My thoughts on NesterDC SE

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Calavera
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My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by Calavera »

Ok I know I'm probably a little late on this but oh well. I haven't really messed with emulators on the DC much lately, well I hooked my DC up out in my garage and I wanted some NES goodness on that baby. I had an old Nester CD I had been using, who knows what version. But it was getting all scratched up and wouldn't read so I knew I had to burn a new one. I look for the latest version of NesterDC, I see NesterDC SE, I've heard about this in the past but never had used it. Then I start reading the features, Cartridge Scans, Game Boxes, Game Genie, NSF music etc.... So I fire up the image making program, it downloads all the approiate media for my games. I must say this is one fantastic emulator. This emulator sets the standards for what all emulators should be. Just having the box displayed is a big plus for me, not to mention all the screenshots and other features. This is the best designed emulator I've ever played. I hope more emulators like this come out in the future.
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Post by TechnoWolf »

I agree. It gets no easier creating the cdr, and the menu systems, style, presentation of cartridges, manuals, etc is top notch!! I was so pumped to have it, BUT.........................(I'm a life-long optimist by the way, I've always scoffed at pessimists), BUT.........Be careful, I noticed that for whatever crazy reason if you load it with hundreds of roms, it will miss-align your DC's laser usually after many total hours of browsing games. I had to realign lasers on 3 different DC's after using SE. Regrettably, I don't use it anymore and have had no further problems.
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Post by Calavera »

TechnoWolf wrote:I agree. It gets no easier creating the cdr, and the menu systems, style, presentation of cartridges, manuals, etc is top notch!! I was so pumped to have it, BUT.........................(I'm a life-long optimist by the way, I've always scoffed at pessimists), BUT.........Be careful, I noticed that for whatever crazy reason if you load it with hundreds of roms, it will miss-align your DC's laser usually after many total hours of browsing games. I had to realign lasers on 3 different DC's after using SE. Regrettably, I don't use it anymore and have had no further problems.
Really? Hmm.
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Post by G-Man44 »

Is this true? Can anyone else weigh in on this? Hardly seems to make any sense, but any comments would be greatly appreciated, as this is one of the best emus ever made for the Dreamcast. I am sure Scherzo would like some clarity on the issue, since he put in a lot of hard work on this project.
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by Strapping Scherzo »

Hey everyone. Long time, no post for me.

I'm not completely surprised that something like NesterDC SE would be hard on the laser. You can occassionally hear the drive trashing about. It would be nice to know in what order the files are actually burned to the disk. I'm sure that has something to do with it. Just don't sue me for your broken lasers, OK?
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by Christuserloeser »

Strapping Scherzo wrote:I'm not completely surprised that something like NesterDC SE would be hard on the laser.
Maybe if you would use a PAK file to store the menu stuff, like in Quake or Beats of Rage. Especially in Beats of Rage it works pretty good I think: It loads thousands of tiny little gif and txt files without stressing the laser.

Edit: Also an optional plain file lister would be nice, so one selects a game and from there could have a look at screenshots, the box art, listen to the NSF, etc. :)
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by |darc| »

Strapping Scherzo wrote:Hey everyone. Long time, no post for me.

I'm not completely surprised that something like NesterDC SE would be hard on the laser. You can occassionally hear the drive trashing about. It would be nice to know in what order the files are actually burned to the disk. I'm sure that has something to do with it. Just don't sue me for your broken lasers, OK?
I haven't used NesterDC SE so I don't know how it handles directory layouts and image creation, but you should use the sort file feature of mkisofs to place all of a game's files next to each other on the disc. I assume that it loads box art and stuff as soon as you highlight the game on the menu. If you sorted files alphabetically, as I believe mkisofs does by default, and kept cartridge images in a folder called "Carts," the ROMs in a folder called "Games" and the covers in a folder named "Images," then the laser would have to travel the entire length of the disc every single time you changed the game on the menu. If you optimally sort the files together, the laser would have to travel the length of the disc only once for the entire library of games.

Then there would be no reason for an emulator menu to be hard on the drive.
It's thinking...
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by Strapping Scherzo »

Christuserloeser wrote:
Strapping Scherzo wrote:I'm not completely surprised that something like NesterDC SE would be hard on the laser.
Maybe if you would use a PAK file to store the menu stuff, like in Quake or Beats of Rage. Especially in Beats of Rage it works pretty good I think: It loads thousands of tiny little gif and txt files without stressing the laser.

Edit: Also an optional plain file lister would be nice, so one selects a game and from there could have a look at screenshots, the box art, listen to the NSF, etc. :)
Actually, a guy who goes by the name of cstargel contacted me the other day on AIM. He says he's working on a modified version of NesterDC SE, quote: "I have reworked some java/dreamscript files to make the whole system work more like mame (so people can add their roms that aren't the database)"

It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with. I still want to move DreamScript forward but, man, I'm so busy.
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by Christuserloeser »

Strapping Scherzo wrote:
Christuserloeser wrote:
Strapping Scherzo wrote:I'm not completely surprised that something like NesterDC SE would be hard on the laser.
Maybe if you would use a PAK file to store the menu stuff, like in Quake or Beats of Rage. Especially in Beats of Rage it works pretty good I think: It loads thousands of tiny little gif and txt files without stressing the laser.

Edit: Also an optional plain file lister would be nice, so one selects a game and from there could have a look at screenshots, the box art, listen to the NSF, etc. :)
Actually, a guy who goes by the name of cstargel contacted me the other day on AIM. He says he's working on a modified version of NesterDC SE, quote: "I have reworked some java/dreamscript files to make the whole system work more like mame (so people can add their roms that aren't the database)"

It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with. I still want to move DreamScript forward but, man, I'm so busy.
That sounds good. Can't wait to see what he'll come up with. I would love to update the DreamEmulation Project: NES Edition to include NesterDC SE, but I never had time to play around with the dreamscript .js files.

Btw, Beats of Rage (OpenBoR) be ported to KallistiOS these days, so you probably could easily implement the .pak file system into NesterDC SE. :)
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by law56ker »

Nice to see you post again Strapping Scherzo. Did you get burned out by Makign NesterDC you dissapeared shortly after making it. I knew you wanted to take a break. Your emulator is awesome btw.
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by TechnoWolf »

Hi everyone. How's everyone's summer unfolding???

Thought I'd post again to see if anything has been updated in SE concerning the laser issue.
(using .pak file system as mentioned by Christuserloeser)??

btw, really appreciate your work, Strapping Scherzo. There's nothing else quite like this emulator!
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by hrb2k3 »

i find that it grinds the laser when you are browsing the roms by using the screenshots. if i set it to display the box art instead, than it doesn't grind so much.

one option for the future is to completely disable the pics while browsing the roms.

one thing i noticed is that NDCSE doesn't have a VMU menu like older nesterdc versions. maybe in a future version as well??
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Re: My thoughts on NesterDC SE

Post by Smurph »

I'm finally getting around to wgetting all the NES FAQs from gamefaqs. Fuck 'em. Most of their content was jacked from legit guides/other people's work anyway. Not to mention that I don't have a whole lot of respect for their community.

What are they gonna do, iptable me? I'm on verizon. My IP range is huge, and actually changes.

Also, I agree with the above poster on that a textual menu might be a good option.
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