FS-UAE 1.1 Development Series

[AmigaOnline]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

Don't do it then (force FXT1 texture compression?). But only the text is invisible?

Yes In fact, the emulation doesn't work in this case, and almost all menus are invisible (I can see the disabled floppy drives and the FS-UAE title). I just thought that the FXT1 info could be useful for you to understand what happens (and maybe to find a way to bypass this OpenGL/driver issue).

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

But this strengthens the theory that it is a driver issue. Perhaps there is some other driver setting that is causing trouble?

I've already tried almost all combinations It's interesting because with specific settings, the well known white squares are displayed instead of the usual texts/menus.

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

Or perhaps.. the problem could be that the GPU memory is exhausted? (texture compression would reduce this problem...) If the driver has to swap textures in and out to system memory, this would surely slow things down a bit..

GPU memory = 128mb, i've already tried with 256mb too (Buffer: 8mb). Same results.

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

Quick calculation: FS-UAE uses (by default) a 1024x1024 (4MB) texture for the Amiga frames, 1024x1024 texture atlas (4MB), and a 2048x2048 - (16MB !) texture for text cache. Is there some way you can tell if you have about 24MB free GPU memory for textures?

I will investigate, but i really think that 128mb/256mb are enough (DirectX & BIOS infos)

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by AmigaOnline

GPU memory = 128mb, i've already tried with 256mb too (Buffer: 8mb). Same results.

What is this buffer? Can you post a screenshot? I reacted on this number because the text cache texture is 16 MB...

[AmigaOnline]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

What is this buffer? Can you post a screenshot? I reacted on this number because the text cache texture is 16 MB...

BIOS info I can only choose between 1mb and 8mb. I'm going to find some infos about this setting

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by AmigaOnline

BIOS info I can only choose between 1mb and 8mb. I'm going to find some infos about this setting

No, don't bother. I was just wondering if this was an OpenGL driver setting

[AmigaOnline]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

No, don't bother. I was just wondering if this was an OpenGL driver setting

You have your answer It's probably an OpenGL/driver issue since 1.1.2, but I don't know how to fix it (all official drivers all relatively old and will probably not be updated a lot )

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by AmigaOnline

You have your answer It's probably an OpenGL/driver issue since 1.1.2, but I don't know how to fix it (all official drivers all relatively old and will probably not be updated a lot )

I think we'll have to move this out of this thread. Please create a new thread with a summary of this problem, and I'll compile a test version of FS-UAE and post there using a smaller texture for the text cache (to see if the problem is related to that..)

[AmigaOnline]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

I think we'll have to move this out of this thread. Please create a new thread with a summary of this problem, and I'll compile a test version of FS-UAE and post there using a smaller texture for the text cache (to see if the problem is related to that..)

Good idea

[FrodeSolheim]

* F11 key toggles between autoscale mode and a few fixed viewports.
* Some minor rendering updates.
* Ignore viewport setting in RTG mode.
* Swap red/blue color channel when saving screenshots in BGRA mode.
* Center amiga display, not crop, when keep_aspect is 1.
* Strech overscan border to fill screen if keep_aspect is 1.
* Always set cpu_idle option.

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Foul

i can't, because, this system (sdcard) is also used in my real A1200

Not really a big problem, i will just make 2 uae config, one A1200/020 to play games / watch demos and another "SUPER" to work on a fast Workbench (copying files etc..)

This is perhaps the best minimal configuration for a compatible but high-end / fast setup:

[config]
amiga_model = A1200/020
zorro_iii_memory = 65536
video_sync = vblank

uae_gfxcard_size = 16
uae_cpu_speed = max
uae_cycle_exact = false

uae_cpu_speed = max and uae_cycle_exact = false will make it go as fast as possible (video_sync = vblank is used to disallow full video sync even at 50Hz, because this does not currently work properly with fastest possible mode.

Then, before starting a game/demo, you can run

uae-configuration cycle_exact true

(cycle_exact sets both cpu_cycle_exact and blitter_cycle_exact options) and after the game/demo has finished:

uae-configuration cycle_exact false

The guide at http://guide.abime.net/wb3.1/miscwhd.htm shows you how you can run these commands automatically with WHDLoad (haven't tested it). Just replace the actual options used with uae-configuration.

[Foul]

will check that ..

Thank you very much

edit : working great !!
re-edit: degradation ok, but restoration not, it stay in cycle_exact true cachesize 0 even if i change it in cli...

another thing ... my Workbench is french .. locale french ... azerty keyboard.. but some key are Qwerty !!! per exemple "=" is not on the "=" key but on "!"

last thing : is copy/paste between real system / Amiga enabled ? boring to type long lines in emulated Amiga (with wrong keyboard ) ctrl+c / ctrl+v (Amiga + c / Amiga + v ?) between both maybe cool

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Foul

will check that ..

Thank you very much

edit : working great !!
re-edit: degradation ok, but restoration not, it stay in cycle_exact true cachesize 0 even if i change it in cli...

It works for me... Please post log file and the commands you run in CLI / Workbench if it's not working for you.

Originally Posted by Foul

another thing ... my Workbench is french .. locale french ... azerty keyboard.. but some key are Qwerty !!! per exemple "=" is not on the "=" key but on "!"

As far as I can tell, the existing behaviour is as correct as it gets -look at the attached screenshots! (One picture is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY, the other screenshot of Keyshow in Workbench with french keyboard layout enabled)

Originally Posted by Foul

last thing : is copy/paste between real system / Amiga enabled ? boring to type long lines in emulated Amiga (with wrong keyboard ) ctrl+c / ctrl+v (Amiga + c / Amiga + v ?) between both maybe cool

No, this is not implemented.

[Foul]

uhmmm so the "=" key on real A1200 is here :



but in on a PC keyboard it's "!"



it's why when i press "=" on my PC azerty Keyboard it show "-" :

When i type "=", i want "=" on screen

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Foul

When i type "=", i want "=" on screen

Don't emulate an Amiga then

But seriously, I think it has to be this way. After all, how would it work when two symbols sharing the same key on the Amiga is split on two different keys on PC keyboards (and opposite)?.

Keys are positionally mapped, so the keyboard should behave like one would expect, seen from the Amiga perspective. -Also especially useful when software / games expects you to press keys based on physical position...

If you are really desperate, you can remap keys: http://fengestad.no/wp/fs-uae/custom-input-mapping

[Foul]

i'm not desperate, i'm using the best machine (Amiga) on the best system (Linux) with the best emulator (FS-UAE)

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Foul

i'm not desperate, i'm using the best machine (Amiga) on the best system (Linux) with the best emulator (FS-UAE)

Actually, you could probably create a keymap layout for Workbench ("French PC" or something)... -this is better than remapping FS-UAE keys, because software expecting a certain physical layout (reading scancodes) would still work as expected, but when entering text you would get = where you want it..

I don't know how these files are structured (haven't looked), but this would be a very elegant solution.

[Foul]

good idea .. will try that

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Foul

good idea .. will try that

http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/kme

[FrodeSolheim]

Hi! There have been a few days without any updates, so I though I would post a little progress report. The last few evenings have been spent trying to optimize FS-UAE, in particular for Linux and modern nVIDIA cards / vsync. The problem is that FS-UAE uses glFinish to wait until buffer flip / vblank has finished, and this call busy-waits on Linux causing the CPU to go hot (unnecessarily). On other platforms, I sleep a bit until vblank (based on estimate for next vblank time), so this is less of a problem on Windows / Mac. When sleeping on Linux, with recent OpenGL drivers, synchronization was troublesome (while it worked just fine on my laptop with an older nVIDIA chipset and older drivers).

Anyway, the point is that after struggling a while, trying out different techniques to reduce the use of CPU busy-wait wile still having perfect frame rate (unsuccessfully ), I discovered the NV_fence extension (which I did not know existed), and subsequently APPLE_fence and ARB_sync.

With these extensions, FS-UAE can poll for buffer swap after submitting the buffer swap command, and can sleep in the polling loop. The results are promising, with perfect vsync on Linux / nVIDIA with much less CPU usage. Before, FS-UAE used 130% CPU in full vsync mode, but after these modifications, it uses 30-40%, and the CPU fan does not drive me mad any longer .

I will test more, and test/use these extensions on other platforms, where available, for improved performance in vsync mode

When I have tested and polished this a bit more, I will release a new development version!

[chiark]

Superb work. I must admit one of my absolute favourite successes with FS-UAE was getting 50Hz modes on my macbook pro with SwitchResX, then having FS-UAE work perfectly to emulate my old 500... Great work.

(Please don't break it )

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by chiark

(Please don't break it )

We'll see I will require a bit help with testing soon, and if the "improved" method makes things worse for some cards/drivers/OSes, I will make it configurable, so people can choose to use the old behaviour.