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TOPIC: Necromancy Research

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4397

_Em wrote:
It's also worth noting that there's a new Vulkan compatability layer for Metal -- so if OpenGL did go away for some reason, at least there's Vulkan to replace it (finally).


Not quite. MoltenVK does not possess either tessellation or geometry shader support yet. As such, it's usefulness really only extends to D3D9 API level games and the OpenGL equivalents. And because Metal does not yet have geometry shader support, the lack of said functionality means that even if MoltenVK got that functionality, it still couldn't act as a wrapper because there would be no equivalent in Metal yet. Metal just got tessellation in 10.13, which was finally enough to port Overwatch to OS X (which won't happen - too little, too late for Blizzard; thanks Apple). The best case scenario we'll see in the near term for Vulkan on OS X is MoltenVK allowing for a port of Doom 2016 to OS X. The more likely reality is that it'll be relegated to porting over a few of the more prominent but less demanding games on Steam.

There's no reason to compile Cocoa as 32-bit, and they want to get the Carbon overhead out of the OS. That makes sense to me.


There are a few exceptions to that, such as medical software. The FDA here has some very funky certification regulations in place. For instance, the CT scanner in my dentist's building has certification only with a specific software package, which in turn is also only certified on Windows XP or OS X as a 32-bit app (i-CAT software). This is an issue we're running into because we have a Windows 7 Enterprise volume license, but can't update due to recertification requirements and the obvious testing that would be necessary. Of course, the number of Macs in use in the medical field is probably small enough for Apple to just jettison that tiny sliver of users with some legitimacy, though anyone that has machines connected to the internet for any reason will be required to update to current operating systems for security reasons or be forced to replace said systems.

The above is a real fun mess for my dentist since the CT scanner's software got it panties in a bunch and corrupted its configuration file, the issuing company has no way to fix it, and he can't get scans done (mine included) without it working and the simple route of just paying for a new software suite isn't an option.

As for Carbon, I thought they had finally jettisoned that long ago, but then I realized that your emulators still had some traces of Carbon left in them (I think), which is obviously why you're in need of redoing them to keep them working (and it gives you the opportunity to jettison excess baggage from its UI control code at the same time, which is nice!).

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4399

Okay, I'd like to get some feedback on a preliminary 64-bit build of Genesis Plus.

Please respect my wishes by not spreading this anywhere other than this forum.

www.bannister.org/gpee.zip

(Zip file updated 3 March - Emulator Enhancer separated from the main binary).
Last Edit: 6 years ago by Richard Bannister.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4400

The build at that link has been updated with a number of bug fixes and minor adjustments.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4401

Squishy Tia wrote:
As for Carbon, I thought they had finally jettisoned that long ago, but then I realized that your emulators still had some traces of Carbon left in them (I think), which is obviously why you're in need of redoing them to keep them working (and it gives you the opportunity to jettison excess baggage from its UI control code at the same time, which is nice!).


Actually, there's no Cocoa whatsoever in the current releases - it's all Carbon.

What I've been working on for the last while is to all intents and purposes a ground-up rewrite of the Mac code. It's not completely new (there are certain portions that were reusable) but it might as well be. That's why I've been seeking feedback on a prerelease, which I wouldn't normally do otherwise.

From this site the most useful feedback I've had by some margin has been from Squirrel, who has so far managed to identify five bugs that I'd missed.
Last Edit: 6 years ago by Richard Bannister.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4402

Most recent build:

www.bannister.org/gpee.zip

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4403

Richard Bannister wrote:
From this site the most useful feedback I've had by some margin has been from Squirrel, who has so far managed to identify five bugs that I'd missed.

Just wait until he gets my bill.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4405

I uploaded another build today. Expires at the end of day 7 March.

www.bannister.org/gpee.zip

I'm pretty close to release at this stage, so speak now or hold your peace; once I've put new emulator updates out there I'm going to be switching back to other projects for a while. You've been warned
The following user(s) said Thank You: jetboy

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4407

Richard Bannister wrote:
once I've put new emulator updates out there I'm going to be switching back to other projects for a while. You've been warned


What kind or projects?

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4409

Wait and see

In the mean while, my Necromancy is now complete:

www.bannister.org/software/

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4410

Bravo, Richard!
Just did the upgrade on my EE license, and Nestopia just to take it for a spin.
A couple rough edges I encountered:
  • iirc older versions of your emulators and/or EE had a modifier key to hold down to force window resizing to snap to integer multiples of the buffer's native resolution. So far I've discovered keys for preserving aspect, and for scaling about window center vs corner, and I see aspect settings in the video prefs, but I can't find the key to snap to nice clean sharp pixel multiples. Does it no longer exist, or am I imagining that it ever did? FWIW, I am on a higher-density but non-Apple display; I don't know if that affects the info any APIs give back for the purpose of window sizing.
  • When I first launched, sound was enabled in the main prefs panel, but all sound channels were disabled in the Nestopia panel. There is a chance I did that myself in and around homebrew development testing on 1.4.1, but I don't actually specifically recall it being a setting before. If it is a new feature, then all-off seems an odd default.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4412

Tried Oswan 0.8.2, per experiments reproducing inability-to-rotate-screen from another thread.
So far, it has crashed out immediately upon selection of any ROM I have tried.
I have a full crash dump, but file attachment appears to not be working. For the moment, it'll be up on www.psychsoftware.org/stuff/temp/crashreport.txt
Update: Having poked around in the settings, let it sit for awhile, and come back to it (prompting a new file-select prompt), and selected a game from THERE, it is now running o.o; But 3 or 5 prior attempts, selecting both from the initial file-select dialog and from File->Open all crashed immediately.

Also vaguely curious how Oswan maps the second set of 4 "directional" buttons, since I'm not seeing them in the input select. It's useful to have one set of direction+AB controls shared between portrait & landscape, but various games e.g. Final Fantasies do use all 11 buttons at once. But I understand if this is all Oswan internal stuff and you're just surfacing whatever inputs & outputs the core gives you.

Update 2: Can confirm: Rockman & Forte still becomes unplayable during the landscape->portrait transition, both due to the screen never rotating and the controls conflating the 2 4-button groups into 1 set of inputs.
Last Edit: 6 years ago by seanstar.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4413

seanstar wrote:
  • iirc older versions of your emulators and/or EE had a modifier key to hold down to force window resizing to snap to integer multiples of the buffer's native resolution. So far I've discovered keys for preserving aspect, and for scaling about window center vs corner, and I see aspect settings in the video prefs, but I can't find the key to snap to nice clean sharp pixel multiples. Does it no longer exist, or am I imagining that it ever did? FWIW, I am on a higher-density but non-Apple display; I don't know if that affects the info any APIs give back for the purpose of window sizing.

Using an older emulator on my 10.5 machine, holding Option allows me to keep to integer multiple window sizes. Holding Shift lets me change the window to whatever I want. I never tried this on the newer emulators when I tested things.

What I found is that if you choose your video size in the Preferences window then load up a game, as long as you don't resize the window you'll get the video size you want.

Richard - are you documenting the new hidden preferences anywhere?
Last Edit: 6 years ago by Squirrel. Reason: Added instructions to get the video size you want

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4414

I've uploaded a test build of Oswan with the following changes:

- Fixed a problem where the emulator could crash on opening a new ROM.
- Separated mappings for the two sets of directional controls.
- Added support for automatic rotation of video mid-game.
- Saved states are now compressed with gzip.
- (Shell) Freeze and defrost commands now indicate success and failure
- (Emulator Enhancer) Added a new aspect ratio preference to restrict window sizes to multiples of the emulated display.

Regarding preferences defaulting to off on first launch, this is a known issue when moving from older releases (it doesn't happen to first time users). I've had a few people report similar.

www.bannister.org/oswan-beta.zip

Let me know if this is better.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4415

I've also added a key mapping so you can swap the rotation manually if the emulator guesses wrong. Hopefully that should sort things out.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4416

Richard Bannister wrote:
I uploaded another build today. Expires at the end of day 7 March.

www.bannister.org/gpee.zip

I'm pretty close to release at this stage, so speak now or hold your peace; once I've put new emulator updates out there I'm going to be switching back to other projects for a while. You've been warned


Heh. I've been out of it with the flu. This is on top of being on the receiving end of a T-bone collision while my grandpa was driving his mustang (I was the passenger, which is the side that got T-boned).

Haven't really been feeling much up to doing, well, anything lately.

I'll be making sure to purchase an EE license update ASAP. Emulators bring me one of the few bits of joy I get out of life. No controller = no joy. Besides, it helps offset the work you've done updating the emulators.
Last Edit: 6 years ago by Squishy Tia.

Re: Necromancy Research 6 years ago #4422

@seanstar, did you have a chance to try the beta I uploaded?

Re: Necromancy Research 5 years, 12 months ago #4426

Okay, since I've no more development time in the near future I've released it. Hope it works for you

Re: Necromancy Research 5 years, 11 months ago #4437

Just a quick heads up - the most recent entries just prior to the current new releases for your emulators do not show in the archives (such as KiGB 2.0.5, etc). Is there a reason for that? Am just curious.

Re: Necromancy Research 5 years, 10 months ago #4438

Yeah, I can't remember the password

Re: Necromancy Research 5 years, 10 months ago #4439

Ah, ok. I know it's a smaller and smaller audience each year, but those releases just prior to when you released your current batch of emulator updates are the only ones that can run on the Macs that can't update to 10.11 (alongside a conflict with the emulator somehow thinking EE 2.4.0 is installed even though it isn't - mine is still at 2.3.2 on both my MP 1,1 and my hackintosh here as I haven't had a chance to update to EE3 yet).

I have no problems running the current batch on the hackie here obviously, just need to wait until I can get that upgrade to EE3 going, as I'm sure they wouldn't exactly work with EE 2.3/2.4. This issue is on my end though, not yours, so not expecting anything special there. Was mainly curious about the archives.

Perhaps you could put up both the current and then down at the bottom of each emulator page put the last working pre-10.11 version as well, with a note that it only works with up to EE 2.4. Not a deal breaker for me in any sense. Just one of those "caught at a crossroads" situation while I deal with incoming medical bill bruehaha. Yay subrogation bullshit from auto insurance companies. You pay for medical coverage, then after they cut the check to cover you, they tell you they're going to try to get that money back...from you. Which kinda negates the reasoning for the coverage. GG American greed.

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