Neogeo Emulator running on LeapFrog LeapsterGS

mikew

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I've been working on a custom linux kernel for these inexpensive handhelds over the last few weeks. With that I've been testing emulation targets since it's a gaming handheld. It got featured on hack-a-day http://hackaday.com/2013/11/08/linux-on-a-leapster-for-classic-video-game-emulation/ so I figured I'd mention it here.

I don't have sound working yet for the Neogeo emu but I plan on giving that some attention this weekend. It should be mentioned that other emulators I've ported have full working sound. The ARM9 SOC used in this device favor's 32khz vs 44.1 audio so configuring that as such will improve sound quality on all emu's tested.

It's rumored that these will go on-sale at Toys-R-Us for $30 on Black Friday in the US however I've been picking them up for next to nothing on Ebay.

My full write up including firmware and emulator downloads can be found here:

http://www.epromfoundry.com/home/?page_id=974
 
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Fox1

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Interesting, but 2 buttons?
 

wataru330

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Leap Pad 2 support?

Touch Screen Puzzle Bobble for the kiddos!
 

mikew

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Interesting, but 2 buttons?

Actually 5 so far. I mapped A/B/C/Start and COIN. I haven't decided what to do with D yet (luckily no need for that in Metal Slug :) ), perhaps the the right shoulder button but I currently have that mapped to the ESCAPE key and that's sort of required for a lot of the emulators.
 

mikew

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Leap Pad 2 support?

Touch Screen Puzzle Bobble for the kiddos!

This will also work on the Leappad2 but it has far less buttons. The touchscreen driver I'm using treats the screen like a one-button mouse so it really doesn't add much value to this particular emulator.
 

mungrin

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On a kids toy and the emulation is still better that the NeoX
 

city41

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Great job, that's really awesome!

How's the d-pad on it? If it's pretty decent I might grab one for NES and GB emulation.
 

jesesfbi

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Very neat. I'm going to have to go get a leaptster now lol.
 

mikew

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Great job, that's really awesome!

How's the d-pad on it? If it's pretty decent I might grab one for NES and GB emulation.

The DPAD works well. I've got sound working for the Neogeo emulator and it's nothing short of amazing. I'll post a new video soon.

NES and GB emulator are working well too. NES emulation is in Mess in X11 only for now but the GB/GB color emulator is a standalone app and has a nice fullscreen gui. It's actually better looking than a real GB when you resize it to 320x240.
 

Asure

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If you run out of buttons, i would suggest some button combinations, like start +A = coin1 , start+button = escape.. :)
 

SNKorSWM

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Hopefully Tommo won't try to steal this emulator off like they did with FBA and playstation bios. XD
 

mikew

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Here's my Leapfrog LeapsterGS based Neogeo Emulator now with working sound. In this video I've captured the load times for various games including the load time from power off to bringing up the emulation menu. It's proven to be very playable however I still need to map the 'D' and 'SELECT' buttons. I'll likely stick 'D' on the right shoulder since 'C' is already on the left shoulder button may need to use one of the volume control buttons for SELECT or perhaps even START/SELECT. I'm really not sure yet but I'm trying to avoid using combinations of buttons if possible. Whatever I decide will require kernel keymap changes so I'll test a few layouts before releasing a final kernel. All the buttons can be remapped within the emulator if the kernel exposes them as a keyboard key and the volume buttons are not currently mapped to any keys.


The games I chose were not arbitrary, they are a combination of games I like to play and games which can actually fit in the unit's available physical ram. This ram limitation will prevent very large roms from ever being able to load.
 

famicommander

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Have you considered selling premodded units? This looks awesome but the process seems fairly involved (what with the making a serial cable and all). I'd pay for one that already had the firmware and the emulators installed and configured, though (just leaving the end user to provide their own ROMs).
 

mikew

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Have you considered selling premodded units? This looks awesome but the process seems fairly involved (what with the making a serial cable and all). I'd pay for one that already had the firmware and the emulators installed and configured, though (just leaving the end user to provide their own ROMs).

Sure, I could do that. I'll charge for the modding service and you can consider the emulator free. I'll PM you this evening.
 

Xian Xi

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Actually 5 so far. I mapped A/B/C/Start and COIN. I haven't decided what to do with D yet (luckily no need for that in Metal Slug :) ), perhaps the the right shoulder button but I currently have that mapped to the ESCAPE key and that's sort of required for a lot of the emulators.

Maybe get rid of coin and make it freeplay.
 
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famicommander

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I would suggest it being a button combination for escape instead of dedicating a single button. It has dual benefits in that it makes it harder to accidentally hit escape and that it frees up another button for gameplay.
 

HeavyMachineGoob

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How is the speed on the LeapsterGS? What's the largest game size that can be loaded? Are there any other emulators available?

I wonder if the LeapsterGS is actually better at emulation than most of the usual cheapo emulator handhelds.
 

mikew

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How is the speed on the LeapsterGS? What's the largest game size that can be loaded? Are there any other emulators available?

I wonder if the LeapsterGS is actually better at emulation than most of the usual cheapo emulator handhelds.

The LeapsterGS is fast enough for the Neo and many other emulators, check the links I provided in this thread and I also have a lot of videos on youtube showing different systems under emulation, youtube userid = mikewolak .
 

amplibax

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Thank God someone finally found a use for these shitty things. I might actually pick one up the next time I see one for $5.
 

vincewy

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Bump for great product/service received.

As for speed, so far everything runs fine. I just hope it was able to fit more games in it.
 

mikew

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Bump for great product/service received.

As for speed, so far everything runs fine. I just hope it was able to fit more games in it.

My bad here, I had filled up the flash with a group of games I had been testing and proved working 100%. Certainly more could be added, nearly all but the largest games as the unit has nearly 2G of space after OS/emulator binaries are installed.
 
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