FS-UAE <= 2.9.x development series

[Retro-Nerd]

Sweet, works fine too.

[Retro-Nerd]

Looks like you use a "classic scanlines" look for your scanlines-nonlinear Open GL shader. I would like to try this great nonlinear effect with an alternative scanlines look/opacity. Like your scanlines-3x/4x shader. Also with different scanline dimensions just like in WinUAE, e.g. 1:1, 2:1, 1:2, 2:2 etc.

[yesplease]

>Disabled automatic port 0 joystick switching for mouse, alias mouse buttons instead

Why is it disabled ? Does it conflict with some other functionality ?

When I am coding a 2 player racing game on the Amiga, I have to switch to joystick for testing and back to mouse for developing. The now disabled automatic switch the mouse back behaviour by simple clicking it was so intuitive and transparent. Way faster and comfortable than the press F12 onscreen menu and switch the port0 to mouse and mode to mouse mode. Any chance that it will come back, maybe as a setting ?

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Looks like you use a "classic scanlines" look for your scanlines-nonlinear Open GL shader. I would like to try this great nonlinear effect with an alternative scanlines look/opacity. Like your scanlines-3x/4x shader. Also with different scanline dimensions just like in WinUAE, e.g. 1:1, 2:1, 1:2, 2:2 etc.

I like the scanlines-nonlinear-blur version myself for low-res games
(scanlines-3x/4x shader are distributable shaders written by others btw - found here: https://gitorious.org/bsnes/xml-shad...rs/OpenGL/v1.0)

The shaders I wrote are really simple - and easy to tweak. If you are more specific about what look you're after, I can probably create new one (so I don't have to do create dozens ).

(It's also a good idea to ensure optimal video settings for scanlines: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=67535).

Originally Posted by yesplease

>Disabled automatic port 0 joystick switching for mouse, alias mouse buttons instead

Why is it disabled ? Does it conflict with some other functionality ?

When I am coding a 2 player racing game on the Amiga, I have to switch to joystick for testing and back to mouse for developing. The now disabled automatic switch the mouse back behaviour by simple clicking it was so intuitive and transparent. Way faster and comfortable than the press F12 onscreen menu and switch the port0 to mouse and mode to mouse mode. Any chance that it will come back, maybe as a setting ?

It got disabled because the new approached works generally better (more user friendly) with two player games with trainers / cracktros. Less confusing I think. It shouldn't be hard to make the old behavior optional

[r.cade]

Does something have to be done to configure the database download? I gave this a try having just got a Macbook Pro, but it times out after many tries.

EDIT: I have now read the docs on this, sorry to bother you.

[FrodeSolheim]

A new development version has been released. Changes in FS-UAE 2.1.32dev:

• New option notification_duration (ms). Does not apply to warnings.
• Fixed bug in IPF handling causing Buggy Boy to not load.
• (Launcher) Scan entire directory tree for dirs with .slave files.
• (Launcher) Make sure usernames are converted to unicode.
• (Launcher) Base screenshots prefix on configuration name.
• (Launcher) Updated translations: cs [spajdr].

It is always tempting to always improve just one more thing – thereby keeping the development cycle going – but the development versions provide several advantages over the current stable version, and it is time to bring the improvements to the users of stable versions.

So please report problems if you find any. I plan to release a 2.2 release candiate soon, and a new 2.2 stable release shortly thereafter

Release notes for 2.2 will be written soon.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

• (Launcher) Scan entire directory tree for dirs with .slave files.

= Unpacked WHDLoad versions are identified correctly now and will show up in the launcher as well

[FrodeSolheim]

I have made a document outlining the important changes between 2.0 and the soon-to-be-released 2.2: http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/fs-uae-2-2-release-notes.

If you spot any errors or significant omissions, please let me know

[yesplease]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

It got disabled because the new approached works generally better (more user friendly) with two player games with trainers / cracktros. Less confusing I think. It shouldn't be hard to make the old behavior optional

Hi Frode,
I reviewed the new approach with a quite not so easy test candidate: one of my favourites multiplayer titles IK+ ;-) which needs two joysticks to play and totally rocks in terms of gameplay.

The test setup looks like this:
*1 mac
*2 usb joystick controllers connected, one is without a specific mapping file
*1 mouse
*FS UAE 2.1.31 with default setting, that is mouse in port0 and joystick in port1

now lets see what happens. When I boot the ADF

1.) it starts with a scroll text where some cracks from australia greet everybody. Which waits for a click in port0.

Each player holds one joystick in his hand. Both of them click fire to eagerly continue ;-).

FSUAE recognizes the unmapped controller by its click gives it the default mapping (simple amiga controller) and switches it to port0. Wow nice.

(in fact you can continue with mouse or joystick click in port0)

2.) I see AmigaDOS again, loading continues... Now a AlphaFlight intro pops up, it comes with a so called trainer, where you can select your cheats that is whether you will win every time even if the computer AI has done so much better than you and so on.

The trainer intro is controlled by port0, but unfortunately it expects a mouse. So we are stuck here, because the start game button can only be selected with mouse in port0. Yes its the second player fault he should not have been so eagerly clicking his joystick button unless the game is really started, because the mouse was in port0 at beginning of boot process and it should have been used to click away the first intro.

How is Pre 2.1.31 dealing with this ?
I tested this scenario with FSUAE2.1.24, there you could just click on mouse button to switch the mouse back, make your trainer selection, and start the game. In the game you press the unswitched joystick to bring it back to port0 again.

Conclusion:
From what I have seen so far. The pre31 behaviour has it advantages when you have to switch frequently between mouse and joystick in port0 in one Amiga "session". (It felt like having virtually connected two controller and a mouse at the same time.) I can't see where the new approach is more user-friendly in this specific case. But on the other hand the new approach prevents the mouse switch to port0 by accidentally clicks on mouse or mouse clicks not intended for FS UAE but for the host operating system, but this was easily repaired by clicking on joystick again.

EDIT:
Alternatives for preventing accidentally and unintended clicks:

-in the launcher at the joystick section, next to the "frequent fire" symbol, make a checkbox fixed or not fixed. If port0 selection checkbox is fixed, FS UAE would not do any automatic switching at all.

-Is it technically possible to mix the signals from mouse and joystick together into port0?

-in FSUAE let popup a "would you like or wouldn't you like to do the switch message" ?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

• New option notification_duration (ms). Does not apply to warnings.

notification_duration = 0 (also tested with 200 and 100) isn't working for screenshot and warp messages (confirmed by xpect).

i created a hdf image, but with no write permissions. naturally, WB refused to format it. it kept refusing even after i corrected the permissions on image file. only restarting fs-uae corrected it.

not sure if that's a fs-uae problem or some amiga software bug.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by yoshi314

i created a hdf image, but with no write permissions. naturally, WB refused to format it. it kept refusing even after i corrected the permissions on image file. only restarting fs-uae corrected it.

not sure if that's a fs-uae problem or some amiga software bug.

I would say that is behaving as intended.

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by yesplease

From what I have seen so far. The pre31 behaviour has it advantages when you have to switch frequently between mouse and joystick in port0 in one Amiga "session". (It felt like having virtually connected two controller and a mouse at the same time.) I can't see where the new approach is more user-friendly in this specific case. But on the other hand the new approach prevents the mouse switch to port0 by accidentally clicks on mouse or mouse clicks not intended for FS UAE but for the host operating system, but this was easily repaired by clicking on joystick again.

Yes, I understand what you mean, and the feature is definitively useful. I just got seconds thoughts when I started to accidentally switch myself ;-)

What I have done now - for the next development version:
* disabled autoswitch also for joystick devices,
* mouse buttons are also aliased to fire and 2nd button when a joystick is inserted in port 0.
* a new joystick_port_0_autoswitch (=1) to enable the autoswitch behavior as it was in 2.1.30.

So while I sleep on this one, at least you'll be able to enable the full autoswitch behavior

Originally Posted by yesplease

-Is it technically possible to mix the signals from mouse and joystick together into port0?

Well, you wouldn't want small accidental mouse movements to ruin a joystick-controlled game anyway ;-) (Aliasing button clicks is one thing, mouse motion is something else entirely).

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

notification_duration = 0 (also tested with 200 and 100) isn't working for screenshot and warp messages (confirmed by xpect).

Because the hud was initialized very early, the config setting only worked when used via program arguments (which is what I tested with). This will be fixed in the next version

Originally Posted by yoshi314

i created a hdf image, but with no write permissions. naturally, WB refused to format it. it kept refusing even after i corrected the permissions on image file. only restarting fs-uae corrected it.

not sure if that's a fs-uae problem or some amiga software bug.

Like prowler said, everything works like it should It's neither a FS-UAE problem nor an Amiga software bug. The hdf is opened when you start FS-UAE, and the file is kept open, so changing file permissions while FS-UAE is running will not have any effect.

[yesplease]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

What I have done now - for the next development version:
* disabled autoswitch also for joystick devices,
* mouse buttons are also aliased to fire and 2nd button when a joystick is inserted in port 0.
* a new joystick_port_0_autoswitch (=1) to enable the autoswitch behavior as it was in 2.1.30.

I think thats a quite good and resonable solution now. That is when automatic=1 then this includes mouse AND joystick. Only one of them automatic is more problematic than helpful. And also good is the option to have a pure mode where no port0 automatic interferes at all in case of conflicts ! I am very happy with this now.
What is the default setting ? Will it make someday its way to the joystick section in launcher ? (make a lock symbol next to the autofire symbol, that would rock)

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

Well, you wouldn't want small accidental mouse movements to ruin a joystick-controlled game anyway ;-) (Aliasing button clicks is one thing, mouse motion is something else entirely).

Yep, knew before that this is problematic since the signals are quite incompatible, but we humans flew to the moon aren't we ?

[nexusle]

Before you release version 2.2 as official, I think, you should create the ability to use the database without an user account. I mean a read only access for everyone

[FrodeSolheim]

Version 2.1.33:

* New boolean option joystick_port_0_autoswitch to enable the feature where a device is automatically inserted into port 0 when you press the primary button.
* Added new option: dongle_type.
* Fixed notification_duration when used in config file (only worked from the command line due to initialization order).
* Use GCC optimization level O0 instead of O2 for cpuemu*, since a bug was found caused by the optimizer (where basically (1 ^ 0) & (1 ^ 0) was evaluated to 0). This fixes Tower of Babel (IPF).
* Updated translations: fi [GoingDown], es [albconde], pt [xpect].
* (Launcher) Restrict A1000 and A600 models to use only one specific kickstart by default (similar to the other models) for game db compat.
* (Launcher) Amiga <-> Host file name conversion for FS-UAE when using WHDLoad variants with the online database [TheCyberDruid].
* (Launcher) Updated translations: fi [GoingDown], pl [grimi], cs [spajdr], es[albconde], de [nexusle], pt [xpect].

http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/download-devel

[jbl007]

Hi there!

It would be really nice to have some kind of action_autofiretoggle, so we can map this to a specific gamepad button:

joystick_0_button_10 = action_autofiretoggle

...or even better: have a separate button on the pad witch auto-fires:

joystick_0_button_1 = action_joy_1_fire_button
joystick_0_button_2 = action_joy_1_autofire_button

This would become handy, e.g. if you play Turrican and wanna use this beam-thingy.
Any thoughts about this?

BTW: While F12+p is working, "action_pause" mapped to a button is not. Is this a bug or is it just not yet implemented?

[FrodeSolheim]

Version 2.1.34:

* Updated translations: it [speedvicio], fr [Foul], sr [Milanchez].
* (Launcher) Accept gzip-encoded database changes.
* (Launcher) Support x_whdload_version = 13.0 and 10.0.
* (Launcher) Updated translations: it [speedvicio], fr [Foul], sr [Milanchez].

http://fengestad.no/fs-uae/download-devel

Originally Posted by yesplease

What is the default setting ? Will it make someday its way to the joystick section in launcher ? (make a lock symbol next to the autofire symbol, that would rock)

The default setting is no auto-switch for now, and no GUI for it on 2.2 either at this time (but you can enable the option globally in custom settings in FS-UAE Launcher). I'll reconsider the default later, and a GUI setting in preferences is easy to do, but were not included due to "strings freeze" for 2.2 ;-)

Originally Posted by nexusle

Before you release version 2.2 as official, I think, you should create the ability to use the database without an user account. I mean a read only access for everyone

I think more features are needed first - for example the option to create an account via the Launcher, so non-registered users can be able to contribute fixes instead of "giving up", and there should also be more information about the database feature (in the Launcher UI). Also, more changes/features are planned for the database itself, and currently it is useful to be able to contact all (beta) users with important information if necessary. There's no list of specific things which must be done before the database feature can be officially opened - but there should be one soon...

FS-UAE 2.2. is released now (rather than later) because 2.2 will be better than 2.0, and 2.0 users deserve an upgrade. 2.4 is a more realistic target for opening up the database to a larger audience (Though anyone will get a beta account at any time by contacting me ).

Originally Posted by jbl007

Hi there! It would be really nice to have some kind of action_autofiretoggle, so we can map this to a specific gamepad button:

joystick_0_button_10 = action_autofiretoggle

...or even better: have a separate button on the pad witch auto-fires:

joystick_0_button_1 = action_joy_1_fire_button
joystick_0_button_2 = action_joy_1_autofire_button

This would become handy, e.g. if you play Turrican and wanna use this beam-thingy.
Any thoughts about this?

Good ideas, though just action_autofiretoggle is "problematic" because the auto-fire toggle is per-port. It is possible to map this feature to joystick buttons by using the joystick/gamepad config files (these do not contain FS-UAE options!), for example:
button_10 = toggle_autofire

A while ago, I added a general left_trigger = toggle_autofire to gamepads, but I seem to have forgot to add it to a config file used when you configure a gamepad via the configuration tool in FS-UAE Launcher.

Originally Posted by jbl007

BTW: While F12+p is working, "action_pause" mapped to a button is not. Is this a bug or is it just not yet implemented?

It's simply not implemented. The documentation is a bit misleading, because it list some "input events" for WinUAE which does nothing in FS-UAE. I agree this should be implemented

In general, the shortcut handling in FS-UAE should be rewritten so many more (all) actions can be bound to key combinations.

[OlafSch]

Is it possible to enable JIT on Windows? (i need it to test my distribution)

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

Is it possible to enable JIT on Windows? (i need it to test my distribution)

Not without some coding / debugging ;-) Last I checked, FS-UAE crashed when JIT was enabled on Windows, so it's compiled without JIT support on Windows. I haven't really looked into the problem (could be due to other C calling convention (low level argument passing), or something else).