Game Runner 1.1

Korean MSX developer Sharksym appears to get more and more productive by the year. His latest release, Game Runner, is a great addition to his M File Manager. The MSX-DOS2 utility allows you to run MSX1 ROM games of up to 32kb and exit to DOS once you're done playing.

But that's not all. Game Runner adds extra features that set the tool apart from traditional ROM loaders as Game Runner also allows you to decrease the game speed (from 30 to 60 frames per second in several steps), pause the game and even to save your progress on-the-fly with a feature that we know all to well from popular MSX emulators: save states.

To use Game Runner you require an MSX2 with 128kB VRAM. A memory mapper is not required.

Relevant link: Game Runner 1.1

Comments (19)

By Manuel

Ascended (19316)

27-04-2012, 20:36

Cool, save states on MSX! How does that work, sharksym?

By hap

Paragon (2042)

27-04-2012, 23:55

RAM/VRAM contents and CPU state are easy to save.
VDP regs are write-only. VDP address, irq, and sprite related regs can be determined with some tricks. But it is not possible to determine the current color/pattern table or screen mode 1/2/3. Most MSX1 games use the same table offsets and screenmode throughout the game though so this should not be a big problem.

Anyway, nice toy! (maybe NYYRIKKI is willing to add save states to rMSX too now ^___^ ref: http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/rmsx-13 )

By Manuel

Ascended (19316)

28-04-2012, 09:49

Is CPU state easy to save, *with the same CPU*?

By hap

Paragon (2042)

28-04-2012, 15:35

Of course, and he doesn't even have to save the complete CPU state. The program loads/saves the state while the CPU is running the program. This means it'll only have to save CPU state that is not used by the program itself, such as register I, and maybe the shadow regs.

By mesiasmsx

Prophet (3442)

28-04-2012, 17:05

Nice tool! . I use it in Turbo R r with the LPE and multimente.From what I see, can only be used while playing, once you turn off your computer or reset the game data is lost. There are a lot of games that do not work with GRUN. What is the reason?

Thanks Sharksym!

By Manuel

Ascended (19316)

28-04-2012, 18:06

mesiasmsx: which games? The tool only supports games up to 32kB.

By Guillian

Prophet (3516)

28-04-2012, 18:18

You can also exit to DOS, load and save states with NSLOAD (32K ROMs) and TRLOAD (up to 32K and Konami MegaROMs)

By mesiasmsx

Prophet (3442)

28-04-2012, 22:57

Manuel wrote:

mesiasmsx: which games? The tool only supports games up to 32kB.

Bank Panic,Bomberman or Arkanoid.

Guillian: I dont know NSLOAD. Where i can find? And Trload?

By Guillian

Prophet (3516)

29-04-2012, 11:55

mesiasmsx wrote:

Guillian: I dont know NSLOAD. Where i can find? And Trload?

In the utils section of my old web

By mesiasmsx

Prophet (3442)

29-04-2012, 12:44

Thanks!

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6033)

03-05-2012, 10:33

hap wrote:

(maybe NYYRIKKI is willing to add save states to rMSX too now ^___^ ref: http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/rmsx-13 )

Let's put it like this... If someone helps me with hardware I'm more than happy to implement this feature. :)

By vanfanel

Champion (446)

03-05-2012, 14:12

NYYRIKKI: What about rmsx for MSX2? I know I already asked for it, but maybe you could recompile a Z80 version and it would work on the 1ChipMSX (wich is nowadays like a FAST-Z80-powered TurboR).

In other words: would it be very hard to compille a rmsx version that doesn't use R800 but Z80??

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6033)

04-05-2012, 13:57

CPU is not important for rMSX (actually it runs normally on Z80), but the rMSX emulator is build around S1990 DRAM mode. (=Not working on MSX2 as there is no S1990)

By vanfanel

Champion (446)

05-05-2012, 16:31

1ChipMSX has the memory configured in the same slot as the TurboR (POKE -1,0 is the magic poke for the 1ChipMSX). And it's in fact in the middle between an MSX2+ and a turboR.
So it's very similar.

Couldn't it use the normal 1chipMSX memory instead of the S1990 DRAM? Maybe it would be slower BUT the CPU in the 1ChipMSX is VERY fast compared to a traditional MSX2 machine.

By hap

Paragon (2042)

05-05-2012, 16:41

no (NYYRIKKI: don't bother explaining, I have a feeling he'll keep on asking either way)

By Manuel

Ascended (19316)

05-05-2012, 17:37

vanfanel: check out docs about "DRAM mode" of the turboR. Basically, it means the ROMs are in RAM. That's nice, because you can modify them then.

By vanfanel

Champion (446)

06-05-2012, 14:14

ok,ok, understood.

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6033)

08-05-2012, 12:22

Actually there is quite a similar ROM changeing possibility also available in 1chipMSX, but it is not compatible, it does not have separate ROM and DRAM mode and how it works depends of the PLD version used. So... something similar would be possible also on 1chipMSX by swapping the RAM content, but I'm not planning to work on that as that would require quite a different approach... Maybe someday we will get compatible DRAM mode also to 1chipMSX...

By gdx

Enlighted (6116)

26-03-2019, 15:40

Guillian wrote:

mesiasmsx wrote:

Guillian: I dont know NSLOAD. Where i can find? And Trload?

In the utils section of my old web

NSLOAD is downloadable here :
http://niga2.sytes.net/msx/free.html
(Go to NSTOOL.LZH)

Also Game Runner 1.6 is available here (translated documentation included). Game Runner loads the Rom in RAM.

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