Vice 2.0 (25 Jul 2008) Released

[vampire8bit]

Gnostic has done an excellent job with his updates, but it looks like we'll have to wait for the Pandora for perfect C64 emulation with full 60fps and no frameskip in all games with real SID sound/music.

I'm wondering if vice is ported to pandora and the same vice code is used then will these pausing/skipping and sound issues still be present despite it's enormous power? Maybe some one could write a C64 emu from the ground up or is that just too much work even on Pandora?

 

[Squirrel61]

Rewriting a C64 emu from scratch will be a hell of a job. The chips in the 64 (VIC-II and SID) where so advanced, that it took years before they could be decently emulated. Therefore, if someone wants to write a C64 emu, it would be insane not to use existing program code for the VIC and SID. And since emulating the rest of the 64 is a piece of cake compared to these two chips, the emulation of these chips is most responsible for the final emulator speed.

Generally speaking, to emulate a certain system, you need a system with at least 30 times the processing power. With the 64 running at 1 MHz and the untweaked gp2x at 200 MHz, you would think that this rule is more than cared for. It just shows us how complex the chips are. It seems the SID is even "worse" than the VIC-II, although color mixing and border sprites also are a hell to emulate. It seems to me that even the very sophisticated Amiga chips are easier to emulate...

Btw. everyone is talking about Pandora, but what about the Wiz? I like its design more than that of Pandora (but that's personal) but most important, it brings a huge boost in raw processing power.

 

[foleyjo]

Does these out of sync sound and pausing issues happen in a lot of games or just a few? Early on the thread foleyjo mentioned some games which ran at full speed with no problems. Does using a particular Gnostic update make a difference?

The out of sync sound happened in previous versions of vice. It was really noticeable and made a lot of people use Frodo. This seems to have gone in Vice 2.0 though people have noticed some slight sync problems in some games.

Pausing happens in games which rely heavily on the sid. You get a lot more pausing if you use the real sid option.

Frodo I find doesn't perform as well graphically as Vice

 

[Squirrel61]

Frodo I find doesn't perform as well graphically as Vice

Probably that's why Frodo's running faster. But if I'm not mistaken, Frodo and Vice both are branches from the same codebase.

 

[foleyjo]

Your probably right as theres a file called Frodo.vpl in the vice c64 data dir

 

[GnoStiC]

frodo and vice are (very) different, vice uses event-based emulation and very accurate.

frodo v5 is currently being rewritten and will be event-based, too..
(refer: http://frodo.cebix.net)

it's a fact that, vice is slower than frodo at the cost of being more accurate..

i'll look into sid code, as i recall sid filters were using float, maybe i can tweak to gain speed :}

 

[zakhooi]

frodo and vice are (very) different, vice uses event-based emulation and very accurate.

frodo v5 is currently being rewritten and will be event-based, too..
(refer: http://frodo.cebix.net)

it's a fact that, vice is slower than frodo at the cost of being more accurate..

i'll look into sid code, as i recall sid filters were using float, maybe i can tweak to gain speed :}



Thank you for your support, would be nice if you can improve that.
Do you have any idea or explanation for the issue I have with the missing horizontal lines on tvout (please refer to my explanation in my post in this thread).
I have no clue what cause that.

 

[GnoStiC]

it's in my todo list.. i can't promise a fix and i'll try :}

Do you have any idea or explanation for the issue I have with the missing horizontal lines on tvout (please refer to my explanation in my post in this thread).
I have no clue what cause that.

i'll make sure that pandora will have a perfect c64 (and amiga) emulation :}

Gnostic has done an excellent job with his updates, but it looks like we'll have to wait for the Pandora for perfect C64 emulation with full 60fps and no frameskip in all games with real SID sound/music.

I'm wondering if vice is ported to pandora and the same vice code is used then will these pausing/skipping and sound issues still be present despite it's enormous power? Maybe some one could write a C64 emu from the ground up or is that just too much work even on Pandora?

 

[DaveC]

frodo and vice are (very) different, vice uses event-based emulation and very accurate.

frodo v5 is currently being rewritten and will be event-based, too..
(refer: http://frodo.cebix.net)

it's a fact that, vice is slower than frodo at the cost of being more accurate..

i'll look into sid code, as i recall sid filters were using float, maybe i can tweak to gain speed :}


Cool thanks. I know Vice was written with PCs in mind where optimisation is not needed. If the GP2X can emulate a Mega CD with two 68000s, DSP, a few sound chips, while streaming and decoding MP3s all at 200 MHz I would think the Gp2X should be able to handle a C64 running at 1 MHz no problem though.

 

[jwh1977]

Hi Gnostic! Just tested V10 - TV out is working a peach - so are the USB joysticks - BUT ... USB keyboard doesn't work correctly anymore, I get some numbers working (pressing 1 prints 2 and 2 prints 3 etc...) no letters work. Would it be possible to make somekind of keymapping file so it can be reconfigured? Look forward to your comments

 

[b._.o._.b]

i'll make sure that pandora will have a perfect c64 (and amiga) emulation :}

Sweet! Can't wait!

 

[GnoStiC]

i guess you don't have my x11_***.vkm files?

keymapping files are;
vice20/data/c64/x11_pos.vkm and vice20/data/c64/x11_sym.vkm

a clip from MY x11_sym.vkm (you can find these files in this archive)

first byte = keyboard raw keycode/scancode
second/third bytes = row/col
fourth byte = shift flag
CODE

2 7 0 8 /* 1 -> 1 */
3 7 3 8 /* 2 -> 2 */
4 1 0 8 /* 3 -> 3 */
5 1 3 8 /* 4 -> 4 */
6 2 0 8 /* 5 -> 5 */
7 2 3 8 /* 6 -> 6 */
8 3 0 8 /* 7 -> 7 */
9 3 3 8 /* 8 -> 8 */
10 4 0 8 /* 9 -> 9 */
11 4 3 8 /* 0 -> 0 */

Hi Gnostic! Just tested V10 - TV out is working a peach - so are the USB joysticks - BUT ... USB keyboard doesn't work correctly anymore, I get some numbers working (pressing 1 prints 2 and 2 prints 3 etc...) no letters work. Would it be possible to make somekind of keymapping file so it can be reconfigured? Look forward to your comments

 

[Squirrel61]

Gnostic, just FYI because your last mod is working perfectly:

Today, I upgraded to 4.1.1 again. Since that moment, the minilib 0.c based versions of x64 are broken again. So it seems that the specific combination of minilib 0.c, firmware 4.1.1 and my F200's hardware revision is causing problems. I'm not bothered, because as said, version 10 is working fine for me now. And I'm eagerly awaiting the open2x firmware, so I won't bother up/downgrading again.

 

[jwh1977]

Hi Gnostic, verified - I got v10 working fine.

The reset menu item no longer works however - and the tv out corrupts if I quit (I have to reset my GP2X to get it to work again) Other than that - all seems to be working great.

I will test with a plugin USB keyboard rather than my WIFI one to see if the keypress issue remains - Thrust seems unplayable at the moment. Will give you some feedback shortly.

Also - any chance of being able to map a joystick button to open the menu and select menu items? Currently I have to open files on the GP2X controlls before I can sit back with a wireless joystick and keyboard and play the old classics

Thanks B)

 

[Squirrel61]

The reset menu item no longer works however

Confirmed! I've got the same.
QUOTE
Also - any chance of being able to map a joystick button to open the menu and select menu items? Currently I have to open files on the GP2X controlls before I can sit back with a wireless joystick and keyboard and play the old classics

Agree! That would be awesome!

 

[GnoStiC]

i kinda moved to another city and i don't have my gp2x and my sources here.. i won't have them for at least 2 weeks.. sorry :/

 

[TrevorBradley]

i'll make sure that pandora will have a perfect c64 (and amiga) emulation :}

I searched the forums for about 10 minutes to find this, but eventually got the answer I was looking for. Looking forward to it... thanks!

 

[GnoStiC]

notaz already released amiga emulator for pandora
and i guess mweston will release vice for pandora

i'll make sure that pandora will have a perfect c64 (and amiga) emulation :}

I searched the forums for about 10 minutes to find this, but eventually got the answer I was looking for. Looking forward to it... thanks!

 

[Pickle]

and i guess mweston will release vice for pandora


Looking at the source the biggest gp2x dependency is minlib. If thats ported vice should be fairly simple correct?

When you run configure are there GP2X specific flags needed?

 

[GnoStiC]

yep, it's easy to port the vice. no gp2x specific flags are required (other than the usual optimization flags)

i've started to code a new gui for pandora port, as i want it to be eye candy, not a simple "pop up menu" :}

Looking at the source the biggest gp2x dependency is minlib. If thats ported vice should be fairly simple correct?

When you run configure are there GP2X specific flags needed?