Giana's Return coming to Dingoo A320 soon!

I have been busy porting across Giana's Return for the Dingoo A320.

All SDL problems sorted, fully working, 60FPS with music, Giana's Return soon to bounce all over your Dingoo A320.

Giana's Return title screen running on my black A320.

Giana's Return first level.

I've been using the GP2X version as a base reference and I can say it runs quite a bit faster with the A320 running at it's default 336Mhz.

Giana's Return for the Dingoo A320 running Dingux coming in the New Year.

MAME4ALL Dingux v1.2

Finally a new release of MAME4ALL Dingux - it's up to version 1.2 now.

The main changes are:


- Added A320 screen brightness option to frontend.
- Fixed bug with games containing multiple FM sound systems. Was allocating two identical FM tables and segmentation faulting when on exit (trying to free the same table of memory twice). This stops some games crashing on exit.
- More speed and smaller executable. Perhaps some of the larger games may run now?

See the included "whatsnew.txt" for complete details.

If you have any questions, please refer to the "readme.txt" and "faq.txt" first! 99% of questions can be answered in here if you look first. By all means, ask if you are unsure.

I, Robot runs really nicely now.

So does Bubble Bobble, though still needs a bit of overclock to run at 100%.

Hey, it's got 3x Z80s and 1x M6801 to emulate!

Parodius was the first game I got running back in v1.0.

I still have more planned for the next release of MAME4ALL Dingux so stay tuned! As always, more speed and more compatibility.

Download MAME4ALL Dingux v1.2
(It's updated!)

Download MAME4ALL Dingux v1.2 source code

gpSpout GP32 v1.2

Distracted by the GP32.

Why another release? Did the GP32 really need an update of gpSpout?
I've played quite a lot of gpSpout on my trusty GP32. It's one of those instant on and play games that I love.
However, after playing it for many hours, i found that the scrolling wasn't quite up to scratch. Why wasn't it smooth? :-/

So i had a look at the code.
I wanted to add double buffering and flip screens with v-sync.
So i did exactly that.
Unfortunately this slowed the game down a fair bit and it no longer ran fullspeed.
I rewrote the video blit code, quick test and thankfully we've got a fullspeed game again.
Whilst i was at it, I improved the hiscore saving code to only save once on exit - help save those precious SMCs.
I also set the screen refresh to 100hz which is a good match for the game's native 50hz refresh.
The end result is significantly better display than version 1.1.
Try v1.1 first and then v1.2 so that you can appreciate the difference.

Big thanks to Florian Hufsky for the original GP32 port of Spout.

Download from GP32 file archive

MAME4ALL GP32 v1.0

Yes, it's for the Gamepark GP32.

It's been a long time coming, the finally version 1.0 of MAME4ALL GP32.

With all the development I've been doing for the A320 Dingoo, I wanted to step back for a moment at get this out the door.

Many people will consider the GP32 dead - and for all intents and purposes it probably it is. I would say that most users have ditched it in favour of a GP2X, A320 Dingoo or even a PSP. I still have my GP32 and I can't bear to relegate it to storage. For me, it's what really piqued my interest in the handheld emulation scene - though I arrived on the GP32 scene way after it started in 2001.

Anyway, here it is.

There's a few changes from the Beta - most notably are the controls:


- Joystick: Up, Down, Left, Right of 1P.
- Buttons A,B,L,R,SELECT,START: Buttons A,B,C,D,E,F.
- Button SELECT+R: Insert credits
- Button SELECT+L: 1P Start
- Button START+B: Pause
- Button START+R: FPS display
- Button START+L: Profiler display
- Buttons L+R+SELECT: Exit to selection menu to select another game.
- Buttons START+SELECT: MAME menu.


Overall it's faster, much more stable and supports a few more games.
Most things work - including the ability to take PNG snapshots of games (though they will need to be rotated/flipped due to the GP32's non-standard video memory arrangement).

Download from the GP32 file archive.

The above link is ready to go!

FBA320: Finalburn Alpha for Dingoo A320 Linux

Final Burn Alpha is an emulator specializing in emulating arcade video game machines based on M68000 and Z80 CPUs.

The Dingoo's FBA320 port is a combination of the GP2X and PSP ports of Final Burn Alpha - think of it as part Linux (GP2X heritage) and part MIPS (PSP/Dingoo CPU).

Download FBA320

 FBA320 Splash Screen

Batsugun - Toaplan

DonPachi - Cave

 

Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - Capcom

Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - Capcom

Standard in-game FBA320 controls. For the sake of consistency, these are similar to that of MAME4ALL Dingoo (new version coming soon!).
Horizonal games:
UP                      UP
DOWN                    DOWN
LEFT                    LEFT
RIGHT                   RIGHT
A                       FIRE 1
B                       FIRE 2
Y                       FIRE 3
X                       FIRE 4
L                       FIRE 5
R                       FIRE 6
SELECT+START            COIN
START                   START
SELECT+L                Volume Down
SELECT+R                Volume Up
SELECT+Y                Show FPS
L+R+START               Exits from emulator
L+R+SELECT              Enter Service mode

Vertical games: (as for horizontal with the following changes)
UP                      LEFT
DOWN                    RIGHT
LEFT                    DOWN
RIGHT                   UP
L                       FIRE 1
R                       FIRE 2

Please be sure to read the "readme.txt" - it contains a lot of useful information about running FBA320 - including how to make FBA cache files which are necessary for many of the larger games.

Enjoy.

Plans for DinguXMB v1.1

I will add an "open with" function to DinguXMB. Defining an association will be similar to adding a shortcut for an executable - instead it will work by associating pre-configured shortcuts to directories.

Here's an example of how it will work:

Browse to an executable, say, "/usr/local/emulator/emu.dge"
Press X to create a new shortcut. Shortcut is created.

Browse to a directory, say, "/usr/local/emulator/roms"
Press X to create a new "open with" association. Select the desired shortcut from the list of pre-configured shortcuts. New association is created.

When browsing the filesystem, any directory already associated with a shortcut will have a new, distinctive icon and some indication of which shortcut is currently associated with it.
Browsing inside associated directories like "/usr/local/emulator/roms" will display all files (not just executables).
Pressing 'A' on a file in an associated directory will run the associated shortcut with the absolute path of the selected file as the first argument.

Actual commands executed for associated files would be something like:

ie.

cd <shortcut's directory>
./<shortcut executable> <selected_file_path/selected_file>

cd /usr/local/emulator
./emu.dge /usr/local/emulator/roms/selected_file

DinguXMB v1.0 released

DinguXMB v1.0 released (port of GP2XMB)

DinguXMB is an alternative frontend/application launcher for Dingoo A320 running Dingux.

Download DinguXMB. Please ensure you are running the latest Dingux rootfs as DinguXMB is not statically linked.

 

DinguXMB running on the Dingoo A320.

Quick instructions:

Press 'A' to select.
Press 'B' to cancel or go back.
Press 'L' to decrease volume.
Press 'R' to increase volume.
Press 'X' to create a shortcut. You must have a valid executable currently highlighted from the games section.
Press 'SELECT' to exit. The 'main' script provides a 5 second countdown. The intention is that you can safely use this time to switch off.

Currently, only executable files ending with '.sh' or '.dge' are recognized by the game launcher.
This is a design decision to encourage other developers to stick with using ".sh" for scripts and ".dge" for executables.