I see you understand optimisation the same way as I do. I think it's
obvious. If I rewrite code which is composing whole vide line, it would be
MUCH faster in asm. But no READ_BYTE macro for CPU.
I know asm well, so I always knewed Allans efforts in 5-line asm blocks are
more generating more smile than speed benefits ;-)
I haven't sent e-mail about my troubles because I had old computer where it
was fine. Then I bought new one a until now I haven't run it. I spend time
with developing ASCD, you know.
Obviously that _MY_ version as you wrote is not mine. It crashes on your
Win2k because the video emulation code uses a special (S)VGA BIOS library
for DJGPP. That piece of emulator is by Allan Skillman. But be patient, I
have already removed all suspicious code, and switched to Allegro which is
known to be compatible with W2K machines where other DOS programs run as
well (e.g. Mame).
And version numbering?
We have two different programs, so what numbers you want to have?
I have old SimCoupe core, virtually portable, with ZX Spectrum emulation,
AIR and other additions.
You have new Win32 code written in C++, not very portable, with much better
quality of emulation and support of MIDI, Dallas clock and other devices
which are missing in my version.
I tried to use your great CPU core in my version, but I failed. It is so
different to original SimCoupe!
The only thing people may be confused is that ASCD is still more than 50%
same as original SimCoupe, while new SimCoupe for Win32 is completely new
software. Haven't somebody stolen the name? Eh. ;-)
btw. I will add MIDI to DOS version, if somebody is interested. But is it
worthy?
What software does use it? I need to find one to test my emulation ;-)))
------------------------------------------------------------------
Bc.Aley [eili] Keprt - games & multimedia programmer
ICQ: 82357182 (evenings) *** phone: +420-68-5387035 (weekends)
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office: Illusion Softworks, Brno, CZ - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Owen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: 3. srpna 2001 11:46
Subject: RE: ASCD 0.90 W.I.P.
Aley Keprt wrote:
> If somebody wants to test the today's version of ASCD,
> I can send it by e-mail.
Sure - why not! :-)
(we're really gonna have to do something about the version numbering
between of SimCoupé and ASCD - it's _so_ confusing!)
> 2. The assembler-"optimised" versions are slower than C versions
> optimised by C compiler.
Yeah, I never gained any speed from the small sections either - it seems
to hurt the compiler's register allocation too much, taking away any
benefit from the asm block. I imagine there would be nice gains if
larger logical blocks were re-coded (particularly with the display
rendering), but for the sake of portability I didn't bother.
> I have never understood why Allan did this, does anybody
> else understand?
I guess the compiler Allan used wasn't affected in the same way, or
perhaps the optimisations weren't as good then? There must have been
some benefit to them or he wouldn't have kept them! I've a vague memory
one of the readme files or release notes mentioned a speed gain from
them...
> btw. I have big problems with Win32 version. The version
> dated 9th March 2001 doesn't work. It starts correctly, but
> then my computer halts or resets Win98 a few seconds after
> start. Version dated 26th Februrary 2001 works fine. It's terrible!
If you were having trouble, why didn't you just e-mail me about it?
I've not had any reported problems with that version, despite 600 odd
downloads of it in the last couple of weeks.
It smells a bit like a driver issue - try changing the Surface= entry in
the SimCoupe.cfg to read "Surface=0" (that's a zero), and the Sound= to
read "Sound=No". If you still have problems after that, e-mail me off
the list and I'll think of more things to try. Of course, since you
have the source code it might be easier to locate the point Windows
falls over using that (something I couldn't do with the crash I had
under W2K in _your_ version!).
Si
