New PSP Amiga emualtor: PSP UAE4ALL r1

[Hungry Horace]

Finally there seems to be some competition appearing for the PSP Amiga emulation stakes.

A version of UAE4ALL has appeared, and the initial outlook is good (if somewhat minimal) although i will reserve judgement myself, as UAE4ALL is always going to struggle with the functionality that E-UAE offers sadly, but perhaps the speed might finally silence some of the previous doubters.

this comes from the readme:


PSP UAE4ALL r1 by TTYman, 16/01/2008
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Install directions:
- Copy in /PSP/GAME (user mode build) or /PSP/GAME150 (firmware 1.5 compatibility for 3.xx OE release);



There are two different builds in archive:
1) 1.50 Kernel mode (psp_uae4all_r1);
2) 2.00 User mode (psp_uae4all_r1-usermode);
Use psp_uae4all_r1 as installation base, then replace EBOOT.PBP if you have slim psp or would use user mode build;
- Copy kickstart file named kick.rom of version 1.3 in same folder;
- Copy desidered disks images as .adf or .adf.gz (.adz) compressed format into disks folder, for convenience;


Specific Features:
- Based on latest Chui’s Dreamcast UAE4ALL and notaz’s uae4all gp2x v0.7.2a optimized blitter routines;
- Maximum speedup hacks using single precision math hardware support;
- full screen hardware scaled support;
- Fixed Overclock to 333 MHz while emulating, 222 MHz in menu;
- Only 546KB kernel build version (1.7MB user mode build).
Same features as Dreamcast version:
- Frameskip between 0-1 without sound and 1-2 with sound.
- Fast FAME Motorola 68000 C core by Fox68k.
- Autoframeskip for real speed.
- Mouse support.
- Joystick support.
- Fast sound with 8 buffers synchronized.
- Filemanager with subdirectories access.
- Complete menu with load, throttle, frameskip, reset… options
- Save disks changes into Virtual memory files (testing).
- Superthrottle mode for speed up intros and loading time.
- ADZ support (ADF floppy image gzip compressed)
- 2 floopy drives emulated.


How work special features:
- SuperThrottle
Hold right trigger first and left trigger second for automatic sound off and frameskip to 10 for speed up. This try to avoid large time for intros and loading time.
- ADZ support
You can compress your ADF floppy images with GZIP compression utility in order to save CD space. GZIP is free and multiplatform: Windows, GNU/Linux, MacOS … better use short filenames to read correctly disks numbers.
- Save disks changes to VM
UAE4ALL can save to VM disk sectors changed using ZIP compression. For games as Dune2, now you can save your campaigns and continue at future. A new menu option called “Save Disks” has added for enable or disable this feature.
- 2 floppy drives emulted
You can choose on filemanager a new disk for DF0 with Cross(X) button and a new disk for DF1 with Square([]) button. Also, you can eject DF1 with ‘Eject DF1′ option or pressing Triangle button while in menu.
- Throttle
Amiga is a hard machine to emulate. So, a lot of games support drawing shortcuts and cpu timeslice ampler. These methods speed up emulation and improve playbility under PSP.
- Autoframeskip
Unfortunately, UAE4ALL needs frameskipping for real time emulation. Active auto-frameskip menu option for real speed.
If you want sound, it’s a very important thing, the sound needs to be synchronous
- Mouse
Some on loading game demo requires specific mouse buttons combo, so try both buttons and movements while in such menu’s or demo.


Specific Controls:
- Button SELECT: Main Menu.
- Button START: not used.
- Button HOME: not used (exit, as normal, in user mode build).
- Buttons L+R: Deactivate SuperThrottle mode.
- Buttons L+R while keep pressing: Activate SuperThrottle mode (10x emulation velocity).
- Button Cross(X): used to confirm menu options, to select 1st disk, DF0, in load menu and as 1st mouse button.
- Button Circle(O): used as 2nd mouse button, as secondary joystick button and as go back in menus.
- Button Square([]): used to open load disks menu while in main menu, used to select 2nd disk, DF1, in load disks menu.
- Button Triangle(/\): used to eject DF1 and as primary joystick button.
- Button L: in Main menu Run emulation, in load menu go top of list.
- Button R: in Main menu Reset and Run emulation, in load menu go to bottom of list.
- Directional Buttons: emulate mouse movements.
- Analog stick: emulate joystick movements.
Known Problems:
- Keyboard emulation unimplemented.

PSP UAE4ALL r1 zipped archive (1.558.461 bytes)
PSP UAE4ALL r1 zipped archive MD5 checksum file


Here is UAE4ALL r1 source code:
PSP UAE4ALL r1 source zipped archive (1.100.135 bytes)
PSP UAE4ALL r1 source zipped archive MD5 checksum file



TTYman
http://ttyman.free.fr


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Interest to hear people's comments, but no PSP vs. GP2X debates please.

[Ironclaw]

OMG, finally I can play Amiga games on my PSP . I didn't like that PSPUAE (no offense), all games was jerky, no perfect sound emulation ANYWHERE in any game I tried, even if the game only had a few colors on the screen and nothing moved.

Well, here's PSP UAE4ALL, I have tried it and the Amiga games runs in near perfect speed (depending on the settings and what you prefer)!!..

All games I've tried runs in perfect, smooth 50fps if you just change a setting which reduces the sound emulation a bit (but still very good sound).

You can have perfect sound emulation if using the skip framerate thingy, which is no big deal, runs very nicely anyway. I for one prefer 100% sound emulation infront of 50fps smooth gameplay.

I tell ya, this Amiga emulator is wonderful! .

Seems like some people complain about lots of games doesn't work, games running like crap, the emulator won't fire up any game at all. Well, I've posted in the link the answers to their problems (worked for me).

http://www.psp-hacks.com/2008/01/16/...comment-449681

[DamienD]

@Ironclaw: your thread / post has been merged with this earlier one

[Ironclaw]

Looked for an earlier one, was amazed to not see one, as when PSPUAE updates I always see one ... ok, thx....

[Hungry Horace]

err. IC - this emulator is FAR from perfect

i can get nothing at full speed, it is just that this emulator "holds" 50fps better when using auto frameskip. It also hides itself away from giving true looks at its speed by not having an on-screen FPS display.

the sound is excellent, but the speed is not much above PSPUAE. Try some games like NZS or SWOS out and you will see that they are still unplayable.

the main reason for incompatibilty issues its the FAME/C core, which isnt very good for amiga emulation, becuase it is simply not accurate enough. It has been reported (and i've seen it myself) that a lot of games even crash the PSP completely. Anyway, i've discussed this emulator in great depth on pspuae.com

http://pspuae.condor.serverpro3.com/...5.html#msg4915

it's a good start, but pretty unusable if you ask me with it not even having keyboard inputting. It will also never support WHDLoad whilst it remains an a500 only emulator. I hope it is developed further, as it really needs some work.

[Ironclaw]

err. IC - this emulator is FAR from perfect

I never said this emulator was perfect (or did I? ). I only think it's much faster than PSPUAE... I can finally play the games in decent speed... full fps if I want to, at the cost of some minor sound quality stuff... but best of all, near perfect (or perfect) sound emulation .

the sound is excellent, but the speed is not much above PSPUAE. Try some games like NZS or SWOS out and you will see that they are still unplayable.

Imo, the speed is faaar better than PSPUAE, always stuttering sound and stuff no matter what settings... not anymore! .

it's a good start, but pretty unusable if you ask me with it not even having keyboard inputting.

Haha, I can't see how this would be unusable, you can finally PLAY lots of games without going nuts about the lame fps and no good sound emulation.

I've have only been using this emulator since I downloaded it 2 hours ago, and already it kicks ass . I don't care what anyone says, as long as I can play alot of A500 games with good speed and near perfect sound emulation.


Ofc, compability-wise, PSPUAE is far superior.... but I don't care much about that..... the games are finally playable.... (to me that is).

[Hungry Horace]

Sorry IC, but i genuinely beleive you are showing a double standard here. Many games have -already- been "playable" with PSPUAE, but it hasnt been perfect, and now a few FPS faster at the massive expense of functionality, and you are singing praises.


I have not denied this UAE4ALL is faster, but it is not a great deal faster. (if you ignore the sound for a moment) - The is still the requirement of frameskip on EVERY game, and yes you used the phrase "full speed" - which it is not. (else why would you need skip?) - the moment you use "throttle" to get your speed (an option btw, that is featured already in PSPUAE called "CPU Chipset Ratio" - although many people seem to chose not to use it) - you find the sound begins to pitch down, and you will find other side effects such as jittering when the screen becomes busy - i would have thought someone such as yourself would not be satisfied with this, since you were very quick to make such criticism of PSPUAE previously.



For me, there are plenty of reasons why its unplayable, no joystick / mouse mapping/changes, and no keyboard mapping. These are a -must- for portable emulation, where input options are at a minimum. At the moment, you cant even chose to use the joystick on the d-pad rather than the analogue stick.


as i say, i applaud the efforts of this emulator, and really want to see it developed further, i just dont like a double-standard of this being "brilliant" becuase it is marginally faster, when there are a lot of other issues with it that PSPUAE has already resolved.