[EvilDragon]

AWESOME!

Pinball Dreams and Fantasies with perfectly smooth scrolling and great controls now!

I love you :D

PND Updated

Only problem now is the missing Hires mode, but that's not that big issue here :)

[Farox]

TitanUranus, on 29 July 2010 - 09:43 PM, said:

Very, very nice work indeed.
Personally I think the work done on this emulator in the last few months has been exceptional.

I feel the same.... :) i'm only missing my Pandora to test this emulator.........

[Michoko]

Wow! Simply impressive!! Can't wait for my Pandora to arrive!

Last week I went into my basement and found some old Amiga magazines. Such nostalgia, now I feel like reviving all those glory days! Thanks for your amazing work and to all the other developpers contributing to this great emulator!

PS: How are demos running on this emu? They can sometimes get tricky to emulate due to the various tricks they were using. I'd love to watch some classic Amiga demos again...

[Clyborg]

Nice!

Can someone with a pandora test Mechforce for me? I just want to know if how UAE4ALL handles interlaced games. Is there a way to configure the emulator to reduce flicker.

Thanks!

Jason

[john4p]

EvilDragon said:

PND Updated

Thanks!

EvilDragon, on 29 July 2010 - 09:56 PM, said:

Only problem now is the missing Hires mode, but that's not that big issue here :)

Yes, after adding EHB- and HAM-modes unfortunately hires-mode is now incorrect (the "extra memory detected"-screen and table selection-screen in Pinball Fantasies is 2x horizontally stretched). I don't know if I can fix this (at least it doesn't have an effect in-game).

UPDATE: The next commit of smoku after adding EHB- and HAM-modes was "Fixed horizontal downscaling". This fixed it.
Now I'm glad the Nokia N900 was released before Pandora, because I can just STEAL a lot of smoku's efforts. :D
I'll have a look at his latest improvements...

Will upload the corrected version in the evening.


@TitanUranus: all of your improvement wishes are possible, but I lack the knowledge to realize them. Should Chui or smoku (or someone else) add harddisk-support or more memory I could then steal the sources... ;)

@Michoko: "State of the Art" and "Odyssey" seemed to run correct when I tried them. But I don't think it can perfectly emulate every Amiga 500 demo.

@Clyborg: The flicker in interlace-mode is just like with a real Amiga 500 - it's only not as annoying when you look at the small handheld-screen. As this emu is running in lores-mode I don't think there's an easy way to reduce the flicker (in WinUAE hires-mode you can completely "disable" flicker).

This post has been edited by john4p: 30 July 2010 - 05:55 AM

[john4p]

On another note: the reason our "UAE core"-version is almost as fast as our Cyclone-version is because the "UAE core"-version actually isn't a UAE core version at all. It just uses FAME/C for the whole M68K-emulation.

FAME/C is a fast M68K-core like Cyclone - only written in C instead of Assembler and thus not quite as fast - but still much faster than the real UAE core.

Just built a real UAE core-version now and tested some games. Lionheart has even more garbled gfx in-game, Superstar Ice Hockey still freezes after 1 game and Pinball Fantasies couldn't even load the Party Land-table.
The speed was notably slower than with FAME/C.
So I won't release the UAE core-version.

I'll rename all the "UAE core"-texts in compatibility list and our runme-script in "FAME/C" - because that's what it is.

For testing purposes I'll still upload a real UAE core-executable here, too, so one could try if there is a game that doesn't work with Cyclone and FAME/C but does with UAE core.
Should there be games that need the UAE core version, too, then I'd later release a pack with all 3 cores (Cyclone, FAME/C and UAE core). Btw., savestates also work with the real UAE core.

[SteveM]

Nice update! The extra video mode support is great.

john4p, on 30 July 2010 - 07:28 AM, said:

The flicker in interlace-mode is just like with a real Amiga 500 - it's only not as annoying when you look at the small handheld-screen. As this emu is running in lores-mode I don't think there's an easy way to reduce the flicker (in WinUAE hires-mode you can completely "disable" flicker).

I'd have thought it must be possible to deinterlace whilst rendering by drawing the lines between each other instead of scaling them up. You would lose a few lines in PAL interlaced this way, but no more actual screen area than when chopping 256 non-interlaced lines down to 240. NTSC (400 lines) would of course fit fine one-to-one.

[john4p]

There is a "Remove interlace artifacts"-mode in WinUAE (and E-UAE):

Quote

Works perfectly in WB, not so perfect in games yet (and impossible to get perfect in all cases, as usual..) No more interlace artifacts when any graphics object or mouse pointer moves. NOTE: first and last line will flicker or show garbage.

Technical details: normal interlaced display goes like this: draw even lines (0, 2, 4, etc..), next frame draws odd lines (1, 3, 5..).
This makes 25Hz refresh rate and also causes interlace artifacts when objects move. ["Remove interlace artifacts"-mode] draws both fields simultaneously, even lines = 0,1*,2,3*,4,5* and odd lines (0*,1,2*,3..).
* = draw display using bitplane pointers stored during previous frame

Maybe some day...
(Though it's not very important because few Amiga 500-games use interlace mode aside from title screens.)

This post has been edited by john4p: 30 July 2010 - 08:21 AM

[smoku]

TitanUranus, on 29 July 2010 - 08:43 PM, said:

[...] it really shows there is interest in developing stuff on the pandora.

Actually these were implemented for N900 :lol:

Quote

Turbo loading is available in UAE, but how easy would it be to add to UAE4all? Also, any chance of emulating more memory? And my final question - are hard drive files ever likely to be supported?

I have plans for porting more features from E-UAE to UAE4ALL ME, so they will eventually land on Pandora's version too :)


P.S. Chui is reachable via e-mail and did help me a lot answering questions and pointing things. He has no time for developing stuff anymore, but is glad to help.

This post has been edited by smoku: 30 July 2010 - 09:06 AM

[john4p]

smoku, on 30 July 2010 - 11:04 AM, said:

I have plans for porting more features from E-UAE

[NickLoTurco]

When you say Pinball Dreams and Fantasies are working perfectly, you mean even the flashing lights on the tables? All the graphics are perfect?

[john4p]

The addition of the "extra halfbright"-mode fixed that (see screenshot on previous page).

This post has been edited by john4p: 30 July 2010 - 11:28 AM

[mosschops]

smoku, on 30 July 2010 - 10:04 AM, said:

TitanUranus, on 29 July 2010 - 08:43 PM, said:

[...] it really shows there is interest in developing stuff on the pandora.

Actually these were implemented for N900 :lol:

Quote

Turbo loading is available in UAE, but how easy would it be to add to UAE4all? Also, any chance of emulating more memory? And my final question - are hard drive files ever likely to be supported?

I have plans for porting more features from E-UAE to UAE4ALL ME, so they will eventually land on Pandora's version too :)


P.S. Chui is reachable via e-mail and did help me a lot answering questions and pointing things. He has no time for developing stuff anymore, but is glad to help.

would having Pandora hardware endear you to doing more work on the emu for the pandora or even generally?

[smoku]

N900 is not really fitted as a game console. Arcade games are horrible to play without using PS3 DS controller.
So for now I am more interested in porting and improving ports of mouse (touch screen) based games: Widelands, Bos Wars, Freeciv, LinCity, etc. as this is what I play while commuting to work. (N900 resistive screen with stylus is perfect for that).
Since most emulated games are arcade ones, I have less interest in improving emulators. With one exception - I do like to play Tekken3 on TV using dualshock.

I guess this is general point missed by most non-coder community members of all open source based communities.
We (mostly) do not code, port and hack software because we like the process (it's tedious and mostly boring), we want to make world better (well... maybe the closest one), or seek community appraisal. We do this to fulfill our own needs. To scratch the itch.
I ported PCSX and PSX4ALL because I love Tekken3. I ported E-UAE and UAE4ALL because I wanted to watch SOTA whenever I want. I ported Widelands because I loved to play Settlers and still love it. Etc. etc.

So yes. If I would buy Pandora this would naturally incline me to work on software for it.
But since I already own N900 I do not really want to spend money on another gadget which I may or may not find use for.

But since it's the same hardware and software basically, you may enjoy my improvements on Pandora and I may enjoy Pandora improvements on N900.
It's pity though that GP2X and Pandora developers do not share the habit of sharing the (even GPLed) source alongside with binaries, like we Linux folks do and we (maemo people) need to resort to begging GP2X/Pandora devs for the sources.

This post has been edited by smoku: 30 July 2010 - 11:52 AM

[john4p]

What you said holds true for me, too. I did the "UAE4All additions" because the main reason I've bought the Pandora was to be able to play Amiga games fullspeed on a handheld.
Since 99% of my favorite Amiga games are OCS/ECS-titles not having AGA-support isn't a big deal currently.
Of course it would be nice to be able to play Banshee or Slam Tilt, too...

I'll upload the latest sources today (had no time yesterday and there were still some bugs I've fixed today anyway).

This post has been edited by john4p: 30 July 2010 - 12:15 PM