If you've been following the Japanese software sales trends, then you might want to know that Media Create Japan has revealed the sales list from January 28 to February 3. Unsurprisingly, Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii has taken the top slot of the list. To see the rest of the list, head on over to the full article.

While N64 emulator for PSP">Daedalus, an N64 emulator.">StrmnNrmn's updated us with a quick post about the dynarec issue for Super Smash Bros. yesterday, he's fulfilled his promise of a longer, more detailed entry on the said issue. That's what we've got today: another update on his much-awaited Daedalus R12 N64 emulator for the PSP.

It's even complete with all the homebrew emulation development hoopla that can drive the novices to either 1) rip their hair clean off their scalps, or 2) create better homebrew and be encouraged by StrmnNrmn's efforts. With that's said, let's take this slow and steady.

Maybe you're asking what the hell is up with dynarec issues anyway? Just so you know, StrmnNrmn is going through hell and high water to fix this thing, so you better thank him.

He admits that, in the six years that he's been programming professionally, dynarec debugging is one of the hardest issues to deal with. "It's very much like working blindfolded." For one, you don't know what code will turn up every time. And worse, identifying the exact bottleneck out of 500 million lines of code can be a headache the size of Jupiter.

Homebrew hero that he is, StrmnNrmn's been able to deal with issues like this before, and he's been able to develop his own solutions to track down these bugs. That's how he was able to wheedle out the SSB dynarec issue. The trick here is to reproduce the same bug in the PC-build of the emulator - that's his technique.

Going hand in hand with this is a fragment simulator he's coughed up. This tool helps him pinpoint the bugs that the dynarec code generates. Basically he uses a framework that allows him to compare what is being executed to what is being simulated. Make ends meet by comparing the two, and your blindfold gets more transparent.

Now we don't know if you understood all that. I for one can't honestly claim that I understood every single detail of his post. But I do have a grasp of the gist. Want to continue your Homebrew Emulation 101 lesson? Click the Read link below to head on over to StrmnNrmn's lecture.

Daedalus, an N64 emulator.">StrmnNrmn has posted a short Daedalus update on his blog today. While there's no new release just yet, this is still important as it addresses the dynarec issue found in Super Smash Bros.

According to StrmnNrmn, the source of the dynarec problem has finally been identified. It had taken longer than expected, but it's been isolated and after a little experimentation StrmnNrmn has come up with a temporary workaround. Here's a snip of StrmnNrmn's post:

With the fix in place SSB is running at around 30-40fps in game on the PSP, which is very exciting.

Now that I've identified the problem my next job is to come up with a permanent, robust solution to help fix similar problems in other roms. I also want to add some improved checks in the debug build to help spot other situations where this problem arises.

It seems Daedalus will be getting even better when R12 comes out. Be sure to keep checking back here on QJ.NET for the latest updates.

Thanks to 420tongboker420 and dylstermanster for the tip!

Remember yesterday when N64 emulator for PSP">Daedalus, an N64 emulator.">StrmnNrmn gave us a bit of an update about his homebrew Daedalus N64 emulator and its R12 version? Specifically different issues regarding Super Smash Bros., GoldenEye, and Mario 64? Today, we're getting another quick update on that update. And at the rate things are going, R12 would not only have a pretty-looking SSB, but GoldenEye as well. (it used to work well before, but the recent versions of Daedalus sort of busted it up.)

In yesterday's post, he enumerated three solutions to get GoldenEye working again on the PSP. He's been able to try one of those solutions out (the third solution, which was the most stable) and given just an hour's time of work, he was able to strike on something. To quote the dev jargon:

With the changes, Daedalus now dynamically pages the GoldenEye ROM into the PSP's RAM so that it no longer requires a free 12 MiB. I now check the instruction pointer on every instruction fetch in the interpretive core*, and raise a TLB Read Miss exception if required. If this happens, it causes GoldenEye's exception handler to realise that the required code isn't in memory, and to load it in from ROM before continuing execution.

StrmnNrmrn admits that there's still a long way to go. In fact, he hasn't been able to go in-game yet. He's only just gotten to the menu part, anything after that would be a black screen.

But to prove all of his efforts, StrmnNrmn's giving us the first few screens of GoldenEye running on Daedalus R12. Yeah, there are some graphical glitches, but you have to start somewhere. And on top of that, these are just a product of an hour's time. That's quite a feat in itself!

  

You can check out the Read link below to look into the specifics of his code cracking.

We're at the wake of N64 emulator for PSP">Daedalus R11's release and now we're already getting updates on StrmnNrmn's progress on R12! His Nintendo64 emulator for the PSP is getting quite an exposure under a PSPUpdates limelight, and we're sure most of you guys are curious as to how emulation development is going for him.

Especially if those updates concern some of the N64's best games ever, we can't just pass this up. Besides, to paraphrase what some of the comments say: "what's an N64 emulatorz if you can't run teh ultimatez nintendo sixty phoar gamez perfectly?" Pardon the l337 speak, but they do have a point. GoldenEye and Super Smash Bros. are what a lot of us have been waiting for (to run perfectly) on the PSP. StrmnNrmn updated his blog with three new posts, each one tackling a different thing.

Let's start with the good news: Progress on R12 and working on Super Smash Bros. He's already been able to fix four or five different pressure points which caused some considerable bugs in running SSB on the emulator. The screens above (R11 on the left, R12 on the right) show how the graphical textures vastly improved because of these tweaks. And yes, that's R12 you're seeing right before you! *gawks at screens*

Moving on, he's also posted updates on why GoldenEye and Mario 64 doesn't seem to work properly in the existing R11. The problem of GoldenEye seems to hinge on the fact that the game "executes code from virtual memory." That poses a problem on PSP emulation because it's slow and that "the rom (all 12 MiB for GoldenEye) must be permanently loaded into memory, and there just isn't enough memory left to do this anymore." His solutions (with the first one being the easiest, the third being the most stable):

• Permenantly disable dynarec for Goldeneye, and reuse the dynarec buffers (6MiB) the expansion pak (unneeded anyway, 4MiB) and anything else I can scavenge, to fit the rom in a contiguous block in memory.
• Investigate a way of getting the memory-mapping hack to work with rom caching.
• Re-examine how I handle TLB miss exceptions for instruction fetches, and implement them correctly.

On to Mario 64 though, it's pretty simple. While some people have pointed out that he should fix Mario 64 on R11 (because apparently, it got busted due to some tiny change in its alpha threshold) and release some form of R11b, the HUD issue shouldn't be that significant. To quote his own words:

Mario is just as playable in R10. I'd rather release R12 a little early to fix this than mess around releasing an R11b version or whatnot. We'll see how things go with the SSB work.

Glad to see this guy taking development seriously. If he does intend to "release R12 a little early," then by god!, we're bound to be on his heels for it!

N64 fans would really appreciate the pains Captain Morgan is going through. In case, if anyone is in doubts over a particular game's compatibility on Daedalus, they can simply refer to these tests which Captain Morgan does. We'd definitely refer to these guides before we decide about the games. In this guide alone, he has tested 50 odd games!

Anyways, here's some of the screenshots, with Captain Morgan's inputs.

007 The World Is Not Enough  /  Bust a Move 2

 

Mario Kart 64  /  Starfox 64

  

There are a lot more compatibility reports in the attached file like Bomberman Hero, Diddy Kong Racing, Dr. Mario 64, Mega Man 64, Super Smash Bros and a whole lotta more! 50 titles will make a big list, wouldn't it? Well, I'm sure you guys would love to go through it. Not a problem, the download link is below.

Download Link: [Captain Morgan's Compatibility Update]