DrSMS GBA

DrSMS
General
Author	Reesy
Type	Handheld
Version	6.00
License	Mixed
Last Updated	2004/05/02
Links
Download
Website

DrSMS is a Sega Master System and Game Gear Emulator. It will allow you to play Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear Games on your Gameboy Advance.

The homebrew was entered into the GBAX 2003 Coding Competition (Runners Up) and GBAX 2004 Coding Competition.

Installation

DrSMS injector

Run the program DrSMS.exe, then drag all of the Master Roms into the program and enter the filename you want to create.

Then click on "Create Image". To remove a game from the list, simply select it with the mouse and then press the "delete" key.

When the injector has finished building the Game Boy Advance rom it will display a message box.

You then take the rom that the injector created and either flash it to your GBA flash cart or run it in a Game Boy Advance Emulator.

DrSMS PogoShell

Copy drsms.bin to your .plugins directory, then go to your .shell directory.

Open the file "FILETYPES" in a text editor such as notepad and add these 2 lines:

• sms 1 /.plugins/drsms.bin
• gg 1 /.plugins/drsms.bin

User guide

Main Menu

• Return To Game - Exits the menu.
• Select New Game - Starts the Game selection menu.
• Video Menu - Start the video configuration menu.
• Save Menu - Starts the SAVE "save game" menu.
• Load Menu - Starts the LOAD "Save game" menu.
• Delete Menu - Starts the DELETE "save game" menu
• Country Mode - Allows you to change the Nat ionisation of the SMS/GG drsms is emulating (require restart).
• Throttle - This allows you to speed up the emulation.
  • When throttle is ON, DrSMS will run at the same speed as a SMS/GG.
  • When throttle is OFF, DrSMS will run as fast as it can. Try it on Ninja Gaiden (GG).

Video Menu

• Display Timing:
  • Allows you to select PAL or NTSC emulation timing.
  • PAL - UK TV timing.
  • NTSC - US TV timing.
  • Generally NTSC = faster than = PAL, HACK = faster than = NTSC.
  • Some games will only operate on the right display timing (may require restart).
• Scale mode:
  • Because the GBA screen is smaller than the SMS screen DrSMS allows you to scale the screen to fit.
  • In unscaled mode you can use the R and L GBA buttons to scroll the screen.
  • If you are playing a GG game this menu option will do nothing.
• GG Mask:
  • Because the GG has a lower resolution than the SMS but still uses the same visual display processor (vdp) you can sometimes switch the GG mask to reveal the game in all of its full screen glory.
  • It doesn't work on all games, but try it on the Sonic 1 for the GG.
• Gamma.
• Sms BLK reg:
  • Allows you to turn off the sms "screen on" function.
  • In previous version of DrSMS, this option used to cause flickering on the screen.
• Sprite Mode:
  • Most SMS/GG games just use a sprite once per frame and are quite happy with that, some games on the other hand are more demanding.
  • A "buffered sprite" mode is implemented to remedy this. So if your playing a game and you find you can't see some/all of the sprites just change to the "buffered sprite" mode and you should be alright.

Game compability list

• Sega Master System Compatibility Chart
• GameGear Compatibility Chart.

Controls

Menu:

Up/Down - Choose between options

A - Load rom

SMS/GG:

B - 1

A - 2

D-Pad - Up/Down/Left/Right

Start - Pause

Select - DrSMS menu (Change settings, Save, Load and Delete save games)

R/L - Scroll screen up/down in unscaled screen mode

Screenshots

Compatibility

In order to run DrSMS on a GBA you need a GBA flash cartridge, these can be bought from a number of places.

You could also run DrSMS on a GBA emulator on your PC (Visual Boy Advance is recommended).

Changelog

Version 6.00

• New menu system.
• Interrupt system re-written.
• Re-worked sound frequency conversions.
• Added "buffered sprite mode" - Gunstar Heroes now playable.
• Added speed throttling.
• Loads of Bug fixes.
• Shining force games now work - ADC HL,HL double counting carry...DOH.

Version 5.00

• Added support for GG mask option again due to popular demand.
• More bug fixes.

Version 4.00

• Support for SMS SRAM.
• Compressed Save States.
• More Bug fixes.
• Cleaned up sprite routines, removed support for Alien3 as it caused a lot of problems with loads of other games. The need of the many outweigh the needs of the few...and all that.
• Removed buffered palette writes, so Space Harrier is now flickery again, but James Pond now has its parallax scrolling again.
• Removed Game Gear Mask toggle.
• Fixed a major bug in the memory paging routines.
• Added support for Star Trek Game Gear Games, there still not perfect but getting there.
• Improved the sound routines.

Version 3.00 betas

• Loads of bug fixes and somewhere along the line I added Game Gear support.

Version 2.04

• Fixed screen flickering problem.
• Fixed sound problem where noise channel was mucking up sound channel 1.

Version 2.03

• Nothing. It would appear a test version of drsms was released by mistake.

Version 2.02

• Scaled Screen mode.

Credits

Thanks to:

• TheHiVE - For all of your help, you da man.
• RedMage - For hosting/creating the new web site.
• Visual Boy Advance (Developer version).
• Without the developer edition of Visual Boy Advance, DrSMS would simply not exist.
• The author of Foon for releasing the source to his injector, which DrSMS injector is based on.

External links

• Official website - http://www.webpersona.com/drsms
• GBAX 2004 Coding Competition - https://gbax.gp2x.de/gbax2004.html