Beta Uae4All Additions


Heh, it wasn't entirely sarcastic ;-) I am "mildly interested" but I'd like to see what I'd be getting myself into first. Even a quick mock-up with just plain boxes and arrows and stuff would be fine for now.
 
DaveC said:
Rather than type a wall of text to explain everything (and that would be difficult to get the feel anyway) I would basically mock one up in Photoshop to show what I was thinking. Of course doing that would take allot of time. [...]

I find it easier and definitely quicker (5mins or so) to use paper and pen for simple mockups explaining ideas, then scan/photo the thing.
 
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SteveM said:
Heh, it wasn't entirely sarcastic ;-) I am "mildly interested" but I'd like to see what I'd be getting myself into first. Even a quick mock-up with just plain boxes and arrows and stuff would be fine for now.
Ok I will see when I get a few minutes in a few days.

One thing I would like to be able to have added would be per game config. That isn't in there now but it would help allot as some games would look better at certain screen resolutions (or positions using 2X), run better at certain clock speeds, 50 or 60 Hz etc. I know that is not in the emu now and that would be more work than just a menu. If that could be added it would change the menu idea a bit.
 
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John your work on this has been amazing. I have one tiny request - at least I presume it's tiny!

As many platform games used up to jump could we have up double-mapped to both the up direction button and the Y button? This would make controlling Superfrog super awesome.
 
Control method "1" in More Options makes (X) the Jump-button (like in SNES platformers where also the "bottom" button is used to jump).
 
hmm thanks. dunno how I missed that; it appers to be selected by default!
 
Addition VI: EHB- and HAM-mode emulation

  • "Extra Half Bright"-mode is emulated now
  • HAM-mode is emulated now
  • L-Trigger is always left Alt now
  • vertical/horizontal adjustment only active in joystick mode
  • Autofire-toggle only in joystick mode
  • in Mouse mode: (A), (Y), (B ), (X) = keyboard arrow left, up, right, down
  • in Mouse mode: L-Trigger, dpad left, dpad right = left Flipper in Pinball Dreams/Fantasies
  • in Mouse mode: R-Trigger, (A), (B ) = right Flipper in Pinball Dreams/Fantasies

Since (X) is "arrow down" in mouse mode now you can use that in Pinball Dreams/Fantasies to bring the ball into play.
Mouse mode = Pinball mode...

While in mouse mode you can't move the displayed area vertically and horizontally anymore.
This was done so you can play for example "No Second Prize", "Super Hang-On" or "Battlehawks 1942" where you hold the left mouse-button (L-Trigger) and move with the dpad.
Just switch to joystick mode again if you need to adjust the screen position.


Thanks to smoku for providing his sources! Merged his addition of HAM- and EHB-emulation into our version.


Now follows an example for what HAM-mode (up to all 4096 colors used in a picture) emulation does. Before this was added Uridium II's (and many more games) title screen looked like this:

10pc8wp.jpg


This is how it looks now:

28u3chw.png



The Extra Half Bright mode (EHB) quasi doubles the 32 color-palette of Amiga games by adding the possibility to use each of these 32 colors half-bright. Before the emulation of this was added Pinball Fantasies looked like this:

2d1o8ed.jpg


Now:

t6w9cg.png



Grab the new version here: http://www.filefront.com/17156629/uae4all.zip


Unpack the archive with "unzip -e uae4all.zip" on your SD-card.
Add your kickstart 1.3-file either named "kick13.rom" into the "kickstarts"-subdir or put it in the same dir where uae4all is and name it "kick.rom".
Put some ADFs into the "roms"-subdir.
Finally call runme.sh (from terminal or filemanager or create a shortcut to it).



Btw., I erred about the write-to-floppy-functionality. It doesn't write into the ADFs. It writes .ads-files into the "saves"-folder instead. And this works fine - but probably not with the PND. Maybe it works with the PND if you create a "saves"-subdir in appdata/uae4all/.
 
john4p said:
Btw., I erred about the write-to-floppy-functionality. It doesn't write into the ADFs. It writes .ads-files into the "saves"-folder instead. And this works fine - but probably not with the PND. Maybe it works with the PND if you create a "saves"-subdir in appdata/uae4all/.
Has always worked fine in PND for me.
 
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Very, very nice work indeed. Congratulations on this, it's a massive step forward. I'm very impressed by the fast rate at which this emulator is coming along, it really shows there is interest in developing stuff on the pandora. I'm going to ask a few questions, I know they have been asked before, but I think there's no harm in re-capping and trying to get an idea of where some possible features lie in terms of your plans to implement them and their feasibility overall. Since many people around here seem to be hysterical, can I point out none of these questions is a demand for certain features - and I'm not having a dig at anyone because they have not yet or may never be implemented. Jesus, it's a sad state of affairs when I feel I have to add disclamers to a couple of questions, but some people around these boards are like fundamentalist pandora freaks - "jihad against those who don't constantly praise the holy name of Pandora and all it's devoted developer servants". Personally I think the work done on this emulator in the last few months has been exceptional.

Can I ask if you have any plans to introduce a "turbo" disc loading feature (IIRC there was a virus, possibly mythical, that when it infected a disk would cause the read write heads to run at approx 8x's normal speed, so it massively increased access speed. The downside was it very quicly buggered the heads alignment by hammering the shite out of them - this wouldn't happen on an ADF of course...). Turbo loading is available in UAE, but how easy would it be to add to UAE4all? Also, any chance of emulating more memory? And my final question - are hard drive files ever likely to be supported?
 
AWESOME!

Pinball Dreams and Fantasies with perfectly smooth scrolling and great controls now!

I love you :D

PND Updated

Only problem now is the missing Hires mode, but that's not that big issue here :)
 
TitanUranus said:
Very, very nice work indeed.
Personally I think the work done on this emulator in the last few months has been exceptional.

I feel the same.... :) i'm only missing my Pandora to test this emulator.........
 
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Wow! Simply impressive!! Can't wait for my Pandora to arrive!

Last week I went into my basement and found some old Amiga magazines. Such nostalgia, now I feel like reviving all those glory days! Thanks for your amazing work and to all the other developpers contributing to this great emulator!

PS: How are demos running on this emu? They can sometimes get tricky to emulate due to the various tricks they were using. I'd love to watch some classic Amiga demos again...
 
Nice!

Can someone with a pandora test Mechforce for me? I just want to know if how UAE4ALL handles interlaced games. Is there a way to configure the emulator to reduce flicker.

Thanks!

Jason
 
EvilDragon said:
Only problem now is the missing Hires mode, but that's not that big issue here :)
Yes, after adding EHB- and HAM-modes unfortunately hires-mode is now incorrect (the "extra memory detected"-screen and table selection-screen in Pinball Fantasies is 2x horizontally stretched). I don't know if I can fix this (at least it doesn't have an effect in-game).

UPDATE: The next commit of smoku after adding EHB- and HAM-modes was "Fixed horizontal downscaling". This fixed it.
Now I'm glad the Nokia N900 was released before Pandora, because I can just STEAL a lot of smoku's efforts. :D
I'll have a look at his latest improvements...

Will upload the corrected version in the evening.


@TitanUranus: all of your improvement wishes are possible, but I lack the knowledge to realize them. Should Chui or smoku (or someone else) add harddisk-support or more memory I could then steal the sources... ;)

@Michoko: "State of the Art" and "Odyssey" seemed to run correct when I tried them. But I don't think it can perfectly emulate every Amiga 500 demo.

@clyborg: The flicker in interlace-mode is just like with a real Amiga 500 - it's only not as annoying when you look at the small handheld-screen. As this emu is running in lores-mode I don't think there's an easy way to reduce the flicker (in WinUAE hires-mode you can completely "disable" flicker).
 
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On another note: the reason our "UAE core"-version is almost as fast as our Cyclone-version is because the "UAE core"-version actually isn't a UAE core version at all. It just uses FAME/C for the whole M68K-emulation.

FAME/C is a fast M68K-core like Cyclone - only written in C instead of Assembler and thus not quite as fast - but still much faster than the real UAE core.

Just built a real UAE core-version now and tested some games. Lionheart has even more garbled gfx in-game, Superstar Ice Hockey still freezes after 1 game and Pinball Fantasies couldn't even load the Party Land-table.
The speed was notably slower than with FAME/C.
So I won't release the UAE core-version.

I'll rename all the "UAE core"-texts in compatibility list and our runme-script in "FAME/C" - because that's what it is.

For testing purposes I'll still upload a real UAE core-executable here, too, so one could try if there is a game that doesn't work with Cyclone and FAME/C but does with UAE core.
Should there be games that need the UAE core version, too, then I'd later release a pack with all 3 cores (Cyclone, FAME/C and UAE core). Btw., savestates also work with the real UAE core.
 
Nice update! The extra video mode support is great.

john4p said:
The flicker in interlace-mode is just like with a real Amiga 500 - it's only not as annoying when you look at the small handheld-screen. As this emu is running in lores-mode I don't think there's an easy way to reduce the flicker (in WinUAE hires-mode you can completely "disable" flicker).

I'd have thought it must be possible to deinterlace whilst rendering by drawing the lines between each other instead of scaling them up. You would lose a few lines in PAL interlaced this way, but no more actual screen area than when chopping 256 non-interlaced lines down to 240. NTSC (400 lines) would of course fit fine one-to-one.
 
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There is a "Remove interlace artifacts"-mode in WinUAE (and E-UAE):

Works perfectly in WB, not so perfect in games yet (and impossible to get perfect in all cases, as usual..) No more interlace artifacts when any graphics object or mouse pointer moves. NOTE: first and last line will flicker or show garbage.

Technical details: normal interlaced display goes like this: draw even lines (0, 2, 4, etc..), next frame draws odd lines (1, 3, 5..).
This makes 25Hz refresh rate and also causes interlace artifacts when objects move. ["Remove interlace artifacts"-mode] draws both fields simultaneously, even lines = 0,1*,2,3*,4,5* and odd lines (0*,1,2*,3..).
* = draw display using bitplane pointers stored during previous frame
Maybe some day...
(Though it's not very important because few Amiga 500-games use interlace mode aside from title screens.)
 
TitanUranus said:
[...] it really shows there is interest in developing stuff on the pandora.

Actually these were implemented for N900 :lol:

Turbo loading is available in UAE, but how easy would it be to add to UAE4all? Also, any chance of emulating more memory? And my final question - are hard drive files ever likely to be supported?

I have plans for porting more features from E-UAE to UAE4ALL ME, so they will eventually land on Pandora's version too :)


P.S. Chui is reachable via e-mail and did help me a lot answering questions and pointing things. He has no time for developing stuff anymore, but is glad to help.
 
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