[RetroRalph]

RetroCopy : Accurate emulator for the Nintendo and Master System

v0.200b of RetroCopy has been released! You can download it from the link above. Here is what is new :-

-Added 3D TV to replace old 2D TV, with phosphor glow emulation and curved screen for real 80s gaming.
-Added 3D world which can be moved around in when viewing the games in windowed mode. Press F3 to switch between 3D movement and GUI movement
-Added cycle accurate TMS9918 MODE2 emulation to the SMS VDP. Games like F-16 Fighter use it
-Added version label inside program so it's obvious what version you are running
-Fixed issue with background image not filling up entire display if resolution was over 1680 x 1050
-Fixed emulation thread appearing to "hang" that happened when CPU usage was high
-Scrollbar buttons now work
-Removed the .GAME extension in rom browser
-Forgot to call glFinish before swapping buffers, leading to a one frame delay which was noticable when VSYNC was enabled


And here is a video showing some off some of the new features.

Preview of v0.300b

 

[ilovehentai]

Cool you project is growing great, just one question, where can I find games covers?

I hope NES games will be back soon to your emulator.

 

[indaman]

One of the most amazing emulator in my opinion.

And it works smooth on my dual core computer in 3D mode.

 

[DJoneK]

Nice. Looking closer to my ideal 3D front-end. One were you browse games with actual 3d boxes/cases and once you select one it will zoom into a nearby TV and display the games fullscreen. I wouldn't really like to play on a "TV inside a TV", although it looks really cool.

 

[RetroRalph]

Cool you project is growing great, just one question, where can I find games covers?

I hope NES games will be back soon to your emulator.

There are some possible legal issues with hosting game covers that I'm ignorant on at the moment. Ideally it would be nice to have a collection of them on my site but it may be breaking some laws in a few countries, I'm not certain yet. Places like SMSPOWER have scans, as do others you can find on google.

NES will be back soon, a week or two.

I wouldn't really like to play on a "TV inside a TV", although it looks really cool.

Yeah it's a personal thing like any filter I believe. I do like how the TV gives a bit more emphasis with the color glow though, makes certain scenes a bit better.

 

[Hard core Rikki]

ECC hosts gamecovers, and I think use of them (their own scans as well) is not disallowed (for representation, like display of game covers in shops is allowed for the same purpose)

 

[RetroRalph]

ECC hosts gamecovers, and I think use of them (their own scans as well) is not disallowed (for representation, like display of game covers in shops is allowed for the same purpose)

What is ECC? The reason I was a bit wary is because WIKIPEDIA only allows low resolution covers on its site, with a bit of a disclaimer about it. RetroCopy really needs high resolution covers for it to be decent looking. The cover images themselves are copyrighted automatically, that's how I thought copyright works anyhow. So in theory you would need permission, but the fact that stores, magazines, etc, display them without any direct permission is another thing to think about.

I also have noted that plenty of other sites have done it for years without issue, and even emulators. If people offered to help organize them for my site then I would probably allow it and just take images down if copyright holders complained.

 

[Hard core Rikki]

emucontrolcenter.
Online fetching on a need-to basis or whole packs in advance (through the interface) for some platforms would be a legit workaround. Why even host or distribute, if it can be fetched from where its ok? (for representtation again, and from pics taken by people who allowed their reuse. WP is itself just a pain and truth be told, not a good source for pics of that kind).

There are imagepacks for each of the consoles/platforms supported. Not exhaustive yet, but getting there, the more people contribute.
http://icc.phoenixinteractive.mine.nu/

 

[RetroRalph]

The reason I would add them to my site is more a reliability thing. If the interface fetched them you would hope it would be reliable and have the info you need. Relying upon other sites to take the bandwidth burden might be a bit rude also, as each file is around 200KB. Maxim from SMSPOWER has already noted it may be a problem since they have the largest collection and something like RetroCopy may drive a considerable amount more people there.

ECC looks interesting, had never heard about it.

 

[Hard core Rikki]

Fetching through a local script that picks from your site a list of uptodate mirrors for raondom or balanced use would lift that concern. Though so far, Im not aware of other mirrors to ecc's main location, so in all justice, if a usable list had to exist, it should be at their level.

If its for a manageably small list of pics, you could probably keep it locally hosted, I guess. If you seek only gamecovers for SMS and NES, picking just the 'cover front' and 'cover back' packs (or even 'cover spine') would suffice (a credit somewhere to ecc could probably be appreciated).


Edit: mentioned ECC since TheCoverProject submitted game covers to its packs. You could use it directly if you dont seek anything else.

covers for Genesis. 453, aka a lot. Theyre high resolution, too
http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cat_id=3

 

[RetroRalph]

Well another thing is the covers have to be in a correct aspect ratio, some need a tiny bit of fiddling to fit well in the 3D world. It all depends on the quality of the people doing the scanning, whether they are square, etc. A lot of scans you can simply just use straight which helps. I tried to model the gameboxes on real world units such that a good quality scan would fit without any tweaking.

It also helps if a standard size in width/height/bytes is used in something like RetroCopy, with images that have been verified to work. You can't really expect other sites to conform to those sorts of needs... I have plenty of bandwidth available so it's no concern on that front for me.

 

[hate]

with phosphor glow emulation

....Interesting. A lot of emulators are using that these days.....
I have to wonder how "accurate" that filtering approach is. Are people doing calculations as to the exact logic behind it, or they are using a arbitrary bloom-like pixel shader.

 

[Elratauru]

Awesome, I'd like it to support maybe other emulators too?

I'd be so cool to have some genesis and snes ones with that frontend type, 3d boxes with artwork looks so...nice.

The 3d tv is really cool, im the type of guy that having a lcd screen, use borders like that for emulators, retro-style, Nice job there =D

 

[RetroRalph]

Yeah there is already some work done previously on 16bit cores, just not to the level of the SMS/NES emulators yet.

 

[RetroRalph]

I've uploaded a new video showing some of the new features in v0.300b.

 

[DJoneK]

I've uploaded a new video showing some of the new features in v0.300b.

Now THAT looks awesome. Can't wait to see what lies next now.

 

[cottonvibes]

RetroRalph:

you should have a model of the NES and put it on top of each tv.
that would be pretty cool. and maybe some 3d nes pads that's buttons get pressed down when you press the mapped keys.

i take it this emulator is 50% about aesthetics and 50% emulation.

 

[RetroRalph]

you should have a model of the NES and put it on top of each tv.
that would be pretty cool. and maybe some 3d nes pads that's buttons get pressed down when you press the mapped keys.

Yeah some have already mentioned getting some real consoles in there. I've already played a bit with this but I'd like to get something functional in there rather than just purely aesthetic.

i take it this emulator is 50% about aesthetics and 50% emulation.

Well I wouldn't break it down quite like that. All I'm trying to do is create something people can "experience" again, and get the good feelings from yesteryear. Some of this requires doing things people haven't seen before. What I want to do is recapture that feeling you got when you first learned about emulators and played them a lot. I have some really cool things coming (which I rate much higher than this 3D stuff) which will hopefully help with this.

 

[@ruantec]

I've uploaded a new video showing some of the new features in v0.300b.

Now that´s what i call coding spirit!!! it seems like times are finaly changing and people realizing that emulators aren´t just a damn bad looking window with a ***** menu but that emulators are a wonderfull piece of software that deserves a stunning GUI.

Since long time i´ve been trying to change that and show other devs that it can be done in another way... sadly not every dev wants to spend some time and work on a nice GUI but at least there are people like you that take a time and code something amazing.

Great job RetroRalph :thumb:

 

[RetroRalph]

Now that´s what i call coding spirit!!! it seems like times are finaly changing and people realizing that emulators aren´t just a damn bad looking window with a ***** menu but that emulators are a wonderfull piece of software that deserves a stunning GUI.

Thanks

Since long time i´ve been trying to change that and show other devs that it can be done in another way... sadly not every dev wants to spend some time and work on a nice GUI but at least there are people like you that take a time and code something amazing.

It takes considerable time and effort to achieve these things though. Thankfully I'm in the position at the moment where I can pour all my effort into RetroCopy. Other authors are not so lucky and have to use their skills making money for others. Most people if given the choice will take money over working for free.