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N-Gage for Analogue Pocket v1.1.0

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@plasticbugs plasticbugs released this 24 Oct 02:08
· 19 commits to main since this release
v1.1.0
fb85504

N-Gage for Analogue Pocket — 1.1.0

A feature release for the Analogizer, with one game fixed:

  • TATE sends the CRT the picture turned a quarter turn, for a tube
    stood on its side;
  • the Analogizer's picture is now centred on a CRT, with nothing lost
    at the bottom;
  • Rifts: Promise of Power no longer stops on a black screen after its
    intro cutscenes.

The core boots the Nokia N-Gage's own firmware on the Pocket and runs
games.

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 1.0.0 or 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, and your menu settings are kept.

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 1.0.0

  • TATE on the Analogizer. The N-Gage's screen is taller than it is
    wide, so on a CRT stood on its side the picture can fill the tube's
    height. The "Analogizer" menu has four more options:

    • "On, TATE CW" for a tube turned clockwise (its top to the right);
    • "On, TATE CCW" for one turned anticlockwise;
    • each of those again with "Pocket off".

    The CRT gets one line per column of the picture, 176 lines of 208
    dots, at 15.71 kHz and 59.95 Hz. The Pocket's own screen stays
    upright. The on-screen keypad turns with the picture.

  • The Analogizer's picture is centred on a CRT. On 1.0.0 vertical
    sync came 3 lines after the picture, so a CRT lost the picture's
    bottom lines in its overscan, and V Position could move it only 2
    lines. The picture now sits 13 lines higher, its middle where an NES's
    is, and V Position moves it from 16 lines up to 12 down.

  • Rifts: Promise of Power stopped on a black screen at the end of its
    story cutscenes. The game reads one row above a bitmap of its own,
    where the phone would have had other bitmaps; the kernel now keeps a
    blank page there.

What to expect

  • This build was tried on a Pocket before release and reported as
    great by its tester, who uses an Analogizer and a CRT.
  • Seen on a Pocket: with 1.0.0, 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 1.0.0 have not been reported on
    it or on this build yet.
  • The on-screen keypad has been checked in simulation (every key
    presses its own, and nothing else reaches the game), and has not been
    reported on from 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.

This build

file md5
Cores/plasticbugs.ngage/bitstream.rbf_r b7b65bb3d179257456d0910545397c5a
Assets/ngage/common/ngvm.bin 9e7b7a4eda38f57a9d22c299288391cf

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 4
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