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June 16th, 2011, 20:57 Posted By: wraggster
Developers working on titles for Wii U are reportedly using development kits which have been underclocked, meaning that the graphics they produce are almost indistinguishable from a PS3 or 360.
A report from consulting firm Hit Detection has suggested that Nintendo chose to show tech demos at it's E3 reveal "due to titles not looking much better than what is currently available on Xbox 360 and the PS3, Nintendo decided late in the game to not show those titles."
"Developers have underclocked development kits, and worked hard to deliver titles running on that hardware to demonstrate live at E3," reads the report.
"THQ stated that Darksiders II was running on development hardware and could have been shown. Also, Epic vice president Mark Rein tweeted during E3 that Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines was being made for Wii U with Unreal Engine 3, showing that Epic is bringing its tech to Wii U."
However, third party developers have told GI that the Wii U is expected to exceed current consoles. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that visual quality should be "at least" that of the 360.
"It should be even superior for some of the games. We don't know everything, so we have a few things Nintendo is telling us that will have such and such powers."
Hit Detection was founded by influential games journalist N'Gai Croal.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-underclocked
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June 16th, 2011, 20:51 Posted By: wraggster
It may not yet have a release date, but the biggest third-party games publishers are preparing to hit the ground running when Nintendo releases the Wii U next year.
Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Sega are all backing the system day and date without hesitation, with only Take-Two remaining cautious of the first new home console to hit the market since 2006.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told GamesIndustry.biz that the publisher is pledging new intellectual property for the system and is keen to see early adopter feedback on the new hardware.
"We will announce one game that we want to launch day one that is a new type of game, which should be interesting. It is still very important, just because you can test a market and also see through the eyes of the first consumers.
Getting in early is partly about being a successful transition company and figuring out where the hardware is going to go
Frank Gibeau, EA Games
"They are the people that actually have the word of mouth factor. The trendsetters," he added.
For Electronic Arts it's a gamble to go big on the day of release, but Games label president Frank Gibeau is confident from previous form.
"It served us well on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3," he told GameIndustry.biz. "Getting in early is partly about being a successful transition company and figuring out where the hardware is going to go.
"With the Wii U it's important for us to get there on day one so we can get in and build as big an audience as possible. We've been doing this for 25 years and trying to pick platforms and more often than not we get it right. I hope we have this one right. That's the gamble," he admitted.
Although some third parties were stung by dedicating separate resources to the Nintendo Wii and seeing poor return on investment, Sega West president Mike Hayes said his company was confident a long-tail approach would pay off even if day one was daunting prospect.
"At some point we were the biggest, certainly top three third-party publisher on Wii, so for us it was a great platform... we've got absolutely no qualms about [Wii U].
The recent launch of the 3DS highlighted how sluggish sales can be for Nintendo without one of its hit franchises such as Mario or Zelda, but again, Hayes is willing to play the long game.
"I just think we're all a bit premature in being a bit glass half full on 3DS. Everyone was clamouring 'oh please bring it out in March, you must bring it out' and then it's like you get to June and it's all 'sales aren't very good...' Well, they haven't got the software yet."
Karl Slatoff, chief operating officer at Red Dead Redemption publisher Take-Two was more cautious, suggesting his creative teams need time to assess the hardware before committing to launch.
"For us it's really about understanding what the hardware capabilities are and understand how it's going to fit into what our goals are from a franchise creation perspective," he told GamesIndustry.biz. "Really understanding what that platform can deliver and developing for that platform.
"So that's our philosophy, not just with the new Nintendo console but across the board. Whether we're looking at the 3DS or the PlayStation Vita or any of the new formats that are coming out. We can't look at them all the same way. We're not just going to port over."
Porting games from established Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 franchises is an opportunity now that Nintendo's Wii U is said to have comparable technology, and will help keep costs lower than an entirely higher spec console.
"It doesn't increase [costs] very much because the advantage is in being close to the other machines, you can do the game for all the formats at the same time," offered Guillemot.
But he also made it clear that Ubisoft is evaluating the Wii U for "both new content and a third location" for existing franchises.
Although the costs of bringing existing titles over to the Wii U won't be high, Hayes said Sega is willing to spend more money on implementing the unique tablet controller, helping to distinguish the Aliens: Colonial Marines experience on Wii U from the same game on Sony or Microsoft hardware.
"That controller is absolutely brilliant and we have to think of innovative ways to use it. We're doing high definition Sonics, we're doing obviously Aliens: Colonial Marines, so you can bring them across, and that's relatively low cost, which is good news.
"Then you spend your money on how do you use that controller effectively to make it unique and differentiate it."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ntage-on-wii-u
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June 16th, 2011, 20:39 Posted By: wraggster
Games axed at the eleventh hour due to unimpressive performance, paper claims
Nintendo axed a number Wii U demos at E3 due to concerns that they would fail to impress, a new report suggests.
Games consultancy group Hit Detection claims in a white paper that external developers had created Wii U game demos with “underclocked development kits” for this year’s E3.
These developers “worked hard to deliver titles running on that hardware to demonstrate live at E3”, the paper read.
“However, due to titles not looking much better than what is currently available on Xbox 360 and the PS3, Nintendo decided late in the game to not show those titles and focus instead on tech demos.”
Hit Detection’s white paper, which Develop has obtained a copy of, is the first documentation of Nintendo’s alleged decision to pull third-party games from the E3 show floor.
Games built with the Unreal Engine, such as the next Batman and Darksiders titles, were initially scheduled for presentation at E3.
“THQ said Darksiders 2 was running on development hardware and could have been shown”, Hit Detection claimed.
The full technological potential of Nintendo’s next-generation system is a matter of debate.
Several sources speaking anonymously to Develop say the hardware specifics are yet to be finalised.
Unreal Engine and CryEngine 3 are said to be supported on the console, primarily due to the Wii U allowing for programmable shaders.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...-U-demos-at-E3
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June 16th, 2011, 00:56 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has revealed his vision for Wii U online gaming.
The Japanese company aims to create a "more flexible system". It wants to allow each publisher the freedom to do what it wishes with its games in an online space.
"Nintendo's past console business has often included this idea of a set and fixed online structure," Iwata told investors at E3.
"So, I think that, going forward, the question is really to what degree Nintendo can create a more flexible system for its consoles.
"And, what we found at this point is that, as we discuss the online structure with different publishers, the things that the different publishers want to do are in fact seemingly rather different.
"Our current direction is how we can take the desires of the third parties and create a system that's flexible enough to enable them to do the types of things that they might want to do."
Nintendo pledged to work with game makers to enable voice chat (VoIP).
"But, what we're not going to do is to consider as prerequisite conditions that every game includes features like that because obviously there are some developers who may not want to do that."
Iwata also said Nintendo will "consider" how Wii U will work with social networking services, such as Facebook.
"We've come to an era where it's important to consider how the social graph of the social networking services can work in conjunction with something like a video game platform."
Nintendo isn't ready to offer concrete details on its Wii U online plan, but believes it will impress gamers in the end.
"Once you hear what we'll have to say, you'll feel that Nintendo has a policy of adapting itself to changes in the network environment in a flexible fashion rather than the one of sticking to a rigid mechanism, or perhaps you'll notice that we have found ways to take advantage of these types of features like VoIP and social networking, where our systems have been seen as being weak in the past."
Nintendo told Eurogamer at E3 that Wii U will offer a significantly improved online experience to that of its predecessor.
"The friend code system has also been refined. It still exists but in the same way that you'd need to pair up with friends on PSN or Xbox live. Now it's much closer to that kind of online gaming experience than what it was before," marketing manager Rob Lowe outlined.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...line-direction
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June 16th, 2011, 00:53 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo's "ideal situation" is that the 2012 launch of Wii U will convince those who want to buy a HD video game console now to wait for it.
"The ideal scenario for Nintendo would be that if people are considering purchasing another HD video game console, then knowing that they will have opportunity to purchase Wii U when it is released next year, they perhaps might delay their purchase of a console," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told investors in a new question and answer session.
The Wii U marks Nintendo's first foray into high definition home console gaming. Microsoft of course went first in 2005 with the Xbox 360. Sony followed a year later with the PlayStation 3.
Iwata was responding to concern that the Wii U may hurt Wii sales. Nintendo's hope is that by targeting "late adopters", the Wii can enjoy a healthy end to its life.
"For those people who are considering their holiday season purchases, it becomes our job to convey to them that the Wii has great entertainment value and it will make their family and friends happy during the holiday season while they are at home.
"If those individuals are looking to make a purchase during the holidays this year, then the Wii U system, which won't be out in time for the holidays, will not be an option for them to choose from. Conversely, because the majority of the people who will purchase the Wii U system initially already own the Wii system, I don't think that the information about the Wii U system launch taking place next year will affect the sales of the Wii system."
Wii U was unveiled last week in LA. Its wireless controller features a touch-screen that can be used in unique ways.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...wait-for-wii-u
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June 16th, 2011, 00:51 Posted By: wraggster
Do you remember that crazy Super Mario Bros. 3 fan remake we posted about late last year? Well, creator SKJmin has finished a sizeable update to his ambitious remake, one you'll be able to download on June 16. If you plan on doing so, we'd suggest making sure you actually own New Super Mario Bros. DS -- you know, for legal reasons.
The update adds enhanced graphics to each level, including new block sets and backgrounds, plus 84 bonus rooms, a new final castle and over 30 different cameos. For now, we must be content with 14 minutes of footage, which we've gone and tucked just past the break.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/15/ne...-gets-updated/
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June 16th, 2011, 00:32 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo has never shown interest in free-to-play games in the past, likely due to their requirement of support from sophisticated online infrastructure. And ... that is unlikely to change. Speaking to AllThingsD, Satoru Iwata said flatly that "Nintendo is not interested" in freemium games, alluding to the same discussion of maintaining the "value" of games that he mentioned at GDC.
"I'm not interested in offering software for free of charge," he said. "That's because I myself am one of the game developers, who in the future wants to make efforts so the value of the software will be appreciated by the consumers." Although freemium games can make money through ads and microtransactions, Iwata expressed concerns about "[destroying] the value of game software."
So, uh, don't expect that Wii U version of Ghost Recon Online to be free-to-play, even though the PC version is.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/15/iw...-free-to-play/
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June 16th, 2011, 00:25 Posted By: wraggster
As you may have noticed, we have a bit of a soft spot for Nintendo's other 3D device, the Virtual Boy -- despite its many, many flaws. So, it seems, does DIYer Tighe Lory, who liked the oddball console so much that he built an full-size arcade cabinet for it. As you can see above, that comes complete with some custom joysticks that replace the Virtual Boy's controller, along with a sliding mechanism that lets you adjust the Virtual Boy itself to just the right height instead of forcing you to hunch over a table. It even has some buttons on each side specifically for Galactic Pinball, and some other authentic arcade touches like a Nintendo serial plate and a backlit marquee. Head on past the break for Tighe's grand tour on video.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/15/d...dache-to-play/
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June 16th, 2011, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo has made the decision to omit DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities from the Wii U to save on manufacturing costs.
The information came from a Q&A session for investors.
"We feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray," explained Satoru Iwata, Nintendo president, "in such that it didn't warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies."
The report also addressed the disappointing sales of the handheld 3DS, with Iwata admitting they "have not met our expectations."
"What we have analysed up to this point is that the initial move by the early adopters has not translated into broader movement by the broader market in the ways that we had expected."
He was quick to reassure investors that this is expected change as new services become available. "I think that we'll be able to show you that as Nintendo eShop and 3D video services come online, and a number of key software titles become available, we'll be able to regain momentum for this hardware."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-ray-for-wii-u
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June 16th, 2011, 00:00 Posted By: wraggster
Internal teams at Activision are already working with the Wii U, according to publishing boss Eric Hirshberg - although the company is still yet to announce any specific titles.
Speaking to US trade site IndustryGamers, Hirshberg spoke about Wii U's increased relevance to his company's catalogue.
"I think Nintendo's an incredible company and it looks like this is a platform that's going to be even more relevant to the kinds of games we make," said Hirshberg.
When asked whether Activision studios were already working on ideas for the system Hirshberg responded: "Absolutely, yeah."
Hirshberg refused to announce any specific titles though and would not be pressed on the possibility of a Call Of Duty game on the Wii U, even though versions of previous titles have appeared on the original Wii.
"There are some first person shooters out there that are using motion control and Kinect and we're not and that's a conscious choice. Call of Duty runs at 60 fps. It's an incredibly precise game. It's an incredibly smooth game. We still think the DualShock controller is the best way to deliver that game," he said.
"But there are other games where new innovations make all the sense in the world. I was very excited about some of the things that I saw in the Wii U because I thought it was an innovative take on the next gen controller and the next gen console. I was really excited to see Nintendo taking their console into something that I think is going to be friendlier to core games."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-wii-u-support
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June 15th, 2011, 02:18 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.emucr.com/2011/06/project64k-v028.html
Project64k v0.28 is released. Project64k is a version of the Project64 emulator that supports multiplayer games using the Kaillera network.
Project64k v0.28 Changelog:
-Fixed full screen de-sync glitch (You must first close cheat codes window then full screen)
-Full screen shortcut is now F8
-Stop emulation short cut is now F9
Download and Give Feedback Via Comments
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June 15th, 2011, 01:32 Posted By: wraggster
We got plenty of face time with the Wii U's fancy controller at E3 but, apart from some stock press photos, we haven't seen much of the actual console. That problem has been rectified thanks to Inside Games, which has posted a few up close and personal shots of the device. Overall, the Wii U bears a strong resemblance to its predecessor, albeit some extra ventilation grills, an HDMI port and more curves.
Speaking of curves, vertical orientation doesn't look viable, though we suspect the small tabs on the side of the console may be designed to fit into a stand. You can spot the tabs in the photo after the break, and find even more pics over at Inside Games.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/14/pl...rdware-photos/
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June 15th, 2011, 00:54 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo went on a domain shopping spree recently, grabbing a few domain names related to Wii games (like rhythmheavenwii.com and kirbywii.com) as well as a lot of domain names related to Wii U, referencing things like New Super Mario Bros. Mii and several unannounced games and items like "Wii Zapper U," "Wii Fit U," "Wii Party U," Wii U Balance Board, and even "Wii Music U," most with variations like "Wii U Music." All redirect to nintendo.com at the moment. Check the full list after the break, as reported by Nintendo World Report.
While we'd love to say that we had an early look at, like, the entire software and peripheral lineup for next year's console, this looks a lot more like Nintendo just registered everything it could think of, just in case. The duplicate registrations for name variants support this theory. Take that, thwarted domain squatters!
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/14/ni...-domain-names/
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June 15th, 2011, 00:51 Posted By: wraggster
Last week's Wii U announcement might not have won over every gamer out there, but it seems Nintendo has done a good job of getting its message across to developers and publishers.
Following Itagaki's endorsement reported earlier today, Activision Publishing chief Eric Hirshberg is the latest industry figure to express his enthusiasm for the new system.
"It looks like this is a platform that's going to be even more relevant to the kinds of games we make," Hirshberg told IndustryGamers.
"They're committing to HD, greater processing power, digital infrastructure, connected universe at the back end... Those are all the things we need to make a state of the art experience for a lot of games.
"So we were thrilled to hear their plans and I think that anyone that bets against Nintendo does so at their peril. They're a pretty great company."
Hirshberg added that Activision developers were already tinkering around with ideas for the system, though he wouldn't confirm any concrete plans.
"I was very excited about some of the things that I saw in the Wii U because I thought it was an innovative take on the next gen controller and the next gen console. I was really excited to see Nintendo taking their console into something that I think is going to be friendlier to core games."
Activision's key rivals have also shown signs that they're willing to take Wii U seriously as a core gaming machine.
EA boss John Ricitiello climbed on stage during Nintendo's E3 presser to pledge his support; Ubisoft got its own third party E3 round-table to talk up Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon Online and new FPS IP Killer Freaks From Outer Space; while THQ has confirmed plans to bring Darksiders 2 to the platform next year.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...to-core-gamers
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June 15th, 2011, 00:40 Posted By: wraggster
Slowly, but surely, we're starting to piece together what's going on inside that mysterious white box known as the Wii U. IBM was a little coy about the multi-core CPU it was providing, but did tantalize us by mentioning the name "Watson" in describing some of its underlying tech. Now details about the custom Radeon GPU are starting to surface and, while certainly capable, it's not exactly cutting edge. At its heart is a chip similar to the R770 found in AMD's last-gen cards like the 4890 and, before you dismiss it, remember the PS3 and Xbox 360 are still capable of pumping out impressive visuals while packing five-year-old silicon (The 360 is essentially running a souped up ATI X1900). The custom core also supports Direct X 10.1 (Microsoft runs out of steam with Direct X 9) and Eyefinity-like multi-display tech for up to four SD video streams -- though it'll be up to Nintendo and developers to put that to good use. In case you're still not convinced of the Wii U's graphical prowess, Crytek has said its advanced CryEngine is "pretty much" up and running on Nintendo's upcoming console -- and, if it's good enough for Crysis, it should be good enough for you.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/14/w...ul-than-ps3-a/
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June 15th, 2011, 00:38 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo took some inspiration from the TV remote for its Wii controller, and it apparently thinks its new Wii U controller could well be the "TV remote of the future." That's just one tidbit from All Things D's sitdown with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who also talked more broadly about the Wii U's new role in the living room. As evidenced by E3, that will include catering to more hardcore gamers than the Wii did, but Iwata says the Wii U is also an effort to take some of the couch time back from folks playing games on tablets, smartphones or laptops. To that end, Iwata says that Nintendo's mission is to "shorten the distance between people and gaming" and remove some of the barriers involved with console gaming, further adding that it's also trying to "reach out to the people who are not interested in video games." Though it's not saying much about it, Nintendo's no doubt hoping to win back a few investors as well. As you may have noticed, the company's stock slipped significantly following its E3 announcement and, while it's bounced back a bit since, it's still well off its Wii-fueled heights of recent years.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/14/n...e-living-room/
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June 15th, 2011, 00:34 Posted By: wraggster
The Nintendo Wii sold 236,000 units in May, according to a report released by Wedbush Securities - a 20 per cent decline year-on-year.
The report arrives in the wake of NPD figures confirming that the Xbox 360 has maintained its supremacy in the US market after selling 270,000 consoles.
The PlayStation 3 enjoyed a 14 per cent year-on-year increase, but is still lagging behind its rivals with unit sales of 175,000.
The 3DS also had a difficult month, with hardware sales falling by 50 per cent from its second month total, and "well below" Wedbush Securities' 180,000 unit estimate.
Software sales for the handheld reflected the current downward trend for physical retail with a tie ratio of just 2:1, which the report called "disappointing" and, "surely an all-time low for a new hardware launch."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...percent-in-may
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June 14th, 2011, 02:57 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://dsx86.patrickaalto.com/DSblog.html
For the past week I have been working on the new audio system for DS2x86. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, the code was mostly done by last Sunday, but the problem was that it sounded very bad and also seemed to cause the games to hang much more frequently than with the old audio code. The current status is that the new code is in use, and works at least as well (if not better) in the games that had audio also with the old code. The new code also has ADPCM audio supported, and it works fine in Warcraft, when the original code either failed to initialize or caused the game to crash very often.
I have been using four different games to test the new audio code, as each of these games use somewhat different SoundBlaster audio features:
Supaplex uses the plain simple DMA transfers, playing one digitized sample at a time. The samples have varying sample rates.
Doom uses auto-initialize DMA method, with a 1024-sample buffer but with an IRQ request after every 128 samples. The playing rate is 11kHz.
Warcraft uses auto-initialize DMA with 2048-sample buffer and IRQ request every 1024 samples, with 11kHz sample rate.
Duke Nukem 2 uses various ADPCM sample formats with simple DMA transfers, and with varying sample rates.
I am using 22050Hz audio playing rate in DS2x86. In the original audio code I had initialized the DSTwo audio transfers to 3*128 samples per transfer (with the ds2io_initb() call), as that was the closest I could get to be able to send a new audio buffer within my 60Hz main emulation timer handler. That number was derived from the fact that I would need to send 367.5 (= 22050/60) new samples during each 60Hz timer interval, and the need of the transfer size to be divisible by 128. Using the 60Hz timer for this also meant that I could not emulate an SB IRQ faster than at 60Hz (which again corresponds to 367.5 samples at 22050Hz). For example Doom wanted to get an SB IRQ after every 128 samples have been played. As Doom played the audio at 11kHz (which is very close to half the 22050Hz playing rate I use), I should have generated an SB IRQ after every 256 output samples, or at 85Hz (= 11000/128). To make the audio in Doom work, I had coded a special hack into my audio code where I slowed down the sample rate if a game wants SB IRQs faster than my code could provide them. Obviously this was not a proper solution, so in my new audio code I wanted to handle this situation better.
The basic idea of my new audio code is that the emulation interrupt runs at 4*60Hz (240Hz) and calls the screen and keyboard handling only during every fouth interrupt. The audio emulation is handled at 240Hz, which should be fast enough for any SB IRQ frequency a game would need. By last Sunday I had implemented this new audio code, using 128 samples per transfer in ds2io_initb(), with a separate 1024-sample ring buffer that is filled in the 240Hz interrupt. Since 22050/240 = 91.875, I had designed the ring buffer filling algorithm so that it tried to fill the buffer with approximately 96 samples in each 240Hz interrupt, with the actual amount adjusted by the number of DSTwo IO/ layer audio buffers in use. Since the DSTwo I/O layer has 4 audio buffers, I calculated the needed new samples as 128-ds2_checkAudiobuff()*32. And in every interrupt where the ring buffer had >=128 samples, I sent the buffer to the DSTwo I/O layer.
I thought this code was much better than the original one, however there were several problems that took me pretty much the whole of last week to fix:
Doom had a weird looping/stuttering problem, where parts of the audio kept repeating.
The audio had a horrible constant warble, regardless of what audio was playing.
All games (playing audio) kept hanging within a minute or two of playing them.
I first debugged the behaviour in Doom, as that was one of the main problematic games I tried to fix with the new code. At last I found that the problem was in how the timer and SB IRQs interract in the Doom code. For some peculiar reason, Doom does not fill the 1024-sample DMA buffer during the SB IRQ, but instead in the timer IRQ. And with my new 240Hz maximum SB IRQ frequency, when the DSTwo audio buffers were empty, Doom could get two SB IRQs with no timer IRQ in between, and thus it skipped one 128-sample block in the DMA buffer, which in turn caused that block to play some old data that was in the buffer. I fixed this problem by fine-tuning the amount by which I fill the ring buffer, and never continuing to fill it after it was time to send the SB IRQ to the emulated game.
The second problem with the warbling sound seemed to be simply caused by the 128-sample transfer size. The DSTwo I/O layer does not seem to work very well with anything less than 512-sample transfer sizes. I tested all sizes between 128 and 512, and the 512-sample transfer size sounds best by a wide margin. It would be better to use smaller transfer sizes, as the larger the transfer size the bigger the delay between the game initializing audio playing and the time when the audio is actually heard. With the 512-sample buffer the delay is 23ms, which should still be small enough not to be noticeable.
The third problem was actually mostly fixed by fixing the second problem, using larger transfer sizes. I noticed that I got rid of the hangs by transferring the audio buffer in the same every fourth interrupt as where I handle the screen and keyboard stuff. It seems that sending the audio buffers too fast can hang the DSTwo I/O layer. I actually experienced an interesting hang once in Doom, where the screens stopped updating but the audio still continued, and based on the audio (gunshots and monster roars) the game continued fine in the background even when both the screens were completely frozen!
After I got those three problems fixed, I continued by adding the ADPCM sample routines for Duke Nukem 2. Those have now also been implemented, but for some still unclear reason Duke Nukem 2 seems to hang quite often. At times only the audio hangs and the game continues forward, at other times the whole system hangs. I have debugged the situation where the audio stops working, and in that situation the DSTwo I/O layer never releases the audio transfer buffer, and thus DS2x86 is unable to send the next transfer block. So, the problem is again somewhere in the DSTwo I/O layer, or more likely in some interaction between my emulation interrupt and the DSTwo I/O layer. It is rather frustrating to always fight with the DSTWo I/O layer to get rid of weird problems, but I suspect that is the price to pay for trying to bypass some limitations in the I/O layer.
Anyways, I got bored with debugging Duke Nukem 2, as Supaplex, Doom and Warcraft all now play nearly perfect SB digital audio and work fine without crashing for at least 15 minutes (that's the longest I have tested them). So, I started porting the AdLib audio code from DSx86 to DS2x86. The first step is to simply convert the assembler code from ARM to MIPS, and that is what I am currently doing. The bigger step is then to actually change the playing scheme. In DSx86 I could simply play each of the 9 AdLib channels using different NDS hardware audio channels, but in DS2x86 I need to mix all of these channels to the same output buffer that the SB digitized audio emulation uses. This might require some further changes to the AdLib emulation code, but I don't know for sure yet as I am now just converting the code. There is a tiny chance that the next version of DS2x86 might have AdLib audio, but it is more likely that the code does not work properly yet at that time.
Thanks again for your interest in DSx86 and DS2x86! The GBATemp Homebrew Bounty 2011 is currently in the voting phase, so I don't know yet whether DSx86 or DS2x86 will win anything. I am looking forward to seeing some results for that competition!
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June 14th, 2011, 02:44 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.nintendomax.com/viewtopic...e01e1ee39e3a54
Alekmaul offers version 1.3 and 1.4 of " A5200DS "emulator for the Atari 5200 for Nintendo DS / DSi.
V1.4: 13/06/2011
* Add automatic detection chip for 16k Roma (Goal You Can Change It)
* Button L to display / hide FPS
* Add R & L to change Rom
* Really fix flickering bp alphalerp is back & SCREEN IS smoother
* Better sound (not so much ...)
V1.3: 12/06/2011
* Fix With iEvo bp (it hangs menu)
V1.2: 11/06/2011
* Fix pb with B button (Now You Can Use bombs in HERO)
* Remove argc / argv management (test for Another World With history ievo)
* Fix flickering bp (remove alphalerp for now)
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June 14th, 2011, 02:42 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.nintendomax.com/viewtopic...e01e1ee39e3a54
Popolon offers version 0.90 of " msxDS "excellent emulator MSX/MSX2/MSX2 + for the Nintendo DS.
The enhancements include:
Display engine optimization. (Thanks for the suggestion pixador for sprites)
Improved emulation MSX1 VDP registers.
Some optimizations in emulation of Z80 and sound functions.
Added emulation of the Z80 R register.
Update libnds (v1.5.0). MsxDS is now compatible with mode CycloDS iEvo CIO.
New memory management ITCM to put the most useful routines depending on the mode selected the MSX.
Correction color values of Screen mode 8.
Fixed problem with color 0.
Redefinition of L and R triggers to Angma Jida - Devil Zone (Uttum Soft). (ROM version)
Fixed a bug in displaying error messages.
Update file Carts.crc.
Fixed a problem detecting the CSC for games in ROM.
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