Z80 emulator debugging help

Discussion of development of software for any "obsolete" computer or video game system. See the WSdev wiki and ObscureDev wiki for more information on certain platforms.
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Near
Founder of higan project
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Z80 emulator debugging help

Post by Near »

My go-to for debugging new CPU cores has been Mednafen trace logs from boot and comparing to my own.

Unfortunately, Mednafen doesn't support debugging the Z80/SMS =(

Given that, can anyone recommend resources I can use to try and iron out bugs in my Z80 core? Preferably something that doesn't need a fully functioning SMS VDP core, and doesn't require a really solid core just to even boot. As this is a brand new core, it's going to have lots of really major issues.

Ideally I'd like to just generate a trace log from the first instruction of playing Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System, and then step through it against my own trace log one instruction at a time. But from-reset tracers aren't very common, and it'd be a lot of work to add a Z80 disassembler to an existing emulator I'm not familiar with.

Any help would be much appreciated :D
ccovell
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Re: Z80 emulator debugging help

Post by ccovell »

MEKA has a debugger, but I don't know how hacker-friendly it is. It seems more gamer-friendly than anything.

MESS supports the SMS and has a pretty thorough debugger/logger, IIRC.
tepples
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Re: Z80 emulator debugging help

Post by tepples »

If all else fails, you could make like calima and debug the emulator. Either natively, or by running the game in SMSAdvance in a debugging GBA emulator.
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Dwedit
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Re: Z80 emulator debugging help

Post by Dwedit »

Oh gosh, came into the thread over a month late, oh well.
Try Emukon.
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