240p for Game Boy Player

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bobrocks95
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:39 am

Extrems wrote:Added 240/288p forcing to Swiss, I don't know if it'll work as intended on the Game Boy Player.
An additional patch to force point sampling may be needed.
Extrems, you really do care! *tear*

I'll be testing later tonight or tomorrow afternoon across multiple displays, cable types, and games. I'll give a detailed report and take pictures if it'll be helpful.
cubescout
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by cubescout » Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:19 am

Well this is a pleasant surprise!

Based on the code changes, it looks like you put a significant amount of effort into this commit, Extrems. Thanks much!

I am eagerly awaiting the test results
bobrocks95
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:50 pm

After 6 full hours wrestling with compiling it (a Linux native, I am not) and pending Uni work due, you'll have to settle for a teaser for now, since I do not yet have my Gamecube modded and probably won't have time to do so today. So the following screenshots are from Swiss running on a Wii with component cables into a Sony CRT (so you can see those nice scanlines).

It worked pretty much flawlessly from what I saw, aside from existing Swiss problems (assuming I have a 480p display when I have component cables plugged in; Zelda Collector's Edition only having its main menu forced into a video mode). I just tried some game collections made up of originally 240p games, and a couple other Gamecube titles to see how things looked, and it all seemed fine. Like I said, Gameboy Player testing will have to wait until at least tonight or tomorrow.

http://i.imgur.com/teD0SA5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tsTrOPv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8J7GpUr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/e24hQPY.jpg

The usual caveats apply that it looks much better in person, and my phone camera + taking a picture of a CRT + not ideal lighting in the room makes it look worse than it really does. Fantastic job Extrems, since it looks wonderful and doesn't seem to have problems! A huge thanks to you for taking the time to implement this.

I also tested on a 480p plasma, and everything worked fine there too. It obviously didn't look as good, but there were no problems. If I had Gamecube component cables I'd do a comparison between 480p and 240p on the GBP, but for now I can't. I do have a friend with a set, so I'll see if I can borrow them for a short while in the future.
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Extrems
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by Extrems » Mon Jan 20, 2014 9:28 pm

Most of the time was spent filling this out:
http://www.gc-forever.com/wiki/index.ph ... _game_list

Swiss Nightly Builds can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1375
bobrocks95
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Mon Jan 20, 2014 9:51 pm

Extrems wrote:Swiss Nightly Builds can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1375
Would have been very nice to have known that thread existed. I'll have to chalk it up as a learning experience :X
cubescout
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by cubescout » Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:18 am

Thanks to discovering the nightly build thread and some experimenting I was able to get Swiss r254 running on my GC.


First I checked MMAC (same game as in bobrocks pix) and I can confirm that it is entirely interlaced (normally). Also, the button layout sucks.

With 240p forcing it is ROCK SOLID and looks fantastic! Even the hi-res screens generally look fine or sometimes better despite the reduced resolution.

There were some issues though: the lame videos in the beginning were stretched so you could only see the top half. No big deal. Now that I think about it it might be a problem for MM8 though. I only checked MM3.

The other issue was the copyright line looked a little weird in MM3. I think this is due to the resolution reduction as I believe the title screen is hi-res. (They really f*cked those games up bad.) No big deal.

If nothing else that alone is a major graphical improvement for that game and I am very happy :D

Now the bad news: GBP 240p forcing did not work. It still appears to be 480i.

This is still very exciting news for CRT gamers and I am so glad you decided to add this feature Extrems! :D :D :D
Last edited by cubescout on Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
bobrocks95
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 3:15 am

cubescout wrote:There were some issues though: the lame videos in the beginning were stretched so you could only see the top half. No big deal. Now that I think about it it might be a problem for MM7 though. I only checked MM3.
I skipped right through those crappy intro videos, so I didn't notice, haha. A couple games look to have FMV problems, but I'd imagine most games lots of people would want to force into 240p don't have many.
The other issue was the copyright line looked a little weird in MM3. I think this is due to the resolution reduction as I believe the title screen is hi-res. (They really f*cked those games up bad.) No big deal.
Saw that too. No clue why they re-did the intro and just screwed up the copyright info somehow. That entire collection seems totally slapped together, especially considering the horrible controls.
If nothing else that alone is a major graphical improvement for that game and I am very happy :D

Now the bad news: GBP 240p forcing did not work. It still appears to be 480i.

This is still very exciting news for CRT gamers and I am so glad you decided to add this feature Extrems! :D :D :D
Hmm, odd that the enforcing just doesn't do anything. Is it because the gameboy player uses a boot disc and it's a similar case to the Zelda Collection perhaps? GBP has native 480p; does 480 enforcing work too (may or may not be a moot point)?
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by cubescout » Tue Jan 21, 2014 3:29 am

bobrocks95 wrote: Hmm, odd that the enforcing just doesn't do anything. Is it because the gameboy player uses a boot disc and it's a similar case to the Zelda Collection perhaps? GBP has native 480p; does 480 enforcing work too (may or may not be a moot point)?
I haven't looked at the Zelda Collector's disc yet but it might be loading separate DOL files after booting and Swiss might only patche the main one.

GBP only has one DOL though so my guess is Swiss didn't find the subroutine to be patched. If someone can tell me how to retrieve that debug info I can verify that tomorrow.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by cubescout » Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:19 am

Did some more testing.

Sonic Mega Collection - the entire thing looks flawless in 240p. The only issue, if you can call it that, is resetting the GC puts it back in 480i mode. But there's never any need to do a full reset anyway.

Sonic Gems - The GG games worked fine in 240p but switching to Sonic CD caused it to revert to 480i. Most likely a separate executable.

Mega Man Anniversary Collection - confirmed that the MM8 FMVs are stretched. TBH I'm not sure if this game was originally interlaced or not.

MM7 had some slight vertical distortion possibly caused by non-1:1 scaling. I checked interlaced mode and it mostly disappeared due to the increased resolution although there is one noticable spot where it still can be seen in the second page of the submenu.

Resetting GC does NOT remove 240p patching for this game.


NB: these aren't compaints, just documenting my findings.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by emu_kidid » Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:55 pm

Swiss multi dol patching needs work which is why Zelda collectors won't work. I am out of action for a few weeks due to family related matters so won't be able to work on it.
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cubescout
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by cubescout » Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:28 pm

emu_kidid wrote:Swiss multi dol patching needs work which is why Zelda collectors won't work. I am out of action for a few weeks due to family related matters so won't be able to work on it.
That would probably fix Sonic Gems too.

I was thinking about this and I wonder if it might also explain why the GBP is not switching to 240p. Maybe that .arc file contains some additional code that is loaded later?

Another possibility is that it has multiple subroutines that change the display type and only one of them is getting patched.
bobrocks95
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:36 pm

I meant to take pictures of some games running in 240p over S-Video on the Gamecube for comparison's sake, but keep forgetting to (last time I was going to, I ended up fiddling in my Trinitron's service menu for a couple hours instead). Would anyone still like these by any chance? I was hoping they would show off the quality of 240p over S-Video, which was the whole point of 240p forcing in my opinion.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by RetroRGB » Fri Apr 18, 2014 2:48 pm

bobrocks95 wrote:I meant to take pictures of some games running in 240p over S-Video on the Gamecube for comparison's sake, but keep forgetting to (last time I was going to, I ended up fiddling in my Trinitron's service menu for a couple hours instead). Would anyone still like these by any chance? I was hoping they would show off the quality of 240p over S-Video, which was the whole point of 240p forcing in my opinion.
Sure, a few pics would be cool.


It was really awesome to see 240p support in Swiss, but has any progress been made on 240p for the Game Boy Player? Even just a tool to patch the .iso file would be great. Seeing GBA games released on the Wii U has renewed my interest in the GBP and it would amazing to finally play them in true 240p!
bobrocks95
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Fri Apr 18, 2014 4:57 pm

I'll take some when I get home.
Regarding 240p on the Gameboy Player, Extrems hasn't posted anything on the forum about it, though I think there's an IRC channel of some kind for gc-forever, he may or may not be active on there, I don't know anything personally. It's possible that multi-DOL loading (fixing stuff like Zelda Collector's Edition) may make 240p work on the GBP, probably not though.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Fri Apr 18, 2014 10:25 pm

I don't know how lax this forum is with double-posting, but I figured it would help this be noticed for those interested. I only took a few pictures, and they're not the highest quality, but they should show how much better 240p forcing looks even over S-Video.

480i
https://i.imgur.com/EalPC0Y.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/8nyWpTp.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/QESzlip.jpg

240p
https://i.imgur.com/rHgZlxi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/WuVjh0K.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VO1fW0K.jpg

Ignore the streaking blues, that's my TV's convergence issues, not Swiss'. I don't have the tools required to professionally calibrate a CRT, and I doubt anybody nearby does either.

Needless to say things look much better in 240p and I'm looking forward to GBP support.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by novenary » Sat Apr 19, 2014 7:19 am

Yeah, 240p looks much sharper. That's to be expected since it's half the resolution.
cubescout
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by cubescout » Mon Apr 21, 2014 12:58 am

Nice pics Bob. I'm hoping 240p support will be popular enough that it will be added to some of the Wii loaders eventually. It looks great on CRTs for games that don't really need the full vertical resolution. Perhaps increased demand will spur someone to look into getting 240p to work for the GBP too.


It's probably not related to why the 240p patch doesn't work for the GBP, but I'm curious if anyone else is having the same problem with the GBP boot disc that I am. I didn't mention it earlier because it's not as important to me as 240p, but I might as well bring it up now.

I can get it run in Swiss (R254) if I'm using the original GBP disc, but if I try to load an SD card image of the disc (even one dumped using Swiss) it says "failed to find functions to patch" and I get a black screen. This occurs regardless of the video mode (auto or 240p).

I don't do a lot of SD card loading but other games I've tried do work from SD card so I don't think it's a problem with my setup. I'm using a Datel boot disc to run Swiss on a GC.

Can anyone else get the GBP boot disc to load from SD card and if so which revision of Swiss are you using?


Another question: has anyone successfully forced any of the other video modes for the GBP boot disc using Swiss?
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badsector
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by badsector » Mon Apr 21, 2014 7:47 am

I had to try three or four different images, before I had one that works. But I think it would not be allowed to point you to the one that worked for me.
RetroRGB
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by RetroRGB » Wed Apr 23, 2014 9:24 pm

I've been playing around with forcing 240p on a bunch more games and it's been working great. I'll help update the Wiki as I go, but so far, I'm really impressed. The best scenario is when you're using an RGB monitor: 480i looks okay, but when the games are in 240p, they look perfect.

Thanks again to the Swiss team for making this happen. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for Game Boy Player support, but this is still an awesome accomplishment.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Wed Apr 23, 2014 11:18 pm

Just out of curiosity, are you using a PAL console with a SCART connector? Assuming you're in the US (might be an incorrect assumption on my part...), about how much would it cost to import one with a SCART lead (which I think are wired differently than the SNES' SCART cable)? Since my goal for the GBP would be to spend the least amount of money possible to get the best picture, I'm interested in knowing if a PAL RGB console would be a decently priced alternative to component cables.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by RetroRGB » Wed Apr 23, 2014 11:54 pm

bobrocks95 wrote:Just out of curiosity, are you using a PAL console with a SCART connector? Assuming you're in the US (might be an incorrect assumption on my part...), about how much would it cost to import one with a SCART lead (which I think are wired differently than the SNES' SCART cable)? Since my goal for the GBP would be to spend the least amount of money possible to get the best picture, I'm interested in knowing if a PAL RGB console would be a decently priced alternative to component cables.
First, you need to make sure your display accepts a PAL signal. If it does, it's not too expensive to find a PAL GC on eBay. I bought a PAL GC that came with a controller and the GBP adapter (and disc) for less than it cost me to buy just the component cables. That's including paying for shipping from the UK to the US, buying a US power adapter and buying a SNES RGB cable. Just get a SNES RGB SCART cable that gets sync from composite video, not composite sync.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Thu Apr 24, 2014 4:46 am

Thinking about it, my SD Media Launcher disc is region locked I believe. I'll probably rethink getting a PAL console until I see the price of the digital circuits people are currently working on here and on the BenHeck forums. Thanks for the info though!
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by Seraphic » Mon May 26, 2014 9:01 pm

Would I be able to try running GB games in 240p with Swiss or do I need mod-chip?
I have a GameCube, the GB Player, GB Player Disc and SD Media Launcher with ML disk.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by bobrocks95 » Mon May 26, 2014 9:11 pm

Seraphic wrote:Would I be able to try running GB games in 240p with Swiss or do I need mod-chip?
I have a GameCube, the GB Player, GB Player Disc and SD Media Launcher with ML disk.
Yes, the patch Extrems implemented was a part of Swiss. You activate it the same way you do 480p or other video patching.

Of course, that said, the patch doesn't work with the Gameboy Player for some reason. It will take more development from one of the devs (most likely Extrems again, as I think he was the sole person who implemented video mode patching, though I could be wrong) in order to make it work. You can try other games though.
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Re: 240p for Game Boy Player

Post by Seraphic » Mon May 26, 2014 9:26 pm

bobrocks95 wrote:
Seraphic wrote:Would I be able to try running GB games in 240p with Swiss or do I need mod-chip?
I have a GameCube, the GB Player, GB Player Disc and SD Media Launcher with ML disk.
Of course, that said, the patch doesn't work with the Gameboy Player for some reason.
That's too bad about not currently working with the GBP, would be interested to try forcing a few games from 480p to 240p to see the quality differences. So you are saying at this time, you can only force GameCube games or homebrew applications from the Media Launcher into 240p?
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