Configuration / UI setting dominance/inconsistencies?

[Maccara]

I'm just now testing b17, but I have noticed this same behavior in various earlier versions too. IF I have time to thoroughly check UI/setting inconsistencies, I'll post results in the beta thread too.

A couple of quick checks for my sanity checking:

1. When I load a configuration which has some settings saved which are greyed out in UI, is it normal that those settings affect emulation behavior still?

2. Is it normal that the GUI saves settings in the configuration file even if they're greyed out? (making the configs dependent on what order you do them)

Those two cause, for example in the current b17, that it is "impossible" (can trick UI if done in correct order) to manually match "quick config" settings, for example, without manually editing the configuration files.

And yes, I did verify these settings (even if greyed out in UI) still affect emulation, so it is important the greyed out settings are correct still...
(CPU Emulation Speed being one, for example)

Quick start configs do seem to work fine as-is, though, as they also set the greyed out settings properly.

Just making sure if this is a known issue or something I might concentrate more on to make a proper bug report out of.

It would be also perfectly valid in the case it is meant that some "close" quick start config is _always_ selected first and then modified to taste (according to what is not greyed out). But as how the UI works currently, it is a bit misleading. Hard to say without proper documentation... (yes, I don't write docs either for my software - unless someone's paying for it )

[NewDeli]

You can use uae-configuration to specify the order in which the settings are to be changed, for a given config.


Let's say you want to change 3 settings when switching away from the Workbench to play a preinstalled game (that may sound familiar to some folks ) namely JIT, Cycle-exact and CPU More compatible.

In its current state WinUAE wouldn't let you tick CPU More compatible provided JIT is enabled.
In this thread, which I must confess contains also loads of useless info, people were urging me to disable JIT because the soundtrack from a game called Warhead wouldn't play properly.

I usually use uae-configuration to disable it precisely when a preinstalled starts along with enabling Cycle-exact, but it was not enough because if you don't first untick JIT, CPU More compatible would be grayed out in an unticked state, which would render Cycle-exact "efforts" worthless.


If you happen to have coding software abilities, I would appreciate to submit my little idea (in another thread, may be under Coder's Heaven subforum) of a WinUAE config. creator, which could make use of human readable questionnaires to output custom config.'s.

[Maccara]

I'm sorry Deleauvive, but uae-configuration is definitely not a solution to a gui config usability (and maybe logic) issue in general, and in fact enables you to tweak pretty questionable settings (emulation wise) which may or may not work as intended (YMMV, as is apparent in the thread you linked to).

And doesn't answer at all what I asked about. (if you noticed, I wasn't looking for a workaround or a fix - I have those already)

And yes, I do have "coding software abilities" - been doing that since around '82 (among other things) - but unfortunately I do not see much use for yet another config wizard for winuae (quickstart configs take care of pretty much the most common uses anyway, and should be encouraged instead of anything custom some unknowledged person conjured up).

[NewDeli]

Wow, you did slam the door at my face pretty hard . No offense taken though.

The config wizard would only apply to the Host portion, and thus wouldn't be based on assumptions about the specs. of different miggys but on the user's environment. e.g. do you have a Dolby decoder / MultiSpeaker equipment ?
No I don't -> then 'set stereo'
Yes I do -> 'set cloned stereo 5.1'
and so on...

As for your initial demand
At least, you would put for Toni in clearer terms what I found out by using uae-configuration.

While it's not unlikely other testers were aware of this issue, I am pretty sure the fact that all config.'s are tweaked "offline" by the majority of users
make it more difficult to suspect anything wrong with the GUI as soon as the config. work as intended, from start to finish (to Finnish with).

[Maccara]

Originally Posted by Deleauvive

The config wizard would only apply [snip]

If you want to post a suggestion about that in another thread, I might take a look at it and offer comments. Coding a wizard like that is trivial in general. Edit: Not offering actual coding here. Too trivial to get interested for free... (but if someone wants to implement that and needs some help I might provide some pointers - as I imagine many here would)

But I personally do not find those kind of wizards very useful, as they mostly offer "personal preference" views of "someone" anyway. For example, I do not like cloned channels in multi-speaker environment, when I know the source isn't multi-channel anyway - it's not something that should be decided simply by a simple wizard with a single question.

Also, it would make more sense to include something like this in WinUAE itself. Perhaps as part of the quick start panel (wizard button, perhaps).

But even much more useful would be to write some documentation (with facts about implemenation! NOT personal preference, but maybe suggestions and _reasoning_ for those suggestions) than to implement some personalized wizard. This might be a collaborative effort. Just sticking to Wikipedia standards about verifiability and neutrality should cover most of the issues.

[tero]

@Maccara
The gui grey out some settings to prevent some too strange or impossible combinations
'CPU emu speed' need 'cycle exact' to be unticked
JIT and RTG need a higher CPU; 68000 don't have FPU
(may this is what you mean by 'correct order',)
and yes, it's normal that all is stored in the config and that those
affect the emulation
It's a short answer but i hope it's right so far

While i did a look at the gui i found this little bug in 'CPU and FPU' tab:
I notice that JIT checkbox is greyed out when i jump from 000/010 to 020 cpu
and when i tick 030/40/60 first and then go to 020 JIT checkbox is changeable
This happens no matter of the other settings (i've tested)
also it's in 1.6.1 and beta's

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by tero

While i did a look at the gui i found this little bug in 'CPU and FPU' tab:
I notice that JIT checkbox is greyed out when i jump from 000/010 to 020 cpu
and when i tick 030/40/60 first and then go to 020 JIT checkbox is changeable
This happens no matter of the other settings (i've tested)
also it's in 1.6.1 and beta's

Not a bug. JIT is not supported in 24-bit addressing mode. (68EC020 = 24bit, 68030+ is 32bit only)

[tero]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Not a bug. JIT is not supported in 24-bit addressing mode. (68EC020 = 24bit, 68030+ is 32bit only)

i didn't see that 24bit goes unchecked when switching to higher cpu
Thx for info (i forgot the ec020 variation)

[Maccara]

Originally Posted by tero

@Maccara
The gui grey out some settings to prevent some too strange or impossible combinations
'CPU emu speed' need 'cycle exact' to be unticked
JIT and RTG need a higher CPU; 68000 don't have FPU
(may this is what you mean by 'correct order',)
and yes, it's normal that all is stored in the config and that those
affect the emulation
It's a short answer but i hope it's right so far

Yes, that's what I gathered the GUI is _supposed_ to do, but does not.

The problem is, that if I set CPU emu speed to "max" and THEN click cycle exact (which greys out emu speed) it saves the "max" setting and emulation runs fast. If I click "match a500" first then cycle exact "real" cpu speed is saved to config and then emulation runs slower (tested with sysinfo/benchmarks).

See what I mean?

Same goes with FPU emulation.

I can first set cpu=020 fpu=6881 and THEN click "cycle exact" (which greys out FPU, as it should) and when I save the configuration, it has cpu_type=68ec020/68881 cpu_model=68020 fpu_model=68881 fpu_strict=false compfpu=true.

When I run the emulation with that config, FPU is happily emulated, even though it is greyed out in GUI.

This happens with all kinds of settings which get greyed out, not just cycle exact. _All_ is saved always and _all_ affects emulation, and they _all_ are saved as set in gui even though they are greyed out.

It would make MUCH more sense, if greyed out settings would be saved with some default value they're supposed to be then.

I can now happily for example enable 'cycle exact' 020/68881 FPU emulation by doing the gui in certain order, and that can't be right.

"The gui grey out some settings to prevent some too strange or impossible combinations" IS NOT what it is doing currently - I can do whatever crazy combination of options WITH the GUI as long as I do them in correct order.

[Toni Wilen]

GUI does not actively try to prevent stupid combinations. "Don't touch if you don't know what are you doing".

You would complain about GUI being too restricted if it prevents all stupid settings..

I guess the only "proper" solution would be to remove the GUI completely and edit the configuration manually.

EDIT: I forgot: "GUI programming sucks".

EDIT2: just noticed you talked about beta, problem is that GUI was not changed when 68020 cycle exact was implemented. ("Do not talk about betas in non-beta thread")

[Maccara]

Thanks, Toni. You cleared up my confusion about how it is supposed to work.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

GUI does not actively try to prevent stupid combinations. "Don't touch if you don't know what are you doing".

So the answer is: it works as designed. I'll leave it at that then and don't try to list the "inconsistencies".

(no wonder you get some batshit crazy bugreports from time to time and require all bugs tested with "quick start" settings)

(also, now I understand why some of the "old-timers'" help to newbies does not seem to work and sometimes is flat-out wrong - I hope they also understand this and understand that not everything is as it appears in the GUI and "quick starts" is the only help they can _really_ offer oftentimes)

You would complain about GUI being too restricted if it prevents all stupid settings..

No, _I_ would edit the config file manually, now that I know they're all that matters really.

I guess the only "proper" solution would be to remove the GUI completely and edit the configuration manually.

Until you start writing proper documentation (fat chance of that happening ) that's not possible, unless you want to alienate many users. Otherwise a good solution to the "problem".

Just remove everything but the "quick start" settings (and expand them to include some variations) and move HD settings there. There, problem solved, and less work for you in the future.

Or do more of:
if (setting.cycleexact==true) setting.cpuspeed="real" type of stuff in the event handler (including the greyed out settings). Tedious, I know (but you do some of that already).

Or just remove the grey-out, as it is pretty useless as-is and just confuses users.

EDIT: I forgot: "GUI programming sucks".

Have to agree on that one.

On a side note. Do you have some kind of "direction" in mind where you might want to take the GUI? And would you accept if someone offered to "take care" of the GUI code? (not me, I don't do GUIs)

[Maccara]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

EDIT2: just noticed you talked about beta, problem is that GUI was not changed when 68020 cycle exact was implemented. ("Do not talk about betas in non-beta thread")

Sorry about that.

However, I mentioned this has happened in earlier versions too.

I just used beta now to illustrate the issue, but the mechanism is repeatable in earlier versions too (not with 68020 cycle-exact of course).

The important bit being "GUI appearance does not matter - it's what's inside the config file is what matters and greyed-out settings are to be saved as-is in config files too".

However, you have answered all the questions I had adequately, so this (non-)issue can be dropped.

EDIT: Or if you want to move this discussion to the beta thread, that's fine too, of course. I didn't put it there initially as same happens in earlier versions with some settings at least and I wasn't sure if this is by design and I certainly didn't do the testing according to "beta standards", mainly being "if it works with quick start settings, it's not an emulation bug" - which I do agree on.

[Toni Wilen]

It does not "work as designed", it is only "good enough"

There is configuration check code that should "fix" obviously bogus configurations (like 68040 + cycle exact etc.. or 4M Z2 fast + 4M chip ram) which can miss some wrong configurations -> GUI can show weird things.

Then there is GUI element enable/disable which isn't so important because "config check code" will be always run before emulation is started.

If there is problem with "config check": I most likely will fix it. Problem in GUI only: "maybe".