[RetroRalph]

RetroCopy v0.500B has been released. RetroCopy is a cycle accurate Nintendo (NES), Sega Master System, GameGear and Arcade emulator.

This version has a lot of new things to play with and a lot better stability.

If you are an emulator related site please link to the individual emulator pages for RetroCopy :-

Sega Master System (SMS) Emulator for the Sega Master System emulation
GameGear Emulator for the GameGear emulation
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Emulator for Nintendo emulation
Arcade Emulator for Arcade emulation


What's new:-

-[EMU] Added cycle accurate Game Gear emulation
-[EMU] Added multiplayer support (same machine) to NES, SEGA-E arcade and SMS drivers.
-[EMU] Fixed bug in NES PPU that was causing crashes for certain games upon loadup
-[EMU] Fixed a fews bug in NES APU that were causing slight issues with sound generation when DMC was used
-[EMU] Added korean mapper to SMS and corrected a few CodeMaster mapper games
-[EMU] Cleaned up the SMSVDP core (used by SMS, Gamegear and SEGA-E arcade cores) and made it more accurate using the new information found about the TMS9918 graphics processor.

-[CORE] Can now select whether to start playing on the emulated 3D television or in "fullscreen mode"
-[CORE] Added configurable input, you can now change every input to whatever you want including using key modifiers like SHIFT, ALT, etc.
-[CORE] Added joystick/joypad support. Up to 4 joysticks/joypads plugged in at once are supported.
-[CORE] Fixed issue with ENTER or SPACE causing the menu buttons to be pushed if you had focused a button while playing a game
-[CORE] Replaced most of boost::filesystem with own disk layer functions to reduce exception handling
-[CORE] Changed file functions to morph any "indirect" paths to a full path name to resolve any issues with working directory being set to something other than the RetroCopy directory
-[CORE] Added texture cache
-[CORE] Moved all system specific dat files to a dat subfolder to reduce main directory clutter
-[CORE] Added the emulator benchmark ROM internally into RetroCopy to avoid issues with not having the file
-[CORE] Can now run RetroCopy in a window on your desktop or fullscreen (default).
-[CORE] Every option is now saved in a config file
-[CORE] Now convert "unknown games" in the directory to a default GAME file so that they can possibly be played if valid
-[CORE] Fixed a few issues with GAME conversion, made it more reliable

-[3D] Added new 3D furniture into the Virtual Game Room
-[3D] Added a new 3D TV, it is more modern and has a widescreen aspect ratio to give more options for playing games accurately
-[3D] Added game gear 3D model upon which you can play games on. Even has a semi accurate LCD flicker effect.
-[3D] Changed shader code to only allow 5 active lights to improve performance.
-[3D] Fixed issue with camera tilting on Y axis after entering game room
-[3D] Added antialiasing and VSYNC options
-[3D] Fixed possible bug that may have detected shader capable cards when they didn't support all features needed

-[AUDIO] Can now change sample rate up to 192000Hz for those seeking insane audio quality. Minimum allowed is 22050Hz which gives a tiny speed boost over the default of 44100Hz.

-[GUI] Tweaked the 3D game browser to make it easier to use
-[GUI] Fixed a very random crash bug that was caused by scrollbars not being properly initialized in some instances
-[GUI] Now show a 3D arcade machine in the area gameboxes go when viewing the arcade games since they don't have gameboxes
-[GUI] Changed the theme of some buttons/windows to make a more cohesive looking interface
-[GUI] Added an animation effect when switching areas within RetroCopy
-[GUI] Added a random message generator on the main part of the interface that shows "witty" slogans.
-[GUI] Added login panel

 

[Paratech]

Thanks, it's improved quite a bit!

 

[nosound.97]

Not a bit, but with a whole new GG emulation Nice job!

 

[thepig]

Like it alot - a very pro emu. I can almost feel it wanting to emulate more machines when you are in the 'game room'. Great stuff.

As a brother of a professional programmer ( I lived with code - and code a little myself ) there are just a few 'user' suggestions. I am not being a critic just providing some user input - take it or leave it.

I think that -

- A quit button should be accessible at ALL times. No matter what an exit key or button should be active. Whilst my ROMs were being converted I wanted to quit but couldn't and had to wait.

- Related to above , if I exit through ctrl+alt+del ( which I shouldn't have to if it had a quit at all times feature ) the code left me with graphic artifacts etc etc Once again I should not have to use this ugly technique to quit a program - any program.


Just a few thoughts.

 

[Paratech]

Can't you <Cntrl><f4> close the app as well?
Not that I'm disagreeing, I think there should be the option to close at any time, but I wouldn't suggest doing it when it's messing with files.
I still would rather see that done differently, as an option, and not to delete the old files, and to have separate input and output folders when changing the files.

 

[RetroRalph]

As a brother of a professional programmer ( I lived with code - and code a little myself ) there are just a few 'user' suggestions. I am not being a critic just providing some user input - take it or leave it.

Hey there is no need to downplay the suggestion!

I agree that some parts of the interface could use a little tweaking, this is probably one of them. Also I want to improve the ROM conversion so it is done in another thread, this way it could be canceled without any harsh issues.

Most of RetroCopy is multithreaded (video/sound/emulator) so it makes sense to make GAME conversion the same.

 

[Paratech]

Still, it is a nice update from the previous version.

Could you list supported arcade games in a txt file as the emulator doesn't go into detail about the arcade games it supports, if it were in a readme, it might interest some MAME games, but please warn them you delete the old version of the roms. In fact, I'd suggest a readme on that in general as few emulators delete roms. No matter how well you are in making this emulator, there are going to be people who want to use multiple emulators for a variety of reasons and they may not be amused when it deletes the old versions of their roms.

 

[DKT70]

Any chance of Fullscreen TV mode with filtering ?
A sort of fullscreen mode, but with a slight curved screen with a small TV border, and the graphics filtered, if that makes sense.
At the moment, fullscreen uses no filtering, so you get a raw pixel look that looks a little too pixelated on a LCD.
This would also look nice with Gamegear emulation, but in fullscreen the main screen sits inside a picture of a gamegear.

Definately an improvement on the last version, especially the rom conversion.

 

[RetroRalph]

There are filters in fullscreen, I haven't exposed them to the GUI interface yet though.

Press F5 to switch between the pixelated look and blurred. This works with every filter.
Press F6 to switch between a few filters, there is RAW, SCALE2X, SCALE4X and SCALE4X+scanlines.

You can kinda do what you want DKT by simply scrolling up closer to the screen in question. If you hold SHIFT it slows down all the movement making it easier for getting close to the gamegear screen.

Still, it is a nice update from the previous version.

Could you list supported arcade games in a txt file as the emulator doesn't go into detail about the arcade games it supports, if it were in a readme, it might interest some MAME games, but please warn them you delete the old version of the roms. In fact, I'd suggest a readme on that in general as few emulators delete roms. No matter how well you are in making this emulator, there are going to be people who want to use multiple emulators for a variety of reasons and they may not be amused when it deletes the old versions of their roms.

Yes that is a good point, I should have done that already (list the games and what ROMs to use). In regards to deletion though, most people have MAME ROMs stored in ZIPS, and you need to unzip them for RetroCopy to detect them.

The fact that RetroCopy requires the user to put the roms in it's directory I thought was fairly evident that it wasn't the usual emulator in this regard, and it does say now that it removes them on the main page (I think you asked for this last version?).

 

[Paratech]

Yes, I just think it would be good to warn people in a readme, as people tend to not pay attention to websites and sometimes there are direct links to downloads, so not everyone who gets the file knows what they're getting into.

Thank you for the update, BTW.

 

[DKT70]

There are filters in fullscreen, I haven't exposed them to the GUI interface yet though.

Press F5 to switch between the pixelated look and blurred. This works with every filter.
Press F6 to switch between a few filters, there is RAW, SCALE2X, SCALE4X and SCALE4X+scanlines.

You can kinda do what you want DKT by simply scrolling up closer to the screen in question. If you hold SHIFT it slows down all the movement making it easier for getting close to the gamegear screen.

Ahh, thanks for that, I'll give them a try in a moment. As for the zooming, thats exactly what I've been doing
Thing is, you can never seem to get it spot on, no matter how many little minor adjustments you make to the movement and zooming, I always end up with the screen not quite lining up, so slightly taking away the illusion of fullscreen.
Still, any plans on having a similar fullscreen option, in the future ?
The Arcade emulation would also look great in fullscreen mode with part of the surrounding arcade cabinet in view, as well as the control panel.

 

[fivefeet8]

The new version doesn't load the games at all for me. I'm on Windows 7 x64bit. Worked fine in the previous version. The emulator loads fine, converts the files fine, but doesn't load any game from either NES or SMS.

Installed the VC++ redistr, but nothing still. When loading on any of the virtual screens, they either blank out, or stays all bright white. Happens on both x64 and x86. At least the conversion of a large set of games doesn't crash it now.

 

[RetroRalph]

The new version doesn't load the games at all for me. I'm on Windows 7 x64bit. Worked fine in the previous version. The emulator loads fine, converts the files fine, but doesn't load any game from either NES or SMS.

Installed the VC++ redistr, but nothing still. When loading on any of the virtual screens, they either blank out, or stays all bright white. Happens on both x64 and x86. At least the conversion of a large set of games doesn't crash it now.

Is lighting working in the game room? Is there sound but no video? I noticed that in VMWare retrocopy doesn't seem to display correctly on the TV in 3D mode but is fine with "fullscreen", but since you have a decent graphic card going by your signature that wouldn't explain it.

It's likely an issue with your graphics card drivers, NVIDIA are very flakey atm on Win7, have you tried both the x64 and 32bit version to see if there is any difference? I have tested on Win7 x64 with a NVIDIA 9600GT and it works fine. 191.07 drivers seem to be the best ones to use at the moment.

Still, any plans on having a similar fullscreen option, in the future ?
The Arcade emulation would also look great in fullscreen mode with part of the surrounding arcade cabinet in view, as well as the control panel.

Well maybe a way to autozoom to any TV so that it's taking up most of the screen? It would simply require each TV to specify it's best spot for fullscreen.

 

[fivefeet8]

Is lighting working in the game room? Is there sound but no video? I noticed that in VMWare retrocopy doesn't seem to display correctly on the TV in 3D mode but is fine with "fullscreen", but since you have a decent graphic card going by your signature that wouldn't explain it.

There is no sound or video. The lighting and 3d scene is perfectly fine. It's only when I try to load a game when either the virtual TV blanks out to black or stays at a bright white/greenish tint. This is in full screen or within the 3d room.

It's likely an issue with your graphics card drivers, NVIDIA are very flakey atm on Win7, have you tried both the x64 and 32bit version to see if there is any difference? I have tested on Win7 x64 with a NVIDIA 9600GT and it works fine. 191.07 drivers seem to be the best ones to use at the moment.

I've tried both Win7 x64 and 32bit. I am inclined to agree that it is likely a driver issue.