Beta Testing Has Begun!

[Tom.K]

I hate to do this again, but I'm going to have to delay the release candidate for a couple days.  Some family stuff going on today, so I haven't been on the computer for most of the day.  I need to fix the rumble pack code before I can post a working APK (the code is a bit torn apart at the moment).  I'll try my best to have it ready tomorrow or the day after.  Sorry to everyone who is waiting (I know, I am a really slow developer compared to some others).

I have seen even slower developers, this is still fast comparing to others.

[breadwinka]

You're probably one of the fastest n64 emu developers since the scene is dead updates for PC emus are very far and few between. Your doing a fine job keep up the great work

[Vincentmrl]

lol paul there was another copy of your emu in market, and i found a forum topic on androidworld (ita( talking about it, thry really think it was a beta remake, I'm gonna register there just to tell them this

[Paul]

Progress update:

I got plugin importing to work finally!  Just one last thing to fix, which is the vibrater spamming.  Could be a problem where it is getting stuck "down", but I'm not sure yet.  It's late here (time does fly when I'm programming!), so I think I'll try and get that last piece fixed tomorrow.  Hopefully it won't be too difficult to track down.

[Paul]

Ok, I've been spinning my wheels on this vibrater bug for too long.  For now, I've just disabled Rumble Pak, until I get the bug fixed, so folks can start testing other things.  Currently I've only added the Japanese translation, but I'll be adding the other ones in soon (pretty simple, I just forgot to do it before I hit build):

Signed APK, RC 1

I am posting this as a signed APK rather than a test build, because part of the thing is making sure upgrading from an earlier version works (changes are quite significant in this update, so if the updater fails, things will go badly).

The main things I'd like to have tested with this build:

1) Performance on ARM6 compared to previous builds
2) Game compatibility differences
3) Core speed functions
4) Restore App Data auto backup/ restore of game saves and savestates
5) Cheats
6) Controller 1 button mapping
7) Device locale changes
8) In-app Language changes
9) Honeycomb soft menu minimization
10) ICS soft menu hiding

[scorpio16v]

I can't figure out how to open the menu on HC devices without a hardware menu-button, like my tablet.

On my tablet, I had a resume to home on my tablet for all games on both plugins. Even reset/restore the emu and reboot the device didn't help.
After deleting the app and a new install, it's OK for now.

[Paul]

There seems to be a problem with the Honeycomb code for minimizing the soft menu (it is getting rid of it entirely instead).  I'll try and fix this.

For the crash back to home, I suspect a config problem, but very strange that Restore App Settings didn't fix it.  I'll have to do more extensive tests of upgrading from previous versions I guess to try and reproduce the problem.

BTW, if anyone else has this same issue, could you grab the logcat output, so I can see what is causing the crash?  For anyone new who isn't familiar with accessing the logs, I've posted instructions here.  Hopefully I'll be able to reproduce the problem myself to see what is going wrong.

[Tripod]

Thanks for the release candidate Paul!

Signed APK, RC 1
10) ICS soft menu hiding

The on screen menu key has completely vanished all together on my Galaxy Nexus (stock 4.0.4) and I recall it being persistent before this build.

Also the gamepad, except for the analogue stick, hides itself after a gamepad button is pressed.  Enabling 'Redraw All' fixes the issuse, just found it odd considering this was never an issue before.

I'm assuming landscape is now the default orientation on startup (makes sense) because when I run the app the main menu is landscape regardless of the phone be held in a portrait fashion or auto-rotate being turned off.  This is only for an instant though, upon starting the app with either of the two mentioned conditions the display immediately changes from landscape to portrait.  Just mentioning in case it is a 'bug', I'm pretty sure it's not though.  I don't recall this feature being in previous builds (I haven't used the app in a while) so forgive me if this is nothing new.

[Paul]

The on screen menu key has completely vanished all together on my Galaxy Nexus (stock 4.0.4) and I recall it being persistent before this build.

Is it gone completely, or does interaction with the device make it visible again?  This sounds like the same problem that Honeycomb is having.  I'll do some research to see what I am doing wrong with these.  I may have just used the wrong API that would require me to manually make the menu visible again on some condition (this may be a good feature for the future, but for now, I just want to make the menu less intrusive somehow).  Wish I had a Honeycomb or ICS device to test this on (I think I'll get me a Galaxy Nexus, since my Droid X contract should be up this month)

Also the gamepad, except for the analogue stick, hides itself after a gamepad button is pressed.  Enabling 'Redraw All' fixes the issuse, just found it odd considering this was never an issue before.

While this is an old bug, it is definitely strange that it just started happening when it wasn't before.  I think I'm just going to make the "Touch" layouts with FPS disabled by default, which will fix this problem for everyone.  Anyone who likes the "Analog" layout better or wants the FPS indicator can simply change the settings.

I'm assuming landscape is now the default orientation on startup (makes sense) because when I run the app the main menu is landscape regardless of the phone be held in a portrait fashion or auto-rotate being turned off.  This is only for an instant though, upon starting the app with either of the two mentioned conditions the display immediately changes from landscape to portrait.  Just mentioning in case it is a 'bug', I'm pretty sure it's not though.  I don't recall this feature being in previous builds (I haven't used the app in a while) so forgive me if this is nothing new.

This behavior started when I fixed a different bug where components of the main menu were being accessed by the DataDownloader too soon after unpacking the app data (a thread synchronization problem).  To fix the problem, I put a 1-second Thread sleep, which fixed the problem, but had the side effect of making the main menu pause in landscape mode temporarily, even if the user had changed the device orientation while the DataDownloader was still active.  It's a minor aesthetic bug, that I'll probably look at once I've removed the SDL layer and allow the app to be run in any orientation.

[Paul]

Ok, I think I solved the missing menu problem.  As I suspected, I was using the wrong API.  The way I was doing it completely disables the soft menu, and must be re-enabled problematically if its needed by the app (this could be a good feature for the future if I were to add a button to the virtual gamepad for enabling/disabling the soft menu).  For now, though, see if this works.  It should put the soft menu into "low profile" mode, rather than completely disabling it:

Signed APK, RC 2

I'll work on trying to recreate and solve the crash back to home problem next.

[paed808]

Ok, I think I solved the missing menu problem.  As I suspected, I was using the wrong API.  The way I was doing it completely disables the soft menu, and must be re-enabled problematically if its needed by the app (this could be a good feature for the future if I were to add a button to the virtual gamepad for enabling/disabling the soft menu).  For now, though, see if this works.  It should put the soft menu into "low profile" mode, rather than completely disabling it:

Signed APK, RC 2

I'll work on trying to recreate and solve the crash back to home problem next.

Unfortunately, the soft menu is still missing for me. :/

[scorpio16v]

Yes, menu isn't there on HC @RC2

[Deadrabbtz]

Great work Paul. I was just wondering if Zelda majors mask will ever be playable the speed is awesome on my ATRIX 2 but freezes after tunnel cut scene. Even with ur current update. Everyth ;Ding else I tried with this update has improved. Thanks for the awesome work.

[Paul]

Attempt #3:

Signed APK, RC 3

(This multi-API-depending-on-target-and-min-SDK-versions thing is killing me!)

[scorpio16v]

get a forced close after selecting a game. restore/reset and new install doesn't change it.

http://db.tt/RyVnDeDi