| Posted By
MagerValp
on 2002-08-29
|  Current emulators
I tried to help a friend watch my demo, and was somewhat set back by the current Plus/4 emulators... Not one of them ran the demo OK:
Yape - best so far, no glitches at all, but on his machine it runs at 6 fps for no apparent reason. Runs fine on my computer, but uses 100% CPU.
Minus4w - Also does a good job. Sound has a lot of pops and crackles in it, and in the raster page the rasterbars are a bit unstable. Uses 25% CPU.
Artifex - Best sound of them all. Major glitches in the twister, starts with a black vertical bar to the left, and it looks kinda jerky compared to the others. Raster bar page is just a mess, garbage instead of the scroller, rasters unstable. 100% CPU.
VICE xplus4 - Sound is *horrible*, palette is completely off. Lots of glitches everywhere, crashes at the twister. 12% CPU.
WinEMU - Crashes when I press Enter or F1 in the file menu (F8).
Plus4.zip - Can't load programs under Win2K.
I have an Athlon XP 1700+ running Win2K and my friend has a Pentium 3 runnning NT4.
Mike? Can't wait for the new Minus4 
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Posted By
mike
on 2002-08-29
| (no topic)
What demo was it?
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2002-08-29
| Yape...
Could you send the contents of the log window to me on email, where you had that 6 fps? Was the CPU equally slow? NT 4 is a bugger... I started developing Yape on NT4 and was always having a hard time getting things right  Or maybe it was just me
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Posted By
MagerValp
on 2002-08-29
| (no topic)
Mike, Beggars Aren't Choosers, my LCP demo.
Attila, I'll see if i can get my friend to send it.
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Posted By
mike
on 2002-08-30
| (no topic)
Attila: Nah.... just you dude !!! 
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Posted By
mike
on 2002-08-30
| (no topic)
Could someone email me the demo please?
It could be a good one to keep a hold of for testing....
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Posted By
MagerValp
on 2002-08-30
| (no topic)
You can grab it from http://come.to/life/.
Note that it's not a particularly advanced demo, it doesn't use any nasty raster tricks at all. Seems like it should work on just about any emulator...
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2002-08-30
| Aw!
Come on, Mike! You know it's in the database... You could have just type "begg" into the search box, and boom, you have the page with a download link: Beggars. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say something that I was not going to. I can't say I was happy to see the news about another Minus4w rewrite... Infact I saw it a day before Lando put it up on our news page, but I wasn't sure what to think of it. The reason: to me it totally feels like what happened to WinEMU/Artifex. With WinEMU, we had a pretty good emulator, I my opinion it wasn't far away from being "perfect" (for our purposes). And then came the "rewrite": now we have an unfinished one and a new, dead one. And what about releasing the source code? Now you guys tell me: what good did this do to the community?
Anyway, maybe I'm way off base here, and you, my dear MikeD just might be the one person who will follow this through, and have a nice new complete emulator for us.
It's just me, I guess, just like with this webpage: I'm always thinking we all should unite. Have one place that covers everything, and we all contribute to... Same thing may be a good idea for emulators. I always wondered what would happen if Zsolt, Ati and Mike joined forces
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2002-08-30
| To MagerValp:
MagerValp, you nailed the problem smack dab in the middle: the current emulators are mostly good for games. When it comes to demos, it's a lot harder to do things. Two main reasons (and the two toughest things to emulate): The TED (demos usually work the hell out of it, and use all kinds of tricks), and Disk Emulation. BTW, Yape over here on my machine runs your demo quite well (with >350% at 50fps). You must have tested it on a slower machine. Finally, three questions: are you also from Sweden? Can I insert your picture into your record (the one from your webpage)? What does MagerValp mean?
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-08-30
 | For Csabo
To be honest Minus4 has had its good points and some cool features but always a little behind in what it could do, as Mike said he was suffering because of the way he coded it. Some game emulation in Minus4 Dos can't be faulted, Pin Point is top of the list out of all the emu's. M8 I have had it good for a long time, you don't know how cool CP4 really was, way ahead of them all at the time and only in the last year has YAPE taken top slot.
Remember my voice is from a gaming point of view...
The more and more Ati adds to Yape the more PC CPU power it eats. He does need to some how optimize his code because on my PII 333Mhz yape runs at 80% CPU speed of a Plus/4! Yape has some minor bug (i think the sound) with XP, slowing the mouse pointer and PC CPU right down... Another story to be told.
Mike's idea of making a fresh start of it is great! Sure top of the wish list is true 1541 emulation so maybe he could look into this from the word go. Could try asking him insted of saying "HEY"? I know Mike will pull more strings this time, MTAP support for sure this time as he could'nt do it the old way.
These guys don't have to make emulators, just pleased they have done what that have and seeing as there is a large lack of intrest in the Plus4 side anyway we have done well up till now me thinks........
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-08-30
| 1 more thing..
I think Windows XP has messed up alot of cool emulation stuff, if I'm right CCS64 isn't fairing up 2 well with XP users. XP has buggered us all up one way or another, the change over is 10 times worse then 95 to 98. M$ are having a laugh as well because the trick of running stuff in different windows mode eg.(Yape) in 98 mode running on XP does'nt even work. It's a Joke!!! Alot of cool stuff will die and other things will have to be rewriten from scratch, and some will never be repeated....... Thats why I said what I did in the news.
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Posted By
Noro
on 2002-08-30
| YAPE on XP
On my machines (home and work) YAPE 0.39 works on XP in Windows 95 compatibility mode without problems, and 0.40 works on XP directly (thanks to Ati).
I also tried WinEMU and Minus4w and they also worked in Win95 mode without problems.
So I guess it must be an issue with some XP drivers on your machine.
( Microsoft did not pay me for this post )
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2002-08-30
| More on this
By the way, I'm also running Windows XP here, never had problem with YAPE ever. The sound bug (digis to be exact) is something ATI and I are fixing as we speak. Regular TED sound and SID was always good, but digis had a problem. (I already have beta of 0.41 that runs digis under XP! Yay!)
Anyway Lando, I understand what you said, and I agree. Maybe I my point wasn't clear enough. Sure Minus4 is scanline based and WinEMU was instruction based, both have shortcomings compared to "cycle based" emulations. However, it would have been easier to finish the existing one, than starting a new one. That's all I'm saying.
What's the deal with PinPoint? I didn't get what you said - it runs with YAPE and Minus4 fine here (even with Artifex and VICE, I just checked).
ps. I have CCS64 too, it runs fine on my WindowsXP.
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Posted By
mike
on 2002-08-30
| Rant part 1
Okay.... The main reason I've decided to start afresh, is quite simple... I simply can't "finish" the current emultor! Well, as finished as any computer emultor CAN be...
This isnt really that compilcated, Minus4dos was always scanline, and very quick... a P133 could run without sound okay... not bad.
I then started again in JAVA, porting the 6502 core over, then rewriting the rest. This used slower (by simpler) memory access, and was easier to write. The DOS version used heaps of ASM for spead...drawing was all in ASM... The JAVA one took that to well..."C"/JAVA.
I then ported this BACK again to windows, and used that as a base... still fairly clean... However, the CPU core was still really Minus4dos... a bit yucky... and everything variable global.. a bit hard to do true Disk emulation with.
The other "real" problem, is those flickery lines... There is NO WAY a scanline system can deal with these 100%, a CPU instruction will simply branch a line, and you'll miss the colour write... this changes with every program, so you just can't cope.
While I've been able to deal fairly well with border effects, Theres still some that I can never do...writing to the H-DOT clock is impossible for me.
The "new" CPU core, while using the base instuructions of Minus4dos, has now started using CPURead() and CPUWrite() in all the correct places... this lets me stall the emulation along the scanline, where reads and writes arent permited... When processing a "tick" I can fetch DMA, and characters at the correct places, outwith the CPU machine.
Each time I do a rewrite, it for good reasons.... do you really think I want to do all that screen rendering again!!
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Posted By
mike
on 2002-08-30
| Rant #2
Minus4w won't be binned till I feel Minus4whatever is ready to take over... infact, Minus4w has already had updates to the debugger, so that I can better test the new one! Ive added breakpoints and memory windows. I've also improved the sound a little... but theres still some "clicks"... I now know exatly why... but currently have NO idea how to fix...I'll start another thread about that one...
As for Xp...I must say, Ive never had any problems... my main problem is multi monitor stuff..(which I have)... it seems to screw fullscreen. This is an XP problem, as I get problems in other games too... Is it the PRO version (win2K really, or Home one?)
That demo BTW... whats it doing? YAPE really struggles... 42fps...ouch! must be doing LOTS behind the scenes! My machines an AMD xp1600+ 1Gig ram etc...
However... my main usage for emulators, isnt demos... that just a nice side effect, but games... get as many games going as possible.
As for joining forces... yeah... always wondered too... code would probably get messy real quick!!
and as for digis...Csabo... I was listening to your drum mix again.... stunning dude... very nice! You should grab it with minus4 and MP3 it for the web
Oh well... finished my rant
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Posted By
Mike
on 2002-08-30
| (no topic)
BTW Csabo... sorry... yeah... I keep forgetting about the search! Im not used to having such a profesional system!!
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2002-08-30
| Yape "slowdown"
Wow, a nice discussion is surfacing here
OK, I checked the potential reasons for the slowdown. I'd like to kindly ask you guys there experiencing slowdown to turn off sound and check the speed again! I think I had a "bug" in the sound emulation, so as every time a new value was written to FF11, the whole sound buffer was recalculated. Oh, gee... what a jackass I am :-o This is about to change, I've fixed it already in the latest beta, but I'd need some feedback on this!! Any volunteers???
Another thing is the 100% CPU usage... I've never realised it was an issue (read: knew but never cared) but seeing the posts today I decided to modify the main loop, so it won't take up all your CPU if you limit the speed (and of course, if your PC is fast enough to get 100% anyway...)
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-08-30
| Re: Pin Point.
Pin Point works on all emu's thats right. One of the hardest games ever created and demands perfect joystick controls to be mastered. When it comes to emulation only Minus4 Dos comes as close to the real machine using a joypad/joystick for this game
Yape and Flamingo both do a great job, but to get the true timings and feel for the game PC keyboard controls is the only option to recreate that feel from plussy
Minus4 Dos also ran Winter Events correct before any other emu
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Posted By
Noro
on 2002-08-30
| Yape 100% usage
This was also a problem for me, as I needed the running emulator together with other programs running while making maps.
I simply set the process priority to 'below normal' and all works just fine.
The only problem is that other programs running in background at normal priority (e.g. mp3 player)
can affect Yape's performance and slow it down under 100% (800MHz Duron).
So the real solution of Yape giving back CPU time it does not need sounds very good.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-08-30
| For Mike
I have XP Home.... I could'nt pick or chose as it came with the base unit I bought last week from PC World. P4 2.2Ghz
I can already imagine the home version sucks..........
I bought a USB zip drive so I could get my files across from old PC and Amiga.. It clashed with my USB Boradband modem did'nt it grrrr! Big windows spam messages every bootup. I managed to get my File Manager program over and the mother did'nt run right in any so called windows mode... Not happy so far.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2002-08-30
| Lando:
Wow, sounds like you are having "fun" with your new system there... However, it sounds pretty impressive. 2.2GHz? (insert Homer Simpson style drooling...) Also, I declare this the Longest... Thread... Ever!!!
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Posted By
Mike
on 2002-08-30
| Lando:
I *hate* ZIP disks... so unreliable.... I opted for an LS120 instead.... can't get them now though...
XP-Home is "pants"...XP-Pro is nice... but still a 3Gig(!) install...
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Posted By
Mike
on 2002-08-30
| Attila:
Okay... your problem seems to be the use GDI and double size.... It goes slow when I have both of them on... If I disable GDI and use double size, its fine... although blurs..?
I had this on Minus4w... I take it your making a DX buffer in VRAM... try making it in system RAM, the blurring should go away... and it'll still be dead quick...
Sound didnt make all that much differance.
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Posted By
Mike
on 2002-08-30
| Lando:
Why is Minus4dos any better than Minus4win with joysticks???
Does it "feel" differant?
Should really be the same......
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-08-31
| Re: Pin Point
Mike Minus4w suffers from being over responsive on the joypad directions. One tap should move the spining top around 2-3 pixels, insted it can move the spinning top a whole square at times. There also seems to be a problem with the timing of button release, as if there is a delay when you let go of a direction or fire. The end result is death as the top flys off the edge It's a mix and match of both. Really needs to be played on Plus4 to notice the difference between them.
Is not a fault many would pickup on. I put a lot of hours in to master this game
There isn't many joystick testing games out there, but one other is Dingbat. Try playing it for an hour on Plus4 then try on emulation, your feel how different it is
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Posted By
Mike
on 2002-08-31
| Joysticks
Do you have an Digital pad or funny analog one?
It may need a "dead zone" like the DOS version has.... Digital should work fine!
As for button delays...Mmmmm.. very odd.... my bets on windows
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2002-08-31
| To Mike
Well, you got it right, I create DX surfaces in the video memory. I tried changing it to DDSCAPS_SYTEMMEMORY, but all I got as a result was degraded performance (-33%) and it still blurred... BTW, Minus/4 also blurs, at least on my machine....
Sound is a speed issue in almost all Yape releases if you were playing digi's... Those non-standard digi's (that do not set the 7th bit of FF11) I tried to iron out by making subsequent calls to the buffer recalculation. From next release I changed this, so sound will have a much bigger overhead, but it'll at least play digi's at the same speed... Also, I hope for an improved digi support on XP, Csabo has tested Yape beta for me, as I don't have XP....
Talking about sound: I don't use samples anymore, I switched to realtime wave rendering somewhere around v0.33... I directly render to the primary buffer in 8 bit 44 KHz, which I want to change to 16 bit, so maybe it'll get smoother... I also use a kind of a fallback backbuffered audio rendering would the WRITEPRIMARY cooplevel fail.... This gives identical sound only the digi's sound like corrupted low-frequency squarewave garbage for no apparent reason.... Any hints???
Have you experimented with D3D surfaces already? Since DX8, DDraw is not anymore officially supported, you have to deal with all those nasty vertexes and matrices to get even the simplest 2d stuff rendered. Anyway, it can be done, but the question is if it's worth it?
I've read that most cards must be quicker with D3D than with DDraw, so it might be worthwhile to implement a D3D rendering interface in the emulators?? What's your point of view?
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Posted By
Mike
on 2002-08-31
| DDraw
Actually... yeah... your right... Minus4 runs at 625fp in VRAM, and only 200+fps in SystemMemory... perhaps a command line switch... I don't like the blurring fullscreen, and it goes quick anyhow... Over 50fps isn't really needed
I wonder why it blurs on yours.... Stupid PC's
I havent tried DX8 for DDraw stuff... I have a nice DDraw LIB that does DX6 or 7... and I don't need any more... so untill thats unsupported... I can stick with it... However... using polys to render...well.... When Ive done it in games, its fine... way over the top for emulation though...
Sound.... well, my "digi" sound is very quick in terms of CPU overhead.... Its a generated 16 bit sample... Actually 2 tables of ff11 are built, and index each sample "tick" But nothing really clever.... Heres my sample code...
if( g_PlayAllSamples == 0 ){
pSampleBufferFrame[tick] = pSampleBuffer[index] = TEDSample[ pMemory[0xff11] ];
}
else{
pSampleBufferFrame[tick] = pSampleBuffer[index] = TEDSample2[ pMemory[0xff11] ];
}
It needs cleaned out... One is a frame buffer for saving using -R... the other is the DSound multi-Buffer thing... As you see, I don't need to calculate anything when they switch.
The problem I found, is if you allow ALL samples all the time, sound clicks like mad!!! Actually... perhaps not now Ive added some delays...I'll have to test that...
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2002-08-31
| To Mike: Sound
Well, I do also a kind of a table for digi... I used a formula that was published on the plus/4 mailing list yet back in 1998... Kinda should be the same as yours.
BUT: I do render the sound into the same buffer as the "regular" audio goes. And it is not mixed at all with them (thus: it is either digi or squarewave). At every new scanline I fill the buffer with new values. For the digi it is now dead simple:
memset( buffer, digi_table[mem->Ram[0xFF11]], length);
I thought I'd skip rendering normal audio every scanline (it's too slow) and just keep the digi values in a separate buffer. It would be taken care of at VBlank then and mixed with the rest but I don't know how the whole would hold together... Have to try yet...
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Posted By
Mike
on 2002-09-01
| Sound
Whats the "length" thing? If your filling the buffer with the same value, your going to reuce the quality of the sample.
If length is = 2 or 3 then fine... its its large...Im notso sure....
I render Audio twice a scanline, which gives 624 ticks a frame, or a 31200Hz sample.
I have 6(!) audio buffers, 2 TED, 3 SID, and one sample. I should really have 7... since technically speaking, SID can make samples too... I then MIX them into a final output.. I always ment to ask Solder if SID can be on the same time as TED sound...guess I should try it on a real plus4
Aside from all this, its more or less what I do... Build a frame of digi values, and play it... I used to have smaller buffers, once a frame like you... and it sounded okay... not a clean... but okay. Im not getting anything from yours.
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2002-09-01
| Sound
I only use two buffers: a TED and a SID one. These can't be mixed though. Both are the same size. "length" is roughly 800, and is dynamically calculated from the sound frequency (it would be selectable once...). Basically I play the samples with a frequency of ~15600... I know it's not optimal, but I now wanna do it in a better way... Being a cycle based emu, it should be easy to treat the FF11 properly, but I've been lazy to play with it so far I'll set up a separate buffer for the digi, and mix it with the "normal" audio at Vblank or so... Vblank should be enough for most of the regular sound (it was done like that till v0.40).
Talking about Solder: have you got his valid e-mail address? I tried to order a few goodies from him, but he never replied
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Posted By
Mike
on 2002-09-01
| (no topic)
I sample "ALL" sound twice a scanline... TED,Digi,SID... Once the mechanics there... I used it.
Im also not sure the sample rate is your main problem. Thats should just give a rougher sound... thats not what I get... its just a crackle... something else... But if you want to try it, I'll run it!
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