Dosbox Fun

[sold]

is the current version of dosbox for pandora fully utilizing the dsp and gpu?

I just wanted to know out of curiosity, not that I can do anything to help

Anyway, handheld blake stone will be kickass.

 

[Pickle]

is the current version of dosbox for pandora fully utilizing the dsp and gpu?

I just wanted to know out of curiosity, not that I can do anything to help

Anyway, handheld blake stone will be kickass.

No for both
The dsp needs a "bridge" to be added to the kernel. The beagle guys have done some with this.KI think the Dsp could be used for the opl emulation like the gp2x.
The gpu could be used to blit faster, although I dont see much speed coming from this.

 

[dingens]

What about NEON for FP emulation? The Cortex' VFP is crap.

 

[Exophase]

What about NEON for FP emulation? The Cortex' VFP is crap.

I think Cortex-A8's VFP implementation is going to be the least of your emulation bottlenecks. Get something that's consistently much better than 1% native speed on integer-only 32bit applications first.

The gpu could be used to blit faster, although I dont see much speed coming from this.

But what blits? VGA doesn't have hardware blitting and I doubt anyone is using DOSBox to emulate something that does (if it even can). It'd only be useful for screen scaling if PBOs work as a zero cost framebuffer source. Otherwise, the OMAP3530's DSS has scaler hardware that I hope will be available in a nice uniform way for all apps.

 

[coolbeans]

Pickle, could you please test the TIE Fighter demo (freely available - just google tiedemo.exe). I'd be interested to see a) how it runs and B) the rating the install program gives the pandora in its "Machine Speed Setting" field.

Just tried it on my PSP and it was a slide show unsurprisingly!

 

[Pickle]

But what blits?

I didnt mean from an emulation standpoint. I think flipping the screen buffer would be faster in ogl-es than the SDL framebuffer thats being used now.

 

[nothin/xoen]

Sweet lord, guys, could you check ADOM (ancient domains of mystery) for me, please?
(Game's VERY demanding(seems funny - demanding roguelike=ascii, but it is really interesting case), i am very curious about performance of that one)
it may be good kbd check, too.

Pandora may be first portable machine able to make it real.

 

[Pickle]

Ok I ran xwing finally got it to go in game. I think we are going to have to overclock. I was running at 850 Mhz, no sound, lowest settings and the screen scrolling got better. The controls were delayed so I didnt spend much time in it. I was messing around in the training grounds.

I also ran dark forces again, at 850 Mhz, no sound, low settings and its very playable. I was surprised.

I just started messing with dark forces at 850 Mhz, things get really smooth at 4000-5000 cycles (no sound)

 

[God Ginrai]

Ok I ran xwing finally got it to go in game. I think we are going to have to overclock. I was running at 850 Mhz, no sound, ;pwest settings and the screen scolling got better. The controls were delayed so I didnt spend much time in it. I was messing around in the training grounds.

I also ran dark forces again, at 850 Mhz, no sound, low settings and its very playable. I was surprised.

I just started messing with dark forces at 850 Mhz, things get really smooth at 4000-5000 cycles (no sound)


Is 4000-5000 cycles the amount of cycles you tend to get at 850 MHz? If so, that might make Red Alert all the more possible. Could you check how Red Alert runs in Dosbox when overclocked?

-God Ginrai

 

[coolbeans]

Ok I ran xwing finally got it to go in game. I think we are going to have to overclock. I was running at 850 Mhz, no sound, ;pwest settings and the screen scolling got better. The controls were delayed so I didnt spend much time in it. I was messing around in the training grounds.

I also ran dark forces again, at 850 Mhz, no sound, low settings and its very playable. I was surprised.

I just started messing with dark forces at 850 Mhz, things get really smooth at 4000-5000 cycles (no sound)


Thanks for that Pickle. That's great news about Dark Forces! Pity about X-Wing though - it suggests TIE Fighter is really going to struggle.

 

[Pickle]

Ok I ran xwing finally got it to go in game. I think we are going to have to overclock. I was running at 850 Mhz, no sound, ;pwest settings and the screen scolling got better. The controls were delayed so I didnt spend much time in it. I was messing around in the training grounds.

I also ran dark forces again, at 850 Mhz, no sound, low settings and its very playable. I was surprised.

I just started messing with dark forces at 850 Mhz, things get really smooth at 4000-5000 cycles (no sound"]

Thanks for that Pickle. That's great news about Dark Forces! Pity about X-Wing though - it suggests TIE Fighter is really going to struggle.[/quote]Xwing might be playable, i think the trial grounds are actually the most intensive part of the game given the amount of objects. Regular missions might work, but death star is probably going to be bad

 

[nothin/xoen]

thx for reply, shouldn't ask..good luck with project, though...

 

[Awakening]

So, would it be safe to assume that anyone could get 4000+ cycles with some overclock? Then all these 2200 tests are pretty much worthless...

X-com should run nicely then

 

[Pickle]

So, would it be safe to assume that anyone could get 4000+ cycles with some overclock? Then all these 2200 tests are pretty much worthless...

X-com should run nicely then


I dont think they are worthless, not everyone is going to want to run at 850 Mhz. Plus it gives an idea what speed is required to run the game.
I think i might try and do some dark forces tests with sound and see what the effect is on cycles.

 

[WizardStan]

So, would it be safe to assume that anyone could get 4000+ cycles with some overclock? Then all these 2200 tests are pretty much worthless...

X-com should run nicely then

For some definition of nicely, perhaps. X-com didn't seem smooth enough for me until I hit 8000 cycles.

 

[Pickle]

So, would it be safe to assume that anyone could get 4000+ cycles with some overclock? Then all these 2200 tests are pretty much worthless...

X-com should run nicely then :"]

For some definition of nicely, perhaps. X-com didn't seem smooth enough for me until I hit 8000 cycles.[/quote]well i know M-HT will be supporting his recompiled xcom's, so dont worry about having to only run it in dosbox

 

[aaronson911]

I am sorry this is a long thread and I have not read all of it. But has any one tried Masters of Magic and/or M.A.X merchandized assault and exploration. Thanks

 

[fusion_power]

So, would it be safe to assume that anyone could get 4000+ cycles with some overclock? Then all these 2200 tests are pretty much worthless...

X-com should run nicely then :"]
[/quote]I dont think they are worthless, not everyone is going to want to run at 850 Mhz. Plus it gives an idea what speed is required to run the game.
I think i might try and do some dark forces tests with sound and see what the effect is on cycles.

Wow, I remember that I've played X-Wing (and Mission B-Wing) onto my 386 DX 40 very well. Hard to understand, that you need 850MHz to emulate a 40MHz Machine but I know, in Emulation world, the laws are different ones. ^_^
I bet a clean port of X-Wing would be much more effective...yeeessss I know that ports require sauce.... but we still can dream, right?

 

[Awakening]

For some definition of nicely, perhaps. X-com didn't seem smooth enough for me until I hit 8000 cycles.

Someone mentioned that it ran pretty good at 3000 (I think) with exception of the worldmap part. It doesn't have to be silk smooth to be playable, as long as I can play it on a handheld.

well i know M-HT will be supporting his recompiled xcom's, so dont worry about having to only run it in dosbox

What's this about recompiled X-coms? Isn't it like closed source and still being sold? Found the GP2X version, nice

 

[Pickle]

What's this about recompiled X-coms? Isn't it like closed source and still being sold?

Do you live under a rock?

M-HT a developer on these boards has actually created a static recompiler that can recompile x86 to arm. Theres also some wrapper code that handles system calls using SDL. Its has some limitations on the type of games it can be targeted at. The recompiler also needs some manual input at times. But basically you end up with a arm binary that performs like the original x86.
This process has worked on albion, xcom 1/2, and warcraft. All are playable on the gp2x and wiz handhelds. Ive spoken to M-HT about the pandora and he plans to support them once he gets the hardware.

Edit. Just to add you still need to own the original data files. The only thing that is distributed is the binary executables.