FS-UAE Development Series

[FrodeSolheim]

This is the main discussion thread for the FS-UAE development series, which is kicked off with the new 2.1.0dev version. I will *probably* attach "dev" to all version numbers in the development series just to clarify that it is a development version.

FS-UAE 2.1.0dev http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/download-devel

- Merged updated emulation core from WinUAE 2.5.0beta21.
- FS-UAE mman updated to work more like the WinUAE implementation.
- Ejecting CD images works now, enabled menu option.
- Added auto-fire toggle mechanism to F12 menu.
- Auto-fire support, new boolean options joystick_port_x_autofire.
- Added support for Amiga mouse wheel and middle mouse button.
- (Launcher) Added button to configure auto-fire per joystick port.

This version implements some nice and requested features Emulation core is updated from the latest available code from Toni Wilen, with some nice emulation accuracy improvements!

Because of the code merge, and because the mman module has been rewritten, there is a greater chance than usual that something does not work. -But it looks good in my tests.

To get a mman behavior which mirrors the WinUAE code more closely, malloc is used to "reserve" memory on non-Windows platforms, and this relies on over-commit features in the Linux/Mac kernels where the memory is not actually allocated before the pages are accessed (not tested on FreeBSD yet). This is a bit experimental, so let me know if it crashes

EDIT: Well, it was the latest WinUAE code available for a few minutes...

[nexusle]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

- Ejecting CD images works now, enabled menu option.

Hi Frode,

this works to 50 %

If I insert the image of the AmigaOS 3.9 CDROM and eject this Disc, the backdroped folder "Emergency-Boot" stay on top of Workbench...

[Foul]

- Added support for Amiga mouse wheel and middle mouse button.

yes !!

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by nexusle

Hi Frode,

this works to 50 %

If I insert the image of the AmigaOS 3.9 CDROM and eject this Disc, the backdroped folder "Emergency-Boot" stay on top of Workbench...

Can you post a screenshot of how it looks when you have ejected the CD, and then close down FS-UAE and also attach the log file?

Originally Posted by Foul

- Added support for Amiga mouse wheel and middle mouse button.
yes !!

Mouse wheel / scrolling works fine, but middle mouse button also releases the input grab, which makes it a bit akward to actually use the middle mouse button -Is using the middle mouse button useful? if so, an option to disable middle mouse grab/ungrab behavior is also needed.

[B14ck W01f]

Thanks for releasing this emulator, and making it Mac compatible. I will be switching to Mac, and if I can't get WinUAE to work (through VMWare Fusion), it would be my main program I'll use.

[bcripon]

Originally Posted by B14ck W01f

Thanks for releasing this emulator, and making it Mac compatible. I will be switching to Mac, and if I can't get WinUAE to work (through VMWare Fusion), it would be my main program I'll use.

If you decide to get a Mac, I am betting you will find the WinUAE performance in VMWare Fusion to be unsatisfying. First of all, Fusion (like Parallels and the rest) creates a virtual video card that is pretty wimpy. It is fine for running applications like Office, but I found the video performance on my 2011 iMac to be pretty bad when running WinUAE on Fusion. Megaball 4 was particularly hard to play when the video appeared to stutter.

WinUAE (actually, I ran Amiga Forever 2012) runs better under Wine. However, I still had to mess with it a bit and run it in a virtual desktop to get rid of some screen redraw problems. It was usable though.

I just find FS-UAE to be the best way to run Amiga software on your Mac. It can take full advantage of the Mac's video card (like Wine does) and it acts like a real Mac application. Frode has also done a nice job of documenting FS-UAE.


Bob C

[ransom1122]

Thanks Frode,

have joined the thread, and will continue to use the dev version

[spajdr]

Frode : Android version please! :-)

[FrodeSolheim]

FS-UAE 2.1.1dev http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/download-devel

• Merged updated emulation core from WinUAE 2.5.0beta23.
• Gamepad button “left trigger” toggles auto-fire, GUI message is displayed when auto-fire mode is toggled.
• New option hard_drive_x_file_system to specify file system handler, for instance path to SmartFilesystem.
• New option hard_drive_x_controller to specify HD controller.
• New option hard_drive_x_type to force RDB mode if RDB cannot be autodetected (unpartitioned/blank disk image).
• (Launcher) hard_drive_x can be http(s) URL and the HD will be downloaded on demand and used like a local file. URL must end with a “normal file name”.
• (Launcher) Use wxversion.select to ensure 2.8 is used if also older versions of wxPython are installed.

Originally Posted by spajdr

Frode : Android version please! :-)

It is time to add "Will FS-UAE be ported to ... ?" to the FAQ -Here is the FAQ entry:

I have received several questions regarding whether I will port FS-UAE to other systems, such as:

• Android
• iOS
• AROS / MorphOs / AmigaOS
• Windows RT (Microsoft Surface)
• Pandora
  

I am sure porting to many of these systems could be an interesting challenge, but in the end, it comes down to this: I can choose to spend (much) time on such ports, or I can spend time improving FS-UAE for the already supported platforms (Windows, OS X, Linux and FreeBSD). I have many features I still want to implemented, so I think my time is better spent improving FS-UAE and developing related software.

But because I have Android devices myself, and will likely continue to use Android in years to come, a future Android port is not unlikely

I am not interested in developing FS-UAE for closed systems such as iOS and Windows RT, where the only way to install software is via the official application store, and where Apple and Microsoft, respectively, unilaterally decides whether to allow software distribution or not.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to update download links on http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/download-devel -is fixed now.

[spajdr]

Thanks Frode, good to know that Android have the chance to be released soon or later :-)

[Thomas Magnum]

Hey Frode,

i get an FS-UAE Launcher error request after 2.1.1dev install when starting up the launcher - find the log attached.

Best,
Thomas

[Onaryc]

Hi,

I remember there were a wanted feature thread but i can't find it so i post my wish list here :
* when one load a HD file i think it would be nice to have the WHDLoad argument field automatically fill with the *.slave file.
* The launcher is perfect to configure things but i think it would be great if all those configurations can be access in the in-ui menu (something like wiiflow would be awsome, using your data base).

Thanks again for FS-UAE

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Thomas Magnum

Hey Frode,

i get an FS-UAE Launcher error request after 2.1.1dev install when starting up the launcher - find the log attached.

Best, Thomas

Hi, the 2.1.1dev wxversion fix messed up the Windows and Mac distributions of FS-UAE Launcher . I put out a 2.1.1dev2 update on the download-devel page, as soon as I was aware of the problem!

Originally Posted by Onaryc

Hi, I remember there were a wanted feature thread but i can't find it so i post my wish list here :
* when one load a HD file i think it would be nice to have the WHDLoad argument field automatically fill with the *.slave file.

I am planning to implement this

Originally Posted by Onaryc

* The launcher is perfect to configure things but i think it would be great if all those configurations can be access in the in-ui menu (something like wiiflow would be awsome, using your data base).
Thanks again for FS-UAE

There will be a full-screen cover browser / game browser controllable with gamepads, with a similar style to the FS-UAE UI, but it might be realized through a separate program for practical reasons I usually refer to this picture. It's not vaporware, but it's not ready for public distribution either.

[Onaryc]

Just Great!!! Winuae is one of the best emulator out there but i always though that the interface was not user friendly enough when you just want to play games.

[nexusle]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

[*]New option hard_drive_x_controller to specify HD controller.

Have tested this...

If I use

hard_drive_0_controller = ide

the device is still uaehf.device and not scsi.device

RDB harddisks works now perfectly!

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by nexusle

Have tested this... If I use hard_drive_0_controller = ide the device is still uaehf.device and not scsi.device RDB harddisks works now perfectly!

That's because it should be:

hard_drive_0_controller = ide0

(or ide1, ide2, ...)

RDB hard drive images work automatically out of the box, no special configuration needed.

(An exception is when the RDB image isn't partitioned yet. It is not yet an RDB image, missing the RDSK header, and FS-UAE will assume it is an partition image instead. It is in this case that the option hard_drive_0_type = rdb is useful).

To repeat Toni's warning for other readers here, don't use hard_drive_0_controller = ide0 unless you know what you're doing! You normally won't need to use it.

[nexusle]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

RDB hard drive images work automatically out of the box, no special configuration needed.

But not, if I create a file with the Mac OS X Hard Disk Tool before . This I had tested :P

[waal]

Originally Posted by nexusle

But not, if I create a file with the Mac OS X Hard Disk Tool before . This I had tested :P

What's this ? An app ?
Sorry if I go slightly off-topic but how can I create an HDF on Mac OS X ?

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by waal

What's this ? An app ?
Sorry if I go slightly off-topic but how can I create an HDF on Mac OS X ?

Yes, slighly off topic, but hey.. try something like this (should work of Linux, OS X and other Unices):

dd if=/dev/zero of=test.hdf bs=1024 count=32768

This will create a 32 MB file with all zero bytes. Set count to 262144 (1024*256) for a 256 MB file, etc.

[Speedvicio]

frode this is the error message for me in fs-uae last dev on linux mint

...
preinit_shm
- VirtualAlloc 0x57f00000 537919488 2105344 4
MEM_RESERVE
init_shm
doinit_shm
...
cache_alloc size = 4096
- VirtualAlloc (nil) 4096 4096 64
MEM_COMMIT
Errore di segmentazione

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Speedvicio

frode this is the error message for me in fs-uae last dev on linux mint

Hi! I managed to reproduce a similar crash by downloading and running the i386 deb on my AMD64 Ubuntu 12.10 system, so I'm on the case..! (The i386 version does not crash on system it was built, btw).

Do you run the i386 version on a 64-bit OS?

[Speedvicio]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

Hi! I managed to reproduce a similar crash by downloading and running the i386 deb on my AMD64 Ubuntu 12.10 system, so I'm on the case..! (The i386 version does not crash on system it was built, btw).

Do you run the i386 version on a 64-bit OS?

No Frode, i'm running a i386 deb on 32 bit os

This problem appear from first 2.1.x devel release

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Speedvicio

No Frode, i'm running a i386 deb on 32 bit os
This problem appear from first 2.1.x devel release

Does this version fix the problem?
http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/devel/2.1...ev3-0_i386.deb

[Speedvicio]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

Does this version fix the problem?
http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/devel/2.1...ev3-0_i386.deb

Great Frode, working perfect

[Onaryc]

Hi,

I try to follow the compilation instructions (http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/compiling) for windows (win7 64 in my case) and it was not so easy

Here the way i succeeded :

1. install mingw and msys : ok no problem
2. get glib, zlib, libpng and gettext-runtime compiled versions from http://www.gtk.org/download/win32.php : ok
3. unpack them in the mingw directory : ok
4. for SDL, i get the SDL dev version for mingw (http://www.libsdl.org/download-1.2.php) i unpack to my msys users directory (C:\Users\Onaryc\Travail\MinGW\msys\1.0\home\Onaryc) and execute the "make native" command in a msys shell : this was not cleary explain in the compilation instructions
5. extremely important, get the pkg-config tool here http://www.gtk.org/download/win32.php and unpack it in the mingw directory.
6. get the openal-soft from here http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html#download and unpack it in the mingw directory.
7. opengl lib seems to be directly included in the mingw package...
8. If you try now to execute the make command in a msys shell, you will have 2 link errors : one for libpng and the other to openal. I have to rename "libpng14.dll.a" from the lib directory of mingw to "libpng.dll.a" and copy libOpenAl32.dll.a from "lib/win32" to "lib" directory
9. after the compilation succeeded, i copy the "out/FS-UAE.exe" to the last beta installation (2.1.1dev2) and try to execute it, but "libpng14-14.dll" could'nt be found (the libpng 1.4.3 dynamic library) only the "libpng15-15.dll" (i imagine you are using the last libpng version) was there. But after copying the correct file, it worked...

My next moves :
* try compiling with the last libpng lib and understand why i didn't have the "libpng.dll.a".
* run the launcher and learn python
* try to help with the dev (if i find the time )

ok i get the last libpng version (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/l...ar.gz?download), i unpack it into my msys directory and i launch the following commands :
./configure --prefix=/c/users/onaryc/travail/MingW
./make check
./make install

After that i "remake" FS-UAE and no more problem relative to libpng...

[FrodeSolheim]

A new development version has been released. Changes in FS-UAE 2.1.2dev:

• Fix for running from directory with non-ASCII characters on Windows.
• Use mmap to allocate executable memory on non-Windows platforms, fixes segmentation faults with i386 versions.
• Patch amiga-os-130.rom to default A500 rom on demand (3 byte diff).
• Don’t use warning-related compiler options by default, (useful for older compiler versions), enable again with make devel=1.
• Updated translations: it [Speedvicio].
• (Launcher) New setting dialog pages for video, input, scan and experimental settings, common options added to these pages.
• (Launcher) New option to disable use of built-in configurations.
• (Launcher) Can use amiga-os-130.rom as kick34005.A500 for WHDLoad, will patch on demand.
• (Launcher) amiga-os-130.rom, default A500 rom and overdumped default A500 rom can be used together in net play mode (they are all normalized to default A500 rom).
• (Launcher) Use wxversion.select to specifically choose wxPython 2.8.
• (Launcher) Fix for running from directory with non-ASCII characters, and when user’s home directory contains non-ASCII characters.

Originally Posted by Onaryc

Hi, I try to follow the compilation instructions (http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/compiling) for windows (win7 64 in my case) and it was not so easy Here the way i succeeded

Thanks for posting the steps you performed. I know the page currently only contain very high-level instructions. I have linked to your post from the compilation page

[nexusle]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

dd if=/dev/zero of=test.hdf bs=1024 count=32768

This will create a 32 MB file with all zero bytes. Set count to 262144 (1024*256) for a 256 MB file, etc.

This way works too...

For OS X I mean the "Disk Utility" found in "/Applications/Utilities"

@Frode

Does FS-UAE support images that grows with stored data?

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by nexusle

Does FS-UAE support images that grows with stored data?

Good question! Not officially, but WinUAE seems to support growable VHD files (and the VHD code is included in FS-UAE as well), and the WinUAE lets you create "dynamic HDF". So the answer is: yes, probably.

(A quick glimpse at the code, it seems "dynamic HDF" in WinUAE creates a dynamic VHD file).

[Foul]

is it normal 2 screens are saved with "print screen" key ? i got one "normal" and one cropped...

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Foul

is it normal 2 screens are saved with "print screen" key ? i got one "normal" and one cropped...

Yes, this is by design The cropped version could in theory be overcropped (loss of data), but if FS-UAE already automatically zooms nicely, why should you have to crop it manually? The cropped version corresponds to what part of the Amiga display you see. There could have been different keyboard shortcuts etc, but this way is simple and quite foolproof.

The screenshot types have different prefixes so it easy to delete either group if you take many screenshots and want to keep either just the full or the crop versions.

[Foul]

oki

[nexusle]

The cropped image could also be used for in-game-screenshots for the database ;-)

[FrodeSolheim]

A new development version has been released. Changes in FS-UAE 2.1.3dev:

• New option “mouse_speed” – set mouse speed in percentage(1-500).
• Escape key can be used to navigate back and exit FS-UAE menu.
• Use new state subdirs based on configuration name ny default. New options state_dir and state_dir_name to tweak the new behavior.
• Remove use of “Floppy Overlays” and “Flash Memory” dirs, save files in state directory instead (same as launcher already does).
• Will autoload saved state if “Saved State.uss” exists in state dir.
• Merged updated emulation core from WinUAE 2.5.0beta24.
• New option middle_click_ungrab (can be set to 0).
• Updated translations: pl [grimi], de [nexusle].
• Patch amiga-os-310.rom to default A4000 rom on demand.
• Removed the default slight gamma correction which was applied before.
• (Launcher) Automatically fill in WHDLoad Arguments when zip file is loaded.
• (Launcher) Screenshots/titles/covers don’t need to be put in letter subdirs.
• (Launcher) Use direct subdirs in save states dir, don’t add letter unless an old state dir already exists.
• (Launcher) Added many more options to the settings dialog, including the new mouse speed option.
• (Launcher) Updated translations: pl [grimi], de [nexusle].

The state dir change is not backwards compatible unfortunately, but I think it is for the better, and makes FS-UAE standalone behavior same as using FS-UAE with the Launcher. No data is lost though, old floppy overlays and state files are kept where they are, and they can be moved other to the new per-configuration state dir when necessary. (The per-configuration state dir is created while FS-UAE is running, and is deleted on shutdown if there is no state). If you use FS-UAE Launcher, you should not notice anything.

[rofl0r]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

FS-UAE 2.1.1dev http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/download-devel[*](Launcher) Use wxversion.select to ensure 2.8 is used if also older versions of wxPython are installed.

wait, does that mean i have to have python, wxwidgets, *and* a python wrapper for that, installed in order to compile FS-UAE ?

i was considering adding FS-UAE to my lightweight linux distro, but many dependencies will make that hard or unpractical.

do you have a list of all required compile-time/runtime deps ?

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by rofl0r

wait, does that mean i have to have python, wxwidgets, *and* a python wrapper for that, installed in order to compile FS-UAE ?

i was considering adding FS-UAE to my lightweight linux distro, but many dependencies will make that hard or unpractical.

do you have a list of all required compile-time/runtime deps ?

No, these requirements are for FS-UAE Launcher only. The library dependencies for FS-UAE are listed here: http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/compiling (SDL 1.2, libpng, zlib, glib (2.24 or newer), OpenAL / OpenAL Soft, OpenGL). Build dependencies are also listed there.

FS-UAE Launcher is pure Python code and depends on Python itself and the following Python extensions to be able to run: setuptools, wxPython, pygame.

[rofl0r]

hmm my distro doesnt have MESA, because it has a lot of dependencies and binary 3D drivers are only shipped linked against glibc ( my distro uses musl libc http://www.musl-libc.org/ ).
so currently it uses only framebuffer, which works well for other (2D) games (gnuboy, openBOR...).

it there a way to make the GL code fallback to SDL when GL is not available ?

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by rofl0r

Is there a way to make the GL code fallback to SDL when GL is not available?

There is no code in FS-UAE to render to anything but OpenGL, so no, not without writing another video renderer. I do not plan to do this for the foreseeable future.

[Milanchez]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

There is no code in FS-UAE to render to anything but OpenGL, so no, not without writing another video renderer. I do not plan to do this for the foreseeable future.

Frode, but what about OpenGL ES?
Do you plan to implement FS-UAE version for Raspberry Pi?

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Milanchez

Frode, but what about OpenGL ES?
Do you plan to implement FS-UAE version for Raspberry Pi?

I don't think I should stretch myself any thinner at this point. I would now rather concentrate on making FS-UAE and related projects better I will implement support for OpenGL ES when/if it is needed, for example if I later port FS-UAE to a device/platform with OpenGL ES.

[yesplease]

Hi Frode,
about the joystick configuration. I learned how to setup a controller file, with the joystick config tool inside the launcher. (unfortunately in osx mountain lion, it doesn't launch anymore, because Apple has deinstalled the default X11 system since this version, but it asks you whether you want to reinstall it at least)

But I have another approach. I assume the most joysticks more or less comply to the default mapping, right? (at least for simple 4 directions and fire). Why not first detect the controller files for the joysticks plugged in and use that for them (as FSUAE does already today), and additionally for plugged in joystick controllers which do not have a controller mapping file, FSUAE can just automatically map them to the most generic default mapping. That way at the end, almost every simple joystick might work out of the box, without having to bother about to specify a controller file.

I saw this for example for the "virtual c64" emulator for osx, which just understands every simple controller you plugged in.

what do you think ?