GenPlusGX 1.50... and why I seem to be the only one whining

I do hope that, by having been released on april 1st, the fact that several things on this new release were broken merely by a small joke. I don't want to come out sounding all bitter and whatnot, heh... it's just my own speculation.

Only thing bothering me with this release is the fact that none of the changes I make to my controller settings seem to be saved. At random, I'm displayed a message at startup telling me it'll revert to default settings. Even when it doesn't display this, the settings I changed the session before are not present during the next session.

Also, there's this other problem, whereas pressing Home on my Wiimote doesn't send me back to the emulator's menu, nor does pressing Z on my Gamecube controller. Other than that, everything works OK.

I do hope I'm not the only one complaining about this, heh.

EDIT: I think I know why I'm running into this issue... saving settings, I mean. I haven't contemplated on the "return to menu" issue I mentioned, though, but it still might be linked in some way to the first issue... I'll post my findings...

Everyone just disregard this post and just thank the guy for his awesome work.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 02:22AM by Magil.

Nothing have been broken, do not really care if people are still having fun with poor old april 1st and there are no issues with settings saving, at least for me and the dozen of users who tested this version so the problem is certainly on your side.
The message that popups on startup means the emulator detects an older version config.ini file. This means that the config file indeed did not get updated and only reasons I see is either your sdcard is write-protected or the device (USB or SD) is not working correctly. Try deleting the config.ini file in genplus directory and see if the emulators creates one when you leave it. Another possibility if you are using an USB drive without any SD is that the drive has been shutdown and did not wake up correctly, resulting in saving failure. Or that you removed the device after the startup. In all cases, nothing I can fix on my side, sorry.

About your other "issues", they aren't ones: wii home button only works if a wii controller has been configured as input and the key to return to menu with a gamecube controller has been changed to Z+d-pad. All of this is detailled in the user manual but i guess you still didn't took the time to read it, right ?

And what is the "return to menu" issue again ? This works as it should for me so i'm not sure what you are talking about...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 01:03PM by ekeeke.

Hi Ekeeke,

Thank you for your hard work and an excellent product that is a great credit to Wii HB. Should you see this message, I'd just like to ask if there is any way to use separate copies (channels) of GenPlus GX 1.5.0 within homebrew to operate as the genesis and mastersystem separately, just so they can use separate rom folders and 'remember' them? (sorry if this is a thread hijack)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 12:20PM by yskysk.

Ummm, yeah... I did read it this time. That's why I edited myself to read before pursuing my questions any further (taking a step back and reading documentation), and that's how I found out about the change to Z+D-Pad combination. The "return to menu" issue was basically that, but I guess I sometimes have trouble consolidating whatever my previous paragraph said into a single few worded concept.

Settings do get saved, and I guess I got desperate too soon. Reason I said this was because every time I went to check if my configuration was saved, was because I absolutely made sure not to assign neither device nor control type to Port 2, but every time I exited and went back to check, it was still assigning control type (though the device was not selected).

When I mean control type, I mean whether I wanted a control pad, the gun, etc. ... and not the actual input device I use to play, as in a Wiimote or a GameCube controller.

I apologize for not reading it BEFORE doing anything. Everything is in order, and works fantastic. I'll take the time now to thank you for your hard work, and to ask that you forgive me for being such a noob. It seems like all you read from me are pointless posts with uninformed whining... -_-



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 01:54AM by Magil.

Quote

When I mean control type, I mean whether I wanted a control pad, the gun, etc. ... and not the actual input device I use to play, as in a Wiimote or a GameCube controller.

Ok, this is actually not saved in the config file and reinitilaized to md gamepad everytime you start the emulator. Only input controllers and key mapping for each of them are saved. I could easily add port config to saved settings but I feel most people use control pads for most games and only switch to another device type for some specific ones. Another solution would to save per game settings but this would quickly end up filling your folders with tons of configuration files.

Quote

Thank you for your hard word and an excellent product that is a great credit to Wii HB. Should you see this message, I'd just like to ask if there is any way to use separate copies (channels) of gensplus gx 1.5.0 within homebrew to operate as the genesis and mastersystem separately, just so they can use separate rom folders and 'remember' them? (sorry if this is a thread hijack)

You mean you want to use two instances of the emulator now that it integrates both systems ? Lol, people are never happy with anything :-)
No, this is not possible, there is only ONE configuration file that stores ROM directories so your 2 instances will be using the same config file.
Is that so hard to put genesis and sms sub-directories in the same directory and simply hit a few buttons to navigate between them ? Also, last loaded ROM location is always saved and you can directly access to the last 10 played games quickly from the "Load Recent" submenu. Unless you are only switching between games without really playing them, I don't see the need for that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 10:01AM by ekeeke.

Quote

Thank you for your hard word and an excellent product that is a great credit to Wii HB. Should you see this message, I'd just like to ask if there is any way to use separate copies (channels) of gensplus gx 1.5.0 within homebrew to operate as the genesis and mastersystem separately, just so they can use separate rom folders and 'remember' them? (sorry if this is a thread hijack)

You mean you want to use two instances of the emulator now that it integrates both systems ? Lol, people are never happy with anything :-)
No, this is not possible, there is only ONE configuration file that stores ROM directories so your 2 instances will be using the same config file.
Is that so hard to put genesis and sms sub-directories in the same directory and simply hit a few buttons to navigate between them ? Also, last loaded ROM location is always saved and you can directly access to the last 10 played games quickly from the "Load Recent" submenu. Unless you are only switching between games without really playing them, I don't see the need for that.[/quote]

Yeah sorry, and I am happy with the emulator. I just prefer to access sms and gen separately under HBC (like nes and snes, for instance) merely for the aesthetic appearance of homebrew. But yes, it aint strictly necessary. Thanks for the quick reply.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 10:32AM by yskysk.

Well, if you so much want to have two different programs for esthetical reasons then use SMS Plus GX. I would never have thought that after adding SMS support in this emulator, people would have ask to have it separated again :-)


Another solution is to put your roms on separated devices.

Thanks for the suggestions; I think i'll give two separate devices a try (since I love the screen shot functionality of GenPlusGX). On a side note a few people have mentioned Game Gear games run though GenPlusGX display in strange colours. Obviously these games aren't (currently) supported, but partially work nonetheless. Do you have any plans to make these games fully functional through GenPlusGX?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 12:19PM by yskysk.

Game Gear uses a VDP (video display processor) that have additional features (mainly extended color RAM) compared to the ones that are inside Genesis or Master System, same thing actually happens if you try to play a Game Gear ROM on a Master System or a Genesis with a flashcard for example.

The Genesis VDP however was retro-compatible with the Master System VDP (with a few differences that are as well emulated here) and the console itself could be switched in a mode where it acts quite like a Master System. Interesting thing in this mode is that a Master System game could actually still use the improved Genesis mode of the VDP (more colors, more lines, more sprites, etc). Off course, no commercial games did this but there are a few demos made by some enthousiast which are, and this emulator is the first being able to run them.

The main idea with Genesis Plus GX is that this is still a Genesis emulator, not a Master System or Game gear emulator. I'm trying to do things a little bit differently and more accurately than other emulators, though I don't expect people to understand my way of thinking ;-) I know that for majority of them, what only matters is playing their favorite game, and if they see Master System ROMs working, they expect Game Gear ones to do the same because they think it's the same machine.

That's said, it's only a few additions to get them running (as well as SG-1000 games and the few Master System games that does not run properly on a Genesis) so I'm planning to eventually add other VDP variations some day, it's just I'm still a bit reluctant in switching it into a "multi-system" emulator...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 12:57PM by ekeeke.

That was a thorough explanation and I appreciate the time given for making your position clear (I'm sure I'm not alone in this regard). I thank you again for the effort made for Genplusgx, and look forward to seeing future enhancements released whenever they may be.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 03:37PM by yskysk.