Release Fullspeed Amiga Emulation On Pandora!

[sparkymark]

Basic a1200 emulation with HDD would be excellent if it could run at a good speed (using JIT it might be possible, but is JIT supported with ARM?). If it could, and you can assign 8mb fastram then installing games using WHDload would be by far the best option for most stuff. That would pretty much be what I'd aim for if I was porting it, no need to bother with picasso and zfast or anything above 68020 as it'd just be too piss poor performance wise.

I'm just having a flashback to the first time I watched and listened to Jesus on E's... Ahh, the A500 was a sweet machine.

how on earth do you use amiga HD files. I have acquired all my favourite games in hd (whd) format as zips. How on earth do I use them. Can they be used on the amiga version available for the Pandora at the moment??

 

[Iorgy77]

Right, I've just done a few checks on the compatibility of the 68000 chip with various combinations in WinUAE. For starters the bad news, you can't use kickstart 3.1 with 68000 as it needs 24 bit addressing apparently. That's the bad news.

Wait, What? You can use kick3.1 on a 68000, I have both an a600 and an a500 with kick3.1 right here.

how on earth do you use amiga HD files. I have acquired all my favourite games in hd (whd) format as zips. How on earth do I use them. Can they be used on the amiga version available for the Pandora at the moment??

UAE4ALL cant access HDF files, there is no HDD emulation at all. Try P-UAE or E-UAE.


UAE4ALL is a waste of time, P-UAE or E-UAE are the only hope for a decent non crippled amiga emulator on the pandora.

 

[silver]

how on earth do you use amiga HD files. I have acquired all my favourite games in hd (whd) format as zips. How on earth do I use them. Can they be used on the amiga version available for the Pandora at the moment??

WHD is the name of an Amiga Program that lets you run floppy-only games from an Amiga harddrive - much faster, goodbye disk swapping, and no rebooting.

So by WHD format, you probably have a bunch of files all in one zip - these need to be run from an (emulated) Amiga. WHD really needs a A1200 config or better.

So you need to use EUAE, or PUAE once the bugs are sorted, to boot into an Amiga Workbench, and then run the files inside your zip. The files will need to be extracted from the zip for the Amiga to easily use them.

Emulating a hardrive on the Amiga typically means creating a virtual harddrive file, or mounting a directory. (Although I am unfamilar if EUAE/PUAE can do the directory mounting.)

 

[Ze_ro]

In order to run WHDLoad installs, you need to install WHDLoad itself. It's a shareware program, so you'll be hit with nag screens unless you pay the 20€ registration fee.

WHDLoad is a great program, and I use it all the time on my Amiga 3000... but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to use it in an emulator. I think you're better off to just stick with ADF files.

--Zero

 

[Iorgy77]

In order to run WHDLoad installs, you need to install WHDLoad itself. It's a shareware program, so you'll be hit with nag screens unless you pay the 20€ registration fee.

WHDLoad is a great program, and I use it all the time on my Amiga 3000... but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to use it in an emulator. I think you're better off to just stick with ADF files.

--Zero

It makes a hell of a lot of sense to use WHDLoad from an emulator. Patched games load a lot faster, in some cases they preload and there is no loading at all. You have obviously never played a ten disk amiga game with WHDLoad there is no need for multiple disks/swapping. The latest batch of WHDLoad slaves are written for installing games from either originals or IPF images so no more searching for the best cracked version of any particular game when you can use the WHDLoad patched original. You can also quit back to the workbench desktop at any time. Besides did I mention its a hell of a lot faster? WHDLoad may be shareware but it is still being supported and updated and patches for games are still being added to its library. Well worth the 20 euro registration.

If a decent spec amiga emulator is written with HDD support and savestates the pandora will be the ultimate portable amiga emulator. UAE4ALL just doesn't cut it for me.

Its a real shame Gn0stic isn't interested in the pandora any more, as P-UAE with cyclone was the best hope for an advanced amiga emulator at decent speed on the pandora.

 

[gaterooze]

Well worth the 20 euro registration.

Abso-bloody-lutely!

 

[silver]

Running Whdload on a 68000 is not ideal - I think several patches (i.e. games) are incompatible, and lots would then not be able to quit back to the OS (unless this has changed since I last checked).

A Fast 68020EC core (at least) is still the best option. Having said that - what we need is someone to compile and test PUAE to see how it runs on the Pandora at what speed etc...

http://github.com/GnoStiC/PUAE - Anyone?

Otherwise, Expanding Cyclone to support a 68020EC would be awesome. Anyone know a good source of instruction set and addressing differences between a 68000 and a 68020?

EDIT: Forgot Raine carried offical 68020 dox: http://rainemu.swishparty.co.uk/html/archive/dev/MC68020UM.pdf

EDIT2: Just read on another forum that PUAE is faster than EUAE, which is encouraging: "I compared P-UAE with E-UAE and it's much more faster. Wonderful stuff."

 

[kmob]

I'm planning on attempting porting PUAE if no one else has done it by the time I get my Pandora (about 1300 in the list). Running a portable Amiga (ideally with native RTG graphics drivers) is one of my "wishlist" items for my Pandora

Regarding WHDLoad - it's totally worth registering. A lot of work has gone in to it over the years and it's still actively worked on so I'm sure they appreciate it. It can transform an Amiga (emulated or not).

 

[TitanUranus]

Yes, I too urge all amiga users to buy WHDLoad if they can. Really, it's like using a different machine.

As for what I said earlier, probably you can stick a kickstart 3.1 in a real A500/600, but Winuae won't let you if your CPU is set as 68000. Personally, I'd guess a lot of games would run fine on a 68000 with kisckstart 2.1 and AGA chipset. I assume that a lot of the time there was no 68020 code wtitten, since it would save porting to just program for 68000 but then add a few bells and whistles using the better gfx of the AGA chip. So, for a lot of things AGA I suspect they may not need the 68020 processor at all.

There's probably no reason you couldn't just take out the code that bitches when you try using KS3.1 with 68000 anyway, so it's maybe not officially compatible but who gives a toss? I still believe I used to have WinUAE set this way in the dim and distant past, so maybe it's just a new feature that stops you using it. Besides, with WHDLoad and all the kick roms in the right folders on the VHD it can load them up and use KS3.1 regardless of the initial boot KS, that should help compatibility.

EDIT: Glad to see someone interested in porting PUAE silver, that's great. Like I say, if you think I can help with testing or anything let me know, though I'm probably no.4001 to get a pandora so it could be a while before I get it. If you do port PUAE, will you add an option to include cyclone 68000?

 

[Iorgy77]

@kmob: You would be my personal hero and I know I wouldnt be the only one who would shower you with donations and bug reports

@TitanUranus: You are doing something wrong, perhaps you have the wrong kickstart files. WinUae will definitely run kick 3.1 on a 68000. Join up on http://eab.abime.net "English Amiga Board" if you want help. Toni Wilen the author of winuae hangs out there too.
edit: Gn0stic the PUAE maintainer hangs out there too.

 

[GnoStiC]

i remember running unoptimized PUAE (68020CE, 2MB FastMem, 2MB ChipMem, AR, KS 3.1, folder mounted as HDD) on Pandora.. it was quite fast.. i remember having tears of joy :}

In conclusion - PUAE/UAE with cyclone 68000 incorporated should be able to boot and run games from HDD without any problems, I personally can't wait till someone give it a shot! Contact me if you think I can help in any way, regarding testing or roms/software I used.

 

[Iorgy77]

@GnoStic: would you be able to make that version of PUAE available for those that have pandoras already or have them on the way?

 

[GnoStiC]

well, that was in November 2008 when MFK and i met at computech fair.. i was able to compile and test on MFK's dev board that day..
and MFK captured a video of Pandora running a AGA demo (which was the only AGA demo we had with us)

...

ok, found the videos;
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7475778009611019653#
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1299372955890398195#

EDIT:
please note that that was really unoptimized quick hack port done in several hours..
i don't have those binaries and i don't believe MFK kept them, too.

@GnoStiC: would you be able to make that version of PUAE available for those that have pandoras already or have them on the way?

 

[Iorgy77]

@GnoStic: Will you be getting a pandora at some stage?

 

[silver]

i remember running unoptimized PUAE (68020CE, 2MB FastMem, 2MB ChipMem, AR, KS 3.1, folder mounted as HDD) on Pandora.. it was quite fast.. i remember having tears of joy :}

Now that's what I call a good post. ... and you lost interest in Pandora why????...

well, that was in November 2008 when MFK and i met at computech fair..

Ah, Nov 2008. Maybe that's why... I'd forgotten what a long time coming this was.


NB for anyone with a Pandora - anyone willing to compile the latest PUAE and see how it flies?

 

[GnoStiC]

@GnoStiC: Will you be getting a pandora at some stage?

dunno :}

Ah, Nov 2008. Maybe that's why... I'd forgotten what a long time coming this was.

and in my case, being a "close" friend of MFK, i knew about Pandora back in 2006..

 

[Joshwaan2k]

Ok this is just too cool for school

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi?0,0,0,0,72,86

Thanks very much

 

[TitanUranus]

Ok this is just too cool for school

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi?0,0,0,0,72,86

Thanks very much

Give some speed reports with various settings please!

 

[Joshwaan2k]

Yeah will do checking it out now love the GUI with this

Tried Mortal Kombat 2 quite a bit slower then UAE4ALL. I'll keep testing

Edit 2#: For some reason I can't get the keyboard to work. tried other games like Top Gear 2 no go

 

[silver]

It's definately going to be slower than uae4all.

The question is whether it's fast enough as it is to be full speed. So when mk2 is slower - I assume you mean less than 100%.

What settings, and what speed are you running?

Bugs - lots of bug reports going to Gnostic on EAB, and he is generally killing them quick...