Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Author Topic: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build  (Read 2303 times)

Description:

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline chrisTopic starter

ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« on: October 30, 2011, 10:30:50 PM »
Anybody fancy a play?  You can download here and you will need a ROM image as described here.

I ran it on my A1200 (68030@40MHz) and it took about half an hour to boot (and I'm still waiting for the contents of HostFS to show on screen), so I'd be interested to hear how it runs on anything beefier.

I've included !SICK in the HostFS dir for benchmarking purposes, please post your results if you don't die of old age before it completes.

Oh, and don't bother running it on OS4; it's dog slow there too - use the native PPC version (due an update - the current CVS is much faster - but that one is still quicker than the latest under 68k emulation)
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar picture is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz
 

Offline fishy_fiz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jan 2005
  • Posts: 1813
    • Show only replies by fishy_fiz
Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2011, 06:28:11 AM »
Thanks for this, I'll give it a try now and get back to you with some feedback after Ive had a play :)
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline fishy_fiz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jan 2005
  • Posts: 1813
    • Show only replies by fishy_fiz
Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2011, 11:56:09 AM »
I gave it a try, but trying to use it simply tells me that the path "audio" cant be found. Just as a guess I tried assigning it to the the arcem folder, but that just makes it do nothing.
Any clues please ?


edit:
I just had another look using snoopdos, and it tries to open "audio:bits/16/c/2/f/44100/t/signed".

I assume its trying to initialise sound, but trying to open it as a path instead?
« Last Edit: October 31, 2011, 12:05:37 PM by fishy_fiz »
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline chrisTopic starter

Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2011, 12:21:43 AM »
Quote from: fishy_fiz;665889
I gave it a try, but trying to use it simply tells me that the path "audio" cant be found. Just as a guess I tried assigning it to the the arcem folder, but that just makes it do nothing.
Any clues please ?


edit:
I just had another look using snoopdos, and it tries to open "audio:bits/16/c/2/f/44100/t/signed".

I assume its trying to initialise sound, but trying to open it as a path instead?


Firstly, please download again, I accidentally put an old buggy version in the archive.

Secondly, the sound uses the AUDIO: device which installs alongside AHI (L:AHI-Handler). You might find AUDIO mountlist hiding in SYS:Storage/DOSDrivers if AHI is already installed.  Alternatively, there is an outside chance that this will work.
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar picture is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz
 

Offline fishy_fiz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jan 2005
  • Posts: 1813
    • Show only replies by fishy_fiz
Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2011, 05:24:30 AM »
Thanks, its working now.
Unfortunately Im not particularly familiar with RiscOS, nor Arcem, so Im a little blind here.
Something doesnt seem quite right though, its pretty slow, but "feels" like omething is holding it back.
I ran !Sick, which took about 5 minutes to complete, and reported back that I have a 2.9ish mhz machine @2.1mips per mhz.
The whole time the cursor flickers, and it just feels like its struggling.

All sounds reasonable and one would think that it's simply pushing the host hardware, but something about the "feel" just didnt seem right, so I decided to run a 640x480 divx file at the same time and rerun arcem.

Lo and behold the results where pretty much identical.
Any tips please on how to assign more resources to the emulator?

Oh, and Im running it on my amithlon box by the way (core2duo@3.86ghz/dual channel ddr2-1066/matrox g550/sb audigy).
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline chrisTopic starter

Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2011, 06:42:26 PM »
Quote from: fishy_fiz;666034
Thanks, its working now.
Unfortunately Im not particularly familiar with RiscOS, nor Arcem, so Im a little blind here.


Middle mouse button (if you have one) is for menus.  Apps show up in the task bar towards the right-hand side (next to the palette).  Drag'n'drop is everywhere.  F12 (if you have it) lets you run *commands (DOS prompt basically).  Middle-clicking the Acorn logo is the GUI way of getting to the *commands prompt.  Oh, and all applications are directories - hold shift and double-click one to see.

Quote

Something doesnt seem quite right though, its pretty slow, but "feels" like omething is holding it back.
I ran !Sick, which took about 5 minutes to complete, and reported back that I have a 2.9ish mhz machine @2.1mips per mhz.
The whole time the cursor flickers, and it just feels like its struggling.

All sounds reasonable and one would think that it's simply pushing the host hardware, but something about the "feel" just didnt seem right, so I decided to run a 640x480 divx file at the same time and rerun arcem.

Lo and behold the results where pretty much identical.
Any tips please on how to assign more resources to the emulator?


That sounds about right, early versions on OS4 were the same, it's literally due to lack of emulated CPU.

If you click Apps, double-click !Configure and go into the mouse settings, increasing the speed should help a little.

You can also have a play around with the tooltypes.
Take out:
AUTOUPDATEFLAGS
Set:
USEUPDATEFLAGS
FRAMESKIP= (pick a number)

You might like to try a different screen mode too.  Middle-click the palette, go up to mode and select (or type in) 12.  If that doesn't help try 22 (IIRC that's ultra low res)

Quote

Oh, and Im running it on my amithlon box by the way (core2duo@3.86ghz/dual channel ddr2-1066/matrox g550/sb audigy).


2.9MHz equivalent was better than I was expecting!  Doesn't sound too usable though.

I'll see if I can fix the pointer flicker, I might be able to stop it updating quite so much.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 06:44:36 PM by chris »
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar picture is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz
 

Offline Minuous

Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #6 on: November 03, 2011, 03:34:29 AM »
It boots up RiscOS but there is no mouse pointer, therefore I can't actually do anything with it :-(
 

Offline fishy_fiz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jan 2005
  • Posts: 1813
    • Show only replies by fishy_fiz
Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #7 on: November 03, 2011, 04:07:40 AM »
The thing is though I get identical results when its running by itself and when I run it concurrently with a 640x480 divx file, so something is obviously amiss.
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline chrisTopic starter

Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #8 on: November 03, 2011, 08:30:05 AM »
Quote from: Minuous;666329
It boots up RiscOS but there is no mouse pointer, therefore I can't actually do anything with it :-(


You have the version I originally uploaded (which was broken), please re-download.
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar picture is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz
 

Offline fishy_fiz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jan 2005
  • Posts: 1813
    • Show only replies by fishy_fiz
Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #9 on: November 03, 2011, 09:53:06 AM »
Hmm,.. strange. I tried again to see if I could work out what was wrong, but not it refuses to load at all.
I just get a shell opening and telling me "something or other is greater to or equal than expected results"  over and over again (something to that effect anyway, not infront of tht machine now).
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline Minuous

Re: ArcEm - Acorn Archimedes emulator - 68k build
« Reply #10 on: November 05, 2011, 01:28:57 AM »
Quote from: chris;666334
You have the version I originally uploaded (which was broken), please re-download.


OK, thanks. I will do and will let you know the results.