Nestopia's back from the dead

[tehcloud]

Hey boys and girls, I just wanted to let you all know I decided to resurrect Nestopia awhile ago. It's one of my personal favourite emulators, and I didn't want to see it die, so I forked it and have been making whatever improvements I can as a service to the community. Most of what I've done is related to the Linux release, but I have also done some stuff for the win32 release and added some patches from members of the community to the core emulator. There's a bit of community involvement from the libretro team as well.

Anyways, if anyone has patches or improvements, feel free to throw them my way. I'm planning to keep maintaining this code for everyone's benefit. You may have seen Windows builds on emucr from my repo, and if you're a unixy type of person, the packages in Debian, Arch, and OpenBSD are also from my repo.

Github Repo

[3gengames]

I'll be getting the .deb on my Linux Mint 64 distro as soon as I can! Sweet!

[tehcloud]

It may take awhile to get into Ubuntu and Mint. It just got into Debian sid, so I think the next release of Ubuntu after 13.04 (probably 13.10?) will have it available. Compiling from source is the best method, though .

[lidnariq]

Thanks for commit #a8846d338b3

[koitsu]

Awesome awesome awesome. The only thing I wish were made available along with this are actual builds/binary releases for the Win32 bits. I'd build it myself (using an XP VM) but I have other things on my XP VM relating to Visual Studio 6 (yes, you read that right -- the thing from 1998) and other emulators, so this becomes a PITA to manage. :-)

If there is a developer who is helping out with that repo who does the Win32 pieces + has all the tools available for building under MSVC, providing those builds would be awesome. I am happy to test on native Windows XP as needed too.

[tehcloud]

I build the Windows versions. I post them up on sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nestopiaue/files/1.44/

But I only build releases. EmuCR builds whenever there's a commit, and those builds have all the latest features. If you're okay with using an EmuCR build, feel free to check that out, but there are some strange gui glitches they introduce somehow...

[koitsu]

As before: awesome. Totally awesome. Thank you so, so much for taking on the project and doing this. You have my support (and if somehow you had a Paypal Donate link, I'd be using that too. :-) )

[Grumskiz]

I can only agree! It is great that you continue working on nestopia. I will try it on linux as soon as I can :3

[oRBIT2002]

That's very good news indeed!!

Feature request:
* Selectable Zapper/VS Zapper as inputdevice (good for homebrew-purposes!)

[etabeta]

But I only build releases. EmuCR builds whenever there's a commit, and those builds have all the latest features. If you're okay with using an EmuCR build, feel free to check that out, but there are some strange gui glitches they introduce somehow...

I had bad experiences with emucr in the past (virus detected in a couple of their packages), so unless they improved in the past year I would not suggest it as the main resource to test your progresses

[WedNESday]

The best NES emulator (after WedNESday v1.215.15125.151.785889.637.2 BETA, of course) is back!

Some questions about Nestopia;

1. What does adjust pitch do in sound settings?
2. Primary Sound Driver or other options?
3. Auto, YUV or RGB?
4. Monitor frequency?

[Eugene.S]

Guys, try to help me please:
Dendy emulation is incorrect in official 1.40 because something is broken since 1.38:

v.1.38 changes:
- PPU power/reset timing and register states.
- Misc IRQ/NMI/BRK/DMA special-case behavior.

I've compiled 1.36, 1.37, 1.38, 1.39 and 1.40 versions of NEStopia and "hacked" their PAL-mode according to Dendy-timings:

Code: Select all

fragments of NstBase.hpp (NstCpu.hpp & NstPpu.hpp under version 1.37)
// fixing PAL(RP2A07) divider to dendy CPU(UA6527P) divider
{
 RP2A03_CC = 12,
 RP2A07_CC = 15
};

// fixing timings according to dendy PPU(UA6538)
   RP2C07_VACTIVE   = 240,
   RP2C07_VSLEEP    = 51,
   RP2C07_VINT      = 20,
   RP2C07_VDUMMY    = 1,

//I've fixed PAL-Noise and PAL-DMC rates to NTSC-like in "NstApu.cpp" also

But strange glitches appear since version 1.38 and above:

- "Power Blade 2 (USA)": scrolling glitches on title movie
- "James Bond Jr. (USA)": hang on 1-st level when you fall into a pit
- "Front Line (Japan)", "Aladdin 4 (1995) (Unl)", "Aladdin 4 (1996) (Unl)" - screen glitches at 1-st level
- "Batman Returns (USA)" - black vertical strip at 1-st level /happens randomly/

Below v1.38 these glitches aren't present as well as it not present on other nes emulators at dendy-mode (punes/nintedulator/bizhawk/fceux etc)

How to fix it in nestopia undead?
Here is 1.31-1.40 source archives.
And here is dendy information.

[zzo38]

Some features might be useful to add if it doesn't already have:

• RGB PPU mode, to make it max brightness of picture when emphasis bits are used.
• Paste text from clipboard into Famicom keyboard.
• Support for .NES.INI (at least partial; not everything in the file is relevant for emulation).
• Support tape for Famicom keyboard storing using audio file and a raw file.
• FDS loading using .QDI format (where each side is a separate file; therefore you can share disks between different games/programs that use them, or whatever).
• Log audio register write to .VGM (currently the only expansion supported is the Sunsoft 5B, although games with no expansion audio will also work).
• Full support of NES 2.0 including submappers.
• Audio input using a microphone attached to the computer.
• VS Zapper including in FourScore and Famicom 4-players adapter (since it is a class 3 device, it is compatible with both).
• Super PakPak analog controller.
• You can connect multiple input devices at once in different ports, for example, keyboard and mouse together.

[etabeta]

• Support tape for Famicom keyboard storing using audio file and a raw file.

are there raw files available? I've been looking for them since ages, to support the real waveforms in MESS

[Eugene.S]

I have problem with sound pops/clicks since 1.37 is out.
1.36 and below works good on laptop and desktop.

I've tried all settings (vsync / triple buffer / hi-precision timer / custom refresh rates / audio-video memory pool, etc..) but it didn't help.

Here is buggy wave dumps:
1. Journey to Silius (U). Sound clicks on 0m:11s:980ms very often.

You may see a strange "virtual DC offset" also. Maybe this is the reason for clicks.

2. Power Blade (U). Sound clicks often on area select screen.
0m:03s:144ms
0m:03s:925ms
0m:08s:400ms


3. Rockman 6 (MegaMan 6) (U)
Click at 0m:04s:933ms


Here is DxDiag dumps from laptop and desktop.
I've compiled native 1.40 linux overlay H) for ubuntu 10.04, and it also have sound problems.