smd to bin format

edub1030 · Post by **edub1030** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 2:21 pm

can someone tell me the easiest way to change an .smd file to a .bin file. i hope i can ask this here. if not, i'm sorry.

curt_grymala · Post by **curt_grymala** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 2:46 pm

why do you want to change an smd to a bin? Any good Genesis emulator supports both.

edub1030 · Post by **edub1030** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 3:01 pm

if you can suggest a good genesis emulator i'd be happy to listen. i'm asking cause i'm fooling with the "unnamed" genesis emulator i can't mention here cause it may be illegal, but i'm open to suggestions.

MetaFox · Post by **MetaFox** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 4:25 pm

Genesis Plus / DC - it runs many games better than the Smash Pack rip, albeit without sound and music.

FlashPV · Post by **FlashPV** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 6:30 pm

Yes, it's pretty impressive for a first release. Can't wait for the next version !

curt_grymala · Post by **curt_grymala** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 8:44 pm

I have used all three of the Genesis emulators found on DCEmulation, and find that Genesis Plus is by far the best. No sound, yet, but if you tweek the settings a little (search for Genesis Plus in the forums, and you'll find some info on tweeking the settings), it runs at almost full speed. It's far from perfect, but it is incredibly impressive. I agree: I can't wait for the next version.

edub1030 · Post by **edub1030** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 10:09 am

that's what i've read on the forums here. and don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to take anything away from the developer(s) of gen plus, i tend to get impatient. but i also can't wait for the next release of gen plus. i hope it has sound included, i really can't wait to play some "pd roms" for genesis. i just tried to burn gen plus, so i can't wait to pop in my DC., and see if it worked. later on

Orange_Ribbon · Post by **Orange_Ribbon** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 2:21 pm

Hey MetaFox How is the Generator coming along? My girlfriend and I love it to death!! There was something Seren about playing Sonic on the TV again. (since we got our DC just reasently we can't find the smash pack anywhere

)

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 8:11 pm

That CPU tweaking feature really works better than I'd hoped.

If you want to get it to run fairly quickly, you can first turn the Z80 clock speed right down. You won't be able to do that when I've added sound support (unless you disable sound), but for the moment, it's unnecessary. Then, you can turn the 68K clock speed down in small increments until the game begins to slow down, because the MegaDrive CPU is running too slowly for it. Then, increase it until the game speeds up again.

edub1030 · Post by **edub1030** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 7:35 am

i popped gen plus in on friday, and man, was i shocked. the first release is way better than i ever thought it would be. i hope i can say this here, but i want to tell you the joy of playing wonderboy6 for the first time. wow. great work!! can't wait for the next release.

curt_grymala · Post by **curt_grymala** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 8:23 am

I have to agree with edub. Giant props go to BlackAura (such big props that he will need a team of programmers just to help him hold them up) and everyone else that worked on that. The release of GenPlus was a monumentous occasion. I am almost ready to disconnect my Genesis from my TV and begin playing the games on my DC exclusively (too many wires are bad for me. And they are really bad for my kids. Too many things to trip over and destroy my precious game systems. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!).

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:09 am

I think that a team of programmers wouldn't be too far off.

Post by **BlueCrab** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 1:47 pm

BlackAura wrote:I think that a team of programmers wouldn't be too far off.

Collaboration is always good....

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:50 pm

Indeed it is. Care to try hacking it?

MetaFox · Post by **MetaFox** » Tue Jun 17, 2003 9:42 pm

Orange_Ribbon wrote:Hey MetaFox How is the Generator coming along? My girlfriend and I love it to death!! There was something Seren about playing Sonic on the TV again. (since we got our DC just reasently we can't find the smash pack anywhere )

Ack - sorry for the late reply, I haven't had internet access since I moved my computer to the back room, away from phone lines - to the dedicated outlet we installed for RoadRunner.

I'm changing CPU cores to accomodate CPU over/underclocking and also to boost compatibility. It's such a great feature in Genesis Plus, it would be a shame for DCGen not to have it.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 1:17 am

Ah, you thought that was a good idea too? Why do you think I added it in the first place?

What are you changing the CPU cores to? GP uses Musashi and the Z80 emulator from MAME, and they can both be compiled perfectly at fairly high optimisation levels. But I think we could do with some asm-based CPU emulators.

Tangent · Post by **Tangent** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 1:30 am

For which CPU, though? The Z80 or the m68k(musashi)? Both of them look like really hefty rewrites for asm. If I knew more about the mental steps of doing that kind of work, I'd gladly lend a hand, but this looks way over my head. Kinda sad, considering how much I got into x86 assembly.

FlashPV · Post by **FlashPV** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 6:27 am

Rewritting the two of them in SH4 asm would hopefully give a nice speed boost but it's pretty hard to do since few DC devvers know SH4 assembly.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 9:33 am

Well, I think that it'd be a good idea to start with a Z80 emulator. Since the Z80 should (in theory) be simpler to emulate, it'd give us some experience with writing CPU emulators in SH-4 asm, and then we could try to move on to the 68K emulator later on.

I think I could probably do a Z80 emulator, given enough time, but I don't know if I'd be able to do a better job of it than GCC's optimizer already does. I suppose it depends on how similar the SH-4 can behave to the Z80 and M68K, and I guess that wouldn't be as much of an advantage as it is on an x86.

Seriously, I think that we should try this. It would be good for not only Genesis emulators, but also anything else that uses a 68K or Z80 CPU. In other words, virtually all late 80's/early 90's arcade machines, a couple of consoles, and a couple of computers. Although it'd take a while, but it should be worth it.

Tangent · Post by **Tangent** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 2:38 pm

So, what parts of the Z80 need to be rewritten? A lot of it already looks like it's in assembly, but I can't tell if it's in SH4 or not. It doesn't looks like it from what i've heard, but yeah.