Beta Uae4All Additions

[Azure]

UAE4ALL keeps freezing on me when I try to select the option to set the CPU to 600 MHz or to change the CPU to your desired frequency...anybody else with this problem? Also, it keeps asking for the kickstart, but I have my 1.3 kickstart in the same directory as the .pnd file. (I have pandora/menu/UAE4ALL.pnd; pandora/menu/kick.rom; pandora/menu/roms with my Amiga games in it). Am I missing something?

OT: Anybody else find it frustrating that there's no standard being followed on where roms/bios go for every emulator (and also no standard on how to access the menu in an emulator or to quit the emulator)? It seems like every emulator is different, so the structure/organization of my SD card is absurd...

EDIT: Oh, nevermind. It seems it all goes in the uae4all appdata directory...I read the first post as saying that it all goes where the .pnd is...yay Turrican!

 

[WizardStan]

OT: Anybody else find it frustrating that there's no standard being followed on where roms/bios go for every emulator (and also no standard on how to access the menu in an emulator or to quit the emulator)? It seems like every emulator is different, so the structure/organization of my SD card is absurd...

Not really. Non-standard is pretty standard in the emulator department, whether it be PC, PSP, XBOX or Wii, they're all pretty different.
The Pandora is actually ahead of the game, I believe. Thanks to PickleLauncher, we've at least got something that can be promoted as pseudo-standard.
There was a thread a while back that proposed that people could make suggestions for recommended standards that people could vote on and then developers could use as a guide (if they chose) when writing or porting their programs. After the initial proposal on how proposals should be proposed, I don't think it went anywhere.

 

[kerplunk]

Is there an idiot's guide to get UAE4all running? I am having some trouble getting this emu going. Thanks!

 

[Chaser]

Not sure if this is still relevant given changes, plus I havent messed with Amiga yet (theres still so much else already I am spoilt for choice and currently dabbling with DOSBOX) but here ya go http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/53709-amiga-emulation/page__st__45__p__863267&#entry863267

 

[Zorath]

It is getting to the point now where something is needed BADLY. With every release comes more and more options. Sound, scanlines, different resolutions, different cores etc. The problem is that we need to configure many of these things everytime we start the emu. What is needed is a per game config file for all things.

The problem with the cores is that they're not some feature, but in fact we have 3 different versions of UAE4All in the PND. For most games each core is fine anyway.
You currently have to also commit to a screenmode before the start because changing the SDL-video mode on the fly results in a crash. Unfortunately wasn't able to find out where and why that happens - so no change of resolutions on the fly for now.
The other options can be saved in General config, except the code needs to be adapted to some new features like mouse-settings and scanlines. Saving the sound-settings works already.
There's also a "save per game config" implemented (as you can see in the menu), but it's buggy and needs to be fixed.

I tried the "grid" mode but I can't really see the horizontal lines much, maybe a slight bit more ?

Okay, will change that for the next update.

Here you go with a shiny new PND

Thanks.


@naples39: No WHDLoad-support in UAE4All so far. But you can create a savestate after a game has been loaded - so next time you can "instantly load" it using the savestate.

ok I'm new to the GP2X stuff... so was wondering how hard would it be to get these changes that was done for the pandora compiled for the GP2x-Wiz ?
Obviously the Keyboard will be missing... but the new stylus input sounds really nice !
(with the other bug fixes and all the other hard work

Zorath...

 

[john4p]

Since even the old GP2X/Wiz input stuff is still used there should be almost no work at all needed to build it for these devices.

You won't get the hardware-scaling but you'll have savestates (not with Cyclone though), EHB&HAM emulation and the possibility to move the displayed gfx.


@Lomaxx: Just did the changes I needed to be satisfied with the emu. Don't care about start-scripts. But there was some script-stuff already in the code which can be easily reactivated if someone needs it.


Btw., a user named finkel took the code and added more memory-options + harddisk-support (WHDLoad doesn't work though) for the Symbian-port of UAE4All. Should be easy to merge this stuff in our port. But since all the Amiga 500-games I wanted to play on the go run fullspeed I currently don't have the urge to do more.
Maybe if the one who added harddisk-support should also add AGA-emulation in the future - that'd be a motivation.

Here's the thread on EAB: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=54766

I could imagine if someone would donate a Pandora to finkel and/or Anotherguest we'd soon have fullspeed AGA-emulation and full WHDLoad-support.

Wait, just read the end of that thread. Pinball Fantasies AGA is already playable on Anotherguest's port - with Cyclone core. Some AGA-games apparently don't need a 68020-core.

 

[Iorgy77]

Exciting stuff, I hope some of these changes make their way back to the pandora version. Seems a shame that less powerful devices have more features and better compatibility.

The 020 instructions for cyclone could be useful for a lot of various emulation projects on ARM devices.

 

[Zorath]

Since even the old GP2X/Wiz input stuff is still used there should be almost no work at all needed to build it for these devices.

You won't get the hardware-scaling but you'll have savestates (not with Cyclone though), EHB&HAM emulation and the possibility to move the displayed gfx.

That sounds good.....
however I seem to not have very good set ups for developing GP2X stuff....
I tried to follow the steps to set up Cygwin for it... but I could not make the Makefile.wiz for uae4all work at all..
I grab the source from the SVN... I could not manage to get the links you had posted for your pendora sources to work..

I also tried to get my ubuntu set up to do it on there.. but that did not work either....

what environment do you guys use for developing on for GP2X ?

 

[sbt]

Is there an idiot's guide to get UAE4all running? I am having some trouble getting this emu going. Thanks!

Same here - I'm an idiot, I know

Loaded it up - loaded a disk and it's blank screen all round....

 

[john4p]

what environment do you guys use for developing on for GP2X ?

The only toolchain I ever used was for the PSP. Took me almost a weekend to setup under Cygwin. For Pandora I just use the Pandora to build everything.


@sbt: You need a Kickstart 1.3 rom file (must be 512K in size, 256K versions won't work) which due to legal reasons can't be provided with the emulator.

 

[Michoko]

Nice work on this emu! I tested it, and things run fine. I was wondering about vsync, though, since the current tearing can be quite annoying. Do you plan on adding vsync to it, or is it too complicated for now?

Thank you!

 

[john4p]

VSync is in it. You can "activate" it by entering the menu and then leaving it again (press SELECT twice).

It's perfect most of the time, but sometimes it goes out of sync and the tearing returns. Then you can make it perfect again by pressing SELECT twice (entering&leaving the menu).

Also when you load a savestate audio is a bit delayed. Entering and leaving the menu also solves this issue and gfx&sound are perfectly in synch again.


With doublebuffering (which our UAE4All doesn't have yet) the VSync would probably always stay perfect so you wouldn't have to push 2xSelect. Tried doublebuffering with notaz' altered SDL but the screen switched every frame between the menu's background gfx and the emulated gfx resulting in horrible flicker. Couldn't find a problem with our code.

Help in this regard would be much appreciated.

 

[Michoko]

Haha tricky! Thanks for the quick reply, I'll test it asap!

 

[Esn]

Finally figured out how this works after many days (didn't realize that zipped files don't work, at first).

Tried running Nicky Boum. It's quite playable, but is it just me, or does this emulator ignore any Mhz speeds above 600? I ask because I got a warning message about overclocking when I EXITED the emulator, which suggests that the emulator itself was running at standard speed. Anyway, as I was saying, Nicky Boum is playable, but the scrolling is quite jerky and there are often skips & starts (for a fraction of a second, the image will freeze and the music will skip).

 

[john4p]

Use FAME/C and 320x205 screenmode. Just tried it - Nicky Boum works perfectly smooth and fullspeed at 500MHz.

 

[Esn]

Use FAME/C and 320x205 screenmode. Just tried it - Nicky Boum works perfectly smooth and fullspeed at 500MHz.

Thanks, I will give that a try. But how do I know which settings to use for a game? Is there any way to tell? (or is this perhaps something that could be determined automatically, in future versions?)

 

[john4p]

Thanks, I will give that a try. But how do I know which settings to use for a game? Is there any way to tell? (or is this perhaps something that could be determined automatically, in future versions?)

You should usually always try FAME/C first. It has the best compatibility&speed-combination (combines the speed of Cyclone and the compatibility of the UAE core) and supports savestates.

There's also a Compatibility List where it's stated if for example a game needs a different core than FAME/C.

About the 320x205-resolution: of course Nicky Boum also works with the other resolutions as well, it's just that 320x205 is the best of the available resolutions for this game (uses most of the Pandora's screen while keeping correct x:y-aspect ratio).
You can tell yourself which resolution is best like this:
1) if there are black borders on top and/or bottom you should use a lower resolution.
2) if not everything is visible on screen you should use a higher resolution.

You can create a savestate, leave the emulator, restart with the appropriate resolution and load the savestate again so you don't have to wait for the game loading again.


Choosing the appropriate resolution could be done automatically. PSPUAE has a nice autozoom-feature for this. Problem is, when changing the resolution at runtime in SDL our UAE4All crashes with a segfault.

 

[Esn]

Ok... so I WAS using FAME/C. And I'll stick to doubling pixels, thank you very much, as I can't stand blurry upscaling.

I fixed the music skipping problem by choosing "accurate" instead of "fast". But the v-sync problem remains. The game is certainly not fullspeed, or rather it is, but at the expense of very noticeable lag in refresh rates (just look at the background when you walk; jagged horizontal lines everywhere, and very non-smooth scrolling).

By the way, does anyone know how to select the bomb to blow up the first staircase bubble? I only ever had this game in DOS before, so I'm not sure of the Amiga controls. I've tried every button on the Pandora...

 

[Michoko]

I ran Nicky Boom last evening, and it was silky smooth. If the vsync seems to get lost, press SELECT to go to the menu, then SELECT again. Generally it restores the synchronization. Also use Frameskip zero instead of frameskip "auto". For the bomb, I think you have to go down with the dpad, then press fire for 2 seconds.

 

[john4p]

I fixed the music skipping problem by choosing "accurate" instead of "fast". But the v-sync problem remains. The game is certainly not fullspeed, or rather it is, but at the expense of very noticeable lag in refresh rates (just look at the background when you walk; jagged horizontal lines everywhere, and very non-smooth scrolling).

I don't use the software doubled pixels mode anymore. It's a lot slower than the hardware scaled modes. With these the game runs fullspeed at 500 MHz.

For doubled pixels mode you probably have to overclock for fullspeed.