Amiga Emu

[zeGouky]

Hi there,

i was wondering if there's already anyone considering to do a proper port for uae4all (or other) to the pandora ?

If not im fine to do it, i've released a port based on uae4all this weekend on the wii and im bringing back some features from uae to it (aga support for example...), but im not sure if thats the best way to go , maybe it would be better to restart from winuae or e-uae ? whats your point ?

thanks

 

[WizardStan]

/me holsters his sarcasm lest he get in trouble.

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=44100

 

[zeGouky]

:-/

I saw the post loooong time ago, for me it was a quick and dirty port made by evildragon (am i correct ?) as a proof of concept so i dont know if he's going to go further.... (ie update uae code, add features , and so) thats the main question...

 

[JayFoxRox]

from the posts I would judge that it is a port of the gp2x version which is already highly optimized - I m not sure if updating would even be necessary, and if so, I would stick with what we got instead of re-inventing the wheel.

 

[samuraicrow]

from the posts I would judge that it is a port of the gp2x version which is already highly optimized - I m not sure if updating would even be necessary, and if so, I would stick with what we got instead of re-inventing the wheel.

The advantage would be support of the Amiga 1200 model which had a special 32-bit version of the chipset called AGA. Of course you could always download the source code of E-UAE and compile that instead. E-UAE website

 

[Chip]

Plenty of people are interested in Amiga emulation on the Pandora. Once the Pandora ships and there are units in the hands of these interest parties, I'm sure we'll start seeing more fully fleshed out emulators. The few people who have actual Pandora hardware are too busy getting the Pandora out the door right now.

 

[Yod4z]

i think a Pandora Amiga emulator based in E-UAE is the best but we need the ARM ASM 68000 core from UAE4All and we need an ARM ASM 68020 to be done

 

[Macguyver]

:-/

I saw the post loooong time ago, for me it was a quick and dirty port made by evildragon (am i correct ?) as a proof of concept so i dont know if he's going to go further.... (ie update uae code, add features , and so) thats the main question...

The more Amiga emulators for the Pandora, the better! Adding features? Of course we're interested! My goodness, go for it! There are still compatibility issues to iron out with the last UAE version which was ported to the GP2X, proper save states need to be figured out, front end improvements, etc etc.

Go, man, go!

Mac

 

[fade]

The more Amiga emulators for the Pandora, the better! Adding features? Of course we're interested! My goodness, go for it! There are still compatibility issues to iron out with the last UAE version which was ported to the GP2X, proper save states need to be figured out, front end improvements, etc etc.

Go, man, go!

Mac

+1 Definately !

 

[jens.l]

Hi there,

i was wondering if there's already anyone considering to do a proper port for uae4all (or other) to the pandora ?

If not im fine to do it, i've released a port based on uae4all this weekend on the wii and im bringing back some features from uae to it (aga support for example...), but im not sure if thats the best way to go , maybe it would be better to restart from winuae or e-uae ? whats your point ?

thanks

If UAE already are ported maybe you can try
to make a port from Winfellow to arm core.(probably not an easy task)
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...package_id=3368

MfG
Jens

 

[chiark]

e-uae should/could easily be compiled for Pandora, I guess, providing GTK is availble on the Pandora. I managed to get it working fairly well on a Zaurus...

 

[retroDude]

Hi there,

i was wondering if there's already anyone considering to do a proper port for uae4all (or other) to the pandora ?

If not im fine to do it, i've released a port based on uae4all this weekend on the wii and im bringing back some features from uae to it (aga support for example...), but im not sure if thats the best way to go , maybe it would be better to restart from winuae or e-uae ? whats your point ?

thanks

Man, a port of WinUAE would be amazing! ( if feasible ).
Aga support, HD support.... :rolleyes:

 

[MiniSinisterMinister]

WinUAE is the best! I do not want many different emulators that are all limted in one way or another. AGA and CD32 Support would be awesome!

 

[Iorgy77]

WinUae wouldn't be possible as it relies on windows and its libraries. E-UAE in some form or another would be possible but without specific optimizations ie. arm asm 68k core etc would not be very fast.

 

[silver]

WinUAE is probably (definately?) the most advanced Amiga Emu around by a long shot, and happily is opensource.

However, as it's a)windows x86 based and B) expects to be run on very beefy x86 machines c) supports a variety of features probably too taxing for the Pandora to bother with (RTG gfx support etc..) it's probably best used as a source of reference (especially for the custom chip timings etc...)

However, what's really missing is a good 020/030 ARM core, and AGA support. There is a good and fast 68000 one (Cyclcone) used in mamegp2x and uae4all_gp2x.

An ideal aim for an Amiga Emu on the Pandora - IMHO - is something that can boot to a minimal workbench to allow WHDLoad to be run. This removes ALL the massive ADF swapping hassle, and speeds up loading in all situations.

I *think* this can be done just with 68000 and extra Ram, but this rules out all AGA and A1200 games, and may struggle. A 68020 would be perfect. I have no idea how much harder it is to write a 020 core.

(NB I know recent mame versions have been ported to Pandora for testing - this has a C based 020 core, but don't know if that is fast enough with all the custom chips. )

 

[White Demon]

As well as 68020/AGA support, It also needs the ability to add up to 8MB fast RAM, so that games that needed more than the stock A1200 2MB RAM could be played (the game I would be most interested in, for example, needs 4MB).

 

[Pleng]

As well as 68020/AGA support, It also needs the ability to add up to 8MB fast RAM, so that games that needed more than the stock A1200 2MB RAM could be played (the game I would be most interested in, for example, needs 4MB).

What I really, really would love to see is the ability to run a CD32 game from an ISO. Even WinUAE doesn't have this option IIRC (you have to physically insert the CD - which is impossible on the Pandora, or mount the ISO with a utility - which is a pain!)

 

[Creature XL]

What I really, really would love to see is the ability to run a CD32 game from an ISO. Even WinUAE doesn't have this option IIRC (you have to physically insert the CD - which is impossible on the Pandora, or mount the ISO with a utility - which is a pain!)

Ermm.. mounting the ISO is a pain with Windows there you need a util.
Under LiNUX the ability to mount an image is kinda build-in: mount -o loop blah.iso /mnt/blubb

This assumes this ability is compiled into the kernel, which I guess it will be

Now you just need to make a little script which does this mount command when clickin gon it

 

[wesbrown18]

Realistically, we will have an A500 release based on the GP2X port. The GP2X is ARM-based, and so that release is quite optimized for ARM, and we can leverage that easily. With a few modifications for the Pandora's input mechanisms and the larger screen, we can have a very nice emulator with 68000 and ECS.

This covers the vast majority of games. If you guys want AGA and 68020, then ...

A lot of emulator optimizations revolve around a CPU emulation core being optimized for the platform. The A500 runs a 68000. The A1200 is a 68020-based machine, and so we would need an optimized ARM port of the 68020-based CPU engine. JIT is probably a bit much to expect at this point.

The first step is to figure out if someone has implemented the 68020 and optimized it for the ARM. If we have, then we might be able to do a drop-in replacement for E-UAE, and have much of the functionality. Instead of saying 'I want this', you guys can help out by figuring out which 68020 emulators exist out there already.

Incidentally, the 'mount' command is very different from using ISOs with the usual tools in Windows. WinUAE accesses the CD at a lower level, so we use a DVD/CD drive emulator. But the 'mount' command is not a CD emulator, we are mounting the filesystem on the CD. But fortunately, most Unix emulators are very good about using image files.

 

[silver]

Some good points.

Can't see an obvious ARM-based '020 core anywhere (not that I know where to look). Cyclone appears to be the only obvious ARM-tweaked 68000 family core, and I've seen posts suggested it works as a 68010 core. I do not know how much work would be required to expand it to '020 (quite a but I suspect). The original author (of Final Burn fame) appears to have left it, but Notaz (?) has done a chunk of work on it...

There is C based 68020 core in Mame, which would obviously be a lot slower - I suspect too much slower for Amiga emulation.

NB The advantage of 020 emulation (to me) is not really the 020 games, but the ability to have a proper WhdLoad setup, removing all the disk swapping/loading issues for a huge library of Amiga games.