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+-- gameplaySP  Gameboy Advance emulator for Playstation Portable --

+

+

+-- Release log --

+

+v0.91 (minor cleanup release)

+

+NOTE: I don't usually do minor releases but I rewrote a ton of

+things in gpSP 0.9, much of it during the last few days, and although

+I spent a lot of time debugging a few bugs inevitably crept in.

+

+# Fixed some issues in the new memory handlers that crept up, hopefully

+  should fix the problems between 0.8 and 0.9.

+# Fixed a bug introduced in 0.9 that could cause crashes when selecting

+  things in the menu (I hope, at least).

+# Fixed a bug with a certain invalid opcode causing a jump to be scanned

+  when there isn't one (fixes Sabre Wulf).

+# Removed 2048 option for audio buffer.

+

+v0.9 (yes, it's still beta)

+

+NOTE: As some of you may be aware I'm pretty much tired of these

+unofficial releases by people (okay, mostly single person) who

+don't wish to follow my wishes. I'm in the process of asking this

+person to stop, in his own language. However, I want to make

+something clear. Look at the last six new features in this

+changelog. I added these TODAY. I could have done them at any

+time. But I didn't, because I spent many (dozens, quite possibly

+hundreds) hours debugging games that people want to play. I have

+always believed that this is far more important than spending time

+on new features. Frankly, I'm tired of my emulator being hacked on

+by other people, and if it doesn't stop I'm going to make this

+project closed source.

+

+Since I know this information is most visible when updated on the

+major sites, note that it is the news posters I am especially

+talking to. Next time you upload unofficial releases of my

+emulator (without even knowing what's changed) bear in mind that

+you're only encouraging me to stop working on this. If you want

+to pick sides between me and unofficial devs, be my guest. I'll

+let you decide by the contents of this release who's doing more

+for my emulator.

+

+Oh, and if you downloaded a version of gpSP that has more than

+"gpSP" in its name then you're using one of their versions. Shame

+on them for not even removing this threatening message, and shame

+on you. Unless you're using a port I endorse (GP2X, Dreamcast, etc),

+in which case everything's good.

+

+

+# Fixed stereo output being reversed.

+# Fixed a bug causing misaligned errors on 8bit writes to the gbc

+  audio channel 3 wave data (fixes various Super Robot Wars games)

+# Fixed DMA with garbage in their upper 4 bits (fixes a crash in

+  Zelda: Minish Cap)

+# Added double buffering to the rendering, removes line artifacts.

+  Big thanks to Brunni for the idea.

+# Fixed a bug preventing some SRAM based games from saving (fixes

+  MMBN4-6)

+# Fixed a bug causing part of EWRAM to potentially get corrupted if

+  code segments loaded in EWRAM cross 32KB boundaries (fixes

+  Phantasy Star 2)

+# Fixed a bug causing games using movs pc in user mode (very bad

+  behavior) to crash. Fixes Colin McRae Rally 2.0.

+# Improved timing a bit more. Fixes GTA Advance.

+# Fixed a sprite clipping bug (fixes crash in third boss of Zelda:

+  Minish cap)

+# Increased translation buffer size significantly (fixes Donkey Kong:

+  King of Swing)

+# Fixed a dynarec bug causing add pc, reg to not work in Thumb code

+  (fixes crash in DBZ:LoZ, seems to fix crashes in battle in Golden

+  Sun, probably fixes other games)

+# Made sprites using tiles < 512 not display in modes 3-5 (fixes

+  a couple minor graphical bugs)

+# Removed abort on instruction 0x00000000 hack, was breaking a

+  certain bugged up game (Scurge)

+# Fixed bug in flags generating variable logical shifts (fixes

+  SD Gundam Force)

+# Fixed unaligned 16bit reads (fixes DBZ:LoZ in game)

+# Redid contiguous block flag modification checking AGAIN and

+  hopefully got it right this time (fixes Mario vs. Donkey Kong)

+# Redid ldm/stm instructions, fixing some cases (along with the

+  timing improvements fixes Mario & Luigi)

+# Fixed 14bit EEPROM addressing (hopefully fixes saving in a lot

+  of games)

+# Completely redid memory handlers, accurately emulates open and

+  BIOS reads now. Fixes Zelda: Minish Cap (roll bug, last dungeon),

+  Rayman, MMBN 1 (last dungeon), probably others.

+# Fixed a minor graphical glitch on the edges of the screen

+  (thanks Brunni and hlide for the help!)

+# Fixed crash on loading savestates from files of games not currently

+  loaded, but be sure you have the exact file you loaded it from or

+  gpSP will exit.

+@ New memory handlers should provide performance boost for games

+  that access VRAM significantly (ie 3D games)

+@ Added dead flag elimination checking for logical shifts, probably

+  doesn't make a noticeable difference but should have been there

+  anyway.

++ Added rapidfire to the button mappings.

++ Added auto frameskip. Removed fractional frameskip (don't think

+  it's very useful with auto anyway). Select auto in the graphics/

+  sound menu to activate it; frameskip value will act as the

+  maximum (auto is by default on). Thanks again to Brunni for some

+  help with this. Frameskip options are game specific.

++ Added vsync to the rendering. Only occurs when frames aren't

+  skipped. Seems to reduce tearing at least some of the time.

++ Added non-filtered video option.

++ Cheat support (Gameshark/Pro Action Replay v1-v3 only), still

+  in early stages, doesn't support everything; codes may cause

+  the game to crash, haven't determined yet if the codes are bad

+  or the implementation is. See cheat section for more information.

++ Added ability to change audio buffer size. Does not take affect

+  until you restart the game.

++ Added analog config options.

++ Added ability to set analog sensitivity and turn off analog.

++ Added ability to change the clock speed. This is a game specific

+  option. Try lower speeds w/auto frameskip to save battery life.

++ Fixed savestate speed on crappy Sony sticks.

+

+(legend: # bug fix, + feature addition, @ optimization)

+

+v0.8 - ("unlocked" beta)

+

+NOTE 1: It has come to my attention that there are actually BIOSes

+out there that are being used that cause some games to not work.

+The BIOS md5sum listed here is for the BIOS actually in GBAs and

+is as accurate as you'll get, (if you have a GBA and a flashcart

+you can dump it yourself, see http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/GBA_BIOS)

+

+NOTE 2: Since I know this is as far as a lot of people here I have a

+little request. Please, please, (I'd italicize this if I could)

+please stop constantly asking me when the next release will be,

+what it'll have, etc. And while you're at it, please stop asking me

+to implement wi-fi multiplayer, cheat support, or fix all of your

+games. Some things will happen in due time, other things might not

+ever happen. I devote about as much time as I can to this emulator

+and I carefully include as much as I can in releases to try to

+minimize the number of people who will nag me next time (erm, I

+mean, to make the most people happy), so I don't release every other

+day or anything like that. Sorry that I can't release once a week,

+but I'm a lot busier now than I was when I was first developing this

+emulator. Good thing I got the first version out before that, wasn't

+it?

+

+Congratulations, you made it this far! Now read the rest of the this

+thing. *_*

+

+

+# Fixed bug in dead flag elimination, "alt" version no longer needed.

+# Fixed EEPROM saves being saved as 32kb instead of 512bytes/8kb

++ 32MB ROM support has been added. ROMS are "demand loaded" as

+  necessary and page swapped out; there might be a small loading lag,

+  but I have yet to ever really notice anything.

+  NOTE: 32MB ROM support only works for unzipped ROMs.

++ Save states have been added. See the save state menu for save/load

+  options.

++ Support for the real-time clock (RTC) chip in Pokemon cartridegs

+  and other games. The implementation is based off of VBA's, whatever

+  notes on gbadev I could find, and some of my own reverse engineering

+  of what the games do... it might not be totally correct. Also,

+  setting the time does not work.

++ Per-game configuration. Currently this only saves frameskip and

+  frameskip variation options.

++ Removed the flash type option from the menu and instead added it

+  to game_config.txt. Hopefully got everything - let me know if you

+  find something that isn't there. It's pretty easy to add them if you

+  have to.

++ Added a display in the upper left-hand corner to indicate when

+  fast-forward is on.

++ Added button bindings for save/load state.

+@ Found a fix of StrmnNrmn proportion: far too much unnecessary mutex

+  synchronization was going on. Removing the two offending lines of

+  code gave a massive speed boost for free. Enjoy.

+

+v0.7 - (beta than ever)

+

+# Fixed a dynarec bug involving flags generating functions in

+  contiguous conditional blocks. Fixes music in Super Mario

+  Advance 2-4.

+# Fixed a dynarec bug where Thumb mov imm instructions wouldn't

+  set flags. Fixes Zelda: Minish Cap, Megaman Battle Network,

+  probably others. Comes at a slight speed cost.

+# Fixed a MIPS dynarec bug where some delay slots might not

+  get filled rarely, causing chaos. Don't know if it improves

+  any games.

+# Improved self-modifying code detection. Makes Golden Sun,

+  Golden Sun 2, and Madden 2007 sorta work but excrutiatingly

+  slowly. Looking for a game-specific workaround for this - if you

+  want to play these games you'll have to wait for now :(

+# Fixed a bug causing the interrupt disable flag to go down

+  when SWIs are entered, causing crashes/resets. Fixes

+  Super Mario Advance 2-4.

+# Fixed menu crashing when strings with certain characters are

+  printed (for instance going to the menu after loading the

+  BIOS)

+# Accidentally forgot to render win0 + win1 + objwin when all

+  active at the same time, many weeks ago. Added that, should fix

+  some parts in games that had frozen screens.

+# Fixed some issues with gpsp.cfg needing to be present and

+  corrupting, hopefully. At the very least sanity checks are

+  performed on the config file.

+# Made it so assigning the frameskip button to something besides

+  triangle actually worked as expected.

+# Fixed ability to restart current game if nothing is loaded

+  (ie, crash)

+# Added interrupt on cpsr modification support to the dynarec

+  (fixes backgrounds in Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance)

+# Added open addressing for ldm/stm instructions (fixes

+  Super Mario Advance 3)

+# Improved cycle accuracy a little. Don't know of anything this

+  fixes, but games with idle loops will run a little better w/o

+  idle loop elimination (but should still be added when possible)

+# Fixed some bugs causing sound to play sometimes when it shouldn't.

+@ Added dead flag elimination for Thumb code. May possibly have

+  noticeable performance increases (Thumb emited coded size can

+  have a reduction of 20% or more)

+@ Added code generation for divide SWI. May have a small speed

+  increase in some games.

++ Added analog nub support (special thanks to psp298 for the

+  code)

++ Added fractional frameskip. Go below 0 to get them. A frameskip

+  of 1/2 for instance means render 2 out of every 3 frames, 2/3

+  means render 3 out of every 4 frames, etc. Possibly useful for

+  games that are not quite fast enough at fs0 but fullspeed at

+  fs1...

+

+v0.6 - (still beta quality, look out for new bugs)

+

+NOTE: Please include gpsp.cfg with EBOOT.PBP, this shouldn't be

+ necessary but I think it is right now.

+

+# Fixed a nasty bug that shouldn't have made it into the initial

+  release; a lot of games that TECM.. erm.. crash won't anymore.

+  NOTE: This doesn't mean that no game will ever crash, freeze,

+  otherwise not work.

+# Fixed some crashes in the GUI and the ability to "go up" past

+  ms0:/PSP. Made the "go up" button square like it was supposed to

+  be (instead of cross).

++ There's now a menu that you can access, by default press right

+  while holding down triangle for the frameskip bar.

++ Menu option: resize screen aspect ratio, the default is now

+  "scaled 3:2" which makes it look more like a normal GBA. You

+  can use "fullscreen" (what it was like before) or "unscaled 3:2"

+  (tiny but pixel for pixel like a GBA)

++ Menu option: You can now load new games while the current one

+  is running.

++ Menu option: You can now restart the currently running game.

++ Menu option: Frameskip variation - this defaults to "uniform"

+  whereas it defaulted to "random" last release. Basically, turn

+  it on random if you find that frameskip causes flickering

+  animations to make things disappear. Other than that it will

+  generally look better on uniform.

++ GUI and file loading now have "auto repeat" on the buttons so

+  they're not such a pain to navigate.

++ Menu option: Added support for 128KB flash ROM, some games

+  require it (Pokemon Firered/Leaf Green, Super Mario Advance 4),

+  turn it on before running the game to make sure it works.

+  NOTE: There are some versions of these ROMs that have been

+  hacked to get around their 128KB flash, and may not even work

+  properly at all. Look out for them, these games should save

+  128KB save files after you set the setting to it, IF they use

+  128KB flash.

++ Menu option: Added ability to make the .sav files only update

+  when you exit the emulator, use with extreme caution (in other

+  words, it's not a good idea to use something like this in beta

+  quality software if you care about your saves). Does NOT update

+  if you exit through the home button, don't use the home button

+  if you can help it.

++ Zip support thanks to SiberianSTAR. It will load the first file

+  with the extension .gba or .bin that it finds.

++ Menu options are saved to gpsp.cfg. Note that it does not save

+  frameskip options or flash ROM options because these are very

+  per game particular.

++ The emulator will now try to save backup files to something

+  more matching the backup size than a fixed 64KB.

+@ Loading ROMs and the auto save of the .sav files is MUCH faster

+  now. Thanks for the heads up on how to improve this from pollux!

+@ While coding for the screen resize code I found that SDL just

+  wasn't cutting it and had to code for the GU myself. Turns out

+  the new code is faster (but because it is render code any

+  improvement will be diminished to nothing as frameskip is

+  increased). Special thanks to Zx-81 for the tips on this one

+  and for his GU code in the PSPVBA source as an example.

+@ Added some games to game_config.txt. Note that not all versions

+  of these ROMs will work with these options, try to use the USA

+  version if possible.

+

+8-19-2006  v0.5 - Initial release (public beta quality)

+

+

+-- About --

+

+gameplaySP (gpSP for short) is a GBA emulator written completely from

+scratch. It is still pretty young (only having started a 3 months prior

+to the first release) and thus rather immature, but it does a decent

+job of playing a number of games, and is being improved upon somewhat

+regularly. It is currently somewhat minimalistic, in the sourcecode,

+presentation, and features. Its number one focus is to deliver a GBA

+gaming experience in the most playable way that PSP can manage, with

+frills being secondary (although still a consideration, at least for

+some of them).

+

+Having said that, optimization was the important way in achieving this

+goal, with overall compatability being a near second. Because of this

+some games may not run at the favor of running more games significantly

+better. Of course, the compatability will improve with time. The

+compatability in the current version (0.8) is perhaps around 80%

+(assuming the correct BIOS image is used).

+

+Many games will run at their best out of the box, but some games will

+run very slowly unless idle loops are taken care of. There is a supplied

+ROM database, game_config.txt, that gives idle loop targets and other

+settings that may help a game to run better (or at all) on a per-game

+basis. Currently (as of version 0.8) a few dozen games are on this list,

+mostly only USA versions. This list will continue to be updated; there's

+no real telling exactly how many of the ~2500 GBA games will need to

+appear here.

+

+gpSP currently requires an authentic GBA BIOS image file to run. It will

+make no effort to run without one present; this file is 16kb and should

+be called gba_bios.bin and present in the same location as the EBOOT.PBP

+file. Please do not ask me where to obtain this, you'll have to look

+online or grab it from a GBA. Note that it is not legal to have this file

+unless you own a GBA, and even then it's rather gray area.

+

+

+

+-- Features --

+

+gpSP mostly emulates the core Gameboy Advance system. As of right now it

+does not emulate any special hardware present on various GBA cartridges.

+

+

+What it emulates:

+

+GBA CPU: All ARM7TDMI ARM and Thumb mode opcodes except block memory w/

+ s-bit (probably aren't used in GBA games)

+Video: Modes 0, 1, 2 almost completely, basic 3-5 support, sprites,

+ windows/OBJ windows

+Interrupts: HBlank, VBlank, all timers, all DMA channels, keypad

+DMA: Immediate, HBlank, VBlank, sound timer triggered

+Sound: Both DirectSound channels and all 4 GBC audio channels

+Input: Basic GBA input delivered through PSP controls

+Cartridges: Currently supports ROMs up to 32MB in size (the maximum for

+GBA) with the technique of ROM page swapping to fit within PSP's RAM.

+Backup: 32/64kb SRAM, 64/128kb flash, 512bit/8kb EEPROM

+RTC: The real-time clock present in cartridges such as most of the

+ Pokemon games and some others.

+

+

+What it lacks:

+

+Video: No mosaic, bitmap modes lack color effects (alpha, fades),

+ there might be some minor inaccuracies in blending...

+Cycle accuracy: Very cycle innacurate; CPU is effectively somewhat

+ overclocked, meaning games with rampant idle loops will probably run

+ rather poorly. DMA transfers effectively happen for free (0 cycle).

+ Please do NOT use gpSP as a first source for developing GBA homebrew,

+ try No$GBA instead.

+

+

+Additional features it has:

+- The ability to attempt to run games at faster than GBA speed (sometimes

+  they can end up a lot faster, other times not so much)

+- Savestates: the ability to save a game's state to a file and resume

+  playing where you left off later.

+- Mild cheat support

+

+

+Features that it doesn't have (please don't ask me to implement these!)

+- Wi-fi multiplayer

+

+

+-- Controls --

+

+The default control scheme is very simple. If you don't like it you can

+change it in the configuration menu.

+

+At the ROM selection screen:

+

+Up/down: navigate current selection window.

+Left/right: switch between file window and directory window.

+Circle/start: select current entry.

+Square: go one directory up.

+

+In game:

+

+Up/down/left/right: GBA d-pad

+Circle: GBA A button

+Cross: GBA B button

+Square/start: GBA start button

+Select: GBA select button

+Left trigger: GBA left trigger

+Right trigger: GBA right trigger

+Triangle: Adjust frameksip

+

+In frameskip adjustment:

+

+Hold down triangle to keep up, press up/down to increase/decrease

+frameskip, respectively. Press down at 0 to change to auto, and up

+at auto to change to 0.

+

+In the menu:

+

+Up/down: navigate current menu.

+Left/right: change value in current menu selection (if a value is present)

+Circle/start: select current entry (see help for entry to see what this means)

+Square: exit the current menu.

+

+

+-- Frameskip --

+

+The purpose behind frameskip is to cause the emulator to not render every

+frame of graphics to make the emulation closer to fullspeed. Many games will

+run fullspeed without skipping any frames, however, some (particularly more

+graphically demanding ones) will require this.

+

+Frameskip can be set to two forms, either auto or manual. Auto will attempt

+to skip only as many frames as necessary to make the game full speed, and

+will not skip more than 4 in a row no matter what speed the game runs at

+(at this point the benefits of frameskip yield diminishing returns).

+

+It is recommended that you keep frameskip on auto, but manual is maintained

+as an option if you want it and works as follows:

+

+Manual frameskip will only render one out of every (n + 1) frames, where n

+is the current frameskip value (so 0 will render everything). Increasing

+the frameskip can improve speed, especially with very graphically

+intensive games.

+

+

+-- Cheats --

+

+Currently, gpSP supports some functionality of Gameshark/Pro Action Replay

+cheat codes. To use these, you must first make a file with the same name

+as the ROM you want the cheat code to apply to, but with the extension .cht.

+Put this file in the same directory as the ROM. To make it use a normal

+text editor like notepad or wordpad if you're on Windows.

+

+To write a code, write the type of model it is, gameshark_v1, gameshark_v3,

+PAR_v1, or PAR_v3. gameshark_v1/PAR_v1 and gameshark_v3/PAR_v3 respectively

+are interchangeable, but v1 and v3 are not! So if you don't know which

+version it is, try both to see if it'll work.

+

+Then, after that, put a space and put the name you'd like to give the cheat.

+

+On the next several lines, put each cheat code pair, which should look like

+this:

+

+AAAAAAAA BBBBBBBB

+

+Then put a blank line when you're done with that code, and start a new code

+immediately after it. Here's an example of what a cheat file should look

+like:

+

+

+gameshark_v3 MarioInfHP

+995fa0d9 0c6720d2

+

+gameshark_v3 MarioMaxHP

+21d58888 c5d0e432

+

+gameshark_v3 InfHlthBat

+6f4feadb 0581b00e

+79af5dc6 5ce0d2b1

+dbbd5995 44b801c9

+65f8924d 2fbcd3c4

+

+gameshark_v3 StopTimer

+2b399ca4 ec81f071

+

+

+After you have written the .cht file, you have to enable the cheats

+individually in the game menu. Go to the Cheats/Misc menu, and you will

+see the cheats; turn them on here. You may turn them on and off as you

+please, but note that some cheats may still hold after you turn them off,

+due to the nature of the system. Restart to completely get rid of them.

+

+IMPORTANT NOTES:

+

+This is still very work in progress! I basically added this in only 1.5

+or so hours, and I don't have a lot of time right now to work on it

+before releasing. So I'll probably improve it later.

+

+Not all of gameshark's features are supported, especially for v3. Only

+basic cheats will work, more or less.

+

+Cheats may be unstable and may crash your game. If you're having problems

+turn the cheats off.

+

+Really, there's no guarantee that ANY cheats will work; I tried a few and

+some seem to work, others are questionable. Try for yourself, but don't

+expect anything to actually work right now. Do expect this feature to

+improve in future versions.

+

+

+

+-- Frequently Asked Questions --

+

+Q) How do I run this on my PSP?

+

+A) Provided is an EBOOT.PBP which will run as is on a 1.0 firmware

+   PSP or custom firmware that can run unsigned EBOOTs. On 1.5 firmwares

+   you must use a kxploit tool to run it (try SeiPSPtool). On 2.0

+   firmwares and higher further exploits must be used - see

+   http://pspupdates.qj.net/ for more information. Note that I have NOT

+   tested this emulator on any firmware version besides 1.5, and it's

+   very possible that it doesn't run well, or at all on higher versions.

+   Therefore I strongly recommend you downgrade if possible, and use

+   Devhook to run games that require > 1.5 version firmwares.

+

+   Be sure to include in the same directory as the EBOOT.PBP file the

+   game_config.txt file included and the gba_bios.bin file which you

+   must provide yourself.

+

+   gpSP does not run on PSPs with version 2.71 or higher firmware yet,

+   nor does any other homebrew executable.

+

+

+Q) What is a BIOS image file? Why do I need it to run gpSP? Other GBA

+   emulators don't require this...

+

+A) The GBA BIOS image file is a copy of a ROM on the GBA system that

+   has code for starting up the GBA (it shows the logo), verifying the

+   game, and most importantly, providing utility functions for the games

+   to use. It is the latter that gpSP needs the BIOS present for. It's

+   possible to replace all of these functions with equivilent code, but

+   this will take time - in the future gpSP may not require a BIOS image.

+

+

+Q) I can't find this BIOS image.. please send it to me.

+

+A) Sorry, but you're on your own. I won't send you a BIOS or tell you

+   where to get one (unless you want to rip it from a GBA yourself, in

+   which case I'll just give you the same link at the top). I can't do

+   this because it's not legal to send it around and I don't want to

+   get a reputation for illegally distributing BIOS images.

+

+

+Q) How do I know I have the right BIOS?

+

+A) If you have md5sum you can check if it has this hash:

+   a860e8c0b6d573d191e4ec7db1b1e4f6

+   That BIOS should work fine. I think that some others work fine too,

+   although I haven't confirmed this with absolute certainty. It's also

+   theoretically possible to use custom (and free) BIOS replacements,

+   but I don't know of any publically availablone ones.

+

+   As far as I'm aware there are two BIOSes floating around, I doubt

+   you'll get one that isn't one of those two. There's a very easy way

+   to determine which one you have - just look at the very first byte in

+   a hex editor. The correct BIOS begins with 0x18, the buggy BIOS begins

+   with 0x14.

+

+

+Q) My favorite game won't run.

+

+A) There probably isn't anything you can do about this, although a

+   change to game_config.txt might help. gpSP is still an emulator in

+   its infancy so the compatability is not superb. I don't have time

+   to test too many games so I'm releasing it as a public beta to get

+   a feel for some things that don't work. The next version could

+   perhaps fix it, or it might never run. There are always other

+   emulators of course, please try one.

+

+   However, before nagging me there is one thing I recommend you try,

+   and that is to add the option "iwram_stack_optimize = no" for the

+   game in game_config.txt. See the file itself for more information

+   on how to do this. If this fixes your game (and it's not already

+   in the game_config.txt) please tell me about it.

+

+

+Q) My favorite game is very slow.

+

+A) Emulating GBA takes a number of resources and getting it done well

+   on PSP is no simple task by any means. Some games are just going to

+   overwhelm the emulator completely. Of course, there is one special

+   case of game (a lot of early generation games fall under this

+   category) that can be made much faster by a simple addition to the

+   game_config.txt file. Wait for a new version of this file or the

+   next version of the emulator and the game may be improved.

+

+   That aside, there are still numerous optimizations that can be done,

+   and I sure you future versions will be faster (I just can't tell you

+   how much)

+

+   Also, a lot of games will be sped up considerably by adding an

+   idle_loop_eliminate_target line for it in game_config.txt. There

+   are some more obscurer options there that can improve speed too. If

+   the game is VERY slow there might be something wrong with its

+   emulation that can be improved. For instance, if you can't get a game

+   to run fullspeed on any frameskip you should e-mail me about it.

+

+

+Q) Some games run fullspeed but the sound is messed up. Why?

+

+A) At least 9 out of 10 times it means the game isn't really running

+   full speed, but just that you can't notice the difference. Increasing

+   frameskip will almost always improve sound quality in these

+   situations, to a certain point (after around frameskip 3 you

+   probably won't be seeing many more returns if it isn't already

+   fullspeed). The rest of the time it means there's a bug somewhere else

+   in the emulator, probably in the CPU core. Chances are that all you

+   can do is wait for it to be fixed in a later release.

+

+

+Q) The emulator crashed!

+

+A) Most games that don't run will probably take the emulator down with

+   it, or it could be an emulator bug completely unrelated to the game

+   (but unlikely). Press home and wait for the next version.

+

+   There is some information that comes up when the game crashes. This

+   information may be slightly useful to me, but chances are it

+   usually won't be all that interesting.

+

+   These days games are more likely to exit with a "bad crash" error.

+   This number is possibly useful to me, but to debug a game I'll have

+   to reproduce the crash anyway. When this happens it's probably due to

+   a bug in the CPU core that hasn't been fixed yet.

+

+

+Q) Why won't my game save?

+

+A) The game might need 128KB flash turned on and might not be listed in

+   game_config.txt. See game_config.txt for more information regarding

+   this. Be sure to include game_config.txt with the EBOOT.PBP file.

+

+   Other games might simply have bugs in the save support. For now, use

+   savestates as an alternative if you can't save.

+

+

+Q) How do I change sound quality?

+

+A) Right now, you can't. For those wondering, sound is locked at 44.1KHz

+   (sounds a bit high? It is, but it's currently necessary to play

+   everything correctly). I don't have any plans to allow changing this

+   right now, because I don't think there's really much reason to be

+   able to (it'd be a tiny speed boost at best and I don't think SDL even

+   allows for anything besides this sampling rate on PSP)

+

+

+Q) What is this emulator's name?

+

+A) Um.. what? It's gameplaySP, isn't it? You call it gpSP for short.

+   Somehow the name can't have the acronyms gbSP, gbapSP, or really

+   just about anything else you feel like giving it. Oh, and if you

+   really want to make me happy get the capitalization right too.

+   That's gpSP, not gPSP, GPsp.. you get the idea.

+

+

+Q) Does gpSP run Gameboy/Gameboy Color games? Will it later?

+

+A) No. Even though GBA can run these games it uses separate hardware

+   that proper GBA games have no access to (save for the audio chip),

+   and thus there's no point including it in a GBA emulator (it

+   doesn't help run GBA games). I recommend using a GB/GBC emulator

+   like Rin for playing these games. It'll probably give you a lot

+   more options anyway. gpSP will never actually emulate GB/GBC

+   games. You'd may as well be waiting for it to emulate PS2 games...

+   (that was an analogy. gpSP won't ever emulate PS2 games. >_>)

+

+

+Q) Other emulators use the PSP's graphical hardware to accelerate the

+   video emulation. Is this possible for gpSP?

+

+A) I'm honestly not too sure at this point. It's definitely a rather

+   complicated procedure, and I don't think it'll be possible to

+   accurately accelerate alpha blending. On the other hand, affine

+   transformations could perhaps receive a speed boost this way. Any

+   solution would have to be hybrid hardware/software, which might be

+   possible due to the nature of the PSP's VRAM. Maybe someone will

+   be willing to help me think of possibilities here?

+

+   But don't bother of you're just going to tell me to render a list

+   of quads...

+

+

+Q) Other emulators use the PSP's second CPU to offload the sound

+   emulation. Is this possible for gpSP?

+

+A) Yes, but it wouldn't improve it nearly as much as say, SNES9x TYL.

+   This is because most of the processing that goes into sound on a GBA

+   game is done in the CPU, not in dedicated audio hardware. It could

+   help a little, but probably not a lot. Maybe enough to be worthwhile.

+   It might also be possible to split the video rendering to the main

+   CPU and the main emulation to the secondary one, but there are a lot

+   of coherency issues involved.

+

+

+Q) I heard gpSP can only load games 16MB or smaller in size. Is this

+   true? What about zipped games?

+

+A) As of version 0.8 gpSP can play 32MB ROMs. However, they must be

+   unzipped. The reason for this is that parts of the ROM are constantly

+   loaded to memory as needed, and for this to be as fast as possible the

+   ROM has to be present on the memory stick in raw format.

+

+   You might be wondering, why not just have gpSP unzip the ROM to a file

+   then delete the file when it is done? The reason why is because this

+   would impose a "hidden" requirement of 32MB on the user that very

+   likely may not be there. Furthermore, there are only a few 32MB games

+   that anyone actually wants to play. If you only have one 32MB game on

+   your memstick then it'd actually require signifnicantly more free space

+   to hold both the ROM and the 32MB raw file. With 2 32MB ROMs you only

+   gain a around 10-25MB of free space, depending on how effective the

+   compression is.

+

+

+Q) Savestates? From other emulators??

+

+A) See the savestates option in main menu. gpSP will probably never

+   support savestates from other emulators, there's just too much in the

+   way of emulator specific data in them.

+

+   Savestates are currently 506,943 bytes. They would be a little smaller

+   without the snapshot, but I find that very useful and it wouldn't help

+   size immensely. Compression would help, but I wanted the size to be

+   constant so you knew exactly how much you could hold and to improve

+   save/load speed.

+

+

+Q) What's with the zip support?

+

+A) I hear stories that some games work unzipped and not zipped, so you

+   might want to try unzipping them if it gives you problems. You also

+   might want to try making fresh zips with WinRAR - users have

+   reported some higher success rates doing this.

+

+

+Q) What's with the config file? Should I make it read only?

+

+A) There was a bug in version 0.6 that caused the config file to not

+   get updated or get corrupted sometimes. Hopefully this is fixed now,

+   but if it DOES get corrupted making it read only can prevent this

+   from happening in the future.

+

+

+Q) So when WILL the next version be released?

+

+A) Sorry, but I almost never announce release dates. Furthermore, I'll

+   probably be pretty hush hush on internal development, just to keep

+   people from nagging me about it and building too much suspense.

+

+

+Q) I don't like this emulator. Are there other alternatives?

+

+A) Yes. Try PSPVBA by Zx-81 (http://zx81.dcemu.co.uk/). Overall I doubt

+   the compatability is significantly higher than gpSP's anymore, but

+   I'm sure there are some games it runs that gpSP doesn't.

+

+

+Q) I heard there was a version of gpSP for PCs. Is that true?

+

+A) I developed this emulator internally on PC. It might have a speed

+   advantage over other PC GBA emulators, although the PSP version has

+   more sophisticated optimizations. Most people have fast enough

+   computers to run better GBA emulators for PC and gpSP lacks some

+   important features (screen resizing) that the PSP version kinda

+   hides. Even though gpSP spent a majority of its development

+   gestation as a PC app it was always developed with the PSP in mind,

+   so the PC version will probably not see the light of the day unless

+   I get overwhelming demand for it. It is, however, possible to

+   build it from the source. But I request that you don't distribute

+   such builds. If you happen to find one, bear in mind that I don't

+   offer any support for it, and as far as I'm concerned it won't

+   exist.

+

+

+Q) I hear there's a version of gpSP for other platforms too, like

+   Dreamcast. And I hear they're slow! What gives?

+

+   These are ports, done by other people (or maybe myself?). This is

+   possible because gpSP is open source and its base version is fairly

+   portable, but to run fast enough on anything but platforms quite a

+   bit faster than PSP it at least needs a CPU specific dynarec backend.

+

+   I don't (necessarily) maintain all builds of gpSP, so you'll have to

+   contact the authors of these ports for more information. That

+   notwithstanding, I try to get as involved in other ports of gpSP as

+   I can.

+

+

+Q) I want to modify gpSP. How can I do this, and am I at liberty to do

+   so?

+

+A) Yes, you are, under the terms of the GPL (see the included

+   COPYING.DOC). You can download the sourcecode from whereever you

+   downloaded this; if you can't find it please e-mail me and I'll give

+   you a link to it. I would vastly appreciate it if you contacted me first

+   before forking my project, especially if you're just looking to gain

+   recognition without adding much to it. It's better to keep all changes

+   tidy in one branch of development.

+

+   I would like to stress this a little more seriously (hopefully those

+   interested are reading this). Although you are legally entitled to

+   release your own forks of gpSP it would be much more benficial to me,

+   to you, and to the users of this program if you instead tried working

+   with me to get your changes incorporated into the next version. I

+   really don't feel like competing with other builds of my source

+   anymore, so please do me a big favor and send me an e-mail if you want

+   to work with gpSP.

+

+

+Q) How do I build gpSP?

+

+A) make will build it. You need to have SDL for PSP installed, as well

+   as the standard PSP toolchain/PSPSDK and zlib. gpSP isn't much of a

+   "build it yourself" program so please don't bother me much about how to

+   build it unless you have a good reason for wanting to do so.

+

+

+Q) What is with the version numbers?

+

+A) Anything less than 1.0 means beta. Beta means that I still have major

+   plans for working on it, and that I don't fully back it as being

+   stable or reliable software. Of course, if it does hit 1.0, that doesn't

+   mean it'll be perfect. It just means I'll have spent a lot of cumulative

+   time working things out. The closer it gets to 0.9, the happier I am with

+   it overall.

+

+

+Q) Donations?

+

+A) Very appreciated. exophase@gmail.com on PayPal. <3

+

+

+Q) How can I contact you?

+

+A) exophase@gmail.com, Exophase on AIM, exophase@adelphia.net on MSN. I

+   welcome IMs, but if you nag me a lot you'll make me sad inside. And

+   don't ask me for ROMs or the GBA BIOS. I figured this was common sense

+   but apparently not.

+

+

+-- Credits --

+

+Exophase: main developer

+siberianSTAR: zip support

+psp298: analog nub code

+

+Beta testers for 0.7:

+theohsoawesome1

+thisnamesucks837

+blackdragonwave9

+dagreatpeewee

+xsgenji

+

+Beta testers for 0.8:

+Runaway_prisoner

+theohsoawesome1

+tanyareimyoko

+spynghotoh2020

+

+Beta testers for 0.9:

+RunawayPrisoner (my right hand man)

+Veskgar (my left hand man)

+qasim

+

+-- Special thanks --

+

+Quasar84: He's helped me in so many ways with this. We both kinda learned

+GBA together, he did little demos for me and I got them emulated. It was

+great trying out your more advanced code for your own projects once you

+got to them, it was equally rewarding to see your work and to be able to

+run it at the same time. Least of all I wouldn't have been able to do any

+of this without your constant support and presence. I really owe this

+release to you.

+

+gladius: You are an amazing GBA coder. I wouldn't have been able to get

+through some tough parts without your help. Its been good talking about

+ideas with you.. I'm sure you're glad to see that there's finally a GBA

+emulator with dynarec ;)

+

+

+Many, many others of course, probably too many to name, and I don't want

+to make anyone feel bad by putting others above them (well, except those

+two, heh) so if you think you should be on here, you probably should be!

+Just pretend you are for now, and maybe I'll put you here next time.

+