ZX Spectrum on SuperZaxxon Final

[RAMpack]

Hello,


Is it just me or is there a problem with the Spectrum emulators FUSE and ZXPandy on SuperZaxxon Final?


FUSE makes a noise and runs slowly, while ZXPandy runs fine but with heavily distorted sound.


Anyone know what's up?

 

[JustinEVC]

Hello,


Is it just me or is there a problem with the Spectrum emulators FUSE and ZXPandy on SuperZaxxon Final?


FUSE makes a noise and runs slowly, while ZXPandy runs fine but with heavily distorted sound.


Anyone know what's up?

If that's the case - not happy Jan!! LOL


Hope to load up SuperZaxxon for zee first time this weekend so will get back to you with the results.


Cheers

 

[Asmo]

Unfortunately FUSE has had that audio problem for a long time now. The last version of the OS that it ran flawlessly with was Hotfix 6 Alpha 4 (HF6a4). I keep an SD card with HF6a4 to boot with, specifically for FUSE - it's got the most features, scanlines for that CRT look, and a conventional file browser. A 4Gb SD will hold the OS, FUSE & pretty much every Spectrum program ever - with room to spare!


Also, of the emulators on offer, it's speed is the most accurate on all software I've tested. Compare the in game music (and play speed) in Manic Miner on each emu for example.


I wasn't aware ZX Pandy had issues on SZ.


There is also PanMess, with the mess spectrum bios in place it runs well, but it's an early port so scaling isn't filling the display and the menu is hard work


If ED is reading this - is HF6a4 (Full Flash / SD versions) still available on the firmware links? Until someone tackles a fresh port of FUSE, it would be worthwhile keeping HF6a4 available for it's use.

 

[RAMpack]

Thanks for that information, yes FUSE is my preferred Spectrum emulator for Pandora, it's rather good (But pressing F1 for menu is a very minor annoyance). To be more specific about the ZXPandy problem, It seems that the 3-channel AY sound is OK, but the beeper / noise is distorted.

 

[TitanUranus]

This thread need to be resurrected from the dead, not unlike myself. Surely SOME competent Pandora developer/user can do us a port of FUSE that works on up to date firmware. I about went mental trying to setup HF6A on an SD card on the train yesterday (had no internet access, SD installer was corrupt and I didn't have gparted so had to do it all from commandline, not easy for me without internet to help!). I'd downloaded the firmware - for anyone else that wants to get it here:


http://openpandora.org/firmware/images/old/Angstrom-pandora-xfce-image-glibc-ipk-2010.4-test-20110622-omap3-pandora.rootfs.tar.bz2


That's the one I downloaded and was trying installing on the train, I found it by searching for the release date of HF6A on the boards. It was installed and running but the damn SD card I used was knackerd and it crashed when setting up my user details. It should work though, will get round to having another go with a proper SD some time. If you need the SD installer get it here:


http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=sd-install-2011-03-10


Personally I like making my own partitions, but it's very convenient for quick and simple setup.


If anyone has noticed I've not been around recently it's 'cause I've been busy with real life problems (my own crappy health and my mum dying for example). I ordered an Asus Transformer Infinity 700T and gave my dad my netbook. While I was waiting on delivery of my seemingly endlessly delayed tablet I was doing a little gaming on my Pandora. There's been some great stuff for it lately, and I'm sorry I've not been around to chat about it. Thanks everyone who's done such good work, I'll hopefully get a little time to have fun with the pandora. Next few days though I'm going to be tablet happy (and not just with medication) since my TF700 arrived today!

 

[ZXDunny]

I've ported the latest version of FUSE, but it's dog-slow and incompatible with notaz's accelerated SDL so the sound is actually worse. I've also ported FBZX, but that has no TZX acceleration, so is pointless unless you have a large collection of .TAP or .Z80/.SNA files, but does run at full speed with reasonable sound - though both FBZX and ZXPandy have dreadful AY emulation.


To this end, I've started porting ZXSpin to the Pandora, but it's very slow going as it's a huge amount of x86 assembly to translate over.


D.

 

[Cas]

So we have no decent working Spectrum Emulator, that's sad


Fuse has as been said has that horrid clicking noise and I cannot get ZXPandy to load anything because I cannot seem to get into the directory


where the games are stored, also choosing load state locks it all up


It seems as the Pandora moves forward some emulators are getting left behind

 

[PowerGod]

I was asking myself why no ZX Spectrum emulator was working well (or at all)... now I know

 

[Cas]

I've ported the latest version of FUSE, but it's dog-slow and incompatible with notaz's accelerated SDL so the sound is actually worse. I've also ported FBZX, but that has no TZX acceleration, so is pointless unless you have a large collection of .TAP or .Z80/.SNA files, but does run at full speed with reasonable sound - though both FBZX and ZXPandy have dreadful AY emulation.


To this end, I've started porting ZXSpin to the Pandora, but it's very slow going as it's a huge amount of x86 assembly to translate over.


D.

Could the FBZX port be put out there in the interim ? (Or is it no better than we have already) I am sure most of us Spectrum fans have or can dig up some Z80 & SNA files to play around with

 

[notaz]

Hmm, at least the working version of FUSE shouldn't be that hard to fix.


Does this have any public domain ROMs or any other way for easy testing?


(I'm totally unfamiliar with Spectrum except watching a few game videos on youtube)

 

[ZXDunny]

Hmm, at least the working version of FUSE shouldn't be that hard to fix.


Does this have any public domain ROMs or any other way for easy testing?


(I'm totally unfamiliar with Spectrum except watching a few game videos on youtube)

If you mean games, there's no need. FUSE contains all the ROM files you need, and the insane clicking sound is immediately audible at the initial boot screen - it should be silent, apart from a clicking sound when you press a key.


Edit: If you're looking at the current source from sourceforge, then you'll need the system ROM files which are available from http://www.shadowmagic.org.uk/spectrum/roms.html


You only need the 48k ROM for testing, but if you're building a PND you'll need the full set.


D.

 

[Stainy]

Oh go go go Notaz


THis is a list of Spectrum software houses that game permission to World of Spectrum ( WOS )


http://www.worldofspectrum.org/permits/publishers.html


So follow the links from one of the 'allowed' publishers and grab a game

 

[Cas]

Oh go go go Notaz

Gets a vote from me

 

[notaz]

http://notaz.gp2x.de/tmp/fuse_test.zip


extract this to pandora/appdata/fuse/ and run fuse as usual.


The problem was that it was continuously underflowing audio - either the emulator doesn't supply enough data or SDL sound output is misconfigured, this needs to be investigated in more detail really, but I lack motivation.. The solution was simply to recompile fuse with ALSA audio (instead of SDL).


If this woks, somebody (ZXDunny?) should pack this up and put on the repo as I have no idea what proper Spectrum emulation really is as I've never seen the real machine in my entire life. As for source changes, there were none, just hexedited the built binary to get paths compatible with SteveM's release (easier then fighting autohell^H^H^H^Htools to rebuild this again).

 

[NoeleyC]

Thanks Notaz!!

 

[Stainy]

That seems to have done the trick


thanks so much

 

[Cas]

Many many thanks for looking at that it stops the continuous clicking sound, but..............


I cannot load anything, I get this error message - Could'nt find autoload snap for machine type '48'

 

[Stainy]

Now we need RAMpack to post in the uae4all thread about save states

 

[TitanUranus]

Damnit notaz, I just got a new tablet and now I'm thinking "sod it, I'm playing my pandora". I'm very glad I bumped this thread though, stunning work as always (and thanks to ZXDunny for all he ZXDiddy too). Now someone can pack it up and the world can once again be in awe of the pandora (no self respecting device should be without a working speccy emulator, even my GBA had one and it was shit).

 

[ZXDunny]

I'll get this pnd'd up tonight, and do an FBZX PND too. Can't have too many speccy emulators


D.