The Kid wrote:
>I read that everyone is so positive over the new version of gem.
>What am I doing wrong, because all the games I use won't give any sound
>and run very slow.
Hmm, no sound? Sound is emulated through PSG, so make sure you can hear it.
I haven't tested this release on my GT, but it works fine in BrMSX and I
haven't changed anything sound-related since last time I checked.
It is true that some games don't have sound though, because emulation is
still lacking the timer interrupt (will be slow to emulate correctly, but
maybe I can fake it). Lack of timer interrupt is the same reason Super
Mario Land runs too fast.
About the slowness of games, yes they run slowly. On the average I think
about 20% to 30% of the real speed. Actually the title-screen of megaman
runs at around 100% :))
What do you expect? The Gameboy has a 1MHz CPU with similar instruction
timings as the R800, so a turboR is only around 7 times faster. With that
7x speed it not just has to do CPU emulation, but also sound and video
(very slow, since gameboy is pattern based, SCREEN 5 is not).
On the avarage, for writing an emulator that runs at full speed, you need a
system +/- 30 times more powerful than the system you're emulating. Take
BrMSX, it needs a 386DX40 PC (40 MHz, 32 bit system) to emulate MSX (3.5
Mhz, 8 bit system), and (according to the manual) that's just enough to let
SOME games run at full speed.
So, if you don't mind me saying, GEM does one hell of a g*dd*mn job! :)
The only way to speed it up is to use some sort of recompilation technique.
Very complex stuff... We (Laurens Holst and I) are working on it, but don't
expect anything soon.
Features planned for next release:
- accurate support of MBC1/2/3/5, for support to larger games (up to 2 MB)
- 8x8 hardware sprite engine, it will look crappy, but hopefully be a lot
faster :) (the current renderers really slow down when there are many
sprites on-screen)
Next release may take a while, I'm writing a new assembler because the one
I use now (TASM) sucks butt. (Yes, I use an evil machine to create GEM ;))
Greetz,
Patriek
PS. if you have a fast PC, use BrMSX -turbo mode to make GEM run faster :)
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