well, obviously if you are doing HUD stuff then you dont waste a whole
layer, or the amount of OAM ram needed for the sprite text-window! - just go
with 1 sprite per character - or make clever use of another layer..

but, for debug text you are gonna need something a lot more flexible so
thats what i was suggesting those methods for :)

now i check the message again i guess i miss-read the original intent -
sorry!

ninge
   -----Original Message-----
   From: yerricde [mailto:d_yerrick@...]
   Sent: 02 August 2002 16:40
   To: gbadev@yahoogroups.com
   Subject: [gbadev] Re: looking for simple "print character" routines in c


   --- In gbadev@y..., "ninge" <ninge@a...> wrote:
   > really sprites are the only way to go

   I've noticed that both my copy of Tetris Worlds and my
   neighbor's copy of F-Zero MV use sprites to draw their
   text, one glyph per sprite.

   > either that or you have to dedicate enough chars in vram
   > to your font

   64 characters, 0x20 to 0x5F.  With 8x8 pixel glyphs at 4 bpp,
   that's 2 KB of VRAM.

   > and leave a whole layer free to display them too..

   You don't need a whole layer just for text.  You just need a part
   of a layer.  For instance, Super Mario Bros. 3 for NES and Super
   NES used a 32x64 tile layer, but used the bottom few rows for its
   status bar, with an hblank interrupt to change the scroll value.

   To see other innovative ways to squeeze a lot out of few layers,
   pull out an NES (or emulator) and fire up some of the later
   side-view games.

   That said, a typical Mode 7 game on GBA, such as Tetanus On Drugs,
   uses the following layout:

   Display mode 1.
   Pri 0: BG0 for heads-up display.
   Pri 1: BG2 for rotating layer.
   Pri 2: BG1 for backdrop.

   > a simple sprite text system wont use too many sprites - you
   > could even allocate maybe 3 or 4 64*64 sprites and line them up
   > so they act as a little mini screen area that you can write to

   IIRC, Golden Sun does this, and I've been meaning to write a
   library to allow drawing text to a bg's or sprite's tile data.
   This technique would also allow localization, which is especially
   important if you want to sell your game outside of the States.

   > (rather than doing 1 character per sprite)

   Which is what Tetris and F-Zero do.

   --
   Damian



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In gbadev@y..., "Mike Wynn" <mike.wynn@L...> wrote:
> I've just bought my self a new toy ...a PSX->USB adapter,
[...]
> I see that there are several emulators that will allow me to
> configure the input device as a joystick, but will not allow
> up/down/left/right to be joystick buttons, they can only be
> analog axises

I'm in a similar situation:  I use an Adaptoid brand N64 to USB
adapter, and by default, it maps the Control Pad to buttons 10-13.

> any chance that one of emulators will support this feature,

VisualBoyAdvance supports it.

> as a PSX joypad is very close in feel to a GBA.

Wouldn't an N64 pad be closer, being manufactured by N and all?

--
Damian

--- In gbadev@y..., "ninge" <ninge@a...> wrote:
> really sprites are the only way to go

I've noticed that both my copy of Tetris Worlds and my
neighbor's copy of F-Zero MV use sprites to draw their
text, one glyph per sprite.

> either that or you have to dedicate enough chars in vram
> to your font

64 characters, 0x20 to 0x5F.  With 8x8 pixel glyphs at 4 bpp,
that's 2 KB of VRAM.

> and leave a whole layer free to display them too..

You don't need a whole layer just for text.  You just need a part
of a layer.  For instance, Super Mario Bros. 3 for NES and Super
NES used a 32x64 tile layer, but used the bottom few rows for its
status bar, with an hblank interrupt to change the scroll value.

To see other innovative ways to squeeze a lot out of few layers,
pull out an NES (or emulator) and fire up some of the later
side-view games.

That said, a typical Mode 7 game on GBA, such as Tetanus On Drugs,
uses the following layout:

Display mode 1.
Pri 0: BG0 for heads-up display.
Pri 1: BG2 for rotating layer.
Pri 2: BG1 for backdrop.

> a simple sprite text system wont use too many sprites - you
> could even allocate maybe 3 or 4 64*64 sprites and line them up
> so they act as a little mini screen area that you can write to

IIRC, Golden Sun does this, and I've been meaning to write a
library to allow drawing text to a bg's or sprite's tile data.
This technique would also allow localization, which is especially
important if you want to sell your game outside of the States.

> (rather than doing 1 character per sprite)

Which is what Tetris and F-Zero do.

--
Damian

it is exactly the same for parameters in functions:
void f(u32) {}
is better than f(u16) {}
for the same reasons.



Christian VOTAVA
Responsable du développement GBA
L.S.P.
60, rue de Wattignies
75012 Paris
France
Tel  : +33 (0)1 53 46 67 00
Fax : +33 (0)1 53 46 67 09
Email : cvotava@... <mailto:cvotava@...>
Visit us at www.lspgames.com <http://www.lspgames.com/>
www.ctspecialforces.com <http://www.ctspecialforces.com/>






-----Message d'origine-----
De : Markus Glanzer [mailto:markus.glanzer@...]
Envoyé : vendredi 2 août 2002 14:43
À : gbadev@yahoogroups.com
Objet : RE: [gbadev] slow instructions on GBA


> Hi,
>
> As I know, the modulo (x%y) and division (x/y) instructions
> are fairly slow on GBA.
> Are there any other instructions or program sequences  to
> avoid on GBA (especially in Vblan kinterrupt)? If yes, do you
> know alternative methods (like bit shifting to increase the
> speed of multiplying by 2,4,8...) for them?
>
> If there are any documents about these instructions (can be
> non GBA specific too), I would be glad to hear about it.
>
> Regards,
>
> SzabFer

if you use GCC, here something else to be aware of:
another major slowdown/bloat thing is using u8/s8/u16/s16 when
don't HAVE to use them... if you don't _HAVE_ to use them, just
use u32/s32 ... don't worry about the sizes because if they (the
non 32bit types) are not in a structure they'll always take up
32bit of memory, no matter if they are defined as 8 or 16 bit
type.
for example "for(i=0; i<256; i++) { /* do stuff * }" will be
faster if "i" is defined as u32 instead of u16.

cheers,
Markus





Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Is this the 512mb carts?  I would just write up some test code to write to
SRAM directly, and then read from it to see if it's there (just to make sure
the "patch" option isn't screwing things up).

The flashcarts use battery backed SRAM, and the patch (I'm assuming you mean
the FAT plugin that's included with the new software) just finds the EEPROM
library, and makes it use SRAM instead.

Another thing to check if just writing to SRAM doesn't work is to make sure
that the battery is good/connected :D

dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Guillaume Portes [mailto:guillaume@...]
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 4:43 PM
To: gbadev@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [gbadev] EEPROM & Flash Advance

We are experiencing problems with the latest carts of Flash Advance carts.
Our savegames use 4 KBits EEPROM. If we burn our game on the latest carts
(with the "patch" option enabled), save games are erased upon turning off of
the GBA.

> Hi,
>
> As I know, the modulo (x%y) and division (x/y) instructions
> are fairly slow on GBA.
> Are there any other instructions or program sequences  to
> avoid on GBA (especially in Vblan kinterrupt)? If yes, do you
> know alternative methods (like bit shifting to increase the
> speed of multiplying by 2,4,8...) for them?
>
> If there are any documents about these instructions (can be
> non GBA specific too), I would be glad to hear about it.
>
> Regards,
>
> SzabFer

if you use GCC, here something else to be aware of:
another major slowdown/bloat thing is using u8/s8/u16/s16 when
don't HAVE to use them... if you don't _HAVE_ to use them, just
use u32/s32 ... don't worry about the sizes because if they (the
non 32bit types) are not in a structure they'll always take up
32bit of memory, no matter if they are defined as 8 or 16 bit
type.
for example "for(i=0; i<256; i++) { /* do stuff * }" will be
faster if "i" is defined as u32 instead of u16.

cheers,
Markus

On 2 Aug 2002 at 13:15, James Boulton wrote:

[snip]
> To be honest, I'd forget about it until your game / demo starts to slow down
> and optimise then....
That's a very good advice. After all, as we all know, "premature optimization is
the root of all evil" ;-). The only problem I see with this approach is lack of
decent profiling
system for GBA. Or is there one (something like fully working gprof would be
just great, simple homemade solutions (counting scanlines) are not always
enough)?

--
- Maciej Sinilo

Hi,

We are experiencing problems with the latest carts of Flash Advance carts.
Our savegames use 4 KBits EEPROM. If we burn our game on the latest carts
(with the "patch" option enabled), save games are erased upon turning off of
the GBA.
We didn't have this problem with earlier FA carts.

I used Super Mario Advance (which uses as well EEPROM), and it has the same
behaviour. Save games are not present anymore after turning off the console.

Has anybody experienced this problem before?

Cheers,

Guillaume Portes
Smallrockets (Shaun Murray Pro Wakeboarder)

> As I know, the modulo (x%y) and division (x/y) instructions are fairly
slow on GBA.

Modulo and division are relatively slow on the AGB as it has no hardware
divide unit, however they are not so slow they are going to screw up
interrupt latency within your VBlank or any other interrupt.

The best thing is just to forget about the relative hit of divides and so on
unless you need to do something which uses divides intensively, such as 3D.
In which case you could consider going to a precalculated table based
reciprocal divide routine which uses a multiply and 1/divisor to increase
the speed of division at the cost of accuracy.

To be honest, I'd forget about it until your game / demo starts to slow down
and optimise then....

--James

On 2 Aug 2002 at 13:41, Szabo Ferenc wrote:

> Hi,
>
> As I know, the modulo (x%y) and division (x/y) instructions are fairly slow on
GBA.
> Are there any other instructions or program sequences  to avoid on GBA
(especially in Vblan kinterrupt)?
> If yes, do you know alternative methods (like bit shifting to  increase the
speed of multiplying by 2,4,8...) for them?
Square root. I think on devrs.com there's a link to page with tricks for fast
sqrt. Frankly saying for the present I'm using the BIOS one, but now I wonder --
did anyone make
any tests if it's faster than hand-optimized routines?

--
- Maciej Sinilo

Hi,

As I know, the modulo (x%y) and division (x/y) instructions are fairly slow on
GBA.
Are there any other instructions or program sequences  to avoid on GBA
(especially in Vblan kinterrupt)? If yes, do you know alternative methods (like
bit shifting to increase the speed of multiplying by 2,4,8...) for them?

If there are any documents about these instructions (can be non GBA specific
too), I would be glad to hear about it.

Regards,

SzabFer

I've got a couple of those.  Great for mame.  I've not used them for gba
emulation though but I will give it a go when I get home tonight.  Have you
tried turning off the analog on the joypad.  When I forgot to turn it on
originally, I only had the d-pad & 10 buttons.  with it switched on it's as
you say, 4 analog axes and 16 buttons.

I think windows will detect it as 2 different devices, depending on whether
you've got the analog on or off (as I said, this is not 100% proven yet).
My devices are n64/psx -> usb so may act differently to yours.

hope this helps in some small way & I'll try it and post my findings (if
no-one beats me to it!)

Chris
   -----Original Message-----
   From: Mike Wynn [mailto:mike.wynn@...]
   Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 12:31 PM
   To: gbadev@yahoogroups.com
   Subject: [gbadev] Emulators an PC joystick support.


   I've just bought my self a new toy ...a PSX->USB adapter,
   a great little gadget, makes my PSX analog joypad appear as a PC usb
   joystick,
   4 analog and 16 buttons.
   currently I see that there are several emulators that will allow me to
   configure the input device as a joystick, but will not allow
   up/down/left/right to be joystick buttons, they can only be analog axises

   any chance that one of emulators will support this feature, as a PSX
joypad
   is very close in feel to a GBA.

   Mike.



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I've just bought my self a new toy ...a PSX->USB adapter,
a great little gadget, makes my PSX analog joypad appear as a PC usb
joystick,
4 analog and 16 buttons.
currently I see that there are several emulators that will allow me to
configure the input device as a joystick, but will not allow
up/down/left/right to be joystick buttons, they can only be analog axises

any chance that one of emulators will support this feature, as a PSX joypad
is very close in feel to a GBA.

Mike.

because I was sugesting that you would also keep the clocks on the devices
sync'd
and you would want to keep the latency down.

My though train went along the following tracks, now, I may be way off here
so if I am please correct my thinking because I think serial over ip for
emulators would be great, and also allow pc apps to communicate with
software running on an emulators in a way that would be very very useful for
debugging.

the min size of an ip packets is around 64 bytes, I'm not sure how much
extra ethernet adds but is probably mac, id, fragment id, checksum, so say
another 16 bytes,

lets say a simple message (16bytes) uses up 128 bytes (1024bits) from your
physical network connection
thus a 100Mb network can support 100K messages in theory.
and its true that a good 100Mb switch is also duplex,
but I believe (may be wrong here) that the GBA serial device is also duplex
2Mb

lets pretend that our comms message has an 8byte header (device id, packet
number, time, length)
and 8bytes of data.
so 64bits of serial comms uses up 1024bits on the network, we would only get
6.25M of serial data from a maxed out 100Mb network.
may be enought with just two machines back to back, but I would be dubious
about how well it would cope 64bit quantising of the serial data, may
introduce too much latency for some games.

expanding the data portion to say 256bytes, expands the network usage to;
2048 bits of serial uses (1024 + (2048-8)) 3064 bits on the network a
wopping 66M of serial data
  but at the expence of only doing 1024 messages per second.

if you have four devices all talking to each other using these larger
packets then you have a chance but the latancy and granularity of the
messages may prove to be too great,  to be usefull.

I was never sugesting that a 100Mb network could not handle the data, just
you would have to compromise.

a Gbit network however (being almost as fast as PCI) can easily handle huge
amounts of small messages, allowing you to send a clock sync and 4 2Mb
serial message even if
the data to network usages is 16 to 1024. (1Gb become 16Mb) four devices
kicking out serial messages quantised to 16bits, including a time sync per
packet.

for a company 400quid for a gigabit switch and 70quid a card if not realy a
high price to pay to be able to emulate close to reality serial comms, and
have embedded pc to emulator debugging over a virtual serial connection. and
if the emulators used the serial to sync their clocks then you could single
step one emulator to debug it without disterbing the serial comms sync
between the emulator you are debugging and the other devices that are
freerunning. (infact all devices could be debugged, stoped and restarted at
will without losing the synchronisation). any one who's even tried to debug
a interrupt handler (even with an ice) will know what I'm jibbering on
about.

Mike.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fatty diZilla" <fattydesign@...>
To: <gbadev@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 2:59 AM
Subject: Re: [gbadev] Multiple GBA Emulation (Debugging Comms.)


> > Have you thought about emulating the serial interface over tcp/ip
> > that way two emulators can run on two or more separate PC's, and all
> > the ...
> > you could even have all the cpu clocks kept in sync with netowrk
messages
> > the emulators may run slow, but accurate with respect to each other.
> >
> > if only gigabit networks where cheaper
>
> Er, why do you need a gigabit network to model the interaction of a two
> megabit serial channel?
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

really sprites are the only way to go.. either that or you have to dedicate
enough chars in vram to your font and leave a whole layer free to display
them too..

a simple sprite text system wont use too many sprites - you could even
allocate maybe 3 or 4 64*64 sprites and line them up so they act as a little
mini screen area that you can write to (rather than doing 1 character per
sprite)

ninge
   -----Original Message-----
   From: David Voswinkel [mailto:d.voswinkel@...]
   Sent: 01 August 2002 19:42
   To: gbadev@yahoogroups.com
   Subject: [gbadev] looking for simple "print character" routines in c


   -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
   Hash: SHA1

   hello list

   iam looking for some in game routines to print some game info on the
screen.
   while using mode7 gfx , i think i have to use sprites to doit. but i dont
want
   to waste to much of them. i did a simple character printer using 1 char =
1
   sprite. maybe some one has some nice idea or concepts to do such things
   better.

   greetz david


   - --


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Friday 02 Aug 2002 12:25 am, Mike Harris wrote:
> Sorry if this has been asked before, but I didn't see it in the archives...
>
> I've downloaded and installed DevkitAdvance for Linux (the one from
> http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~tb100/). I couldn't get it to compile a simple
> test program

This is a current problem i am having making it play nice with GCC 3.1.
Currently you need to compile it with your own (not the built in) crt0 and
lnkscript. If you need more info on how to do this read the faq at
www.devrs.com or mail me in private and i wlil try to help you.


- --
Email: tb100@... || Jabber: tombadran@...
Homepage:   http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~tb100
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TJ wrote:

>I went ahead and did email my state reps...2 of which were co-sponsors of this
bill (as I mentioned before).
>
  From what I understand, this bill had strong support originally. Recently
he modified the bill to a broader level (probably hoping to sneak it by, by
last minute changes) that included the actual media itself. Even Microsoft
is having problems with the latest versions of the bill with the changes, if
you have followed all of the press reports.

  If you are going to contact your local reps, please offer the strongest
reasons that you can think of (in order) why they should not support the
bill. At this point, only logic will be a deciding factor. Emotional outrage
and threats about re-election probably won't accomplish anything AFAIK.

  Why would anyone want to pay admission for a circus when you can
get the equivalent experience by following this bill ? ;-)

  Best Regards,

  Jeff

I, for one, hope this bill passes!!! Actually, I love and support all
of these corrupt laws that give way to totalitarianism. The american
public, in all its ignorance, will hopefully support all of these
corrupted bills. I hope we pass so many bills that we become a
corporate-run police state just like in Orwell's 1984. America has
been trying to kill itself for years, resisting it is only slowing
the inevitable process. I wish it would hurry up and die so we can
start again anew. I want to make things so bad that revolution will
be immediately imminent!!! I wanna play Dr. Kavorkian to america and
end its suffering! I can't wait for the civil war where all the
intelligent americans citizens will kill all the ignorant complacent
ones!!! It's evolution!

Do you think I'm overreacting?


[mod note: From now on keep it within the boundaries of GBAdev please.]

--- In gbadev@y..., "Dan Cotter" <dancotter@o...> wrote:
> > (For example,
> >imagine a Sony Walkman digital music player that only
> >lets you play files ripped from Sony CDs.)
>
> Thats completly different.
> Your not allowed to distribute them. Your still allowed to create
your own
> roms / cds with the authentication hacked into it.
>
> Any idiot can use a Flash linker to read the boot header and patch
> downloaded games.
>
> > Then how does a newbie to GBA development dump Mario Kart to get a
> > valid rom file?  You can't dump it using MBV2 because you need to
> > put logo data in the .mb binary before the GBA will run it.  For a
> > while, you couldn't dump it using Visoly linkers because UPS was
> > blocking LikSang's shipments.  (LikSang now ships video game
> > accessories to the USA via EMS Speedpost, which hasn't given me
> > any problems... yet.  And no, I'm not being paid to say this.)
>
> You can always just read it off the cartridge.
>
> I had to wait 2 weeks and pay about 50% of my lik-sang visoly order
as
> Australia Tax after they had to declair weither or not it was
a 'legal
> device'.
> I doupt they even figured out what it was, because 2 weeks is the
limit
> before they have to make a decision on personal packages.
> I am required by law to get the documents of the import for 5
years...
> Interestingly they also opened up an e3 DVD i got free with my order
> and had a look see. I payed for express overnight, it got to
australia
> overnight, but i didnt get it until 3 weeks later.

> Have you thought about emulating the serial interface over tcp/ip
> that way two emulators can run on two or more separate PC's, and all
> the ...
> you could even have all the cpu clocks kept in sync with netowrk messages
> the emulators may run slow, but accurate with respect to each other.
>
> if only gigabit networks where cheaper

Er, why do you need a gigabit network to model the interaction of a two
megabit serial channel?

I went ahead and did email my state reps...2 of which were co-sponsors of this
bill (as I mentioned before). If (and probably when) this bill passes we would
still be able to distribute demo/freeware roms w/o the correct headers but just
think of the other doors this could open up. You better believe that the Big N
will be pushing for even more if it does pass! :( Hell I haven't even begun to
program anything for GBA yet and by the time I do it all would be illegal w/o a
license if N had it's way. (I signed on to the list in hopes to gain knowledge
of how/where to start :)


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In gbadev@y..., "yerricde" <d_yerrick@h...> wrote:
> --- In gbadev@y..., Tom Badran <tb100@d...> wrote:
> > As it has been suggested, fugbar (cant remeber link sorry) already
> > has to retrieve the nintendo logo data from a valid rom file
before
> > it can fix compiled programs.
>
> Then how does a newbie to GBA development dump Mario Kart to get a
> valid rom file?  You can't dump it using MBV2 because you need to
> put logo data in the .mb binary before the GBA will run it.  For a
> while, you couldn't dump it using Visoly linkers because UPS was
> blocking LikSang's shipments.  (LikSang now ships video game
> accessories to the USA via EMS Speedpost, which hasn't given me
> any problems... yet.  And no, I'm not being paid to say this.)

I wrote fugbar with the reasoning that everyone can quite easily
find the logo data from the multitude of public domain demo/game
roms available that include them, and fugbar only needs to
extract a logo once (it will save a local copy for later use).
I reckon that newbies won't have any trouble finding the logo if
they bother to spend a few minutes looking for it.
Since I'm in the US and given the state of the government
these days I have to admit I was looking out for myself and
avoiding any potential legal issues :)  This is why I decided to
make the user fetch the logo once, thereafter it works
transparently.

Regards,

Danz

> (For example,
>imagine a Sony Walkman digital music player that only
>lets you play files ripped from Sony CDs.)

Thats completly different.
Your not allowed to distribute them. Your still allowed to create your own
roms / cds with the authentication hacked into it.

Any idiot can use a Flash linker to read the boot header and patch
downloaded games.

> Then how does a newbie to GBA development dump Mario Kart to get a
> valid rom file?  You can't dump it using MBV2 because you need to
> put logo data in the .mb binary before the GBA will run it.  For a
> while, you couldn't dump it using Visoly linkers because UPS was
> blocking LikSang's shipments.  (LikSang now ships video game
> accessories to the USA via EMS Speedpost, which hasn't given me
> any problems... yet.  And no, I'm not being paid to say this.)

You can always just read it off the cartridge.

I had to wait 2 weeks and pay about 50% of my lik-sang visoly order as
Australia Tax after they had to declair weither or not it was a 'legal
device'.
I doupt they even figured out what it was, because 2 weeks is the limit
before they have to make a decision on personal packages.
I am required by law to get the documents of the import for 5 years...
Interestingly they also opened up an e3 DVD i got free with my order
and had a look see. I payed for express overnight, it got to australia
overnight, but i didnt get it until 3 weeks later.

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I didn't see it in the archives...

I've downloaded and installed DevkitAdvance for Linux (the one from
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~tb100/). I couldn't get it to compile a simple test
program (it complained about no interrupt table and some overlapping
sections). To fix this, I went and got Jeff F's crtls package from
http://www.devrs.com/gba/. Now I'm not quite sure what to do with it, so I
ran crt0.S through the gcc preprocessor, then compiled it using as. I used
locate, and found four places wher crt0.o was. I wasn't sure which one I
wanted, so I put the one I compiled over all of these. I couldn't figure out
how to make gcc use the lnkscript, so I had gcc just compile and assemble,
and I used ld -T lnkscript to do the linking. Then I objcopy'ed it.
I didn't get any errors from this process, but anything I compile, even demos
other people wrote don't run. In an emulator, they just come up with a black
screen, no errors. Other pre-compiled ROMs work fine.
Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?
Thanks, and sorry if this is a little long-winded.
AtariMike

there's no way around it really. either someone is gonna have to use a header
repairing utility to validate the rom or go against this bill and risk a civil
suit. i would tell my congressmen but both of them are cosponsors of this stupid
bill!

ps. ems shipping rules ups! 4 days from HK to the US.
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: yerricde
   To: gbadev@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2002 12:35 PM
   Subject: Re: [gbadev] Bill in US Senate may make gbadev illegal unless you act
now


   --- In gbadev@y..., Tom Badran <tb100@d...> wrote:
   > As it has been suggested, fugbar (cant remeber link sorry) already
   > has to retrieve the nintendo logo data from a valid rom file before
   > it can fix compiled programs.

   Then how does a newbie to GBA development dump Mario Kart to get a
   valid rom file?  You can't dump it using MBV2 because you need to
   put logo data in the .mb binary before the GBA will run it.  For a
   while, you couldn't dump it using Visoly linkers because UPS was
   blocking LikSang's shipments.  (LikSang now ships video game
   accessories to the USA via EMS Speedpost, which hasn't given me
   any problems... yet.  And no, I'm not being paid to say this.)

   US gbadev members:  Please urge your senator to vote NAY on S. 2395
   as introduced.

   --
   Damian



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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hello list

iam looking for some in game routines to print some game info on the screen.
while using mode7 gfx , i think i have to use sprites to doit. but i dont want
to waste to much of them. i did a simple character printer using 1 char = 1
sprite. maybe some one has some nice idea or concepts to do such things
better.

  greetz david


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--- In gbadev@y..., Tom Badran <tb100@d...> wrote:
> As it has been suggested, fugbar (cant remeber link sorry) already
> has to retrieve the nintendo logo data from a valid rom file before
> it can fix compiled programs.

Then how does a newbie to GBA development dump Mario Kart to get a
valid rom file?  You can't dump it using MBV2 because you need to
put logo data in the .mb binary before the GBA will run it.  For a
while, you couldn't dump it using Visoly linkers because UPS was
blocking LikSang's shipments.  (LikSang now ships video game
accessories to the USA via EMS Speedpost, which hasn't given me
any problems... yet.  And no, I'm not being paid to say this.)

US gbadev members:  Please urge your senator to vote NAY on S. 2395
as introduced.

--
Damian

There is support in Jeff's linkscript for overlays.

Segments .iwram0 through .iwram9 form overlays in IWRAM.
Segments .ewram0 through .ewram9 form overlays in EWRAM.

__iwram_overlay_lma and __ewram_overlay_lma are symbols
defined by the Linkscript to be the start of the overlay area in RAM.
You would need symbols in your overlay code to define start  and stop
addresses for the overlays to know what to copy in for a particular
overlay.  The Linker will automatically size the overlay area to the
minimum necessary size (largest of the individual overlays).

I've not used this myself, but the support in the linker/linkscript is
definitely there.

- John

You should be able to get gcc to create 4K "overlay objects"
BUT you will not be able to link directly to the other code by doing this :

compile your file, link, use objcopy to create a self contained binary image
(max 4k) to be loaded into your 4k iwram area.

use something like gbafs or similar to include these overlays into your rom.

tweek the linker script to make sure the required area is free (I would use
the last 4k of Iwram)

to make life easyer I would give each overlay object an entry point
something like

typdef void (* workFuncPtr )( void * );
bool hasLoaded( workFuncPtr * availableFuncs, int len )
{
/* returns the addresses of the worker functions; */
     if ( len < this_overlays_funcs )
     {
         availableFuncs[0] = myFunc1;
         availableFuncs[1] = myFunc2;
         /* etc */
         return 1;
     }
     return 0;
}

void myFunc1( void * param ) { /* bla bla bla */ }
void myFunc2( void * param ) { /* bla bla bla */ }

-----
  then in your code use
typedef bool (* overlayEntryFuncPtr)( workFuncPtr * , int  );

void * currentOverlay;
workFuncPtr overlayFuncs[16];
#define OverlayAddress ((void*)0x03007000)
invokeOverlay( void * overlayData, int funcNo, void * parameter )
{
     if ( currentOverlay != overlayData )
     {
         memcpy( OverlayAddress, overlayData , 0x1000 );
         currentOverlay = overlayData;
         ((overlayEntryFuncPtr)OverlayAddress)( overlayFuncs, 16 );
     }
     overlayFuncs[funcNo]( parameter );
}

this is by no means the best way, but an example of how to proceed.

Mike.

----- Original Message -----
From: "yerricde" <d_yerrick@...>
To: <gbadev@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 4:09 AM
Subject: [gbadev] IWRAM code overlays?


> Has anybody figured out how to do an IWRAM code overlay?
> For instance, if I want to devote only 4 KB of IWRAM to code,
> but I have 40 KB of code that wants to run in IWRAM, how do
> I get GCC to compile a function that I can load into a 4 KB
> part of IWRAM when needed?
>
> --
> Damian
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

they would more than likely try to make that illegal because most everything
downloaded has some bandwidth attached to the us internet lines. it's really
dumb i know. :/ politicians.... once again they go too far and make something
innocent completely illegal. the big n is probably a 'special interest' group
that paid them off.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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Thankfully a lot of us live in the free world, so this wont affect us all.
Reminds me of when US Customs banned the import on the bung gb-xchanger.
Still, you could buy them quite easily over here in the uk.

As it has been suggested, fugbar (cant remeber link sorry) already has to
retrieve the nintendo logo data from a valid rom file before it can fix
compiled programs.

One thing you can do which saves an extra step in compiling, is to actually
hard code the header/CRC stuff into your crt0.S

Tom

- --
Email: tb100@... || Jabber: tombadran@...
Homepage:   http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~tb100
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