SmileBOY development update

Hey there, I thought I'd give you a little update on the development of SmileBOY, my GameBoy emulator. Even though I haven't been that active on this site, I have been actively working on SmileBOY. I once said that I'll leave this site and come back once I've finished my emulator. I've built up a lot of unnecessary hype and people started having doubt in me. So to clear my name I thought It'd be better to just leave the site and come back when I'm done. Anyway, we're a few months in the future and I still haven't given you guys any updates. So, how is it going? Actually, everything is going smooth. I've just implemented some debugging tools, which will greatly speed up everything. I still need to debug a lot of opcodes, since Tetris and Dr. Mario still crash during the first subroutines. Also for the graphics I've done a lot of optimization. For example, instead of using FOR loops to GPSET every pixel, I now use GLOAD more often, which is much faster in most cases and allows me to use custom palettes. I'd love to share some screenies, but I can't access Miiverse, so if anyone wants to help me and get some screenshots, I'd appreciate it a lot! Thanks for your patience and I hope to release an early-alpha or something just to let you people play around with it... See ya!

You could use NTR CFW's screenshot feature. That's what I've used. Link to BootNTR Selector's downloads (pick any that's not Mode 3.) Press X+Y to access the menu.

You could use NTR CFW's screenshot feature. That's what I've used. Link to BootNTR Selector's downloads (pick any that's not Mode 3.) Press X+Y to access the menu.

Thanks! I'll try that.

Have you found any ROMs that completely work? Some demo ROMs (especially public-domain or homebrew ones) are good candidates for testing, arguably better than games.

Have you found any ROMs that completely work? Some demo ROMs (especially public-domain or homebrew ones) are good candidates for testing, arguably better than games.

http://www.gunmanclive.com/gameboy/ There you go, and it's a good one.

How does Little Sound Dj work on the emulator?

Also, one more question. Will it have battery (save) support for games that make saves? Thanks!

How does Little Sound Dj work on the emulator? Also, one more question. Will it have battery (save) support for games that make saves? Thanks!

No and yes. LSDj requires accurate audio emulation. I still need to grasp the basics of GameBoy audio before I can start implementing that. My emulator does support battery saves, but not flash saves. I'm doing some research to get the standard .sav format to work, but it seems pretty straight-forward.

Have you found any ROMs that completely work? Some demo ROMs (especially public-domain or homebrew ones) are good candidates for testing, arguably better than games.

http://www.gunmanclive.com/gameboy/ There you go, and it's a good one.

Thanks for the tip! I love Gunman Clive!

How does Little Sound Dj work on the emulator? Also, one more question. Will it have battery (save) support for games that make saves? Thanks!

No and yes. LSDj requires accurate audio emulation. I still need to grasp the basics of GameBoy audio before I can start implementing that. My emulator does support battery saves, but not flash saves. I'm doing some research to get the standard .sav format to work, but it seems pretty straight-forward.

Have you found any ROMs that completely work? Some demo ROMs (especially public-domain or homebrew ones) are good candidates for testing, arguably better than games.

http://www.gunmanclive.com/gameboy/ There you go, and it's a good one.

Thanks for the tip! I love Gunman Clive!

What is the difference between a flash save and a battery save?

How does Little Sound Dj work on the emulator? Also, one more question. Will it have battery (save) support for games that make saves? Thanks!

No and yes. LSDj requires accurate audio emulation. I still need to grasp the basics of GameBoy audio before I can start implementing that. My emulator does support battery saves, but not flash saves. I'm doing some research to get the standard .sav format to work, but it seems pretty straight-forward.

Have you found any ROMs that completely work? Some demo ROMs (especially public-domain or homebrew ones) are good candidates for testing, arguably better than games.

http://www.gunmanclive.com/gameboy/ There you go, and it's a good one.

Thanks for the tip! I love Gunman Clive!

What is the difference between a flash save and a battery save?

Flash save is essentially saving on a flash drive that doesn't require electricity. A game that uses a battery to save puts the data on an SRAM chip that requires a battery to keep it's data. Flash saves require a bit of tweaking. I don't think there are a lot of GameBoy games that use flash chips (if any at all, I can't find a good list of them), so that won't be a problem I guess.

Ok. Maybe in a future update of SmileBOY you can add flash support.

I highly recommend creating games that are a little obscure since people have already made some of the games you've mentioned like Tetris, and Doctor Mario. Doctor Mario clone: https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAADAAB2V0gIDw0bag Something that's kind of like Puyo puyo: https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAADAAB2V0gH0NtZyg Skyfall (Though it was technically removed): http://smilebasicsource.com/page?pid=694 Upside-down Tetris: https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAADAAB2V0gDy22yiw You're SmileBOY emulator looks great! I simply recommend that you make sure that nobody else has already created a better version of the games you're trying to make.

I simply recommend that you make sure that nobody else has already created a better version of the games you're trying to make.

But he's not trying to make games. He's trying to make an emulator.

I simply recommend that you make sure that nobody else has already created a better version of the games you're trying to make.

But he's not trying to make games. He's trying to make an emulator.

Oh. My bad.

This sounds great! I was worried this was cancelled, but now it's confirmed it isn't!

I made simple gameboy demo using BG, Sprite and Window with SmileBASIC theme. You can use my demo ROM to test your emulator. Move player around with D-Pad. Change player sprite with A or B button. SELECT button brings out window with Dummy picture. (Dummy is her name) *tested with BGB and VisualBoyAdvance and had no problem. http://changevworld.com/jawsvsoft/petit/Smile_BASIC_GB.zip

I simply recommend that you make sure that nobody else has already created a better version of the games you're trying to make.

But he's not trying to make games. He's trying to make an emulator.

Yeah, it's a GameBoy emulator, not a game. But it plays games :P

I made simple gameboy demo using BG, Sprite and Window with SmileBASIC theme. You can use my demo ROM to test your emulator. Move player around with D-Pad. Change player sprite with A or B button. SELECT button brings out window with Dummy picture. (Dummy is her name) *tested with BGB and VisualBoyAdvance and had no problem. http://changevworld.com/jawsvsoft/petit/Smile_BASIC_GB.zip

Thanks! It's kinda ironic to run a SmileBASIC themed game in an emulator created for SmileBASIC, but still neat anyway. I'll use that to test it and include it in the folder once it's ready for release.

How fast is the emulator at the moment? Of course it probably isn't full speed, but I'm interested in how fast it can run

How fast is the emulator at the moment? Of course it probably isn't full speed, but I'm interested in how fast it can run

I did some tests, and although I said it ran at a nearly full speed, that's not the entire truth. It runs fine in some routines, but it's pretty slow in others. When I try to boot from the bootstrap ROM, it's *REALLY* slow and takes like two minutes to progress, while on a real GameBoy it takes less than two seconds. It could be a bug that's easy to fix. If it's not, then prepare to play your games in slow motion...

Just as a proof of concept, here are some screenshots of SmileBOY running on the New 3DS. Not very impressive, but you can see that it's actually rendering tiles, which is a step forward! If I align the tiles like this I get the classic boot screen Nintendo logo: Progress is being made! Now I need to finish the BG and sprite engine so it renders the tiles at the right position on the screen.