Topic: How Difficult Would It Be To Improve Surreal64's Code? (Read 143 times)

Pulsemasta · « **on:** April 12, 2010, 06:08:00 PM »

QUOTE(YRUSirius @ Apr 13 2010, 12:35 AM)

I'm loving all the latest N64 releases for the old Xbox (the Surreal community edition and the new INIs for it) - but I want more - but no one is willing to do it anymore it seems.

So, I'm wondering...

how difficult would it be to improve the Surreal 64 B5.1 CE with new code? Is the source code available somewhere? What could be integrated from new N64 emulators for the PC into Surreal64? Anything? Or perhaps anything from other platforms? What about plugins? How difficult would it be to implement new plugins?

Any advisable documentation on emulator programming for newbies? Any good starting point? (I know I'm crazy)

-YRUSirius

I've been taking C++ for about 5 months now in school, in C++ 1 now and they offer 6 courses. And I wouldn't attempt a EMU port yet.... programming gets more and more complicated the more you learn about it and things that I used to think looked easy, really aren't.

I would say the hard part of this would be to find a programmer, who has about 2 years of programming experience, is interested in not only Xbox, but N64 and getting him to update the cores...

also, I'm not sure if the source is around for this??? If it's not someone would have to port a different emu all together.

If YOU want to port it.... don't even bother with books unless you have a photographic memory, because that's what I tried at first and after the first 6 chapters or so of a C++ book things get crazy.... you need a classroom with hands on projects and a professor you can bug every 5 mins with questions.

Pulsemasta · « **Reply #1 on:** April 12, 2010, 07:46:00 PM »

QUOTE(YRUSirius @ Apr 13 2010, 02:09 AM)

Well, I dabbled in C++ coding a few years ago (with books

) - I know the basics, I think I can still read C++ code. Complex mathematical functions and stuff would be too difficult for me I'm afraid. My coding "skill" is at a level, where I would like to try to modifiy just the overall bigger picture instead of going down to the basic ground level programming - in hope of creating a new monster out of body parts other people have already created...

Well, to start, here is Latus's source,

http://sourceforge.n...ects/surreal64/

Now your task would be to acquire the newest cores for the emulators within Latus's code.... P64, UltraXLE, and 1964. I haven't really kept up with the PC versions of these Emu's so I'm not sure there are even newer cores? Lat time I used any PC N64 emus was like 05.

Before you get into a huge project I would think about the specs of the Xbox... remember some games don't run well because the hardware, not the software. And some games (RE2 and Perfect Dark for instance) I can't even get running on my PC, so it again isn't an Xbox issue in particular.

Pulsemasta · « **Reply #2 on:** April 12, 2010, 09:37:00 PM »

QUOTE(YRUSirius @ Apr 13 2010, 03:49 AM)

I've read in Ez0n3's Surreal XXX B5.1 CE thread that he tried to implement the new 1.1 source of 1964 (PC) into Surreal64. I'm wondering if this task is " just " a porting job of the 1.1 source onto the xbox (and some implementing into the surreal64 launcher). So basically if one would have to look into how to port this PC core of 1964 onto the Xbox.

I understand that all emulators have to run on Xbox specs. So I'm wondering (encore

) would it be wise (or even easy) to try to implement and port other (and maybe even newer) PC N64 emus that would run on basically a low spec PC to the box for better compatibility or performance? Say someone would try to implement additional PC emulators into Surreal64 and the user would have one more option available when he starts a rom.

-YRUSirius

I started messing around with Xbox code about 8 months ago, and the word "easy" doesn't come to mind when porting anything...I seriously tried to port a open source hangman game and failed, then gave up after a few months lol. The thing is, you have to rewrite most pieces of the code that have anything to do with display, and controls. And on top of that, the C++ headers you would use quite often (like windows.h for instance) don't exist in the Xbox Dev kit, so you have to learn what code the XDK uses to do similar things. Those were the main problems I ran into with that stupid hangman game.

If you think you are skilled enough to pull it off, I would for sure ask some of the remaining emu porters/coders (which the list is shrinking fast) for some advise... the most active coders now would be Madmab and NES6502 .... Nes actually wrote a article about the subject, which he pointed me to when I had questions.

http://forums.xbox-s...howtopic=523954

and Madmab is actually doing exactly what you want to do, he is fixing up and adding features to existing emulators, like 20 of them lol. Not N64 though ( I don't think)

scorp316 · « **Reply #3 on:** April 13, 2010, 12:37:00 AM »

QUOTE(YRUSirius @ Apr 12 2010, 03:35 PM)

I'm loving all the latest N64 releases for the old Xbox (the Surreal community edition and the new INIs for it) - but I want more - but no one is willing to do it anymore it seems.

So, I'm wondering...

how difficult would it be to improve the Surreal 64 B5.1 CE with new code? Is the source code available somewhere? What could be integrated from new N64 emulators for the PC into Surreal64? Anything? Or perhaps anything from other platforms? What about plugins? How difficult would it be to implement new plugins?

Any advisable documentation on emulator programming for newbies? Any good starting point? (I know I'm crazy)

-YRUSirius

To improve Surreal64, you would have to improve each emulator(1964,PJ64, UltraHLE) one by one.....but I believe 1964 has an open source code, so you may be able to improve it. As for PJ64, it doesn't have an open source code.......so you might have to recreate it from scratch as well as for UltraHLE.

YRUSirius · « **Reply #4 on:** April 13, 2010, 06:36:00 AM »

QUOTE(weinerschnitzel)

If you are going to go with a SF build go with B5.2. The core is for the most part untouched but there are a few bug fixes here and there and a lot of code clean up. B6 was intended to be the merge of Ez0n3's new 1964 port and a new GUI (the Surreal 1.0 GUI.) Currently, the only difference between B5.2 and B6.0 is that B6.0 has freakdave's work in progress of the new launcher. You will only get to use it if you compile B6 on your own and change a few things but it is still "currently not working."

Freakdave has said he doe not intend to abandon this project even though his real life takes precedence. So for the new GUI, be patient.
As for Ez0n3 and the new source, I don't think anyone has heard from him since August of 09 where he said he can get it to boot a rom but he hasn't gotten it do do much else.

I personally feel if the 1964 1.1 source gets ported we will see immense improvement all around. To my knowledge Rice plugins were made for 1964 0.99 and later and the current 1964 source in surreal is the old 0.8.5. But the 1.1 source wants to use VS2008 (vc9) so anyone who wants to consider an xbox port has to make it work in VS2003 first. From there I don't imagine it will be too hard to port to the xbox since the ground work has already been done porting the old source. Just some time...

Also: I remember reading a post about new Rice plugins being developed. The link was somewhere in the Surreal64 5.1CE thread over at Xbox-Scene.

http://www.1emulatio...p...st&p=327461

So his adivse is to get the 1.1 source working in VS2003, because the 1.1 core uses VS2008.

And now I've found the source code of the B5.2 trunk which is supposedly a cleaned up and bugfixed source code of 5.1, so I'll have a look at that first. Think my first assignment would be to try to get it compiled for the Xbox on my own (geting all the needed tools and stuff).

-YRUSirius

stef.t97 · « **Reply #5 on:** April 13, 2010, 09:51:00 AM »

i can get hold of the 1964 1.1 source and get the source for the newest version of 1964 video (which used to be called rice video) as i work on a retexture project with the guy that works on 1964 video. i could get hold of the source for anyone who is willing to work on surreal64

xyteam · « **Reply #6 on:** April 13, 2010, 10:27:00 AM »

if i remember correctly the sourcecode for sureallxxx b5ce is available on freakdaves website.

YRUSirius · « **Reply #7 on:** April 13, 2010, 10:43:00 AM »

I've found the source code of Surreal64 XXX B5.2 CE (cleaned up version of B5.1) here:

http://surreal64xxxc...l64xxxce/trunk/

Man, I wish I can do something with it just to release a new version just so that it could be called something shorter like Surreal64 7.0 or something.

-YRUSirius

Pulsemasta · « **Reply #8 on:** April 13, 2010, 03:34:00 PM »

QUOTE(YRUSirius @ Apr 13 2010, 05:43 PM)

I've found the source code of Surreal64 XXX B5.2 CE (cleaned up version of B5.1) here:

http://surreal64xxxc...l64xxxce/trunk/

Man, I wish I can do something with it just to release a new version just so that it could be called something shorter like Surreal64 7.0 or something.

-YRUSirius

Maybe you could work with freakdave, you should message him. 2 minds are better than 1

mrperson71 · « **Reply #9 on:** April 18, 2010, 12:56:00 PM »

I really hope there is more work done on Surreal64. If both Donkey Kong 64 and Paper Mario start running at full speed, I don't know if I'd ever use any other consoles than my Xbox.

And this is a little off topic, but do CPU and RAM upgrades make a big difference for either of those games?

Author Topic: How Difficult Would It Be To Improve Surreal64's Code? (Read 143 times)