LynXBox Atari Lynx (Handy) Emulator port for XBox v1 http://xport.xbox-scene.com http://handy.sourceforge.net/ Thanks to J-Red for another great skin! Features : - Emulates Atari Lynx - Excellent compatibility - ported from Handy - ZIP support - Cheat system - Search/Create your own cheat codes (see notes) - Save States - Favorites list - Resizable game screen - 480p, 720p, 1080i support - Graphics filters : + 2xSai + Super 2xSai + Eagle + Super Eagle + SuperScale + AdvanceMame 2x + Simple 2x + 2xSai Scanline + Super 2xSai Scanline + Eagle Scanline + Super Eagle Scanline + SuperScale Scanline + HQ2X - Skin-able : - Backgrounds - Sounds - Background Music - Sprites - Text position (right/left/center, top/bottom/center) - Text color, select bar color - Font - Fading speed - Screenshot position - Can specify 2 sprites to surround the selected menu option - Option to have a transparent select-bar color (from select-color menu) - Can flip sprites horizontally/vertically - Can set motion_x and motion_y variables for sprites - Sprites can loop continuously or just once - If you want to change the way something looks in this new UI, chances are that you can change it via the Configuration menu. - Music Control Menu - press LTHUMB anywhere to bring up the music control menu. This is also a customizable controller action while in-game. Configure it via the Controller Configuration -> UI Mappings menu. - Save Game management - delete save game files - Text file viewer - ISO9660 support - Samba/NetBIOS sharing support (read roms from your PC) - Relax Network Sharing (read roms from your PC) - Play MP3 or M3U playlists in the background (Can also read MP3/M3U from across Samba/Relax shares.) - User definable save directory. If you don't like the default of E:\SAVES\LYNXBOX you can change it via the menu - Take in-game screenshots and display them on the game selection list - New UI feature - auto-screenshot capture mode. When enabled, the emu will start taking screenshots at a user-defined interval. Useful for ripping sprites/animation. - Hardware filtering options : Point, Bilinear, Trilinear, Anisotropic - Record/Playback feature - record your gameplay in the emu and then play it back again. Record up to 10 minutes of gameplay. - Every single in-game command is fully customizable on any of the four joypad controllers. - Map any emulator or UI command to a single button or a combination of two buttons. (e.g. RTrigger+LTrigger = Save State) - Autofire capabilities for any emulator button on any controller - One-button combos (define a series of emulator commands to be played back when you press a user-definable XBox controller combination.) (E.g. Press RTrigger+LTrigger to execute the command string A,B,A,B,Up,Down,Left,Right) - Traverse any directory on any drive ( Continue selecting the parent directory entry on the file selection list to get the drive selection list. Selectable drives are C, D, E, F, R, X, Y, Z, and SMB. R is the CDROM drive. SMB is the samba share you have defined in your LYNXBOX.ini file.) Press Y from any file-listing screen to go up one directory level. - All UI commands (save state, load state, screenshot, etc) can be invoked from the Options/Pause menu as well as in-game via your customized joypad mappings. - Virtual Keyboard - go to Controller Configuration / UI Mappings to select the button combo that will bring up the Virtual Keyboard while in-game. - Can be invoked from a command-line to directly run a game from a front-end or dashboard and bypass the user-selection screens. (Only if the frontend or dashboard supports this feature.) - Can return to the launching program *if* the launching program supports this feature. For example, if the custom-launch routines are incorporated into a new frontend, that frontend could launch LYNXBOX and when you exit LYNXBOX, that frontend can be automatically reloaded. Default ROM dir is D:\LYNXROMS =============== Important Notes =============== Some games require framerates greater than 60fps. To allow for this, the refresh rate must be "turned off" to allow immediate refresh of the screen. However, this is not compatible with high-definition modes. If you are trying to play a game in a HD mode (like 1080i) and the sound is all choppy, then you'll have to revert back to normal 480i to play the game correctly. Questions? Select the HELP option from the Main Menu or go to my website, noted above, for FAQs. ===================== Relax Network Sharing ===================== The relax sharing setting goes in the [GENERAL] section as follows: rlxshare=c:\LYNXROMS@192.168.123.77:1400 Replace 192.168.123.77 with your computer IP address and replace 8989 with the port where you have Relax running. ============================ Note on Samba/NetBIOS Shares ============================ There are two INI file settings relating to Samba/NetBIOS sharing and they both reside in the [GENERAL] section of LYNXBOX.INI: smbshare=smb://username:password@workgroup:ip_address/computername/sharename smb_nameserver=192.168.0.1 The smbshare parameter accepts many different formats. Here are the most common: smbshare=smb://username:password@workgroup/computername/sharename smbshare=smb://username:password@workgroup:ip_address/computername/sharename smbshare=smb://username:password@computername/sharename smbshare=smb://username:password@computername:ip_address/sharename smbshare=smb://workgroup/computername/sharename smbshare=smb://workgroup:ip_address/computername/sharename smbshare=smb://computername/sharename smbshare=smb://computername:ip_address/sharename Please try all of the above combinations before deciding it does not work. Also be aware that some people have to select their SMB drive in LYNXBOX a few times before any files appear. If it's still not working, then set the nameserver equal to the IP address of the computer you are trying to reach or set it equal to your NetBIOS name server. (If you don't know what a NetBIOS name server is, then just set it to the IP address of the computer you are trying to reach.) Also remember that when you make changes to LYNXBOX.INI, you have to do a "Force Reload of D:\*.INI" from the Configuration Menu or else the changes you made to LYNXBOX.INI will not be loaded. ============= Configuration ============= Everything can be changed from the configuration menu. To change things like default save directory, default game directory, etc, go to Main Menu -> Configuration -> Change Default Directories =============== Menu Navigation =============== Select menu options with the DPAD or with R/LTrigger. The speed of R/LTrigger movements can be controlled by : Configuration -> Menu Scroll Speed There are some places where you can enter or change values. This can usually be done in a variety of ways include DPAD Left/Right, R/L Trigger, and L/R Thumb. Try all of them if the values are changing too slowly. "A" selects the highlighted choice. "B" cancels/returns. "Y" from a file-select list will go up one directory. ================ Text File Viewer ================ DPAD Up - Up one line DPAD Down - Down one line DPad Left - Up one page DPAD Right - Down one page R Trigger - Scroll down L Trigger - Scroll up A - Start search X - Continue last search White - Top of file Black - End of file Y - Simulate fixed-width font Back - Decrease width of simulated fixed-width font Start - Increase width of simulated fixed-width font B - Exit ===== SKINS ===== Instructions for making a new skin: - Create a new directory off of your SKINS directory (default skins directory is D:\EMUSKINS - Place your sound/font/graphic media files in this new directory - Load LYNXBOX - "Select Skin" from the main menu and select your new directory. - Select Configuration - select Configure Skin - Use the menus to select your new media files and change your settings - When you are satisfied with what you have, go back to the main menu. - Select "Configuration" - Select "Overwrite D:\*.ini and D:\emuskins\\\\settings.ini" This will write the skin settings in your skin directory (if your skin directory is on the hard drive.) - You're done! You can package up the directory and share it with your friends. If you wish to use sprites in your new skin, then read the following: - Create a subdirectory off of your new skin directory called SPRITES e.g. D:\EMUSKINS\NEWSKIN\SPRITES - In this new SPRITES directory create a 0-based numeric directory for each sprite you wish to make. This means that if you have 4 sprites you wish to load, the directory names *must* be called 0, 1, 2, and 3. Do not call them 1, 2, 3, and 4. Do not call them 0, 3, 5, 6. Do not call them SPRITE1, SPRITE2, SPRITE3, SPRITE4. - Inside each of these new directories, you must place the sprite frames. Each frame is represented by a BMP, PNG, or JPG file. The order of the frames is given by the filenames. These filenames must also be named with 0-based numbers. For example, 0.png, 1.png, 2.png. Look at the sprites directory of the included default skin to see how it works. - Do not skip numbers when naming sprite directories or sprite frame filenames. A list of directories called 0,1,2,5,7 is *INVALID*. Similarly, a list of files called 0.png, 1.png, 4.png, 5.png is also *INVALID*. Also be aware of memory constraints. Let's say you have a frame of a sprite called 0.png. This picture file is 90 pixels wide and 130 pixels high. This will get rounded up to a 256x256 pixel 32bit picture. This means that it will consume 256x256x4 bytes (256KB) of memory. If your sprite has 10 frames of animation, that's around 2.5MB of memory. Keep this in mind before you make ultra-smooth moving sprites with hundreds of frames of animation. You can check your available memory by going to Configuration -> Configure Skin -> Show Available Memory If you make/configure a skin and LYNXBOX does not load the next time you play it, then you need to delete the E:\SAVES\LYNXBOX\LYNXBOX.INI and E:\SAVES\LYNXBOX\SKIN_SETTINGS.INI files. LYNXBOX should work fine again, but you'll have to reconfigure your skin. The problem was probably that one of your resources (like a WAV or background file) was specified incorrectly or was never changed from the old skin. Carefully look at the E:\SAVES\LYNXBOX\SKIN_SETTINGS.INI file to make sure that all filenames exist in your skin directory. ==================== Controller Remapping ==================== Configuration -> Configure Controllers There are 32 general/all-purpose emulator "buttons" or actions. Each of these buttons can be assigned a specific emulator action. For example, Emu Button 1 can be A, or B, or DPad Down, etc. These "emu buttons" can then be assigned XBox triggers. For example, Emu Button 1 (which you have mapped to, for example, A) can be triggered by XBox controller button B. The default button mappings should provide enough information on how the system works and how it can be used. ========== Autofiring ========== Configuration -> Configure Controllers -> Controller # -> Change Autofire Each "Emu Button" can be set up for autofiring. Simply set the autofire variable to a non-zero value. This value indicates how long the emulator should wait before releasing and re-pressing the button. A value of 1 might be too fast to register on some games. I suggest setting it to a number like 5 first and them fine-tuning it. ====== Combos ====== Setting up a combo can be kind of tricky because you need to know exactly what the game expects to have happen on the joypads to execute the special move. For example, let's say that we want to map a standard move that is described like this : D, DR, R, A D = Down, DR = Down+Right, R = Right, A = A button First, set the delay to a number like 2 or 3. Then set up the moves. In this case, any (or none) of the following might work: Down Down+Right Right Right+A Right OR Down Down+Right Right+A OR Down Down+Right Right Right+A Right+A Right+A You will probably need to fine-tune each combo move before it works, but you'll soon get the hang of it. ================ MP3/M3U Playback ================ Simply select the MP3 or M3U file from the game-selection screen. The M3U file can also just be a regular file with one songfile per line. For example: d:\songs\song1.mp3 e:\moresongs\song2.mp3 smb:\mp3s\song3.mp3 If you are making a playlist of songs on your SMB share, then please note the format: smb:\mp3s\song3.mp3 The smb:\ tells LYNXBOX to read from your SMB shared directory. Do not put the SMB share definition in the filename. ----------SMB shared filenames are case sensitive!!!--------- ================================================== Cheating System - How To Make Your Own Cheat Codes ================================================== Special Note for Z26 - In many Atari 2600 games, certain important values (like the number of lives you have, etc) are stored as a nibble value. A nibble is half of a byte. For example, in Asteroids your number of lives and the current direction you are pointing are stored in the same byte. (High nibble is the number of lives and the low nibble is the direction.) When searching for cheat codes, I would advise using *only* the "equal to" or "not equal to" options. Just about every single port I've released has this feature, and I occasionally hear people asking "how does it work?" This is easiest to explain by example: 1) Start playing a game. 2) Go to Options Menu and select "Start Search for Cheat Code" 3) Go back to game and lose a life 4) Go to Options Menu and select "Continue Search For Cheat Code" 5) Select "Search For Values Less Than Before" because when you first selected "Start Search For Cheat Codes" you had one more life than you do now. You will see the number of matches go down. 6) If the number of matches is greater than 10, then perform actions 3, 4 and 5 continually until the number of matches is less than 10. If you run out of lives, then just start playing the game again. (Do not exit the emulator and select the game again - just start another game from within the emulator.) Now you will have a full stock of lives, which is *more* than the last time you checked your values. So when you continue searching, you'll want to select "Search For Values Greater Than Before." Then go through steps 3-5 over and over until you have less than 10 matches. 7) Now that you have less than 10 matches, you can add the codes to your list. If the search narrowed the list down to 1 possible match, it will automatically add it to your list. Now you can "List Cheat Codes" and selectively turn on/off the cheat codes to try them out and see which on is the right one. Alternately, you can use the "Search For An Exact Value" option if you already know the number you wish to change. Example: Let's say you are playing Dragon Warrior and your character currently has 25 Hit Points. Follow these instructions: 1) Go to Options Menu and select "Start Search for Cheat Code" 2) Select "Continue Search For Cheat Code" 3) Select "Search For an Exact Value" and enter 25 as the number. The number of matches should decrease very quickly. 4) Go back to the game and do something to change your Hit Points amount. For example, let's say you drink a potion and your Hit Points are now 35. 5) Go to options menu and select "Continue Search For Cheat Code" 6) Select "Search For an Exact Value" and enter 35 as the number. Chances are very good that the number of matches will be down to one or two. Just try out the codes to see which one gives you infinite Hit Points! Advanced Cheat Code Usage: Cheat codes have the following format: TT AAAAAA VVVV TT = Type AAAAAA = Address VVVV = Value You can hand-edit the cheat codes you've created. Go to the Cheat Code list, select a code, and select Edit. Let's say you've already created a cheat code that keeps your hit points at 25. The last four hex digits of your code will be 0019 (which is hexidecimal for 25.) You can change the last two digits to, for example, FF which will give you 255 hit points instead of 25. More sophisticated codes can be made by altering the Type: Type Table 80 - Means set the 16-bit value (0-65535) pointed to by the cheat code address to the cheat code value. 30 - Means set the 8-bit value (0-255) pointed to by the cheat code address to the cheat code value. 10 - Means increase the 16-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address by the cheat code value. 11 - Means decrease the 16-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address by the cheat code value. 20 - Means increase the 8-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address by the cheat code value. 21 - Means decrease the 8-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address by the cheat code value. D0 - Means only execute the next code in the list if the 16-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address is equal to the cheat code value D1 - Means only execute the next code in the list if the 16-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address is not equal to the cheat code value D2 - Means only execute the next code in the list if the 16-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address is less than the cheat code value D3 - Means only execute the next code in the list if the 16-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address is greater than the cheat code value E0 - Means only execute the next code in the list if the 8-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address is equal to the cheat code value E1 - Means only execute the next code in the list if the 8-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address is not equal to the cheat code value E2 - Means only execute the next code in the list if the 8-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address is less than the cheat code value E3 - Means only execute the next code in the list if the 8-bit value pointed to by the cheat code address is greater than the cheat code value If you are familiar with cheat codes, you'll notice that these are standard Gameshark types. With enough experience you could make some seriously interesting codes with this system. For example, I played around with Super Mario Bros (NES) and found out that address 0007EE stores the number of coins and address 0007FA is the one's digit in the timer. Here are two codes: E0 0007FA 03 20 0007EE 01 Those codes mean that while the ones timer digit is equal to three, increase the number of coins by one. You won't see the coins updated on the overhead display in the game, but if you start a game, wait until the timer one's digit is a three and then collect a coin, you'll see that your coin value is actually much higher than one, now. Fun useless stuff. :P ================================================== Command-Line/Auto-Launching and Return to Launcher ================================================== This section is for the developers of frontends, dashboards, etc. LYNXBOX can be started with parameters to automatically launch a game at startup. Example code can be found in the custom_launch_params.cpp file. There is also example code in that same file that will show you how to make LYNXBOX load your frontend/dashboard when it exits. Stella, Gnuboy, SMSPlus, FCEUltra, HUGO, NeoPop, DGen, Bochs, HUGO-CD, FMSXBox, Bliss, WinSTon, Gens, Z26X, StepmaniaX, PCSXBox, XBoyAdvance, DOSXBox, AtariXLBox, MirrorMagicX, KoboX, MaelstromX, MarblesX, Vice64X, Vice20X, VicePETX, KegsX, XPired, AdamX, WonderSwanX, BeatsOfRageX, PowermangaX, LynXBox, BlueMSXBox, GladiatorX, AmphetamineX, StarfighterX, PachiX, BlobWarsX, OdysseyX, ArnoldX, X68000X what's next? Enjoy!