tweak and refactor frontends, menu and config

[picodrive.git] / platform / uiq2 / _out / readme.txt

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About\r
-----\r
\r
PicodriveN is another port of PicoDrive, Dave's Megadrive / Genesis\r
emulator for Pocket PC. This version is based on PicoDrive 0.030 and is\r
made for Symbian UIQ devices. It is alternative version to another port by\r
AnotherGuest / Someone and is not based on it (so it has a little\r
different name). It also has full sound support (starting\r
from version 0.70) .\r
\r
\r
Features\r
--------\r
\r
* Good compatibility (> 90%)\r
* Improved Cyclone 68000 core.\r
* Zipped ROMs and savestates.\r
* SRAM support, including serial SRAM.\r
* Game screen rotation with many render modes (like 'centered' and 'fit').\r
* Selectable frameskip.\r
* Configurable keys and touchpad.\r
* Flip-closed mode for SE phones.\r
* Full sound support.\r
\r
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Problems / limitations\r
----------------------\r
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* 32x, Sega CD, SVP are not emulated.\r
* Various VDP quirks (window bug, scroll size 2, etc.) are not emulated,\r
  as very few games use this.\r
* Some games don't work or have glitches because of inaccurate sync.\r
\r
\r
Configuration\r
-------------\r
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1. Keys:\r
\r
If it looks confusing to you, check this tutorial first:\r
http://notaz.atspace.com/pico_tut/\r
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There are no default settings.\r
When you start key configuration mode, black screen with dark-red squares will\r
appear. Also there will be little 'control' on the right with the function\r
name in it, and arrows on the corners of it. You can tap on these corners to\r
select a function. You can also tap on these squares to bind that function to\r
them. This way you can associate touchpad areas with game-controls or functions.\r
I also made a small square in every corner of the screen to be used as a virtual\r
button for some function, like save state. You can bind it as you like. To\r
bind phone buttons, simply select the function you need, and press a button\r
you want. To unbind any key or touchpad area, simply push or tap it again.\r
To configure flip-closed mode, enter configuration mode and close flip.\r
\r
When finished, select 'done' and press any key. You can also hold 'Power'\r
button for a while to exit (seems to work on PXXX only).\r
\r
You need to bind 'pause emu' function to be able exit game when ROM is loaded.\r
You can also exit game by holding 'power' button (possibly 'end' for motorola\r
users (?)).\r
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2. Main Settings:\r
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Here you can set the orientation of screen and the drawing mode. The "fit"\r
option will scale the image so it fully fits in the screen, but some detail\r
will be lost. "center" displays the game at the center of the screen, but\r
non-fitting parts are not visible then (better for RPG games with lots of\r
text, which becomes unreadable in 'fit' mode). "fit2" was meant for Pxxx FC\r
gaming and will always use 208x146 for P800 and 208x208 for all other phones.\r
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"Fast renderer" enables faster rendering method, but it works only with some\r
games (some other have serious glitches or even hang).\r
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"Accurate timing" is needed for some games to run (like Red Zone). It should\r
be kept off for all other games, because it slows emulation down. Some games\r
also need this option for proper sound, so enable this if game has any\r
glitches.\r
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"Accurate sprites" fixes sprite priority problems, for example if game\r
character is in front of or behind some object it should not be, this option\r
should fix it. This option does not work in "Fast renderer" mode.\r
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"Show FPS" shows game frames per second in format XX/YY, where XX is the\r
number of frames shown per previous second, and YY is the number of frames\r
emulated, but not necessarily shown. By calculating YY-XX you get the number\r
of skipped frames per second.\r
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3. Sound settings:\r
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Sound emulation is very picky on CPU power (in most cases sound alone uses\r
more CPU power than everything else altogether), but it is still possible to\r
play some games. When using sound, the recommended display modes are "fit 0"\r
and "fit 180", because these are the fastest ones. Also try "Alternative\r
renderer", but it might cause graphical glitches. You must use auto frameskip\r
when using sound, or else you will get stuttering sound. Also, it is\r
recommended to exit all other non-vital apps (you can use SMan for this),\r
disable bluetooth and any other devices your phone may have. I also noticed\r
that simply connecting the phone battery charger strangely slows everything\r
down.\r
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"Enable sound" tries to enable sound output on your device, but that alone is\r
not enough to get sound. You need to enable the sound chips below:\r
"Z80" is secondary CPU in genesis and is mostly used to control the other 2\r
sound chips. So if you disable Z80, sound will be lost in most games, with\r
some exceptions like Sonic1. It is possible to use Z80 for other things,\r
some games do that and Z80 must be enabled to run them at all.\r
"YM2612" is a fairly complex Frequency Modulation (FM) sound synthesis chip.\r
It was the main sound output device in genesis and is horrible CPU hog when\r
is tried to be emulated in software. Disabling it gives large speed\r
improvement, but most of the sound is lost.\r
"SN76496" is programmable sound generator (PSG) chip, used for various sound\r
effects and music elements.\r
The lowest setting is audio quality setting, which should be left set to\r
"8000Hz mono", because other choces slow everything down terribly and\r
are left for testing and possibly for use in other ports to faster future\r
devices with faster CPUs.\r
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Note: if you change sound settings AFTER loading a ROM, you may need to reset\r
game to get sound. This is because most games initialize sound chips on\r
startup, and this data is lost when sound chips are being enabled/disabled.\r
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4. Misc:\r
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"6 button pad" will enable 6 button gamepad emulation and will add additional\r
X, Y, Z and MODE actions to key configuration.\r
Note: if you enable this, games may detect that and use different button\r
configuration, for example A ("high punch") will change to "low punch" in\r
Mortal Kombat and you will need to bind X for "high punch".\r
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"gzip save states" enables gzip (similar to ordinary zip, but a little\r
different) compression on your save states to save space. The compression\r
ratio is 50-90%, so it's worth to enable this.\r
\r
"Use SRAM saves" option enables emulation of batery-backed save RAM some game\r
cartridges had. RPG games used it alot, but there were some others too, like\r
Sonic 3. If this is enabled, <ROMname>.srm files are generated when you exit\r
the emulator or load another ROM. Format is compatible with other popular\r
emulators (like Gens and Fusion).\r
\r
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5. Frameskip:\r
\r
"Auto"  option tries to run the game in it's original speed by skipping next\r
        frame if the previous was rendered too slow.\r
"0"     displays every frame, thus game runs very slow.\r
"1"     skips every other frame. Use this for a game which is smoother, but a bit\r
        too slow (actually depends on display mode you use).\r
"2"     also makes the game smoother, but it will be too fast in most areas.\r
"4","8" is way too fast and is useful for skiping intros, etc.\r
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Credits\r
-------\r
\r
This emulator uses code from these people/projects:\r
\r
Dave\r
Cyclone 68000 core, Pico emulation library\r
Homepage: http://www.finalburn.com/\r
E-mail: david(atsymbol)finalburn.com\r
\r
notaz\r
UIQ port, Cyclone 68000 hacks, some additional coding (see changelog).\r
Homepage: http://notaz.atspace.com/\r
E-mail: notasas(atsymbol)gmail.com\r
\r
Reesy & FluBBa\r
DrZ80, the Z80 emulator written in ARM assembly.\r
Homepage: http://reesy.gp32x.de/\r
E-mail: drsms_reesy(atsymbol)yahoo.co.uk\r
\r
Tatsuyuki Satoh, Jarek Burczynski, MultiArcadeMachineEmulator development\r
software implementation of Yamaha FM sound generator\r
\r
MultiArcadeMachineEmulator (MAME) development\r
Texas Instruments SN76489 / SN76496 programmable tone /noise generator\r
Homepage: http://www.mame.net/\r
\r
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Additional thanks\r
-----------------\r
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* Peter van Sebille for ECompXL and his various open-source Symbian projects\r
  to learn from.\r
* Steve Fischer for his open-source Motorola projects.\r
* Charles MacDonald (http://cgfm2.emuviews.com/) for old but still very useful\r
  info about genesis hardware.\r