Finaly ! Metal Gear on the Jornada 720 (with sound, YAY)

Ever since I became a HPC owner, this was my biggest desire.
On this forum you will find a few posts of me in regards of whining for sound-support in the MSX emulator for WindowsCE.

Today, I basically got kinda stuck with DVD Cat2 development, so I started messing around with some settings. I'm not sure what I did that made it work, but I editted the fmsxcd.cfg file, and changed a bunch of FALSE into true, and it started working.

Anyway, I uploaded the emulator with my settings (without games/roms, you got to find those yourself due to licensing) here:

http://www.dvdcatalyst.com/hpc/msx.zip

For those who dont know MSX, it's a computer from the time of the C64/ZX Spectrum, and had some really cool games on it, including the very first version of Metal Gear (Playstation1/2/XBOX/PC).

My fav games of all time are Metal Gear 1, Knightmare, Nemesis and ofcourse Penguin Adventure.

These games just need to have the sound enabled to be truely appreciated, and now it's done.

laterz, I'm back to Metal Gear guys.

That's funny, I just got done watching a HILARIOUS flash cartoon called Metal Gear Awesome(But I DON'T reccomend it to anyone under 18, bad words).

What processor type is this emulator for? ARM/MIPS/SH3?

EDIT: What I meant was, is there any other processor types supported other than ARM, because it's not working for me...

Edited by CardBoardCrusader 2006-03-10 7:59 PM

it's just an ARM package, sorry.
Basically it's the folder I have on my J720 storage card without the games. However, the full package I used is here

http://www.imasy.or.jp/~ngs/emu/arc/fmsxCE_012b.zip

and should have other binaries as well. Just replace the executable in my package with the one in there, and it should work.

As in first post, I basically editted the cfg file to make the sound work.

Now if only I get the key_bind cfg file figured out so that I can remap the f1-f5 keys to something else to allow me to save games.

(for non-msx people, the spacebar is usually used for shooting, and the m/n keys are alternate, these are used in games such as Nemesis to select the weapon bonusses you pickup, the arow keys control the character)



Edited by PocketDVD 2006-03-10 8:15 PM

Huzzah! It works! And the sound too!

Thanks.

A little trick: Try changing the UPeriod Value by clicking Option menu/Misc then change it to whatever value to fit your desired game speed.

But I can't figure out the first mission in Metal Gear. What key do you use to answer a call?

Look at my posts in this thread.
http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=3505&posts=49

Unfortunately, Metal Gear makes use of F1-F5 keys, which are unavailiable on the HPC.
these F-keys include load/save, inventory/weapon choice and also answering calls.

I never bothered too much with it because of the sound not working, which basically ruins the experience, but now I got sound working, I found out that it takes a little bit more to figure out.

Anyway, games such as Nemesis (gradius on the arcade/NES), Salamander(life-force) and Knightmare should work without the F-keys

I have them all, for completely unexplained reasons... Also, you should try to find Metal Gear II: Solid Snake for the MSX. It's a pretty cool game too.

ok, let me get this straight ... u mean u got the "Metal Gear" game to run on J720?

Well, it already did run. We are talking here about the 1987 MSX2 version, the very very very first Metal Gear. However, the MSX emulator that does work on the J720 does not have sound enabled by default, and using the functions in the menu also didnt enable it for me. So, after some fiddling with the cfg files, the sound started to work, meaning that all the MSX1 and MSX2 games you can find now play on the J720 with sound.

Without those classic tunes it just aint fun.

Since Metal Gear was my main interest to make it work, thats what I posted.

(the newly released collectors edition PS2 version of Metal Gear Solid 3, Subsistence, also has the original Metal Gear with it)

can you give some me a tutorial on running msx?
Link

ok, my package is ARM only, however, with the other link in this thread you can get the other binaries.
extract my zip file, and put the folder somewher eon your device. Since it does not use registry or files in other locations, I just run it from a storage card. (\storage card\MSX)

if you do use a different binary, also replace the gsgetfile.dll file as well, since this is used for browsing.

Games you have to find yourself, but they can go basically anywhere, but I have them in a subfolder in the MSX folder. It doesnt matter where you have them though, I just like it a little organized.

Start the emulator by opening fMSX_CE
you can fidle around with some of the settings, but to get started, basically do the following

Click on Device-Cart A. it opens a browser, and you basically select the game you want to play.
then click on File - Run
and off you go.

spacebar, arrowkeys and the m/n keys are used for play usually
Metal Gear also uses F-keys which are not on the Jornada720, but ShadowMaster of the oKey mapper is looking into that, to remap those.

Thats basically it.
when you want to play another game, you have to exit out of the emulator, and start it again, somehow the eject stuff when reset doesnt work properly.

the cart A and Cart B can both hold a game, but only one of them will be played. Konami, the biggest game maker for the MSX had some cool things with some games (Maze of Gallious for example) that if you had another game of them in the second cart, you had an alternate ending, or new content and stuff, pretty neat for the 80's. This is now being done again with newer games, Burnout Revenge for the XBOX has something like that. If it finds a savegame of some other games, you get some new cars.

I just realized that this will allow me to play SO many more games on my MP790. Like PAC-MAN! And Dragon Warrior, and Contra, Gradius, Castlevania... Without a doubt this is the best, fastest, and coolest emulator i've ever gotten to run on my 790. Thanks SO much for fixing the sound.

Sure, no problem. Yeah, there is a whole lot more. Castevania (the first one) on the MSX is called Vampire Killer.
There are quite a few games availiable, but most are Japanese though. The MSX system never gotten big in the US, but in Europe it was pretty much equal to the C64. in Japan, it was bigger then the C64, mainly because the systems were mostly manufactured by Sony, JVC and other Japan-based companies.

The games are pretty much compareable to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) but they offer more sophystication due to the use of a keyboard, which works awesome on a HPC. Emulating console systems is ok, but those games are made for use with a joypad. these games are more intended to play with the keyboard.

http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?type=games&platform=41

(I didnt know the original Final Fantasy came out on the MSX though, cool)

http://www.msxgamesbox.com/Sections/topgames/index.php


Edited by PocketDVD 2006-03-11 1:21 PM

And the MSX roms are the easiest(In my opinion) to find, too. I've found at least 500 so far, but yes, a lot of them are in japanese. Perhaps because it was a japanese system to begin with.

I have pretty much given up on the old Sinclair Spectrum emulator that was mentioned in an earlier thread. It runs fine, but the games are crap.