VectrexWii v0.2

June 19th, 2011, 23:57 Posted By: wraggster

News via http://www.emucr.com/2011/06/vectrexwii-v02.html


VectrexWii v0.2 is released. VectrexWii is a Vectrex emulator for the Nintendo Wii ported from Vecx by Aruskano.



It is not much better than the first one... the changelist is something like this:
-Improved main menu (more on this at the bottom).
-ROMs are not appended anymore. The ROM that is still there is Minestorm which was built in the original Vectrex and is still here at the "Vectrex". ;D
-ROMs are sought in both SD and USB. The emulator will seek a folder named "vec" (I have plans to make this configurable but it is currently hardcoded) at the root of both devices and will display any file with the ".vec" (case insensitive) extension as an option to load.
-You are able to return to the main menu once the emulation has started so you can load another ROM without returning to the homebrew channel.
-Gamecube controller support because it has a stick... I don´t have any wiimote peripheral at the moment and that´s why I did not bother to write that (kinda selfish I know hahaha), I will wait to have them to do the proper tests (also I´d like to write the button mapping code first, which involves more user interface work ).

The main menu works as follows: There are 4 options: The first one starts the emulation. The second one lets you choose your "cartridge" which can be your SD or USB (or NA if you want to play the built in ROM). The third option lets you set your joystick, which can be a Wii or GC (the program only cares about channel/port 1 respectively) and will be the controller that will be listened to during the emulation (both are able to return to the main menu by pressing HOME/START respectively). Lastly, you can return to the homebrew channel.

Any button will trigger the selected option except for the PADs, HOME and START. If you have ROMs in both USB and SD "Cartridge" will scroll to the first option when the last one is reached and you press a button again. HOME and START will automatically put the cursor at the "Exit" option, if it is already there the program will quit. You move the cursor by pressing UP/DOWN. You browse through the ROMs (whose names are shown at the bottom of the screen) in the current "Cartridge" with LEFT/RIGHT (Wiimote held horizontally).

I guess that´s all I can say about this not so wonderful update. There´s more to come. Overlays make the games look much better (I did not think that little thing would cause such a visual improvement). That glow effect looks really nice but I need to write a suitable blur function so it doesn´t make the emulation run slow as it is doing right now. Lines could be drawn thicker if wanted [I just remembered I updloaded a version with weird vectors/points width (I made them look thicker in a ugly way)]. Button mapping and other controllers support will be added.

Overlays did not make it to this release because they did not fit exactly (they almost did... it should be a scaling problem) to the image and I have to find why, the other features need to be optimized and a user interface needs to be written (there will be an "in-game" menu that will pop up when you "pause" the game instead of directly sending you to the main menu).


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