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Guitar Fun v2.6 (Wii Game)

Guitar Fun is a Guitar Hero Clone for the Wii.

Thanks to http://www.nintendomax.com for the news.

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=94065

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Picodrive v1.50 (Megadrive emu for GP2x)

Picodrive by Notaz is a Genesis/MegaDrive and SegaCD emulator for GP2x.

Release notes:

So what’s new this time?
I’ve added some support for Sega Pico, which was not-so-famous Sega toy, based on MegaDrive hardware. I think PicoDrive is the first emu (remember SVP) to have some kind of support for that system. I’ve done this just because of the emu name (hey fDave, why have you named it like this?).

I’ve managed to improve performance again, after some more talks with Lordus (jEnesis/jEnesisDS author) and Exophase. Many games, which needed some push to run fullspeed (full 50/60fps) with accuracy settings enabled (like Comix Zone), should do that fine @ 200MHz now. SegaCD games should perform a bit better too.

I’ve also removed “accurate*” settings, as disabling them no longer gave any significant improvement with the new code. Now all games should just work, without any messing with options, and “bug” reports, which were configuration issues really, should go away, I hope. Unfortunately this is not yet true for SegaCD, but I hope to improve that in the future.

Another new thing is the bin_to_cso_mp3 tool, which converts cue/bin rips to cue/iso/mp3, made from Exophase’s bin_to_iso_ogg. This is the tool I recommend using to get best rips for this emu.

Complete changelog:
Added some basic support for Sega Pico, a MegaDrive-based toy.
Added proper support for cue/bin images, including cdda playback. .cue sheets with iso/cso/mp3/wav files listed in them are now supported too (but 44kHz restriction still applies).
Added bin_to_cso_mp3 tool, based on Exophase’s bin_to_iso_ogg. The tool can convert .cue/.bin Sega CD images to .cso/.mp3.
Greatly improved Sega CD load times.
Changed how scheduling between 68k and z80 is handled. Improves performance for some games. Credits to Lordus for the idea.
YM2612 state was not 100% saved, this should be better now.
Improved renderer performance for shadow/hilight mode.
Added a hack for YM2612 frequency overflow issue (bleep noises in Shaq Fu, Spider-Man – The Animated Series (intro music), etc.). Credits to Nemesis @ spritesmind forum. Works only sound rate is set to 44kHz.
Implemented some sprite rendering improvements, as suggested by Exophase. Games with lots of sprites now perform better.
Added better idle loop detection, based on Lordus’ idea again.
“accurate timing” option removed, as disabling it no longer improves performance.
“accurate sprites” was removed too, the new sprite code can properly handle sprite priorities in all cases.
Timers adjusted again.
Improved .smd detection code.
ARM: fixed a bug in DrZ80 core, which could cause problems in some rare cases.
ARM: fixed a problem of occasional clicks on MP3 music start.
Minor general optimizations and menu improvements.
Fixed a bug in Sega CD savestate loader, where the game would sometimes crash after load.
Fixed a crash of games using eeprom (introduced in 1.40b).

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=42935&view=findpost&p=624978

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PSP Kanji v2.3 (PSP Application)

PSP Kanji is a kanji learning software for the PSP. Create Kanji/Hiragana/Katakana lists and practice remembering their pronunciation/translation through flashcards quizs. Aims to be estheticly pleasing and can be used as a Kanji dictionary.

Thanks to http://www.dcemu.co.uk for the news.

http://pspkanji.sourceforge.net/

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PingBox v1.6 (PPC Application)

The ping command is useful for determining the status of the network and various foreign hosts, tracking and isolating hardware and software problems, and testing, measuring, and managing networks. This tool work exactly as windows ping command, but it’s more compact. Just type IP address or host name, check how many hops you will want and hit [Ping] button. Any feedbacks are welcomed!

Changes:

– added statistics for sent, received and lost packets
– bug fix

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=404545

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Hold Plus v2.2 (PSP Application)

News from Torch:

What does Hold+ do when the switch is enabled?

* Switches off the LCD backlight.
* Switches off the actual LCD screen.
(This is important because the backlight and actual screen are two different things. You can have an image being displayed on the screen while the backlight is switched off, such that you can see the image if you use a flashlight. You can also have the screen switched off while the backlight still illuminates the powered off screen.)
* Underclocks the CPU to 61MHz
(Sony has changed the clock speed functions such that only certain combinations of speeds work correctly. Simply trying to underclock to arbitrary values will result in the CPU simply running at the stock speed. I have verified that Hold+ successfully underclocks to 61MHz.)
* The original screen brightness and clock speed are restored when the Hold switch is released.
* Prevents the PSP from going into suspend mode if you accidently push the power switch too far when turning off Hold mode.
* Allows operation of the PSP with the display turned off, to change volume, skip songs etc.

Release notes:

Added feature to allow operation of the PSP with display turned off.

http://forums.qj.net/showthread.php?t=141671

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Rokoban (NDS Game)

Rokoban is a 3D Sokoban game for Nintendo DS.

Discussion: http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=15774

The impression screenshot is taken from the Windows version.

http://zalods.blogspot.com/

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Thieves of the scene (misc)

Dear visitors,

do you know, that there are people out there, who steal content from others, without crediting? Additionally they pretend to help the homebrew scene…

Well it happened once again, our majesty, Wraggster the Thief I., honest webmaster of the money making machine DCEmu.co.uk has copied PDRoms Openmoko section, two hours after after PDRoms introcuded it. Of course he also grabbed three Openmoko news, without credits.

The content does not appear on the main page of DCEmu, apparently Homebrew-King Wraggster wants to avoid PDRoms Main News on his front page, to lower the impression that he is a bloody thief.

Fact is, the news were stolen, without credits, may they be on the main page or not. As I am not able to check topics on DCEmu myself due to beeing banned, the no credit fact has been confirmed by RoBoCop_ ( http://www.c64.ch ) and myself via using a proxy.

Yesterday there was an issue where Wraggster has stolen news from Brakken/Tehskeen.net, pretty fast and with an apology Wraggster added credits to the stolen news post. He probably fears Brakken more than PDRoms, because the community there is a lot larger.

To be continued…

Update 8.7.2008 01:02am

To be fair here is a “response” from Wraggster http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=118972

Now a few things to clear up:

* I am not a “german”, you may look at a country south to germany…

* PDRoms is a hobby for me as well. I have a 40h/week main job with a sidejob along with a family – then additional work with PDRoms kicks in, also few hours daily. Just beeing busy is no excuse to forget credits with a clear system. You are angry at me because I told the public that you stole an article and rewrote it with your own words. That’s a fact and your apology was just the one you gave to brakken yesterday. Beeing tired is no right to leave out appropriate credits. If you have power to rewrite a whole article, which you have seen somewhere else, then there should be credits with it too.

* If your banners dont bring any money, then why you just dont remove them? There are enough pages where people can figure out if a decent dealer is trustable or not. You could even do that in your boards without spoiling your main page with more than 4 banner ads. Also we should not forget the hidden affilation codes in most posts – Your explanation just does not work out if you think logical. GBAdev also has a discussion sections about dealers without extraordinary hughe advertising anywhere. If your statement is true, you know what to do now…

* Neither I am jelous nor do I really want to go the public way, but the public critism so far did not seem to have impressed you. If you want to earn or not earn money, is your personal problem. I just want proper credits for everyone. If you forget it sometimes, hell, it’s perfectly okay. But if you follow your own news, there is a structure that you grab from sites such as nintendomax without any credits. As we are into homebrew for ages, I believe we do have the same sources of aquiring information, so I pretty much know what I am talking about. If not, I am open for beeing teached.

* If someone would blame you for something horrible which you have not done or you never did, I would stand up for you too. Even now, it’s not a question of “friendship” in any form. Unfortunatly the police still did not track down that guy as he was using a proxy… that troll was also after other people. Probably he has seen it as kind of sports to make other people bad.

* As we are in the same “homebrew” boat I suggest two things. Peace or war! It’s fully up to you. Just don’t say I did not offer you a situation to iron anything out. All I want is proper crediting for everyone (even if you are tired) and a proper apology. So sweetheart… it’s your turn! You may rant back a bit for public entertainment 🙂

Update 8.7.2008 02:30am

Wraggster has deleted his “response” but it’s saved in the PDRoms webboard as screenshot, you may read that up there.

http://pdroms.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=462

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DragonMedia Player v0.05 (Alpha) (Wii Application)

DragonMedia Player is a native Wii application with the intent of being a multi-source media player on the Wii.

http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_apps/DragonMedia_Player

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2xBand WIP (GP2x Application)

Sam B. is working on a virtual instrument for GP2x called 2xBand. The “drum” part is already done, but there is no release yet.

Full work in progress information can be found by following the link below.

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?act=ST&f=59&t=42926

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GRRLIB v3.0.1 (Wii misc)

GRRLIB for GX RGB Renderer Library provides lots of nice functions for programming beginners.

All versions of GRRLIB before 3.0 are not supported anymore dueto the lack of real full GX support.

http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/GRRLIB

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