Genesis+ Status?

[Neoblast]

BTw is there any place where I could get its source code?
I'd like to add sd card support... for sram saving, rom loading and .... why hasnt a savestate feature been implemented? not enough vmu space or... ?

[fox68k]

BTw is there any place where I could get its source code?
I'd like to add sd card support... for sram saving, rom loading and .... why hasnt a savestate feature been implemented? not enough vmu space or... ?

Project website: http://code.google.com/p/genplus-dc/.

[Neoblast]

Hmmm the source in there is not the newest one, but thank you fox I did not know there existed a google code project about it. Does anyone have blackaura's 2607 source code?

[Quzar]

As far as I know, there was no BA 2007 release. The '07 releases were mine. I'd be shocked if BA, having just made that google code page a few months ago, would have used outdated code.

[BlackAura]

To my knowledge, that was the latest version of my codebase. Specifically, it's the contents of gpdc-src-20060726.tar.bz2 - I believe this corresponds to the binary I released in this post. I'm pretty sure that was the last version I released.

Pretty much everything I did since then has been lost, either due to carelessness, or because I managed to horribly break everything. Every subsequent version I've managed to find hasn't worked, and I've been unable to even work out what I was doing with them, much less why they don't work, or what bits are salvageable.

Obviously, this was before I learned the wonders of source control. It was put in a Subversion repository so it wouldn't get lost again, so it could be worked on without risk of catastrophic breakage, and so there would be a central version to contribute changes to, rather than having half a dozen forks.

It's just that, since I imported that, nobody's done anything to it.

By the way - if anyone wants to contribute anything to GP/DC, the Google Code repository would be the place to do it. Either send a patch (preferably using Subversion or a GUI like TortoiseSVN to generate it), or ask nicely and I might add you as a developer to the project.

why hasnt a savestate feature been implemented? not enough vmu space or... ?

Two reasons. First, there's not enough VMU space. Second, Genesis Plus doesn't have savestates, and I didn't think it was worth implementing if there's nowhere to store the state.

[joey245]

Ok two responses here

To my knowledge, that was the latest version of my codebase. Specifically, it's the contents of gpdc-src-20060726.tar.bz2 - I believe this corresponds to the binary I released in this post. I'm pretty sure that was the last version I released.

Pretty much everything I did since then has been lost, either due to carelessness, or because I managed to horribly break everything. Every subsequent version I've managed to find hasn't worked, and I've been unable to even work out what I was doing with them, much less why they don't work, or what bits are salvageable.

Obviously, this was before I learned the wonders of source control. It was put in a Subversion repository so it wouldn't get lost again, so it could be worked on without risk of catastrophic breakage, and so there would be a central version to contribute changes to, rather than having half a dozen forks.

It's just that, since I imported that, nobody's done anything to it.

By the way - if anyone wants to contribute anything to GP/DC, the Google Code repository would be the place to do it. Either send a patch (preferably using Subversion or a GUI like TortoiseSVN to generate it), or ask nicely and I might add you as a developer to the project.

why hasnt a savestate feature been implemented? not enough vmu space or... ?

Two reasons. First, there's not enough VMU space. Second, Genesis Plus doesn't have savestates, and I didn't think it was worth implementing if there's nowhere to store the state.

Sd card possibly? and maybe port the code from another emulator and to fix a problem of how its written. translate it and adapt it.
also...

GenesisPlusDC supports the following extensions: ".zip", ".gen", and ".bin".

I posed the very same question about gens4all over at the Dremcast.es forums, but haven't gotten a response. I think the prevailing view is, it'll happen if it'll happen. Right now as far as I know gens4all is still being worked on until I'm told otherwise, and genplusdc had reportedly been resumed by some of the dc veteran coders.

A couple things I know are that the sound will never be perfect, because of the dreamcast's hardware limitations. And these guys have personal/social lifes, so we may never see an update...

GensDC supports .bin, .gen, .smd, .zip, .gz and .7z. I think it is more than enough. It features a customised, cursor based menu.
And i have been losing my personal/social life for a while so yes, we will have an update, but heh, you want an update or you want anything along the same lines it used to be?

As a progress report, i have been dealing with some nasty issues, most of which are gone by now. Unfortunately, it is taking longer than i wanted, but that is the way it is. Basically, there is still work on the VDP and the sound emulation. The speed improvements on the VDP are really promising and worth waiting for. I will not get into numbers, which usually create a lot of confusion.

As soon as i have something i feel happy with, i will provide a beta to Chris and next will be the first beta release...

Thank you for the update, however one concern regarding the roms list. (sorry to brag on about this but i feel this needs sorting out) when this is released will the roms list be sorted out. As one of the main problems with genesisplusdc is its accessibility due to the roms list, which is frustrating to make if the program goes wrong and is a time consuming process.

thoughts?

[Neoblast]

Sorry I got the date format wrong I meant the latest BA release, where I live date is sorted differently.... and I forgot the exact release name so... sorry for that quzar.

Thanks for the info guys


EDIT: the link you gave me blackaura is broken, that mirror seems to have been dead for a very long time...

[Quzar]

Thank you for the update, however one concern regarding the roms list. (sorry to brag on about this but i feel this needs sorting out) when this is released will the roms list be sorted out. As one of the main problems with genesisplusdc is its accessibility due to the roms list, which is frustrating to make if the program goes wrong and is a time consuming process.

thoughts?

Without using a romlist, the emulator would take a long time to scan the whole disc (and it would thrash the GD quite a bit). We should have more emulators use a similar system (without the odd constraints) to help save the GD drives and provide faster initial load times.

[Neoblast]

Well, IMO, a savefile should be saved onto the dc with the file list so it only reads it once.

But I remeber how tedious it was to make a list.

Another option is to read the romlist from the sd card... thatway the GD wouldnt suffer
Con of that, not too many people have made that mod or have that cable...

[BlackAura]

EDIT: the link you gave me blackaura is broken, that mirror seems to have been dead for a very long time...

Yes, it is. That's why it was so difficult to find a copy of the code.

I checked in the source code for that exact version into the Subversion repository. So you can check it out from there.

[Neoblast]

so the r2 in google is that version, ok thank you very much

[fox68k]

Thank you for the update, however one concern regarding the roms list. (sorry to brag on about this but i feel this needs sorting out) when this is released will the roms list be sorted out. As one of the main problems with genesisplusdc is its accessibility due to the roms list, which is frustrating to make if the program goes wrong and is a time consuming process.

thoughts?

I do not see the point on having to create a rom list. I do not scan rom files either but i sort rom file list. As far as i can see, there is no reason to change this approach.

[BlackAura]

I do not see the point on having to create a rom list. I do not scan rom files either but i sort rom file list. As far as i can see, there is no reason to change this approach.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what the romlist is for either. Unless you have something like NesterDC SE, I'd have thought that scanning the filesystem would probably be good enough.

[Christuserloeser]

There is one advantage of having a(n otional) ROMlist: It would enable the disc creator to change the presets for a game. This could include region settings, but also performance or compatibility relevant settings like over- or underclocking CPUs, using a different video renderer, disabling sound emulation for a certain game, or things like that.

[Stryfe]

*Bump*
Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I didn't want to create a new one for this question.

Has either GenesisPlusDC or Gens4all reached testing stage? I'd be more than happy to do some pre-release testing.

[fox68k]

Has either GenesisPlusDC or Gens4all reached testing stage? I'd be more than happy to do some pre-release testing.

Unfortunately, Gens DC is not ready yet. I know i always come across telling the same story, but I am still debugging the asm VDP. It will take a while, and i am now pretty sure i will have to optimise the FM stuff. So it definitely will not be ready before next year. But keep tuned, i do not think this project will disappoint you.

I will let you know when i have something i feel happy with

[Stryfe]

Sounds good, I'll be patiently waiting for the opportunity to try it out.

[Eviltaco64X]

Has either GenesisPlusDC or Gens4all reached testing stage? I'd be more than happy to do some pre-release testing.

Unfortunately, Gens DC is not ready yet. I know i always come across telling the same story, but I am still debugging the asm VDP. It will take a while, and i am now pretty sure i will have to optimise the FM stuff. So it definitely will not be ready before next year. But keep tuned, i do not think this project will disappoint you.

I will let you know when i have something i feel happy with

Looking forward to the release.

[law56ker]

any updates, on progress?

[Nico0020]

Gens4All got a release earlier this year, though I never got around to testing it. What changes were seen in it? Also curious about the status of Genesis+/GensDC. Has any artwork been worked on for these emulators, or are they still pretty limited in the GUI? Been so long I don't remember the Gens4all screens, and Genesis+ was just a blackscreen with a romlist.