Developer's wanted

[Hard core Rikki]

Originally Posted by plaes

Is there any work being done on VBA?

Could you please at least move from CVS to SVN and apply their latest patches...

Pretty much, there is NO MORE activity on the official VBA. A shame.
With the author Forgotten out of the picture, noone stepped in to continue work on it (except VBA Team basically, but that didnt last too much either apparently).

What would be needed now, is to RETROFIT the new stuff and fixes that originated in the forks, into the *official* VBA, for everyone's benefit.

[daytonausa2020]

I could help, I am making currently a dreamcast emulator (which now has the ability to load the bios very slowly), but I need sound support later on, because I learned ARM architexture.... and the sound runs off an ARM7, which is the same core as the iPod and GBA :P

So I could help you with your project and possibly get help with mine...

[shashClp]

Originally Posted by Hard core Rikki

What would be needed now, is to RETROFIT the new stuff and fixes that originated in the forks, into the *official* VBA, for everyone's benefit.

Aren't all those forks difficult to find? Because it's not like merging different forks of a versioned source code base is rocket science. I guess if someone did a list of the fixes on different code bases, with their source code, merging wouldn't be that much of a problem. But it's a rough guess, depends on the ammount of changes, of course...

[Hard core Rikki]

Originally Posted by shashClp

Aren't all those forks difficult to find? Because it's not like merging different forks of a versioned source code base is rocket science. I guess if someone did a list of the fixes on different code bases, with their source code, merging wouldn't be that much of a problem. But it's a rough guess, depends on the ammount of changes, of course...

To find ???
Well, checking the known ones like vbalink and ones listed in spacy's list should be nice for starters, unless the 1.8.0 core needs more attention before retrofitting is worth attempting?
For forks built on the 1.7 codebase, couldnt their fixes/improvements be adapted to 1.8 without too much hassle ?

[mudlord]

Hmm, this is actually something I might look into.

Since recently I have been having a strange & very strong programming appetite and can't suppress it no matter how hard I try, I might do this. Depends on the compiler used, but I'll see what I can arrange.

I know kode54 (one of the HydrogenAudio admins) made a very nice VBA build with LCD emulation, and some very nice audio patches using blargg's sound library.

[MasterPhW]

Originally Posted by mudlord

Hmm, this is actually something I might look into.

Since recently I have been having a strange & very strong programming appetite and can't suppress it no matter how hard I try, I might do this. Depends on the compiler used, but I'll see what I can arrange.

I know kode54 (one of the HydrogenAudio admins) made a very nice VBA build with LCD emulation, and some very nice audio patches using blargg's sound library.

Yeah, mudlord, you seems to be one of the most active devs in the emulation community with some of the greatest projects, really.
I like all the things you are doing and looking forward to the Rice build with pixel shader support atm.
But I would also like to see a ALL-IN-ONE VBA version. That would rock!
IMHO the version of Spacy had the best version of a new menu sheme, would be great to have that back! And the fixes of these other forks would really enhance the GBA experience!

[mudlord]

Yeah, mudlord, you seems to be one of the most active devs in the emulation community with some of the greatest projects, really.

^_^

I like all the things you are doing and looking forward to the Rice build with pixel shader support atm.

I know lots of people have been wanting proper cel shading for some time, ever since Orkin had discovered a way to do accurate cel shading through improvements based on his per pixel lighting code in Direct64. I thought bout time that everyone could use shaders with thier games. As you might have seen, I have already released some public tools used to help author the shaders, which leaves then I guess to finalise the shader support and add it in the public DX9 build. All in all, I am very pleased with my work on the plugin thus far, and I'm happy everyone is too. I know some texture artists were super pleased with the 8x/16x support and I'm starting to see like a renaissance in retexing, as well as now another video plugin starting to support Rice Video format textures...

But I would also like to see a ALL-IN-ONE VBA version. That would rock!
IMHO the version of Spacy had the best version of a new menu sheme, would be great to have that back! And the fixes of these other forks would really enhance the GBA experience!

So basically, what patches and forks you want combined?

EDIT: I checked out the main 1.7.2 source. It seems compiler usage won't be a problem, since it uses plain MSVC6 as well as the newer MSVC compiler sets.

[MasterPhW]

MMh...
The fixes and tweaks in Kode54's VBA build, the Hacking features of VBA-H, the recording features of VBA Rerecording, the Link features of VBALink and VBALinkReal, the VBA smooth Plugin compatibility and the menu and specials of VBA-S.
But it's much harder than it seems!
But I wish you good luck with all your projects, keep them going.
Btw: I also support you besides with the collection of all texture packs on ET!

[mudlord]

Indeed, its much harder than it sounds, as I will need to check up on each one and see what codebases there are on. I'll add each forks features incrementally and see how that goes.

EDIT: Well, it seems Spacy's build is on 1.8.0 beta, and kode54's patch is on 1.8.0, so it looks portage to 1.8.0 needs to happen it seems...Just need to find the 1.8 beta's original source code...

[TheCloudOfSmoke]

Originally Posted by MasterPhW

Yeah, mudlord, you seems to be one of the most active devs in the emulation community with some of the greatest projects, really.
I like all the things you are doing and looking forward to the Rice build with pixel shader support atm.
But I would also like to see a ALL-IN-ONE VBA version. That would rock!
IMHO the version of Spacy had the best version of a new menu sheme, would be great to have that back! And the fixes of these other forks would really enhance the GBA experience!

I agree. I hope that someone can at least put in all of the builds together. That would be great. Much respect to anyone who takes on the project. Although, I do like Spacy's build, I don't like the arrangement of things. I prefer the original VBA layout without any features taken out. It's not good to downgrade by taking away seemingly useless features because some people actually use certain features.

[mudlord]

Although, I do like Spacy's build, I don't like the arrangement of things. I prefer the original VBA layout without any features taken out. It's not good to downgrade by taking away seemingly useless features because some people actually use certain features.

Hmmm, well has any one got the link to the 1.8.0 beta source code? I can't seem to find a link to a package with it. I'm just going to redo the patches based on the clean 1.8.0 source, that is, if I can find it first.

Also, I am having difficulties obtaining the latest VBAsmooth source. The homepage seems to be down and archive.org doesnt seem to want to co-operate with me too well

[shashClp]

Originally Posted by Hard core Rikki

To find ???

Well, just check this...

Originally Posted by mudlord

Hmmm, well has any one got the link to the 1.8.0 beta source code? I can't seem to find a link to a package with it. I'm just going to redo the patches based on the clean 1.8.0 source, that is, if I can find it first.

Also, I am having difficulties obtaining the latest VBAsmooth source. The homepage seems to be down and archive.org doesnt seem to want to co-operate with me too well

Do you see what I was talking about?

[MasterPhW]

Here are all the sources I've found and uploaded these files:

--------------FULL project sources!-----------------
VBA-Spacy WIP 2006 02 11 SRC
VBA-Spacy WIP 2006 04 14 src
VBA-Spacy 1.76 Source
VBA CVS 2005-10-21 (Kode54's Build)
VisualBoyAdvance-H LS0.20
VBA Rerecording Build19-src
VBA Rerecording Build20-src
VisualBoyAdvanceED 1.4 src
--------------Patch Files collected so far------------
k54's patches
1.73 Link Patches
hq3x speed and vidion patches based on VBA-S 1.76

[mudlord]

Thanks for the sources to VBA-S, and VBA-H...

All I need now is VBAsmooth sources and the 1.8.0 beta code...

[MasterPhW]

But as I said, I don't know, if that are the most up to date sources!
But they are the only ones I still have on my HDD.
But I will continue to research!

[mudlord]

Thanks for the sources.

So far I managed to compile VBA-S.

Since that seems to be based on 1.8.0 beta, I might have to use that as a base, and plus, VBA-S compiles clean straight out of the box, which helps simplify things, whereas the official 1.7.2 build completely trips on GBA.cpp and crashes the compiler (I'm using MSVC2003)..

[djrobx]

I've been poking around the various VisualBoy sources because none of them worked quite right on my Vista boxes, and I wanted HQ3X at 60hz with vsync.

I have something I want to contribute - I have fixed a bug and added an offset feature to the HQ3X assembly-optimized sources to allow it to work with VisualBoy. MaxSt's source has a bug where it forgets to increment the destination pixels a bit when "pitch" is less than Xres * Pixelsize. I also added an Offset to accommodate source image pitch. I see VBAS and others are using the C-based HQ3X which is much slower.

Now, onto my experiences with the various versions:

The DirectDraw capable builds seem to work best with Vista, *but* most of them lack the ability to specify 60hz refresh rate. Vista's dxdiag no longer has the option to lock refresh rates, and many drivers ignore manual monitor selection (e.g. they will pick 75hz if your monitor is capable if you leave refresh rate blank in the DirectDraw create call, which is what existing sources do). "VBA Smooth" works well except for this issue. Unfortunately the VBA Smooth sources do not appear to be available anywhere!

Spacey's Direct3D only builds will not vsync on any of my Vista boxes (NVidia, Intel GMA) nor my Windows XP box with ATI Radeon, no matter what I do. Not sure why (it's using the correct D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_ONE), but no matter what combinations of settings I try I get ugly tearing.

I found an older version of VBAS source (from the main download area of this site) that still has the DirectDraw code in it and was able to get the assembly optimized HQ3X into it. It works well. But I'm not even sure how old underlying VisualBoy source is or what improvements have been made to it since then.

For now I have only fixed the 16 bit hq3x assembly implementation. I can also work on the 2x and 4x and 32 bit versions, but I would want to do so against current sources that are actively being developed. I checked out the CVS version from SourceForge but it doesn't seem to include anything but hq2x and I can't really tell how "new" it is.

My concern with you using the more recent VBAS as a base is that the DirectDraw code has been removed. I guess we could re-integrate it if need be.

The kode54 build source posted here does not include all of his sound updates (per the links thread). VisualBoy would really benefit from sound interpolation. If we cannot track his source down I can add that too. So we still would benefit from recet sources for Kode54 (sound) and VBA-Smooth (use Kega video plugins). It's a shame so much source seems to have been lost. We gotta get a CVS or SVN going!

[MasterPhW]

Originally Posted by djrobx

I've been poking around the various VisualBoy sources because none of them worked quite right on my Vista boxes, and I wanted HQ3X at 60hz with vsync.

I have something I want to contribute - I have fixed a bug and added an offset feature to the HQ3X assembly-optimized sources to allow it to work with VisualBoy. MaxSt's source has a bug where it forgets to increment the destination pixels a bit when "pitch" is less than Xres * Pixelsize. I also added an Offset to accommodate source image pitch. I see VBAS and others are using the C-based HQ3X which is much slower.

Now, onto my experiences with the various versions:

The DirectDraw capable builds seem to work best with Vista, *but* most of them lack the ability to specify 60hz refresh rate. Vista's dxdiag no longer has the option to lock refresh rates, and many drivers ignore manual monitor selection (e.g. they will pick 75hz if your monitor is capable if you leave refresh rate blank in the DirectDraw create call, which is what existing sources do). "VBA Smooth" works well except for this issue. Unfortunately the VBA Smooth sources do not appear to be available anywhere!

Spacey's Direct3D only builds will not vsync on any of my Vista boxes (NVidia, Intel GMA) nor my Windows XP box with ATI Radeon, no matter what I do. Not sure why (it's using the correct D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_ONE), but no matter what combinations of settings I try I get ugly tearing.

I found an older version of VBAS source (from the main download area of this site) that still has the DirectDraw code in it and was able to get the assembly optimized HQ3X into it. It works well. But I'm not even sure how old underlying VisualBoy source is or what improvements have been made to it since then.

For now I have only fixed the 16 bit hq3x assembly implementation. I can also work on the 2x and 4x and 32 bit versions, but I would want to do so against current sources that are actively being developed. I checked out the CVS version from SourceForge but it doesn't seem to include anything but hq2x and I can't really tell how "new" it is.

My concern with you using the more recent VBAS as a base is that the DirectDraw code has been removed. I guess we could re-integrate it if need be.

The kode54 build source posted here does not include all of his sound updates (per the links thread). VisualBoy would really benefit from sound interpolation. If we cannot track his source down I can add that too. So we still would benefit from recet sources for Kode54 (sound) and VBA-Smooth (use Kega video plugins). It's a shame so much source seems to have been lost. We gotta get a CVS or SVN going!

Nice to have some more guys with VBA experiences and which also want to have improvements.
Could you please add the source you speaked about to this source? It could help mudlord a lot I think!
Probably you could also attach the changed sources you did!?!