wraggster
March 17th, 2013, 00:54
The last week was spent adding features needed for the public release of rpix86. The first step was to add command line parameters for things that might need user setup, like which audio output to use and where to put the C:\ root directory. If you start rpix86 with an invalid parameter (like ./rpix86 -?), it will show usage info, which at the moment looks like the following:
Usage: rpix86 [options]Possible options are: -aAUDIO where AUDIO is the audio device number, 0 = HDMI, 1 = Analog. If not given, defaults to 1 = Analog. -dPATH where PATH is full path to the emulated C:\ root directory. If not given, defaults to the current working directory. -fFILTER where FILTER is 1 when using filtered texture scaling, 0 if not. If not given, defaults to 1 = use texture filtering. -hHEIGHT where HEIGHT is the wanted screen height in pixels. If not given, defaults to the physical screen height. -wWIDTH where WIDTH is the wanted screen width in pixels. If not given, defaults to the physical screen width.
I also added echoing the command line parameters (or the default values) to stdout when rpix86 starts, which in my development machine shows the following values:
./rpix86 -a1 -d/home/pi/rpix86 -f1 -w1600 -h1200
The next step was to collect all the major still missing features into my Raspberry Pi Store product page, so that potential users have some idea about things that might not work in rpix86. Here is a list of the major problems I am currently aware of:
rpix86 does not support x86 parity flag or auxiliary carry flag. There is some special code in rpix86 to enable running some games that use these flags, but some games simply can not be emulated because of this.
Virtual memory is not supported. This means that Windows will not run in rpix86, nor any protected mode game that uses virtual memory. Adding virtual memory support would seriously slow down the emulation, which is pretty slow even as it is.
Floating point opcodes are currently not supported, but this support will improve in future versions.
Only files and directories conforming to the DOS 8.3 naming scheme are supported. No long file name support.
Hardware mouse cursor is still missing in graphics modes. Many games use their own mouse cursor, which does work, though.
There are probably quite a few other bugs and missing features as well. If/when rpix86 encounters an unsupported situation, it will write a "crash log" into a file called rpix86dbg.log in the emulated C:\ root directory. If you send me such a crash log, I might be able to fix the issue in the upcoming versions.
I have uploaded rpix86 to Raspberry Pi Store Community Approval Process last Thursday for an "In Progress" approval, so hopefully it will get approved soon so you can download it and test it for yourself. See my download page (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/rdown.html) for the download link to the Raspberry Pi store. I can also grant a private license to you if you have a Raspberry Pi Store username, so that you can test it even before it passes the approval process. You just need to let me know your username so that I can grant you a license.
Usage: rpix86 [options]Possible options are: -aAUDIO where AUDIO is the audio device number, 0 = HDMI, 1 = Analog. If not given, defaults to 1 = Analog. -dPATH where PATH is full path to the emulated C:\ root directory. If not given, defaults to the current working directory. -fFILTER where FILTER is 1 when using filtered texture scaling, 0 if not. If not given, defaults to 1 = use texture filtering. -hHEIGHT where HEIGHT is the wanted screen height in pixels. If not given, defaults to the physical screen height. -wWIDTH where WIDTH is the wanted screen width in pixels. If not given, defaults to the physical screen width.
I also added echoing the command line parameters (or the default values) to stdout when rpix86 starts, which in my development machine shows the following values:
./rpix86 -a1 -d/home/pi/rpix86 -f1 -w1600 -h1200
The next step was to collect all the major still missing features into my Raspberry Pi Store product page, so that potential users have some idea about things that might not work in rpix86. Here is a list of the major problems I am currently aware of:
rpix86 does not support x86 parity flag or auxiliary carry flag. There is some special code in rpix86 to enable running some games that use these flags, but some games simply can not be emulated because of this.
Virtual memory is not supported. This means that Windows will not run in rpix86, nor any protected mode game that uses virtual memory. Adding virtual memory support would seriously slow down the emulation, which is pretty slow even as it is.
Floating point opcodes are currently not supported, but this support will improve in future versions.
Only files and directories conforming to the DOS 8.3 naming scheme are supported. No long file name support.
Hardware mouse cursor is still missing in graphics modes. Many games use their own mouse cursor, which does work, though.
There are probably quite a few other bugs and missing features as well. If/when rpix86 encounters an unsupported situation, it will write a "crash log" into a file called rpix86dbg.log in the emulated C:\ root directory. If you send me such a crash log, I might be able to fix the issue in the upcoming versions.
I have uploaded rpix86 to Raspberry Pi Store Community Approval Process last Thursday for an "In Progress" approval, so hopefully it will get approved soon so you can download it and test it for yourself. See my download page (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/rdown.html) for the download link to the Raspberry Pi store. I can also grant a private license to you if you have a Raspberry Pi Store username, so that you can test it even before it passes the approval process. You just need to let me know your username so that I can grant you a license.