OSS gaming machine “VGS-Zero” that allows you to create Mega Drive equivalent games using only C language – GIGAZINE

Personal circleSuzuki plan” for game console emulators and SDKs.Video Game System – Zero (VGS-Zero)“It was released on January 1, 2024. VGS-Zero isRaspberry Pi Zero 2WIt will reportedly run in a bare metal environment and will be able to run Mega Drive equivalent games.

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

I've built a gaming machine (VGS-Zero) that can create full 16-bit machine level games using the Z80+C language #RaspberryPi – Qiita
https://qiita.com/suzukiplan/items/8a740b593816ef9ef565

VGS-Zero is an emulator that turns the RaspberryPi Zero 2W into a gaming console. There are other projects that use the RaspberryPi as a gaming machine, but many of the current projects run on Linux installed on the RaspberryPi. “I have a problem like this. VGS-Zero includes a special operating system that runs instead of Linux, and it has successfully reduced the boot time to 2 to 3 seconds.

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

Many emulators are also developed by SUZUKI PLAN, and the Z80 emulator can take full advantage of 16KB of RAM for gaming. Another major advantage of the Z80 emulator is that it was developed under the MIT license, which avoids copyright issues. You can check the source code of Z80 emulator at the link below.

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

According to SUZUKI PLAN, the Z80 has the disadvantage of low performance in “multiplication, division, remainder calculations and trigonometric angle calculations (trigonometric functions needed to find angles) except 2 to the power of n.” The VGS-Zero is also equipped with a “High-speed Accumulator for Game (HAGe)” hardware emulator that handles the computational processing which the Z80 is weak at, and can be used for shooter games that are difficult to run at high speed with only the Z80 able to run at high speed. It is also equipped with a hardware emulator equivalent to “memset” and “memcpy” in C, so it is possible to develop games equivalent to commercial 16-bit games such as Mega Drive using only C. In the post below, you can check the demo video of 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 easier for people to create games”, but in order to test whether VGS-Zero was a platform that could be used commercially, “VGS”-Zero was developed by Nintendo. We set a big goal of “making it an SDK that can be used on Switch”. At the time of the article's creation, development of the Windows version of the game was progressing in order to meet Nintendo's Nintendo Switch development resource provisioning requirement for “game sales history on Steam, smartphones, or home game consoles.”