Beta Uae4All Additions

[Esn]

Hey you're right, it DOES run very smoothly at 0FS. That's odd, I would've thought "auto" would be the same. One thing I've noticed though: after I play for a while, it begins getting jittery again. If I exit to the menu and go back into the game, it's smooth once more.

EDIT: Oops, noticed Michiko just said that. Oh well, consider this a confirmation, then! And thanks for the info about the ladder!

 

[john4p]

Oh, you had auto frameskip. Yes, just always use frameskip 0. Auto frameskip doesn't work properly (but it's not needed on Pandora anyway since this handheld is powerful enough for NO frameskip in any Amiga 500 game).

 

[Michoko]

john4p, I salute again the fantastic work you did on this emulator, this is really a nice experience. Do you still plan adding further additions? For example, I find the menu really too sensitive: when I press the button to select an item in the menu, it often double clicks. So in the disk selector, I often enter a directory, then immediately go up again because ".." was accidentally clicked. So I try to be very gentle when I press a button or the dpad, I suppose it would not be very difficult to adjust the sensitivity? Also a way to remember a default ROM path would be great! (I didn't find one).

Thank you again for sharing this with us!

 

[Esn]

Oh, you had auto frameskip. Yes, just always use frameskip 0. Auto frameskip doesn't work properly (but it's not needed on Pandora anyway since this handheld is powerful enough for NO frameskip in any Amiga 500 game).

In the second and third levels of Nicky, FS0 sometimes isn't enough to keep it smooth, and the sound starts getting broken up at times, so I have to go back to "auto" which causes the v-sync issues.

I really wish I was allowed to overclock this emulator to higher than 500Mhz. I'm guessing that would solve things.

So yeah, my previous comment stands: it's close, but no, not really fullspeed. Not all the time. Also, having to quit to the menu & go back in to keep the scrolling smooth every few minutes does get annoying.

Also, I really wish that the three parts of the menu I use most often (start game, select game, savestate) were right next to each other, so it doesn't take so long to get to them.

Also, I've found a bug - every so often, after I save a state, the game will just freeze. I have to exit the emulator and reopen it again.

EDIT: Also, hardware scaling (the "320x240 -> 640x480" option) is very blurry. I can't stand blurriness, sorry. Only "doubled pixels" for me, even if it's slower.

 

[john4p]

@Michoko: Sorry, currently don't have the time for further changes. But there is a default rom path. I use the unpacked binary - the subdirectory "roms" is the default path for ADFs. So for the PND the default ROM path is probably appdata/uae4all/roms or something similar.

 

[john4p]

I really wish I was allowed to overclock this emulator to higher than 500Mhz. I'm guessing that would solve things.

You can. Just set the speed to 600 or 700 MHz before starting the emulator.

In the second and third levels of Nicky, FS0 sometimes isn't enough to keep it smooth, and the sound starts getting broken up at times, so I have to go back to "auto" which causes the v-sync issues.

Never use auto. If you need frameskip then use FS1. With FS1 you'd get nice and steady 25fps.

So yeah, my previous comment stands: it's close, but no, not really fullspeed. Not all the time.

I don't mind the blurry scaling. With hardware scaling it is fullspeed.

Also, having to quit to the menu & go back in to keep the scrolling smooth every few minutes does get annoying.

Yes, that can get annoying. When I tried notaz' modified SDL with doublebuffering (which would solve this issue) the gfx constantly switched between emulated and menu gfx. Would be great if someone could get that SDL lib to work properly with UAE4All.

Also, I really wish that the three parts of the menu I use most often (start game, select game, savestate) were right next to each other, so it doesn't take so long to get to them.

You can open the "select game" menu with the L-trigger.
You don't have to choose "start game". Just press "Start" on Pandora (or later "Select" if you had started the emulation once).
You can quicksave in-game with L-trigger+S and quickload with L-trigger+L so you don't have to use the savestates menu.

Also, I've found a bug - every so often, after I save a state, the game will just freeze. I have to exit the emulator and reopen it again.

Don't know how to fix this. Glad the savestate isn't corrupt though but still loads after a restart.

EDIT: Also, hardware scaling (the "320x240 -> 640x480" option) is very blurry. I can't stand blurriness, sorry. Only "doubled pixels" for me.

The optimal hardware scaled screenmode for Nicky Boum would be 320x205 -> 750x480 option. Looks great to me. I can't stand blurry scaling on a 19" monitor. But on handhelds it looks fine in my opinion.

 

[Esn]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try FS1 next time.

Are you SURE that I can overclock, though? As I said, when I tried previously, I got a warning about overclocking when I EXITED the emulator, which suggests to me that it was back down to 500Mhz while the emulator was running. I never got any such warning when I exited from other emulators while overclocking them.

EDIT: Also, hardware scaling (the "320x240 -> 640x480" option) is very blurry. I can't stand blurriness, sorry. Only "doubled pixels" for me.

The optimal hardware scaled screenmode for Nicky Boum would be 320x205 -> 750x480 option. Looks great to me. I can't stand blurry scaling on a 19" monitor. But on handhelds it looks fine in my opinion.

This will be a matter of opinion. I'm sure that some people don't mind blurry upscaling, and others do. You'd have to take a poll to find out which is more popular, I'd guess.

I'm pretty sure that DaveC will be on my side, at least. (also DJWillis, since he refuses to include a blurry upscaling option in ScummVM Pandora)

 

[john4p]

Are you SURE that I can overclock, though? As I said, when I tried previously, I got a warning about overclocking when I EXITED the emulator, which suggests to me that it was back down to 500Mhz while the emulator was running. I never got any such warning when I exited from other emulators while overclocking them.

I'm sure. For FAME/C and UAE core overclocking works fine (games that aren't fullspeed with FAME/C in doubled pixels mode @500MHz usually are at 600MHz. If still not fullspeed, then they definitely should be at 750MHz). The UAE4All version utilizing the Cyclone core has problems with overclocking though - the sound gets all stuttery.

Maybe in the PND there is still the old startup script which sets the CPU speed to 500MHz after exiting the emulator (forgot to delete this line from an earlier version). But that doesn't affect the speed whilst running the emulator.
Still that wouldn't explain the warning message either.

 

[goldenegg]

Is it a known bug that games which require 1MB of RAM don't work? I've been trying to play T-Racer in UAE4ALL, but it crashes out to AmigaDOS with an error that it needs 1MB. I have UAE4ALL configured for 1MB, so I'm not sure why it doesn't work.

 

[skovsende]

I've been searching around a bit but haven't been able to find an answer.

Is there any way you can remap the buttons for playing Pinball Fantasies, it's not really a usable solution to have the virtual keyboard showing.

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[john4p]

Press Start once. Mouse emulation mode = Pinball mode

L-trigger, dpad left, dpad right = left flipper
R-trigger, (A), (B ) = right flipper
(X) = pull spring


@goldenegg: 1MB games work fine. Dunno about T-Racer. Maybe it actually needs 1.5MB...

 

[goldenegg]

@goldenegg: 1MB games work fine. Dunno about T-Racer. Maybe it actually needs 1.5MB...

It doesn't require more than 1MB in E-UAE or PUAE on my Mac, so I don't think that's the case. It also works fine on the Pandora port of PUAE, configured for only 1MB RAM. Something in this emu simply won't allocate the right amount of memory for T-Racer to run properly.

 

[Esn]

MidWinter doesn't work for me... the in-game screen is blank.

 

[john4p]

@goldenegg: 1MB games work fine. Dunno about T-Racer. Maybe it actually needs 1.5MB...

It doesn't require more than 1MB in E-UAE or PUAE on my Mac, so I don't think that's the case. It also works fine on the Pandora port of PUAE, configured for only 1MB RAM. Something in this emu simply won't allocate the right amount of memory for T-Racer to run properly.

Just tested it now and T-Racer works perfect. You need to set "Number of Drives" in "More Options" to 2, then there's enough memory for it to run (with 4 drives it's insufficient, but the game only has 2 disks anyway).

Updated Compatibility List.
Note there are quite a few games which need Number of Drives "2" and some which need "1" (which is stated in the list). Most games work fine with 4 though.

 

[Esn]

@goldenegg: 1MB games work fine. Dunno about T-Racer. Maybe it actually needs 1.5MB...

It doesn't require more than 1MB in E-UAE or PUAE on my Mac, so I don't think that's the case. It also works fine on the Pandora port of PUAE, configured for only 1MB RAM. Something in this emu simply won't allocate the right amount of memory for T-Racer to run properly.

Just tested it now and T-Racer works perfect. You need to set "Number of Drives" in "More Options" to 2, then there's enough memory for it to run (with 4 drives it's insufficient, but the game only has 2 disks anyway).

It would REALLY, REALLY, REALLY help if the emulator had error messages which told you when you did something incorrect like that. It would also be very helpful if it told you, in general, what's going on - a lot of things you have to do blind right now. For example, there's no way to tell which disks you have inserted. It would be so nice if the 4 drives had a little symbol to show how many had disks in them, and if by clicking on them you could see which disk was inserted, with an option to eject it right there. It would also be great if the save states which are used had something to indicate that, i.e. even something as simple as making the text a different colour than white if a state is not empty.

(by the way, I must be doing something wrong, because "eject all drives" never works for me. The game still stays on in the background. I have to quit the emulator to open up another game. Also no version of "Supaplex" has worked... it doesn't go past the start screen)

 

[john4p]

I must be doing something wrong, because "eject all drives" never works for me. The game still stays on in the background. I have to quit the emulator to open up another game.

"Eject all drives" does just that - it empties the floppy disk drives. The emulation of whatever continues. You have to bring the menu up again and reset the Amiga with the R-Trigger (of course you can also select the corresponding menu item).
Before resetting you can already insert the disk(s) of the next game you want to play.


About the savestates: you can already see the filenames of the savestates in the disk-selection dialog. If there is a turrican.asf and a turrican-1.asf that means that savestates 0 and 1 are used and 2 and 3 don't exist yet.

 

[Iorgy77]

I have never noticed this problem before so I can only assume hotfix5 causes it or the latest version of UAE4ALL.

The backlight is turning off while playing, I have to close and reopen the lid during the game to bring it back, incredibly frustrating.

 

[Prometheus]

^ I'm pretty sure that the issue has been there since Hotfix 4 (at least, I recall some mentioning it around that time).

It's possible to turn the blanking off, but I must admit that I never had any success with it - it left my Pandora unable to start X, although admittedly it was ridiculously easy to fix. The thread with the instructions for turning it off, and the steps for fixing it if it goes wrong like it did for me, is here.

That said, since this dates back to Hotfix 4, there may well be a GUI-based way to turn it off in Hotfix 5 now (I haven't really looked yet).

 

[Esn]

I've never had a problem with the backlight turning off when I used this in HF4.

Haven't tried it in HF5 yet, though.

Now that HF5 allows me to turn off the default "blur" filter when scaling, though, I can use the faster hardware scaling modes which I wouldn't before - the pixels scale exactly now.

 

[john4p]

"xset s off" does the trick. I've put it in my own UAE4All runme.sh-script to prevent the screen-blanking.

If you use the PND you could write a little script with xset s off and the pnd-call.