Two WinUAE Problems

[CodyJarrett]

I've got two main problems with WinUAE at the moment (they seem to be general release problems, rather than betas). I'm using 0.8.22 Release 8, beta 5.

The first is with the save states. I use this often for HOL screengrabbing. For example, with Watchtower, I saved the state several times successfully in different files. Then on about the fourth save state WinUAE quits. A bad save state file is produced which is about half the size of the working ones and if loaded in WinUAE, the emulator freezes. This has happened on various configurations and games.

The second problem is one that has been mentioned before, I think. The WinUAE display is moved slightly to the left, so that in 320x256 size windows part of the image is missing. This happens in lo-res, as well as normal mode.

I've often wondered why the WinUAE display is so 'freeform' - for example, I would have expected it to act like a monitor display. On a real Amiga, screen positioning is not something that I notice, but on WinUAE graphics appear at different positions depending on the game. Hmmm, perhaps I'm not being very clear.

Do I need any other sort of info for these bug reports?

[CodyJarrett]

I've uploaded two bad and one good save state to the Zone.

[Fjrb]

Originally posted by CodyJarrett

The second problem is one that has been mentioned before, I think. The WinUAE display is moved slightly to the left, so that in 320x256 size windows part of the image is missing. This happens in lo-res, as well as normal mode.

I've often wondered why the WinUAE display is so 'freeform' - for example, I would have expected it to act like a monitor display. On a real Amiga, screen positioning is not something that I notice, but on WinUAE graphics appear at different positions depending on the game. Hmmm, perhaps I'm not being very clear.

You are, both of these happen to me too

[Toni Wilen]

On a real Amiga, screen positioning is not something that I notice

Try looking again.. You don't have "load state" function on real thing so noticing it isn't that easy

Many programs use "nonstandard" display start and stop positions. (but first make sure centering is not enabled)

The second problem is one that has been mentioned before, I think. The WinUAE display is moved slightly to the left, so that in 320x256 size windows part of the image is missing. This happens in lo-res, as well as normal mode.

See above. It seems I really have to find Bernd's great explanation why automatic centering simply can't ever work correctly. (combine two nearly freely configurable "display windows", copper tricks and sprites and you can't tell the difference between "screen" and background)

Statefile trouble: testing..

[thomas]

The reason why a 320x256 window does only show part of the screen is really simple: it is too small. On a real Amiga you have a possible display area of about 370x290 or something like this. And each program uses another part of this area, dependung on the user's or the author's preferences. Workbench has the Overscan program to let the user choose the preferred display region, but most game ignore Workbench settings.

Perhaps one could implement a scroll bar on the left and on the bottom of the screen, so the user can move WinUAE's display by hand.

[CodyJarrett]

Originally posted by thomas
The reason why a 320x256 window does only show part of the screen is really simple: it is too small.

I don't have a problem with displays that are bigger than 320x256 not fitting into a 320x256 screen!

Most Amiga games do fit into 320x256 and the problem is with them - sometimes in WinUAE a 320x256 display is moved to the left and the screen centering options don't help.

It was only relatively recently that I started noticing this, so I'm guessing that there is a problem of some kind. I'll continue to investigate the situations where this occurs.

[andreas]

Try Crazy Seasons. I could only get the screen to center properly in WinFellow, in WinUAE this is absolutely impossible in non-(!)OpenGL mode.
With a decent lot of fiddling, OpenGL mode can make it center correctly.

Heres something else to try. Works 4 me! Get a suite called "Amiga in a box" (free) from www.emuunlimited.com or search www for AIAB if website url wrong! It will pretty much help u out al ot!!

[Djay]

Originally Posted by CodyJarrett

I don't have a problem with displays that are bigger than 320x256 not fitting into a 320x256 screen!

Most Amiga games do fit into 320x256 and the problem is with them - sometimes in WinUAE a 320x256 display is moved to the left and the screen centering options don't help.

It was only relatively recently that I started noticing this, so I'm guessing that there is a problem of some kind. I'll continue to investigate the situations where this occurs.

if you check though previous editions of winuae, and i mean like 2 years ago, you'll see the same screen problem...

as Toni rightly points programmers can write graphics and sprites slightly offset from the viewable screen area (so the sprite doesn't just appear on the left side of the screen), the background, sprite etc... is drawn and then scrolled into a viewable area...

because of this fact, programmers need to decide where the viewable screen area is and different programmers decide different areas...

if you use a sprite or picture grabber, you can scroll across to "offset" screen areas and sometimes you scroll to areas of the memory that hold the sprites etc...

i hope that makes sense!!!

allowing winuae to scroll of the viewable area using scrollbars would show this