amiga-news.de - Archive

Archive 10/2022

`07.Oct.2022` RetroWiki	ACube Systems: Sam460LE boards available (update) In a press release from mid-August, ACube Systems had announced the delivery of the Sam460LE boards for the end of September (amiga-news.de reported). Now the board is offered in the in ACube's store for 962.58 Euro including taxes and AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition but excluding memory modules. Update: (09.10.2022, 13:48, dr) Acube Systems has just informed us that the information that the board is listed as "In stock" in the store is misleading. Currently, the boards are still in production, the published image is from pre-production. They had to be built to make sure they work as intended. According to the current status, the boards will be finished at the beginning of November. (dr) [News message: 07. Oct. 2022, 06:42] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`07.Oct.2022`	Emulator: WinUAE 4.9.2+ beta 1 Originally Toni Wilen, the author of the well-known Amiga emulator WinUAE, had already planned to jump to version 5 with the next release in July 2021 (amiga-news.de reported). However, in February 2022 he first released version 4.9.1 and as he now reports with the start of the beta series for version 4.9.2+ (the version number can still change), the next release will not have version number 5 either. As he explained, there is a "huge amount of low level changes". And he continued: "Main reason for delay is 68000 IPL timing testing. The last important part of cycle-accuracy. So far there has been 3 attempts this year, initial plan was to use serial port interrupts to generate cycle-accurately timed interrupt (connect TX to RX pin, send byte, when byte gets received, interrupt is generated). This didn't work because Paula serial port internal delays were unknown and I had no idea how to test it properly. Next plan was to use external hardware (microcontroller that pulls IPL lines). It worked but it wasn't fully cycle-accurate because of async clocks and it was annoying to use (I also didn't like requiring external hardware), it would have needed more hardware and I wanted to be it to be as simple as possible. Then we (me and ross) finally run out of weird display and CIA related tests and decided to analyze serial port timing. It took few more weeks (and also helped to confirm Paula interrupt timing). Finally serial port interrupt was usable for IPL testing. Still some tester software updates and testing to do before real work starts. This probably takes at least 1-2 months (it is soo boring..) which is the reason I plan to start beta series before IPL updates are done." Now he has released the first beta version for 4.9.2+ under the title link. Main changes: Added "Ultra extreme debug" overscan mode. Complete raster is fully visible, horizontal and vertical blanking disabled (including borderblank). COLOR0 changes are always visible. CPU chipset bus access cycle allocation was not fully accurate. Basically addressing part of cycle and data transfer part of cycle was swapped. Has been wrong since CE mode was introduced. Fixes for example Batman the Caped Crusader. (Single cycle difference was all that was needed to fix it..). This can break some older state files. 68000 STOP emulation rewritten, cycle usage and interrupt start timing is fully cycle accurate now. If all bitplane start conditions were active except vertical DIWSTRT and DIWSTRT was written later with vertical value == current vertical, bitplane DMA started immediately but there should be 2 cycle delay. If bitplane DMA was disabled but all other conditions were already active and then DMACON was written to enable BPL DMA: DMA started 1-2 cycles too late. If (quite short) bitplane DMA ends before all sprite slots have been processed, remaining sprite slots can still work normally (sprites are only inhibited when internal bitplane activity signal is active). This can also trigger very nasty (previously unknown?) chipset bug: when last bitplane DMA fetch happens, sprite DMA is not anymore inhibited by bitplane DMA (sort of off-by-one bug) and if same slot has active sprite, it will conflict with bitplane DMA. It can cause unexpected DMA write to another custom register (instead of BPLxDAT), possible range is from 0x100 to 0x11E. For example if it happens to be BPLCON0 (0x100), display can get corrupted or monitor can lose sync (or shows "No signal" message) if ERSY bit gets set. (Guess how this bug was found.. It was quite confusing when very innocent looking test program suddenly caused display to lose sync only on real hardware). This is now accurately emulated and DMA debugger will log conflicts. Bitplane refresh slot conflicts are accurately emulated (see below) Added monitor sync method configuration. Default is "Combined" (matches previous UAE versions that basically combines both modes), C-Sync: use composite sync signal as sync source, HV-Sync: use separate horizontal and vertical sync signals (VGA). Some programmed modes can have differences between sync modes or only work in HV sync mode or only in C sync mode in real world. For example ECS Denise can't generate both valid C-sync and programmed horizontal blanking simultaneously. AGA does not have this limitation. Emulated display is now blanked if programmed display mode settings are impossible (real display would lose sync, become blanked or show "no signal"), for example really too short or really too long sync pulses, BPLCON0 ERSY set without genlock, BEAMCON0 BLANKEN or CSYTRUE and CSYNC monitor setting selected etc.. If old statefile is loaded with ERSY set without genlock: enable genlock to prevent unexpected blank screen. Optional display resync blank screen added to Display panel. (Simulates "modern" display mode resync delay). If not enabled, OSD FPS counter will temporarily show "---" DMA debugger had wrong address shown for second copper WAIT/SKIP cycle. (was same as previous read cycle) Hires resolution and hires BPLCON1 bit set (or shres and shres BPLCON1 bit): single pixel horizontal offset may have appeared in right side of screen. AGA and non-subpixel mode only. (Skidmarks II in hires mode) RTC is automatically enabled if chipset extra= and system has fast ram, slow ram or chip ram expansion. Higher 68000/010 integer clock multipliers (4x+) in CE mode: chipset access timing was not accurate. A1000 Denise bug emulated: sprites end horizontally 1 lores pixel later than bitplane horizontal window end. Currently enabled when A1000 Agnus is selected. Replaced internal 32-bit cycle counter with 64-bit counter, simplifies internal logic because annoying counter wrap around handling is not needed anymore. Playfield to playfield collision (full collision) only worked when same line had at least one active sprite. (4.9.0) Sprite to playfield collisions didn't work correctly (4.9.0) Horizontal blanking was missing if programmed screen mode was active without programmed horizontal blanking (hardwired blanking should have been active) CIA emulation refactored, fully cycle-accurate now. See below. Max allowed programmed mode non-interlaced vertical line count is now 800 (from 592), special 700+ line programmed modes are possible and compatible with real SVGA monitors. Statefile restore didn't restore static BPLxDAT values correctly (only affects OCS/ECS programs that use "7-plane" mode and only update BPLxDATs at startup). (broke in 4.1.0) Copper zero cycle special cases updated, odd/even line length difference emulated. Copper list that "overflows" to beginning of next frame special case timing emulated, if copper has pending DMA request when COPJMP happens, COPJMP startup gets delayed by 1 copper cycle. Previously copper state was reset at cycle 0 and delayed start was queued which is not correct because first line's cycles 0 and 2 are still normally available for previous frame's copper list. Blitter startup sometimes had extra idle cycle (4.9.0) Blitter line mode with blit width != 2 is now accurately emulated and draws correct strange looking "lines" (previously it didn't do anything or line was normal looking) Blitter interrupt started 1 cycle too late. (+1 was added long time ago becase it fixes one demo but actual bug was following INTREQ register handling) If Paula internally sets INTREQ bit (not by writing to INTREQ with CPU or Copper): IPL line changes 1 CCK earlier, before INTREQR read returns new bit set. Starting emulation or loading statefile before emulation has been started: vblank state variables was not initialized correctly, first field enabled sprite DMA too early. (4.9.0 or .1). Hardreset started was not exactly same as initial boot, CPU started few cycles later if hard reset. Mid screen resolution changes are now pixel perfect (AGA fully implemented, OCS and ECS Denise only partially correct) Save MSM6242B RTC model control registers to RTC file if they are modified. Previously only RF5C01A control registers (and NVRAM) was saved. Serial port interrupts and SERDATR are now cycle-accurate. (Only if CPU memory cycle exact enabled) Serial port transmit interrupts and SERDATR transmit related bits are now emulated even when serial port = none. Serial port optional loopback mode added. TX->RX. RTS->CTS. DTR->DSR+CD. This is also cycle-accurate (for cputester IPL timing testing without extra hardware, only need TX to RX jumper wire) Second 1M extended ROM bank is now internally split to two 512k banks. Non-aligned bank start and size caused problems in some configs. uaegfx Picasso96 v3.0+ mixed mode screen dragging is enabled by default. 4.9.1 required "-p96test 1" command line parameter. 4.9.1 uaegfx Picasso96 screen dragging without ""-p96test 1" command line parameter crashed emulated Amiga. uaegfx new Picasso96 features are now optional (all enabled by default). Config file only. uaegfx all Picasso96 functions are now fully "hardware accelerated" (uses host side native code), excluding line draw. Previously some functions only supported common minterms/mask operations, unsupported operations were handled by Picasso96 software. Minterms that read and invert destination do not anymore invert unused/alpha bits if mode has them (15bit/32bit). Always use RGBFormat parameter in D7 if available, instead of RenderInfo RGBFormat variable. Chipset programmed display modes (again) use horizontal blanking timing to calculate display positioning. It has been confirmed that at least some early/mid 1990s multisync SVGA monitors (for example Microvitec 1438) do also use blanking timing to calculate display size and position instead of only relying on hsync/vsync timing. Hardware emulated RTG boards that have physically swapped red and blue output (Spectrum, Piccolo, Piccolo SD64) had wrong colors in 24/32-bit modes. Piccolo Z3 and Piccolo SD64 Z3 had wrong autoconfig board logical size (which crashed the driver). If hardware emulated RTG board VRAM was immediately (no gap in address space) after any RAM/ROM region and JIT direct was enabled: first 4096 bytes (host CPU page size) of VRAM was not fully JIT direct compatible and any direct read or write to first 4096 bytes would not access VRAM correctly, causing unexpected graphics glitches. Simplified JIT direct exception handler, win32 exception context structure can be used to directly read and modify any host CPU registers, there is no need for trampolines and self modifying code. Chip RAM and Slow RAM initial power up pattern emulation is enabled by default (checkbox in advanced chipset). Now matches my real hardware (A500 OCS/A500 ECS/A1200) but modified configurations like ECS Agnus in rev5 (or older) mainboard don't create correct patterns. Random set/cleared bits are not generated, only all ones/all zeros repeating pattern. Pattern depends on ram chip type and manufacturer. Other chips can have different patterns. Disk data read returned random data even when no drive was selected (should return zeros only). Fixes corruption in original Nitro Psygnosis screen. Also fixed another related bug when no selected drives and disk sync matches side-effect that caused Juke Box 2 / Dreamdealers to hang at boot. Switched to Visual Studio 2022. Larger default GUI size and slightly larger font if Windows desktop is large enough (at least 1600*1024) Finally removed huge amounts of compilation warnings (excluding PCem). Quickstart panel initial UI element is now DF0: image selection button. Too many accidental Amiga model changes.. DirectDraw support removed, added GDI (win32 basic GDI API) support. Function differences: exclusive fullscreen is not supported (switches to D3D11/9 if attempted), all basic scaling modes and uaegfx hardware cursor supported. Box art window screen shot rightmost pixel column and bottom pixel row was not visible. Crash dump dialog close button usually didn't do anything. ROM scanner dialog didn't use correct GUI size and fonts. CyberStorm MK I update: Accelerator and SCSI has been split. CyberSCSI module is now expansion board and has separate ROM image (works similar to Blizzard SCSI Kit). Main ROM should be only configured if CPU is 68060 because it will crash if CPU is 68040, it is only needed to disable 68060 FPU. Real CSMK1 had empty ROM socket(s) if installed CPU was 68040. Visual DMA debugger shows conflicting cycles as blinking red pixels. DMA debugger (both console and visual) better support for variable/toggling horizontal and vertical line counts. It was not possible to enter debugger anymore if CPU was stuck in stopped state after entering and exiting the debugger once. Added OR, AND and XOR operators to debugger calculator (\|, &, ^) Debugger v command does not anymore crash if hpos or vpos is out of range. Debugger v command now (at least temporarily) shows Chip RAM row and column (RAS and CAS) addressing values. Very important for REFPTR and refresh/bitplane conflict behavior. Debugger sp command parsed attached sprites incorrectly (since the beginning). Changed CTRL+F12 fullscreen/windowed switch: If already switched from full-window to window. Next CTRL+F12 will return back to full-window, not fullscreen. Quickstart panel floppy bootblock check used current track of drive (not track 0). Broken when FloppyBridge support was added. Reset FloppyBridge state when changing floppy drive type to/from FB drive type to some other drive type. Fixes uae-configuration on the fly floppy drive type change to/from FB. Memwatch break point that crossed 64k "bank" didn't map last 64k "bank" if it was only partially needed. Self modifying code (smc) debugger feature now clears detected modifications if 68020+ instruction cache is flushed. Do not add CPU instruction history entries when CPU is stopped. Horizontal and vertical position is now included in debugger history output (H/HH) Added CPU STOP state information to DMA debugger (\| = STOP idle cycle, + = STOP idle cycle and higher IPL detected = STOP ending soon) DMA debugger decimal horizontal cycle counter value removed, replaced with current IPL (interrupt level) line state. DMA debugger shows CPU opcodes in basic form ("NOP", "MOVE" etc), vertically. It looks a bit weird but didn't have better ideas.. Advanced chipset CD32 NVRAM or C2P without CD32 CD was not fully supported. CD32/CDTV Quickstart mode "remembered" previous DF0: setting and didn't disable it by default (even if Quickstart panel showed it as disabled) CD32/CDTV Quickstart panel DF0: was not possible to select/enable. uaegfx automatic integer scaling supported (chooses max fully visible integer scaling multiplier), manual filter panel horizontal/vertical multipliers supported. END+F9 monitor switching is not anymore hardwired and can be changed using input panel. (END+F9 debug colors when in lagless vsync mode is still hardwired) CD audio is now always mixed with Paula audio. Separate CD audio output support removed. CD audio was not resumed if WinUAE was unminimized and minimize was configured to pause emulation. Z2 RAM configuration was unreliable. (4.9.0) Some American Laser Games didn't have ROM descrambling support. Added missing ROM variants. Added American Laser Games Quickstart support. If Quickstart ROM based Arcade hardware config (Arcadia or ALG) is selected, NVRAM file name is automatically set to ROM name. Genlock video file path is also set if ALG ROM is selected. Config files are not affected. Added all 3.1.4+ official KS ROMs to ROM scanner. ROM file list sorting changed, added grouping, sort by group priority first (KS ROMs, extended KS ROMs, freezer ROMs etc..), then alphabetically. Integer scaling had scaling artifacts that depended on window size and other variables. (Old bug) Added NVRAM path to Paths panel. (Arcade/CD32/CDTV hardware NVRAM files default to this path) Sometimes old graphics was temporarily visible in RTG modes if RTG had visible black borders (depends on scaling mode) and screen was switched and new screen had larger size/resolution. CTRL+C in console window does not anymore close WinUAE. (CTRL+C in newer Windows versions can work as a Copy operation) Added video recording file select inputevent. This also starts recording if file was selected. Window border FPS counter value has "R" appended if recording is active. Creating directory filesystem soft link didn't work (returned "object not found") in relative path mode (Windows needs absolute path when creating shortcut files) Directory filesystem soft links only resolved if directory containing link was listed first or if softlink was created in same session (softlink was "cached" by filesystem emulation). Added "Slow" flag to RAM panel. If set, selected memory bank has Chip RAM timing but is not Chip RAM capable. Advanced chipset panel "C00000 is Fast RAM" removed, it is not needed anymore. (Only affects CPU speed in cycle exact modes) ECS Denise Genlock features can be enabled manually: genlock_effects= or p. "brdntran" can be used to force enable BPLCON2 BRDNTRAN bit, "brdrblnk" to force enable BPLCON2 BRDRBLNK bit. Separated by comma. (for example "genlock_effects=3,15,p7") Genlock sprite color selection bug fix. Genlock ECS Denise BPLCON2 BRDNTRAN emulation fixed. Not real HW tested but I think it is supposed to make border look normal even if color 0 is genlock transparent. Genlock ZCLKEN BPLCON3 bit emulated, if set, genlock transparency video out pin (PIXELSW) starts outputting 14MHz pixel clock. Emulation creates alternating hires pixel size toggling transparency if enabled and genlock is configured. (Which probably is what happens in real world too when genlock is connected. Originally it probably was supposed to be pixel sync signal for external video devices) Added Output panel optional 256 color palette indexed png screenshot support. If screenshot has more than 256 unique colors, 24-bit png is created like previously. It also tries to keep original palette order: first screenshot's unique colors are collected, then custom color register values are collected (values at the end of previous field), screenshot colors are matched with custom colors, if match found, color is marked as allocated. Then all remaining colors (copper color changes, EHB, HAM, on screen leds, blanking black etc..) are added to palette. If total is more than 256, 24-bit png is created. 256 color mode also tries to preserve first 32 color palette entries. (Preserved = color is not overwritten by another color even if color is not used in screenshot) Optional IFF screenshot support (-screenshotiff or screenshot_mode=2 registry/ini). IFF mode does not attempt to preserve first 32 color palette entries to keep image depth as small as possible. IFF is not (yet) compressed. Debugger 's' and 'W' quoting support improved, for example "W xxx "ab'c" works as expected.... (dr) [News message: 07. Oct. 2022, 06:22] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`06.Oct.2022`	Preview video: Robocop (AGA) Daniel Allsopp is working on a port of Data East's classic Arcade game 'Robocop', he's trying create a better Amiga version than the official port from 1989. Allsopp has now released a new preview video of his AGA game which is developed in 68k assembler (amiga-news.de reported). (dr) [News message: 06. Oct. 2022, 09:36] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`06.Oct.2022` Twitter	Preview video: Beat'em Up 'Metro Siege' In the latest preview video of the side-scrolling beat'em up Metro Siege (amiga-news.de reported) the developers show the latest changes and also give a first glimpse of an action platformer in development called "Scorpion Boy", which is written with the Scorpion Engine. (dr) [News message: 06. Oct. 2022, 09:31] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`06.Oct.2022` Twitter	Rogue-like game: Roguecraft announced Budger Punch has so far released games for the Commodore 64, including Rogue64. As in Roguelike games, you have to go through a cube-shaped tentacle-terror maze in search of treasures and glory. Now one of the developers, Ricki Sickenger, has announced an Amiga version of it with improved graphics and adapted features: As he explains to us, "Roguecraft will not be a 1:1 conversion of Rogue64. It will contain a lot of the same gameplay, but with some of the enhancements we wanted to have in the C64 version, and some new things that use the Amiga capabilities." It was their first Amiga game, he said. He and his fellow used to be active in the Amiga demo scene, and they wanted to make an Amiga game to relive the joy of developing on this great machine. The game is announced for early next year. (dr) [News message: 06. Oct. 2022, 06:28] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`06.Oct.2022`	Video: Short tutorial for AMOS Pro In another part of his series of short tutorials about AMOS Pro (amiga-news.de reported) the retro and Amiga fan 'Yawning Angel' explains how to open windows. (dr) [News message: 06. Oct. 2022, 05:44] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`05.Oct.2022` Christian Zigotzky (Mail)	Linux: Billy Frontier ported After Cro-Mag Rally and Otto Matic, Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky has now compiled a third game for Linux PowerPC (32-bit), Billy Frontier, which had just been ported to AmigaOS 4 (amiga-news.de reported). The game should work under the AmigaOne X1000/X5000 Linux distributions Fienix, Void PPC 32-bit and MintPPC. Download: BillyFrontier_1.1.0-linux-powerpc.tar.gz (80 MB). (dr) [News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 20:27] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`05.Oct.2022` George Sokianos	AmigaOS 4.1: Software Development Kit V54.16 released Press release: October 5, 2022 Hyperion Entertainment is pleased to announce the immediate availability of a very substantial and comprehensive update of the Software Development Kit (SDK) for AmigaOS 4.1 54.16. New functionality includes but is not limited to: the inclusion of different versions of the GCC compiler starting from the old 6.4.0, to 8.4.0, 10.3.0 and 11.2.0 which can be selected during installation including the option to install multiple versions the addition of a tool added to set the default gcc version SPE optimized binaries can be generated by using GCC 6.4 for maximum performance on systems equipped with an SPE vbcc compiler is once more included in the SDK, configured to work “out of the box” Simplegit and Subversion are now included Profyler 1.1 added and Hieronymus updated to 0.50 version Updated the include headers and the autodoc documentation Added extended documentation for all the GCC versions included AmiSSL 5.3 SDK is included Latest AutoDocViewer 1.4 is included newlib and clib updated to the latest versions ExecSG SDK updated to the latest version Many code examples were updated to reflect the newest changes, removing obsolete API calls Updated the "AmigaOS 4.1 SDK.pdf" with new sections and format Many more tools were updated to their respective latest versions Hyperion Entertainment wishes to extend its special thanks and appreciation to George Sokianos as well as the AmigaOS 4.x development team for making this happen! If you want to support our efforts further, please head over to our AmigaOS merchandise store. (dr) [News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 14:36] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`05.Oct.2022` MorphZone	MorphOS: Fourth beta version of TinyGL MorphOS team developer Mark 'Bigfoot' Olsen had offered a bounty project for improved OpenGL support as well as drivers for more Radeon graphics cards under the title link, which has been successfully funded (amiga-news.de reported). Now the developer has released the fourth public beta version of his TinyGL update. Among other things, shaders on the Radeon R500 graphics card are now supported, various shader-related bug fixes and optimizations have been made, and the ShaderBoy tool for testing and playing around with shaders has been included. (dr) [News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 13:03] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`05.Oct.2022`	Feature test in AMOS: Minigame None Of Us The group 'ELECTRIC BLACK SHEEP', known among other things for the fantasy shooter Project Quest, which is currently in development, has today released a minigame called "None Of Us", which is intended to test how to obscure the player's opponents with light and shadow in AMOS Pro (YouTube video). It is explicitly not a game under development. An Amiga with ECS chip, 2MB chip RAM and a fast CPU are required. (dr) [News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 10:55] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`05.Oct.2022`	Game Construction Kit: RedPill 0.9.14 RedPill, developed by Carlos Peris, is a game construction kit written in Amiblitz 3.9, which allows the development of games from various genres (see short tests of two Redpill games). RedPill is compatible with AGA and ECS, the "player" for playing the finished creations requires a total of 1.5 MB RAM. Jens 'Farbfinsternis' Henschel has written a tutorial. Changes of the new version 0.9.14: Added condition Contains Tile that checks all tiles colliding with a big object. In AGA black borders hidin copper are back. Compatibility with Kickstart 1.3 is back. Added Collisions in the profiler screen. Levels can be exported in TMJ format in order to be used in Tiled. When using level properties music, the music will not restart if it is the same as before. Level properties screen layout has changes in preparation of some new cool features. WHDLoad slave names changed to make them easier to understand. Fix in Level Properties screen. Fixes when building projects. Fixes for some gfx gliches. Some small optimizations. (dr) [News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 08:37] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`05.Oct.2022` Christian Zigotzky (Mail)	Linux: Kernel 6.0 for AmigaOne X1000/X5000 Right after the release of the final Linux kernel 6.0, which is the successor of version 5.19, Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky has compiled it for the AmigaOne X1000 and X5000 and offered it for download in the corresponding thread of the Hyperion forum. There you can also find a screenshot showing the Fienix distribution using the current kernel. (dr) [News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 06:20] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

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