OSS game machine 'VGS-Zero' that allows you to create games equivalent to Mega Drive using only C language



The personal circle '

SUZUKI PLAN ' released the game console emulator and SDK ' Video Game System - Zero (VGS-Zero) ' on January 1, 2024. VGS-Zero operates in the bare metal environment of Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and is said to be able to run games equivalent to Mega Drive.

GitHub - suzukiplan/vgszero: SUZUKI PLAN - Video Game System Zero
https://github.com/suzukiplan/vgszero




I made a game machine (VGS-Zero) that can create full-fledged 16-bit machine-level games using Z80+C language #RaspberryPi - Qiita
https://qiita.com/suzukiplan/items/8a740b593816ef9ef565

VGS-Zero is an emulator that turns RaspberryPi Zero 2W into a game console. There are other projects that use the RaspberryPi as a game machine, but many of the existing projects run on Linux installed on the RaspberryPi. ”I have a problem like that. VGS-Zero includes a proprietary OS that runs in place of Linux, and has successfully reduced boot time to 2 to 3 seconds.



In addition to the kernel itself, VGS-Zero also includes an emulator for the CPU 'Z80' used in Game Gear and Neo Geo, an emulator for 'Video Display Processor (VDP)' for graphic output, and a chiptune sound source 'Video Game Sound'. (VGS)' is installed. The kernel is developed based on the bare metal environment ' Circle ' developed under the GPL license, but by separating the kernel part and the game part, it is possible to freely set the license on the game software side.

Various emulators were also developed by SUZUKI PLAN, and the Z80 emulator can fully utilize 16KB of RAM for games. Another major feature of the Z80 emulator is that it is developed under the MIT license, which avoids copyright issues. You can check the source code of the Z80 emulator at the link below.

GitHub - suzukiplan/z80: Single header Z80 emulator for C++ (C++11 or later)
https://github.com/suzukiplan/z80



According to SUZUKI PLAN, the Z80 has the drawback of low performance in ``multiplications, divisions, remainder calculations, and arctangent calculations (trigonometric functions necessary to find angles) except for 2 to the nth power''. . VGS-Zero is also equipped with a hardware emulator 'High-speed Accumulator for Game (HAGe)' that handles calculation processing that the Z80 is weak at, and can be used for bullet hell shooting games that are difficult to operate at high speed with the Z80 alone. It can operate at high speed. It is also equipped with a hardware emulator equivalent to C language's 'memset' and 'memcpy,' so it is possible to develop games equivalent to 16-bit commercial games such as Mega Drive using only C language. In the post below, you can check the demo video of the VGS-Zero game software 'Battle Marine' developed by SUZUKI PLAN.




VGS-Zero was developed by SUZUKI PLAN with the aim of ``creating an environment that makes it easy for him to create games'', but in order to test whether VGS-Zero is a commercially viable platform, ``VGS-Zero was developed on Nintendo Switch.'' The ambitious goal is to create an SDK that can be used in At the time of article creation, development of the Windows version of the game is progressing in order to meet Nintendo's Nintendo Switch development resource provision requirement of ``game sales history on Steam, smartphones, or home game consoles''.




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in Software,   Hardware,   Game, Posted by log1o_hf