Beta Uae4All Additions

[tuki_cat]

Hi all,

new versions up at the repo.

@john4p - thanks, the custom control mode is great!

 

[john4p]

That's awesome - thankyou very much for making this addition.

While doing all those control mods "hardcoded" I realized that implementing custom controls wouldn't be as time-consuming as I had thought...

new versions up at the repo.

That was quick - thanks again!

 

[tuki_cat]

That's awesome - thankyou very much for making this addition.

While doing all those control mods "hardcoded" I realized that implementing custom controls wouldn't be as time-consuming as I had thought...

new versions up at the repo.

That was quick - thanks again!

No problem - thanks again for the custom control mode, it's s great to be able to set up different control schemes for different games.

Anymore more nice surprises on the horizon?

 

[john4p]

Some memory options maybe (chip/bogus/fast mem). Maybe bogus memory would improve compatibility for some ancient titles...

 

[tuki_cat]

Some memory options maybe (chip/bogus/fast mem). Maybe bogus memory would improve compatibility for some ancient titles...

Sounds great - thanks again

 

[Esn]

This is really great news, john4p! I'll update the wiki as soon as I get some rest and a spare moment.

 

[Michoko]

Custom controls! A good surprise, thanks a lot!

You really put a lot of polish into this emulator, this is really great! I had a few suggestions for further improvements, in case you'd like to implement some of them

- in Stylus mode, I often get really strange behaviors. For example in Dark Seed, if I use the stylus to play, sometimes when I tap the screen, the mouse cursors goes bananas and begins to move all around the screen like crazy. I tap again, and sometimes it stabilizes again (and sometimes it continues switching from one place to another constantly)
- I know that I already suggested this one, but having the menu less sensitive would be great
- I don't know if this is something that can be done via the script launching UAE4ALL in the PND, but it would be nice to open the default disk image selector in /media, so we can quickly access the SD card (ideally it would be cool to save the current folder we last visited in the global settings )
- I guess that switching cores on the fly would be very difficult, but do you think that switching screen modes on the fly might be reconsidered? Something like L+number to switch between various display modes? Maybe Notaz's SDL makes this possible now?
- Something that would be very cool: an overclocking option in the menu (like in Notaz's PCSX-ReArmed for example). Since the F12 hotkey doesn't work any longer, we now have to quit the emu completely to overclock. Being able to overclock while in game, and saving the overclocking value for each game would be amazing, since some titles require specific overclocking to work properly.

Thank you again for your amazing work, and to tuki_cat for being so fast at making PNDs! Amiga emulation is so fun on the Pandora now!

 

[john4p]

- in Stylus mode, I often get really strange behaviors. For example in Dark Seed, if I use the stylus to play, sometimes when I tap the screen, the mouse cursors goes bananas and begins to move all around the screen like crazy. I tap again, and sometimes it stabilizes again (and sometimes it continues switching from one place to another constantly)

Sorry - I'm afraid I can't further improve the stylus support.

- I know that I already suggested this one, but having the menu less sensitive would be great

It's less sensitive in the diskload-menu(s). When you press a button it'll only enter a directory once now (and not proceed to subdirs in autofire mode).
Actually I find it comfortable that the cursor can be moved quickly with the dpad in the menus...

- I don't know if this is something that can be done via the script launching UAE4ALL in the PND, but it would be nice to open the default disk image selector in /media, so we can quickly access the SD card (ideally it would be cool to save the current folder we last visited in the global settings )

Haven't noticed that problem as I haven't used the PND(s) yet. Directly installed to the SD card the diskload menu starts in the dir /uae4all/roms on the sd card.
Okay, I'll save the last folder then.

- I guess that switching cores on the fly would be very difficult, but do you think that switching screen modes on the fly might be reconsidered? Something like L+number to switch between various display modes? Maybe Notaz's SDL makes this possible now?

Yeah, always wanted to have this. I'm going to ask notaz about a zoom-function for his hardware scaling (ideally as a systemcall) because currently you can't change the set hardware scaled resolution on the fly afaik. Also changing UAE4All's sdl surface's dimensions on the fly leads to a crash.
So ideally we'd just use the max resolution sdl surface (320x262 pixels) and then have the framebuffer only display 320x200 or 320x240 or 320x256 (scaled to fit the screen's height) of the sdl surface's 320x262 pixels. But for that we'd need notaz to implement and provide this zoom-function.

- Something that would be very cool: an overclocking option in the menu (like in Notaz's PCSX-ReArmed for example). Since the F12 hotkey doesn't work any longer, we now have to quit the emu completely to overclock. Being able to overclock while in game, and saving the overclocking value for each game would be amazing, since some titles require specific overclocking to work properly.

Okay - but you'll have to select "save config for current game" for it to be saved.

 

[Michoko]

Thank you for taking the time to consider those suggestions, and for your complete reply!

 

[tuki_cat]

At the moment the PND directs to the same place as running it directly from the runme.sh - to the SD card the diskload menu and starts in the dir /uae4all/roms on the sd card. It would be a great feature to be able to save to the last folder as I know that some store roms elsewhere.

The overclocking from within the emulator would be also be great!

 

[Esn]

Actually I find it comfortable that the cursor can be moved quickly with the dpad in the menus...

Me too.

 

[tuki_cat]

@john4p - is it possible to implement a feature that creates a blank .adf? Some games require a blank .adf to run, even with savestates.

 

[Esn]

The custom button-mapping feature is pretty easy to use and seems to work well.

Just a question, though:

Is the d-pad ALWAYS mapped to the joystick directions, even in custom button-mapping? To test it out, I tried mapping the d-pad directions to non-directional keys (like the mouse buttons), but it seemed to be mapped to the directions and to those other keys simultaneously.

 

[john4p]

Is the d-pad ALWAYS mapped to the joystick directions, even in custom button-mapping?

It shouldn't be. If it is I'll fix it.

@tuki_cat: Through Google I found this shell command: dd if=/dev/zero of=empty.adf count=1760. If this works I can add the function.

 

[tuki_cat]

Is the d-pad ALWAYS mapped to the joystick directions, even in custom button-mapping?

It shouldn't be. If it is I'll fix it.

@tuki_cat: Through Google I found this shell command: dd if=/dev/zero of=empty.adf count=1760. If this works I can add the function.

Thanks, if there is anything I can help with just let me know.

 

[john4p]

Thanks. If you find the time you could execute the above command in the terminal and then try to use this empty adf in uae4all (maybe try to format it with Workbench 1.3 or use it as savedisk for Stunt Car Racer or something similar).

 

[tuki_cat]

Thanks. If you find the time you could execute the above command in the terminal and then try to use this empty adf in uae4all (maybe try to format it with Workbench 1.3 or use it as savedisk for Stunt Car Racer or something similar).

Did a quick test of this in my lunch hour. Works fine and creates "empty.adf". Then needs to be formatted, I did this by intialising the disk through workbench. I then tried the disk in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade the adventure game and created a save disk no problem.

I think it is a good feature as it allows you to import saves from all other amiga emu's as long as they are in .adf format. This of course means that the game needs to be one that supports save games, adevnture games and football management sims, etc.

There are also some games that need a blank disk at the start.

Is it possible to create a directory - say "blank disks" and have the empty.adf save into there?

Out of interest where did you find the shell command for this?

 

[john4p]

Thanks for the testing. I also tried it and it works - but any empty adf you create that way has the same md5sum (try md5sum empty.adf). UAE4All doesn't write into the adfs but creates an "ads"-file in the saves-folder instead. Now if you have multiple blank adfs created that way for different games they'll all appear to be the same disk to UAE4All and that'll lead to problems.
If you create blank adfs with WinUAE every new file has a different md5sum and thus will appear as a different disk to UAE4All. But I don't know how to make this on Pandora.
We could just provide a zip archive with 20 different blank ADFs (generated with WinUAE) at the repo. While unzipped they're about 18MB they should be only a few kB zipped.

Out of interest where did you find the shell command for this?

Just googled "create blank adf".

 

[tuki_cat]

Thanks for the testing. I also tried it and it works - but any empty adf you create that way has the same md5sum (try md5sum empty.adf). UAE4All doesn't write into the adfs but creates an "ads"-file in the saves-folder instead. Now if you have multiple blank adfs created that way for different games they'll all appear to be the same disk to UAE4All and that'll lead to problems.
If you create blank adfs with WinUAE every new file has a different md5sum and thus will appear as a different disk to UAE4All. But I don't know how to make this on Pandora.
We could just provide a zip archive with 20 different blank ADFs (generated with WinUAE) at the repo. While unzipped they're about 18MB they should be only a few kB zipped.

Out of interest where did you find the shell command for this?

Just googled "create blank adf".

Ok, i see the problem. I will do a little digging around later and see if I can come up with anything.

We could just post a load of blank at the repo, problem is I think the repo only accepts PND, I don't think you can post other files.

 

[tuki_cat]

Thanks for the testing. I also tried it and it works - but any empty adf you create that way has the same md5sum (try md5sum empty.adf). UAE4All doesn't write into the adfs but creates an "ads"-file in the saves-folder instead. Now if you have multiple blank adfs created that way for different games they'll all appear to be the same disk to UAE4All and that'll lead to problems.
If you create blank adfs with WinUAE every new file has a different md5sum and thus will appear as a different disk to UAE4All. But I don't know how to make this on Pandora.
We could just provide a zip archive with 20 different blank ADFs (generated with WinUAE) at the repo. While unzipped they're about 18MB they should be only a few kB zipped.

Out of interest where did you find the shell command for this?

Just googled "create blank adf".

Ok, i see the problem. I will do a little digging around later and see if I can come up with anything.

We could just post a load of blank at the repo, problem is I think the repo only accepts PND, I don't think you can post other files.

I was hoping to find a solution to this but have failed miserably! Do you know exactly what problems are caused If multiple disks using the same md5sum were created using this method? I may give it try and see what happens! It seems strange that every blank created has the same md5sum.