[REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

owen — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:16:27 +0200

hey @oldskooler whats you current email address? sent me a email when you get a chance. ~~~~owen

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

streeker — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:52:14 +0100

Hey Aruskano.
Thanks for the effort, you've put into this emulator so far!
Great to see this wonderful system running on Nintendo Hardware. Since I don't own a Wii, I've only been able to see some footage on youtube. Which is why I wanted to ask kindly, if by any chance it would be possible to release a version of your emulator for the Nintendo Gamecube?

I'm not a coder in any way, but my understanding is that theoretically homebrew for Wii and Gamecube have a lot in common, right? And there's some other emulators, that are developed for both systems at the same time...

So again, I just want to know, if it might be possible (for you), at all?

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:03:14 +0100

I have not worked on this the last months. College took over my time.

I do not know why this file got deleted but it should be hosted somewhere else (some sites always re-upload files). I could take the chance to fix the bugs I left there and do another release but I got other things going at the moment.

Thank you for the interest.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Dark_Oppressor — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 12:42:31 +0100

The links to the source and binary on the wiki seem to be broken. Is there somewhere else where this is hosted? Also, Aruskano, are you still working on this at all?

Since there seem to be so few people interested in a Vectrex emulator on the Wii, I'd like to voice my interest in this!

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:52:54 +0200

That is normal. Some TVs cut those areas off. No homebrew should have relrvant things drawn there because of that but I consider the overlays' bottom and top are not relevant. Making these configurable would be the best solution but I won't do it myself. I learned some things off of this project and I'm still interested in implementing some things but I have to leave it at some point (there will always be a new feature or something that could be improved but I'm not going to work on this forever).

What I am doing is pretty simple stuff. Hopefully somebody will pick the project where I leave it and work on the details. I do not have enough free time.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

hossbags2 — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:43:43 +0200

If possible, it appears that VectrexWii screen is zoomed in too much. All screens are too large and overlays are cut off at top and bottom.
It may need to be smaller or have option to resize screen.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:12:51 +0200

I finally got around to checking out v0.3

Very nice job, I really like the customisations menu. I have found that the glow setting doesn't quite work all that well so I've had it turned off for a few games but the persistence is great, really helps add to the experience.

I agree with BigGman too, the animation isn't as smooth as it was on the original version. It's nothing too major just seems like a bit of a step backwards compared to how it was before.

All up though, I'm really impressed with what you've been able to achieve.

......Now I'm gonna go and play some more Solar Quest. :)

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

BigGman1 — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 04:37:41 +0200

It seems to be jumpy and fast on the graphics. Im gonna try a different monitor and see if its that.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 02:19:28 +0200

I did not get your earlier statement and that's why I did not answer (have not played those games).
Multiplayer is not supported yet - in case that was a question.
There's no way to slow down the framerate either but I did not get why you want this, could you explain further?

Edit: Version 0.3 released. There's plenty of visual upgrades/customisations on this version! I will not work on this for the next 10 days.
[wiibrew.org]

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

BigGman1 — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 20:19:47 +0200

Is there a way to change the roms options like space war had a 2 player version and gravity sun and no sun? Just was wondering.

nevermind figured it out. now more importsntly is there a way to slow down frame rate or something to get the glitchy ness out.
Great job by the way so far.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:42:12 +0200

Very kind of you to post this. I'll have those in mind. Thank you.

Your emulator is wonderful, JS/HTML5 is still amazing me and it is because of such applications.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

raz0red — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 18:45:01 +0200

Hi-

I actually ported the same emu to JavaScript/HTML5 some time ago (requires Chrome, the latest Firefox (4.0), or Safari).

[www.twitchasylum.com]

The reason I am posting is that I created transparent overlays for all of the games. Feel free to use them if they work for you, they will probably need some resizing.

Also, there were a couple bugs in the emulator that I had to fix (thanks to tips from Parabellum), namely a freeze on MineStorm, issues with Bedlam starting a second game, and Polar Rescue not working as it should. You can find details about those here (let me know if you need specific details on them):

[www.twitchasylum.com]

Good luck on the port.

--Raz.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 08:58:19 +0200

Here's the second release: [www.mediafire.com]

It is not much better than the first one... the changelist is something like this:
-Improved main menu (more on this at the bottom).
-ROMs are not appended anymore. The ROM that is still there is Minestorm which was built in the original Vectrex and is still here at the "Vectrex". ;D
-ROMs are sought in both SD and USB. The emulator will seek a folder named "vec" (I have plans to make this configurable but it is currently hardcoded) at the root of both devices and will display any file with the ".vec" (case insensitive) extension as an option to load.
-You are able to return to the main menu once the emulation has started so you can load another ROM without returning to the homebrew channel.
-Gamecube controller support because it has a stick... I don't have any wiimote peripheral at the moment and that's why I did not bother to write that (kinda selfish I know hahaha), I will wait to have them to do the proper tests (also I'd like to write the button mapping code first, which involves more user interface work 8-) ).

The main menu works as follows: There are 4 options: The first one starts the emulation. The second one lets you choose your "cartridge" which can be your SD or USB (or NA if you want to play the built in ROM). The third option lets you set your joystick, which can be a Wii or GC (the program only cares about channel/port 1 respectively) and will be the controller that will be listened to during the emulation (both are able to return to the main menu by pressing HOME/START respectively). Lastly, you can return to the homebrew channel.

Any button will trigger the selected option except for the PADs, HOME and START. If you have ROMs in both USB and SD "Cartridge" will scroll to the first option when the last one is reached and you press a button again. HOME and START will automatically put the cursor at the "Exit" option, if it is already there the program will quit. You move the cursor by pressing UP/DOWN. You browse through the ROMs (whose names are shown at the bottom of the screen) in the current "Cartridge" with LEFT/RIGHT (Wiimote held horizontally).

I guess that's all I can say about this not so wonderful update. There's more to come. Overlays make the games look much better (I did not think that little thing would cause such a visual improvement). That glow effect looks really nice but I need to write a suitable blur function so it doesn't make the emulation run slow as it is doing right now. Lines could be drawn thicker if wanted [I just remembered I updloaded a version with weird vectors/points width (I made them look thicker in a ugly way)]. Button mapping and other controllers support will be added.

Overlays did not make it to this release because they did not fit exactly (they almost did... it should be a scaling problem) to the image and I have to find why, the other features need to be optimized and a user interface needs to be written (there will be an "in-game" menu that will pop up when you "pause" the game instead of directly sending you to the main menu).

PS: Can anybody reading this make a wikipage for this? This is your community! Help it grow (: lol

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 06:06:00 +0200

@ Aruskano - No problem mate, I hope they're are suitable for the job.

@ BigGman1 - It's good to see some extra interest in this project, as mentioned previously the only version that's been released so far is on the first page of this thread.....and Space Wars runs perfectly on it. On this version however, the game is called Star Trek but it is exactly the same. (for some reason, back in the day they released this game with a different name for different regions)

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 00:56:55 +0200

There's a link to a build in an earlier post. Since the emulator is GUI-less that's what is left to code (the interface where the user can set things up). I have not worked on this for a week now... but that's how homebrew work since it's done in some of our free time.

I forgot to thank you for the overlays, oldskooler. Thanks.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

BigGman1 — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:34:33 +0200

Guys I have just read this thred and im amazed you guys want a vectrex emulator for wii like me. how much is don on this. can i get a beta
I so want to play space war or others i remember as a kid. If there is any one out there who has space war vectrex game playing on the wii please up it to me......... Im just glad someone is even considering it. Ive seen it run on pc and the wii is power pc should be a doable thing? How far are you guys.!!!

SO MANY QUESTIONS> AHAHHHHHH!!!

PeAcE!

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 06:13:35 +0200

Sorry, I didn't even think to test it on my PC but yeah I just tried it and it's the same as the wii - no indicator can be seen. It doesn't really matter though, it's not like it makes the game unplayable....just a bit more tricky. lol :)

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 01:49:00 +0200

Is the indicator you mentioned displayed if you run that ROM at your PC? I did not try it but it's a weird problem... I won't be able to fix it anyways. I'm not an expert nor a guru but finding why that specific indicator is being ignored by the emulator would need very specific vectrex knowledge which I doubt many people have nowadays.

The aspect radio should not be a major problem. Most of the features (I'm lost with the sound, haha) we have talked about are trivial to code but I'm finding less time than expected.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 05:19:09 +0200

Sweet, I've made up some overlays for the ones I couldn't find - hopefully they'll look as good as the originals. :)

The entire collection of overlays is here: [www.mediafire.com]

That's a good idea about the roms, by doing it that way does that mean the rom and the overlay will be stored on the SD card?
This could allow for editing/tweaking the png's (if needed) without them having to be put back in the source.

Also, after using this emu for a while I have noticed a couple of minor issues that I hope aren't too difficult to fix.

Firstly, the overall aspect ratio of the screen looks a little bit off. Almost like it's stretched horizontally.

______________
|................|
|................|
|................| <- orignal vectrex screen
|................|
|................|
|____________|

____________________
|........................|
|........................|
|........................| <- how it appears on my tv
|........................|
|........................|
|__________________|

Sorry for the really poor ascii art, I couldn't think of an easier way to describe it. lol

And in the game Cosmic Chasm, a map is displayed with a flashing dot to indicate the players location, but it is not working on this version. The map displays fine but there is no flashing indicator.

Here's is a video of how it should look - [www.youtube.com]
Skip to 0:16 - 0:22 to see the map - in this example the flashing indicator is at the bottom right of the screen.

I figured the aspect ratio might just be an easy fix (???) but I really have no idea with regards to the map screen (I'll let you, the expert guru decide on that one) lol

Cheers.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:06:48 +0200

Overlays work as long as they are PNGs. You are very welcome to turn those TGAs onto PNGs :).

I switched to GRRLIB. I could not figure some GX things out (I had never used openGL, GX or anything like that directly) and GRRLIB leaves input alone. I wanted to learn some GX but it was slowing things a lot.

I'm not precompiling roms into the binary anymore (other than the minestorm one which was on the vectrex itself), they're read from the SD now. I did this so people were able to load homebrew roms.

Joystick support has been implemented but buttons/input configurations are still lacking.

I expect development to be much faster now that I have given up on GX.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Mon, 30 May 2011 06:27:35 +0200

Hey that's great news, can't wait to see what you come up with.

I haven't thought of any new ideas apart from the one I've already mentioned, but if I think of any you'll be the first to know about it. lol :)

I'm curious to know if you've had any luck with the overlays or is that something you are still working on?
Only reason I ask is because I was planning to make some overlays to complete the set as there were some missing from the pack I posted previously.

Cheers

Also, hope you're having a good vacation. :D

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Fri, 27 May 2011 00:07:52 +0200

I have had some days of vacations now and I'm ready to turn this onto something good. Updates are to be expected each couple of days.

I have migrated from SDL to pure GX to feel more comfortable (SDLWii was a glad surprise! but I'm not familiarized with the way SDL reads user input). I'm basically where this started but using SDL-less GX to draw. Not much to talk about this.

Any new comments/ideas?

Have a good day,

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Sat, 07 May 2011 14:51:18 +0200

Hey that's cool man, I can understand what it's like to be busy and as I mentioned before there is really no rush at all. You've done more than I had already expected and that rush build is quite an achievement in my opinion. I'm certainly not expecting you to devote all of your time on this. :)

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Sat, 07 May 2011 09:21:49 +0200

I'm completely lost at that one and that's what will make me look further into it. I'll surely learn something out off it.

Sorry for my lack of activity. That rush build gave left a feeling of high-activity but (as I stated earlier) I'm really busy right now. It's around 12 days left to get some free time back.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:30:04 +0200

That all sounds very promising, I look forward to seeing the results. Hopefully you can find an easy solution for the audio issues too. :)

I've been using the ParaJVE emu recently on my laptop and going through various settings/features and I discovered a few visual effects that really help to achieve the look of the original vectrex. I've attached some screen shots in the different modes because I thought it would be easier than trying to describe them all, lol.

[www.mediafire.com]

In short, there are options to set the overall glow and persistence of the vector graphics. It would be great if something similar could be implemented too but as I said before, I'm not a coder so I wouldn't really know but I would like your opinion on if it's possible or not.

Thanks

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:00:43 +0200

The number of vectors is already stored so adjusting the buzzing to that is possible. I will do that to see how accurate is it.
If overlays work by just making those images transparent take them from granted too. I'll confirm those images work when I implement this.
I compiled the sound playing code from one of the emulators you posted but I did not like the output (it was ugly, if anyone reading this know something I have to do when playing sound files using SDL Wii, info is welcome), I will do more reasearch on that.

Just leting you know what I plan to do when I get some good-freetime so you know I'm alive.

Thanks for the enthusiasm. Have a nice day.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Nebs — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:10:26 +0200

This thread is too awesome for words!

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 05:21:11 +0200

Yeah, Minestorm, Solar Quest & Web Wars were easily the best games I ever played on this.

With regards to the buzzing noise, it is a little difficult to explain exactly but I remember at the first screen where you see the vectrex logo and it alternates from what looks like a 'normal' font to a 'bold' font - this would cause a distinct change in the buzzing volume (slight buzzing when normal, slightly louder buzzing when bold). Another example is the start of each level in Minestorm when the mother ship comes down the screen - this produced a slightly louder buzz than normal, same when completing each stage when the ship is in the center of the screen with all the sparks flying out of it.

I found a collection of 25 overlays which you can find here - [www.mediafire.com]
If they are suitable then I would be happy to make up the rest of them in photoshop - should be easy enough for me.

Cheers.

Edit - just found a clip where you can clearly hear the buzzing noise and how it changes with screen brightness.
[www.youtube.com] - skip to 7:20, hope this helps.

Edit 2 - updated link for higher quality overlays

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

Aruskano — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:13:16 +0200

Minestorm is surprisingly fun to play!

I won't care about lightpen nor the 3D imager then. I do not think multiplayer would be hard to implement and [game] sound seems (looking at the code you just posted) very easy, so those 2 should make it into the emulator when I get some time. Yeah, I have heard about that buzzing, I could look at it closer but that's a weird feature... are you sure it depended upon the screen content? Overlays would be easy to implement too. Do you know of any bigger source of those PNG/TGAs?

That would be it. This could turn into something enjoyable. I did not play many of the games but Minestorm itself would worth the download, lol.

Re: [REQ] Vectrex emulator???

oldskooler — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:19:48 +0200

Firstly.....wow!!! Thanks for the 'rush build', I can't believe I was just playing Minestorm through my wii. You might think that the front end is a bit ugly, but for me, I certainly couldn't do any better. And even if I could, why would I? This one works. :)

I never even considered how awkward/impossible Hyperchase would be until you mentioned it, that game was frustratingly super sensitive even on the vectrex itself. :D
From my experience back in the day, this was the only game that took advantage of the analogue control stick. It's great that you've found a workaround for it though.

Sorry for not understanding correctly when you were talking about the features, they were also something I didn't consider at the time. The Vectrex did have a couple of strange accessories for something made in 1982. The lightpen you mentioned was compatible with only one cartridge which allowed you to 'draw' lines on the vectrex screen, kinda like a very prehistoric version of photoshop. The other one was a 3D imager, a very bulky headset that gave the illusion of 3D graphics (hmmm, they may been on to something here.....), only supported by about 2 or 3 games. In any case, these were pretty much the only 'other' features it had and really, there's no reason to bother with those aspects of it. Same with multiplayer, only 2 games supported simultaneous play so I don't think it's worth worrying about - and also, I'll have a pretty hard time getting a second player, lol :)

Actually, there is another feature I just realised and that's the 'noise' it makes. I don't just mean the audio from the games, this thing gave a 'buzzing' noise through the speaker which depended on the screen content at the time. The cables in the vectrex were so poorly shielded that it was picking up the electric noise from the console itself. If this 'feature/defect' could be put in then that would be awesome.

Regarding the overlays, spot on! I had a emu a long time ago running with windows 95 that had the overlays with the ability to turn them on/off & set opacity. I found a few emu's that support it, most of them I can't get to work on my cheap laptop except for one and that was done with Java. Not sure how much that helps if at all, the format was actually .tga for the ones I found.

[vectrex-emu.blogspot.com]

[jum.pdroms.de]

Again.....wow!!! Thank you so much for the work you've done, I kinda rushed through this post due to my excitement so hopefully it all makes sense. :) In any case, you're a champ & I love your work!!!