FuseX on the Xbox :releases, testing and feedback

Crabfists

I'm creating a new thread here to continue on from the thread about emulators on the Xbox (here). I'm hoping to post development status here, gain feedback from people using it and also recruit beta testers. :)

Progress is going quite well. Since the first release v0.5 I have added the following features:

- Zip Support
- Loading and saving of general emulator settings (including rom path and default controller config)
- Graphics filters (disabled by default)
- Loading and saving of controller configs per game/snapshot

I am currently desperate for more beta testers, as I really want to give these new features a good testing. If anybody is interested then please get in touch via PM or email. Thanks!

I think the loading and saving of settings for each game is going to make the emulator a lot nicer to use. No more editing controller configs every time! You only need to edit a controller config once for each game and it will remember it forever. The way it works is if you have a snapshot loaded and you change the controller config (ie which spectrum keys map to which controller buttons) then it will save these settings to a file with the same name (but different extension) to the snapshot which is loaded. So if you load up DanDare.zip and change your controller config then it will automatically save DanDare.cfg in the settings folder on the disk. Next time DanDare is loaded it will load these controller config settings from the config file. If you load a snapshot with no config file it will revert to the default controller config (ie the one which was loaded from fuse.ini at startup). The idea is it should just work transparently to the user. Let me know if this sounds ok or not.

Anyway, let me know if you can help out with testing. I've already got a few people helping out but I could do with more.

[ This Message was edited by: skratchy on 2006-02-21 14:41 ]

[ This Message was edited by: skratchy on 2006-02-23 23:49 ]

Andrew Barker

Sounds good !!!.

I'll PM ya, love to get some good speccy game play out of my xBox ;). I can introduce my son to them as well. He's almost 6, just one year younger than when I started on the speccy ;).

Cheers

Andy

ADJB

This is very interesting.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ZX-Spectrum-Emulator-for-X-Box-Plus-4000-Games_W0QQitemZ8262519826QQcategoryZ11994QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Comments ?

ADJB

Crabfists

Now that's just plain annoying. It doesn't say which emulator is on the disc but I hope it's not FuseX... :mad:

Philip Kendall

Why not? The GPL is specifically designed to let people sell the product; this was part of the reason I chose to use the GPL for Fuse.

MikeW

Noting to do with fuse itself, but if the executable on that CD has been compiled with the Microsoft Xbox SDK, then it will be illegal.

MikeW

loony_jetman

Hi Scratchy, This is so Gooood !!!

A quick question
Would it be easy to add a speed up button to the emu to skip certain boring parts of games like when it plays a lame tune with the beep command that you can't skip or when the rocket flies up and then down in jetpac (takes ages) ;)

::EDIT:: I just found frame rate on debug menu..manic miner a 2x speed is heaven ;)
still a way to configure it to a button press while in the game would be good.

another thing, on normal filter "Wheelie" and "Ant attack" straight vertical and horizontal lines can be seen going down the middle of the screen, for some reason ??
Using AdvMame 2x gets rid of the lines but the update is ever so slightly less smooth on scrolling.
is this like this on fuse ? or just fusex ?


[ This Message was edited by: loony_jetman on 2006-03-03 06:39 ]

loony_jetman

damn, a Pentagon ? I just discovered it in the machines settings and now everything seems to fly using it! Alien 8 does'nt have so much slowdown and
now theres no more error message in "robin of the wood" when you get hit by the arrow.
I never knew about that, what is a Pentagon, a suped up 128 or something ??

Crabfists

@ loony_jetman

Glad you are liking it! :)

As for the speed-up button, I have just quickly implemented something like this to help testing. It puts the emulator into fast-fwd mode whilst you have the button pressed. Its currently only a test feature but I think I will include it in the full version. I am just not sure which button to map it to by default though. It can be mapped to different buttons easily but I haven't got round to writing the menus/interface to let you map emulator actions such as menu activation, virtual keyboard activation, fast-fwd etc to different buttons but all the code is there to do it. I know this will be a good feature to add because I know some people don't like the menu being on the start button, as they cant map a game specific key to start the game. Manic Miner for example; if the Start button were free then Start could be mapped to the Enter key so pressing Start would start the game on the title screen.

I did have the fast-fwd mapped to the left trigger but I found on the xport emulators I always hit this by mistake. Anybody got any feelings which this should be mapped to by default?

I know about the vertical line bug. I am not sure what it is but I think its SDL related. I am planning on getting rid of SDL eventually for performance reasons so hopefully this will go away eventually.

[ This Message was edited by: skratchy on 2006-03-03 12:54 ]

loony_jetman

I agree about menu not being on the start button, I've always used pressing the right thumb stick in for the menu, which i've got used to, mainly because this is the default for all Xport emus on xbox.

::EDIT::
also about the frame rate values. Is it possible to have half increments, like 1.5 as 2 is sometimes slightly to fast and games like "enduro racer","chase hq" etc, really are much better speeded up but x2 is just slightly to fast and a value faster than 1 but less than 2x would make it even better to play. i dunno if this can be done very easy or not ?

[ This Message was edited by: loony_jetman on 2006-03-03 19:33 ]

Crabfists

Still working on an interface for mapping the emulator actions (such as menu, virtual keyboard etc) to joypad buttons at the moment. Going to hack in a quick tape menu too with Insert, Play, Stop, Rewind etc. I have also put the option for "Fast load tapes" in the options menu. With this disabled, pretty much every tzx should load (and not reset the spectrum like they do now), but they will load in the slow-load way. I know its not ideal but its a step in the right direction. When I put the fast-forward button on the joypad then it should make this more bearable.

I have been thinking about the whole 50/60Hz PAL/NTSC problem and there is a way to make the speccy run at the correct speed when running on a NTSC box but it is a pretty big job and I am not sure I can be bothered doing it. :) After all, how many people are using FuseX on a true NTSC Xbox? I am presuming most people using the emulator are from Europe? If you know anyone who uses the emulator on a NTSC Xbox (ie America/Japan) let me know.

For PAL/PAL60 Xboxes I was thinking of forcing the Xbox into PAL50 (temporarily), as this will hopefully solve the problem quite nicely.

loony_jetman

For PAL/PAL60 Xboxes I was thinking of forcing the Xbox into PAL50 (temporarily), as this will hopefully solve the problem quite nicely.

this would be very welcome addition, as fusex is the only program I have to change settings to pal50 before starting, everything else is run at pal60.

Crabfists

Just to clarify, the "Fast load tapes" option has _always_ been enabled in the code, and that is why some tapes load instantly and some don?t load at all. It?s the same as "Use Tape Traps" in FUSE. Basically, this tries to load the tape instantly but unfortunately it doesn?t work on all loaders so that is why some tapes work and some don?t. So, now in the build I am working on, you can turn this option off but this will make tapes load in the slow way but they all should work. For some tzxs you will need to turn off "Fast Load Tapes" (or whatever it is going to be called) to get them to work.

To make things more confusing I have also hacked in a "Turbo Load Tapes" option which will load the tape in the normal flash loading way but at 10 times the speed. It sets the emulation speed to maximum while the tape is loading and then it puts the speed back to normal when the tape is loaded.

I re-read my original post above and it sounded like I had magically fixed tape loading and that is not quite the case.

loony_jetman

On 2006-03-08 00:04, aowen wrote:

I never knew about that, what is a Pentagon, a suped up 128 or something ??

It is a Russian homebrew machine. It runs a bit faster than the original 128 because it has no contended memory. It features a clone of the BetaDisk disk interface (TR-DOS). Many programs were written specifically for this machine. Since I don't have an X-Box and therefore can't test, perhaps you could tell me if 'Spectrum SE' is in the machines options. The Spectrum SE is a hybrid of the Timex 2068 and the Spectrum 128 - although not quite as nifty as the SAM Coupe it's a tad more compatible.

thanks for the info.
as far as i know spectrum SE is'nt supported, its not in the machines settings, and i tried loading some .trd files and they don't work.
I don't know what version of fuse this is based on, maybe 0.5.5 ?
scratchy ?

Crabfists

I've finished doing the remapping emulator actions to pad buttons, so now you can map the Main Menu to any button for example. I've currently added the following mappable actions but more can be added later : Main Menu, Virtual Keyboard, Reset Spectrum, Fast Fwd Emulation, Next Graphics Filter, Previous Graphics Filter, Load Savestate, & Save Savestate.

I've also managed to force the Xbox into PAL50, even if PAL60 is selected in the dashboard. This is going to mean no more messing around changing to PAL50 before you run FuseX. :) It means no more sound glitches (unless you are running on an NTSC box that is).

I've hacked in a quick tape menu too with Options for Insert, Play/Stop & Rewind. Its a start anyway. Going to hack in a Disk menu next.

@aowen. Sorry, I missed your posting above with regards to the SE emulation. FuseX is based on FUSE v0.6.5 (I think!) so doesn't have SE emulation. I may update the source to 0.7 at some point, but only if I get the time.

mrmessy

Excellent news. For those interested (like me), where might one look for the new release?

ewgf

I was just wondering when this would be released? I'd have loved to have beta tested it (I've beta tested a few emulators for the Speccy and Atari ST over the years), but haven't been able to find much free time recently. Are you planning on releasing it soon?

Crabfists

Yes, expect to see a release soonish. On holiday at the moment but I should be back in the mode when I return to the UK in a week.

ewgf

skratchy wrote:

Yes, expect to see a release soonish. On holiday at the moment but I should be back in the mode when I return to the UK in a week.

Brilliant - can't wait!

:) :) :) :) :) :) :)

iroal

Any news about this great emulator ?

Regards

Pyjamarama

Skratchy can u give us an update-status of your excellent(at least console wise!!) emulator ?

Greetings!!

ewgf

Pyjamarama wrote:

Skratchy can u give us an update-status of your excellent(at least console wise!!) emulator ?

Greetings!!

I'd assumed it was abandoned, given the lack of news. It'd be great if it were proven otherwise, but then why the drought of news updates?

A real pity, as it sounded great.

Philip Kendall

aowen wrote:

It doesn't matter if it's been abandoned. FUSE is GPLed so it just needs someone else to carry on where the previous author left off.

Theoretically, not a problem. Practically, the knowledge is locked up in skratchy's head and it may be more than a little bit tricky for someone else just to pick up and run with the project.

Crabfists

Well, I am still alive but just inactive at the moment because of other commitments and general laziness. Version 0.6 of FUSE is pretty much ready apart from a few loose ends and its sat on my hard drive at home just waiting for me to get my finger out and finish it.

Pyjamarama

Nice hearing from u skratchy!

Crabfists

I have finally got off my lazy backside and released the source code to FuseX. This has all the new features I have been working on. You can find it here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fusex/

There is a placeholder webpage here with Antiriad's great logo. Thanks mate. :)

http://fusex.sourceforge.net

I've never released an open source project before so I hope I have done everything by the book. I'm sure Philip will let me know if I haven't. ;)

The FUSE code it is based on is quite old (before 0.70 I think!). If I get time I will merge the 0.8 source into it.

If anybody wants to help out send me a pm. Got a little sprog on the way in a few months so I will have a lot less time to work on this project.

I haven't yet released the code to the PC port of Fusex, which was very useful for testing purposes. I can do if anybody wants it. Please note: this is a port of the Xbox version and not a port of Fuse itself.

stvd

I'd love to help out with the testing skratchy.
I don't have the capability to ftp it to the Xbox HD but
I can burn to CD-RW or DVD and try it that way.
Don't know if this matters or not.

Crabfists

Thanks stvd. That would be great. :) Only thing is I have never run FuseX from CD/DVD so dont know how to get it working that way.

stvd

Hi skratchy,
if you like, I can try. I'm pretty confident I can get it running.
I've ran different emulators on XBOX from DVD using a program that creates multi-game discs.
If the files work ftp'd to XBOX I'm certain I can do it from DVD.

If you'd like me to check it out let me know.
How/where can I get the files?
I've checked you link but I see no files/download link.
I'd really like to have a go at this.

Pyjamarama

Thanx Scratchy!
Your emu is great!
One question...the source u published is from the latest beta?

I have somewhere in my PC a txt with some games I had problems with (I did not send u anything because I thought u have abandoned the project).
I will send it to u...

Are u planning to release a new stable or beta release?

bye for now!

Crabfists

@stvd. If you could get FuseX to work from DVD that would be great. Dont know how well it would work but it would be nice to know how it runs. Only thing is, because FuseX writes certain files to disk like config files and game settings files, it will mean your emulator settings and game configs will not be saved if you are running from a non-writable format like DVD. By the way, check your pm.

@Pyjamarama. Yes, the source is pretty much the same as the latest beta I sent ages ago. There have been a couple of little tweaks I think (can't really remember though!). As for releasing a new version, I don't personally release builds publicly as its illegal to distribute code built with Microsoft's libraries. Saying that, somebody will no doubt build the latest code and distribute it in a few days. If you knew where to look you could probably find it.