When StrmnNrmn said yesterday that he's finally recharged his batteries, he wasn't kidding. This guy's really starting to get busy with the updates already, such as one we have now. And like yesterday, blackrave's tipped us off again (another million thanks, bud!) about StrmnNrmn's new blog post.

Now this isn't entirely new since this concerns something which has been implemented since Daedalus R7. But what makes it relevant to us - to you - now is that a lot of people have been asking StrmnNrmn about incorporating a Custom Controller Config option in future releases.

So, to address the homebrew community, we flashback to R7 as StrmnNrmn discusses the how-to, why-to, and what-to of Custom Controller Configurations in Daedalus R7 onwards.

The actual control mapping is quite simple, but if you want to go more advanced with the settings, then it gets complicated. We'll have to direct you over to StrmnNrmn's blog for his full how-to though, hence the Read link below.

Now with regards to control mapping, there is a little caveat. StrmnNrmn posts: "No single controller mapping scheme can be provided which works well across all games, but using custom controller configs it should be possible to create a mapping which works well for any given game."

So have fun with it. Experiment! If you have any further questions, you can ask StrmnNrmn directly via posting a comment in his blog (again, see Read link below). Now, if you want to go the extra mile, you can even send him suggestions of some good controller scheme that you might have set up for a certain game! Just email him your mapping scheme and he'll look into adding it in future versions for distribution!

Get your map out, here comes the Read link!

The most talked-about emulator has received yet another update from its dedicated coder - StrmnNrmn. StrmnNrmn told us previously that we would receive this build with less features and more optimizations, and that is exactly what we got. This coding-machine managed to get the new clipping method working and actually excerpts better results and is more efficient.

We've already seen a few user-created Daedalus R7's with the modified line that would provide a significant increase in speed, and this version has that fix along with many others! This is, as you would expect, the fastest version of Daedalus available and is looking better and better each release. Mario is now fully playable (in my opinion) and has come a long way since the initial release. The following has been changed in this new version (R8) of Daedalus -

• [^] Replaced all uses of sceCtrlReadBufferPositive with sceCtrlPeekBufferPositive.
• [^] Various known value optimisations for the dynamic recompilation engine.
• [^] Various texture cache optimisations and rendering optimisations.
• [+] Implemented a new clipping method which is more efficient and gives better results.
• [-] Removed 'tesselate large triangles' setting.
• [+] Added option to reset emulator to the main menu.
• [^] No longer use index buffers for rendering.
• [^] Implement matrix multiplication using VFPU.
• [^] Implement vertex transform and lighting code using VFPU.
• [^] Implement clipping code using VFPU.
• [^] Minor AddTri optimisations.
• [^] Free background and font textures while emulator is running to free VRAM.
• [!] Fixed bug in default controller config (c-down and dpad-down were broken)

Download: [Daedalus R8]

StrmnNrmn has released a new version of the hottest, and most anticipated emulator today. Daedalus R7 (Release 7) contains a nice speed increase over the previous version of R6 and also is the host to a new configuration system that will allow users to map the PSP buttons to the configuration/setup they have been dreaming of.

 

Many have complained that the PSP does not have enough buttons to emulate the Nintendo 64 console, but others like myself have pointed out that not all buttons are used in every game. So, if you are playing a game that have different layouts, you can easily change the configuration of the buttons before you start playing that game.

 

Aside from the button mapping feature, this new release features an average speed increase of 25-30% from the previous release. You can read the full change log below and see a video that I compiled of this new release. The video shows Super Mario 64 with tessellate large tris enabled and disabled. You will also see Mario Kart 64 which runs at 10fps in the game with large tris disabled (for performance). So, if you are like me and must have the latest, and the greatest emul

ators for your PSP, download this release below the change log –

• [^] Avoid checking for interrupts in dynarec code in most situations.
• [^] Optimise dynarec Load/Store instructions to avoid checking for interrupts directly.
• [^] Implemented the remaining 32-bit integer instructions in the dynarec.
• [^] Implemented the remaining commong load/store instructions in the dynarec.
• [^] Implemented JAL/JR in dynarec.
• [^] Optimised various texture cache related features.
• [^] Added various known value optimisations to the dynarec engine.
• [^] Link together blocks even when they exit with branch likely instructions.
• [+] Added option to allow frequency of texture update checks to be reduced.
• [+] Added the ability to configure buttons
• [!] Fixed a couple of compatibility issues caused by the dynarec.
• [!] Fixed a couple of issues related to self-modifying code and the dynarec.
• [!] Fixed issues with the framerate counter flickering

Download: [Daedalus R7]
View: [Daedalus R7 Video]

If you've been lurking at StrmnNrmn's blog site last week to get the latest news on Daedalus R7, you might have noticed that there's no post since he squashed the nasty little bug that's causing Mario 64 to be unplayable - another cause for celebration after he achieved both the speed increase and an increase in stability on 1.00 firmware.

Well, his silence for the past few days isn't really a cause for worry. It just means he's hard at work with various optimizations for the N64 emulator for the PSP - and that could only be a good thing for all of us!

In his recent blog entry, StrmnNrmn said that while his main focus is on improving the dynamic recompiler, he's also looking at optimizing other areas that he considered fairly expensive. He's been working on the texture cache which is used to avoid  converting textures from the native N64 formats to PSP formats every frame.

StrmnNrmn said, "I made a couple of fixes to improve the hashing function which gives much faster lookups in certain situations (such as tiled backdrops). I also provided an option to change the frequency at which the texture cache checks for updates to the textures. Many roms look fine when this check is entirely disabled, and this can give quite a nice speed boost."

He's also done a couple of fixes relating to dynarec issue, but the major new development is on optimising for various situations where the contents of a given register is determined at the time the code is compiling.

We'll spare you the technical stuff (you can read about it in StrmnNrmn's blog), but what this all means is that StrnmNrman would be very busy for the rest of the week working on optimizations and features to implement. If everything goes according to plan, Daedalus R7 might just be released next weekend!

StrmnNrmn's Daedalus R7 seems to be a series of ups and downs. First, we were given the good news on how much the speed has increased, Justin B. even had it in bold letters on his previous article. But there was also the piece of bad news about a persistent bug that made Mario 64 unplayable. Like I said, a series of ups and downs, so you know what's coming.

Just recently, StrmnNrmn announced in his blog that this nasty bug has already been fixed. He said that it was "due to very rare situations where the trace recorder would exit a trace when there was still a branch delay instruction pending. This caused the fragment generator to inadvertently skip the branch instruction, causing the odd behaviour I was seeing."

He indicated a 20%-25% increase in overall speed this time. Given that he hasn't yet implemented all the optimizations he has lined up for the R7.

Scene	R4 Framerate (Hz)	R5 Framerate (Hz)	Current Framerate (Hz)
Mario Head	#@%!194#@%!	6	8
Mario Main Menu	14	25	30
Mario Peach Letter	6-7	11	13
Mario Flyby (under bridge)	6	10	12
Mario In Game	5-6	9	11
Mario Kart Nintendo logo	10	23	24
Mario Kart Flag 6	6	11	13
Mario Kart Menu 7	7	11	13