FourFreeO underway!

4DO & Freedo, we have tried playing some 200 games on them - if you have a question we might be able to help!

Moderators: Devin, Bas, 3DOKid

Post Reply
User avatar
JohnnyDude
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 261
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:56 am

FourFreeO underway!

Post by JohnnyDude » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:41 am

I couldn't help but notice that parts of FreeDO went open source. Last weekend I downloaded what was uploaded to see if it could function on its own.

It's been about a week, and I've been able to compile the FreeDO core and interface with it minimally. I have fed it a ROM to see what happens, and I finally I have my first visible progress!

Image

I hereby name it: FourFreeO, a name combining both FourDO and FreeDO. It really doesn't use any code from my high-level emulation attempt (FourDO). I gave up with the high-level emulation approach; disassembling and reverse engineering the 3DO OS was clearly an overwhelming workload.

Anyway, I'll keep working on it. I'm using C# this time and crossing my fingers that it performs well enough. Long live 3DO!

User avatar
Trev
3DO ZONE MOD
Posts: 4036
Joined: Thu Jan 25, 2007 7:19 pm
Location: States
Contact:

Post by Trev » Thu Jul 28, 2011 1:50 pm

Hmmm ... FourFreeO sounds a bit awkward imo. I like plain 4DO better. :wink:

Congrats on your progress, and best wishes. :)
Most wanted - Eye of Typhoon, 3DO Magazines issues #14 & #15, Pro Stadium, Defcon 5

User avatar
JohnnyDude
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 261
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:56 am

Post by JohnnyDude » Fri Jul 29, 2011 6:08 am

Hm, well yeah. FreeFourO is mighty goofy. I suppose I'll stick with FourDO / 4DO.

User avatar
3DOKid
3DO ZONE ADMIN
Posts: 4683
Joined: Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:21 pm
Location: Cambridgeshire, UK
Contact:

Post by 3DOKid » Fri Jul 29, 2011 6:32 pm

Well, the 4D suggests the fourth dimension: Time. So why don't you call it the flux capacitor and be done with it? ;)

Jones
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 180
Joined: Wed Nov 17, 2010 1:32 pm
Location: Germany

Post by Jones » Fri Jul 29, 2011 11:09 pm

Doc!!!!!
;)

User avatar
3DOKid
3DO ZONE ADMIN
Posts: 4683
Joined: Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:21 pm
Location: Cambridgeshire, UK
Contact:

Post by 3DOKid » Fri Jul 29, 2011 11:23 pm

Jones wrote:Doc!!!!!
;)
Great Scott!!!!

User avatar
Trev
3DO ZONE MOD
Posts: 4036
Joined: Thu Jan 25, 2007 7:19 pm
Location: States
Contact:

Post by Trev » Sat Jul 30, 2011 2:32 am

This is heavy!
Most wanted - Eye of Typhoon, 3DO Magazines issues #14 & #15, Pro Stadium, Defcon 5

User avatar
JohnnyDude
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 261
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:56 am

Post by JohnnyDude » Sun Jul 31, 2011 9:21 am

Breakthrough! Since that last screenshot, I am now:
* Reading the video buffer accurately
* Able to load BIOS
* Able to load a game

BIOS worked great from the get-go. Figuring out how to load a game took a while. Some examples:
* I had to disassemble FreeDO to find the right value to pass to the FreeDO interface for GetDiscSize. It's too bad they didn't upload their UI code. What a chore!
* For some mysterious reason, I had to disable compiler optimizations on a few functions in the FreeDO core, or it would freeze up. Probably some bad pointer arithmetic I'll have to look into later.
* I also had to make my first genuine bug fix to the FreeDO source code: an uninitialized variable. I'm somewhat confused as to how this got uploaded, since I hit it very early on.

Anyway, finally, after some work and very late nights:

Image

Yep, the game starts up. The introduction video does too; and so does the main menu, and the in-game demo the game plays through. That is a pretty significant test of the system. The source code they uploaded seems to be pretty much complete as far as emulation of the system. I am quite happy about this.

I'm going to move on to audio next. That may require me to pick a better multimedia framework (currently the display is using winforms and simple blits). I believe I'll go with either OGL or SDL if I have to. Oh, also, I will work on incorporating a flux capacitor.

User avatar
3DO Experience
3DO ZONE ADMIN
Posts: 3686
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:47 am
Location: U.S.A.

Post by 3DO Experience » Sun Jul 31, 2011 7:29 pm

This is getting really cool! Keep up the great work!!
"Wait. You don't have a bag of charcoal in your gaming room???"

User avatar
JohnnyDude
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 261
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:56 am

Post by JohnnyDude » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:06 am

Thanks for the enthusiasm!

Audio was pretty easy to hook up. I got that going tonight.

I noticed some garble-ing in the audio at times (happened once on the killing time main menu). I believe that problem is in the core code. Nuts. Well, I'll get to that later, I suppose.

I'll move onto controls next.

Scarlettkitten
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 267
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 3:01 am
Location: UK

Post by Scarlettkitten » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:49 am

That's fantastic work 8)

Jones
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 180
Joined: Wed Nov 17, 2010 1:32 pm
Location: Germany

Post by Jones » Mon Aug 01, 2011 10:07 am

Very cool! :-)

User avatar
bonefish
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 351
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 9:22 pm

Post by bonefish » Mon Aug 01, 2011 4:37 pm

I love seeing emulation of older game machines that time has nearly forgotten... A labor of love LOL

User avatar
ajgiov
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:38 pm

Post by ajgiov » Tue Aug 02, 2011 2:25 pm

Great effort!

User avatar
JohnnyDude
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 261
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:56 am

Post by JohnnyDude » Wed Aug 03, 2011 4:17 am

Image

Working on controls seemed tedious when I had to sit through boot and intros to test them.

So I've got some basic features in. It's easier for me to work on things with that sweet option to automatically load the last save state. Why don't more emulators do that?

Unfortunately, framerate dips too low sometimes (as I indicated) on intensive areas of the game. It makes the audio very annoying. That'll have to be my next priority after adding controls.

Jones
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 180
Joined: Wed Nov 17, 2010 1:32 pm
Location: Germany

Post by Jones » Wed Aug 03, 2011 9:16 am

MacOS port, please...! :D

User avatar
Calavera
3DO ZERO USER
Posts: 153
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2011 1:07 am

Post by Calavera » Wed Aug 03, 2011 9:34 am

Playing the games at a higher resolution would be a nice feature. I think PSX games look much better when played through an emulator.
Image

Post Reply