RunInUAE beta: Now with floppy drive noises!

I am releasing a beta version of RunInUAE r3 for testing & feedback:
http://cshandley.co.uk/runinuae/RunInUAE_r3beta8.lha
(edit: This is the EIGHTH beta release)


The FIRST beta included these changes, compared to the last alpha:

* Fixed collisions not working in AGA games like Deluxe Galaga.
(Existing users may need to use the menu item "Control E-UAE > Set collision level to > playfields" when playing such a game.)

* Added the "Set collision level to" menu item.

* No-longer restarts E-UAE unnecessarily. (Back to how it used to be!)

* The user can specify where RunInUAE's window appears on start. And window position is remembered when you hide it.

* The installer now has a Simple Mode for first time installations. (Requires an Amiga Forever CD)

* Fixed E-UAE potentially being installed in the wrong place.

The SECOND beta included these changes.
The THIRD beta included these changes.
The FOURTH beta included these changes.
The FIFTH beta included these changes.
The SIXTH beta included these changes.
The SEVENTH beta included these changes.
The EIGHTH beta included these changes.


If you haven't been following the alpha versions, then please go here to see what has changed.

@ChrisH

Great ,i love it

I have just uploaded a newer (or is it older? you decide) version of e-uae-amigfx to OS4Depot (it's currently in the Uploads section).

AMIGFX still has a bug (present in official 0.8.28 too) where AGA only works on 16bit+ screens. I tried fixing that but since I don't understand C much at all, I couldn't fix it.

Nevertheless, it should work with RunInUAE now.

@all
I have now made the SECOND beta release (please use the download link in the first post). Changes include:

* Added "Set joystick to" menu. (Very useful for Pinball Fantasies, where the default joystick settings stop the arrow keys being used.)

* Added "Set default joystick to" menu.

* Ejects the old disk before insert a new one. Should improve compatibility with certain games.

* Updated the manual to reflect the new joytick options.

I haven't heavily tested the changes I made, but don't expect any problems...

@MickJT
There are still some problem(s) with RunInUAE, but I need to spend some time tracking down exactly what they are.

@ChrisH

Latest archive seems corrupt, can you check it ?

@ChrisH

If you want to compare, only compare it with 0.8.28. The SDL versions have no issues with AGA. Unfortunately my SDL builds all end up being very slow

I enabled 2D OpenGL "acceleration" on one of them too, and sdl.use_gl=true just makes it go at about 2 frames per second :)

I also tried enabling the graphics filter options, but there were undefined references when linking that I couldn't sort out.

@MickJT
I believe I have been able to work-around the problem: RunInUAE redirects E-UAE's output to a log file, and your version seems to take fractionally longer to release it than v0.8.28 . So I now try to delete the log file, and wait until it succeeds before running E-UAE again.

I'm going to compare your version against v0.8.28. Since yours shouldn't have the crash-on-close bug, I'm really hoping that I can supply your version of E-UAE with RunInUAE...

BTW, since you've got it to compile nicely, have you considered compiling a Sam440-specific version? There's an IBM library of some sort apparently provided ACube, which gave the SDL version of UAE quite a speed boost (making it nearly as fast as v0.8.28 with native gfx). Users of 533MHz Sams, as well as those running AGA software, would surely love you for it!

Quote:
Do you mean that AGA does *not* work on 8-bit screens? I honestly wouldn't worry about that! Who uses them these days anyway?!? Plus, I know from my experience on Amithlon that it would look quite ugly.

@samo79
My web hosting appears to be down . I'm going to have to consider changing to someone else...
edit: I've temporarily uploaded it somewhere else. Please try again!

@ChrisH

Quote:

Did you mean "against"? I'm confused with that first sentence. I don't have any version of 0.8.28 that I compiled and released publically.

Which crash-on-close bug are you talking about? I've never experienced that with 0.8.28, only 0.8.29-20080820 when it's closing down the AHI device.

Thus the version I put on OS4Depot just now is 0.8.29-WIP4 (no close sound crash bug) with bits of 20080820 merged in.

The version I sent you privately in an email was 0.8.29-WIP4 with absolutely no sourcecode changes whatsoever (cept for bsdsocket, which didnt work).

Anyone know how to get pipe() on OS4? :) Then I could get bsdsocket emulation working.

Quote:

It should, 8bit is 256 colours. With dithering turned off it should look fine (funny about that, you should never have to turn it off anyway). Dithering only applicable to AMIGFX, which isn't working with AGA on 8bit screens.

Anyway, the first question, do I mean "AGA does *not* work on 8-bit screens?". No, I don't mean that. It works fine with SDL builds. It's a bug with AMIGFX, since the LEDs show up fine. It only works when Cybergraphics is used. I might have a poke again and see if I can do something, but I have pratically 0% knowledge of C. I just have good instincts :)

Unfortunately AGA games don't work in a window either. This is with 0.8.28 as well though, so I can't blame myself.

Edit: AGA games do work in a window, if your workbench screen mode is 16bit! Hmm.

@ChrisH

That's ok this new link works perfectly

@MickJT Quote:
Ooops, yes!

Quote:
The crash-on-close bug which does not happen if sound is disabled (and so is presumably AHI related). It doesn't happen to *me* now with v0.8.28, but it *used* to (pre Update 1), and someone else reported it still happening to them after Update 1. So your version should be better for those who still get the crash-on-close.

BTW, when I said "AGA does not working on 8-bit", I was of-course only referring to your version of E-UAE.

Also, I was going to tell you this via email, but since writing a reply to you here: Tested your version, and it seems the same speed as v0.8.28. Before you complain, this is GOOD, because v0.8.28 used to be the fastest version available! I haven't found any down sides yet, and since it should solve the crash-on-exit, I intend to include it in the next beta of RunInUAE. Well done!

@ChrisH

.. but 0.8.28 doesn't work on 8bit screens either. It's not just "my version" that has that problem.

Are you not having that same problem with 0.8.28? Choose "=ask" and try out all the fakenative and 8bit screenmodes.

Edit: While I remember. AMIGFX doesn't support uaegfx/picasso96 screenmodes while the SDL version does. Just thought i'd tell you now incase some peoples Workbench installations suddenly stop working :) (Again, same with 0.8.28).

@MickJT Quote:
I never *mentioned* the other versions, I was only discussing your version, so I didn't intend to imply anything about any other versions.

Quote:
I've never tried it in 8-bit mode, and to be honest don't ever intend to! (Actually I think I tried Kickstart 1.3 once in 8-bit, and it was slower than 16-bit.)

@ChrisH

Ahh ok, sorry I mistook you.

By the way, i've just noticed a lot games work a bit better setting cpu speed to max instead of real. Try it out.

Anyway.. /end of thread derailment.

@MickJT
I think these are the IBM libraries I mentioned:
http://os4depot.net/index.php?functio ... /library/ibm_perflibs.lha
(Don't ask me how to use them, but I assume it can't be too hard!)

@ChrisH

m3x (whom works for ACube) says that with OS4.1.1, you don't need to link with them. Check OS4Depot comments for e-uae-amigfx.

@ChrisH


Awesome work man! Now, a small request, could you add joy0 to controls at the menu as my joystick is recognized as joy0 not joy1, maybe others have the same issue too. Thx!

@Vulture
Yes I guess I could... but my reason for only supplying "joy1" is that this is the port that would be used on a REAL Amiga, and therefore the port that "non-emulated" games like Payback/etc will expect.

And I worry that providing two "joy" options might confuse some users... edit: Well I can add explanation in brackets to avoid this issue.

If you use Prefs/AmigaInput, you should be able to tell LowLevel to use Port 1 instead of Port 0...?

@ChrisH

Yeah, I suppose so, but I think it had something to do with me trying to get my joystick to work with warpsnes or genesisplus that I had assigned it such, not sure, gotta check it out. Thx!

@all
I have now made the THIRD beta release (please use the download link in the first post). Changes include:

* Now supplied with E-UAE amigfx v0.8.29, which should fix the crash-on-close bug.
Say NO to reusing all your previous installation choices, if you want to install this.

* Added emulation of floppy drive noises!
You won't believe how much of a difference this makes :)

* Added "joy0" to joystick options.

* Fixed an occasional 'E-UAE is not running anything' problem.

* Made another attempt to fix the IDF9: installation bug, and also better handle if it still occurs.