STICKY: pix86 (Raspberry Pi x86 emulator) ver 0.19 released!

[kadams2929]

Pate,

I was wondering if you could let me a bit of assistance. I've had no trouble getting the rpix86 emulator up and running. I've also downloaded 3 DOS games (Colossal Cave, Drugwar and NFL Challenge). Each game is unzipped and located in their respective directory.

When I attempt to run each game, I get an error.

Colossal Cave - advent.exe
runtime error F6416: OPEN(ZZ000773)
FILE NOT FOUND

Drugwar - drugwar.exe
Internal error - string space corrupt

NFL Challenge - nfl.exe
After answering the initial setup questions, ie. install drive, pc speed, video resolution, the game crashes and shows control characters.


What do you think? It's pretty tough to mess up Drugwar because it's one executable but for some reason it crashes. On occasion, the game will allow me to get past the instructions and then crash.

#lookingforhelp


Keith

[Pate]

Hello Keith!

Can you let me know where you downloaded those games (in case they are freely downloadable)? I could then take a look at them. All of those problems can very well be caused by bugs in rpix86. Did you get an rpix86dbg.log file when rpix86 crashed? If so, sending me that file will also help me in fixing the problems in rpix86.

Thanks for testing rpix86!

Pate

[kadams2929]

Pate, thanks for the reply. Keep in mind the errors crashed the game, not the rpix86 emulator.

Here's the location of the games I downloaded and attempted to run:

links removed by moderator, because of linking to illegal content!

Thanks for looking at this. I've got to be doing something wrong.

Keith

[Pate]

Okay, I checked the games:

- Colossal Cave seems to use stdin, which is not properly supported in rpix86. Fixing this has been in my TODO list for years, but since there are so few games that actually use stdin within the game I have not yet gotten around to it.
- Drugwars probably uses BCD functions, which in rpix86 do not work quite right because of the lack of support for Auxiliary Carry CPU flag. I did not get the exact same error as you, I got "String formula too complex", which is probably caused by the same thing.
- The NFL game does not work on my PC in DOSBox either, it complains about a missing file pdb.nfl (same as what it says in rpix86 for me). This might be caused by a broken or incomplete archive.

So, sorry, looks like these games will not work in rpix86 at least for a while. Please try some newer games instead.

Pate

[Pate]

Oh, I just noticed that I seem to have broken the EGA palette handling in 0.04 version. Some EGA games will show weird colors. Sorry about that, this should be fixed in the upcoming 0.05 version, to be released hopefully next weekend.

Pate

[kadams2929]

Pate,

Thanx for testing the old school games for me. I'm really digging the emulator.

May I ask if you are able to get Sim Earth working in your emulator? Do you have any favorite games you would suggest to the forum that lets your emulator shine?


Keith

[ti84]

Do any of the old DOS based emulator (NES, SNES, etc..) work on the Pix86?

[Pate]

@Keith: I haven't tried Sim Earth, I'll try to remember to take a look. Whether a game can be made to work in rpix86 depends on several factors, so I do not know without testing.

I sort of don't want to influence or limit what games and other software people try running in rpix86, by suggesting certain games. It is always nice to hear from people who have gotten some weird software to run.

There is a compatibility list wiki for DSx86 at http://dsx86compatibility.pbworks.com/w ... ity%20List which is/was created and updated by some DSx86 users. I have on purpose stayed away from editing it, so that it would contain as objective information as possible. It might have some ideas as to games at least worth trying, since the core emulation in rpix86 is an enhanced version of the core in DSx86. If a game works in DSx86 but not in rpix86, then I just have a bug in rpix86.

I would certainly appreciate if someone would be willing to create a similar compatibility list for rpix86, but it is a lot of work for no pay...

@ti84: I have no idea, please test if you the time and interest!

Pate

[Pate]

May I ask if you are able to get Sim Earth working in your emulator?

I managed to get Sim Earth to start up in the current released 0.04 version of rpix86. There are a couple of issues, though:

1) Due to the EGA palette problem the colors are messed up. This will be fixed in the 0.05 version.
2) You can't install (run the SETUP.BAT) inside rpix86, as it does not support the SUBST command.
3) You need to install/setup the game in DOSBox, make sure not to install it into the same directory as where you run the SETUP.BAT from! Then just copy the SIMEARTH directory to your rpix86 games directory.

Hope this helps!

Pate

[ulysess]

Only for your information Patrick, I just published a note about your release I'd like that you read

http://misapuntesde.com/post.php?id=123

Thank for your effort.

[Pate]

rpix86 version 0.05 released!

This version contains the following fixes and improvements:
- Fixed EGA palette handling that got broken in the 0.04 version. Sorry!
- Added hardware mouse cursor support in graphics modes.
- Added options to adjust screen overscan values.
- Added (experimental) support for running rpix86 under X Window system.
- Added command line option -a2 to start rpix86 with no audio.
- Added JPO and JPE opcode special handling for Chess Genius 3 (http://www.chessgenius.com/cg3dos/) DOS version by Richard Lang.
- Fixed bugs in several JPO and JPE game-specific opcode handlers.

You can download the latest version from the Raspberry Pi store or directly from http://rpix86.patrickaalto.com/rdown.html (be sure to read my blog post about the changes in this version at http://rpix86.patrickaalto.com/rblog.html).

Thank you for your interest in rpix86, let me know of any bugs you encounter!

Pate

[Jessie]

Thanks for your hard work.

[remlap]

This is working fanatically now Patrick I can set overscan properly turns out I need 30 top and bottom

Cheers Patrick

-Patrick (remlap)

[jontylovell]

Pate,

I am trying to run XWing under rpix86 but it crashes the emulator. Doom and several other games are working. Do you know if this is supposed to work or are there some unsupported functions that it is using?

Thanks and great work on this.

[Pate]

@jontylovell: Can you send me the rpix86dbg.log file (in case such was created)? That might help me in determining the problem.

There are still many unsupported features in rpix86, so it might crash for all sorts of reasons.

Pate

[Pate]

rpix86 version 0.06 released!

This version contains the following fixes and improvements:
- Added serial port emulation support (use the new -sNUM parameter).
- Changed the -h and -w parameters to not force 4:3 aspect ratio.
- Added 4DOS.COM download question dialog when starting in X Window.
- Added an icon to rpix86 when running under X Window environment.
- X Window title bar shows now also the version number of rpix86.
- Keyboard and mouse reading is slightly more efficient than before.

You can download the latest version from the Raspberry Pi store or directly from http://rpix86.patrickaalto.com/rdown.html (be sure to read my blog post about the changes in this version at http://rpix86.patrickaalto.com/rblog.html).

Thank you for your interest in rpix86, let me know of any bugs you encounter!

Pate

[ulysess]

Published on my blog!. thks! Today I'm gonna test my favorite RPG.

[Vanfanel]

Hi, Pate!

I've been trying some basic DOS classics with rpix86 today and I found strange results:

-Commander Keen 1: strange scrolling. It seems to be repeating frames.
-Alone In the Dark: it's listed as compatible in the dsx86 compatibility list, but it exits with some debug information as soon as I try to start it.
-Super Frog: exits with some debug information as soon as I try to start it.
-Prince of Persia: works great but tittle music sounds SLOW, while game sounds are ok.

Thanks!

[Pate]

Hi Vanfanel, thanks for testing rpix86 further!

- The scrolling problem in Commander Keen 1 is probably caused by the way it syncs to the VGA vertical refresh signal. It is pretty tricky to get the emulated vsync to work as expected in all games. I have been using Supaplex and Commander Keen 4 to test that, as they use rather different algorithms. I'll see about testing Commander Keen 1 myself, in case I can adjust the system to work better in that game as well.
- Could you send me the rpix86dbg.log file that was created when rpix86 exited with debug information? That would tell me what the problem was. There is likely still some graphics features that I have forgotten to port over from DSx86.
- I have no ideas about the cause of the title music slowdown in Prince of Persia. I'll try to check this myself, I think I have that game in my DOS game archive.

Thanks again!

Pate

[Vanfanel]

Hi Pate!

I have attached debug logs for "Alone In the Dark", "Superfrog" and "Ween". I've also tested "Jazz Jackrabbit", another classic.

Ween - The Prophecy: exits with debug errors. Debug file attached.
Jazz Jackrabbit: DOS error message "Cannot enable A20"

By the way: HOW have you done the magic in this emulator? I mean: 70Hz games HAVE smooth scroll, that's just AWESOME!! (Look at "Lemmings" tittle screen with the scrolling text, or the scrolling credits of "Viking Child": it's just perfect as on a real DOS computer or on the Amiga version!!) Are you changing into a 70Hz video mode? Or maybe the host's vsync is used as the emulated system's vsync? I'm very interested in this. Please keep this feature as it's very sweet

[Pate]

Thanks for the error logs! Those should help me figuring out the problems.

Jazz Jackrabbit uses virtual memory, so it will not run in rpix86, sorry.

For VSync emulation I use the hardware VSync, so the games will run with a 60Hz VSync even when they think they run at 70Hz. This may make some games run slower than they should, but usually this is not a problem. The trick is to have the actual screen blit, hardware VSync, and emulated EGA/VGA register value writes synchronized so that each of them happen and behave correctly in relation to each other.

This is a bit simpler to get working without an operating system messing about with the timing, though.

Pate

[Vanfanel]

For VSync emulation I use the hardware VSync, so the games will run with a 60Hz VSync even when they think they run at 70Hz. This may make some games run slower than they should, but usually this is not a problem

Keep it like this, please. I'm tired absurd emulators running at their exact 59.94 Hz crazy refresh rates, resulting on broken scrolls when they could be locked to the host's refresh rate like you do and provide a smooth experience. Thanks a lot for the explanation, Pate. I think this is how things should be done.

[Andrey]

Hi, Pate)

Please add some copyrights to http://ax86.patrickaalto.com/gles_video.c because it spreading to other emulators.
You can add header with origin (Unreal Speccy Portable) where the code came from.
Something like this: http://atari800.cvs.sourceforge.net/vie ... iew=markup

[Pate]

Ok, I'll do that. Or perhaps I could just remove my version and instead point to that proper Atari800 cvs location. There is no need for me to host the same source file separately any longer, I think.

Pate

[Andrey]

Atari800 uses modified version of your C->C++ conversion.
I split clean GLES2 code from ugly raspberry pi EGL initialization (dispman/SDL hacks).