new patch type, more aggressive patching
[ginge.git] / readme.txt
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db9191ed 1\r
2GINGE - Ginge Is Not GP2X Emulator\r
89e964bb 3release 4\r
db9191ed 4\r
89e964bb 5(C) notaz, 2010-2011\r
db9191ed 6http://notaz.gp2x.de/\r
7\r
8\r
9About\r
10-----\r
11\r
7000b522 12Ginge is an application that can run many GP2X F100/F200, Wiz games and\r
e95f9e49 13programs on other ARM Linux platforms, which currently includes Pandora,\r
89e964bb 14Caanoo and Wiz itself. It is not a full hardware emulator like MAME, PicoDrive\r
15or similar, it does not emulate the CPU. It can be considered as compatibility\r
7000b522 16layer similar to Wine on PC Linux, however it does emulate small portion of\r
17MMSP2 and Pollux system-on-chips. It operates by hooking certain system calls\r
18and using realtime patching of code that accesses memory mapped hardware\r
19directly.\r
db9191ed 20\r
21\r
22Usage\r
23-----\r
24\r
25Ginge comes with a launcher that is started when you run Ginge. The launcher\r
26can then be used to start GP2X software, which will either run if it's\r
27compatible, or just return back to the menu if it is not. In some cases it\r
28might hang though.\r
29\r
89e964bb 30Keys are mapped to corresponding keys pandora, Wiz and Caanoo , except:\r
7000b522 31\r
89e964bb 32Key Pandora Wiz Caanoo\r
33Stick Push 1 unmapped Stick Push\r
34Volume up/down '.', ',' Volume up/down Home+I/Home+II\r
7000b522 35\r
36On pandora pressing 'q' will exit the menu or try to kill current application.\r
89e964bb 37On Cannoo Home+Y tries to kill current application.\r
7000b522 38\r
db9191ed 39\r
40Structure\r
41---------\r
42\r
43Ginge actually consists of 4 independent executables and a few scripts:\r
44\r
45+ ginge_sloader - loader of static executables\r
46+ ginge_dyn - dynamic executable handler\r
47+ ginge_prep - .gpe parser that selects the right handler from above\r
48+ gp2xmenu - the launcher/menu program\r
49+ ginge_dyn.sh - environment setup script for ginge_dyn\r
50+ ginge.sh/gpe - menu launcher script\r
51\r
52The menu is optional and can be replaced or bypassed completely. The only thing\r
53it does is running ginge_prep on GP2X .gpe program, ginge_prep handles the rest.\r
54\r
55\r
adb79840 56Changelog\r
57---------\r
58\r
89e964bb 59r4\r
60+ ginge now runs on Caanoo\r
61* minor fixes in path handling\r
62\r
7000b522 63r3\r
64* improved exec handling, mostly for gpecomp.\r
65+ added preliminary Wiz support, pcsx4all works.\r
66* Wiz: since some stuff is written to /tmp, mount tmpfs there when starting\r
67 to avoid wearing down flash.\r
68\r
adb79840 69r2\r
70* improved exit handling\r
71* Wiz: should now return to Wiz menu after gp2xmenu exit\r
72\r
73r1 - initial release\r
74+ icons provided by Inder\r
75\r
76\r
db9191ed 77License\r
78-------\r
79\r
80gp2xmenu is based on GPH GPL source (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).\r
81Source is available at http://notaz.gp2x.de/releases/ginge/gp2xmenu.tar.bz2\r
499bf01c 82It is separate program and not linked to the remaining portion in any way.\r
db9191ed 83\r
84Ginge may come with some libraries. Those libraries are unmodified copies\r
85of ones found in root filesystems in GP2X and Wiz and are included to more\r
adb79840 86accurately reproduce environment found on GP2X. Their source code may or may\r
e95f9e49 87not be available, I did not use it, but whatever I found is mirrored here:\r
adb79840 88http://notaz.gp2x.de/downloads/gp2x/src/410_all/\r
db9191ed 89\r
499bf01c 90Remaining portion is released under the MAME license, see COPYING file for\r
91details.\r