new patch type, more aggressive patching
[ginge.git] / readme.txt
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1\r
2GINGE - Ginge Is Not GP2X Emulator\r
3release 4\r
4\r
5(C) notaz, 2010-2011\r
6http://notaz.gp2x.de/\r
7\r
8\r
9About\r
10-----\r
11\r
12Ginge is an application that can run many GP2X F100/F200, Wiz games and\r
13programs on other ARM Linux platforms, which currently includes Pandora,\r
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
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
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
30Keys are mapped to corresponding keys pandora, Wiz and Caanoo , except:\r
31\r
32Key Pandora Wiz Caanoo\r
33Stick Push 1 unmapped Stick Push\r
34Volume up/down '.', ',' Volume up/down Home+I/Home+II\r
35\r
36On pandora pressing 'q' will exit the menu or try to kill current application.\r
37On Cannoo Home+Y tries to kill current application.\r
38\r
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
56Changelog\r
57---------\r
58\r
59r4\r
60+ ginge now runs on Caanoo\r
61* minor fixes in path handling\r
62\r
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
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
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
82It is separate program and not linked to the remaining portion in any way.\r
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
86accurately reproduce environment found on GP2X. Their source code may or may\r
87not be available, I did not use it, but whatever I found is mirrored here:\r
88http://notaz.gp2x.de/downloads/gp2x/src/410_all/\r
89\r
90Remaining portion is released under the MAME license, see COPYING file for\r
91details.\r