682 replies to this topic

[jonlad1]

Thats all I can ask for!

With save states, It'll be perfect.

Thanks for all the time you've spent on it!

[john4p]

With save states, It'll be perfect.

We still need a tearing fix. And hardware-scaling would be very nice to have...

[EvilDragon]

With save states, It'll be perfect.

We still need a tearing fix. And hardware-scaling would be very nice to have...

paeryn is looking into SDL. This would tearing with all SDL Apps.

[john4p]

Hope he'll be successful as that'd make 2D scrolling games much more enjoyable (and really give a sense of perfection).

[jonlad1]

Pardon my ignorance, but one SDL/hardware scaling is sorted, that can be applied to every emu?

[john4p]

Yes, that's nothing UAE4All-specific.

Edited by john4p, 04 July 2010 - 01:46 PM.

[EvilDragon]

Pardon my ignorance, but one SDL/hardware scaling is sorted, that can be applied to every emu?

It doesn't have to be applied, those emulators / games use SDL.
So all the existing games / emulators will work magically without tearing then, no need to upgrade them.

[fusion_power]

Wasn't there already HW acceleratedd SDL for the GP2X long time ago or do I mix up things here?

[EvilDragon]

Wasn't there already HW acceleratedd SDL for the GP2X long time ago or do I mix up things here?

Yes, paeryn did that
So... what? "HW accelerated" means it uses functions of the hardware to accellerate it. The Pandora is a total different piece of hardware... so it needs to be done here, too.

[jonlad1]

and that will make use of the full 800x480 for emus?

(sorry, just trying to clarify bits and pieces i've read on the boards)

[EvilDragon]

and that will make use of the full 800x480 for emus?

(sorry, just trying to clarify bits and pieces i've read on the boards)

Errrm, the emulators could already use 800x480. That's up to the emulator devs.
Using hardware makes scaling way faster, yes, but changing a 4:3 screen to 16:9 will always look pretty ugly

BTW: Put a new version with john4p changes into a PND:
http://dl.openhandhe...i?0,0,0,0,72,74

[jonlad1]

Wicked, cheers ED, I tried looking into putting that into a pnd yesterday but I got waaay lost

So when using hardware scaling, that is less work for the CPU to do, so it can spend more time pumping out fps for the emu? Muper64 for example

[john4p]

Errrm, the emulators could already use 800x480. That's up to the emulator devs.
Using hardware makes scaling way faster, yes, but changing a 4:3 screen to 16:9 will always look pretty ugly

Fortunately a huge amount of Amiga-games use only 320x200 pixels which is 16:10-format (they were letterboxed on 4:3-monitors and TVs). Scaled by the same amount in x- and y-direction (*2.4) they almost fill the Pandora's screen entirely (768x480 out of 800x480 pixels) and still have correct aspect ratio.

All of the following games use a resolution of 320x200:
Ambermoon&Amberstar, Another World, Bubble Bobble&Rainbow Islands&Parasol Stars, Cadaver, Centurion, Chuck Rock, It Came from the Desert, D/Generation, Defender of the Crown, Dogs of War, Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder I&II, F/A-18 Interceptor, Falcon (and almost any other flightsim), Fire Force, Frontier: Elite II, Giana Sisters, Gods, Golden Axe, Harlequin, Hunter, HeroQuest II, IK+, Jaguar XJ220, James Pond I&II, Lamborghini American Challenge/Crazy Cars III), Last Ninja Remix, Leander, Legend, Lemmings I&II, Lotus I-III, Lost Patrol, Lost Vikings, Moonstone, MYTH, Navy Seals, North & South, Nuclear War, P.P. Hammer, Panza Kickboxing, PGA Tour Golf, Pirates!, Populous I&II, Powermonger, Prince of Persia, Pushover, Qwak, Robocop 1&3, Speedball 2, Shadow of the Beast I-III, Silkworm, Starglider II, Stunt Car Racer, SuperCars I, Targhan, Test Drive I&II, The Chaos Engine, Uridium II, Vroom, Wings, Wings of Fury, Wrath of the Demon, Xenon I&II, Zeewolf
(+ many more)

Just have a look at http://www.lemonamiga.com/ => Games and browse through their games database. Each game with black bars on top and bottom is quasi in widescreen format and thus suitable to fill most of the Pandora's screen (with proper scaling).

Of course there are also a lot of Amiga games that fill an entire 4:3-screen and thus will have rather huge black borders on the sides on a widescreen display such as the Pandora's.
(Like for example All Terrain Racing, Alien Breed, Battle Squadron PAL, Pinball Dreams/Fantasies/Illusions, Project X, Sensible Soccer, SWIV, Superfrog and many more.)

BTW: Put a new version with john4p changes into a PND:
http://dl.openhandhe...i?0,0,0,0,72,74

Cheers!

Edited by john4p, 05 July 2010 - 12:10 PM.

[DaveC]

How do you use this? When I finally mazed my way through all of the directories to get to my games nothing worked at all. I select the image, select reset and all I get is the workbench hand. Not a single game would load, a couple just crashed out to the minimenu. Is there some special disk format needed or something?

Then the menu on this needs serious rework (like the majority of emus, they are very unintuitive on Pandora for some reason), it is terrible honestly. It doesn't remember anything. It won't remember ROM paths so you spend 5 minutes everytime to work your way through the tree to get to things. Then it asks you a bunch of cryptic resolution questions everytime you load the emu (Why couldn't these be saved?). I don't even know what these mean (full lines, 320 x 256, what?). I just want to get a simple 2X scale and no fractional ugly modes but I don't know what to select to get that. I think I did it but since nothing would load I don't know. Couldn't it just say something like "integer 2X scale", "full height stretch" or something like that?

Then there is these selections that when you select them goes to joystick mode, mouse mode, keyboard mode etc. These are no longer needed as we have a d-pad, we have nubs, and we have a keyboard. These functions could be mapped to those at all times, not sure why we need to choose one or the other.

Fortunately a huge amount of Amiga-games use only 320x200 pixels which is 16:10-format (they were letterboxed on 4:3-monitors and TVs). Scaled by the same amount in x- and y-direction (*2.4) they almost fill the Pandora's screen entirely (768x480 out of 800x480 pixels) and still have correct aspect ratio.

Actually no 320 x 200 apps weren't letterboxed. They were displayed on CRTs, they didn't have square pixels, they were taller than they were wide. The monitors were just set with the display height to fill the monitor, they were then always 4:3. Those 320 x 200 apps were made for the NTSC market. They would only appear letterboxed on PAL monitors set for the PAL 320 x 256. People assume that everything used square pixels like an LCD, that wasn't true back then. CPS2 games were the same thing, they appear "widescreen" on todays square pixel displays but in the arcade the CRTs were adjusted to be 4:3.

Edited by DaveC, 05 July 2010 - 07:53 PM.

[EvilDragon]

How do you use this? When I finally mazed my way through all of the directories to get to my games nothing worked at all. I select the image, select reset and all I get is the workbench hand. Not a single game would load, a couple just crashed out to the minimenu. Is there some special disk format needed or something?

The exact same games that work on the WIZ, GP2X or DINGOO version work on this version.
That is ie. Chaos Engine, SuperFrog, Turrican 2, etc.

If you get the workbench, you haven't inserted the disk into the correct drive.
That is something that annoyed me back in the GP2X version already: You use the buttons to select what drive you insert the disk in.
I think A is drive 0. So to boot a disk, you have to select it with A.

Then there is these selections that when you select them goes to joystick mode, mouse mode, keyboard mode etc. These are no longer needed as we have a d-pad, we have nubs, and we have a keyboard. These functions could be mapped to those at all times, not sure why we need to choose one or the other.

Mouse is not needed, that one could always been mapped to the nubs.
But joystick and keyboard do make sense: If someone wants to write text (i.e. AmigaBasic, FinalWriter, etc.) on the emulator, it would make sense being able to switch to a keyboard mode where the DPad turns into cursor keys and the buttons into Page Up, Page Down, etc. (like it is on the Pandora).
And when you switch to joystick mode, the buttons and DPad are not mapped to the Amiga keyboard, but to the joystick. The rest of the keyboard could stay like it is.