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N-Gage for Analogue Pocket v1.0.0

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@plasticbugs plasticbugs released this 23 Oct 20:09
· 22 commits to main since this release
v1.0.0
55e1d9c

N-Gage for Analogue Pocket — 1.0.0

The first full release. It boots the Nokia N-Gage's own firmware on the
Pocket and runs games, the 3D ones about 1.7 times as smoothly as the
alphas did.

This core does not rebuild the phone's board. It runs NGVM, a small
machine with just enough of an ARM phone for the Symbian user side of your
own phone's firmware to run unchanged. The CPU, an ARMv4T, is gateware; a
small kernel (ngvm.bin) stands in for the phone's.

No firmware or games are included. You need your own N-Gage's firmware
dump and your own games.

Install

  1. Unzip onto the SD card root, keeping the folders.

  2. Into Assets/ngage/common/, next to ngvm.bin, put:

    • sym.rom: the N-Gage's firmware (the "BIOS"), about 18 MB. Dump it
      from your own phone. A compatible one is bios/Nokia/N-Gage/SYM.ROM
      in the retrobios repository on
      GitHub: the firmware this core was tested on, 18,612,224 bytes, md5
      64a95a4a884cf4cc15a566b856603193. Rename it to sym.rom, in lower
      case;

    • one .img per game, built from the game's files with the builder in
      this zip (Python 3 only):

      python3 mkdrive.py --from vcop.zip --out vcop.img

    The game list (Assets/ngage/plasticbugs.ngage/*.json) names the .img
    each game expects. Add a JSON there for any other game.

  3. Loading takes a while: up to about 50 MB go through the Pocket's loader,
    and the screen stays black until it is done. The phone then boots as it
    would, Nokia logo first.

From any alpha, copy the whole zip over: both the bitstream and
ngvm.bin have changed. Your sym.rom and .img files are not in it.

Rebuild your .img files with this zip's mkdrive.py if you made them
for 0.1.0-alpha and the game is larger than 24 MB, or is Tomb Raider, Tony
Hawk's Pro Skater or Pandemonium.

Controls

Pocket phone
d-pad arrows
A / B 5 / 7
X OK
Y 9
L / R the soft keys
Select #
Start OK
Select + R the on-screen keypad, and put it away

The core's menu has a slider for each of A, B, X, Y, L and R: at 0 to 9
the button is that digit key of the phone, at 10 it is as in the table.

The on-screen keypad is for every key the buttons do not reach.
Press Select and R together and the phone's keypad comes up over the
bottom of the picture: the soft keys, C, 0 to 9, * and #. The d-pad moves
the highlight, A or B presses the key for as long as you hold it, and Y
moves the keypad to the top of the screen and back. Select and R together
put it away. While it is up, the game sees only the keys it presses.

New since 0.3.1-alpha

  • Faster, most of all in 3D. In a simulation of the Pocket's hardware,
    Virtua Cop in play draws about 1.7 times as many screens a second as
    with 0.3.1-alpha (12.5 against 7.5). It runs 43% more instructions a
    second, and its first level loads well before 0.3.1-alpha's has. That
    was measured on a build just before this one; over the game's first
    25 s, this one draws 6% more screens again. What changed:
    • the CPU runs at 80 MHz, on a clock of its own (73.85 MHz before);
    • the instruction and data caches are 64 KB each (16 KB before), and a
      store that misses no longer waits for its line;
    • branch prediction has twice the entries and predicts returns made by
      a load (POP with pc), and a multiply holds the pipeline a cycle less;
    • the memory controller sends a burst's writes one a clock, starts the
      next burst as soon as the last one's data is in, and puts the CPU's
      requests on the bus sooner;
    • the kernel's scheduler and its most frequent calls take less time.
  • The on-screen keypad (above), so that games can be given numbers
    and the keys the buttons do not have.

What to expect

  • Seen on a Pocket: with this build, Virtua Cop, SSX: Out of Bounds
    and Puzzle Bobble VS play. With 0.3.1-alpha's build, The Elder Scrolls
    Travels: Shadowkey and The Sims Bustin' Out play, and Call of Duty
    plays slowly; with 0.3.0-alpha's, Pocket Kingdom plays well. With
    0.2.0-alpha's, Atari Masterpieces Vol. 1 and 2, Rayman 3 and The Roots
    play well. On the builds before it, Colin McRae Rally 2005 plays
    perfectly, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Ghost Recon play well, and
    Requiem of Hell starts after a long pause. Sonic N played on
    0.1.0-alpha. The games not named for this build have not been reported
    on it yet.
  • The on-screen keypad has been checked in simulation (every key
    presses its own, and nothing else reaches the game), not yet on a
    Pocket.
  • Tested in the reference emulator only: of 54 games, 46 run for
    45 s past the boot logos with a picture and sound, with A and X pressed
    a few times from 30 s. Puzzle Bobble VS and Pandemonium reach their
    menus too and start their sound later.
  • Not yet compared with the phone. On the alphas, 3D games ran below
    the phone's frame rate; the heaviest may still.
  • Sound lags the picture by 32–64 ms.
  • Games take some 0.3 s longer to start: the phone's connection
    settings are written at boot.

Known problems

  • Reported from a Pocket with 0.3.0-alpha, and not reported on this
    build: Puzzle Bobble VS has no sound, though the game itself has sound.
  • Reported from a Pocket with 0.2.0-alpha, and not yet tried on this
    build, which is faster:
    • X-Men Legends II returns to the N-Gage logo partway through its
      attract mode. It needs a faster CPU: in the reference emulator it
      plays at 45 MIPS, and at 0.2.0-alpha's speed it starved its own view
      events until the phone's view server gave up on it.
    • Puyo Pop has no music in the game; its attract mode and intro have
      sound. It fell behind its music stream at 0.2.0-alpha's speed and
      dropped it for good.
  • Copy protection that checks the memory card the game was installed on
    stops Asphalt Urban GT 2, Warhammer 40,000: Glory in Death and One:
    the card here is an image, with nothing behind it to identify.
  • In the reference emulator, not yet tried on a Pocket: Civilization and
    Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory stop during startup, and the Payload trial
    does not get past its first screens.
  • The game keeps running behind the Pocket's menu (no pause).
  • Saves last until the Pocket is switched off: nothing is written back to
    the SD card. No sleep or link port.
  • Key clicks and the phone's tone player are silent. Game music and effects
    play.
  • Bluetooth multiplayer (Snakes and others) has no radio and cannot start.
  • The Analogizer adapter is supported but has not been tried on one.

This build

file md5
Cores/plasticbugs.ngage/bitstream.rbf_r 0c44e9e693b3c62dfbccbd30da78328f
Assets/ngage/common/ngvm.bin 4ef9e13431949931c2af713441108b44

CPU at 80 MHz. docs/bringup.md in the source says what each screen
should look like and when, and what to report if it does not.

Assets 3
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