The Dink Network

Here's a new version of FreeDink for PlayStation Portable (Fat/Slim):

http://www.dinknetwork.com/file/psp_dink/

To play:
- unlock your PSP if not already (doc)
- unzip in PSP/GAMES/ on your memory stick
- and run it from Game > Memory Stick > FreeDink

In this version:
- new buttons mapping (let me know if you like it)
- more stable
- correct aspect ratio (4:3 instead of weird stretch)
- all in a single directory for easier installation

Please test

(started a new thread because the previous one was soooo long)

I think this deserves a sticky. Maybe instead of the "seeking creative geniuses" thread which is dead anyway.

Wow Beuc, you've accomplished a lot! Congrats buddy I won't be able to test this version though as I do not own a PSP.

Lol wat? It starts loading, then my PSP crashes and switches off.

Is this Freedink for PSP 3000 - 3004?

> Lol wat? It starts loading, then my PSP crashes and switches off.

Please decline your PSP version and firmware
I'm willing to make it work on all (unlockable) PSPs, so give me details when something's wrong so I can try and fix it.
(I test on a PSP 2000 with firmware 5.00 M33-4)

> Is this Freedink for PSP 3000 - 3004?

Alas PSP 3000 can't run homebrews (i.e. games not digitally signed by Sony).
Write them a complaint!!

Decline? Or do you mean Disclose?

Anyway, i'm running the original japanese phat PSP-1000, with 5.00 M33-6

Glennglenn: thanks for the support )

yeoldetoast: I meant "tell me precisely" (sorry, that was a Frenchism )

I suspect that's a memory issue, since I used 'large memory' and you have 1/2 less than me. I'm gonna prepare a few mini-homebrews for you to test and I'll remake the release depending on how they work for you. BBS!

yeoldetoast: this .zip contains 4 small tools that display the memory: http://www.freedink.org/snapshots/psp/meminfo.zip

I expect they will all return around 24000kB for you, however I'd be grateful if you could check them all, and report if all of them actually run

I'm mainly interested in the first memory line ("Memory free: XXXXXkB").
To quit, use the [HOME] button.

Hey Beuc, all of them run, and they display

23951kB in the Checking Memory without doing anything section.

Heap Memory:
1201kB

cleaning up:
24143kB

Thanks for testing!

Apparently there's a general problem with the RAM: we have 32M physical, then when we start a program (even tiny) we only have 24M left, and for some reason we fall to 10M with FreeDink (that's where we crash).

I asked at ps2dev what they think about it. Meanwhile I'll try to reduce the memory usage some more Good news is that I can reproduce the problem easily by running firmware 1.50 with "TimeMachine".

Beuc.... Your my Newest Best Freind...

Thanks Teej88

Now a bad news and a good news.
The bad news is that I didn't fix the memory issues yet.
The good news is that I could free enough memory to run Dink's house. It will crash shortly after (when running around the village), but at least you have something to test

To test you can download either:
- the full version again (53MB)
- or the updated EBOOT.PBP to go faster (2.2MB) - replace the existing EBOOT.PBP in PSP/GAMES/freedink/.

Edit: also remove (or rename) the dink/Sound directory, there's still not enough memory for the sounds :/

Good work Beuc, I removed the sounds, the MIDI files still play fine, although quite a few are missing.

I got up to feeding the pigs.

I could squeeze some 3-4MB additional RAM, this should help!

- the full version (53MB)
- the updated EBOOT.PBP (2.3MB)

The sound system is still pretty resource-hungry due to the way I implemented rate conversion on top of SDL_mixer (which does not do that on standard) and also because the PSP sound card only accept CD-quality (44100Hz) samples. We need to find a way to fix this. It's only a few MB but on PSP1 those MB are a rare thing (FreeDink currently starts with only 18MB to store all graphics and sound resources, and there's no virtual memory..)

Nice, the game is playable. I got up to Dink's house burning down, then it ran out of memory and switched off. I don't know why, everything seemed to work fine.

Can arguments be passed to the eboot.pbp for loading dmods?

Currently unused graphics stay in memory, so the graphics memory usage is steadily growing, that's probably why it crashed after a while. There are various technical difficulties (beginning with detecting that there's no more memory) so I'm currently thinking about how to do it %)

Arguments can be passed to EBOOT.PBP indeed (though not from the XMB), I'm also working on a mini front-end to launch D-Mods
(progress here)

Beuc, you are awesome

Thanks bro

It may be too big a job to take on, but this sounds like a garbage collection job. At the very least, a resource counter job. In order to avoid keeping unused graphics in memory, you could check if they are in use every time the user leaves a screen or something, and unless the graphic is in use on the next screen, unload it. Well, I'm sure you'll figure something clever out, you've figured out to run Dink on a PSP.

This might be the beginning to something huge. 'Dink Smallwood Portable'
I do not own a PSP myself. Too bad I can't check it out.

Good luck with the project Beuc!

Would it be possible to convert all the graphics to something compressed like PNG to reduce memory usage and wear on the memory stick, then compile with PNG support?

PNG may reduce storage requirements, but in order to show a PNG image, it must be decompressed, and the added memory requirement for decompression will probably nullify any gain in memory usage.

Well the PNG compression idea isn't so bad, provided a temporary uncompressed copy is made before each use. This will probably slow down the graphics, so hopefully we won't need that.

Using PNGs to quicken the initial load from the memory disk isn't bad either, though I remember I willingly didn't implement it last year: this would mean allowing other kind of graphics in DIR.FF files, and I'd like to avoid messing with those files since the Dink engine is already interpreting them weirdly enough But this may become necessary.

Currently I'm checking how to reduce the sound memory usage, I started a discussion on the SDL list at http://lists.libsdl.org/pipermail/sdl-libsdl.org/2009-April/070130.html

Wow, You got a Awesome from Redink....
Wow...
Anway, Back to the future...

I'm Shocked, Your getting through this Project like a Knife through Scribe Jelly... (Note: I don't know what Scribe Jelly is xD)

I am going to get/Try it now... Been Busy on XBOXLIVE, Had to make new XBOX Live ACC The other one Got "Corrupted" From what I think is a Demo Called Lode Runner... :/
My New XBOXLIVE is threeto sixteen..

Congrats anyways Beuc...
( )
___( )
(____ )
(____ )
(____ )

Woop Woop!

Edit: Hmmm

Beuc... You... Are... The... BEST!!

It worked and I am very Pleased with it... But when I press /_\ It Locks up... Is that Inventory?
I like it though...

I still Have MIDIs and it runs Fine, Is this a Bug?
Or Not...

Uhm.. IT'S NOT WHEN I OPEN INVENTORY, Its When I Play for about 5-10 Min.. :/

I'm not forgetting you PSP gamers, just getting overwhelmed with work these days!
I'm having memory issues (also) with the front-end to start D-Mods, because the front-end uses some memory and doesn't give it back before starting FreeDink. I'm investigating if this can be done in a kernel module, or if that's not possible I may use a trick.

Technicalities if you're interested:
http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?t=11980
http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?t=12007

We now have a basic front-end to play D-Mods

Test the new bundle at:
http://www.freedink.org/snapshots/psp/freedink-psp-test-06.zip

Screenshot
http://www.freedink.org/screenshots/psp/chores.png

>I'm not forgetting you PSP gamers
>gamer(s)

hey Beuc have you thought about submitting a Freedink PSP release to a site like pspupdates?

> > gamer(s)

Sigh.

> hey Beuc have you thought about submitting a Freedink PSP release to a site like pspupdates?

I have thought about it but I don't feel so confident about it, since currently it runs out of memory on PSP1, and still has some slow parts on PSP2.
Perhaps it could be submitted as "beta" though to raise interest.

Feel free to submit it

"Using PNGs to quicken the initial load from the memory disk isn't bad either"

I just spent the day trying to convert all dir.ff-BMPs to dir.ff-PNGs.
Conclusion: sadly it doesn't speed up the startup, it's even worse. Apparently decompressing the PNG is actually longer than loading a larger, raw BMP

Sample stats for splash.bmp:
splash.bmp: 302K
splash.png: 137K
fread(splash.bmp): 428ms
fread(splash.png): 189ms
IMG_Load(splash.bmp): 269ms
IMG_Load(splash.png): 327ms (!)

I feel like I'm hitting a wall with PSP optimization - it looks like only a special PSP version would be really efficient, not just a port, and I'm not interested in doing that :/

Oh... Bummer...
I know I'm a Pain in the <behind> but I'm wondering if anyone would help Beuc or just do this; Alien Breed, The Popular Game... I've downloaded it and it's awesome.... Its one of the greatest.,, But I want it on psp

Teej88

<<\88/>>

Is this project really dead, Beuc?

Currently the project is functional for PSP Slim, but given that it requires a lot of time, and concerns very few people, I didn't work on it further.

I guess a quicker way around is to create a special version just for PSP, probably with modified data, and no D-Mod support (or only for modified D-Mod).

hope you make it

I have tried running it again since I updated to 5.50 Gen-D2. It does work! And that's not all. I even managed to get to Terris without a single crash! Everything works perfectly. There are a few hangs when picking objects and casting spells but they only last like half a second so they pose no gameplay threats. There aren't any sounds (except for the gold aquire one) but there's music so it's enough. I really think you should work on this further. I'm sure the game is playable 'til the end now (maybe it's because of the new firmware). I haven't tested the front end yet, but I will.
(I'm running it on a PSP 2004 Slim)
It felt great playing the original game again Let me know if you need any help to make things go faster, I'm really interested in the port.

Apparently a few people decided that FreeDink PSP was playable enough and we got some press

QJ
PSP News
PSP Slim Hacks
PSP Novinky

Yeah, I did that. I posted an announcement on a dev forum. I thought you'd notice sooner or later in your referrer log and a bandwidth hit. It seems to have spread pretty quickly.

i don+t have on my psp psp/games i have psp/iso

This doesn't work at all. *Stamps the word 'fail' on this thread*

I actually thought this was still in makings to be better.

i have fat psp 1004 with custom 5.00-m33

this version is gonna work ?

Yes, it will.

Download links for all the websites are now non-functional.

I uploaded the latest version to the DN.
Staff, moderate please!

True dedication! Glad he still comes around. Now I can enjoy dink on my PSP when I get one.

Sorry for the necropost,

but whenever I take the time to download it, it just says it's corrupted.

I just tested and 7z says the archive is OK.

If this can help, the MD5SUM checksum for the file is 18d9735d6cc87fed1c85f36ff6bd6068 .
If you have a different one, then your download was corrupted.

I happen to have a playstation portable that i can use for helping you test the mod if you want!