Sega 32x dev progress

[master system]

I noticed that there were many 32X demos on your site. Is there still any more progress on more demos, and maybe even a better 32X development environment to share with us all?

It was really exciting to see some work being done on the 32X, but I haven't heard of anything new since 2004, so what's new now?

[ScroGer]

good luck lol

[Mairtrus]

If I don'r remeber bad, there is floating in certain page a C compiler for the 32X. I was trying to find it since a lot of time, but I have no luck
About the 32X development environment, Devster wrote something called Wal-Mars, which is a sort of 32x easy-to-use compiler library, or something like that, but I never use it.

[Tom Maneiro]

...and don't forget the basic (and mostly undocumented) 32X support in BasiEgaXorz, introduced somewhere in 2006...

[Mairtrus]

Yeah, but I was talking about coding directly for the SH2(32X processors), and use it amazing power to do some wonderful graphical demos.

[ob1]

I've posted some things on gendev.spritesmind.net forum

[oompa loompa]

i stopped working on the 32x because it just wasn't very fun to work with . the only fun part was hacking the hardware and making up a lot of bs software that didn't work, just to understand how the hardware worked, and to get something displaying on the frame buffers (it did take a LOT of time and was a headache though). when the sega docs got onto the public internet, there wasn't any point in continuing development. all the 32x docs on my site were all from hacking up the unit, and disassembling 32x roms

not to mention, the 32x is a very very slow unit haha. i had the gnu c compiler compiling programs for it, but i never released it because there was really no clean way to make clean code for the thing. like, i could have made executable code run in rom, but fetching from the rom was slow (i think it was around 120ns for a memory fetch to rom). i could have made executable code run in ram, which would really speed up execution, but then there is only 256kB of ram. i was shooting for the rom option because i could take advantage of cache too, but the instruction cache was sooo small that only small portions of code (like the xor example) could really take advantage of it. which means that software rendered 3d graphics would be very very hard to implement on the thing.

my goal for the 32x was make all sh2 code run directly from the rom, and then port SDL onto it, just to have a standard way to do 2d graphics. also, i wanted to port threading, mutexes, and condition variables to it, so that programmers could take advantage of the dual processors without having to do weird tricks. multi-threading requires some kind of kernal though, so that'd take some more work

the 32x routines for basiegaxorz work, but are useless for a lot of projects. it takes many cpu cycles for the 68k to fill an entire frame buffer, so frame rates would be very low. the only usefulness i could think of is drawing background pictures haha , and then having all the gameplay using just the 16bit hardware (seen in the galaxian 32x example)

the 32x docs have been freely available for years already, so i think that there would be others that have developed for the 32x, which would have surpassed what i've done , and made all my stuff obsolete

btw, i have no idea how that zyrinx demo ran so fast. the flat shaded stuff is believable, but the textured surfaces were insane. i think it was because sega paid a group of programmers really good money to make something good and spend their time optimizing . everything is software rendered, the 32x never had any hardware acceleration

the 32x was a good hack toy, but with much newer consoles out, i don't think there's really no reason to go back to the 32x (unless just to hack it up and make cool demos ). other consoles are much easier to program for, more things are standardized, the communities are much larger, the hardware is better, and getting code to run on the real thing shouldn't be a problem compared to the 32x's problems

[oompa loompa]

haha
just because i have been away from the 32x hardware for 4-5 years doesn't mean i can still code for it . i quickly whipped this up in 2 hours using my c compiler - devster.monkeeh.com/sega/32x/devstertest22.32x

i dunno, i'm surprised my c compiler is still working for it (means i didn't fuck around with crt0 or the ld scripts before i decided to abandon it ). the 32x is still a slow machine! but i think i may be running my code from rom (which is a no no), and i also didn't pre-calculate my cosine/rotation tables, and the cache might be all mis-configured. so i was still expecting it to be slow

maybe i can optimize it more, and make actual models . i think i might also have an idea to use both cpu's to render graphics, since i've been coding a lot of multi-threaded stuff for linux recently. i'll probably just abandon the 32x scene for more years again

[jlf65]

If you're looking for an actual homebrew program for the 32X, someone posted a GameBoy emulator for the 32X with full source at SpritesMind:

www.spritesmind.net/_GenDev/forum/viewtopic.php?t=489

It shows how to use gcc to compile and link a 32X cart image.

[oompa loompa]

wow, that's very impressive

i'm glad that there's been more successful efforts to develop on the 32x . pretty much blows all my slow demos away

[jlf65]

Decided to post this here, too, since some folks don't get around. ;D

Here's my first release of Wolfenstein 3D for the 32X. It's an alpha release - it's certainly not done, but I reached a point where it's rather playable, so I decided to put this out as an alpha release. This uses one SH2 to drive the game - it's surprisingly fast for a 23 MHz CPU on a 16 bit bus. The game runs at 320x200 in 256 color packed mode. Over the last few days, I've been modifying to original engine as I kept running out of memory. As it is now, the graphics have been decompressed, and the sprites all "decompiled" as they call it. Both are now accessed directly from the rom area instead of being loaded into ram. Having worked on this, I have a lot more respect for the folks who did Doom32X.

There's probably a bug in my graphics decompression routines as some wall textures are wrong. Most seem okay, and the sprites all seem okay so far. Again, this is just an alpha release. I do my testing in Gens as I don't have a flash card for my real system. However, it has been verified to work on a real 32X with a flash cart.

Wolf3D is GPL licensed, so in accordance with the GPL, all source code is included. Feel free to look over the code and use anything you find helpful. In particular, look at the debug_32.c/debug_font.c/debug_32x.h files. They're how I debugged this project. They're derived from the debug files in the PSP SDK from ps2dev, and licensed as BSD, so feel free to use those files. One caveat - the varargs in the SH2 libc doesn't seem to work right. You'll notice in Wolf32X that I use sprintf() to strings, then use Debug32xScreenPuts() at the moment.

Also incuded are the original shareware data files, and my decompressed versions, along with the command line apps to do the decompression. While not really part of the source, I did make some changes to the ld linker scripts, so those are included with the source.

This version has only one assembly optimization right now - the fixed point multiply. I may work in others later. I also plan to use the slave CPU to handle the audio (this version has no audio). The controls are SUPPOSED to be A = run, B = Fire, C = strafe/operate, Start+A+dpad = select weapon, Start+B+dpad = cheats, and Start+C = escape/menu. They seem to be mixed up, but they do work, so just try it. I plan to have six button support where X/Y/Z take the place of Start+A/B/C.

www.mediafire.com/download.php?z92szgon2m4

Mirror by TmEE:
www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/21/1876835/Wolf32X-a1.zip

[Tiido]

Real Hardware compliant : www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/21/1876835/32XWOLF.jpg

[Mairtrus]

This is strange. I can not play it. In Fusion, the screen become red when you choise whatever on the initial menu, and in Gens KMod, the game doesn't start. Someone know what is wrong?

[Tiido]

Don't use the A button

[Syniphas]

whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooa