I got during last months a Mac Mini (Intel's Core Duo based one). One of the first software that I installed on it was openMSX 0.6.1, the universal binary version. It's working like a charm, in native Intel mode and no diference with Windows/Linux version (yaw! I really thank you for this!). As there is no working GUI for the Mac, I installed the NekoLauncher and although it's missing functionality of Catapult, it does his job.

Now I have the following questions:

• How can I run the emulator in full screen mode? I don't find any option in the NekoLauncher. Do I have to load openMSX from command line to run in fullscreen mode? What would be the cmd paratemers?
• I just got a wireless gamepad for the Mac, that it's working perfectly with other emulators. How can I configure openMSX to use the gamepad on the Mac?
• Is there any planning to implement a GUI or frontend that features the full functionality of openMSX?

I have already run openMSX on a lot of systems: PC Windows (Intel), PC Linux (Intel), Jornada 720 Linux (ARM) and Mac OSX (Intel). In every single system the emulator run really well, even on the most difficult and limited one (the Jornada 720). Keep up this amazing work!

Lucky you! I want one of those Mac marvels!

The usual mac key-combo to make an application fullscreen is command-f ('command' being the apple/squigly-thingy-key )

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How can I run the emulator in full screen mode? I don't find any option in the NekoLauncher. Do I have to load openMSX from command line to run in fullscreen mode? What would be the cmd paratemers? I just got a wireless gamepad for the Mac, that it's working perfectly with other emulators. How can I configure openMSX to use the gamepad on the Mac? Is there any planning to implement a GUI or frontend that features the full functionality of openMSX?

• Just check the manual: http://openmsx.sourceforge.net/manual/user.html#keymappingmac (and Patsie was right). Regarding your other questions: in whatever way you start openMSX, you always have access to all functionality via the console (F10). So, you could even just type: "toggle fullscreen" in the console, but the hotkey is easier, of course.
  
• Try this: open the console (F10) and type: plug joyporta [TAB] (the [TAB] will show you the options you have there, and if everything went well you'll see the gamepad in the list)
  
• Yes, we are working on it, but it's not finished yet. If you want to give it a try, visit us on IRC.
  

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I have already run openMSX on a lot of systems: PC Windows (Intel), PC Linux (Intel), Jornada 720 Linux (ARM) and Mac OSX (Intel). In every single system the emulator run really well, even on the most difficult and limited one (the Jornada 720). Keep up this amazing work!

Thanks for your compliments! It's great to hear this. I'm still hoping people realize that openMSX is easily portable, and ports it to e.g. some handheld devices.

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Just check the manual: http://openmsx.sourceforge.net/manual/user.html#keymappingmac (and Patsie was right). Regarding your other questions: in whatever way you start openMSX, you always have access to all functionality via the console (F10). So, you could even just type: "toggle fullscreen" in the console, but the hotkey is easier, of course.

Works well, but is there a way to choose screen resolution and refresh rate? I'm displaying openMSX on a plasma TV (using VGA cable) and when it change to fullscreen the TV tells me that resolution is 640x480 85Hz. At 85Hz the image is not centered (I suspect that the refresh rate has something to do with the scanlines of SDLGL renderer).

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Try this: open the console (F10) and type: plug joyporta [TAB] (the [TAB] will show you the options you have there, and if everything went well you'll see the gamepad in the list)

I did plug joyporta joystick1. After that the gamepad started to work, but it looks like there are some issue.

The direction pad works perfectly, but there are something weird with buttons. After I press fire button once, the emulator thinks that it is continually pressed, regardless of I release it. Pressing the button again has no effect from that point and it looks like the other button is nullified. However, the direction pad keeps working.

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Yes, we are working on it, but it's not finished yet. If you want to give it a try, visit us on IRC.

I'll do it if I get some free time

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Thanks for your compliments! It's great to hear this. I'm still hoping people realize that openMSX is easily portable, and ports it to e.g. some handheld devices.

Indeed it is, as it is proved by the Debian package mantainers, through this Linux distro openMSX is available for a wide range of diferent architectures (take a look here). Running it on my Jornada 720 (remember?) with excellent results was quite impressive. People should really give it a try on the porting.

Currently there is not any decent emulator for Windows Mobile based devices...

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Works well, but is there a way to choose screen resolution and refresh rate? I'm displaying openMSX on a plasma TV (using VGA cable) and when it change to fullscreen the TV tells me that resolution is 640x480 85Hz. At 85Hz the image is not centered (I suspect that the refresh rate has something to do with the scanlines of SDLGL renderer).

No, there is no way to choose the refresh rate. This is up to SDL or your videocard. openMSX just requests a full screen of the size of the current scale_factor setting. So, apparently you have scale_factor on 2, giving a 640×480 image. The scanlines are unrelated.
Note that I recommend to use the SDLGL-PP renderer and if that doesn't work, use the SDL renderer. SDLGL is kind of deprecated.

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The direction pad works perfectly, but there are something weird with buttons. After I press fire button once, the emulator thinks that it is continually pressed, regardless of I release it. Pressing the button again has no effect from that point and it looks like the other button is nullified. However, the direction pad keeps working.

You're the second person to mention this. I opened a bug report for this issue. I hope we have this fixed soon.

Thanks for your report!

No prob One more thing: save_settings doesn't seem to save the plug joyporta configuration. Is there a way to save it?

Hmm, I don't think so. A 'plug' is not a setting. It might be a good idea to make this saveable. Let's talk about it tonight.

Did you try SDLGL-PP? Please tell me your experiences with it. Also try higher scale_factors and the cool 3D effects. I'm interested to know if they work on your Mac (What video hardware does it have?)

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Did you try SDLGL-PP? Please tell me your experiences with it. Also try higher scale_factors and the cool 3D effects. I'm interested to know if they work on your Mac (What video hardware does it have?)

I will try this afternoon. The Intel based Mac Mini comes with an Intel GMA950. Despite of being an integrated graphics chipset (uses system RAM as VRAM), it performs quite well with 2D (specially with video) and 3D; the latter if the game/application does not use Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L), as it lacks hardware support for that.

Hi again, Karloch here writting from the Mac. Here are the test results:

Renderers:

• SDL: Works
• SDLGL: Works, currently the one giving best results
• SDLGL-PP: Doesn't work, emulator switch back to SDL.

Effects (using SDLGL):

• Blur: Working.
• Glow: Working.
• Deinterlace: No difference appreciated.
• Scanlines: Working
• Display deformations: Doesn't work.
• Noise: Works.

Most features of the emulator are working flawesly. I hope that the joyport bug is fixed soon, so I can play MSX games on the 42' plasma TV

Hmm, it seems that chip only supports OpenGL 1.4, so SDLGL-PP won't work, unfortunately... (Oh, you found out in the mean time.)

karloch: it would be very useful if you could try the latest SVN of openMSX.... Then we know if the joystick problem has already been solved. We can't find something in the code....

Oh, and deinterlace is only visible when the MSX is in interlace mode (try Unknown Reality). Display deformation only works on SDLGL-PP, indeed.

SDLGL doesn't support GFX9000 and has some other flaws...

You know, I'm a Linux user since so much years (even installed Debian on a Jornada 720 and an Amiga 1200/040), so I'm familiar compiling.

The problem is that I'm new to the Mac, and even through it is still a Unix environement, I don't know the steps to compile openMSX on it. Is it possible to do cross-compile for my Debian Linux or do I need the Xcode suite on the Mac?

AFAIK you can't crosscompile. You can just compile on the Mac, by installing the proper packages. I think the compilation guide gives quite some hints, but it might not be complete yet. Just try UNIX style In case of problems, better ask mth on IRC, as he's the Mac expert.

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AFAIK you can't crosscompile. You can just compile on the Mac, by installing the proper packages. I think the compilation guide gives quite some hints, but it might not be complete yet. Just try UNIX style In case of problems, better ask mth on IRC, as he's the Mac expert.

Done using UNIX style (no real difference with Linux). I'm loving OSX (and Fink)

The bug is already fixed in the SVN version, my gamepad is working like a charm in openMSX. It would be nice that the plug state could be saved with save_settings. It looks like I didn't got SDLGL into the build, but the normal SDL renderer is doing just fine.

Thank you for your impressive work I'll be looking forward the GUI implementation.

While waiting for an integrated GUI, I'm trying to make a simple launcher for OpenMSX with RealBasic. Actually it is working, but it's nothing special... just a list of ROM files found on the hard drive and the ability of double-click one row from that list to load the proper game into OpenMSX...