Possible UltraHLE enhancements [Archive]

Romboy

July 18th, 2002, 04:35

Since the leaked release of the UltraHLE source certain new features are possible however it would seem only fair to ask the authors about using their code before doing any modifications. Below are some features that would be very nice to add. Hopefully I can put it down in a way that most (intelligent) people can understand.

1. Video
 Better Glide support (glide3x, glide2x)
 Opengl support
 Direct X 8 support
 Video Plug-in support

2. Sound
 DirectSound via Direct X 8
 Sound Plug-in support

3. Controller
 Built in configuration
 Input Plug-in support

4. Core
 SupraHLE enhancements
 Pentium 4- Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 enhancement
 Athlon XP-3DNow Professional enhancement
 Several bug fixes (sound skips, etc)
 Zip support
 Space support from Dave2001
 New GUI

I would like to tell you that these aren’t a request, just a list of possible enhancements (thus the title). If I have anything wrong please tell me and I will change it so it will be correct. Hopefully this may give a good outline.

Don’t flame me, I am just trying to help in one way I can.

This is in all utmost respect to the coders of Ultrahle/Suprahle.

gokuss4

July 18th, 2002, 04:53

lol, thats a lot to rely on. that would be hard for an emu programmer to do that, to add support for glide3x. if it would do that without a v3fix a lot of people would be downloading (also for the dx and ogl support) the sound is the worst though :sleepy:

Romboy

July 18th, 2002, 06:21

Well, no buddy said programming was easy. Besides that this is just an outline that I made so that it could possibly be helpful for Dominator.

later

July 18th, 2002, 08:34

Another annoying thing is that UltraHLE doesn't support spaces in the rom/folder names.

Dave2001 created this fix, hopefully someone can implement it and release a new .exe file!

changed the "rom" command to:

else IFIS(p,"rom")
{
p=param_w_spaces(&tp);
print("note: Loaded rom image from '%s'\n",p);
boot(p,0);
}

& added this code near the normal param function:

// like the above, but allows spaces; for filenames
char *param_w_spaces(char **tp)
{
static char buf[256];
char *d=buf,*s=*tp,*end,*last;

*buf=0;

// skip space
while(*s && *s<=32) s++;

// find last non-space character
end=s;
last=s;
while (*end) {
if (*end++ > 32) last = end;
}

while (s < last) {
*d++ = *s++;
}
*d = 0;

*tp=last;

return(buf);
}

Ruesselschnurps

July 18th, 2002, 10:16

Let UltraHLE Rest in Peace !
Its History, and the source code was leaked. The Authors neither wanted to continue it nor the source code to be released !

Romboy

July 19th, 2002, 00:38

Originally posted by Romboy
Since the leaked release of the UltraHLE source certain new features are possible however it would seem only fair to ask the authors about using their code before doing any modifications.

Did you miss this?

Doomulation

July 19th, 2002, 01:52

Originally posted by Ruesselschnurps
Let UltraHLE Rest in Peace !
Its History, and the source code was leaked. The Authors neither wanted to continue it nor the source code to be released !
Agreed. Let uHLE rest in peace.

Dabba_Deh

July 19th, 2002, 08:17

Now back to the topic, if anyone check out the file "ULTRA.H", it is very well documented, and I notice this paragraph as follows

Quote:
Here's some misc info in random order, I was planning on writing more but then I though you'll probably want the source earlier with less docs than the other way around Just do an email with a lot of questions and we'll sort things out that way. If I try to write a manual for this thing, it'll take ages.

I wonder all the documentation notes including this paragraph was written by the authors (which probably was because I don't think anyone but Epsilon and Reality Man would know so much about the code, again please see "ULTRA.H"), so all I can guess is the code were originally meant to be released, but somehow Nintendo got in the way and hence all things were put on halt. I haven't read thru all the code so I am not sure if any IP of Nintendo were infringed. It is in my understanding that N64 doesn't use BIOS, and HLE intercepts the API call of N64 software (code/binary resides in the ROM) and translates them into Win32/Glide API call, it probably has nothing to do with the hardware but the N64 system/software API.

I just thought I should post this, in case you guys missed it. ZeroOw [spelling...] posted this earlier. And, it makes sense, to me, anyway...I think UHLE should be continued by Dominator, and not by anybody else, because he knows so much about it from his experience hacking it. Well that's my opinion.

crhylove

July 19th, 2002, 08:43

besides the fact that it was *probably* leaked by an orig. author...

i say do what you want with it based on pure ethics anyway.

if the original authors DON'T want it worked on, then they can tell us so personally, but since they haven't...

it's just abandonware.

and since dom/dave2001/others are working on it anyway, it's NOT abandonware anymore.

and now it's as good as their project.

do i say "don't code" because the original author of the fortran language abonded the project and/or died and/or retired?

that's just stupid.

intellectual property is a myth.

get used to it.

rhy

oh yeah, and if it's YOUR intellectual property, unless someone is making a profit on it, QUIT WHINING!

Romboy

July 19th, 2002, 12:15

I agree Dominator should still code it, he did such a good job on Suprahle already, but if I rememeber correctly he said that he might get some new people to help him work on it.

songoku

July 21st, 2002, 06:11

Originally posted by Romboy
I agree Dominator should still code it, he did such a good job on Suprahle already, but if I rememeber correctly he said that he might get some new people to help him work on it.

Completely agree.
The only thing I'm worried about is that only ONE team starts to work on an official version, and eventually someone can suggest to add his/her modifications. I wouldn't be glad to see several (goups of) persons developping different things from the same source, particularly if they should decide to distribute it under the same name ???. So, I'd like that someone starts as soon as possible and take the name of Official UltraHLE (of course, if someone capable to do it has also the will to do it), so we can be sure (I hope) not to get different stuff under the same name.

VoodooX

July 23rd, 2002, 05:22

Look why all the confusion?

I think several things have already been decided:-

1. ultrahle is dead as a project and sould been considered so.

2. Supra hle will continue using ultras source code instead of reverse hacking.The main coder is as we speak looking for help with this.

And finally why are people so keen to see ultra die? Its still the only emulator that plays full speed With sound on low end systems.

EMULATION SHOULD NOT JUST BE THE RESERVE OF THE RICH!!!

songoku

July 23rd, 2002, 19:55

Originally posted by VoodooX
Look why all the confusion?

I think several things have already been decided:-

1. ultrahle is dead as a project and sould been considered so.

2. Supra hle will continue using ultras source code instead of reverse hacking.The main coder is as we speak looking for help with this.

And finally why are people so keen to see ultra die? Its still the only emulator that plays full speed With sound on low end systems.

EMULATION SHOULD NOT JUST BE THE RESERVE OF THE RICH!!!

I think thatif Dom willusethe sources to improve Supra wouldn't be so different than develop UHLE sources under it's old name... Yet, someone thinks since UHLE is too old to be also good, the better thing to do is let it RIP... anyone can have the idea he prefers, I don't think the same way, tho'....

zero0w

July 24th, 2002, 06:30

Originally posted by Dabba_Deh
I just thought I should post this, in case you guys missed it. ZeroOw [spelling...] posted this earlier. And, it makes sense, to me, anyway...

Nice quote. Don't worry about the spelling. :D
Now that all the threads in SupraHLE forum are deleted, this serves to preserve my input on the matter, thanks :colgate: .

Originally posted by crhylove
besides the fact that it was *probably* leaked by an orig. author...

I have my doubts here too. :innocent:

if the original authors DON'T want it worked on, then they can tell us so personally, but since they haven't...

it's just abandonware.
......
and now it's as good as their project.

I think the point is to respect the authors, and don't steal or hijack others' project and claim it as your own. Modifying others' project without authorization is one thing, claiming credits as your own project without mentioning the original authors is another. UltraHLE was NOT for sale, so there's no money/interest issue here, but I think the integrity of crediting the original authorship is important - for any type of project, pro bono or commercial.

do i say "don't code" because the original author of the fortran language abonded the project and/or died and/or retired?

that's just stupid.

intellectual property is a myth.

get used to it.

rhy

Well, I suppose there's a balance (and perhaps constructive interactions, too) to be maintained between the interest of software producers and consumers. But I still believe programming and writing software is hard work, useful and respectful. The corporations which sold the software and the licensing terms they devised might subject to dispute, but who's the owner and creator of the software, and their rights on the code over a certain period of time, that I think should be clear and truthfully respected; otherwise no one will want to create his own project/software only to be stolen away - without any compensation (to support one's life or maintain ones career/resume at the very least) at all.

Speaking of SupraHLE, I noticed from the Company homepage that v1.14 is coming. Might be a few surprises for us from Dom... ;)

linker

July 25th, 2002, 06:18

Originally posted by Doomulation
Agreed. Let uHLE rest in peace.

/me shoots Doomulation.
Let Doomulation rest in peace.

Epic64

July 25th, 2002, 06:31

lol

Sukh

August 5th, 2002, 21:48

[Martin64 Style Shameless Plug]
Whatever is happening, please use MagicInstall as an easy method of distributing UHLE + :)

[/Martin64 Style Shameless Plug]

mann

August 7th, 2002, 05:10

Originally posted by linker
Originally posted by Doomulation
Agreed. Let uHLE rest in peace.

* linker shoots Doomulation.
Let Doomulation rest in peace.

lol, :happy: dont kill ultra very easily it can beat all the emulators and it would be badass if it had a bunch of new features

LReyome27

August 9th, 2002, 07:23

I dont see why UltraHLE has to die. Its the only one I can run on my system:

Intel Celleron 233 MHZ
Voodoo 3 2000
SoundBlaster Live!
256 Megs RAM

:ultraHLE:

Romboy

August 9th, 2002, 10:56

It's not the only emu can run good.

/ME points @ Corn

Doomulation

August 9th, 2002, 12:33

Originally posted by LReyome27
I dont see why UltraHLE has to die. Its the only one I can run on my system:

Intel Celleron 233 MHZ
Voodoo 3 2000
SoundBlaster Live!
256 Megs RAM

:ultraHLE:
Really, then it's time to get a new computer. Those specs won't do any good with any games nowadays.

cooliscool

August 9th, 2002, 12:37

*sigh* NOT EVERYONE HAS THE MONEY FOR COMPUTER HARDWARE LIKE YOURS! *sigh*, people will never learn.. :(

Doomulation

August 9th, 2002, 12:38

Originally posted by cooliscool
*sigh* NOT EVERYONE HAS THE MONEY FOR COMPUTER HARDWARE LIKE YOURS! *sigh*, people will never learn.. :(
This is true, but life is hard. The developers really don't do games for such low specs :(
The only solution is to upgrade...
you'll just have to spare some money for it.
I worked hard for my specs.

Smiff

August 9th, 2002, 12:42

Originally posted by cooliscool
*sigh* NOT EVERYONE HAS THE MONEY FOR COMPUTER HARDWARE LIKE YOURS! *sigh*, people will never learn.. :(

sorry, but the difference between 250 and 1000Mhz is only two or three years... there's no excuse either way, unless your financial situation has altered radically in between... and that's hardly emu authors' fault is it. I do sympathise with not having a fast enough PC.. half the time i don't either... but i don't see how lowering requirements is anything other than a temporary measure... you're not seriously saying the 250Mhz PC is going to be the last you ever own are you?

yogaman

August 9th, 2002, 17:55

oh well ... I should upgrade my pc too ...but most games work with details put on medium or even low .... ;) - even GTA 3 works for me (ups, a bit off topic)

LReyome27

August 9th, 2002, 19:51

Originally posted by Romboy
It's not the only emu can run good.

* Romboy points @ Corn

Yeah but good luck trying to find games that work on it.

Doomulation

August 9th, 2002, 19:52

Originally posted by yogaman
oh well ... I should upgrade my pc too ...but most games work with details put on medium or even low .... ;) - even GTA 3 works for me (ups, a bit off topic)
Your computer is at least a little faster, which is good.
It can play some games yet.

LReyome27

August 9th, 2002, 20:03

sorry, but the difference between 250 and 1000Mhz is only two or three years... there's no excuse either way, unless your financial situation has altered radically in between... and that's hardly emu authors' fault is it. I do sympathise with not having a fast enough PC.. half the time i don't either... but i don't see how lowering requirements is anything other than a temporary measure... you're not seriously saying the 250Mhz PC is going to be the last you ever own are you?

Also I don't have the cash for a large speed processor right now. I also get my stuff from computer shows where its cheaper rather then big name stores. I just can't press F5 for 50,000 dollars

LReyome27

August 9th, 2002, 20:15

Originally posted by Smiff
sorry, but the difference between 250 and 1000Mhz is only two or three years... there's no excuse either way, unless your financial situation has altered radically in between... and that's hardly emu authors' fault is it. I do sympathise with not having a fast enough PC.. half the time i don't either... but i don't see how lowering requirements is anything other than a temporary measure... you're not seriously saying the 250Mhz PC is going to be the last you ever own are you?

I usually buy my stuff from computer shows where it is cheaper rather then go to some big name store. I don't have the cash to be freely dumping on P4 1.5G processors just to run emulators. I can use UltraHLE and Corn (if theres games that work on it) just fine. I am able to run a heavily textured game such as Zelda 64 pretty good on UltraHLE with full speed and almost (skips) full sound. So emulation, as someone said before, should not be exclusive to the P3s and P4s of this world

LReyome27

August 9th, 2002, 20:24

Disregard all this...the posts arent showing up on my end for some reason so its like they are not there

Doomulation

August 9th, 2002, 20:54

Originally posted by LReyome27

sorry, but the difference between 250 and 1000Mhz is only two or three years... there's no excuse either way, unless your financial situation has altered radically in between... and that's hardly emu authors' fault is it. I do sympathise with not having a fast enough PC.. half the time i don't either... but i don't see how lowering requirements is anything other than a temporary measure... you're not seriously saying the 250Mhz PC is going to be the last you ever own are you?

Also I don't have the cash for a large speed processor right now. I also get my stuff from computer shows where its cheaper rather then big name stores. I just can't press F5 for 50,000 dollars
Ok, first off, athlon is better and cheaper.
And besides, they just cost around $100 for a cheap one.
And a new mobo for around $100 = $200
The gfx card will do with glide.

So you don't need 50.000 dollars. I hope you can at least save up to that ^_^

Smiff

August 9th, 2002, 21:06

i realise what i said before was swayed too far the other way.. of course good software should beform well. However, i think a problem is that people have been spoilt by Corn, uHLE and expect to be able to use everything... really these specs are not enough for a SNES emu, so hrm some perspective needed here.

LReyome27

August 9th, 2002, 21:09

Doomulation: the 50,000 thing I put in was from an old RCT Trainer and was meant to be a "figure of speech"

Romboy

August 9th, 2002, 22:46

In n64 emulators at least you have to trade off either speed or compatabilitly... I am sorry but thats the way it is. I know corn has a extremely low compatabilitly but then again it has extremely high speed on the games that it does support.

Doomulation

August 10th, 2002, 01:06

Originally posted by LReyome27
Doomulation: the 50,000 thing I put in was from an old RCT Trainer and was meant to be a "figure of speech"
I know what you meant. You meant that you don't have much money to upgrade with.

That's the absolutly minimum of which you can upgrade with.
It includes a new motherboard and a processor.

Your gfx-card will do in emulation at least.

Romboy

August 10th, 2002, 01:11

It's time to get a job then, that what I did. Then you'll have the cash. :)

LReyome27

August 10th, 2002, 06:40

I have a job...Unfortunately when I have a job the shows don't come around and when I don't have a job they come around. Due to some problems mentally I cannot really keep a job, and I cannot be employed in what I really would like to be because I have a physical ailment.

Romboy

August 10th, 2002, 07:38

I am sorry to hear that...

Trotterwatch

August 10th, 2002, 11:22

This person would also presumably need a new power supply to power the Athlon - as I doubt his current one would be powerful enough. Then the HD would be probably holding the machine back, and then the GFX card etc

In short - don't feel pressurised to upgrade LReyome27, just realise that much of N64 emulation and gaming in general will sadly be off limits for you (for now). We've all been there though at one time or another, I'm sure.

ryukenden

August 10th, 2002, 22:15

Corn is fast due to using dynamic recompilation. It would be nice to see another dynamic recompiling nintendo 64 emulator. Interpreters are far to slow. Trying to run n64 software even on my machine should be a breeze, if it were recompiled for the cpu. It's a shame we don't see recompiling emus more often. They certainly are faster.

Romboy

August 11th, 2002, 02:56

Yes I undersand, but if you do that compatabilitly suffers greatly. It's just the way the world works.

ryukenden

August 11th, 2002, 21:19

It doesn't have to suffer however if you do it correctly.

Lillymon

August 11th, 2002, 21:20

Originally posted by ryukenden
Corn is fast due to using dynamic recompilation. It would be nice to see another dynamic recompiling nintendo 64 emulator. Interpreters are far to slow. Trying to run n64 software even on my machine should be a breeze, if it were recompiled for the cpu. It's a shame we don't see recompiling emus more often. They certainly are faster.

Corn uses static recompilation. All of the other major N64 emulators (with the notable exception of Apollo) use dynamic recompilation.

Romboy

August 11th, 2002, 23:57

Originally posted by ryukenden
It doesn't have to suffer however if you do it correctly.

If it wasn't that hard someone would have done it by now. Obviously the programmers know more than us. So I will leave it to the pro's.

thedaemon666

August 12th, 2002, 02:03

Heres an idea that I have never seen brought up...
why not dynamically recompile the rom images themselves and then store them as machine executable code that only requires a loader? Has anyone thought of that? (Yes I know that this would be hard, if not impossible but yeah)...
but then again this shouldn't be impossible considering the emus are possible...
but yeah if the code was stored after being recompiled it would save having to do that on the fly and increase speed possibly etc etc but yeah someone is gonna flame me for this so see ya later

Romboy

August 12th, 2002, 02:06

That would be extremely hard, it's basicly making one emu per rom. When you program a emulator and make one game work some other games might use some of the same features. Thus if you did this it would be a waste of time as I see it. You best chance for people to program uhle to support some if any of the things I said in my first post.

thedaemon666

August 12th, 2002, 07:33

yes, i never said it would be easy lol...
and no not an emu per rom lol it would be like compiling java source code and then needing an interpreter (JVM etc etc) basically it would be like a NVM (N64 virtual Machine)...
basically you just use the techniques of today's emus which recompile the code anyways...
bah never mind I tire of arguing about things...
seems like thats all this is anymore...
sad truly sad
but yeah I still think UHLE should be advance

Romboy

August 12th, 2002, 10:17

Originally posted by thedaemon666
yes, i never said it would be easy lol...
and no not an emu per rom lol it would be like compiling java source code and then needing an interpreter (JVM etc etc) basically it would be like a NVM (N64 virtual Machine)...
basically you just use the techniques of today's emus which recompile the code anyways...
bah never mind I tire of arguing about things...
seems like thats all this is anymore...
sad truly sad
but yeah I still think UHLE should be advance

I think if the authors did that the whole emulator would be illegal, then I don't think they would do that.

Stezo2k

August 12th, 2002, 10:21

nice idea tho ;)

thedaemon666

August 12th, 2002, 17:44

Yes well yet another fish doesn't really understand what i mean ??? there would be no emulation to it hahaha just executable code and a loader...
and yes it would prolly be illegal, but since when does anyone listen anyways in this scene? considering if you have a commercial rom you are already committing a crime, not to mention some people here have warez copies of OS's (not all mind you)...
but yeah either way...
thanx Stez
maybe I'll make this new wave of Software lol...
not bloody likely, too busy making my rpg muhahaha

thedaemon666

August 12th, 2002, 17:48

and Romboy, I do understand the concepts of emulation and the development of one, I have been in this scene for about 4 - 5 years now :P I started out with good old nesticle for dos (Nesticle Ownz and is very 31337 lol but i use fceUltra for better support etc) but yeah I've been around to watch zsnes grow, long enough to watch hle grow than fall and crash and then be ressurected again

Romboy

August 19th, 2002, 00:25

Originally posted by thedaemon666
and Romboy, I do understand the concepts of emulation and the development of one, I have been in this scene for about 4 - 5 years now :P I started out with good old nesticle for dos (Nesticle Ownz and is very 31337 lol but i use fceUltra for better support etc) but yeah I've been around to watch zsnes grow, long enough to watch hle grow than fall and crash and then be ressurected again

Nothing personal but I just wanted to point out that your idea yet good would lack in certain ways. Look upon the bandwidth because you have to distribute each ROM and look at how many there is. Take Goodtools, it surely shows you how many versions there are. Possibly you have to have the rom first and then somehow make the loader load the ROM and make it into a loadable .exe program. However there would be many ROMs you would need to load if you had a large amount.

The next argument would be from Nintendo would think of this worse than Ultrahle. Ultrahle didn't have the roms in where it could merge with it and work as easily as running an application. Basically the application would still be an emulator it runs the ROM it would only be merged with it, in a sense.

If you had so many of these applications you would need an extra application to pick which game (ROM) to play which I see as the same thing as any other emulator out there. Why go to the work when other emulators do the exact same thing?

Once again nothing against you, I see what you mean it would be then even easier for Newerbies (Not a word I know.) to do it. If it isn't already tooo easy as it is.

I stumbled upon my first emulator back in late '98 and before then always said wouldn't it be cool if you could play (insert game here) on the computer. From then on It has always amazed me and I might wish to give back something in the future if possible.