STICKY: rpix86 (Raspberry Pi x86 emulator) ver 0.19 released!

[Pate]

@Andrey:

Okay, I added some sort of a license header to my example code. I also added a link to your Atari800 thread, and also fixed the filtered palette calculations to work correctly with 1024x512 texture (something I have been meaning to do for a long time, but have always forgotten).

Let me know if you would like it to have something different, I consider my work in this to be very minor, so credit belongs to you and to the original authors.

Pate

[Andrey]

@Pate

Ok, all fine))
I'm djdron from Unreal Speccy Portable team.

[benrett]

I've just finished a rather extensive newbie guide for DOS and this impressive rpix86 emulator. It's a rather long post so I will just paste the link. I've also written a mini-history of DOS if that is of interest.

History and tutorial: http://ipggi.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/r ... r-computer

Skip to just the tutorial: http://ipggi.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/r ... dosonthepi

[Pate]

Wow, much appreciated benrett! Looks like you spent quite some time writing that tutorial, great work!

I trust you don't mind if I link to your tutorial from my rpix86 pages? I plan to update my pages this Sunday, so if I forget to link to your tutorial at that time please remind me!

Pate

[Pate]

rpix86 version 0.07 released!

This version contains the following fixes and improvements:
- Fixed a potential crash when a game moves the cursor far outside the screen area.
- Implemented a dummy OUT 82,AL operation (Alone In The Dark)
- Improved SB IRQ behaviour for short DMA buffers (Alone in the Dark)
- Implemented a missing REP MOVSW Mode-X to RAM operation (Ween - The Prophecy)
- Fixed a bug in REP MOVSW RAM to Mode-X operation (Ween - The Prophecy)
- Implemented reading from DMA page register (Super Frog)
- Implemented USE16 version of Mode-X REP STOSD opcode (Super Frog)
- Implemented USE32 version of REP INSB opcode (Super Frog)
- Implemented USE32 version of REP OUTSB opcode (Super Frog)
- Added JPE special handling for "Super Frog"

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

[Vanfanel]

Aargh!! How could I miss this update, Pate?? RpiX86 is my favorite emulator on the Pi by far! I hate you by not marking updates with shiny neon lights! (And now, another afternoon testing DOS games awaits...)
Are we seeing the fix you're investigating for Keen1 on the next version? I will be following your blog...closely...

Thanks once more for this AWESOME piece of software and the updates!

[Pate]

Hi Vanfanel!

I tried a couple of changes to my VSync handling to improve the scrolling in Keen1, but both of the changes, while improving that game slightly, made some other games scroll really bad. So, I have not yet found a technique that would make all games behave nicely. I'll continue looking into that, though.

I am currently busy with other things besides rpix86, but I will continue working on rpix86 soon.

Pate

[Vanfanel]

I have been testing "Alone On the Dark", the Lovecraftian game of my childhood, and it works great without OPL music (disabled in the in-game menu) but it's pretty much slow and unplayable with OPL music on.
My first idea was to blame OPL emulation CPU usage, since synthesis chips have always been a pregnant dog to emulate, but top-ing into the Pi via ssh to control take a look, I found it doesn't seem to be the problem since CPU usage is the same with and without OPL usage. It seems to be the same problem affecting "Prince of Persia" tittle music. I suspect a timing problem, maybe, and/or the code in some games waiting for something related to the OPL. Just speculating here...
There are games that work perfectly with OPL music in RpiX86, like "The Viking Child", wich in the other hand runs too fast (many DOS games where'n synced to vysnc but CPU and hence ran at wrong speeds, so I wouldn't worry about that).

[Pate]

Ok, thanks for the info about the OPL music causing the slowdowns in Alone in the Dark. I have noticed that it runs slower than it should, but didn't get even that far in my debugging the cause.

Probably it is indeed some timing issue, perhaps the game uses the AdLib timers (which are very poorly emulated) for some of it's synchronization.

Pate

[forenbenutzer]

Great news. Is there a possibility for a second COM port emulation?

[Pate]

Great news. Is there a pissibility for a second COM port emulation?

Sorry for the delayed reply! Yes, I think this would be possible. Currently some of the code is somewhat hard-coded to support only a single serial port, and I also have the other serial port address used by the mouse emulation, but I believe both of these can be changed in the future.

Pate

[gzz]

I love this thing, and so awesome youve made it available for the pi. I do have a couple questions though

Any way to control mouse acceleration? I was trying Master of Magic (works great), but wow, the mouse is just way way too slow to be playable. It takes me picking up the mouse and repositioning it 3 times just to move the cursor across the screen once.

Any way to mount cdroms?

Also digitized sound is hit and miss. It works in Master of Magic, but say, something like Warcraft, it doesnt, nor does it in Mortal Kombat. (in MK, in the setup, if you set it to SB, it says fails to initilize.. Adlib works though, but then no digitized sound)

Maybe I'm try just trying too new of games. lol.

[redhawk]

Is this program capable of running Windows 3.1 or 32bit DOS DPMI mode??

RIchard S.

[Pate]

@gzz: Thanks!

Currently there is no mouse acceleration adjustment, I might consider adding this in the future. I hadn't run into programs that have problems, so I'll see about testing Master of Magic myself.

Also mounting a CD-ROM is not yet supported. This is something that I have planned to do for a while now, but just haven't yet had time to implement it. Perhaps during my upcoming summer vacation..

I am aware of the digitized sound problems, which plagued also my original DSx86 and DS2x86 versions. On Raspberry Pi I have better debugging options, so I should be able to debug the problems better. Thanks for the reminder!

@redhawk: rpix86 does not support virtual memory (paging), so Windows 3.1 does not work. Windows 3.0 *might* work, but I haven't tested it myself. DOS 32-bit DPMI programs should work as long as they don't use virtual memory.

Pate

[emuola]

Hi.

This emulator is just awesome I'm still having trouble? with SB emulation... It seems for some reason none of the games recognise my "SB"?! I can only select pc-speaker in the games, I've tested. Set-command gives the sbset variable and it seems to be ok. Is there something obvious that I've just overlooked here? Running the latest raspbian and rpix86.

Also for example Alleycat has strange, kinda stuttering sound although it's supposed to be beeper only.

If someone gets NHL '94 working, I'll be happy as a pig in *hit

Thanks!

[Pate]

Thanks for the encouragement emuola!

Which games have you tested, where the SB does not seem to work? I'm sure I have many problems still remaining in my SB emulation, but it would help to have specific problematic games to test.

I will see about supporting NHL '94, I believe it should run in rpix86. It probably just detects something that it does not like and fails to run because of that.

Thanks again!

Pate

[emuola]

Hi Pate! Here are a few examples:

-Commander keen 7: Keen Dreams (I can only select beeper in the sound config, everything else is greyed out)
-NHL '94 (black screen if SB is selected in setup and then the game is stated. Works fine without sound). Beeper sound sounds somehow wacky (like the notes are a bit off all the time)
-Alleycat, the beeper music is ~right, but the in-game sounds are a bit off, some sounds are totally missing? I compared the beeper sounds to my original Panasonic JB-3300 "portable"

http://www.eolith.co.uk/Panasonic/JB-3300.html

[Pate]

Ok, thanks for the extra info!

I'll take a look at those games. I actually tested NHL '94 yesterday, strange that I could not make it run even without sound until I made a couple of small fixes to rpix86. I did find the black screen problem (it actually drops back to DOS), but haven't yet debugged the reason for that.

I'll see if I can fix some of the problems in the next version, I would like to release a new version next Sunday. It's been a while since the previous rpix86 release..

Pate

[emuola]

Great to hear you're working on a new version Btw, I have the older b-version (256 ram).

[Pate]

rpix86 version 0.08 released!

This version contains the following fixes and improvements:
- Fixed text mode cursor handling that sometimes left extra cursor images.
- Increased mouse cursor movement speed by 4x.
- Added a JPO opcode special handling for NHL '94.
- Added special REP STOSB STD Mode-X version for NHL '94.
- Fixed resetting the active screen page at graphics mode change.
- Fixed text mode palette problem (black screen) in QBASIC.EXE.
- Fixed a key translation table problem with Caps+Shift+Q,W,E,R and T keys.
- Implemented UK keyboard hash key mapping when running under X Window.
- Improved AdLib timer precission for better AdLib detection behaviour.

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!

@emuola:
I tested the Commander Keen 7 and NHL '94 games and their audio problems. Commander Keen should now allow you to select AdLib audio, but no SB audio. I don't get SB audio option in DOSBox either, when using SB 2.0 emulation (as in rpix86).
NHL '94 should work with AdLib audio now, although you might need to start it a couple times before it starts up properly. I will continue working on the SB audio problems and investigating why it drops to DOS quite often.
I also checked Alleycat and noticed that the sounds are indeed somehow weird, but didn't have time to look into it more thoroughly.

Pate

[Vanfanel]

Hi Pate! Thanks a lot for your work on this version!

I've however noticed slow music on "Alone on the Dark" and "Prince of Persia" still persist. In fact, "Alone in the Dark" is totally unplayable with music ON, because the game seems to be somehow synced on music.

Just as a reminder

[Pate]

Thanks for the reminder Vanfanel, indeed I had forgotten about that issue.

I've been working mostly on the GCW-Zero version, I only returned to working on rpix86 this week, so I did not have a lot of time to work on this new version. My summer vacation is just starting, so hopefully I will now have time to look into that problem thoroughly.

Pate

[Lexusjjss]

Is there any possibility of fixing Star Control 2's music and sound? Star Control 1 works fine with a /S:SBLASTER command, but SC2 just makes a bunch of horrendously static noise.

[Pate]

@Lexusjjss: I have been debugging the audio problems in Star Control 2, and fixing that is quite difficult. It uses Direct DAC SB audio, meaning that it sets the PC timer to run at 8400Hz and outputs one sample of audio at every timer interrupt. My current architecture emulates the timer interrupt using a separate thread, which sleeps and sends an IRQ to the main thread at the timer interval. The problem here is that the maximum speed that the Linux kernel can switch threads is 1000Hz, so the audio in Star Control 2 will run 8 times slower than it should, at best.

I am looking into changing my emulation architecture, but as you might guess, this is far from trivial. So the short answer is that there perhaps is a possibility of fixing the audio problems in SC2, but it will take time and is not top priority at the moment. Not very many games use that Direct DAC SB audio mode.

Pate

[Lexusjjss]

Well, thank you very much for trying, although I have no idea what you just said.