Toni Wilen's CD32 Emulation Corner

[Toni Wilen]

I have finally started coding long(?) waited UAE cd.device emulation.

Working:

- CD32 CDs boots, some games even work... (Need both CD32 Kickstart ROMS) But missing CD32 pad emulation makes playing most games quite hard :)
- CD32 build-in CD Audio player "works" (accepts my fake TOC information)
- CDROM access via Amiga CD-Filesystem works

Problems:

- No CD Audio features (currently they only return fake information)
- Missing features here and there..
- Uses WinNT/2K/XP-style device access, does not work on Win9X (I don't personally care about w9x, but...)

[Steve]

Great stuff Toni. Personally I don't care for Win9x either. I'm really suprised Brian's added support for Windows 95. Why on earth would anyone want to use such an old and outdated OS? The Amiga's Workbench can run rings around Win95. WinUAE works best on 2K/XP anyway. The feature I'm most looking forward too is CD32 joypad emulation. Good work Toni.

[RetroMan]

@Toni Wilen

Wouldn´t it be possible to use the CD32 emulator that comes with IDEfix for the Joypad emulation ???? I have it on my real A1200 and it works quite well ..... hmmm, ok you have to play with keyboard, but anyway you´re able to play the game ;)

[Toni Wilen]

Wouldn´t it be possible to use the CD32 emulator that comes with IDEfix for the Joypad emulation

Probably but real CD32 pad emulation will be implemented later. I have plans to rewrite whole Joystick emulation complately. Here are some ideas:

- supports multiple PC game controllers
- mouse selection, both ports: none, pc mouse 0-? (for supporting multiplayer Lemmings!), analog controller mouse emulation
- add keyboard commands/joystick directions/CD32 pad buttons to game controller's buttons (stupid example: button 3 = SPACE, button 4 = RETURN, 5 = Green CD 32 button, 6 = joystick up, etc..)

Anything else?

[Steve]

Originally posted by Toni Wilen

- supports multiple PC game controllers
Anything else?

That will be a fantastic feature to have in WinUAE. So you can daisy chain a couple of Sidewinder joypads for 2 player games. Sweet. :)

[Drake1009]

Originally posted by RetroMan
@Toni Wilen

Wouldn´t it be possible to use the CD32 emulator that comes with IDEfix for the Joypad emulation ???? I have it on my real A1200 and it works quite well ..... hmmm, ok you have to play with keyboard, but anyway you´re able to play the game ;)

Hmmm joypad emulation on the keyboard.

I know it'd suck on the Amiga, but I'm low on multiple button joysticks (Actually I only have 1 with 2 different buttons and half the time left doesn't work).

Is it possible to get something to emulate a multiple button joystick/pad on the keyboard on the Amiga?

[Ridge]

This is great progress :)
It will be cool to see CD32 "fully" emulated.

[CodyJarrett]

It would be great news for the Amiga database project, as there are some CD32 games which I can't get screenshots of e.g. Microcosm.

[Steve]

Now there's a game I haven't played in a few years. I played it for about 5 minutes on a friends A1200 after all the hype that was behind it. It turned out to be a big steaming pile of cow poop. :) The FMV was the best thing about it and established it as a benchmark CD32 game for the others to follow. Graphically though it was fairly impressive for it's time.

[Toni Wilen]

Here is some screenshots from UAE CD32 and CDTV emulation:
CD32 Audio CD player (working 100%)

[Toni Wilen]

CDTV CD Audio player (does not work yet)

[Toni Wilen]

CDTV boot screen

[Toni Wilen]

CD32 boot screen

[RetroMan]

WOW, that´s really impressing :D Can´t hardly wait so see the next WinUAE release to test myself ..... uhm, btw. does anyone know how to read/transfer the CD³² bios for any chance ??

[Akira]

Originally posted by steve_b
Personally I don't care for Win9x either. I'm really suprised Brian's added support for Windows 95. Why on earth would anyone want to use such an old and outdated OS?

I won't 'upgrade' to a new OS, I run Windows 98.I hate the Wintel mindfuck.

Anyway, great work there, Toni. Looking excellent! (even if i cant use it. doh)

[ninjaw]

great great great

to grab 'bios' or rom you just have to link your cd32 to amiga with a kit and then you can launch a tool from aminet that will do the job (it will grab the rom to ram, and then you can of course copy the cd32 ram to amiga)

And for Microcosm there is of course lots of screenshots on cd32.ninjaw.com but none at perfect quality, yep

[Toni Wilen]

News about my UAE CD32 emulation.. CD32 NVRAM hardware is now emulated.

"Only" one feature left: CDROM hardware. Unfortunately some games access CDROM hardware directly instead of using cd.device. These games won't work without CDROM hardware emulation. (Of course you can create game patches but my goal is to create "real" CD32 emulator)

See following url for more information and screenshots: http://www.arabuusimiehet.com/twilen/uae/cd32/

[Exodus]

Toni, what a great idea. Can't wait to play CD32 games. I don't understand how everyone will manage to get the BIOS image if they don't own an Amiga themselves and the CD32/CDTV

I just hope you make Win9x compatible with CD32/CDTV. I have no plans in upgrading my OS for at least another year. I have Windows 98, and it treats me with respect.

// You know the rules. No directly typing your signature. You really want one, take a trip to Here (http://eab.abime.net/usercp.php?s=)
Have a nice day :D

[Drake1009]

I'm using 98 on my PC and that's where I'm staying until something with propper DOS and Win games emulation is available otherplace. And for some strange reason I doubt it'd be a newer version of whinedoze.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Yeah, I use two PC's at work, one with W98 and one with W2k. The software I use (Quark Xpress, Adobe Photoshop, ACDSee, CuteFTP, etc.) all perform more stable under 98 than 2000 (under W2k, the crashes are far more frequent and the OS appears to be more resource hungry). Plus I hate the way they have complicated things that were once simple (like the Find command...sheesh!) and if you aren't looged on as administrator, you can't install anything but screen savers (the virus guys were at least left with an option, right?)...heck, I can't even mess with the calendar (often I need to check what day of the week a date falls on past or present and normally I do so by double-clicking the time from the tray, but only admins are allowed this in W2k!)

And Friday I got to actually 'hands-on' try XP for the first time. That has got to be the gaudiest, ugliest, faggiest, dumbed-down OS I have ever laid eyes on. Nothing could ever make me install such a tacky, garish OS on my own machine and thankfully, my employer feels the same way, so I won't have to use this at work either. It looks and feels like a kiddie web site. I was with a friend who normally defends Micro$oft, but we were both laughing hysterically in the Best Buy aisle at this atrocity.

Off-topic, but I also saw a side-by-side compare of X-Box with its competitors and, as expected, X-Box loses. But I see people drooling its way, so it seems M$ have marketed their way into the console scene even with all of the crashes and high pricetag. (sigh) At least I can say I saw their latest and know they are cack.

Sorry about these topics straying into new territory...if there are any responses to this, please do so in another thread...I just wanted to say that I won't update to W2K or XP even for WinUAE.

[Toni Wilen]

Back to on topic :)

Show me good ASPI documentation with examples and I'll immediately write w9x-compatible version. (ASPI is fortunately compatible with W2k/XP)

I have searched the net but I haven't found anything useful.

I need example code that shows when you do that, CDROM starts playing audio track X, etc.. NT4/W2K/XP-style CDROM handling is documented in Win32SDK very clearly.

I'd guess some open source PSX emulator or other CDROM based console emulator that is compatible with w9x is good starting point. Any pointers?

BTW: Very first task after installing Windows XP is to select "classic" skin and classic start menu :)

BTW2: arabuusimiehet.com is down due to HD failure, hopefully it will be back up next monday or tuesday.

[Ian]

Pete Bernert (http://home.t-online.de/home/PeteBernert/) has written a CD Rom plugin for ePSXe, that has an option for ASPI/W9x, maybe he would be able to help you out Toni.

Here's what it say's anyway, hope this will help you Toni:cheese

[Toni Wilen]

Its done, it was much easier than I thought. Cdex's (cd audio ripping tool) sources helped a lot.

Cd.device emulation uses now SCSI commands (before someone asks, yes, they work with IDE CDROM drives too, ATAPI = subset of SCSI CDROM commands)

Windows 9X/ME users must use ASPI.
Windows NT/2K/XP users can either use ASPI or SPTI (SCSI Port IOCTL, this method does not need ASPI DLLs but needs admin privileges)
Porting to non-Windows systems should be quite easy task.

I plan to release first beta some time after next official WinUAE release (maybe in 3-6 weeks or something)

Joypad buttons will be hardcoded (Configuration GUI won't be ready so soon) to PC's joystick 1 buttons and some keys. (maybe numeric keypad, not sure yet...)

[Ian]

Brilliant news, now all I need is an iso source;)

Thanks Toni:cheese

[RetroMan]

And until the release date, everyone should test Projekt 32 :D

Have a look here : http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?threadid=2741&highlight=cd32+emu%2A

@Toni

Can´t wait for your release anyway .... it´s good to see another free CD³² Emu out there ;)

[XoreX]

With all this good newes we need a CD32 section now

[Nian]

Well it sounds like this cd32 emulation will rock. but now you need to emulate the nonvolatile memory and the akiko c2p.

To be honest I have been busting for a cd32 emulator as I own more than a dozen cd32 games but have no cd32 to play them on. Oh and if you want 2 games to try the emulator, have a go with Simon The Sorcerer and Super Star Dust.

[Toni Wilen]

CD32 CDROM hardware is now emulated! (not perfect but most games, even CDROM controller hardware banging like Cannon Fodder, load without bad problems...)

All CD32 specific features are now emulated:
- joypad buttons
- c2p
- nvram
- cdrom

Beta release date: "in two weeks" :)

Device level cd.device emulation isn't anymore needed. (Maybe I should change the topic..)

[CodyJarrett]

Does this mean that it will work in Windows 9x?

[Toni Wilen]

Yes. I tested it with 300MHz K6-2/48MB/W98SE. Of course it was ultra-slow :)

http://www.arabuusimiehet.com/twilen/uae/cd32/ will have more information soon (if the server stays up...)

I still need to merge new WinUAE specific features to my source tree. My sources are still based on 0.8.17R2 + most patches from 0.8.20 + my own misc patches -> my tree is quite unstable and full of debug crap...

[Ian]

I had some question, but on reflection they not important, I can wait 2 weeks to find out for myself:)

Congrat's Toni, I don't know wait years for a CD32 emualtor and then 2 come along at once;)

And reading between the line's, a new version of WinUAE in 2 weeks aswell.......Woo-Hoo:D

You guy's did know it was christmas LAST month:p

[stainy]

I just want to know whether this rom : kickstart 3.1 (40.060)(cd32)(Commodore)(1993) is the right rom for cd32 emulation in the new winuae??

Or am I barking up the wrong tree here ? :( I got all these isos, and I can`t try em out.. I`ve tried everything to get this working :( anyone let me know???

Thanks;)

[jmmijo]

@Stainy, I've not tried that one out yet either. Guess since you have perhaps I'll wait until Toni responds.

[Toni Wilen]

I just want to know whether this rom : kickstart 3.1 (40.060)(cd32)(Commodore)(1993) is the right rom for cd32 emulation in the new winuae??

Seems to be correct, but you also need extended ROM. CD32 have two 512KB ROMs, another is located at normal kickstart memory area and the other at 0xe00000-0xe7ffff. Both are needed. (extended ROM contains cd device driver, boot animation, cda player etc.. it is basically special workbench "ROM")

[stainy]

Thats the rom I was trying to use for the extended rom :(

I guess I need to get hold of this special one after all :(

Thanks Toni for clearing it up:cool

[stainy]

That loverly cd32 boot screen is sooooo nice :)






btw, got me a extended rom :)


superb stuff, some tweaking needed and I`ll be flying

[Ian]

... Whooo-hoooo Tower Assualt intro (See pic:D)

Two more words ... Boo-hoo, it crashed WinUAE with a run-time error shortly after I took the snap, any idea on this one Toni?

A pre-emtive question answering session;)

Yes I have the extended rom's.

CPU set to fasted possible (Doesn't work with A500 speed).

Jit set to 8 meg.

Fast copper enabled.

AGA mode on.

Full sprite collisions.

No floppies emulated.

Anything else you need to know just ask:)