Neogeo Emulator running on LeapFrog LeapsterGS

rcantor77

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Very cool... just a shame that it probably isn't the best device to be seen playing on the train to work... :lolz:

So maybe i'll just get my daughter one for christmas and hack it for her. :D
 

Xian Xi

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On the other hand...I don't think anyone would want to steal it.
 

SNKorSWM

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The spec might be better than NGX, but that button placement just leaves something to be desired.
 

city41

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The spec might be better than NGX, but that button placement just leaves something to be desired.

Yup, I'd never go this route for Neo emulation. But it'd probably make a pretty sweet SMS/NES/GB machine.
 

mikew

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It does make a very good GB emulator and that was the first emu I ported. I have some videos on youtube showing that on a Leapfrog Didj:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPyy44ktOAU

and Leapfrog Explorer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBpDmLkD7lU

That hardware is older but runs games at full speed and the same can be expected on the GS.

I don't have a video of NES playing but it works in mess, the only issue is that you need to use X windows for the port I did and that's a little cumbersome for a handheld. I made a menu system to launch it and it games are selected via menus on the touchscreen. Not only does mess work but Mame does as well as seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIv8ZlwknBc

That particular game is configured for vertical orientation so its not ideal, horizontal 2 button games work much better. At the end of the day I just stopped messing with the other emu's when I saw how well Neogeo emulation worked despite using C+D on the shoulder buttons. It hasn't been an issue for me but I understand a lot of people have very specific preferences when it comes to button placement.
 

Mendel

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The spec might be better than NGX, but that button placement just leaves something to be desired.

I dunno. for some games it could be very intuitive, for example if you shoot and jump on face buttons and throw a grenade from shoulder button in metal slug, it ought to work very well indeed. You see with these smart portable devices I find that with one finger it is intuitive to press no more than two buttons, I can do that without moving my finger. middle of the finger can press one button and the tip can press another (for shooting and jumping). Then another finger can use shoulder button.

If its cheap, works well and is easy to use then the only reason Im not getting one is that basically for me this is the whatfrog whatster. I´ve never seen one. I reckon they are US of A only.
 
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SNKorSWM

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I dunno. for some games it could be very intuitive, for example if you shoot and jump on face buttons and throw a grenade from shoulder button in metal slug, it ought to work very well indeed. You see with these smart portable devices I find that with one finger it is intuitive to press no more than two buttons, I can do that without moving my finger. middle of the finger can press one button and the tip can press another (for shooting and jumping). Then another finger can use shoulder button.

If its cheap, works well and is easy to use then the only reason Im not getting one is that basically for me this is the whatfrog whatster. I´ve never seen one. I reckon they are US of A only.

Imagine trying to do a Fatal Fury Special type desperation move where you have to press the L and B together after a complex d-pad input. After all, half of the neo library is fighting games.
 

cdoty

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Do you think it would be possible to get a homebrew game working on the Leapster or LeapsterGS, without a custom version of Linix?

I did a port of a game to the Didj using the default system (http://rastersoft.net/?p=97), and would like to move it over to the Leapster. The only issue I ran into was getting access to the audio device, which was already in use.

It appears as if OpenLFConnect could do it, and Leap Pad Manager (http://spiffyhacks.com/thread-212.html) recognizes the Leapster. I'm just not sure if the default paths are the same as they are on the Didj. And, unlike the Didj, the filesystem does not appear to get mapped into the windows filesystem.
 
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Gonzo

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Pretty cool MikeW. I think my kids have a GS and 2 somewhere in the garage just gathering dust. Am not a pro at this but do enjoy installing Emulators on my systems. Is there a step by step write up for this? By what I've seen so far, it looks like i should be able to root this with a "Mac" computer correct? Looks like I might have a project for the weekend.:)
 

mikew

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Do you think it would be possible to get a homebrew game working on the Leapster or LeapsterGS, without a custom version of Linix?

I did a port of a game to the Didj using the default system (http://rastersoft.net/?p=97), and would like to move it over to the Leapster. The only issue I ran into was getting access to the audio device, which was already in use.

It appears as if OpenLFConnect could do it, and Leap Pad Manager (http://spiffyhacks.com/thread-212.html) recognizes the Leapster. I'm just not sure if the default paths are the same as they are on the Didj. And, unlike the Didj, the filesystem does not appear to get mapped into the windows filesystem.

On my build the entire operating system is replaced. This custom kernel frees most of the reserved ram and allows open access to all hardware without the possibility of other services accessing the audio/video driver since none of the factory applications are installed. SDL, X11, framebuffer, and touch screen support are all available as well. It's very much like a typical Linux environment. I don't support it for dev work however, I sell them as a Neogeo emulator appliance but if you're familiar with Linux development environments it shouldn't be hard to get going.
 

mikew

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Pretty cool MikeW. I think my kids have a GS and 2 somewhere in the garage just gathering dust. Am not a pro at this but do enjoy installing Emulators on my systems. Is there a step by step write up for this? By what I've seen so far, it looks like i should be able to root this with a "Mac" computer correct? Looks like I might have a project for the weekend.:)


Hi Gonzo,

Sorry, I've never written any real documentation for this and don't support it as a downloadable/user installable OS replacement. I'm not sure if you could use a Mac for this. It might work but it's not tested. This stems from it being a Linux system. You would need to be able to cross-compile an entire Linux distribution on the Mac if you were to build one of these from scratch. The issue is there's just too much GNU stuff missing in MacOSX to make that practical.
 

mikew

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I realized I never answered your 1st question-

I think you could if you could get a good version of SDL or some other display technology working. You have to 1st build an environment that mimics the existing one and build the correct libraries to link against. I found it easier to replace the entire system since their kernel reserves too much ram for the video drivers.

Do you think it would be possible to get a homebrew game working on the Leapster or LeapsterGS, without a custom version of Linix?
 

Gonzo

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Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Looking closer at the links you posted, it looks like its a bit out of my computer skills. I think it will be easier to send you the Leapster and let you do the hard work for me, then I could just load games that my kids can play.
 

mikew

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Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Looking closer at the links you posted, it looks like its a bit out of my computer skills. I think it will be easier to send you the Leapster and let you do the hard work for me, then I could just load games that my kids can play.

When I mod these I actually load quite a bit of roms with it. There's almost 2G of space and I fill about 1/2 of that. It's pretty much all of the roms which will run in the ~90MB of free ram available after the OS loads. To get a better understanding of what that means, games Like Metal Slug 1-3, Last Blade 2, and most of the KOF series can be loaded and play 100% but SVC Chaos won't.
 

SNK416

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Makes it more of a reason to get a leapster for my little one nice
 

Diggerman

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Jeeze... some guy can do this by himself with a Leapster kid's toy, and Tommo couldn't even get the NGX right.
 
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