Regen for Linux and Windows

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:51 pm

Mmmm, I sure hope not.

It's the second most accurate overall, and as accurate for some games yes. To be honest, it'll probably take a great amount of time and a LOT of hardware testing, and possibly a couple core rewrites to get Regen's core up to Kega's overall.

Don't you wish Snake was more open to giving information on this stuff?

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:26 pm

He's like a celebrity for hardcore gamers.

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:38 pm

Well, to me, Steve Snake is somebody who will always get my respect no matter what he does. He's earned that.

Not to mention he's one of, if not the best secret characters in NBA Jam... I wonder if that was intended. =P

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:43 pm

King Of Chaos wrote:Well, to me, Steve Snake is somebody who will always get my respect no matter what he does. He's earned that.

Simply by programming?

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 12:33 am

No, by everything he's doing for the Sega Genesis gaming/emulation community over the years.

Honestly, he deserves a honorable thanks in all Genesis/Megadrive emulators... because it wasn't for Kega and the past incarnations created by Steve Snake, Gens, Ages and all other emulators wouldn't be out there today.

If anything, he's a legend. Period.

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 3:03 am

What if he does something BAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaadddddd...

AgetianMereu · Post by **AgetianMereu** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:06 am

I just learned about this emulator the other day and I'd like to express my gratitude for such a remarkable effort! I've always been a fan of the Sega Megadrive/Genesis system, and the idea of a perfect (or well, perhaps I should say as close to perfect as possible) emulator always came to my mind, though personally I had no experience of writing emulators and no knowledge of the Megadrive hardware intrinsics in order to start coding one. While Kega Fusion is indeed an example of a wonderful, feature-packed emulator that's very close to the real hardware, it's still evident, at least based on my memory of playing games on the real hardware, that it is still not quite there (especially in the music department, some games don't sound in Kega Fusion quite as I remember them on the real Megadrive). And actually, seeing such projects as 'bsnes' (the SNES emulator targeting accuracy and compatibility) appear on the emulation scene - projects which disregarded high system requirements but were at the same time aimed at the highest compatibility and at using no game-specific hacks, I always wondered if a similar project would appear for my favorite Sega Megadrive, which, in my opinion, deserved such an emulator. I was happy to see that such a project has indeed appeared and is in active development! I was very happy to learn about Regen.

While perhaps it may be impossible to make a 100% hardware-exact emulator of the Sega Megadrive hardware (simply because hardware is hardware, and software is software, and certain rare and undocumented side effects may still be there to hinder the so-much-desired 100% correctness - correct me if I'm wrong here), it's always a commendable and a remarkable effort to try and write an emulator that would be as close to the real hardware as possible. And for that I'd like to say big thanks to AamirM - your effort is simply wonderful, and after having tried both the latest official release (v0.85) and the latest public beta (v0.93) I can say that your emulation core matures really fast and is already remarkably accurate, especially considering that your emulator hasn't been in development for as long as, for instance, Kega Fusion was. I'm sure that you'll be able to make the most accurate emulator out there, should you choose to stay on your path to perfection! I wish you the best of luck!

Having said that, I'd also like to say that I'll try to do my best to test games on Regen and provide reports for whatever may look or sound wrong to me (I know, VDP bugs should be excluded for now, although I may not realize that something I see is actually a VDP bug and not a 68k bug or something else, so sorry if I report a wrong thing I'm not supposed to report

) However, unfortunately I don't have a real system anymore, since the one and only I had died a long time ago (probably due to hardware aging or some internal failure... anyway, it doesn't even turn on anymore), so any reports I make will have to be based on my memory of how things used to work... Not sure if comparing to other emulators is actually a good idea (e.g. comparing to Kega), since even though Kega Fusion *is* the most accurate emulator to date, it still gets certain things wrong (e.g. some of the YM2612 part), so some of it may not be 100% true to the real hardware.

Good luck, and thank you very much again for the emulator, AamirM!

EDIT: By the way, a little question here if you don't mind: in Kega Fusion, the borders above and below the game screen are colored differently depending on what's on screen, while in Regen (as well as in Gens and all other emulators I've tried) they stay black. I did my best to try and remember how they were on the real hardware, and while I can't be totally sure about it, I'm quite sure that they did in fact change color... can anyone with the real working Genesis/MD out there confirm or debunk this? I'm just wondering about it, it's definitely not in any way critical for implementation (I didn't pay any attention to the borders when I was playing games on the real hardware as a kid, hehe

), but may be a minor detail that may be worth paying attention to in some far future (I have no idea if those borders that change color actually affect anything else in the Megadrive hardware).

- Agetian

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:26 am

Haha, my stupid little post followed by a gigantic, serious one. It made me laugh. Thus the "Haha."

I happen to have two Genesis model 2's at my disposal... when I'm not at college. One has a 99% disfunctional Reset button. Always fun to mash.

I find it hard to play the real thing when Kega Fusion and now Regen exist.

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:34 am

Yes, those borders do exist, because I see them on my LCD TV's. CRT's would "overscan" the image, effectively hiding the borders. Not sure why they do. The borders change color due to the background currently used in-game. They are really ugly to me on my LCD's. In Kega you can disable them (make them always black) by going to Config > Genesis > Disable Borders.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:00 am

SmartOne wrote:Yes, those borders do exist, because I see them on my LCD TV's. CRT's would "overscan" the image, effectively hiding the borders. Not sure why they do.

Because TV manufacturers were cheap and lazy.
Easier to put enough overscan that you don't have to center the image than pay someone to center each TV coming through.
And the amount of border on the image varies from set to set due to varying screen positioning and overscan area.

If you can get ahold of the service codes, you CAN adjust a CRT TV to display a PROPER image.
Computer monitors and very old TVs made the controls user-accessible.

gllt · Post by **gllt** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:06 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:
SmartOne wrote: If you can get ahold of the service codes, you CAN adjust a CRT TV to display a PROPER image.

I did it with matching APEX-es.
They were hugely stretched and floated around a lot, so I adjusted it with the service menu.
I got bored with silver APEX (as opposed to its twin, black APEX) and made "fake widescreen" once. (I squeezed the height down and made letterbox using my wii in zelda tp widescreen mode.) lol dumb

EDIT; I fail at posting QUOTE GIL HAMILTONnnnn

AamirM · Post by **AamirM** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:15 am

Hi,

AamirM, you're not telling me that Steve Snake's core is still better?!
Are you?

I can only think of the Spiderman game above really where there is something seriously wrong somewhere. Otherwise they both are pretty close. I still don't think his core is really 100% accurate. There are some programs out there which don't work on the real thing yet work on Kega. Game wise I accept his core to be a bit better in some places than mine.

Yes, it is (I'm not going to sugar coat it or deny it). Snake's YM2612 core is the most complete and most accurate overall out of them all right now, even though it does lack some of the things Nemesis has found as of late, and the fact that AamirM's core is catching up.

But hey, I can always get away with the "my core is just about 5 months old"

. But as you said, Steve has over a decade of experience with this chip (or the complete hardware for that matter).

Mmmm, I sure hope not. It's the second most accurate overall, and as accurate for some games yes. To be honest, it'll probably take a great amount of time and a LOT of hardware testing, and possibly a couple core rewrites to get Regen's core up to Kega's overall.

Not really

. Its already pretty much there. Most of the things in my core are 100% binary accurate (sin values for example) with the real thing. Other things are based on the docs (which turn out to be wrong sometimes).

Good luck, and thank you very much again for the emulator, AamirM!

Wow, thanks for that big note

. I'll show it to my friends who say I do this useless stuff. Heck, they say that I should write a PS2 emulator. Yeah, like thats going to happen.

stay safe,

AamirM

gllt · Post by **gllt** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:21 am

AamirM wrote:Heck, they say that I should write a PS2 emulator. Yeah, like thats going to happen.

But you'll get on it after you finish that XBOX emulator and get n64 on NDS, right?

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:15 am

gllt wrote: I did it with matching APEX-es.
They were hugely stretched and floated around a lot, so I adjusted it with the service menu.
I got bored with silver APEX (as opposed to its twin, black APEX) and made "fake widescreen" once. (I squeezed the height down and made letterbox using my wii in zelda tp widescreen mode.) lol dumb

Nice.

And "fake widescreen" isn't not so bad. My Sony has it as an option in the menu. Looks pretty good, really.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:16 am

the reason the Genesis shows those colored borders has to do with the way the image is displayed on the tv

the genesis probably outputs a 256x224 image.

The pixelclock x scanlinetime is probably more than 256, this results in extra pixels and unlike the nes and snes which has black pixels the genesis has one of the colors from the background palette.

on top and bottom of the image the same thing happens because the image is 448 heigh where it should be 486, again the extra scalines are rendered with one of the colors from the palette. I have no idea how the color is chosen though

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:54 am

tetsuo55 wrote:the reason the Genesis shows those colored borders has to do with the way the image is displayed on the tv

the genesis probably outputs a 256x224 image.

The pixelclock x scanlinetime is probably more than 256, this results in extra pixels and unlike the nes and snes which has black pixels the genesis has one of the colors from the background palette.

on top and bottom of the image the same thing happens because the image is 448 heigh where it should be 486, again the extra scalines are rendered with one of the colors from the palette. I have no idea how the color is chosen though

The behavior is inherited from the SMS graphics chip, which was inherited from the TMS9914 they used on the original SG1000.
There's a solid background color layer at the bottom of the "stack." And yes, it extends beyond the range typically used for gameplay image. I can't recall if it extends beyond the maximum ALLOWABLE range or not, though.

*fires up some Paperboy, Valis, and Forgotten Worlds, because they're in easy reach*
It extends beyond the usable area. Quite obviously in Paperboy, occasionally obviously in Forgotten Worlds.
I'm not really surprised. Fairly certain it's for overscan protection.

Games with complex backgrounds seem to set it to black just for the sake of cosmetics, though it's small enough while in Genesis mode to get cropped totally on almost all displays.

And adjusting my display's settings so I can see the whole frame shows that:

1. The background color begins roughly a quarter of the way through the first scanline.

2. The background color ends roughly a quarter form the end of the last scanline.

3. There's some garbage on the right side of scanlines 2 and 3 in Paperboy during gameplay, and on the bottom scanline at pretty much every palette change in Valis, and Forgotten Worlds.
I don't feel like fighting Paperboy again(my copy is pretty hard to get booting) just to check it's palette changes, but I'm fairly sure it's common behavior, especially as it occurs so close to the edge.

Also, Genesis usually runs 320*224, as I understand things. .

gllt · Post by **gllt** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:08 am

So, basically..

the borders are made by fairies.

declan · Post by **declan** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:09 am

Yes.... fairies....

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:24 am

gllt wrote:So, basically..

the borders are made by fairies.

Gnomes, actually. Nintendo trademarked the fairy when they released Legend of Zelda.

gllt · Post by **gllt** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:25 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:
gllt wrote:So, basically..

the borders are made by fairies.
Gnomes, actually. Nintendo trademarked the fairy when they released Legend of Zelda.

previous post made no sense I'm going to bed or something, below is still true vvv

[/OT]

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 11:32 am

King Of Chaos wrote:No, by everything he's doing for the Sega Genesis gaming/emulation community over the years. Honestly, he deserves a honorable thanks in all Genesis/Megadrive emulators... because it wasn't for Kega and the past incarnations created by Steve Snake, Gens, Ages and all other emulators wouldn't be out there today. If anything, he's a legend. Period.

I'm curious. Kega emulates several other early Sega systems. How much does the SMS/GG/SG-1000 and 3000 owe him? did he make any important discoveries on that front?

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 12:47 pm

Gil_Hamilton wrote:
tetsuo55 wrote:the reason the Genesis shows those colored borders has to do with the way the image is displayed on the tv

the genesis probably outputs a 256x224 image.

The pixelclock x scanlinetime is probably more than 256, this results in extra pixels and unlike the nes and snes which has black pixels the genesis has one of the colors from the background palette.

on top and bottom of the image the same thing happens because the image is 448 heigh where it should be 486, again the extra scalines are rendered with one of the colors from the palette. I have no idea how the color is chosen though
The behavior is inherited from the SMS graphics chip, which was inherited from the TMS9914 they used on the original SG1000.
There's a solid background color layer at the bottom of the "stack." And yes, it extends beyond the range typically used for gameplay image. I can't recall if it extends beyond the maximum ALLOWABLE range or not, though.

Also, Genesis usually runs 320*224, as I understand things. .

Awesome does Regen render all the horizontal pixels the pixel clock generates? or is it cropped like bsnes, heigh is obviously cropped to 224

AamirM · Post by **AamirM** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 12:50 pm

Hi,

I can only think of the Spiderman game above really where there is something seriously wrong somewhere. Otherwise they both are pretty close.

I cracked this problem as well now

. Ain't I cool or what

.</shameless brag mode>

EDIT:
@tetsuo55:
Yes, 320 is not cropped to 256 though height is cropped to 224.

stay safe,

AamirM

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:13 pm

AamirM wrote:Hi,
I can only think of the Spiderman game above really where there is something seriously wrong somewhere. Otherwise they both are pretty close.
I cracked this problem as well now . Ain't I cool or what .</shameless brag mode>

EDIT:
@tetsuo55:
Yes, 320 is not cropped to 256 though height is cropped to 224.

stay safe,

AamirM

Brag all you want, you deserve it.

Could someone provide me with a clean, unscaled unfilered screenshot? maybe the sonic title screen

AamirM · Post by **AamirM** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 2:02 pm

Hi,

There is an option in Regen to take unfilitered screenshots

.

Stay safe,

AamirM