Casio Loopy Emulation

[Patsy Heart]

So almost a year ago, a Casio Loopy emulator with sound was developed and here is the most recent updated version for it - https://github.com/smiRaphi/LoopyMSE The Loopy isn't a big console by any means but there is a small, but dedicated fan base for it that is working on stuff like fan translations for Wanwan Aijō Monogatari, so hopefully there will also be a translation for Loopy Town no Oheya ga Hoshii! in the works soon as that's the more interesting Animal Crossing/Life Sim style game for the system.

Anyways, I don't think there will be many people who want to emulate the Loopy, who also care enough to not use mame, but for anyone who wants to set up the emulator here are the settings it'll take:

Under Default Command-Line Parameters you need to put: %romfile% "location of your bios" "location of your sound bios", then you need to check attempt to hide console window on startup/shutdown

Additionally if you'd like it to start in fullscreen, just put this into the running script: Send, !{F11}

Now the emulator hasn't been configured to use controllers quite yet, so you'll need to set up xpadder or something to get the controls running, I haven't quite gotten that far in setting it up though. I do hope you all enjoy all 11 games from the Loopy, now with sound, though.

[indysgill]

Hi,

I have some Casio Loopy files and was looking at ways to run them, when I came across this in the forums

I've downloaded the emulator from the github, but am struggling with the Default Command-Line Parameters. The forum post says to use - %romfile% "location of your bios" "location of your sound bios", but the Github says to go with - <game ROM> <BIOS> [sound BIOS]
I am wondering which is correct and how it should actually look like?

Any help appreciated.

[JoeViking245]

42 minutes ago, indysgill said:

Hi,

I have some Casio Loopy files and was looking at ways to run them, when I came across this in the forums

I've downloaded the emulator from the github, but am struggling with the Default Command-Line Parameters. The forum post says to use - %romfile% "location of your bios" "location of your sound bios", but the Github says to go with - <game ROM> <BIOS> [sound BIOS]
I am wondering which is correct and how it should actually look like?

Any help appreciated.

I merged your post with the one you linked since they are directly related.

 

The 2 command lines are synonymous.

When you add the command-line parameters the OP suggests, 

• %romfile% translates to <game ROM>
• "location of your bios" translates to <BIOS>
• "location of your sound bios" translates to [sound BIOS]

LaunchBox will automatically replace %romfile% with the path to the games ROM file [as you have it set in the games Application Path].

For the BIOS file, you want to put the full path to the file, "in quotes".

The sound BIOS is optional (but according to the documents, you need it if you want to hear something) as depicted by it [being in brackets]. Like the main BIOS file, you want to put the full path to the file "in quotes".

 

Here's an example:

%romfile% "D:\Games\Loopy Stuff\casloopyBIOSfile.zip" "D:\Games\Loopy Stuff\casloopySoundBIOSfile.zip"

[indysgill]

Thank you so much for the help.

That's another emulator I can cross off the not working list!

[Retro_Rage]

Just an fyi, Casio Loopy is also able to be emulated in MAME and is working rather good in recent versions. Default command line parameters are casloopy -cart.

I have not tried the emulator though. Might have some more features.

[Dybdal]

So i took a look at the emulator in question that Indysgill was talking about.
Or rather a newer version of it called LoopyMSE and thought i should share what i found so no one else has to go though the same headache.
It's also available as a RetroArch core.

Stand alone: https://github.com/LoopyMSE/LoopyMSE
RetroArch: https://github.com/seriamaugenlicher/gloopy/

It requires two bios files, you can find the documentation for the requirements in the github for the RetroArch core. (the stand alone version requires it named one way and the RetroArch core another, because nothing can be simple, sigh)
it's the same bios as the MAME driver requires (MAME has them both zipped together) i think thats about as much as i can say without getting into trouble.

So why bother going from MAME to one based on LoopyMSE? because MAME does not support sound emulation but LoopyMSE does.
Here's the kick in the nuts, that made making this work frustrating.

LoopyMSE requires all game data to be stored in Big-endian format.
MAME requires all game data to be stored in Little-endian format.

What does that mean? Big-endian will store a 16bit value of 0x1234 like this: 12 34 but Little-endian stores it in reverse 34 12.
That means to make this emulator useful at all, you need to byte swap the entire romset from MAME from Little-endian to Big-endian.

Now i don't know if im allowed to explain how that's done on this forum, the steps involved ect, the powershell command you'll need to run ect. (i'll let one of the mods answer that one)
But hey, Casio Loopy emulation in RetroArch is possible with sound.

[launchretrogirl2562]

48 minutes ago, Dybdal said:

So i took a look at the emulator in question that Indysgill was talking about.
Or rather a newer version of it called LoopyMSE and thought i should share what i found so no one else has to go though the same headache.
It's also available as a RetroArch core.

Stand alone: https://github.com/LoopyMSE/LoopyMSE
RetroArch: https://github.com/seriamaugenlicher/gloopy/

It requires two bios files, you can find the documentation for the requirements in the github for the RetroArch core. (the stand alone version requires it named one way and the RetroArch core another, because nothing can be simple, sigh)
it's the same bios as the MAME driver requires (MAME has them both zipped together) i think thats about as much as i can say without getting into trouble.

So why bother going from MAME to one based on LoopyMSE? because MAME does not support sound emulation but LoopyMSE does.
Here's the kick in the nuts, that made making this work frustrating.

LoopyMSE requires all game data to be stored in Big-endian format.
MAME requires all game data to be stored in Little-endian format.

What does that mean? Big-endian will store a 16bit value of 0x1234 like this: 12 34 but Little-endian stores it in reverse 34 12.
That means to make this emulator useful at all, you need to byte swap the entire romset from MAME from Little-endian to Big-endian.

Now i don't know if im allowed to explain how that's done on this forum, the steps involved ect, the powershell command you'll need to run ect. (i'll let one of the mods answer that one)
But hey, Casio Loopy emulation in RetroArch is possible with sound.

To answer your last question : 

In the retro-computing and console homebrew/emulation scenes, discussing byte-ordering and "byte-swapping" is standard practice. There are no legal, ethical, or platform rules against explaining this fundamental computer science concept.

So, I don't really think this will be of any issue. Else, I will stand corrected ☺️