VisualBoy Advance/SDL ? Your opinion

[Bobbi]

As the VisualBoy Advance author recently asked, if you'd like a SDL version of this emu, I thought it'd be a good idea to start a thread about this here.

In my opinion, this would be a kickass feature ... playing one of the currently best emus on other platforums ... *yumi*

What's your opinion on that ?

[SimonMallion]

Sorry Bobbi for my ignorance but what does SDL mean?

[Bobbi]

Okay, for everyone who doesn't know what this is about, here's a short info part for you explaining it :

SDL stands for Simple Direct Media Library (get more infos here ) rather than the DirectX libraries. Consequently, it can be used on many different platforms, while still using the excellent core from the windows version.

What does this mean ? This means that, once SDL is being used, the emulator will run on many different platforms, like linux, BeOS and, of course, still windows.

[Shiori]

well that's a great idea then. but how about MacOS?

[edit] ok, so it supports MacOS then.

[Thorgal]

Bobbi: good copy-'n-paste work of the VBA section I made

Ahrem, anyway, it sounds like a great idea imho; kinda like the Boycott Advance/SDL idea which I think r0cks too, as you can never have too many ports of an emulator

[jegHegy]

hmm...sdl...well, as for me, i don't like sdl too much, and that's because it's slow like hell on my machine. it's only my personal opinion, but if there would be a vboy/sdl, i wouldn't use it because of the speed. i get reasonable speed with directx (especially with video memory on). i'd stick to the dx version anywayz.
take my vote for directx. ^_^

EDIT: btw, sdl is slow for me in both linux and windows

[CD]

SDL does at least partially use DX, when used in Win32, FYI.

And just because something uses SDL, doesn't mean it's going to immediately compile on another platform. There are many other aspects of a codebase which could be in a non-portable state..

And yes, SDL isn't the speediest of choices, but that's often a sacrifice you make for ease of implementation, and portability.
Anyhoo, any decent machine should run it at full speed, if it's ass-slow for you, you should try using a newer SDL library, or getting rid of your crapbox

[The Vagrant]

Really doesn't matter to me, all my comps run some form of windows, and they can handle gba emus no problem so speed and such is not an issue. I'd say no though since producing an SDL version would limit the time spent on the windows version. Totally selfish of me I know, but hey, I wasn't born to care for the other guy.

*sorry to all those peeps out there who don't have windows, all 3 of you*

[SimonMallion]

Thanks for the information!

[CD]

By 'Windows version', you must mean the one using DirectX.

SDL has more benefits than portability, so hold your horses before shooting it down..

[Exophase]

While some of SDL's library functions may not be the fastest in the world, its basic target implementation doesn't incur too much of a speed hit, and maintains portability. For an emulator, this basic functionality is probably all you would desire, the rest can be coded by the emu author, and needn't be unportable.

- Exophase

[nwagenaar]

Originally posted by iceBerg
hmm...sdl...well, as for me, i don't like sdl too much, and that's because it's slow like hell on my machine. it's only my personal opinion, but if there would be a vboy/sdl, i wouldn't use it because of the speed. i get reasonable speed with directx (especially with video memory on). i'd stick to the dx version anywayz.
take my vote for directx. ^_^

EDIT: btw, sdl is slow for me in both linux and windows

According to the main SDL developers, SDL uses the entire DirectX library on WIN32 if (and only if) DirectX was correctly installed. I saw with the development that the BA/SDL WIN32 version was sometimes 2 times faster in windows then it was on Linux (*sigh*). And yes, SDL can be slow but then again, SDL is *very* portable unlike DirectX and the best thing it has native support for OpenGL functionality

Also, speed is mostly based upon the calculation time it performs for displaying graphics to the screen and this is something that was bugging the /SDL series for some time. But luckaly we now have a fast graphics core which sometimes beats the WIN32/DirectX version from Julien "Gollum" Frelat Also new and company-written drivers is a good issue within Linux/BeOS/WIN32 which can provide speedboosts.

Concerning VBA/SDL, it would be fun to such an emulator on Linux/BeOS systems especially since there aren't many GBA emu's available for Linux/BeOS (unlike WIN32 systems). However, I wonder if the emulator is portable enough. If it's assembly there could be a big problem with porting.

But hey! I would like to VBA/SDL on Linux!

Regards,

Niels Wagenaar

[CD]

Heya Niels

[nwagenaar]

Hya CD (or CDburnout )

I've been testing the new gfx core a bit (see the posting on the GBA new section at ngemu) and found out that for instance Mode 7 games like Mario Kart Circuit and F-Zero Advance take a good speedhit with the new code

I played Mario Kart Advance with 89 FPS+ on my P2/350 using a frameskip of 2 on my P2/350. On my AMD Athlon 650 I even needed to throttle the emulator down to keep it at 60FPS (this wasn't the case with older versions and with the WIN32 version).

But ofcourse, nothing beats the original device. I just finished Wario 4 (great game btw) and I've currently inserted Streetfighter II. The Hadokens from Ryu sound cooooolllll.

Regards,

Niels Wagenaar

[EXE]

Visual Advance/SDL... like good, bad?

[Light20004]

i dun really care.since i always use windows.but it would be cool to see it on other platforms anyway :0