openMSX wish list

Par ren

Paragon (1947)

13-12-2020, 14:26

Some things that come to mind ATM:

shader support akin e.g. RetroArch & MAME
Would be awesome to be able to enable neat CRT simulation this way;
extended archive support, notably the .7z format
.7z compressed archives are considerably smaller than .zip;
free scaling window;
reduced input lag
RetroArch features various techniques to combat latency, MAME has a 'Low latency' option (Advanced Options). Would any of these quality/apply & be feasible for implementation?

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Par turbor

Hero (529)

13-12-2020, 20:11

ren wrote:

shader support akin e.g. RetroArch & MAME
Would be awesome to be able to enable neat CRT simulation this way;

http://openmsx.org/screenshots.html
You mean something different then the ones that are already available?

ren wrote:

extended archive support, notably the .7z format
.7z compressed archives are considerably smaller than .zip;

Aren't 7-zip files expandable with the zip algorithm? IIRC the main difference between regular zip and 7-zip is a possible difference between the buffer size used and the order in which files are grouped together?
Any way, it might be a good idea to add this to the openMSX issue tracker :-)

ren wrote:

reduced input lag
RetroArch features various techniques to combat latency, MAME has a 'Low latency' option (Advanced Options). Would any of these quality/apply & be feasible for implementation?

OpenMSX uses the SDL2 library for input and as a way to be easily portbale between platforms. To decrease latency openMSX should either bypass this layer, or call the SDL library anytime an MSX I/O port is read to see if the state of the input is changed.
I know that SDL in combination with vsync and openGL could causes some noticeable input delay, disabling vsync should fix this but that could cause screen tearing...

Par ren

Paragon (1947)

13-12-2020, 22:00

turbor wrote:

You mean something different then the ones that are already available?

Definitely. The available 3D arcade effect is, as it stands now, IMO not much more than an unusable gimmick. It's not really usable due to the steep inclination. If it had a much more subtle or, better, configurable inclination (depth viewing angle), it could actually be a nice and usable feature (in combination with the available monitor simulation effects).

An advantage (I suppose) of the shaders I mention is that their usage is widespread, and there are ready-to-use neat CRT simulation shaders available.

turbor wrote:

Aren't 7-zip files expandable with the zip algorithm?

Both formats support multiple compression algorithms. I believe zip's standard is Deflate where alternative algorithms are non-standard. 7z's default is the LZMA(2) algorithm.

It's widely used in the emulation scene. It's e.g. esp. powerful when compressing variants of the same rom (game) together into a solid archive. But also for single .rom's or disks it can make a difference, shaving off some (tens of) kb's.

Linux support is behind (p7zip), not sure if that poses a problem with archives created with a recent Windows version. (I think it should not.)

# input lag
Thanks for your explanation. Yes, definitely disabling vsync should help here.

RetroArch's (user) docs on latency: https://docs.libretro.com/guides/latency/ (there's a separate section there on Run Ahead, and some info to be found in the topic 'Optimal Vsync Performance')

MAME's low latency options is described as follows:

https://docs.mamedev.org/commandline/commandline-all.html?highlight=latency wrote:

This tells MAME to draw a new frame before throttling to reduce input latency. This is particularly effective with VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) displays.

This may cause frame pacing issues in the form of jitter with some systems (especially newer 3D-based systems or systems that run software akin to an operating system), so the default is off (-nolowlatency).

GitHub feature pull: Remove up to one frame of input latency. #5901

(Not sure if any of the above is futile due to SDL, but mentioning anyways ;))

Par ren

Paragon (1947)

13-12-2020, 21:43

Something else came to mind: archive multi-disk support.

This would require to number the disk images I suppose. Disks could be swapped by pressing hotkey (e.g. alt-1, alt-2 etc.)

This could be pretty powerful in combination with a .7z archive (saving kb's & less file clutter).

Related issue (kinda): Concatenated multi disk support #1241

Par iamweasel2

Paladin (722)

14-12-2020, 13:51

add IDE CD audio emulation, so we can play Knightmare gold with CD audio music.

Par Gradius2

Hero (657)

19-12-2020, 10:23

iamweasel2 wrote:

add IDE CD audio emulation, so we can play Knightmare gold with CD audio music.

OMG that thing again?

Par Manuel

Ascended (19682)

19-12-2020, 10:34

ren wrote:

Something else came to mind: archive multi-disk support.

This would require to number the disk images I suppose. Disks could be swapped by pressing hotkey (e.g. alt-1, alt-2 etc.)

This could be pretty powerful in combination with a .7z archive (saving kb's & less file clutter).

Related issue (kinda): Concatenated multi disk support #1241

Sounds like https://github.com/openMSX/openMSX/blob/master/share/scripts...

Par ren

Paragon (1947)

04-01-2021, 17:13

Hey Manuel, sorry late reply, I don't think it's exactly it, but I'll have to look a bit further into it.

Saw some nice developments with Grauw's involvement @ GitHub. I checked Syntax Infinity w/ the latest dev build: those 'stray pixels' are still there at then end with the rotating 3D bars. I don't spot those when cross-checking with footage on YT.

Don't know if it's in any way related to things that have been investigated lately, but I figured couldn't hurt to mention it

BTW: concerning those shaders, I do think it would be nice if openMSX would catch up in that regard Though I've finally been playing with ReShade, and managed to get some nice/interesting results from it! (Only problem is that it shades everything including the console & OSD stuff ;)) (but it's easy enough to toggle using a hotkey..)

(For Linux there's vkBasalt btw. (although: Vulkan only))

Par mcolom

Champion (321)

04-01-2021, 17:33

Something that I'd like in the debugger (I don't know if this has been already requested or agreed), is that it doesn't move all the code when you're in a loop, but instead it's the PC' s line that moves. This way it'd be more natural, I think.

Par Parn

Paladin (854)

04-01-2021, 19:37

Gradius2 wrote:

OMG that thing again?

Excuse me?

Back to the topic, I'd like OpenMSX to have an option to use a directory as a hard disk. I don't mind any particular partition format, for all that I care it could be automatic. I mean, 12-bit FAT for directories smaller than 32MB and 16-bit FAT for larger directories. It could spit a warning message if you tried to use a partition format incompatible with your selected hardware (for example, default Sunrise IDE can only deal with 12-bit FAT, afaik).

Par iamweasel2

Paladin (722)

04-01-2021, 19:49

Gradius2 wrote:

iamweasel2 wrote:

add IDE CD audio emulation, so we can play Knightmare gold with CD audio music.

OMG that thing again?

Well, no emulator has IDE CD audio emulation, so that makes Knightmare Gold then only MSX game that can't be properly played on a emulator.