Saturday, January 15, 2011

SMS_S60 v1.3 with sound support

This version brings up many improvements like sound support, NTSC / PAL mode selection and a recently discovered stupid bug fix.

Changes introduced in v1.3:
  • Sound emulation, choosing sampling rate from 11025 to 44100 Hz.
  • Machine mode selection: NTSC (60 fps) or PAL (50 fps).
  • Machine speed selection, allowing you to slow / speed up games when needed.
  • Fixed a crash when loading a game if "Config. Screen" menu had never been opened.
"Machine Mode" option only takes effect when loading a game, which means if you change it while playing, you'll need to reload that game to actually see it changed.

Very important things regarding sound:
  • "Skip Frames" should be set to "Yes" when sound is activated, or it will run like shit.
  • PAL machine mode works better with sound because it runs at slower frame rate, and that stresses less phone's CPU.
  • On big screen phones, "Keep Aspect Ratio" set to "No" causes screen to be expanded, and therefore more CPU is used. This combined with sound and NTSC mode can make emulation slow.
  • If you still experience little sound cuts, and you tried all the above with no result, you can try changing "Machine Speed". Default value here is 0, try increasing it to 1 or more and check if sound cuts are gone.
"Machine Speed" should not be touched in most cases. It can make emulation more irregular when sound is activated.

Important note about any "Config" menu: always use the buttons "select" or "accept" instead of clicking the option. Changes might not be saved if you don't do so.

Important notes about choosing the right "Screen Orientation", to avoid crashes or weird stuff:
  • If your phone changes screen view automatically when you slid out the keyboard or open up the screen (and you're going to play that way), choose between "Rotate None" or "Rotate Full".
  • If your phone doesn't change the screen view automatically, then you should choose between "Rotate Left" or "Rotate Right".

Now my own experience with Symbian 3rd and 5th edition devices:
  • Nokia N81 (S60 3rd Edition): As long as I set "Skip Frames" to "Yes", everything is fine with sound, there is no need to do anything else. NTSC / PAL they both work well.
  • Nokia C6-00 (S60 5th Edition): "Skip Frames" has to be "Yes", even if sound is disabled. NTSC mode combined with "Keep Aspect Ratio" set to "No" makes it run with little sound cuts. The way to fix it is either changing "Machine Mode" to "PAL", or setting "Keep Aspect Ratio" to "Yes".

Download v1.3 for 5th edition or later:
SMS_S60_v1.3 (5th edition).sisx

Download v1.3 for 3rd edition:
SMS_S60_v1.3 (3rd edition).sisx

Open C library is required (3rd edition only):
pips_s60_1_7_SS.sis
openc_glib_s60_1_7_SS.sis
openc_ssl_s60_1_7_SS.sis

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