[King Of Chaos]

Hi,

I just tried fixing it and I *fixed* it . Doesn't seem to break any other interrupt sensitive games. If you had told me earlier I would have fixed it earlier. Anyways thanks again for telling me. So I guess Kega won't be the only emulator to run it. It will be included in v0.5.

Haha, awesome. I forgot about that game until you mentioned all non-working games working, then I checked it out. Can't wait to test that specifically. =) I'll be testing v0.4 in several minutes, and I'll post anything I notice here.

Edit: Ok, I've been messing with v0.4 so far, and I've noticed some issues with the emulator itself...

-No check box appears when selecting a sound rate.
-No check box appears when selecting a country.
-Clear history doesn't clear the last played game (you need to click it several times).
-Autopause doesn't work when minimizing via clicking the taskbar tray item on Windows Vista (only works when minimizing the window itself).

Ok, now for some suggestions, feedback and ideas I want to toss to you based on v0.4.

-Shorten the path in the history to the game only. Kega Fusion has a "secret" config feature that allows you to toggle between full path, and just the game file (via ShortenHistoryNames=1 under File History).
-Add Kega's Preferred Order country function to the Country selection (may need to split off the Country menu as a main menu for itself, again like Kega). This will help some users whom want to change the auto detection order.
-Move the System menu between File and Video. The logic behind this is, in my own experience new users move from menu to menu from the beginning. If they find the area where to set the keys/joystick, the easier it'll be on those users.
-Move Disable Sound to above the Sound Rate menu. I sometimes like to disable the sound, and listen to music normally while playing. =P
-Kega's brighten feature. Most games, especially the Sonic games, are kinda dark.
-Ability to set certain functions (like Turbo Mode) to gamepads. This is a feature I've always wanted in Kega Fusion, so I can toggle fast forward/turbo mode on/off with my gamepad.
-SuperHQ. Some games like Spider-Man: The Animated Series will need this sound feature to sound "correct" for the intro song. To me, it plays extra instruments in the intro song.
-Show FPS. Adding a feature (having it look like Kega's FPS feature) would be quite handy for me to determine how fast Regen is running on my Core 2 Duo system, and then I could do some performance tests between Gens, Kega, and Regen. =)
-I mentioned this before on Eidolon's Inn's forums, but a lot of people have wanted a feature to enable/disable the Genesis sprite limit. Kega emulates the sprite limit like the real hardware, and people have been bugging Snake for years to add a feature to disable the sprite limit.

I have a couple more suggestions and a couple ideas posted in this topic.

Overall, I cannot say how impressed I am by this emulator. Thank you so much for adding the debugger! I've been having some fun using it on Sonic 1. =P By the way, I'll be creating some icon concepts in the next couple days, and I'll post prototypes of them here or in the Eidolon's Inn topic. Good day to you kind sir!

Edit 2: I need some opinions. I created 2 icons from scratch (I saw Genesis console icons that were similar to this but I didn't like how they looked, so I decided to make new icons from scratch in a different color and slightly altered look, more like the Genesis). Thoughts?



First icon is 16x16 for use in the emulator at the top by the name. The other is a 32x32 for the program icon. I may do some tweaking on them, something on it seems off center to me, we'll see.

[AamirM]

Hi,

I just made a quick update to the emu. I accidently commented a line of code and forgot to uncomment it . Sorry for the inconvenience.

@King of Chaos

Thank you very much for your ideas. I'll also be looking into those bugs you reported. I have already started to work on *all* of those features but you won't see them immediatly . They will come with time. But thanks again for your ideas. Also thanks for those cool icons, I am loving them.

@mz

Thanks for the feedback. I will look into those problems.

@DancemasterGlenn

Yes linux version is under progress. I could upload a beta of it if you want. But the sound has problems. BTW, What distro are you using?

@All other who gave nice comments

Thanks!!

stay safe,

AamirM

[neo_bahamut1985]

And maybe a feature that lets me map the UL/UR/DL/DR directions on my gamepad (yet, in Kega, it already assumes that the gamepad has six directions).


edit one min. later - Crap! I didn't know the Regen author posted before me! Sorry!

[King Of Chaos]

Thank you very much kind sir. I don't mind waiting for features, patience is a virtue. I just tested Sesame Street Counting Cafe and it works like it does in Kega. Weird game, but hey, it works.

Glad you like the icons, feel free to use them if you wish. I made them into .ico files which can be downloaded and used from here.

EDIT: Ok, found a possible new issue.

-Empty history slots, when clicked, causes the emulator to exit and possibly crash.

[AamirM]

EDIT: Ok, found a possible new issue.

-Empty history slots, when clicked, causes the emulator to exit and possibly crash.

Well, I guess my frontend programming is not good.

@ neo_bahamut1985

Added it to my todo list. Thanks.

stay safe,

AamirM

[King Of Chaos]

Here's some eye candy for you guys. Regen v0.41 running the newly released Sonic 3C (Prototype 0408), Lava Reef Zone Act 2...

Beginning of Act 2:


Walking on lava:


Pretty nice, eh?