palm pre nintendo emulation 2.0 - standalone

Update: There is now a nice app called NesEm which does this full frames with sound. It is 10 dollars though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2oMZwYp1gE

I used a much harder method to do this since it was before the palm pre supported gpu acceleration and c code in webos. Instructions are below. If you manage to get nes working using this method, games will only be reasonably playable with frameskip and there will be no sound. you have been warned.

Rough setup guide provided. This is a video of some nintendo games being run on the palm pre without help from a computer terminal. I was able to do this by following the guides at palm pre dev wiki and downloading the terminal app from preware. The games launch outside of the webos gui but can be exited by pressing the orange button on the palm pre.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

first off, to have a chance you might want to have some linux terminal familiarity.

find out how to get root on your pre because this will help you install all the packages you'll need. you'll be using a lot of apt-get.

first install a debian chroot
follow the guide at:
http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Debian

next mount the debian image and install directfb (for the graphics rendering):
http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/DirectFB

next follow this guide to install the emulator:
http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Nintendo

to get it working standalone you need to follow the forms and install
http://forums.precentral.net/canuck-software/194832-webos-quick-install.html

then use the program to get the terminal app on your pre so you can launch the emulator independently.

to run at full speed (yes, full speed):
disable resolution stretching -
to disable resolution stretching, comment out lines about resolution in the directfbrc file.
Enable frameskip -
to enable frameskip, add the following launch parameter to the emu program: "--frameskip 2".

The video does not show the emu in full speed because at the time of posting i had not discovered these parameters, but they do work. I compared the mario countdown timer in the pre nintendo emu to a fast full speed emu on my pc and it was up to speed, and the playability was pretty smooth.

also, to remove the terminal text background if you're not in full screen scaled res mode, just flick down on the screen to scroll away the terminal text and replace with a black background.

Press the orange button to exit the emu if running from the standalone terminal.

hope you get it working.

-Dudestatus



UPDATE:
New link on the wiki to easier non linux instructions courtesy of Glorifiedg at precentral. Also there's a form where you can post your troubles and have other people help you out with the setup.
link to form:
http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-development/185953-nes-emulator-9.html
link to non linux instructions:
http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/NES_and_GameBoy_Emulators

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• palm
• pre
• emulator
• nintendo
• emulation
• roms
• super
• mario

[jtlos]

How did you get it full screen?

[dudestatus]

@jtlos see the webos-internals ninendo wiki page.  link on the right

[barnesdarrel]

could u help me with the emulator thanx

[schakal007]

That's pretty cool! Where can I find this to install it?