A gamebuino "emulator" ?

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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby treflip » Fri Mar 06, 2015 12:17 am

Has anyone used this on Windows 8.1? I can install it but after starting the Simbuino.application file there is a short window burst then it closes out and doesn't seem to be running. Any help would be much appreciated!

-Tre
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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby Myndale » Fri Mar 06, 2015 2:25 am

treflip wrote:I can install it but after starting the Simbuino.application file there is a short window burst then it closes out and doesn't seem to be running.


I'm a bit confused here, you say you've installed it yet the Simbuino.application file is one of the install package files? The correct way to install it is via the setup.exe file, after which it should launch itself automatically. Also once installed make sure you're running the shortcut in C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Simbuino (i.e. Simbuino.appref-ms).

If you still have problems then make sure you're running it as an Administrator, and if that doesn't fix it post back here and I'll send you a debug build to help track down the problem.
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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby treflip » Fri Mar 06, 2015 3:09 am

Not sure if the location matters but I installed it with administrator privileges using the setup.exe file to a folder on my desktop. I didn't see a Simbuino folder in either the Program Files folders and I didn't think it had an app icon so I just clicked the Simbuino.application file in the installation folder. I do see the App icon now in the application area and tried clicking it but there is still no app that opens and runs. Not sure if I missed anything else but maybe I need to turn UAC off or install somewhere else? I don't know...

Thanks though,
Tre
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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby Myndale » Fri Mar 06, 2015 7:11 am

Actually I just realized we're in the wrong thread here. The official Simbuino thread is here, let's continue the discussion over there.
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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby mougino » Fri Aug 07, 2015 7:34 am

Hello Deneth,

I don't know if you still come to the forum, but I use gbsim a lot in my current project (a Fighting Fantasy gamebook enging). I am developing using a small netbook under WinXP so gbsim is perfect: lightweight, no .Net framework needed...

I even made a small Windows extension to launch any sketch compiled in the IDE automatically, gbsim+.

Anyway I just found that gbsim runs at 58/59 fps on my netbook, but the default framerate on the Gamebuino is 20 fps... So I was a little surprised after developing and testing on gbsim to put the HEX on my Gamebuino and to see it run so fast :lol:

Do you think it could be possible to put the 20 fps framerate by default in your emulator ?
If you manage to implement a variable framerate, I guess it could also be interesting for others to support the gb.setFrameRate method as well...

Thanks for the feedback, and keep up the good work ! ;)

Nicolas
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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby jonnection » Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:49 am

mougino wrote:... a lot in my current project (a Fighting Fantasy gamebook enging)
Nicolas


Hey ! Gamebooks ! Great !

I was also thinking of making a FF engine, but I didn't have time for it. How far are you ? Have you got a parser running ? IMHO, FF engine makes sense on the Gamebuino (reading directly from SD card) but not on the Arduboy - there is not enough space in flash to hold a gamebook.

I have my own text rendering system in my rboy engine. It has:
- proportional font
- 'j' and 'g' etc letters that go below baseline for better readability
- automatic line carriage (no split words)

I'm just thinking that it could be useful in a gamebook engine, and I "could" (if I have time) rip out the text rendering engine into a separate lib if you are interested.

You can see the text rendering in action in this video in the game opening sequence.

... but its nothing fancy really, just a text engine with some additional rules. Looking at your webpage, I believe you can dot it easily on your own if needed.

I'm interested in your FF project. Could you tell a bit more how far you are in this project, perhaps in a separate thread ?

Deneth: gbsim is great! Sorry for off-topic.

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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby Deneth » Fri Aug 07, 2015 10:18 am

mougino wrote:Anyway I just found that gbsim runs at 58/59 fps on my netbook, but the default framerate on the Gamebuino is 20 fps... So I was a little surprised after developing and testing on gbsim to put the HEX on my Gamebuino and to see it run so fast :lol:


Do you have the version with the number in the top corner? I think that's the emulation speed, where 100 is full speed. On the laptop I had at the time it was about 90. I thought the emulator had speed limiting. Is the number 100 on your computer? If so, I might need to look at how the frame rate is implemented, and check that the simulated AVR core is configured for it

Thanks for the feedback, and keep up the good work ! ;)


It's great to hear it's still being used!
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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby mougino » Fri Aug 07, 2015 11:49 am

Deneth wrote:Do you have the version with the number in the top corner? I think that's the emulation speed, where 100 is full speed. On the laptop I had at the time it was about 90. I thought the emulator had speed limiting. Is the number 100 on your computer? If so, I might need to look at how the frame rate is implemented, and check that the simulated AVR core is configured for it

Yes, version with the number in the top left corner (executable dated May 2014). On my netbook (Samsung NC10) the number varies around 58-59. I thought it was the fps, would make sense since on real gamebuino my app seems to run 3x faster...

I have several menus with hero's stats, when I edit them the caret blinks 2 times per second in gbsim, a lot more on real gamebuino (almost impossible to count, it blinks too fast).

@jonnection I'll open a dedicated topic to talk about the engine itself ;)

Nicolas
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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby mougino » Wed Aug 12, 2015 8:28 am

Hi Deneth, to follow-up, you were right: the 58-59 number in the corner is the speed of the simulator (out of 100). Because on my more powerful desktop PC, gbsim always runs at 100... The framerate issue still confuses me however: gb.setFrameRate() doesn't seem to be interpreted by gbsim, and I found that the simulator speed is the same on my notebook (gbsim running at 58% speed) and on my desktop PC (100% speed). Still, gb.setFrameRate() is supported by real Gamebuino so I tried a range of different values and I found that gb.setFrameRate(10); (10 fps) does the trick. The blinking caret blinks the same number of times per second in gbsim (notebook, desktop PC) and on real Gamebuino in this case. It's a satisfactory workaround for me ;) if you want to close the case no problem.

I had another question, on a different topic: gbsim doesn't support SD (and other stuff, but I'm interested in SD because my app uses it) so I declared a global boolean 'debug' (which may as well be called 'simu') printing some dummy text on the screen, if debug is true, instead of the actual gamebook text accessed from a file on SD-Card. But I still have to set it manually to true or false when I want to switch between testing in gbsim and testing on real Gamebuino... It's a bit tedious. My question: is there a method to detect at runtime that the app is actually running in the simulator ? I tried running the SD code in gbsim, hoping it would return an error I could catch (such as SD not mounted) but the SD initialization (reservation of SD_CS and LCD_CS) is unhandled, it freezes the app with a blank screen and gbsim doesn't go further. If you can think of a safe way to test for simu, that would be super helpful :mrgreen:

Thanks,
Nicolas
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Re: A gamebuino "emulator" ?

Postby Deneth » Wed Aug 12, 2015 11:00 am

If I get around to making any changes, it won't be for a few weeks because I'll be away. It's a bit of a long shot, but could you read something from thet EEPROM? I didn't put any EEPROM handling in gbsim, so I'd expect it always reads as a 0. If you program one byte on your hardware to something else, then read it at startup and you get that value, you know you're running on your hardware.

I really only wanted gbsim to be a bit of a hack so I could learn about simavr, but I might consider extending it. SD support would be tricky as it needs to be simulated at the level of the signals which enter the pins. It would probably be easier for me to have a different library which you use for the simulator.
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