Forum: All Things Sega

on 2008/02/05 00:30 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

I'm proud to present my SVP (Virtua Racing) emulator:

http://notaz.gp2x.de/svp.php (external link)

The page also contains some useful developer resources. Hope to see this implemented in Fusion soon (for all it's filter goodness).

I would also like to thank Tasco Deluxe for his pioneering work on the subject (see this (external link)

post).

Enjoy!

on 2008/02/05 09:46 CET, by Eke posts: 24 3 stars

I love those kind of annouce, coming from nowhere !
Notaz, you are a king ;)

Where did you find additional infos on the DSP ?
And thank you for sharing your sourcecode with everybody , I guess we will see some emulator updates soon smile

on 2008/02/05 10:50 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

I've listed all info sources I used in my SVP doc (external link)

on 2008/02/05 16:59 CET, by tomman posts: 227 3 stars

The first big thing of this year on the scene....

Never say "IMPOSSIBLE"... mrgreen

Keep up that effort! Now, what Genesis game is still unemulated?

on 2008/02/05 19:38 CET, by Snake posts: 643 5 stars

Quote:

I'm proud to present my SVP (Virtua Racing) emulator:

http://notaz.gp2x.de/svp.php

The page also contains some useful developer resources. Hope to see this implemented in Fusion soon (for all it's filter goodness).

I would also like to thank Tasco Deluxe for his pioneering work on the subject (see this (external link)

post).

Enjoy!

Hats off to you, Sir. Nice :)

I shall definitely be checking out your documents, you would not believe the amount of searching, and number of people I've emailed over these last few months trying to get more info on this damn thing. Seems you've had much better luck than I have...

- EDIT - oh - good find on the wayback machine.

Wish I'd have known you were working on this ;) Mind you I am waist deep in something else.

Tom - I believe there are now NO unemulated licensed games left.

on 2008/02/05 21:48 CET, by Pablo posts: 234 3 stars

KUDOS!

It's nice to know that it all started out from the inn and the tavern once again!

Tanks Tazco & NotasDLX mrgreen

on 2008/02/05 22:07 CET, by fbb posts: 29 3 stars

Quote:

I'm proud to present my SVP (Virtua Racing) emulator:

http://notaz.gp2x.de/svp.php

The page also contains some useful developer resources. Hope to see this implemented in Fusion soon (for all it's filter goodness).

I would also like to thank Tasco Deluxe for his pioneering work on the subject (see this (external link)

post).

Enjoy!

thats it man, now sega fans will have the perfectly accurate genny experience
i have no words cry

on 2008/02/06 05:24 CET, by TascoDLX posts: 127 3 stars

Congratulations to notaz! You are certainly welcome. I'm proud to be a pioneer. biggrin

I must say I didn't expect it this soon, but the sooner the better, especially if it gets into Fusion.

Here is what will be the last update to my guide:

SVP Reference Guide 2008.02.06 (external link)

SVP Register Guide 2008.02.06 (external link)

And it's my pleasure to provide the first bugfix for a SVP emulator (PM sent to notaz).
The error is very obvious if you compare it with the real thing.

Here's to a great year for the 16-bit Sega consoles and Eidolon's Inn!

on 2008/02/06 22:45 CET, by Snake posts: 643 5 stars

Quote:

Congratulations to notaz! You are certainly welcome. I'm proud to be a pioneer. biggrin

You're more than that, man. Much respect well deserved.

You probably know from my interest in your docs that I would have had a go at this sooner, had I not had a ridiculously crappy last year and a half or so - and now I've got my head into something else... but before your work on this there was just nowhere to start.

Quote:

The error is very obvious if you compare it with the real thing.

It is :wink: I was going to take a look at that myself, now you've saved me the bother again.

So, DOES proper documentation on this Samsung chip actually exist? Samsung don't have it (they've been asked), but people seem to have written disassemblers etc... I'd much rather use 'official' naming conventions etc...

on 2008/02/07 00:34 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

Quote:

So, DOES proper documentation on this Samsung chip actually exist? Samsung don't have it (they've been asked), but people seem to have written disassemblers etc... I'd much rather use 'official' naming conventions etc...

They did surely exist, even were downloadable here (external link)

. Unfortunately the Wayback Machine hasn't archived them..

I'm pretty sure the mnemonics are correct, there are some real Samsung samples archived here (external link)

. Also some MAME guys probably have something (which they used for their recent SSP1610 disassembler), but I was unable to contact the person who wrote it, I am just keep getting ignored. The MAME mnemonics match the Samsung ones.

on 2008/02/07 06:55 CET, by TascoDLX posts: 127 3 stars

Quote:

You're more than that, man. Much respect well deserved.

You probably know from my interest in your docs that I would have had a go at this sooner, had I not had a ridiculously crappy last year and a half or so - and now I've got my head into something else... but before your work on this there was just nowhere to start.

Thank you, Steve. It is truly my pleasure.

And I assure you that you have done so much for this community that you may take as much time as you need to get your life in order. We will happily wait as long as it takes for the next Fusion update.

And speaking of 'nowhere to start', I'd like to acknowledge Charles MacDonald (external link)

for 'discovering' the SVP code and contradicting the rumor of an internal ROM. Without his discovery, I likely would have never begun this project.

Quote:

So, DOES proper documentation on this Samsung chip actually exist? Samsung don't have it (they've been asked), but people seem to have written disassemblers etc... I'd much rather use 'official' naming conventions etc...

The closest I have come to 'proper' documentation is a datasheet for iniDSP (external link)

by INICORE, which is based on a CD2450A (external link)

core by Clarkspur. Some of the instruction encodings are the same and, in overall structure, they're very similar. Apparently Clarkspur have provided DSP core designs to Samsung, among other companies (source (external link)

).

But, as far as 'official' naming conventions go, both Clarkspur and Samsung generally use the same mnemonics. The SSP16xx register set may be slightly different, but you can figure much of that out from the Samsung code samples. Of course, you surely won't find 'official' names for the SVP's custom registers (namely, the PMARs).

Here are some Clarkspur code samples for the curious among us:

http://www.clarkspur.com/tutorial.htm (external link)

on 2008/02/06 06:42 CET, by tomman posts: 227 3 stars

I've just checked the SVP emulator... nice job! The game runs fine, and it seems to have more options than the "deluxe" 32X version. I can't wait to see it running on Fusion!

Just a question: The SVP is "somehow" documented, so would it be possible to use it on homebrew development? (run on emulators, or hack a V.R. cart and stick a EEPROM/FlashROM there) We already have the 32X for more advanced stuff, but it would be a pretty cool project mrgreen

Bonus shot: PicoDrive? SVP on Linux (under Wine, of course): it DOES run, but on my system, it's insanely slow (mostly due to those awful ATi FGLRX drivers, but that's another nightmare):

on 2008/02/06 13:39 CET, by Red5 posts: 37 3 stars

Well done Notaz! The final piece of the puzzle is now in place biggrin

I also posted on the News page at the Genesis Project for you as well (my god, is it really THAT long since I did anything with it!)

on 2008/02/06 16:52 CET, by LordFlux posts: 7 2 stars

So cool! Way to go, Notaz!

on 2008/02/06 17:47 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

Tasco's bugfix is up, many thanks to him again!

http://notaz.gp2x.de/svp.php (external link)

Thanks for your support!

on 2008/02/06 20:28 CET, by Eke posts: 24 3 stars

Well... I implemented your core in the Gamecube "Genesis Plus" port: in demo mode the framerate drops at 25-30fps, in-game I got approximately 45-50fps depending if there is music or not.
I never owned the real cartridge, was it running full speed ?

Anyway, at least it shows me that my code need some optimization redface

on 2008/02/06 21:10 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

It updates every 4 frames, so you get ~15 visible fps in ntsc mode.
You can try underclocking the SVP, it's probably overclocked a bit in my iplementation..

on 2008/02/11 06:15 CET, by AamirM posts: 40 3 stars

Quote:

I'm proud to present my SVP (Virtua Racing) emulator:

http://notaz.gp2x.de/svp.php

The page also contains some useful developer resources. Hope to see this implemented in Fusion soon (for all it's filter goodness).

I would also like to thank Tasco Deluxe for his pioneering work on the subject (see this (external link)

post).

Enjoy!

That is awesome. Nice job. I'll be supporting that in my emu soon now. Thanks again.

stay safe,

AamirM

on 2008/02/11 07:08 CET, by muteKi posts: 34 3 stars

So, this is a really nice development — I love this game and also love being able to play it without the cartridge — but I feel that I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't take note of the perspective issue that seems to occur with the game.

It's particularly noticeable in replay of track 1, second to last turn, though if you look in the screenshots you can see it as well. In them, there seems to be a strange curvature to the road surface.

on 2008/02/11 10:12 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

Quote:

It's particularly noticeable in replay of track 1, second to last turn, though if you look in the screenshots you can see it as well. In them, there seems to be a strange curvature to the road surface.

Yes this is known, I've been looking for the problem but without success.

on 2008/02/13 00:37 CET, by sith-smasher posts: 294 3 stars

Big cheers for Notaz & Tasco on this awesome achievement. biggrin

The last holy grail of MD emulation is now being dug out of the mud. mrgreen

Hint hint: Stevie's magic...

on 2008/02/18 08:45 CET, by AamirM posts: 40 3 stars

Hi notaz,

I tried your SVP emu in my emulator and everything runs fine except when you start a race the music slows down a bit(it is fine in the menus). I am not doing the DMA stuff that your code does.

stay safe,

AamirM

on 2008/02/18 11:01 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

Quote:

I tried your SVP emu in my emulator and everything runs fine except when you start a race the music slows down a bit(it is fine in the menus). I am not doing the DMA stuff that your code does.

I doubt it has anything to do with my SVP code, I think something else is wrong in your emu. You can disable my code and just make your memhadlers return 1 on reads @ 30fe02 to fake SVP.

on 2008/02/18 12:28 CET, by AamirM posts: 40 3 stars

Quote:

I doubt it has anything to do with my SVP code, I think something else is wrong in your emu. You can disable my code and just make your memhadlers return 1 on reads @ 30fe02 to fake SVP.

Yup that was problem with Z-80 interrupt timing(again). I thought I had fixed it for good. The game sounds fine now.

on 2008/03/05 12:54 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

With some help from Pierpaolo Prazzoli of the MAME team, the perspective bug is now fixed! biggrin

Check http://notaz.gp2x.de/svp.php (external link)

, emu and sources updated.

on 2008/03/05 20:21 CET, by Snake posts: 643 5 stars

Quote:

With some help from Pierpaolo Prazzoli of the MAME team, the perspective bug is now fixed! biggrin

Check http://notaz.gp2x.de/svp.php (external link)

, emu and sources updated.

Rockin'

Wish I'd have had time to help you with this, but never mind, it's done now :)

BTW Pierpaolo Prazzoli wrote the disassembler, right? Did he have any more useful docs?

on 2008/03/05 22:08 CET, by TascoDLX posts: 127 3 stars

Quote:

With some help from Pierpaolo Prazzoli of the MAME team, the perspective bug is now fixed! biggrin

OK, now I see. That's pretty much where I thought the problem was (smack dab in the clipping code), but the bug didn't occur to me. Very devious. Good job tracking it down... it looks damn near perfect now!

on 2008/03/05 14:30 CET, by Eke posts: 24 3 stars

nice job, thanks for the update

btw, you might be happy to know that your SVP core is running fullspeed on the Wii (PowerPC @729Mhz)
wink

on 2008/03/05 15:06 CET, by notaz posts: 16 3 stars

Quote:

btw, you might be happy to know that your SVP core is running fullspeed on the Wii (PowerPC @729Mhz)
wink

Nice, but I feel it should run on Gamecube too. Are the wait-loop detections intact (SSP_WAIT_* macros)?
I wonder if I can get it playable on 240MHz ARM..

on 2008/03/05 20:24 CET, by Snake posts: 643 5 stars

Quote:

nice job, thanks for the update

btw, you might be happy to know that your SVP core is running fullspeed on the Wii (PowerPC @729Mhz)
wink

Hey Eke, nice job by the way, but apparently a few sites are saying that your Wii emulator is the first to do SVP. Notaz deserves a LOT of credit for this, especially since you're basically just using his core - can you do anything to educate people?

on 2008/03/06 10:37 CET, by Eke posts: 24 3 stars

Quote:

Hey Eke, nice job by the way, but apparently a few sites are saying that your Wii emulator is the first to do SVP. Notaz deserves a LOT of credit for this, especially since you're basically just using his core - can you do anything to educate people?

You know, proper crediting is something very important to me and I tried to credit and thanks every people who deserved it. The user manual and changelog are mentionning all credits & thanks with respect to that

This is also clearly stated on my blog (here (external link)

and here

) and on tehskeen.com (external link)

(where the binary can be downloaded) that the SVP core is from Notaz and that SVP emulation would not have been possible without him and TascoDeluxe?. I also included a link to the Picodrive website. As you can see, this is even stated in the changelog, which some website at least took time to copy& paste rolleyes

sincerely, I don't know what to do more to educate people confused

You know better than me that many sites only want the "SCOOP" thing and don't take the time to read the included files, when they simply doesn't do complete misinformation, which is the worst default of internet in my opinion...
I hate that but I just can track all website to correct lazy newsers

Quote:

Nice, but I feel it should run on Gamecube too. Are the wait-loop detections intact (SSP_WAIT_* macros)?
I wonder if I can get it playable on 240MHz ARM..

Yes, it's still here
I also tried to hang the SSP emulation when 0xaa in writen in 0xa15006 (though I have absolutely no idea if this is correct), it runs a little faster but still not at 60fps, I need to underclock to 400 cycles/scanline to stay at 60fps in any condition (intro sequence is probably the most cpu intensive part)

When profiling the code (I use a DOS version for debugging), it's obvious that 80% of the time is taken in SSP_Run, maybe some ASM rewrites for the critical part (memory handlers also) could improve the speed, I really don't know
(and more over, I 'm far from being a powerPC expert frown

)

on 2008/03/28 03:08 CET, by dorfd1 posts: 24 3 stars

Could the Sega Cd make use of the Sega Virtua Processor?

The sega cd did make use of the 32x

on 2008/03/28 04:16 CET, by King posts: 365 4 stars

Quote:

Could the Sega Cd make use of the Sega Virtua Processor?

The sega cd did make use of the 32x

No.

Forum: All Things Sega

SVP has been emulated!