Computer Cores

[deft estuary]

Thanks. Before to try myself to calibrate them, I have to copy this two files in config/input dir?

[copper grail]

@deft estuary I've just found out that the VIC-20 input file I've uploaded here, triggers the left d-pad direction when the knob A is turned all the way left. Left d-pad translates to paddle button B on the VIC-20 core. It is starting to look like it is impossible to correctly map paddle controllers in a core right now.

When assigning the inputs in the core menu, if you turn the knob gently enough, it will register the controller, but not a direction. However, it looks like it will then always refuse to register the fire and paddle buttons. This looks like a bug in the MiSTer input system and I'm starting to think that my previously working configs were wrong like the one I've uploaded here.

(the MiSTer maps analog stick directions to d-pad directions by default, I don't think there's a way to disable it)

Maybe, if I can find the MiSTer input mapping code, I could find out what is causing this problem and fix it. But having to turn the paddle knob really slowly to recognize the input device is already really annoying.

Here's my Daptor D9 config file:

One hex edit later, I've manually fixed the VIC-20 input files (only tested the PDL one just now) EDIT: D9 tested and working perfectly as well.

[deft estuary]

thanks @copper grail so manually it's impossible to calibrate them correctly, but fixing them via hex they work? Now I'm going to test...

[copper grail]

Sadly, yes. So this bug in MiSTer will still have to be fixed. But these map files should work perfectly.

[deft estuary]

Ok, now I test them and I write here the results

[deft estuary]

@copper grail I have also an original 2600 Daptor PDL

And I get the same results that I get from the flashed Daptor II

This is the maximum left position I can get

[copper grail]

Is that with Commodore or Atari paddles?

Could you try it with Pinball Spectacular or Clowns?

[deft estuary]

Commodore

[copper grail]

Ah, that might be the reason

[deft estuary]

Ah!

If you want I can try Atari paddles

[copper grail]

And also try the Commodore setting on the PDL adapter, that might help

[deft estuary]

Atari 2600: perfect

[copper grail]

Good to hear!

[deft estuary]

Commodores: no way to go more left even changing dip switch 😭

Far far left but not totally left using Daptor 2600

Ok now I’m going to test on my original Vic20

[copper grail]

Edited PDL input map for the 7800 core. Turns out you need to map Fire2 instead of paddle for the second controller, that doesn't seem right. I couldn't get the paddle buttons to work with the D9, on the 7800 core for some odd reason. EDIT: Removed, see new version below.

[deft estuary]

Thanks @copper grail what is the best game to test with paddles in Atari 2600?

[copper grail]

I tested with Kaboom! The second game is two player and it waits for you to press the paddle button.

[deft estuary]

And what about Vic 20 paddles support? Is it possible?

I mean commodore original paddles of course

I can confirm that they work perfectly in my original Vic 20

[copper grail]

Daptor D9 input map for the 7800 core. Strangely I needed to map Fire2 to the second paddle and then the Paddle button to the first paddle.

[copper grail]

Fixed 7800 PDL input map (Fire 2 and Paddle buttons)

[stiff steeple]

what are you doing?

[copper grail]

I might be possible to remap the range, but the precision would probably suffer

Did you try the Commodore dip switch setting on the PDL?

[deft estuary]

yes please try if you can I would be a shame not to use them...

[stiff steeple]

did you see how I do it on 2600 LD?

it automatically adjusts the range based on the polling of the game

it works pretty well

[copper grail]

Providing some ready made paddle controller map files for my VIC-20 test core and your 7800 core

And MiSTer input as well

[copper grail]

No, what is 2600 LD?

[stiff steeple]

I had a branch somewhere that added an option for fixed sensitivity that I made a couple of years ago when someone complained about sensativity of some weird adapter

[copper grail]

Ah, cool

[stiff steeple]

2600, and your name

[copper grail]

Oh, hahaha

That would be the old 2600 core then?

[stiff steeple]

no mine

[copper grail]

Ah. I'll have a look at that branch, it sounds interesting

But if the Commodore paddles would come in at, say, 127 to 255, stretching it up to 0 to 255, will result in half the resolution.

[stiff steeple]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Atari7800_MiSTer/blob/master/rtl/paddles.sv#L237

[patent temple]

difference <= ((lowest > highest) | ~read_measured ? 33'h114B6C376 : (lowest + (((width + {NS_PER_TICK, 1'b0}) >> 4'd8) * kohms[7:0])));

[copper grail]

Ah, I need to look into that part again. It isn't in my paddles.sv version

Looks like automatic range scaling depending on the lowest and highest values encountered, nice

[deft estuary]

Thanks @stiff steeple for your very precious work on MiSTer!

[copper grail]

Absolutely, this is Kintrinx' paddle system that I ported to the VIC-20 core

[deft estuary]

Yeah I know, thanks both!

[stiff steeple]

yes exactly

[copper grail]

I'll see if I can port that back into the VIC-20 core as well then. I noticed the input with the PDL adapter isn't quite the full range

[granite umbra]

https://fxtwitter.com/Gammitin/status/1883207936148987947?t=QS1xX9Vlb0A23tjhJKpfcQ&s=19

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PC88_MiSTer/pull/40

[grim lodge]

What's the minimum mister configuration you need to get the most of all the computer cores? I've got a VRR display and a ball mouse. Thinking about building a second mister for my desk.

[copper slate]

Keyboard

[grim lodge]

Crap, knew I was forgetting something

[lunar trellis]

Do you have the RTC module? That will speed up getting times/date will launching some computer cores (and give you those when you are not connected to internet).

If you want to go deep you could use the ADC and load tape files from an external device (like an MP3 player) assuming you have one of those on the board

[grim lodge]

I've been considering the rtc for while actually

[lunar trellis]

If you are a power user it is a nice QOL feature

If you have a digital iO board you have an ADC on there already. If you have analogue iO board then those boards are really cheap.

[exotic prairie]

Does anyone know if the AtariST core support Direct Video? I’m getting a No Signal warning from the tink when I start it, which usually means it does not.

but I wanted to confirm that’s the issue

[granite umbra]

https://fxtwitter.com/saebaryo_xyz/status/1883507686878404652?t=jqb9aGKFke99kS_O8UdRow&s=19

[vivid seal]

Today I tried to teach my 6 y/o daughter some C64 BASIC and I got a little frustrated because something proposed by this PR wasn’t merged into the core: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/C64_MiSTer/pull/130

Specially because of double quotes and the plus sign, among others

I think that having the option to type “ or + on an US keyboard and getting the same character on the screen would be pretty useful for some use cases

[surreal marsh]

This is equivalent to it being the 1980s and trying to teach your daughter how to flip switches on the ENIAC.

[hollow ice]

Except the switches are mislabeled 😉

[pallid cradle]

hey she's gotta learn about Super Star Trek sooner or later

[woven lava]

you can always try BASIC on the Apple IIe

it has Super Star Trek 😄

[vestal goblet]

for BASIC, I try to stick to the original hardware and keyboards (or good replicas). My 9yo has typed in BASIC on Apple II, ZX Spectrum Next, and a C64 Maxi. Besides the programming, trying to seed some plasticity around keyboards and drive home that personal computers were the Wild West

[pure fog]

I heard someone else talking about an unstable version of x68k that had better midi support (like Final Fight) but I had trouble finding something relatives recent (more than mid-2024) on GitHub

[hollow ice]

Puu doesn’t use GitHub I don’t think. He just releases stuff on his blog.

[exotic prairie]

🤞 we get an update this year

[pure fog]

Ahhh, thanks. Do you know how to find this blog?

[hollow ice]

http://fpga8801.seesaa.net/

http://fpga8801.seesaa.net/article/503244768.html

I believe that is the last update.

[granite umbra]

zet sensei build a version of this issue https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/X68000_MiSTer/issues/38#issuecomment-2580805369

on the pin

[vestal goblet]

for BASIC, I try to stick to the original hardware and keyboards (or good replicas). My 9yo has typed in BASIC on Apple II, ZX Spectrum Next, and a C64 Maxi. Besides the programming, trying to seed some plasticity around keyboards and drive home that personal computers were the Wild West

[robust monolith]

THe posts above, in English means what? Thanks.

Ah, the 68000 core.

[granite umbra]

@void belfry Have you got any seek issue in game on Windows 3.1 on the core using track audio ? do you know if there any option or better driver to fix this case ?

[void belfry]

hmm, don't think i actually used under Win 3.1 other than Castle of Winds , let alone games with cd audio

[granite umbra]

ok did you have any issues ?

[void belfry]

i usually use shsucdx with xcdrom.sys driver for smaller mem footprint, but never had issues

like what issues ?

[granite umbra]

I use the same driver on dos side but windows 3.1 will required to install another driver for cd audio part

in the game Rema The Truth during the intro stops and I have message regarding seek issue.

I added [MCI] CD Audio

but maybe there is a better one

[void belfry]

interesting, think i did something like this on some of the (extremely rare) used vhds with win3.1, I have no love for that GUI pretending to be an OS 😄

[granite umbra]

it is like SX-Window for X6800 just for playing deminers 🙂

[void belfry]

SX-Window at least looks cool 😛

[granite umbra]

I will search if I find a fix for my case and share if find any
Thanks 🙂

[void belfry]

realized also I need more than 5GB image, as it won't hold also the kernel sources/compilation product after basic install...

so back again re-install/re-compile/update grub with Qemu dance, but at least it shows the HML is bootable on ao486

anyway, most important thing is that now I know Ubuntu also has some of its repos archived , so replacing archive or security (between http:// and .ubuntu.com) deb/deb-src links in the /etc/apt/sources.list with old-releases does the trick to get necessary packages/sources via network (http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/)

also missed one lol

this greatly paves the way to have Ubuntu distros (yeah, still a Debian under the hood) working on ao486. Sure, GUI will still be atrocious on most, but I see an extra value on having a ready to use remote repo to install whatever you want or need

[void belfry]

never heard of the game, just rapid google/YT searched it now 😄

[void belfry]

anyway, except Medibuntu (not a deal breaker whatsoever), everything else works, now waiting for make-kpg make its magic

Will test a proper (meaning simple, clean, no frigging KDE stuff preinstalled) Ubuntu of the era later now armed with that old-releases repo. Still have the ambition/will to make Hannah Montana Linux work on ao486, thanks @thick pendant for the rabbit hole which lead to a nice find actually (for me at leat)

[granite umbra]

It is from the game team working on Lunar

[void belfry]

which is another game I never played (or didn't see it on the 🦜 floppies/CDs i could get my hands on back then here lol 🙂

or simply didn't had access to a platform that could play (generally speaking I was mostly on a 486DX/4 ( hence my love for ao486 core) and a clone of a clone of ZX spectrum and one of a clone of an Atari 2600

[granite umbra]

It is on console not computer

[void belfry]

makes sense even more i didn't played it 😄 got (back) to casual gaming on my own console on xbox one and now on series x

oh well, still my dose of dopamine is on computer/network side (and on experimenting diff OSes/solutions) 😄

[hollow ice]

In windows or in the Mister console? Can you share some of the errors?

[granite umbra]

No many hints on the issue just SEEK and saying that I have an issue with my media device

I tried to play the track with an audio cd player it plays fine on this win 3.1

just at some point the intro go black screen with this screen

[hollow ice]

Hmm, I’ll have to install jwin95 and check the console output.

[granite umbra]

It is win16 game
https://www.mobygames.com/game/113268/rema-the-truth/specs/

not sure it will work on win95 never tried it

I can share the vhd if needed

and cd

[hollow ice]

win3.1 should be fine as well, if no one picks that up before me, I’ll try to take a look in the next few weeks since that is potentially aligned with some of the fixes I am trying to work on for booting NetBSD/Openstep

[granite umbra]

sent a request to share files thank you !

[thick pendant]

The hannah montana linux thing was definitely a joke, and i'm not sure you should thank me for setting you down this rabbit hole 🙂

good thing I did not mention TempleOS

[hollow ice]

Won’t work on the core. Needs 64bit

That was one of my first thoughts too

[thick pendant]

poor guy; sad story

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/pull/961/files

Ao486 gets also some PR's 👍

[void belfry]

yeah, but the joke got me to find an interesting issue with Ubuntu based distros (also tried with a stock Ubuntu 7.04): While compilation and so on works, **booting **on ao486 checked BUT it fails to actually read the modules.dep then cascading it will crash to Busybox (both on emulator and core, so clearly smth I need to investigate more)

[devout sleet]

Does Blood run poorly on the ao486 core for anyone else?

[short compass]

I would imagine all Build engine games do.

[worn oxide]

ao486 is specced to be on the lower end of 486 PCs and that would struggle with build engine games

Kinda funny how 0mhz packed in Descent II despite that

[limpid tiger]

Funny thing about the ao486 core is - no matter how fast it is, it will always disappoint some people who will assume that some game created in the 90s doesn't run effectively.
This means that it's an EXCELLENT reproduction of a 1990s PC, because no matter what you owned at the time, there was always something more that you wanted.

[short compass]

^Truth

It did be like that

[devout sleet]

Ah I see. Makes sense. Thanks guys

[fast kraken]

descent2 runs ok if you turn down the settings

blood wont though no matter what you do, it's the sloped surfaces

[thick pendant]

Well, just forward thinking. at one point fpgazumspass increased the effective speed of the core 3x. I remember when the core ran like a 16mhz 386... maybe that will happen again?

[hollow ice]

Yeah, the cache helped a lot. Would love to see what an fpu could do.

Maybe someone will be super motivated one day like grey rogue on the jag core and make sense of the generated code.

[versed pollen]

Huh... https://youtu.be/LpNoAonYzpE?si=L0GqRkUPvl6aBWlA

Wonder if anyone in here has tried it

Oh I thought it had a demo or something...

[thick pendant]

this might have been perfect if we had FPU http://tinycorelinux.net/faq.html#req

[opal void]

Coincidentally, I was testing the TinyCore on the ITX Llama, it booted up within two minutes and ran smoothly!

then, Action Retro posted this today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxeRCpg9mfc

[grim lodge]

I see the YouTube gods also bestowed tiny core videos on everyone else

[rotund dawn]

Good god this chat blew up, I was so far behind lol. Quick Q for anyone, where would I put say an "octamed file" (adf file) for my Amiga core?

[thick pendant]

in the floppy drive

adfs are floppy images.

[granite umbra]

https://x.com/iProgramInCpp/status/1886006044544860451?t=MJjebwCUwKueYlj5PkDfeg&s=19
Need to try on Ao486 😅

iProgramInCpp (@iProgramInCpp) on X

My Discord client, Discord Messenger, now runs on Windows 98! (And also, 95, but you need extra stuff. Win98SE runs it right out of the box.)

X · Feb 2, 2025, 10:57 AM

[void belfry]

yeah, i'm trying it under Qemu, it has some unusual quirks when it comes to make changes/added files permanent. Found some nice how-to https://tiagojsilva.github.io/en/unixlike/meme/2021-10-29_tinycorelinux-install/

[void belfry]

meanwhile, this is the coolest way to kill time while waiting for an OS installation I ever saw 😄

No useless adverts for their other products, no useless inflated "tech details" a.k.a glorified pre-sales PPTs, just a simple and fun game of Pac-Man during install time

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Minimig-AGA_MiSTer/commit/3dd9391e0fbb88f709ba94502e70c370f693cd7c

[vestal isle]

Does anybody know what the modeoine settings would be for Linux?

[vestal goblet]

awesome to see demoscene stuff drive multi-component timing/latency accuracy improvements

[young gust]

For MT-32 Pi owners, are there any drivers you have to install on DOS or lines to add to your autoexec.bat or config.sys?

[exotic prairie]

for the ao486 core?

I just use the 0mhz collection - they build mt32pi images

Might be worth pulling apart one of those images to see how they handle it

[worn oxide]

Yeah the entries with MT-32 work right out of the box

[young gust]

I seen that. There's a lot of games I have on here that run perfectly that do offer MT-32 support. I'd love to get them running.

Maybe I'll load up one of theirs and examine the config.sys and Autoexec.bat

[exotic prairie]

yeah, and let me know if/what you have to edit

[young gust]

I shall do that!

I saw one line in autoexec.bat

That set midi line I'm thinking is related to the mt32

Didn't see anything else that might be related

I didn't see any directories with drivers or anything

I'm feeding my newborn right now but later I'm gonna add that line to my auto exec n see if it makes a difference

[exotic prairie]

yeah that would be cool if it JustWorked™

[young gust]

Yeah it would. There's so many more games that work that Aren't in that collection with MT-32 support.

I'm relatively new to MiSTer. I've found all this so damn fascinating

[exotic prairie]

the mt32pi is my favorite thing atm

[young gust]

It's absolutely wild. Then I discovered it works with the Amiga vision core! So awesome bonus

[exotic prairie]

yeah dude

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/albconde/Amstrad-PCW_MiSTer/commit/f84fbb7c02490d3206edacba3a6ee2eab1538a45

[hollow ice]

@granite umbra okay, finally had a chance to look into it. Looks like the issue is that the Stop Play command (packet command 4Eh) isn't implemented. I will work on getting it in if no one beats me to it.

Looks simple https://www.t10.org/ftp/t10/document.97/97-117r0.pdf

[granite umbra]

Thank you 👍

[hollow ice]

well, I created it based on my understanding of the code...maybe @fleet cave can stop me before I get something catastrophic merged: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/pull/963

I don't see a way to easily just stop the audio buffer from being sent....maybe I should have zeroed out some of the play_start and play_end attributes too

I feel like just resetting play and paused is a "well, it worked on my machine...ship it!" move 😄

[fleet cave]

no, that should be fine. the cdda_send_sector stuff looks for a drive with playing = 1 && !paused. if it doesn't find any then it does nothing

[hollow ice]

I figured it should, but I always second guess when touching new code bases

I did at least test it, and the game seemed to transition audio properly

Just wish getting OpenStep to boot was such an easy change

[fleet cave]

one day....

[granite umbra]

@hollow ice your PR was merged and I have tested on my side.
It is working great ! thanks 🙂

[feral dagger]

Amiga vision is amazing

I really like these curated 'experiences'

[young gust]

Yeah it's awesome. Especially for someone like myself who never played an Amiga before.

I played thru Lionheart and absolutely loved it

[worn oxide]

OUT RUN

horrifying music is banging through speakers

OUT RUN

Tenor has many game sack gifs and yet not a single one where Joe is cowering in fear

[granite umbra]

Gekirin on Win3.1 (ao486)

[lunar trellis]

Not sure the x68000 core supports this, but anyone more familiar with the core might be interested to see if this can be run

https://www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/2024/02/romancing-saga-3-fanfare-takayuki-shigenaga/

[granite umbra]

For the core, you need to convert the xdc file to d88 file (using vfic)
THe program starts but I have issue with my IO board so I can't test MiDi for the moment

[smoky yew]

@lunar trellis The music file plays, but since it's GS the result via a MT32-pi is dependent on which sound font you're using.

[lunar trellis]

That's ace that it is working

Maybe we should get the d88 file added to the GA site

[void belfry]

Another day, another ~~disaster ~~Unix/Linux working on ao486 🙂 This time is NetBSD 1.6.1, I actually got it while testing/recompiling the kernel for Libranet Linux 2.7 from Italian magazine "Linux and C" issue 34 (search on **archive **site for LnC34 short for "Linux & C. Magazine - n. 34 [NetBSD 1.6.1 - Libranet Linux 2.7]" ).
Install under qemu is fast and easy (qemu-img create -f raw 2GB_NetBSD.vhd 2G then qemu-system-i386.exe -m 256 -hda 2GB_NetBSD.vhd -cdrom "LnC 34 - Disc 1 of 2 - [NetBSD 1.6.1].iso" -boot d , follow on-screen instructions, move the VHD to MiSTer, create an /etc/resolv.conf file with **vi **to contain nameserver 8.8.8.8 and start PPP connection with pppd /dev/tty00 115200 noauth defaultroute &
Also updated the list here: #1047332497492553799 message
X11 is not working by default, needs more tinkering it seems 🙂 will see about that

[void belfry]

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=95091#p95091

I've uploaded it on Archive site under the name "MiSTerFPGA ao486 NetBSD 1.6.1"

[void belfry]

need bash, i am really not a fan of csh/ksh, quite curious if it manages to compile directly on ao486. So far got it via ftp from ftp.gnu.org, gunzipped/untar, configure worked fine, now compiling also works for some time. Usually on Linux I would get already a fragmentation error or smth else for such large sources

[void belfry]

Success 😄 never realized how much I missed autocomplete lol

[void belfry]

fingers crossed, next is Midnight Commander

[void belfry]

Bash from source on NetBSD 1.6.1:
ftp http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/bash-3.2.tar.gz gunzip bash-3.2.tar.gz tar -xvf bash-3.2.tar cd bash-3.2 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local make make install echo "/usr/local/bin/bash" >> /etc/shells chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash root
Logout/login for changes to take effect.
Also for good measure, change VT emulation to VT220 by: echo 'export TERM=vt220' >> ~/.profile

[void belfry]

incredible, ncurses compilation under NetBSD 1.6.1 works fine so far (don't wanna jinx it lol and yeah, d/l and compilation times might not be great but it still works) so makes me think what is causing those errors under Linux/QNX... Might the math emulation/emu387 those need to have in order to work on ao486 be the culprit ?

[void belfry]

had some issues with ncurses, but I believe it was because of the version but still got the most part for nano to work, also nano couldn't be compiled with --enable-utf8 but oh well, lots of things to check

Overall, great success though with NetBSD and compilation directly on the core, going for MC now

[quiet stone]

What would you say is the easiest/fastest way to get a unix or unix-like to run a c compiler and ncurses? Stuff like ppp and x are optional.

So far I only have a barebones 486 linux.

I tried Debian but I failed to understand PCem (the bios and setting up disks) and the image resulting from trying with qemu doesn't boot

[void belfry]

I would guess you would need to cross-compile them in a VM/modern Linux for your target.

As for Debian.. there is an image already on Archive site that fully works/ppp ready with Debian archived repo and so on https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=8714 as well the how-to as verbose I could (am no expert lol)

I specifically left Window Managers not installed, but you can apt-get install amiwm/fwm/jwm/icewm and so on wm

[quiet stone]

Oh wow that looks excellent

[void belfry]

my personal choice is AmiWM, is ok plus it looks/feels like the actual Workbench 😄

to annoy/confuse the heck out of ppl 😛

[void belfry]

apparently i forgot to install sudo on that one.. so you might want to do it. DON'T use root account to connect to IRC (as the default name would be ... you guessed it, root and it's instant temporary ban on servers)

ask me how I found out (again) 😄

[quiet stone]

Unlucky

[void belfry]

just yolo 😄 untill i learned

[void belfry]

aand ofc I need something else before compiling MC 😄 and since I can'd find a quick link without https, MiSTer ARM Linux to the rescue 😄

[void belfry]

might it be this one : https://ocawesome101.github.io/486-linux.html ? Or made under same principles there ?

[quiet stone]

Yes that one

And I now have the Debian you sent. Until now I never installed a package from a cd before (post-install)

[void belfry]

I see.. well, there are many unix/variants (12 noted here #1047332497492553799 message, but forgot add Phlak but that is way too slow anyway) working (to some extent) on ao486

and also different topics/how-to's on https://misterfpga.org/viewforum.php?f=13 area (check also previous pages)

most modern is Gentoo https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=4006

[quiet stone]

I just needed gcc and ncurses. Now I'm going to see if I can make ao486 output in monochrome amber

[void belfry]

Here's a list of topics dealing into Unix/Linux on ao486:
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=8587 NetBSD for AO486!
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=8714 Operating Systems on ao486 : Episode 2 - Debian 4 (Etch)
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=7943 QNX 4.25 (Unix-like OS) on ao486
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=4006 IDE Controller Errors in Linux on AO486 (Gentoo and other stuff)
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=7606 Small Linux distros (one is 1.44MB)
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=8896 NetBSD v0.9 with X11
bonus:
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=1615 OS/2 - Any known compatible versions?

I included OS/2 as it's not really MS, not that it has anything with unix/linux topics

[void belfry]

tadaaa

The whole "dance":
Ncurses on NetBSD 1.6.1:
ftp ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-5.7.tar.gz gunzip ncurses-5.7.tar.gz tar -xvf ncurses-5.7.tar cd ncurses-5.7 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local make make install

GLIB 1.2.10 on NetBSD 1.6.1:
On ARM Linux:
cd /media/fat/games/ao486/shared (or whatever else)
wget https://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/glib/1.2/glib-1.2.10.tar.gz
on NetBSD:
ftp root@YOUR_LAN_MISTER_IP, you should already know the password :) cd /media/fat/games/ao486/shared get glib-1.2.10.tar.gz bye gunzip glib-1.2.10.tar.gz tar -xvf glib-1.2.10.tar cd glib-1.2.10 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local make make install cp /usr/local/include/glib-1.2/glib.h /usr/local/lib/ cp /usr/local/include/glib-1.2/gmodule.h /usr/local/lib/ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib

MidnightCommander on NetBSD 1.6.1:
ftp ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mc/mc-4.6.1.tar.gz gunzip mc-4.6.1.tar.gz tar -xvf mc-4.6.1.tar cd mc-4.6.1
./configure --prefix=/usr/local make make install

[copper grail]

@deft estuary I've updated my VIC-20 test core with automatic paddle range scaling, similar to what is done in the 7800 core, so your Commodore paddles should now work correctly with it.

[deft estuary]

Thanks, I'll try it right away!

[deft estuary]

@copper grail now it works perfectly even with original Commodore Paddles, thanks for your precious work!!

[deft estuary]

@copper grail only one addirional note: now Vic20 core played with Commodore Paddles works perfectly, if I play it with Atari paddles, if I play with the first paddle it doesn’t go to the full right direction

[surreal marsh]

Hacker news jist linked to an article about someone implementing a MCS6530 in a FPGA. Is this something that Mister could use?

[copper grail]

That is odd, I've tested it mostly with the first paddle, as well as with both. I'll see if I can replicate it. Make sure to reset the core when changing paddle controllers, the range calibration resets when you do that.

[sudden ice]

@granite umbra . Thanks for the pull request. Are all special keys implemented in the x68000 core with your change?

[granite umbra]

Yes it is port of the Puu-san changes. You have information on the readme how they are mapped.
The X68000 keyboard have more keys than other keyboards so we need to swap from layout to another depending the keys required and the keyboard used (JP or US)

We can go in game now for Kyuukyoku Tiger.

[sudden ice]

Cool!

Wish hds support could be added

[deft estuary]

Sure it was a problem of reset, thanks!

[copper grail]

Good to hear that, thanks for testing!

[pure fog]

Does this mean we can easily try the updated core soon? Can’t wait!

[void belfry]

YOLO ¯_(ツ)_/¯

also realized 2 gigs is not really ideal for netbsd 1.6.1 , need to do some bigger image at some point

[void belfry]

if Perl works, gonna try next GCC 4.8.5, as current version is 2.95.3...

[void belfry]

well, how big your long longs are ? 😄

2+ hrs, still compiling Perl **BUT **no errors so far ! 🤞

[void belfry]

3hrs+, no errors, multitasking also working fine (well, I don't abuse it also lol, mostly when I wanna check if the system is really still working just being slow on whatever task)

[void belfry]

out of 2 gigs vhd... another sign I shouldn't go with default install/partition scheme LOL

I should have known by now as I never saw swap being used in any of the Unix/Linux based OSes that can run on this core (no wonder after all with 256 megs of RAM)...

Anyhow, NetBSD seems to be more fun than I anticipated, also adaptable enough so far that it has functional PPP support and gcc. After getting **bash **and the sweet auto-complete, everything seems easy 😄

[void belfry]

But small steps, I want SSH/SSL as close to modern as it can be so the NetBSD running on ao486 can be easily accessed/managed from LAN (e.g. Putty or better, without the need to manually add older cyphers support and so on), especially for long times of wait for whatever program compilation from sources.

[void belfry]

5-ish hrs later, still going

If that's not a real 90's experience (the waiting on smth to "magically" do smth on your computer).. i dunno what is

[hollow ice]

In the late 2000s I was managing a set of FreeBSD systems. I had a computer that did nothing but compile new versions.

[void belfry]

I still dream to have this beauty working 😛 My first ever CD won in a local IT competition. Still have it, still working plus case scratches due to age and mishandle 😄

[void belfry]

6 hrs of Perl compiling, still going on directly on ao486 🙂 this gotta be some other record lol

[frosty cosmos]

With which key can we start it? I've switched to KBD layout US.

Ah, the AltGr key insert coins, and Alt/Button 1 starts it. Nice one.

Is it possible to add direct video to this core?

[void belfry]

aand it failed at some point (7-8 hrs later) **BUT **not because of any the fragmentation/traceback whatever usual errors I got on Linux/QNX. Even the fact that it sustained ~8 hrs of continuous code compilation is quite amazing tbh. Anyway, probably chicken and egg issue, will go first for a newer GCC, for now trying to compile BitchX 😄

[granite umbra]

It has already last template so normally direct video would work.
What is the issue you have in this case ?

[frosty cosmos]

It doesn't work properly. Shows graphic glitches (flashing garbled stuff for a split second, every few seconds) and generally some weird kind of flimmering.

https://streamable.com/3cffb0

Happens with all games i've tried.

[frosty cosmos]

Video was filmed with a Mister connected via Retrotink 4K. If i connect the Mister directly via HDMI to my LG OLED it goes out of sync (no image at all). No matter if native or 60fps Video mode is enabled in the X68000 core. Direct video doesn't work there.

I wonder what the issue is. It can't be the exotic resolutions. Most arcade cores are fine.

[exotic prairie]

are you running 0mhz games?

[frosty cosmos]

X68000

[exotic prairie]

oh sorry, I missed that bit.

But yeah, that core doesn't work with direct video. For that one, it's likely because Puu-san emerges from mist every 12 month with a new build, which isn't building off of anything folks have added in github, so adding it now would just mean having to add it again later.

You grabbed the settings for it to work with the tink, yeah? They are here: https://consolemods.org/wiki/AV:RetroTINK-4K/System_Specific_Settings#MiSTer

[frosty cosmos]

I know them, but it's for normal HDMI. I want to use direct video. It's a configuration mess without, when you want to use CRT filters properly.

[exotic prairie]

Sorry, I'm confused. Are you not using HDMI? I have my mister going through my tink 4k, with those settings, using Kuro's JVC crt filter, and it's fine. Unless you want to spend time in the terminal...then it's a mess, yeah

I just swap profiles in those situations

[frosty cosmos]

Nah, it's too inconvenient. Proper direct video with full DV1 support (autodecimate and auto crop) would be great.

[exotic prairie]

would be nice. unfortunately, it likely won't happen unless Puu-san implements it

[frosty cosmos]

There isn't a source from him?

As you see, in the above video: It's implemented, but somehow wrong.

[exotic prairie]

It's in there because it's in the framework I assume, but some core's need special tuning (load up the Arcade Air Assault core for another example - same issue as you're experiencing).

And someoen could take the time to add it. The problem, as I mentioned before, is that puu hasn't yet pulled the updates that people do into any updates they release. So someone would have to implement it again if it was missing from the next update

[frosty cosmos]

Let's see if it happen some day. Would love it, so many good arcade ports and some nice homebrew shmups.

[exotic prairie]

it's one of my favorite cores

I just hope puu-san continues to update it

maybe we will get HDS support 🤞

[frosty cosmos]

But i's good that we can use the japanese special keys now. Many games have a 15KHz mode.

https://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:game_notes

[exotic prairie]

You should get a mt32-pi if you haven't already. One of the better cores for it

[frosty cosmos]

yeah, was tempted. But then i always find better retro products i just need. 😄

[vestal cypress]

hey guys

hope you are doing well

[hollow ice]

They would wait to include new c functionality deep into the compile.

[vestal cypress]

does anyone have any idea of or have a tutorial of how to create an HDF for X68000?

I want to create a game autobootable in HDF, like someone shared once, otherwise I would have to figure out how to navigate japanese commands to be able to run the Silk Road 2 translation

[granite umbra]

@frosty cosmos have you the issue also with games with 15Khz ?

[frosty cosmos]

I think it's like TheJesusFish said. Direct video is implemented in the Mister Framework, but missing the adaptions in the core itself. And yes, it happens for 15KHz games too.

[granite umbra]

for that I don't what to change. Could you please create an issue ticket on X68000_Mister repo ?

[frosty cosmos]

You mean asking for a feature request here?

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/X68000_MiSTer/issues

[granite umbra]

yep

[frosty cosmos]

Done! But i don't know if it's useful when Puu decides to work on this core again.

[granite umbra]

Thank you

[young gust]

Has anyone ever had any luck getting the game Afterlife to run on AO486?

[void belfry]

meanwhile in the NetBSD la-la-land, trying to get a more modern (in steps apparently) gcc version🤪

[limpid tiger]

I just saw that there is a MiST core for the Exidy Sorceror
https://masto.ai/@mistboard/113831461223785120

Anybody interested in porting ? (I won't be able to for several months, but I'm curious)

Oh wait... sorce code isn't easy to find

Or wait... looks like it's in Gyurco's repo

https://github.com/gyurco/Sorcerer-FPGA

Wow, he does a LOT of work for MiST. Kind of like srg320 on MiSTer

[lunar trellis]

He is a beast for doing MiST stuff, is a shame he isn't interested in getting a MiSTer and doing his cores across both platforms, but at least what he does do can be ported over

[vestal goblet]

GCC 4.7 and above have usable LTO, but you need a linker that also supports LTO to be bootstrapped and used during the GCC bootstrap. On my old SPARC ReadyNAS, bootstrapping LTO GCC and recompiling samba with LTO double file copy throughput (it was CPU-bound for reasons I never understood)

if you can get modern versions compiled and contributed to older NetBSD pkgsrc , you will be a g0d to some very specific niche

on my ReadyNAS, it was faster to do everything in a Debian environment running on qemu SPARC. With GCC 2.x, the way to avoid most crashes is to do -g0

but I appreciate you’re testing durability of the core itself by doing the builds there 🙂

[chilly rain]

yeah, gyurco is a beast, he's great

[void belfry]

Well... since I kinda had enough BS with compiling stuff, why the heck just not go for a better version of NetBSD ? So here you have it, NetBSD 2.0 (with gcc 3.3.3) running on ao486. Boots very fast also.

Install done in Qemu, same steps as for 1.6.1, used this image: https://archive.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-archive/iso/2.0/i386cd.iso

[void belfry]

NetBSD 4.0 also works but...

[hollow ice]

there should be a boot command for that?

[void belfry]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[hollow ice]

interesting, https://www.reddit.com/r/NetBSD/comments/1i3r7ek/bringing_back_fpu_emulation_for_i486sx_cpu_on/

I swear I read something about it being a boot option, but the last time I tried to boot netbsd 10 for reals was months ago and I can’t remember what boot flags I was using….maybe one day I’ll be smart enough to write down what I am experimenting with instead of just assuming I stumble across it again

[hollow ice]

yep, that is what I am trying to fix

if you look at the actual requests, BSD requests the first part of the hard drive, mister returns it, and then…. nothing

I am not sure if the interrupt request is getting messed up somehow…was why I was super hopeful when the recent patch mentioned that there was a bug where it was being munged.

if that gets fixed, I am 95% sure openstep will be bootable too .. maybe even windows 32bit without a separate driver

[void belfry]

I don't have reddit account to upvote or whatever, but this guy was right on the money lol

[old stag]

anyone ever seen faint vertical flickering lines w/ some games in the 0mhz collection? i don't remember seeing these last time i used these (it's been a while)

[void belfry]

but the issues appear on 2.0+.. so back to 1.6.x

[zenith charm]

I'll take a look at it soon, just working on other core stuff at the moment

[void belfry]

Apparently with "newer" make the gcc-3.4.6 on NetBSD 1.6.1 might actually be possible, still munching the code but for 4+ hours already (before it bombed out in about few minutes with [multilib.out] Error 127, even if specifically disabling multilib)
ftp ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/make-3.80.tar.gz tar -xvf make-3.80.tar.gz cd make-3.80 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/gmake make -j1 make install
Then retry whatever compilation:
/usr/local/gmake/bin/make -j1

[hollow ice]

Interesting

[void belfry]

courtesy to our future overlords 😄 or their grand-grand-grand pa

for now decent-ish secretary, saves me lot of google search and reading old mail lists

and ofc i forgot to do that, even if GPT secretary advised me too and even d/l-ed it ofc...

will see what comes out... frigging rabbit's holes 😄

anyway, to not lose sight of things, I need all these so I can actually have as close as possible modern SSH/SSL (and by that more possibilities to access modern repos/sites (CLI at least for now)

[void belfry]

Also, if this or running povray/fractal generators are not stress enough tests, I dunno what could 😄

[hollow ice]

Haha, can always try prime95 on windows.

[void belfry]

right.. 😄

at least scrolling image from gcc compilation is more entertaining 😄

[hollow ice]

need to store the compilation log and time between messages so you can train a generative ai screensaver that looks like it is forever compiling something

[void belfry]

then upload on YT like those 12 hrs long whatever vid and get

after all, why keep the fun all for myself and not charge everyone fool enough to watch ? 🦹‍♂️

[copper slate]

Lock it behind a patron subscription lol

[void belfry]

wanted actually to "stream" (within limits ofc) on this Discord voice-channel the process through feed from "camera" a.k.a Elgato capture card but it will show the image reversed (need proper OBS and so on, which I'm not ready to have)

[hollow ice]

Haha, that actually would be pretty fun.

[void belfry]

as already told, the 2 gig NetBSD 1.6.1 image I uploaded has a major flaw in having HALF of its space non-used by swap (because I chose default partitioning scheme and quite everything else default at install). As it will happen, no swap will be used at all, same noticed in other OSes (QNX, Linux). Not rea;;y wonder since 256 megs available to the core

image above is from a more decent spaced 4 gig image I am currently work on, but statement stays, swap is not used. But for some older OSes apparently it still need to be present as partition

[void belfry]

still, 6 hrs of compiling, I call it progress 😄

[vestal isle]

I just tried the rawfile here: https://github.com/mezantrop/i486SX_soft_FPU/releases and netbsd boots to a point and then says it can't find the disk

[vestal isle]

I've been looking at xinu, and found this BOOTABLE FLOPPY that works with ao486! Enjoy: https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/1942838312203872/PC-XINU.img (I don't know what version it is)...

[zenith charm]

I took a short amount of time on the Sorcerer core. After getting the boot rom configured and loaded, I can see signs of life in the simulator, so its worth an attempt to make a proper core out of it. Heres an output of the trace from the simulator

[mental moat]

Anyone got a recommended way to get games onto the ZX Next core?

The games I download are a folder full of files, I just can't figure out the best way to get these folders onto my ZX Next disk image.

Grabbing the disk image off the mister, mounting it, adding the files, transferring it back... just feels not smart.

[granite umbra]

You just need to unzip them on games directory (the zx next core VHD needs to be mounted on your computer)
You can launch games with nex extension files

[void belfry]

after getting binutils 2.14, gcc 3.4.6 compiled successfully on NetBSD 1.6.1 🙂

[void belfry]

Next will try GCC 4.1.2 → GCC 4.2.4 → (Maybe) GCC 4.3+ → GCC 4.8.5 (and I will for sure need A LOT of other dependencies to upgrade as well in-between).

[hollow ice]

It will be a success when you can compile mister main inside the ao486 core 😉

[void belfry]

anyway, final goal for all this is to get newer openssh/ssl 😄

at some point will need to add also Perl 5.x, better binutils, make, makeinfo and some more stuff for sure in the mix

[vestal isle]

What would be a good scsi driver to use for ao486 disk controllers? I have list available:

SCSI drivers
Adaptec 1542B SCSI driver (drvAdaptec1542B)
Adaptec 2940 SCSI driver (drvAdaptec2940)
Adaptec 6x60 SCSI driver (drvAdaptec6x60)
Bus Logic SCSI driver (drvBusLogic)
Bus Logic FP SCSI driver (drvBusLogicFP)
DPT SCSI driver (drvDPT2000)
Symbios Logic Sym53C8xx–based SCSI driver (drvSym53C8xx)
Other drivers
EIDE disk driver (drvEIDE)
Parallel Port driver (drvPCParallel)
Floppy disk driver (drvFloppy)
EISA Bus driver (drvEISABus)
PCI Bus driver (drvPCIBus)
PCMCIA Bus driver (drvPCMCIABus)
PCIC driver (drvIntel82365PCMCIA)
Bus Mouse driver (drvBusMouse)
PS2 Keyboard driver (drvPS2Keyboard)
PS2 Mouse driver (drvPS2Mouse)
ISA Serial Port driver (drvISASerialPort)
Serial Mouse driver (drvSerialPointingDevice)

appairently the cdrom requires a scsi driver at least loaded....

[hollow ice]

Eide

Trying openstep?

[elder cove]

Question - I recently got a MIDI interface from Legacy Pixels that runs into the User IO port, but I can’t seem to get anything out of it.

Oh, weird - looks like it was my 2-1 Thru box. Removed that, and it worked fine.

[stuck linden]

What causes this?

[vestal isle]

Yeah, trying...

[hollow ice]

That has been my grail. It suffers from a similar situation as bsd.

So, if you are braving the install in mister, you need to convert the openstep iso to Chd- it will fail silently trying to read the iso because it isn’t a standard format.

If the hard disk you have is detected as anything larger than 63 spt, it will fail. I have a patch in unstable mister main that lets you define the parameters of vhds, but sorg didn’t like my original code that pulled the data out of the vhd footer so I had to add the parameters in a separate config file.

[exotic prairie]

man, I about lost my shit when I got an alert that the x68k page had been updated this morning. turns out the blog adds a post when it hasn’t been touched in 60 days :/

[hollow ice]

After all that, it seems to fail on boot- I have managed to get into fdisk once or twice and see my partitions, but the boot loader can’t see them for some reason.

But then again, you got bsd working so, please surprise me 😄

I was using nextstep 4.2 I believe. The earlier eide drivers didn’t even get as far as detecting anything. (I think I just used the dual eide drivers for both hard drive and cdrom). There are beta drivers that may perform better but I never saw any difference.

[vestal isle]

That is intriguing! Where can I get that unstable mister build?

[hollow ice]

Not 100% sure, but it should be in https://github.com/MiSTer-unstable-nightlies/Main_MiSTer/releases/download/unstable-builds/MiSTer_unstable_20250210_13d392

[quiet stone]

It is cool that the MiSTer and museums lets me experience old PCs but unfortunately I will never be able to experience programming on a terminal connected to the uni unix computer with hundreds of other users.

Early networking is also long gone

[thick pendant]

EIDE disk driver

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/tantanGH/umt32pi

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer/pull/187

[void belfry]

interesting, actually Rayman worked (and still does) also on stable ao486 from 27.12.2024 but apparently no sound/music AND it locks up if CD is mounted (for cd music i guess)

Oh, also only with QEMM, not EMM386

[void belfry]

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=95399#p95399

[void belfry]

Rayman Forever will not start without CD (even if installed with the max option) but will freeze after Ubisoft logo and bit of Rayman's intro

[void belfry]

even more interesting, found a version which also works with sound 😄 Version 1.0 for Europe, on archive search for RaymanEuropeEnFrDe_v1.00

Working on latest ao486 unstable, on normal it will freeze

[void belfry]

Damn, forgot what a nice soundtrack this game has 😍

[deft estuary]

Thanks! What program is this?

[void belfry]

That's the embedded CD player of Dos Navigator (a better imho Norton Commander file manager), lots of utilities etc

[summer dragon]

ha I was just thinking whether or not Rayman might run in Dosbox on MiSTer, so of course someone would drop a new core build that fixes it 🤣 I wonder what other games it might fix 🤔

[young gust]

Might have to try installing AfterLife again and see if it'll run now

[copper slate]

Can you please wonder how Virtual Boy Wario Land would run on the MiSTer?

[summer dragon]

I will do my best, but do note that there will be a one day delay between the thought and the core release

[fast kraken]

i love seeing ao486 get this slow trickle of fixes

[void belfry]

And Rayman 1.0 works also under Win95 👀 with joystick as well

[deft estuary]

One question for the group: what is the most compatible game port to usb adapter tested on MiSTer?

[young gust]

Looking to use an old Gravis Gamepad?

[thick pendant]

Yes, despite it being pretty flaky sometimes, its one of my favorite cores...

[summer dragon]

huh, I got Rayman working, but I can’t configure a controller for it and it keeps doing ghost inputs if I try to just use a keyboard 🤔 …could be a result of me copying some files over from a different vhd maybe…

[summer dragon]

maybe I need to go back and turn off the joystick settings in the OSD…

edit: it seems that both joysticks need to be turned off

ah yep, that was it! Works when I turn the joystick off and just map the keyboard to my controller

huh ok…no sound effects

ok, setting to autodetect instead of pre-selecting Sound Blaster worked!

[void belfry]

or select SB16, that is what it detects 🙂 anyway, glad you got it working as well

[void belfry]

BitchX 1.2.1 running on NetBSD 1.6.1, connected to ##MiSTerFPGA IRC channel

It was quite challenging to compile it from source, had to get gcc 3.4.6, better binutils, better gmake, ncurses **AND **manually modify the numbers.c file to add round() function as apparently NetBSD 1.6.1 doesn't have it.. But a combo of chatGPT and google/old forums searches did the trick

But excluding these unavoidable shenanigans, I think Net BSD 1.6.x is the most stable I ran on the ao486, especially being the ONLY non-MS OS that can happily compile sources.
Ofc, I didn't tackle X yet, as I anyway don't expect to be easy to configure and don't think it will have a stellar performance (hope to be proven wrong)

[void belfry]

not one of my brightest ideas: to untar gcc 4.2.4 and d/l perl 5.16.3 at same time 😄

[void belfry]

and here we go again, now trying my luck/patience with gcc 4.2.4

[void belfry]

aaand ofc i need binutils (as and ld) upgraded to 2.20.1 😄

[hollow ice]

Haha, not even time to wish you luck

[summer dragon]

Are there any games anyone can think of that might go from “not working” to “working” after these latest ao486 core changes apart from Rayman? 🤔

[void belfry]

5hrs later binutils 2.20.1 compiled and installed

[vestal isle]

I downloaded a copy of foureightysix linux, and unfortunately the bogomips is a unfortunate 17.4 bogomips

[ruby bramble]

https://raymanpc.com/wiki/en/Rayman_Forever

rayman forever?

Math and English with Rayman volumes 1-3

[hollow ice]

Rema the truth attribute 😉

[summer dragon]

I think @void belfry tried that one and it didn’t work

[versed pollen]

....now thats a game i remember playing...

[vestal goblet]

With gold linker plugin?

[void belfry]

I have no idea what that is 😄

ah I see "first released in binutils version 2.19."

then no, i don't think so, I used the default what comes with :
export PATH=/usr/local/binutils220/bin:$PATH export AS=/usr/local/binutils220/bin/as export LD=/usr/local/binutils220/bin/ld

[vestal goblet]

Did it produce an ld.gold binary? If you run configure —help , does it list a —enable-gold option?

[void belfry]

didn't produced it, but I didn't enabled either 😄

Noted this for next compilation, now it's still munching gcc 4.2.4

Thanks for info 🍻

[deft estuary]

Hi @void belfry and @summer dragon ! I've tried again Rayman CD yesterday and today with the latest unstable Ao486 core, it runs very well but music from CD has problems: if I try to run AO486 from Cifs/Nas, every - say - 5 seconds I got a blank second without music, if I try to run it from SD card only I got a blank second without music - say - every 10/15 secomds, so the problem it's still there. I've tried to play the Rayman Cd audio tracks from Dos Navigator and I get the same results... Any hint? It seems to me that also other CD games audio have the same problem...

[void belfry]

Interesting.. I run everything from SD card and can't say I encountered this issue. Though lately tbh I was more involved in Unix/Linux stuff for ao486 than actual do any gaming 😄

and by lately I mean several months/half an year already if not more 😄

still crunching data 😛 stopped sometimes in the night, restarted gmake ~5 hrs ago and tenaciously going on since

@deft estuary regarding CD audio issues in games, the exceptions I remember of not working or not working properly are Zork (can't really recall the issue), Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (think game is too heavy on resources) and Betrayal at Krondor (for bin/cue ones, unless you use CHD format). Might be for sure others, but hard to pinpoint the exact issue since it can be a combo of them as well (from game itself or its versions, core performance as it is, etc )

[deft estuary]

Thanks I think the important thing is that others can reproduce it..

[void belfry]

should I start to worry ? 😄

[summer dragon]

Hmmm, I’ll take another look as soon as I can (hopefully later today) and see if I notice anything…I can’t say I noticed that when I tried. I run my games from an SSD

[deft estuary]

Thanks, the problem is less noticeable but present even in SSD

[summer dragon]

@deft estuary are you using the version recommended by thera and what format is it in?

[deft estuary]

I’ve tried the version you kindly sent me!

[summer dragon]

ok cool so my exact copy then…I should be able to test it out in about 10hrs or so from now

[void belfry]

Can't test/play either until my gcc compilation is done, but @deft estuary : can you capture somehow the issue ?

[deft estuary]

Sure after work hours I will make a video and I will post it here!

[void belfry]

also, what you're using ? Standard DE10-nano stack or else/type of storage (though I don't think it is really relevant, but for thorough t-shoot) / DOS version/mem manager / cd driver/extension (though again I don't suspect issues between mscdex and shsucdx or usual CD drivers live VIDE/oakcdrom/etc) ?
Is this issue present also in other games ?

[summer dragon]

@deft estuary you’re using latest unstable ao486 build and one of the last two unstable MiSTer mains (there was a new release today)?

[deft estuary]

Latest ao486, tried both with latest mister unstable till yesterday and mister stable also

[summer dragon]

ok….it’s definitely possible the issue is present on my end and I didn’t notice

also, I’m guessing you tried all the installation options for the game? (full/minimal)

wait nevermind, you already said you used the VHD I gave you…d’oh!

[short finch]

A test build with the last keyboard changes (from puu-san & wwark) and the MIDI changes (from Rebel40) merged together.

[granite umbra]

those are Puu-san changes 🙂

[summer dragon]

they used my VHD which used Himem/Hiram…I remember you used QEMM…if I notice it later then maybe my next step is to try QEMM instead

[void belfry]

Dunno if it really matters tbh, I've tested hiram only for a brief time (I mostly go for QEMM) but didn't encountered issues there either..

[summer dragon]

@void belfry could be something different in my configuration vs. yours I suppose…I’ll update later when I test

[short finch]

Rayman PC is one of my favorite games from that time.

I remember buying the game on release date and it wasn't working on my DX2-50 (16MB EDO and 2x speed NEC drive / Win95 OS + DOS 6.22).
The disc didn't wanted to launch after the install.
I had to exchange the disc to the vendor and they had to send me back a new disc with a v1.01 version that finally worked.

[void belfry]

I've tried several Rayman CD images and the only one that really fit the bill (meaning working fully) is the one I refer to above (#1047332497492553799 message). From a very superficial view, this one has each track separately, others (like US version from Archive or else) has everything packed in one .bin file: it will play fine in a CD player but will not work in game, hence my first reaction on this topic: #1047332497492553799 message

[void belfry]

12+ hrs of uninterrupted gcc compiling, still going 🙂

[deft estuary]

Hi @void belfry I don’t know what to say, I’ve powered up the mister without changing any configuration to make a video of the music problems in Rayman and now there is no problem at all… now, sure it can be the NAS the culprit (in this video I’m running from CIFS) but it’s strange because yesterday I’ve disconnect the NAS, ran directly from SD and some audio problems were still present… I don’t know what to say at this point..:

[summer dragon]

oh interesting

that’s still the one I sent you?

I’ll still check mine later since I’m running from SSD

[void belfry]

¯_(ツ)_/¯ but glad it works fine for you too now 😄

[deft estuary]

Sorry I didn’t remember if was yours I have two of them, here’s the another one

Both are working perfectly but no… it’s not very good, from a a developer’s perspective I have to found the problem because it can show again!

😁

[summer dragon]

oh yeah that’s the problem where you get ghost inputs unless you disable the joysticks in the OSD

[void belfry]

I see this one has the VESA config from alexoughton on the forum, but tbh I don't think it makes any difference now, Rayman works without it as well

[deft estuary]

Maybe a local configuration problem but maybe not…

[summer dragon]

@void belfry yeah that’s my vhd….ah interesting, I thought vesa was required for rayman

[deft estuary]

And I’m sure it was not a rayman problem only because audio was skipping also in Norton Dos Navigator cd player

[summer dragon]

ah

did it happen after power cycling?

[void belfry]

"have you tried turning it off and on again ?" so true after so many years

[summer dragon]

I love me some MiSTer, but I get really strange issues from time to
time that are fixed after power cycling

[summer dragon]

usually video corruption or random crashes/failures to load

[deft estuary]

Ok in the video you can heard at 0:26 and 0:50 some sudden silences

After dinner I will try on HDMI only maybe the problem is the audio config outside

[summer dragon]

ah yeah could be

[deft estuary]

I hope so almost it’s debuggable

[void belfry]

how do you like DOS Navigator @deft estuary ?

[deft estuary]

It’s magnificent!!

[void belfry]

you can also define external programs (starting with archivers, audio, video to compilers) to start when you hit Enter on a file 😉

[deft estuary]

Ok just tied Parodius on SNES core on the same configuration same audio problems even here we’ve got the culprit!

[void belfry]

That was my "automation" back in the 90's to quick compile my Pascal/C/ASM crap

[deft estuary]

Sorry if you wasted time on me!

[deft estuary]

Great! Are you still a programmer?

[void belfry]

Neah, switched long time ago (kinda few years after high school) to network/security

Couldn't resist though to remake my high school collection of virii 😄 Albeit on a larger storage (double actually) plus DOS 7.1 not 6.2.2. Rest is the same (DN, TC, TP, TASM, MASM, some hex editors/packers/whatever else related of era) plus the collection itself (just in sources, no executables lol)

Plus I have a rescue floppy and F-Prot at the ready when I unleash the little buggers, was close to destroy that vhd lots of times lol

[hollow ice]

note to self: don’t download any of thera’s cool linux installs, they are all trojans 🤡

[void belfry]

https://tenor.com/view/cookies-palpatine-star-wars-minecraft-food-gif-20804611

This was the last error, many many hours ago, sometimes in the morning. Since then, smooth (and slow ofc given on what it runs) ~~sailing ~~ compiling. Had some stops during the night, but no more than 2-3 I think (last I saw in the morning)

[deft estuary]

I can confirm the problem is with the digital audio port of my MiSTer, maybe I have to buy a new jack converter, this is loose...

[summer dragon]

ahhhh

[void belfry]

good you sorted out 👍

[void belfry]

why the need to send mail during gcc compiling is beyond nooby me

[vestal goblet]

if it detected an ICE during bootstrap?

The illegal instruction error from the assembler is interesting— that’s not the usual ICE I see when bootstrapping a few successive GCCs on old hardware

almost all of those relate to debug symbols (hence -g0 when bootstrapping, unless you’re actually a compiler developer who will attach gdb during bootstrap)

[pure fog]

Awesome, can’t wait to try midi games that have previously had issues

[void belfry]

still building

[void belfry]

go baby go 😄 already over 24hrs of continuous compiling WITHOUT any stop

[granite umbra]

I wonder how many times it will take to compile Firefox 🤣

And dependencies

[copper slate]

What’s a Jinix Jupiter computer? I didn’t find anything online.

[hollow ice]

It’s the model George uses to video conference with Mr. Spacely.

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/jinix11/Jupiter_MiSTer

[hollow estuary]

@void belfry are new challenge for you 😄 https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2025-February/031420.html

[hollow ice]

Doesn’t load here

[vestal goblet]

oh wow

[void belfry]

aaand i need to restart gmake, electricity company decided to play around last nigh/in the morning

[void belfry]

maybe on PDP11 core ?

[void belfry]

sure.. why not ? 😄

[hollow ice]

I meant the page, but it did eventually.

[void belfry]

right... so apparently I stupidly and totally forget to **ONLY **compile c/c++ not the full stuff... 🤬

[copper slate]

wow, can't believe you did that!

[void belfry]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

well, at least it is a multitasking OS and I can go on ##MiSTerFPGA IRC channel 😛

think I installed also some text games, not really sure

[copper slate]

I like that you play along even though both of us know I have no idea what’s going on lol

[void belfry]

establishing the unofficial Guiness World Record for longest (useful or not) MiSTerFPGA use

[hollow ice]

Just setting the bar low for the “Modern SSL Compilation Any%”

[summer dragon]

I’m diving back into 0MHz DOS stuff and have started uploading some more games to archive. If anyone has any games they want in 0MHz that aren’t already out there (or games that have issues that seem potentially fixable), let me know and I can give it a shot

[copper slate]

I'm just enjoyin the great selections being made, y'all have great taste.

[summer dragon]

Thanks! Now go play Jurassic Park

next one I’m planning to add is NHL Hockey…was surprised no one added it

I know it’s basically just NHL ‘94, but I had it as a kid so I’m nostalgic for it and need it again

one game that is currently broken in 0MHz that surprised me is Worms…I’m gonna dig into that one a bit and see…wonder if it was working in Top 300

[exotic prairie]

are all the terrible bethesda terminator games 0mhz?

I can't remember

[summer dragon]

looks like that’s a no

I can’t find it

[hollow ice]

haha, I remember buying a first person shooter terminator game back in the early 90s that ran like 1 fps on my computer

[exotic prairie]

yeah dude, I think there are three of them? The first one is rough

[hollow ice]

I don’t remember much other than even when I got a better computer I didn’t go back to it

[summer dragon]

i’ll look into those for sure…love me some terrible games

[hollow ice]

just something about being in an office building and I feel like the enemies were all digitized sprites

[exotic prairie]

The first one you either play as the terminator or kyle. I think the other two are post apocalypse ones

[void belfry]

see that High Seas Trader stuff I sent you 🙂 About Worms... can't test right now, but maybe it's just some qemm/emm386 (and/or dos32a) thing

[summer dragon]

@void belfry oh yeah!! I’ll upload those tonight too. That was before I decided to just bite the bullet and start uploading stuff myself 😅

Yeah Worms is a weird case because it seems like it should just work. Maybe I’ll try building a fresh pack for it and resourcing the files to start

[young gust]

NHL 96 would be awesome it there's a way to get a better frame rate out of it.

Also dunno if they're beyond what AO486 can do, I've never been able to get them to run, but Noctropolos and Afterlife would be awesome

[summer dragon]

I'll take a look!

[young gust]

That's awesome! Thank you! I've been enjoying this core so damn much. Grew up with DOS gaming and beating old DOS games I never finished when I was a kid.

I wish someone would make an AWE32 Pi much like how there's the MT-32pi.

The MT 32 is awesome but I grew up on an AWE 32 and even DOSBOX doesn't support it.

[exotic prairie]

@summer dragon don't neglect us Mt32-pi people 😄

[young gust]

Oh please don't. I bought the Mt 32 pi and love it!

Playing thru X-Com UFO Defense right now. Such an all time classic

I was 12 when it came out and my Uncle and I were OBSESSED with it!

He'd come over and we'd hang out till 3am all the time playing it. We would rename all the soldiers and to kinda make it multiplayer, we would roll with a squad of 10 and each control 5 of them and then make the financial decisions/base building etc together

[summer dragon]

I can look into that, but I can't test it unfortunately

well, I can't test the sound since I don't have an MT-32 Pi

[young gust]

I went ahead and bought a big ass binder and printing up manuals and copy protection sheets for DOS games that work in mister FPGA and my eXoDos collection

So that way it's always at my fingertips

[exotic prairie]

@summer dragon if you could do all the post release 0mhz shit, even if it's a reupload, that would be amazing. Just being able to have one-stop shop rather than searching through things

I'm v lazy

[summer dragon]

well, the one issue there is there's like...300 games or something 😅

but now that you mention it...maybe I should do my pack all in one spot

I've been doing it individually

but I've only done a handful so it's not too bad to just turn around and consolidate

[exotic prairie]

I just have your profile up, so I can just let jdownloader do its thang

[summer dragon]

niiice

currently trying to fix worms

[exotic prairie]

imma fix worms - italian grandma

[summer dragon]

also, my friend tried Rayman and joystick worked for him so I'll investigate and fix that too...potentially fixable by just deleting my config file and removing setname from the mgl...not sure yet

huh, weird...all of a sudden Worms is actually getting into game for me

I'm betting it crashes again after a minute though

[summer dragon]

Ok, so the interesting thing with Worms is it seems if you skip through the intro video to try and get to the menu, it reliably crashes

if I let it run and then naivgate the menu when it comes up, I can get in game

ah and also crashes if I exit to main menu

[young gust]

I wonder if Worms in general on PC was just a buggy game

[summer dragon]

not sure

it is using QEMM memory manager and there are a lot of config lines for it...I wonder if there's just something misconfigured there

[hollow ice]

Does exodos have the latest versions?

Can’t check the ftp site on my phone but appears there were some updates- https://worms2d.info/Patch_(Worms_1)

[summer dragon]

oooh

the VHD does use the CD version

[exotic prairie]

I wish there was an easy way to convert exodos to 0mhz

[summer dragon]

there was someone here who had made a script to do something like that, but I don't think he ever released it...and I don't think it was necesarily perfect because some games need some custom configs and what not

[summer dragon]

I could check and see if maybe I should replace the version that 0MHz has and I can try the patch...I feel like this is fixable

[young gust]

I just took the exodos games and installed them on a dos install on my mister

99% of the games worked fine other than AfterLIfe and Noctropolis

I have the eXodos converter tool too

the latest version is 0.9.7

some games ran but clearly the mister was just isn't powerful enough to handle em

[summer dragon]

ahh that’s a decent indicator those games won’t work then

[young gust]

Afterlife installs perfectly fine, when you goto run it, it does the Dos4GW stuff, then just a bunch of random text appears and thats it

[summer dragon]

maaybe they’d run if you ran them from Windows instead, but it just depends

[young gust]

Noctropolis also installs fine, when you goto run it, same thing, just random looking goofy txt

all distorted n stuff

[summer dragon]

yeah i think games that use those extenders can be more iffy on whether they’ll work or not

you’re using the latest unstable build from february?

[young gust]

Syndicate Wars ran for me, but the frame rate was pretty brutal

Yeah the latest unstable build

I tried X-Com Apocaylpse and it ran surprisngly well

I was surprised how well many DOS games from 1996 and 1997 ran as well as they did

Some games like Gateway ran but had a issue where as you moved the mouse, the graphics got all distorted

[summer dragon]

Noctropolis is 94…seems like maaaybe it could work. Maybe needs a different memory config or even to be run from win3.1 or something

Afterlife is 96 so borderline probably

[young gust]

my Dos commands are sketchy at best, it's been well..since the DOS days that i made boot disks etc lol

[summer dragon]

I’ll definitely look at them soon. I’ve got a list I’m working through. Was trying to fix a couple of bugs in current 0MHz pack that appear to be low hanging fruit first

[young gust]

all good!

appriceate ya checking it put!!

[summer dragon]

still trying to figure out why the native joystick support in Rayman won’t work for me when my friend used my same VHD and it worked for him 😅

[young gust]

ive always had issues where its only using 2 of my controller buttons

so i just map keryboard keys to my controller

keyboard

[summer dragon]

yeah that’s basically where I got to, but it was also giving issues with ccnfiguring the directions

but my friend got 4 buttons working…I used his settings and no dice

[young gust]

wonder if it matters what controller is being used

[summer dragon]

yep thats what I do too

[summer dragon]

it might…i’m using a dualsense over bt

[young gust]

i did that i played thru Blake Stone and it worked so well

i use a 8bito M30 or sN 30 over BT depending on the game

[summer dragon]

maybe i’ll try a different pad and see what happens

[young gust]

maybe try using a wired pad too

[summer dragon]

anyways, off to bed..night!

[young gust]

nite man!

[modest skiff]

I created Jurassic Park on the Ao486 using the DOSContainer script. However, the game locks up when I press ESC to enter the menu. Does anyone else have this issue with the game?

[summer dragon]

@modest skiff I just put a vhd for jurassic park up on archive a couple days ago 😊

actually, do you mean hitting Escape to skip the intro and get to the menu? Or are you talking about in-game? I know I can get to the main menu and I’m pretty sure my version doesn’t have that issue in game either

[modest skiff]

In the game or during gameplay, if I press ESC to access the menu the game locks up.

[summer dragon]

ok hmm I guess it happens in my VHD as well

[exotic prairie]

grandma you DOG

[summer dragon]

@exotic prairie it was a request from another server I’m in, honest!!

[exotic prairie]

[copper slate]

lol “robo babes”

[exotic prairie]

Metal and Lace - whoever wins, we lose

[woven lava]

debatable whether it's worse or better than Strip Fighter II

I give them points for trying to make something else than a slide show "visual novel", though

[summer dragon]

@woven lava there is an NR-18 version included in that pack too

[woven lava]

I hope it has Cobra Mission and Knight of Xentar for completeness😅

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Amstrad-PCW_MiSTer/pull/8

[void belfry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5m95ZMRNfo&ab_channel=TheSerialPort

[hollow estuary]

That was a good one. Seeing that alteon console gave me flashbacks to memories I thought I'd long forgotten

[void belfry]

same here. I like this channel for its old networking stuff

[hollow estuary]

Their secondary channel the Parallel Port is great as well. Also clabretro covers similar content

[void belfry]

had to check the 2nd channel, didn't had time to explore it

several years ago I decommissioned several Alteon (as well with some 3COM, Cisco PIX and other old stuff) 😄

[summer dragon]

@young gust Noctropolis ExoDos pack has Univbe in the main directory...I'll bet that was the issue....working on it now

[young gust]

I've never heard of Univbe

[summer dragon]

it's a video driver

[young gust]

Ah

Maybe that was the issue with Afterlife as well

[summer dragon]

gonna try installing it here

[young gust]

I appreciate you taking the time to look into these

I gotta learn how to configure these myself too

[summer dragon]

got a title screen

credits going

seems to be working so far!

I way overestimated how big the VHD needed to be though hah

looks like I should be able to add the menu from exodos that lets you pick the soundcard stuff maybe...this one does support MT-32

[young gust]

Oh that's freaking sweet!!!

[summer dragon]

wow I made the VHD 10 times smaller and still overstimated haha

I wish the installer said X amount of space needed

cool, seems like Noctropolis is working

[void belfry]

Maybe it would be useful first to use a work/test VHD (multiple memoru managers and other tools like univbe, dos32a and so on) ? then moving to a 0mhz style one ?

[summer dragon]

I could, but I just use the VHD Kitchen tool I made to make them, so it's pretty easy to just set it up

but yeah there is that guessing game sometimes

I certainly could do it the other way 😅

[void belfry]

my usual DOS 7.1 setup

[summer dragon]

@young gust you know what, it looks like Idelacio already added Noctropolis to archive in 0MHz form

[young gust]

Oh damn

I must've skimmed right over it

[summer dragon]

the weird thing is

he says "it doesn't appear to use CD audio"

well maybe it doesn't idk

but the disc is 300MB compared to the install folder being like 3MB

[young gust]

I'm not sure I've never played it. Just read it's pretty good so was gonna give it a playthrough here soon

[summer dragon]

his disc image is slightly smaller than mine

but yeah for any game just search gamename 0mhz on archive and if it exists it shoudl come up

[young gust]

Ok. Will do

[summer dragon]

coulda sworn I searched for it too

I can try Afterlife later, but it's way past my bedtime now

[young gust]

Alrighty. Goodnight man!!

[summer dragon]

I'll probably be back at adding more stuff tomorrow

[summer dragon]

You know what, I think you sent me this, so really I could just use that

[void belfry]

Noctropolis sure has CD audio tracks though...

[summer dragon]

well...I'm still up

trying to add the exodos version of Jurassic Park that includes the CD version/MT-32 version and for some reason when I run the typical run.bat file that gives the menu with choices, it just plows right through it and doesn't let me make a selection...any ideas?

batch file looks exactly the same as other batch file choice menus I've used

hmmm definitely something about the actual batch file itself I think...when I run it manually it does the same thing

[summer dragon]

yeah, this is really weird, I don't get it

[void belfry]

OMFG !!! just as a hunch and nothing to do over morning coffee, but (at least) latest ao486 unstable can run now Savage Warriors

Grandma, we need to talk at some point about this too 😛

[summer dragon]

about my batch file dilemma?

[void belfry]

no, that I have no clue 😄 didn't test that game

[summer dragon]

haha

[void belfry]

aaand it works as well on the stable 27.12.2024 lol

First hit for "Savage Warriors USA" on archive, Disc v1, mount and install, asks for about 30 megs of space, seems to work fine on DOS 7.1 and QEMM (didn't try anything else yet like EMM386, but game will need 2.6 megs of EMS). Probably will work as fine in DOS 6.2.2 as well.

3D style replay also works just fine

[void belfry]

Knew I'm not senile (yet) #1047332497492553799 message 😄 Tried this game an year ago, so most probably one of Humply's commits also fixed this as well

[void belfry]

Also EMM386 plays nice with this game

[young gust]

I can't wait to see what grandma can do with NHL 96. I can get it to run but the frame rate is probably like 12 fps at best. Might just be one of those games that's too much for the DE10 but I remain hopeful!

DOS actually has quite a few good hockey games

[summer dragon]

@young gust planning to go in order and look at NHL 95 next and then I’ll take a look at 96 👍

[young gust]

Woo hoo

NHL 95 should be easy. I installed it and it just ran perfectly. Same with 94

[exotic prairie]

Grandma. I’m expecting a whole new pack out of you. Don’t let us down

[young gust]

Hahaha

Thanks for doing some sports games too btw

Sports games always get neglected by the retro community

There's some really great baseball games on PC as well. There's a few tiny Larissa baseball games that are really good. Hard Ball 3 and 4 and solid as well

Tony Larussa not Tiny 😂

[summer dragon]

Yeah I have ‘NHL Hockey’ uploaded. I need to go back and add the CD version…I had the floppy version as a kid

errr maybe I did have the CD version 🤔 my memory is vague

[young gust]

One of em uses the MT -32 but if you use it you get no sound fx. Great decision there by EA

I think there are a few Madden games for DOS and NFL QB club too but I've never played em. Dynamix made front page sports football and front page sports baseball. Dunno If those are good or not

[summer dragon]

Hooray! Made a new VHD for my Jurassic Park image and the menu works now

not sure what the problem was before

ah, the CD version does have different audio at least in the intro credits

ooooh and an animation

hmmm no music in the first level huh

oh wait

it's there...it's just reallly low...I found on a forum that for dosbox you set sbmixer=false in settings, but I'm not sure what the equivalent of that is for standard DOS?

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PC88_MiSTer/pull/44

[young gust]

Mortal Kombat 2 has a similar issue where you can barely hear the sound fx. No idea how to fix it.

[summer dragon]

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=13634&start=20

I guess I can experimnt with setting volume levels...trying to figure that out

i found a utility to do it (SBMIX), but when I try to use it doesn't appear to change settings

says the Blaster env needs to be set correctly which...I thought it was since I'm just using 0MHz defaults for that

oh i got it!'

got sbmix working that is

huh it doesn't seem to take though even though it acts like it does at first

[young gust]

Bummer 😭

[summer dragon]

it's supposedly adjusting the volumes, but not by the amount I actually specified

[summer dragon]

ok if I do the install and basically turn the sound effects off, then the music is plenty loud

maybe just do the install again and leave them on idk

[summer dragon]

gahhh why am I so obssessed with this game in particular...oh yeah, because I had it as a kid

basically, the sound effects on the CD Version need to go down and the music needs to go up and idk how to make that happen (yet)

and unfortunately this SBMIX tool seems to have no actual effect

[summer dragon]

from the AO486 Github under th Sound Blaster section: Simple volume (only master volume) is implemented in mixer so windows volume can be used in additional to standard MiSTer volume control.

Does that mean I actually can't adjust the individual channels for the Sound Blaster unless the game itself has an option?

[young gust]

That's how I interpret that

[summer dragon]

yeah, I’m thinking that’s what it is

[young gust]

That sucks there isn't an option to alter that because I feel like the way it's currently setup is more of a roadblock than helpful

[summer dragon]

not sure how many games it affects. If we’re correct about our assumption, that probably explains why I couldn’t get that SBMIX program to do anything

[elder cove]

I’ve been encountering this weird visual artifact with green and red lines on AO486 lately. Anyone else noticed this?

Did some reading online, and it looks like this is a known issue with the current core. Looks like there is a fixed version available on the forums.

[summer dragon]

hmm, I don’t recall having issues like that, but maybe it’s game dependent

[elder cove]

According to what I read, it only impacts certain VGA games, and doesn't occur on all hardware.

Should be fixed by this build:

[summer dragon]

ah interesting…I assume that fix is rolled into the latest unstable as well

[exotic prairie]

Someone has put a 0mhz like x68k collection in the usual space...I think it's just a bunch of MGLs for the exisitng pack...but it's a start

[elder cove]

Just set up a 0MHz-style pack on my MiSTer for the game Commander Blood, a fascinating oddity from the mid-'90s featuring retro CGI & puppet aliens.

[summer dragon]

looks like no one’s uploaded that one yet…feel free to dm me if you want to share it !

[young gust]

I could've sworn I saw commander blood on the archive page

I've always wanted to try it. It was one of Cryo Interactive's early games. They did great work on games like Dune, and Lost Eden

[short finch]

I freakin' loved Commander Blood back then.

And I should have my copy at my parents place.

[robust monolith]

It's 1.4gig, has all the HDFs as well now.

[exotic prairie]

Yeah, it’s very similar to the hdf pack that has been around. Names are cleaned up, has a couple of different games, and is missing a couple. Gonna test some today if I have time

[devout sleet]

What happened to the X68000 files on the github page? The releases tab is empty.

[frosty cosmos]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/X68000_MiSTer/tree/master/releases

[copper slate]

What are some recommended X68000 games to play? Any translated?

[exotic prairie]

You will love Chourensha68k

[copper slate]

Awesome, thanks!

[exotic prairie]

You also have your usual suspects, Cotton, R type, Gradius, Castlevania...

[short finch]

Akumajou Dracula, Chou Ren Sha, Gradius II, Final Fight, Daimakaimura, Etoile Princess, Parodius, R-Type, Super Street Fighter II, Nemesis '90 Kai, Cotton, Sol Feace, Strider, Atomic Robo Kid, Aquales, Neural Gear, Knight Arms...

[exotic prairie]

it’s an incredible library

I hope puu-san comes back to it (I know they did the keyboard update, I mean come back to it)

[short finch]

I forgot some games like R + R and Zugya.

[copper slate]

Oh wow, so many awesome console games were just ports from the PC, haha.

[exotic prairie]

and don't worry buddy. there are some visual novels too for when you get....bored

[copper slate]

LOL no

Ok so real talk. I tried to give a visual novel a chance and it ain't for me.

[exotic prairie]

x68k and the jag core are my two favorite cores at the moment

[copper slate]

Well that's not true, I did like the Famicom Detective re-release for Switch

that's basically a visual novel

[exotic prairie]

ace attorney is kind of a visual novel too...if you squint

[short finch]

Hides his Gyakuten Saiban / Ace Attorney collection

[exotic prairie]

https://tenor.com/b2lcx.gif

[short finch]

I bought a GBA with that game in 2002 to an import store.

Now, it's a whole storage room...

[summer dragon]

Anyone else playing the X68000 core noticing that you can’t eject HDF files?

[exotic prairie]

that’s always been the case iirc

i think you have to load a floppy disk

and then eject that

[summer dragon]

even if I eject the floppy the HDF never ejects

loading floppies does work

I’m wondering if not being able to eject the HDF affects disk loading at all?

[elder cove]

If I'm looking at running Windows 3.1 in 86Box to configure my MiSTer installation, what graphics card should I be emulating?

[thick pendant]

tseng Et4000

[thick pendant]

If you can find a driver that works with 2MB VRAM let me know. I've only been able to get 1MB support in 3.11.

[granite umbra]

@ruby charm
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer/pull/188

[ruby charm]

Woa!!! Great!! 😄

@granite umbra I hope it appears in unstable nightlies soon!

[granite umbra]

it needs to be merged 😉

[ruby charm]

I'm VERY happy with this fix, because along with the recent fixes by humply, this is becoming a very competent 486sx core 🙂 And I LOVE that era of PC gaming

[elder basin]

sorry that took so long, been so damn busy with kids and work. The core is really overdue for a stable release soon; I'm hearing a lot of chatter regarding video artifacts on the latest stable. Just needs a good build

get those latest humply PRs in there too

[vestal isle]

I just got xwindows running on ao486 using netbsd 1.4. It's only 8 bit but thats a limitation of the software of the day it seems.

[hollow ice]

is that twm?

[vestal isle]

Yup

X runs under either XF86_W32 or XF86_SVGA at 1024

[ruby charm]

Wow, beautiful! Does it run at usable speeds?

[elder basin]

sorg just merged

[vestal isle]

It runs super fast. I just updated my netbsd-1999.vhd at the archive. Just download, log on as root/root and startx. There is a file in /root called startppp and it does work too.

[young gust]

Does this new unstable build fix that graphic distortion?

[copper slate]

No, OPL3 is a sound chip.

[young gust]

I know. I was hoping perhaps that wasn't the only change

[elder basin]

the graphical issues are from bad builds... so unstable nightly could be fine, or not. The core isn't even close to meeting timing, so it's a crap shoot

[young gust]

Ah

[elder basin]

unfortunately the latest stable release is a bad build

many people have complained

there should be a process where there's a release candidate that many people can test, and then the final stable release. But that's not how it works. AFAIK sorg just tests on his own kit and calls it

I made a half ass attempt at one point to get the core to meet timing, by inserting registers to chop up some of the combinational logic. But mostly all I did was reduce performance and get a bit closer to meeting timing, it wasn't even there yet. Sorg is right in that this core is a bit too much for this FPGA

it's essentially overclocked

if you look at some of the longest paths it's an insane amount of logic stacked up

amazing it works

[summer dragon]

first game is now up...the correct game speed seemed hard to pin down, but I went with 56MHz and L2 cache off. If you find better settings for it, let me know

[young gust]

While not perfect I've been having a blast with it

[summer dragon]

I'll tackle the other two later...hopefully they're better 😅

[young gust]

Their first attempt was really fascinating

Extremely ambitious

Big ass open world 3D game

[summer dragon]

oh yeah, it's wild for 1991

[young gust]

The copy protection is a pain in the ass

[summer dragon]

in the one i put up, you just press enter

[young gust]

Oh fucking rights baby

Awesome

[summer dragon]

someone who knows the game well should take a look to see if the speed is ok...I wonder if it's a game that the MoSlo utility could help at all

[young gust]

I'll try it out here shortly

[summer dragon]

the most noticeable problem is that the credits seem to roll really fast, but the game itself seems ok

[young gust]

I'd say as long the game itself runs smoothly that's all that matters

I'm up with my kiddos here all night so I'll be gaming all night long so I'll spend some time with it

I think one of the coolest things about it is that it lets you be the Terminator. And the evil one no less.

I miss those days of gaming so damn much

It was the wild West basically. Everyone trying to innovate and try new things

[summer dragon]

you can make it run even smoother by upping the cpu clock and/or turning L2 back on, but the sound of the heartbeat will get annoying

[young gust]

I'm gonna go download it right now

Gonna set that ST-V stuff setup too

My buddy introducing me to Mister was the best/worst thing to ever happen to me lol I can't put this damn thing down

[summer dragon]

it’s my favorite “console”/gaming device I’ve ever owned

[young gust]

Same here

the upcoming 3DO core, and MS-DOS puts the device over the top for me

[young gust]

Looking for your upload, is it just on archieve?

[summer dragon]

yeah

[young gust]

awesome. found it! downloading now.

hey, dumb question time.

When you load a game from that 0mhz setup such as your latest uplaod, does it automaticly use the config file or do you have to manually select it?

[exotic prairie]

The game ran like butts when it came out. I had a 386 that I could turbo to 33mhz and it was rough

[elder cove]

Been putting together a few A0486 OMHz packages.

Posted Commander Blood in the usual place - just in case it got taken down previously, I’m distributing it as an xdelta patch to the official Zoom Platform release. Apply the patch to the official .EXE 1.1 installer and rename the extension to .7z to extract the MiSTer files.

[summer dragon]

it will automatically use it because i specify setname in the mgl

[young gust]

ok cooll

[summer dragon]

you should be able to tell in the OSD because the left sidebar should say AO486-Terminator instead of just AO486

[summer dragon]

I will say if you download a different pack from the official collection or someone else’s that doesn’t use setname in the mgl, it will just use the standard ao486.cfg file

[young gust]

ah alrighty

[elder cove]

I’ve also got Windows 3.1 setups working for Total Distortion and VNC: The Virtual Nightclub, as well as a Windows 95 setup running really well for The Day The World Broke. Those should be up tomorrow

[summer dragon]

setname is most useful for keyboard>controller remaps I’d say…I did it that way for Terminator since I wanted people to be able to easily adjust the config if needed

@elder cove so awesome! Sounds like I’ll have some new stuff to try this week !

[young gust]

Windows 95 runs on this thing? damn that's wild

I got 2 of my favorite Windows 3.1 games running in The Dark Eye and Millenium Auction

[elder cove]

Cool! Would love to see those.

9: The Last Resort is next on my list. Then probably Ceremony of Innocence, I Spy: Spooky Mansion, and Clue ‘97.

[young gust]

The Dark Eye and Millennium Auction are pretty unique games. Nothing earth shattering, but unique

[young gust]

Went to try Terminator and none of these games are running now for some reason. Main menu screen flickers for an instant but that's it

Gonna have to figure out what happened

Ok fixed that lol trying Terminator now

[exotic prairie]

pick the terminator. the kyle campaign is miserable

[young gust]

Oh I know

I played this a ton as a kid

One recommendation I'd suggest

Is go-to video processing and select interpolation to soft so it's not a dithered mess

Really helps

Game seems to run exactly as I remember it

[granite umbra]

One issue closed with this update
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PC88_MiSTer/issues/41

[ruby charm]

I think that we should expect less speed and better timings with this core on the DE10-nano. So I'd say fixing the timings and losing some speed is perfectly ok, please go on with that effort 🙂

[elder basin]

the performance loss was very high, and the problem wasn't fixed yet. I was going about it in a pretty dumb way. It's a pretty monumental task to pipeline the core in an intelligent way.

just take a look at the logic stacked up in https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer/blob/master/rtl/ao486/memory/tlb.v

[elder basin]

Easier to just downclock the core if your goal is to meet timing

[fast kraken]

i wonder if there's anything you could borrow from the n64 TLB

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PC88_MiSTer/pull/45

[summer dragon]

potentially dumb question…if I were to add a line to an MGL for a computer core and specify a blank path to a VHD or whatever, would it actually unmount whatever drive was previously mounted? Or would it just not do anything.

[elder basin]

pretty sure the entire memory subsystem is pretty x86 specific, but I barely scratched the surface

one sort of interesting thing (unrelated to timing) is with the new OPL3 core we have a lot more BRAM available on the chip. I experimented with increasing the cache sizes but it didn't seem to have any effect on performance. Pretty sure I was missing something. It's not as easy as just changing a parameter

but if someone were so inclined to dig into it, it might be a nice performance boost. The BRAM was previously used for the embedded Z80 that emulated the OPL3.

[elder cove]

The Day the World Broke is up. Total Distortion will be next.

[fast kraken]

yeah i was just thinking robert came up with some pretty smart optimizations on the n64 tlb, and afaik it's the only other tlb on mister

if i understand the concept correctly (indirected memory address spaces) it might be quite transferable

[young gust]

Maybe reach out to him and maybe he could offer assistance/advice?

[summer dragon]

robert worked on ao486 too so he might know right away if it’d be applicable

[elder cove]

The setup for 9: The Last Resort is working - that will be the next upload once Total Distortion is done. Moving on to Ceremony of Innocence.

[young gust]

Also in relation to that opl3 now freeing up extra space for potential performance gains. Could be really useful for a game that syndicate Wars that if it could get even just an extra 5 fps boost would be huge

[young gust]

Absolutely wild windows 95 games are working

[elder cove]

There's a letter you need to read to start 9: The Last Resort and get a basic idea of what you need to be doing.

That will be in a separate folder labeled Paperwork (Essential to Play) along with the install. I've included an image scan of the letter, along with a full transcription of the cursive handwritten text as a plain .txt file.

For VNC, I'll also include an updated version of my Unauthorized Visitor's Guide that I made for the game's 25th anniversary in that package. It runs through a brief bit of history about the game, alongside a walkthrough if you get stuck.

[summer dragon]

man that’s really going above and beyond, so cool!

[young gust]

eXoDos and eXoWin generally have manuals n reference cards for these games

I have both installed so if anyone needs those to add to anything I can send those

[summer dragon]

yeah i’ve been thinking about that and considering that some 0MHz packs should have an additional help folder in the pack with related documentation

haven’t done anything like that with anything I’ve uploaded yet, though

[elder cove]

So far, Ceremony of Innocence is a piece of work lol

I had to rebuild the entire image for it to load correctly on the core, removing the Mac hybrid contents. Otherwise, it would see the files on the disc, but not actually recognize that they existed

[elder cove]

Well, things are moving. I have some worries about the 3D Spatial audio, as the test program has some stutter issues, but we’ll see once we get into the game.

Yeah, the 3D audio driver on this one makes it way too slow. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to call Ceremony of Innocence unplayable on this core.

[elder cove]

I tried a few more games to check off the list tonight, but no dice. Blue Ice requires a FPU (meaning I’ll need to look into something like Q87 to get it working), and I Spy: Spooky Mansion is having an issue with the installer that needs more investigation.

[young gust]

I managed to get Star Trek TNG. A Final Unity to run.

But some parts run a bit rough cause it wants an FPU as well. But it's playable

Doesn't run in high res but hey it's playable so good enough

Old ass DOS games now just keep popping in my head and I'm like well damn I wonder if that one would work! And now I got a try trying stuff out lol

[summer dragon]

I’m not familiar with the Q87 that @elder cove mentioned, but maybe it’s applicable for that game as well?

[young gust]

I'm not familiar with it as well. Will need to look into that

Maybe it could fix the performance there

It's a great game if you're a fan of graphic adventure games

[summer dragon]

ahh I see @void belfry has a forum post about it

@young gust Yep he mentions that Star Trek A Final Unity works with that - https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=6639

[young gust]

Well shit.

I'm gonna have to figure out how to use that

I wanna try to learn the ins n outs of all this and help get some stuff uploaded on the archive for people who just wanna click play and go

[summer dragon]

sounds like the software may not just be out there in a readily usable format

thera mentions hex editing a file to get it working so it might not be all that easy

[young gust]

For final unity I'd say it isn't worth the hassle

Game runs fine. Only gets choppy in a men screen where there's the map of the galaxy rotating

Even then it's not a deal breaker

Some of the stuff that does run on this thing impresses me even if it isn't perfect

[void belfry]

actually patching Q87 is a very easy process, doable in less than 5 mins directly under DOS

DM and I can send you the very small how-to

OR someone can simply search the archive for "FX Fighter ao486" and use what it finds there (not mine but a friend's work when I first dabbled into this thing) 😉

[void belfry]

Tried a lot to get in contact with the authors of Q87 to get it proper/ask them if it should be considered abandonware etc, but I failed (like so many others)

[void belfry]

@elder cove Blue Ice working (fine I guess, never played this) with Q87 fpu emulator. Didn't test it more, just had a short break and could briefly fire up MiSTer

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=95731#p95731 -- updated the list on forum as well

[stuck linden]

Where is the MSX2 core?

[void belfry]

For Molekula's see pinned messages here https://discord.com/channels/647909397477195803/1056033525922537542

[void belfry]

fun times from last year+ 😄

[elder cove]

Posted the 0MHz configuration for Blue Ice - thanks again @void belfry for your help with that one.

I also added the Q87 files with the protection removed out of FX Fighter as their own post, if anyone else wants to try adding them to their own configs.

[void belfry]

Meanwhile.... I don't even know really where to post this (or even formulate properly to have perfect sense) : ELKS Unix-like OS almost running on NES console core via NES86 emulator (an IBM PC emu for NES).
From here: https://github.com/decrazyo/nes86 (he has more of this stuff including on his YT channel)

[stuck linden]

The test core listed there doesn't work.

And the MSX1 core can't load MSX2 games.

[void belfry]

I beg to differ, it works just fine.

What exactly doesn't work ? have you followed instructions to build ROM packs and everything ?

[stuck linden]

Which one?
The screen just goes black when the core is loaded and I can't even open the menu.
Why must one build rom packs? Why can't we just load roms like in other cores?

[void belfry]

Literally RTFM 😄
Test Branch: The test branch available on GitHub in the MSX2test branch requires two packs to run. These are the configuration of the selected MSX model (ROM pack) and possibly a pack with FW plug-ins (FW PACK). These packs are not freely available, but you can create them using the provided script. You can find it in CreateMSXpack.zip.You need to own the binary ROM files. Only the CBIOS pack, which is freely available, is available on GitHub. This test version is not final.

What it means is those packs are instructing the core to which MSX model to simulate

For example I want to use a Sony HitBit FX-1D mk2, which is also my real machine. Then I create that rom pack for that machine using the provided script in the CreateMSXpack zip file. Bonus, you can do it directly under MiSTer ARM Linux, no need for extra stuff

just get the zip, unzip it, get whatever MSX bios/rom files, assemble them with the script and be happy

[stuck linden]

I guess I can live without playing MSX2 games.

[elder cove]

Alternatively, you could also just get a VHD pack off Archive and play MSX2 games with the 1chipMSX core.

[stuck linden]

I just tried this, but this keeps happening when loading a rom.
Disks work though.

[elder cove]

What do you have set for your slots and internal mapper?

I’d also be curious what title you’re trying to run.

[stuck linden]

The ROM I'm trying to run is the MSX2 port of Bomb Jack.

[elder cove]

Yep, I’m getting the same error with the title. Looks like a bad ROM.

[stuck linden]

I just found a dsk version in the set2 folder of another VHD, so it's all good. I'm going to see if other roms work.