Some problems with version 1.3.3

Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Hi,
I just did some testing with the new Dosemu version.
I came across some small problems though that I didn't have with older 
versions.

First of all, Commander Keen 4 & 5 hang Dosemu when running them in 
XDosemu. When having access to the real video hardware in terminal mode, 
they work without problems.

I also need to run Dosemu with the -s switch now for full-feature mode, 
although this is normal according to the NEWS file, the soundcard 
emulation doesn't work anymore when doing this though.

Am I doing stuff wrong or are these small bugs?

Thanks in advance,
Looking forward to 1.4!

Julius

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Bart Oldeman]

On Tue, 3 Jan 2006, Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:

> First of all, Commander Keen 4 & 5 hang Dosemu when running them in XDosemu. 
> When having access to the real video hardware in terminal mode, they work 
> without problems.

I applied a fix to Keen 4 in X a few days ago in CVS. Although it did work 
for me, the colours were flickering. Can you try CVS and see if it helps?

> I also need to run Dosemu with the -s switch now for full-feature mode, 
> although this is normal according to the NEWS file, the soundcard emulation 
> doesn't work anymore when doing this though.

This is also fixed in CVS.

What probably happens is that you (as normal user) are in the "audio" 
group, and root is not. You could work around the bug by adding root to 
group audio.

Bart

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Hi,
I've installed the lastest CVS version now.

Bart Oldeman wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Jan 2006, Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
> 
>> First of all, Commander Keen 4 & 5 hang Dosemu when running them in 
>> XDosemu. When having access to the real video hardware in terminal 
>> mode, they work without problems.
> 
> 
> I applied a fix to Keen 4 in X a few days ago in CVS. Although it did 
> work for me, the colours were flickering. Can you try CVS and see if it 
> helps?

They still have the same hang for me. One thing that might be different 
in my setup is that I use MS DOS 6.22 (instead of FreeDOS).
With another game I've got this reversed btw. I can play Epic Pinball in 
XDosemu, but as soon as I load a table when running in console mode it 
hangs.

>> I also need to run Dosemu with the -s switch now for full-feature 
>> mode, although this is normal according to the NEWS file, the 
>> soundcard emulation doesn't work anymore when doing this though.
> 
> 
> This is also fixed in CVS.
> 
> What probably happens is that you (as normal user) are in the "audio" 
> group, and root is not. You could work around the bug by adding root to 
> group audio.

This is indeed working correctly now, thanks :)

I'm also still trying to get apps running in Dosemu to use my real OPL3 
chip. I'm now running Debian testing instead of Gentoo, which seems to 
not load drivers for the OPL3 chip automaticly with the driver for my 
card (ymfpci). It also isn't listed anymore in /proc/ioports, so I 
though that might give some hope.
$_ports = "device /dev/null fast range 0x388 0x38b" in dosemu.conf still 
doesn't seem to help though. I noticed the new option $_pci in the 
config. Might this help with getting it to work. (Maybe with running the 
Dos driver from Yamaha in Dosemu?)

Thanks a lot,
Julius

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
> They still have the same hang for me.
It probably doesn't hang, but it (keen4) became slow
as hell for me. Wait a few minutes before concluding
that it hangs.

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Stas Sergeev wrote:
> It probably doesn't hang, but it (keen4) became slow
> as hell for me. Wait a few minutes before concluding
> that it hangs.

I just tried it again on my 1GHz (Debian stable instead of testing). It 
indeed seems some things run slower  than before, Duke Nukem has some 
slowdowns I believe it didn't had before.
After >10 minutes, Commander Keen 4 still doesn't show up anything here 
though, so it seems that game is affected the most by it.

Have you ever looked at the VGA emulation in Dosbox btw? It seems to 
handle some stuff (such as Commander Keen) better. I don't know what 
possibilities there are when it comes to sharing code between Dosbox and 
Dosemu though. I prefer Dosemu myself because it runs faster, but there 
also seem to be some nice developments on the Dosbox side.

Thanks,
Julius


PS: While typing this mail, (about 15-20 minutes after I launched Keen) 
it indeed seems to get further.

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Bart Oldeman]

On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:

> Stas Sergeev wrote:
>> It probably doesn't hang, but it (keen4) became slow
>> as hell for me. Wait a few minutes before concluding
>> that it hangs.
>
> I just tried it again on my 1GHz (Debian stable instead of testing). It 
> indeed seems some things run slower  than before, Duke Nukem has some 
> slowdowns I believe it didn't had before.
> After >10 minutes, Commander Keen 4 still doesn't show up anything here 
> though, so it seems that game is affected the most by it.

Just to make sure, I downloaded keen4 from:
ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/share/4keen.zip

unzip, start dosemu, run install.exe, run keen4e, fine, no delay.

> Have you ever looked at the VGA emulation in Dosbox btw? It seems to handle 
> some stuff (such as Commander Keen) better. I don't know what possibilities 
> there are when it comes to sharing code between Dosbox and Dosemu though. I 
> prefer Dosemu myself because it runs faster, but there also seem to be some 
> nice developments on the Dosbox side.

Yes I have looked at the VGA emulation in Dosbox, and the Dosbox 
developers have looked at the VGA emulation in DOSEMU. It makes for a good 
comparison when game xxx does not work in DOSEMU but works in DOSBOX, and 
a few fixes were made that way.

Directly sharing code is not so easy, partly because dosbox uses C++ 
(although it's C++ with a lot of C, not using STL for instance) and 
we use plain C.

Just recently I went through the licenses in the dosemu-freedos package 
and found that shsucdx.exe is unclear. That in combination with the a 
report that you could not obtain the (possibly LFN) volume label from an 
lredir'ed cdrom directory was a god incentive for me to port the mscdex 
code from dosbox. I even noticed a few errors in the dosbox code, will 
report them back when I have the time.

> PS: While typing this mail, (about 15-20 minutes after I launched Keen) it 
> indeed seems to get further.

where does it get stuck? The init screen?

Bart

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Bart Oldeman wrote:
> Just to make sure, I downloaded keen4 from:
> ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/share/4keen.zip
> 
> unzip, start dosemu, run install.exe, run keen4e, fine, no delay.
Yep, I just tried it with this version, same problem.

>> Have you ever looked at the VGA emulation in Dosbox btw? It seems to 
>> handle some stuff (such as Commander Keen) better. I don't know what 
>> possibilities there are when it comes to sharing code between Dosbox 
>> and Dosemu though. I prefer Dosemu myself because it runs faster, but 
>> there also seem to be some nice developments on the Dosbox side.
> 
> 
> Yes I have looked at the VGA emulation in Dosbox, and the Dosbox 
> developers have looked at the VGA emulation in DOSEMU. It makes for a 
> good comparison when game xxx does not work in DOSEMU but works in 
> DOSBOX, and a few fixes were made that way.
> 
> Directly sharing code is not so easy, partly because dosbox uses C++ 
> (although it's C++ with a lot of C, not using STL for instance) and we 
> use plain C.
> 
> Just recently I went through the licenses in the dosemu-freedos package 
> and found that shsucdx.exe is unclear. That in combination with the a 
> report that you could not obtain the (possibly LFN) volume label from an 
> lredir'ed cdrom directory was a god incentive for me to port the mscdex 
> code from dosbox. I even noticed a few errors in the dosbox code, will 
> report them back when I have the time.

Cool that stuff is indeed shared between Dosemu and Dosbox :)
Commander Keen seemed to run much smoother with the VGA emulation in 
Dosbox, which is why I asked about this.

>> PS: While typing this mail, (about 15-20 minutes after I launched 
>> Keen) it indeed seems to get further.
> 
> where does it get stuck? The init screen?
After the init screen. As Stas said, it doesn't really get stuck, it's 
just really slow, taking ~20 minutes before the title screen shows 
(having pressed a button).

Thanks,
Julius

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
> Commander Keen seemed to run much smoother with the VGA emulation in 
> Dosbox, which is why I asked about this.
I sent you privately the keen4/5 binaries that I
adapted for the use with dosemu. Does this help?
Is it now faster than in dosbox or still not?

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Bart Oldeman]

On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:

> Bart Oldeman wrote:
>> Just to make sure, I downloaded keen4 from:
>> ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/share/4keen.zip
>> 
>> unzip, start dosemu, run install.exe, run keen4e, fine, no delay.
> Yep, I just tried it with this version, same problem.

Strange, I've upgraded my Linux kernel to 2.6.15 to see if that makes a 
difference, but it still runs fine here.

Bart

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Alain]

Bart Oldeman escreveu:
> Strange, I've upgraded my Linux kernel to 2.6.15 to see if that makes a 
> difference, but it still runs fine here.

That is odd... I started having slowness problems when I updated to 
Mandriva 2006 with kernel 2.6.12 (from 10.0).

BTW I have slowness mostly on non graphic programs: NDN and SETEDIT for 
cursor movements, but different problems.

I did make some successfull changes in dosemu, but I will be very busy 
for 2 more weeks. I will return to it then...

Alain

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Hi,

Stas Sergeev wrote:
>> Commander Keen seemed to run much smoother with the VGA emulation in 
>> Dosbox, which is why I asked about this.
> 
> I sent you privately the keen4/5 binaries that I
> adapted for the use with dosemu. Does this help?
> Is it now faster than in dosbox or still not?

I received your Keen5 executable.
When I try to run it in Dosemu, Dosemu crashes with the following error 
though:
ERROR: general protection at (nil): 0

The -O output gives:
ERROR: general protection at (nil): 0
ERROR: general protection at (nil): 0
Ain't gonna do it, cs=0x0, eip=0x0
And then 00| 0000:0000->000000 to 35| 0000:0000->000000

Julius

PS: If there are any problems with sending files to cjb.net, this 
address should work: julius.schwartzenberg@gmail.com

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Bart Oldeman wrote:
> Strange, I've upgraded my Linux kernel to 2.6.15 to see if that makes a 
> difference, but it still runs fine here.

I've also updated to 2.6.15 (from 2.6.8-2 Debian) and I still have the 
extremely slow Keen.

Julius

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Bart Oldeman]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:

> Bart Oldeman wrote:
>> Strange, I've upgraded my Linux kernel to 2.6.15 to see if that makes a 
>> difference, but it still runs fine here.
>
> I've also updated to 2.6.15 (from 2.6.8-2 Debian) and I still have the 
> extremely slow Keen.

still very strange. I had a go with keen4 with DOSEMU 1.2 just to check 
and it works fine there too. I had to set "SVGA Compatibility" to ON in 
the keen4e options menu to remove the flickering I wrote about 
before though. This option also seems to make game playing a bit smoother 
in 1.3.3.1 CVS

(Keen4 uses hardware scrolling with wrap around which is efficient in 
hardware but not so when you have to simulate it in software -- some of 
this is switched off with the "SVGA Compatibility" set).

Bart

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Stas Sergeev wrote:
> 
>>> Commander Keen seemed to run much smoother with the VGA emulation in 
>>> Dosbox, which is why I asked about this.
>>
>>
>> I sent you privately the keen4/5 binaries that I
>> adapted for the use with dosemu. Does this help?
>> Is it now faster than in dosbox or still not?
> 
> 
> I received your Keen5 executable.

I also received the Keen4 executable now. This one seems to fix the 
slowdown problem completely! I runs like the original version used to 
ran for me in Dosemu. It still isn't faster than Dosbox though (atleast 
it isn't as smooth as in Dosbox, I haven't done and real performance 
benchmarks ;).

Thanks,
Julius

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
> I received your Keen5 executable.
> When I try to run it in Dosemu, Dosemu crashes with the following error 
> though:
This may mean that our keen5 revisions are different.
I sent you the full game now. Does this help?

> I also received the Keen4 executable now. This one seems to fix the 
> slowdown problem completely!
Good.

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Bart Oldeman]

Hello Stas

>Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
>> I received your Keen5 executable.
>> When I try to run it in Dosemu, Dosemu crashes with the following
>error 
>> though:
>This may mean that our keen5 revisions are different.
>I sent you the full game now. Does this help?
>
>> I also received the Keen4 executable now. This one seems to fix the
>
>> slowdown problem completely!
>Good.

hmm I still find this mysterious, what did you patch in the binary,
so that it works for you, and why does it work for me even without
patching? Is it CPU dependent?

Bart

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Bart Oldeman wrote:
> hmm I still find this mysterious, what did you patch in the binary,
The retrace-waiting code like this (dx=0x3da):

---
 000215FD: EC                           in        al,dx
 000215FE: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021600: 75FB                         jne       0000215FD
 00021602: EC                           in        al,dx
 00021603: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021605: 74FB                         je        000021602
 00021607: EC                           in        al,dx
 00021608: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 0002160A: 75E7                         jne       0000215F3
 0002160C: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 0002160E: 74E3                         je        0000215F3
 00021610: EC                           in        al,dx
 00021611: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 00021613: 75DE                         jne       0000215F3
 00021615: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021617: 74DA                         je        0000215F3
 00021619: EC                           in        al,dx
 0002161A: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 0002161C: 75D5                         jne       0000215F3
 0002161E: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021620: 74D1                         je        0000215F3
 00021622: EC                           in        al,dx
 00021623: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"                 
 00021625: 75CC                         jne       0000215F3
 00021627: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021629: 74C8                         je        0000215F3
 0002162B: EC                           in        al,dx
 0002162C: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 0002162E: 75C3                         jne       0000215F3
 00021630: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021632: 74BF                         je        0000215F3
 00021634: F706147A0100                 test      w,[07A14],00001 ;" ☺"
 0002163A: 742D                         je        000021669
 0002163C: EC                           in        al,dx
 0002163D: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 0002163F: 75B2                         jne       0000215F3
 00021641: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021643: 74AE                         je        0000215F3
 00021645: EC                           in        al,dx
 00021646: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 00021648: 75A9                         jne       0000215F3
 0002164A: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 0002164C: 74A5                         je        0000215F3
 0002164E: EC                           in        al,dx
 0002164F: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 00021651: 75A0                         jne       0000215F3
 00021653: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021655: 749C                         je        0000215F3
 00021657: EC                           in        al,dx
 00021658: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 0002165A: 7597                         jne       0000215F3
 0002165C: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 0002165E: 7493                         je        0000215F3
 00021660: EC                           in        al,dx
 00021661: A808                         test      al,008 ;"◘"
 00021663: 758E                         jne       0000215F3
 00021665: A801                         test      al,001 ;"☺"
 00021667: 748A                         je        0000215F3
 00021669: CB                           retf                                  
---

And as for keen5 - I don't know yet, does it work
for you indeed? Maybe the Cosmo-alike problem.

> so that it works for you, and why does it work for me even without
> patching? Is it CPU dependent?
Yes - the faster the CPU is, the slower it goes. Apparently
the dosemu retrace emulation is a fake (just uses the timer
values).

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Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Stas Sergeev wrote:
> And as for keen5 - I don't know yet, does it work
> for you indeed? Maybe the Cosmo-alike problem.
Yep, your complete Keen5 worked. I hadn't noticed you had patched it 
against 1.0 and was trying it with my 1.4 files.

>> so that it works for you, and why does it work for me even without
>> patching? Is it CPU dependent?
> 
> Yes - the faster the CPU is, the slower it goes. Apparently
> the dosemu retrace emulation is a fake (just uses the timer
> values).
My CPU here is 1GHz. The first time I tried it (when it had the same 
problems) was on my laptop which has a 500MHz CPU.

Julius

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Bart Oldeman]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Stas Sergeev wrote:

> The retrace-waiting code like this (dx=0x3da):

ok

> And as for keen5 - I don't know yet, does it work
> for you indeed? Maybe the Cosmo-alike problem.

I still have to test that.

>> so that it works for you, and why does it work for me even without
>> patching? Is it CPU dependent?
> Yes - the faster the CPU is, the slower it goes. Apparently
> the dosemu retrace emulation is a fake (just uses the timer
> values).

Yes, it is. But then I'm not sure if it's hretrace or vretrace that is 
problematic -- I would guess that the vretrace timings are large enough
not too miss anything. For hretrace, the code is random though; a patch to
do it the dosbox-way is as follows, but I'm not sure if it helps. Can you 
and Julius test it?

Bart

--- src/env/video/miscemu.c.~1.10.~	2005-12-13 10:49:27.000000000 +1300
+++ src/env/video/miscemu.c	2006-01-12 09:25:17.000000000 +1300
@@ -325,6 +325,7 @@
     */
    static unsigned char hretrace = 0, vretrace = 0, first = 1;
    static hitimer_t t_vretrace = 0;
+  static int flip = 0;
    /* Timings are 'ballpark' guesses and may vary from mode to mode, but
       such accuracy is probably not important... I hope. (--adm) */
    static int vvfreq = 17000;	/* 70 Hz - but the best we'll get with
@@ -361,8 +362,10 @@
        vretrace = 0x09; t_vretrace = t;
      }
      else {
+      flip++;
+      if (flip > 20) flip = 0;
        /* We're in horizontal retrace?  If so, just set DE flag, 0 in VR */
-      hretrace = (tdiff%49) > 35;
+      hretrace = flip > 10;
      }
    }

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Bart Oldeman wrote:
> do it the dosbox-way is as follows, but I'm not sure if it helps. Can 
> you and Julius test it?
It works!
keen5 have some different problem though.
Need to find the latest keen5 first.

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

Stas Sergeev wrote:
>> do it the dosbox-way is as follows, but I'm not sure if it helps. Can 
>> you and Julius test it?
> 
> It works!
Working here too :)

> keen5 have some different problem though.
> Need to find the latest keen5 first.
I'll mail it to you privately ;)


I've also tested the performance somewhat in Dosbox and Dosemu, while 
compiling a kernel. The actual speed of the game is a lot better in 
Dosemu than in Dosbox. In Dosemu, everything just shakes a lot more. 
(Scorebox seems to be the most obvious, when walking.)

Thanks,
Julius

Re: Some problems with version 1.3.3

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
>> Need to find the latest keen5 first.
> I'll mail it to you privately ;)
Thanks, that keen seems to work now without any
binary-patching. So I think the problem is solved.