IGameGear

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The title of this article should be iGameGear. The initial letter is capitalized due to technical limitations.
Important.pngThe content of this article is UNSUPPORTED. Please do NOT contact the core iPodLinux team if you have problems with anything mentioned here!

Contents

What is iGameGear?

iGameGear is a Sega Game Gear and Master System emulator for the iPod. The latest binary release uses Hotdog on the graphics engine. This application currently supports all color iPods: Nano, Photo and 5G (Video).

The emulator source code is based on SMS+SDL, a port of SMS Plus to SDL supported platforms.

Features

The latest version features are:

  • Hotdog graphics engine;
  • Zipped roms support;
  • SRAM states support (ability to save your progress on games like Phantasy Star);
  • Almost 100% compatibility (100% maybe?);
  • Frameskipping (--fskip <n>);
  • Different display modes (--display <center|scale|stretch>).

Download

Binaries

Source code

  • igamegearsrc-20070117.tgz - First source code release. It's ugly and needs cleaning, revisions and lots of improvements. If you make any improvement on iGG, please send it to the forum so venox can patch the source.

Installation

The binary and the igg shell script should be placed in the folder /home/igg, and can be launched from Loader2 (see "Running From the Bootloader" section). If you don't want to place it at /home/igg, just edit the igg script to fit your needs.

Command-line arguments

Currently, iGameGear supports frameskipping and some display modes, these can be acomplished by editing the igg shell script. If you want frameskipping, you can do: 

./sms alex.sms --fskip 5 >igg.log

This will skip 5 frames between each rendered frame. Just try out with that value.

If you want to scale the screen to fit on your iPod's LCD, just use the display mode scale: 

./sms alex.sms --display scale >igg.log

You can use the display mode stretch too if you want. While scale mode preserves the screen ratio, stretch mode will stretch the screen to your iPod's LCD (duh): 

./sms alex.sms --display stretch >igg.log

NOTE: When tested with iPod Video, Stretch/Scale only seems to work with Master System Games and NOT GameGear Games.

Running From the Bootloader

This can only be accomlished if you have the following:

  • loader2args with a loader.cfg file;
  • the igg binary, sms file, and a shell script with its corresponding rom in the same folder (creating a shell script is mentioned above);

In the loader.cfg file add this line: 

ROM NAME @ (hd0,1)/kernel.bin /home/igg/SHELL SCRIPT NAME

ROM NAME should be replaced with the name of the game you're playing and SHELL SCRIPT NAME should be replaced with the name of the shell script you created.

Helpful Hints:

  • (hd0,1) may need to be changed to (hd0,2) depending on where your kernel.bin is. Also kernel.bin might need to be changed to linux.bin depending on the name of your kernel.
  • /home/igg is the default location of igg, depending where your binary, shell script, etc. are located that line may need to be changed to where your files actually are. Remember though, if your files are located anywhere besides the /home/igg folder your shell script will have to be modified accordingly.

Controls

The control scheme is used by tapping the wheel slightly, not pressing it (like iBoy): 

Menu = Up
Play/Pause = Down
Forward = Right
Previous = Left
Action = Button 1
Upper-Right Corner = Button 2
Upper-Left Corner = Button 1
Lower-Right Corner = Start
Hold switch = Exit emulator

Currently, the controls scheme is hard-coded. A configuration file may come on another sunny day.

Screenshots

(These screenshots are mirrored)

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/8323/photo21vu3.jpg

http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/9879/photo22zh1.jpg

(These screenshots are not :P)

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c303/kirby4life/DSC00714.jpg

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c303/kirby4life/DSC00715.jpg

Currently Supported Romsets

Note: we are constantly in the process of testing ROMs and will post the actual filenames if they are available.

Game State iGG Release
Afterburner Works Fully 20061008
Alex Kidd in Miracle World Works Fully 20061008
Ax Battler - A Legend of Golden Axe Works Fully 20061008
Batlletoads Works Fully 20061008
Batman Returns Crashes shortly into the game  ??
Columns Works Fully 20061008
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine Won't launch  ??
Earthworm Jim Works Fully 20061008
Gauntlet Works Fully 20061008
Golden Axe Warrior Works Fully 20061008
Megaman Crashes after you start a game  ??
Mortal Kombat Works Fully 20061008
Mortal Kombat 3 Works Fully 20061008
Phantasy Star Gaiden Works Fully 20061008
Phantasy Star Works Fully 20061008
Samurai Shodown Crashes after you start a game  ??
Shaq Fu Works Fully 20061008
Sonic the Hedgehog Works Fully 20061008
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Works Fully 20061008
Sonic Blast Works Fully 20061008
Sonic Chaos Works Fully 20061008
Sonic Triple Trouble Works Fully 20061008
Sonic Labyrinth Crashes on gameplay start  ??
Streets of Rage Works Fully 20061008
Streets of Rage 2 Works Fully 20061008
Terminator, The Crashes after you start a game  ??

Feedback

If you have any suggestions, bug reports, a nice supporting message or even if you want to hug the developers, just give your feedback here: http://ipodlinux.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9561

Contributors

  • do_me_nice & miz dawg - Project starters
  • venox - Main coder
  • Edwinthechum - Wiki page, some ROM testing
  • Kirby4life0 - ROM testing, along w/ minor fixes to the Wiki page <(-'.'-)>
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