Current state of developer-friendly emulators?
Moderator: BigEvilCorporation
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Current state of developer-friendly emulators?
Hello,
I'm currently using a custom version of GensKMod for debugging. (Basically just a few UI tweaks) It's useful to me because the SGDK can send debug output to its output message window. I realize that it's not the most up-to-date emulator, so are there more recent emulators that 1) are developer friendly (ie lots of cpu/vdp info) and 2) can handle SGDK's output messages?
Thanks!
DJCC
I'm currently using a custom version of GensKMod for debugging. (Basically just a few UI tweaks) It's useful to me because the SGDK can send debug output to its output message window. I realize that it's not the most up-to-date emulator, so are there more recent emulators that 1) are developer friendly (ie lots of cpu/vdp info) and 2) can handle SGDK's output messages?
Thanks!
DJCC
Well there's my emulator Exodus that I've just released recently:
http://www.exodusemulator.com
It's developer oriented, but it's also cycle accurate and fairly demanding hardware wise, so depending on your system you might have trouble pulling a reasonable framerate. It also doesn't handle the output messages from SGDK, but it's going open source very soon, so you or someone else could write an extension to handle these debug messages. I'm planning to have integrated source editing and compilation in the future, so it can be a full-on development and debugging environment.
http://www.exodusemulator.com
It's developer oriented, but it's also cycle accurate and fairly demanding hardware wise, so depending on your system you might have trouble pulling a reasonable framerate. It also doesn't handle the output messages from SGDK, but it's going open source very soon, so you or someone else could write an extension to handle these debug messages. I'm planning to have integrated source editing and compilation in the future, so it can be a full-on development and debugging environment.
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Oh that's right!Nemesis wrote:Well there's my emulator Exodus that I've just released recently:
http://www.exodusemulator.com
It's developer oriented, but it's also cycle accurate and fairly demanding hardware wise, so depending on your system you might have trouble pulling a reasonable framerate. It also doesn't handle the output messages from SGDK, but it's going open source very soon, so you or someone else could write an extension to handle these debug messages. I'm planning to have integrated source editing and compilation in the future, so it can be a full-on development and debugging environment.
It's too bad my machine's a million years old, though!
In gens rerecording, or its modifications, you can use lua scripts to output debug info.
For example, just make somewhere dummy with only "rts" opcode, but use it with some "protocol": put debug info into registers.
Then in lua, just use gens.registerexec(...) to get values needed, and gui.text() to draw it on screen. or simple log it by print()
Or log it by f=io.open(...) f:write(something).
You can even make client-server connection, as I did for live play translation of emulator :S. I call it "observer" script
For debuging purposes I use my modification of gens rerecording. Here is description on russian.
For example, just make somewhere dummy with only "rts" opcode, but use it with some "protocol": put debug info into registers.
Then in lua, just use gens.registerexec(...) to get values needed, and gui.text() to draw it on screen. or simple log it by print()
Or log it by f=io.open(...) f:write(something).
You can even make client-server connection, as I did for live play translation of emulator :S. I call it "observer" script
For debuging purposes I use my modification of gens rerecording. Here is description on russian.
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Exodus is really an awesome thing, but man, it eats my CPU for breakfast...The sound lags on an i3 cpu. Nontheless, this is what i was searching for in a long time. Gens K mod doesnt seem to like the tfm engine and my game hangs on the emu while it runs fine on real hw.
A galaxy of thanks for Exodus!
A galaxy of thanks for Exodus!
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Yes, yes, yes, this!Nemesis wrote: I'm planning to have integrated source editing and compilation in the future
As much as I adore my MegaCD development kit, it's a bit of a pain to set up every time a have a dev session! An emulator with source-level debugger that I can run on Windows 7 means I can make games on the train!
A blog of my Megadrive programming adventures: http://www.bigevilcorporation.co.uk
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Hi,BigEvilCorporation wrote:Yes, yes, yes, this!Nemesis wrote: I'm planning to have integrated source editing and compilation in the future
As much as I adore my MegaCD development kit, it's a bit of a pain to set up every time a have a dev session! An emulator with source-level debugger that I can run on Windows 7 means I can make games on the train!
or you could try UMDK:
http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/categ ... ts/umdkv2/
This way you could simply use GDB.
To run it under Windows will require that you have a Backend for GDB. I'd build a GCC for 68K under Windows using something like Cygwin.
Cheers.
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I've been keeping my eye on this for quite some time, it looks very exciting! Are they available to buy assembled yet, or do I need to brush up on my electronics then order the PCB and components?MintyTheCat wrote: or you could try UMDK
A blog of my Megadrive programming adventures: http://www.bigevilcorporation.co.uk