A Dosbox Dynarec Plea

[Pickle]

I think this is one of last big things that could be done on the GP2X emulation it would also help when Pandora comes out. Its also probally the last thing that could be done to dosbox to improve performance.
So this a desperate plea to anyone that has the experience with ARM/X86/Emulation to try and get this to happen.

Whats required is a header file that defines all the functions needed for the host backend.
The MIPS cpu for the PSP has a backend in the released code, which may helpful.
M_HT has a attempt using thumb ARM Thread here source here(although he didnt give many details on where/how it doesnt work)
This is all I know, but if anyone taking this challenge needs any help, I will do all i can to.

 

[Exophase]

I think this is one of last big things that could be done on the GP2X emulation it would also help when Pandora comes out. Its also probally the last thing that could be done to dosbox to improve performance.
So this a desperate plea to anyone that has the experience with ARM/X86/Emulation to try and get this to happen.

Whats required is a header file that defines all the functions needed for the host backend.
The MIPS cpu for the PSP has a backend in the released code, which may helpful.
M_HT has a attempt using thumb ARM Thread here source here(although he didnt give many details on where/how it doesnt work)
This is all I know, but if anyone taking this challenge needs any help, I will do all i can to.



I've said before, I wouldn't personally work on DOSBox, but maybe a simple DOS emulator (not as full featured of course) could be done, with an emphasis on high performance. I hate to ask, but if I did such a thing would anyone be willing to possibly pay a small amount of money for it? Maybe just to beta test or something... I kinda need money right now unfortunately (outrageous medical bills) :/

(sorry, I didn't mean to derail your thread, if anyone is interested though maybe we could work out what features would be essential)

 

[Pickle]

I've said before, I wouldn't personally work on DOSBox, but maybe a simple DOS emulator (not as full featured of course) could be done, with an emphasis on high performance. I hate to ask, but if I did such a thing would anyone be willing to possibly pay a small amount of money for it? Maybe just to beta test or something... I kinda need money right now unfortunately (outrageous medical bills) :/

(sorry, I didn't mean to derail your thread, if anyone is interested though maybe we could work out what features would be essential)

Sounds like a lot of work.....ok say you can make a faster dynarec from X86 to ARM. What all the other parts? Mounting, (CD,HD), Mouse, Joystick, Memory drivers (EMS,XMS,etc), sound cards, different cpu levels (286-486), other special dos modes?
I think doom would probally be a good target, you would need many of these options to fully support it.
I would even think you be better off starting with someting like dosemu and try and plug your own core into it.
To tell you the truth I dont think such a project would/could ever be finished, even if you had the backing of some beta testers.

 

[prairiefire]

I hate to ask, but if I did such a thing would anyone be willing to possibly pay a small amount of money for it? Maybe just to beta test or something... I kinda need money right now unfortunately (outrageous medical bills) :/

What sort of amount (ball park or minimum) are you looking for/expecting? I would be willing to contribute, but I think a little structure would be needed there (so that possible donors, such as myself, would get a sense as to what is needed to get this going)

 

[Exophase]

I hate to ask, but if I did such a thing would anyone be willing to possibly pay a small amount of money for it? Maybe just to beta test or something... I kinda need money right now unfortunately (outrageous medical bills) :/

What sort of amount (ball park or minimum) are you looking for/expecting? I would be willing to contribute, but I think a little structure would be needed there (so that possible donors, such as myself, would get a sense as to what is needed to get this going)


Just to reiterate, I wouldn't expect anything until I actually got it done. So potential contributors would basically get together and there'd be a consensus as to what they expect and I'd try to meet that.

QUOTE

Sounds like a lot of work.....ok say you can make a faster dynarec from X86 to ARM. What all the other parts? Mounting, (CD,HD), Mouse, Joystick, Memory drivers (EMS,XMS,etc), sound cards, different cpu levels (286-486), other special dos modes?


The way I see it is like this - I don't think that you're going to get beyond a certain level of emulating a PC on GP2X, so there's not much point emulating things that only higher end PCs would have. I'm not talking about doing something fullblown here, I'm talking about a relatively simple PC (probably not DOS) emulator that handles 286 and low end 386 maybe, if it even bothers with protected mode. Going for 33MHz 386 emulation is probably not especially realistic, so expecting Doom is probably too ambitious. This goes double for DOSBox.

QUOTE
I think doom would probally be a good target, you would need many of these options to fully support it.
I would even think you be better off starting with someting like dosemu and try and plug your own core into it.
To tell you the truth I dont think such a project would/could ever be finished, even if you had the backing of some beta testers.


Sorry, but I don't work with other people's emulators. I don't see why the DOSBox team has to be the only ones capable of getting something like this going though, especially when what I'm suggesting is quite a bit less ambitious.

 

[Pickle]

sounds like you want to do something sort like qemu?

I would agree theres going to be a limit of speed possible. I guess an important question would be what do you think your emulator would provide over using dosbox? Would the benefits be worth the effort?
I guess for me to be sold, I would have to have a better idea on what would be attainable and what would actually run on this.

Heres another target idea run duke nukum at reasonable speeds, (but again dosbox does this already, which goes back to my point, unless you can do it better, more fps, then its not worth the effort)

dosemu not dosbox, but not that it matters if your not going to touch anything else. Athough to me it seem like your going to reinvent the wheel, just my opinion.

 

[slaanesh]

Adding the dyna-rec to GP2X DOSBOX would be awesome. I've been using the PSP DOSBOX and can vouch that the speeds it gets is fantastic - and this is just clocked to the standard 222Mhz.

Most games I throw at it are totally playable - with sound.

Mind you, I'm not throwing big games at it:

Time Bandit, Bruce Lee, Bubble Bobble, Elite, Gauntlet, Mechwarrior, Prince of Persia, Summer Games, Uridium, Winter Games...

You get the idea; they're not BIG games but I find that it's better to play this type of thing and have it work well rather than trying to play something that is never going to work at reasonable speed.

I've looked at the headers required and wish I had a better understanding of ARM assembler as I would do it. Having the PSP as an example of what to do should make this a fair bit easier I imagine.

 

[Pickle]

Adding the dyna-rec to GP2X DOSBOX would be awesome. I've been using the PSP DOSBOX and can vouch that the speeds it gets is fantastic - and this is just clocked to the standard 222Mhz.

Most games I throw at it are totally playable - with sound.

Mind you, I'm not throwing big games at it:

Time Bandit, Bruce Lee, Bubble Bobble, Elite, Gauntlet, Mechwarrior, Prince of Persia, Summer Games, Uridium, Winter Games...

You get the idea; they're not BIG games but I find that it's better to play this type of thing and have it work well rather than trying to play something that is never going to work at reasonable speed.

I've looked at the headers required and wish I had a better understanding of ARM assembler as I would do it. Having the PSP as an example of what to do should make this a fair bit easier I imagine.

Same here, Id do in a heart beat if I had any clue. What kind of sound are you talking PC speaker or Adlib/SB?

 

[Exophase]

Same here, Id do in a heart beat if I had any clue. What kind of sound are you talking PC speaker or Adlib/SB?

You know, it's probably harder to do this kind of work than it is to learn how to be able to do it in the first place. If you'd be so eager to do it were you able then what is preventing you from learning how?

 

[argor]

I kinda need money right now unfortunately (outrageous medical bills) :/

let me gese you live in the USA
1 thing i love abot living in Europe is the healthcare system compare it to USA it just shows how bad the healthcare system is in the USA

 

[Exophase]

let me gese you live in the USA
1 thing i love abot living in Europe is the healthcare system compare it to USA it just shows how bad the healthcare system is in the USA

Yes, well.. most people in my line of work have decent insurance, I just happened to be stuck with a research job that didn't for a while (even though I was really supposed to have it...). Bad luck in this case.

 

[slaanesh]

Same here, Id do in a heart beat if I had any clue. What kind of sound are you talking PC speaker or Adlib/SB?

You know, it's probably harder to do this kind of work than it is to learn how to be able to do it in the first place. If you'd be so eager to do it were you able then what is preventing you from learning how?


If no one has stepped up to doing this once I'd done my current project then I'm willing to learn how to do this.

 

[BadAstronaut]

This would be so awesome if it came into fruition. DOS emulation was one of the key factors in me deciding to buy a GP2X and I have unfortunately always been a little disappointed with the speed and performance. Pickle has put in some great time and effort to adding features that greatly enhance the usability and compatibility of DOSBox, but ultimately a lot of what I was hoping to play has still ended up a little frustratingly slow with sound that is actually better turned off (and I am talking games that would run on a 286 with VGA and Ad-Lib/SoundBlaster such as the mouse driven adventure games from Sierra and Dynamix, nothing even approaching a 33mhz 386).

If someone were to make DOS games run with VGA, mouse and SoundBlaster support at what I understand to be the GP2X's actual capabilities, I would definitely be willing to donate some money in thanks.

 

[Pickle]

Same here, Id do in a heart beat if I had any clue. What kind of sound are you talking PC speaker or Adlib/SB?

You know, it's probably harder to do this kind of work than it is to learn how to be able to do it in the first place. If you'd be so eager to do it were you able then what is preventing you from learning how?


If no one has stepped up to doing this once I'd done my current project then I'm willing to learn how to do this.

Exophase: its not like I havnt done anything, ive taken it the best of my current ability. I wouldnt mind trying to learn how to do this type of thing, but where does one even start?

slaanesh: thanks, maybe I can help in some way, maybe even the deserate attempt to learn more on this topic.

 

[hitbyambulance]

i would be willing to financially contribute, as the three things i would like to see on GP2X are: improved DOS emulation, improved Amiga emulation and Open2X.

 

[Pickle]

Well back to original intent of this thread , ive taken M_HT's source and it does compile. I have a binary, but havnt tried to see if anything works. Not really sure what to look for it doesnt work, which it most likely will.