3DO updates
Added 2019-12-16 20:44:35 +0000 UTCFor those interested in my 3DO related work...
1) Created a new website in collaboration with Bugo The Cat / Optimus to document as much as possible about the 3DO and M2 with regards to development. Both for the system itself as well as for emulating the systems. Optimus is working on a homebrew tutorial and created a tutorial for creating 3DO compatible Cinepak videos.
2) I've been working on adding some features to libretro's 4DO core to help with debugging the emulator itself. libretro doesn't really offer anything to help with this but even just printing to stdout helps a lot. I've got opcode and SWI decoding done. Want to add hardware access logging next to help in figuring out problems with accuracy.
3) In documenting SWI (software interrupts) I went on a tangent and started adding some HLE (high level emulation) to 4DO by catching calls to most matrix arithmetic calls and computing them natively rather than via the builtin hardware (or software). Still working on this and yet to test the performance impact but even if it doesn't make a significant difference in performance it provides a base for further HLE work.
4) Have been throwing around the idea of renaming the libretro 4DO core. It seems to really confuse a lot of people who think it's the same as the original 4DO emulator... which is not true. I've spent a decent amount of time refactoring the code, adding different peripheral support, and misc features over the past 2 years. The most popular alternative name is "Opera" (the 3DO's code name and name of the operating system) but I'm open to other ideas.
If you are interested in 3DO or M2 homebrew, 3DO emulation, or anything else in this space please consider joining some 3DO fans over on Discord.
