Does anyone still use dos zsnes?

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:27 pm

Ichinisan wrote:If your debugging task requires audio, you might not want to try in WinXP (torture!).

Technically, I think you can still debug the audio. I think I was able to make it run with sound enabled, although of course I couldn't actually HEAR any sound and it was prone to crashing on my machine hence why I disabled it.

So, you can still debug the instructions and what not, although you won't be able to hear a damn thing which means you'll have to use other means to hear the results of your sound code.

KaOSoFt · Post by **KaOSoFt** » Wed Oct 06, 2004 7:15 pm

Please, don't stop working on it. It's the best thing I've ever used plus it was the first (nostalgic)...

I don't use it just for old computers, I still play with it on my current one:

Intel Pentium III 935MHz
191 MB RAM
Windows XP SP2 and Windows 98SE + Unofficial Update v1.6

Of course I do play with DOS version in 98, it's where I work when I need speed or something, since my machine is not "flash" with XP.

LDAWG · Post by **LDAWG** » Wed Oct 06, 2004 8:36 pm

I haven't used it seriously for like 2+ years
(except just to test bugs, for fun).

I personally feel that no new features or bug fixes should be added to the DOS Port, past v1.40.
Maybe ONLY when there is a compatibility update, then the DOS Port should get a release as well ?

Maybe if the ZSNES Team focuses MORE on the Linux and Windows Ports,
there will be more frequent releases.

The DOS Port is pretty much done, with what it can do as far as features go.
It can't do things like TCP/IP Netplay, which still is being improved upon.
There are probably other things too, such as video filters.

The debugger is also slowly being ported to the win32 version.

Again, maybe ONLY when there is a compatibility update (such as ROM fixes and new chips/hardware updates),
then the DOS Port should get a release, as well... but ONLY then.

Make sense?

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 1:26 pm

LDAWG wrote:The debugger is also slowly being ported to the win32 version.

Do you know for sure that someone is still actively working on this? To my knowledge all work on that came to a hault.

I hear what you're saying about the DOS port. If it really would take a load off development, I wouldn't mind seeing a DOS update ONLY when compatibility has changed. But I think that's essentially what's already happening since the limitations of DOS are being reached already for several things.

Post by **Nach** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 5:38 pm

LDAWG wrote: Maybe if the ZSNES Team focuses MORE on the Linux and Windows Ports,
there will be more frequent releases.

The ZSNES Team tries not to focus on any ports. We're considering dropping Win32 support so we can be completely portable too.

Cecil · Post by **Cecil** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 5:50 pm

Nach wrote:
LDAWG wrote: Maybe if the ZSNES Team focuses MORE on the Linux and Windows Ports,
there will be more frequent releases.
The ZSNES Team tries not to focus on any ports. We're considering dropping Win32 support so we can be completely portable too.

Please tell me you're joking. I can only run the Windows port because I use WindowsXP. If I had DOS on my machine (and I'm NOT talking the command console WinXP has) AND a non-usb gamepad, I probably wouldn't worry.

Post by **Nach** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 5:55 pm

Cecil wrote:
Nach wrote:
LDAWG wrote: Maybe if the ZSNES Team focuses MORE on the Linux and Windows Ports,
there will be more frequent releases.
The ZSNES Team tries not to focus on any ports. We're considering dropping Win32 support so we can be completely portable too.
Please tell me you're joking. I can only run the Windows port because I use WindowsXP. If I had DOS on my machine (and I'm NOT talking the command console WinXP has) AND a non-usb gamepad, I probably wouldn't worry.

Not joking at all. We're considering dropping DOS and Win32 support, and only supporting SDL.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:00 pm

Will the SDL version run on Windows?

Magus` · Post by **Magus`** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:01 pm

DOS I understand, but Win32?

Post by **grinvader** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:04 pm

SDL is portable. Not the current Win32 specific code.

Zsnes-sdl should work on windows.

Post by **Nach** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:38 pm

Noxious Ninja wrote:Will the SDL version run on Windows?

If we fixed it up a bit, yes.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 7:11 pm

Excuse the dumbness, but what's SDL?

Post by **grinvader** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 7:15 pm

adventure_of_link wrote:Excuse the dumbness, but what's SDL?

Simple Directmedia Layer

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:17 pm

Nach wrote:
LDAWG wrote: Maybe if the ZSNES Team focuses MORE on the Linux and Windows Ports,
there will be more frequent releases.
The ZSNES Team tries not to focus on any ports. We're considering dropping Win32 support so we can be completely portable too.

Well that's just stupid. If the ZSNES team was worried so much about portability, it should have not choosen assembly language to begin with.

It's kinda dumb now to all the sudden say we don't care about specific ports, we're more focused on portability. What a joke.

Post by **Nach** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:45 pm

Nightcrawler wrote:
Nach wrote:
LDAWG wrote: Maybe if the ZSNES Team focuses MORE on the Linux and Windows Ports,
there will be more frequent releases.
The ZSNES Team tries not to focus on any ports. We're considering dropping Win32 support so we can be completely portable too.
Well that's just stupid. If the ZSNES team was worried so much about portability, it should have not choosen assembly language to begin with.

It's kinda dumb now to all the sudden say we don't care about specific ports, we're more focused on portability. What a joke.

There's a major difference between portability and maintainability.

also, pagefault and I are not the original ZSNES Team, we actually have different ideas than the original team.

It also bothers us that as it currently stands, ZSNESW can't be compiled freely.

LDAWG · Post by **LDAWG** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 10:02 pm

Parts of ZSNES get ported from asm to c every once in awhile.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 11:45 pm

Thanks for the info, Grinvader.

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:34 am

Nach wrote:The ZSNES Team tries not to focus on any ports. We're considering dropping Win32 support so we can be completely portable too.

That's quite a surpise.

Oh well, I won't complain--it's not my project.

Who knows, it might be halfway useful?

Post by **grinvader** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:16 am

Anyone will be able to compile it on any supported OS. That's already useful.

@Nach: do you have any idea why the win32 port requires MSVC to compile ?

jdratlif · Post by **jdratlif** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:49 am

Nach wrote:The ZSNES Team tries not to focus on any ports. We're considering dropping Win32 support so we can be completely portable too.

I like the idea in theory, but I got bad sound and choppy video in Linux. I wonder if you drop the DirectX support if the quality will go bad for me in Windows...

Or perhaps it is the Linux drivers that are causing sound/video quality and the SDL version in Windows will be fine. If so, I'm 110% for this idea.

Post by **Nach** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:10 am

grinvader wrote:Anyone will be able to compile it on any supported OS. That's already useful.

@Nach: do you have any idea why the win32 port requires MSVC to compile ?

Hard to say what MinGW's exact problem is. I think it's that it has trouble running DirectX properly. When I compile with MinGW (after some modification), ZSNES starts, but loading a ROM crashes it.

If we end up only having to maintain one port, instead of 3, it would help when we want to change more low level stuff like SRAM Path, or the GUI in general.

Aerdan · Post by **Aerdan** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:24 am

SDL++

jdratlif · Post by **jdratlif** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 1:01 pm

Nach wrote:
grinvader wrote:Anyone will be able to compile it on any supported OS. That's already useful.

@Nach: do you have any idea why the win32 port requires MSVC to compile ?
Hard to say what MinGW's exact problem is. I think it's that it has trouble running DirectX properly. When I compile with MinGW (after some modification), ZSNES starts, but loading a ROM crashes it.

If we end up only having to maintain one port, instead of 3, it would help when we want to change more low level stuff like SRAM Path, or the GUI in general.

How are you compiling it?

Here is what I've been trying (without much success).

Install MinGW 3.10
Upgrade to gcc 3.4.2 (and g++)
Installed SDL devel, SDL.dll (So it can run the test program, but I guess I could just disable the test)
Installed zlib, and libpng
install nasm

Modifed the makefile.win. Replace cl with gcc, and change the options. /Ox becomes -O3. I don't know what /G6 is so I left it out.

Stuck the dx8 headers into the mingw include directory.
Grabbed some dx8 libs for mingw (there is a makefile, but I used the ones that were already in the directory, but I haven't made it to the link step yet, so I'm not sure if this works or not)

Problem:

g++ -O3 -c -D__WIN32__ -o win/winlink.obj win/winlink.cpp
win/winlink.cpp:141: warning: `SemaphoreMax' initialized and declared `extern'
win/winlink.cpp:242: error: `_int64' does not name a type
win/winlink.cpp:254: warning: converting of negative value `-0x000000001' to `long unsigned int'
win/winlink.cpp:328: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `InputAcquire' with no type
win/winlink.cpp: In function `BOOL InputRead()':
win/winlink.cpp:395: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `PrevZ' with no type
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void ExitFunction()':
win/winlink.cpp:463: error: `_asm' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp:463: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once for each function it appears in.)
win/winlink.cpp:463: error: expected `;' before '{' token
win/winlink.cpp: At global scope:
win/winlink.cpp:668: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `InitSound' with no type
win/winlink.cpp:792: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `ReInitSound' with no type
win/winlink.cpp

warning: converting of negative value `-0x000000001' to `long unsigned int'
win/winlink.cpp

warning: converting of negative value `-0x000000001' to `long unsigned int'
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void Start60HZ()':
win/winlink.cpp

error: `update_ticks_pc2' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `freq' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `update_ticks_pc' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `start' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `start2' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void Start36HZ()':
win/winlink.cpp

error: `update_ticks_pc2' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `freq' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `update_ticks_pc' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `start' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `start2' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void initwinvideo()':
win/winlink.cpp

error: `freq' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `_asm' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: expected `;' before '{' token
win/winlink.cpp

error: expected `;' before '{' token
win/winlink.cpp: At global scope:
win/winlink.cpp

error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `GUI36hzcall' with no type
win/winlink.cpp

error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `Game60hzcall' with no type
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void CheckTimers()':
win/winlink.cpp

error: `end2' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `start2' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `update_ticks_pc2' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `end' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `start' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `update_ticks_pc' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void UpdateVFrame()':
win/winlink.cpp

error: `_asm' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: expected `;' before '{' token
win/winlink.cpp

error: expected `;' before '{' token
win/winlink.cpp: At global scope:
win/winlink.cpp

error: `_int64' does not name a type
win/winlink.cpp

error: integer constant is too large for "long" type
win/winlink.cpp

error: `_int64' does not name a type
win/winlink.cpp

error: integer constant is too large for "long" type
win/winlink.cpp

error: `_int64' does not name a type
win/winlink.cpp

error: integer constant is too large for "long" type
win/winlink.cpp

error: `_int64' does not name a type
win/winlink.cpp

error: integer constant is too large for "long" type
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void drawscreenwin()':
win/winlink.cpp

error: `_asm' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: expected `;' before '{' token
win/winlink.cpp

error: expected `;' before '{' token
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void WinUpdateDevices()':
win/winlink.cpp

error: `_asm' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: expected `;' before '{' token
win/winlink.cpp: In function `void FrameSemaphore()':
win/winlink.cpp

error: `end' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `update_ticks_pc' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `start' undeclared (first use this function)
win/winlink.cpp

error: `freq' undeclared (first use this function)
make: *** [win/winlink.obj] Error 1

Lots of errors in winlink.cpp.

How did you get this to compile? What version of gcc?

fyi: FCEU compiles in mingw with DX7 and runs just fine.

Post by **Nach** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 1:08 pm

Please take notice:

Nach wrote:When I compile with MinGW (after some modification), ZSNES starts, but loading a ROM crashes it.

I still have the source from when I last tried this on my site:

http://nsrt.edgeemu.com/zsnesmng.zip

You'll also need a copy of NASM with TRAC's GNUWIN32 patch, or use TRAC's object converter.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 1:25 pm

Nach wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:
Nach wrote:
LDAWG wrote: Maybe if the ZSNES Team focuses MORE on the Linux and Windows Ports,
there will be more frequent releases.
The ZSNES Team tries not to focus on any ports. We're considering dropping Win32 support so we can be completely portable too.
Well that's just stupid. If the ZSNES team was worried so much about portability, it should have not choosen assembly language to begin with.

It's kinda dumb now to all the sudden say we don't care about specific ports, we're more focused on portability. What a joke.
There's a major difference between portability and maintainability.

also, pagefault and I are not the original ZSNES Team, we actually have different ideas than the original team.

It also bothers us that as it currently stands, ZSNESW can't be compiled freely.

Ah.. that's the operating word here. Maintainability is indeed different. But you didn't say that.

I realize you two aren't the original team. I jump the gun sometimes. It was wrong to go back to the beginning language choice, but in the same sense, pagefault has been on the team for years and all the sudden NOW he's interested in portability? I just think trying to focus on portability at this point is fruitless.

If you replace portability with maintainability, then i have no beef!

On a side note. I'm learning towards the opinion that you're going to have some negative results switching to SDL in windows as opposed to DirectX. I wouldn't think it would run quite as fast.

Then that would of course cause me to go off on another stupid rant about all the optimizations for speed that have been doen to ZSNES over the years and then all the sudden there is a unnecessary step backwards in speed.