openMSX 0.8.0

Today, the 'emulator that aims for perfection' landed at version 0.8.0, nicknamed CSI Dresal - a name which may sound like a mystery to investigate but it's certainly not a crime. The two biggest additions to 0.8.0 are the reverse function and Laserdisc. The first one is similar to what you can do in the MSX 1 emulator meisei: you can 'rewind' time during a game to correct mistakes, while developers may find it an easy method to find out what triggered a bug (use PgUp and PgDn). By default, the reverse feature is disabled because of the extra memory usage. The Laserdisc feature is the Palcom MSX Laserdisc system, introduced by Pioneer in 1984. You can now play Laserdisc games in openMSX, something you may have seen in action already during the last Nijmegen fair.

Other major improvements and additions include:

Added possibility to link to Generation MSX from within scripts
Better SDLGL-PP TV scaler, sensitive to scanline setting
Many speed and code size optimizations, developed in the context for the Dingoo port
Added new icon skin especially made for handhelds
Various tweaks to the OSD menu: new colors, save states show date, toys menu
Added OSD virtual keyboard (only international QWERTY layout for now) for devices without keyboard
Added OSD mouse support, you can now easily create drag and drop of MSX objects, for instance
Experimental OSD script for tabbed MSXing (controllable from OSD menu)
Added OSD script: Music keyboard (visualize notes of sound chips)
Added OSD script: SCC editor (edit SCC wave forms)
Experimental (still primitive) support for TAS (Tool-Assisted Speedrun)

More device support:

Added support for balance per channel, including support for the "stereo" effect of the FM Stereo PAK and the stereo PSG of the Pioneer PX-7
Added new mapper: Arc
Added emulation of the trackball

The complete list of improvements and additions is quite a bit longer, but the above is a practical summary for most people. Pre-compiled versions are available for Windows (32bit and 64bit), MacOSX (universal) and Dingux (the Dingoo handheld!). The source code is also available for other platforms, for the bold and brave who want to compile openMSX themselves. As usual, if you find any bugs in openMSX, the fastest way to get rid of 'em is by helping the developers, upon which you can probably continue the show with an updated dev version. Happy emulating!

Relevant link: openMSX

Comments (20)

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6931)

07-06-2010, 00:16

no windows build Oo or I'm wrong?

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10092)

07-06-2010, 00:17

That's why I put that extra line in the text, just above the Relevant Link.

By Vampier

Prophet (2409)

07-06-2010, 01:17

Windows build (32 and 64 bit are there now) have fun!

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5665)

07-06-2010, 01:22

Freshly converted openMSX believer says:
congratulations!

By Vampier

Prophet (2409)

07-06-2010, 09:02

Now that openMSX 0.8.0 is released it's time to tell something about the TAS functions and some 'best practices’

Step 1) Open openMSX either directly by clicking on the icon or through catapult located in the /openmsx/catapult/bin directory. Bring up the console and type in 'set auto_enable_reverse gui'. This command will auto enable the reverse feature every time you start openMSX, it will also give you a clickable time bar located at the top of openMSX (hover with your mouse to make it visible)

the following hot keys are now available to use:
- page up : reverse 1 second in time (openMSX will replay every keystroke unless/until any MSX key is pressed)
- page down : forward one second in time (if replay is still available)

Step 2) If you have the openMSX console closed bring it up again, now type in "toggle_cursors" (you can also use tab completion in the openMSX console) this will show you when a keyboard cursor has been pushed and thus when a key has been activated.

Step 3) The next function is "enable_tas_mode", this will bring up a frame counter and activate the 'END' key. The end key is used for frame advance. You can hold either the END key or push it briefly, try for yourself and see what the difference is.
Note with regards to the frame counter: make sure you always use an NTSC machine (60hz), if you use a PAL (50hz) machine the frame counter will not be accurate since a 50hz machine briefly goes to 60hz at start up.

-------------------

When making a movie just use the reverse function to record all the keystrokes, once you're done check out this link: http://openmsx.sourceforge.net/manual/faq.html#perfect_videos

By ro

Scribe (4913)

07-06-2010, 10:45

coolio

note:
Added support for balance per channel, including support for the "stereo" effect of the FM Stereo PAK and the stereo PSG of the Pioneer PX-7A "mono" channel is actually PANNED, not BALANCED like a stereo channel. (semantics I know... )

By FiXato

Scribe (1742)

07-06-2010, 11:44

A small note about the official Mac OS build:
This is now build on Snow Leopard (10.6), to enable support for x86_64, so Snow Leopard can use the 64-bit optimisations, whereas Leopard (10.5) will still run in 32-bit mode.

If you only run openMSX on Leopard by double-clicking the openMSX.app, things should go fine for you. However, if you usually start the openMSX binary inside the app folder from a terminal command line and pass arguments with it like I do, you'll probably run into problems as it will try to run the binary in its default 64-bit mode.
A solution for this is to run it through the `arch` utility.

Example:
If you used to run it as:

/Applications/openMSX.app/Contents/MacOS/openmsx -machine Boosted_MSX2_EN 
-diska "~/Downloads/Software/MSX/Music Project/MBWave2/" -ext "msxdos2"

you now need to run it with:

arch -i386 /Applications/openMSX.app/Contents/MacOS/openmsx -machine Boosted_MSX2_EN 
-diska "~/Downloads/Software/MSX/Music Project/MBWave2/" -ext "msxdos2"

to force it into 32-bit mode.

It has not been tested yet with Nekolauncher, but it might give problems for this reason. If it does, grab the latest 32-bit Universal build from openMSX Builder instead, since those are still built on Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard).

By Haohmaru

Paladin (774)

07-06-2010, 17:56

This is now builT on Snow Leopard (10.6)

Fixed.

By FiXato

Scribe (1742)

07-06-2010, 21:00

Damn it, I made that mistake again?
*slaps himself*

By cax

Prophet (3740)

08-06-2010, 11:06

I think on Dingoo it would be better NOT to use .dge extension with the openmsx binary, but rather with shell script.
Modern program launchers auto-detect .dge files and show them in the menu, so if we can't run the binary as is, let the startup script hold the name openmsx.dge and do the work.

I want to thank the openMSX team for adding Russian Yamaha MSX2 machines to the list of configurations.

Also I'd like to suggest to add folders to machine selector (name till first underscore char), so the machine will become easier to select by company name, and the list won't be flat and so long.

I will look into what can be done to make Dingoo virtual keyboard usable on Russian machines, where keyboard mapping is different from the standard.

Another issue I discovered is inconsistency in network ROM file naming between hardware config files and sha1sum files, but I feel it's a wrong place to discuss it, I'd rather contact you via IRC or e-mail.

As usual, I'd like to upscale to full screen (eliminating the border) and to have a way to map any keyboard key or menu option to any Dingoo key or simultaneous pair of keys. With these features in, openMSX will be perfect.

By Ivan

Ascended (9341)

11-06-2010, 20:49

What Dingoo console does openMSX need? Does it run fast enough?

By Manuel

Ascended (19298)

11-06-2010, 22:58

Ivan: it's tested on the Dingoo A-320. And it runs fast enough for most things. (Don't expect MoonSound to be fast, or even the combination of MSX-AUDIO and MSX-MUSIC together (18 channels). But games with just MSX-MUSIC run fine.)

By Ivan

Ascended (9341)

12-06-2010, 10:29

...interesting device. It's a cheap handheld. I should sell my GP2X and get the Dingoo A320.

By Manuel

Ascended (19298)

12-06-2010, 12:24

Did someone try the laserdisc games already?

By Ivan

Ascended (9341)

12-06-2010, 18:05

Wow, I have just seen the ultimate Linux based handheld: Pandora. Not cheap but powerful and with keyboard built-in.

By hap

Paragon (2042)

12-06-2010, 18:37

yay woohoo (for Quibus )

By Manuel

Ascended (19298)

13-06-2010, 13:01

mth ordered a Pandora, so we expect to have openMSX running on it very soon after he received it

By Ivan

Ascended (9341)

13-06-2010, 15:17

Pandora is quite expensive, 330 USD Dingoo is the way to go

By Edwin

Paragon (1182)

13-06-2010, 15:57

The major downside of the Dingoo is the low resolution. (You won't be enjoying Xak on it ) This is much better on the Pandora, which basically has similar specs as modern phones, but with keyboard/joypad for gaming.

By Samor

Prophet (2165)

16-06-2010, 02:47

nice! I've been on vacation recently, but I'll be certain to try this new openmsx version!

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