ZX ULAX emulator

Struggling with Fuse or trying to find an emulator with a specific feature. Ask your questions here.
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Lethargeek
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i/o compatibility and game pack update

Post by Lethargeek »

public beta 10 - better i/o compatibility with old pentagon software abusing partial port address decode + some small fixes

game pack updated as well: added Curro Jimenez, Poseidon, Transformers, Wheelie (and moved Heartland there too)

same links on the 1st page as usual
Eugene C.
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Eugene C. »

Can you add "Shinobi"? It is unplayable with bullets that blend in with the screen. :mrgreen:
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Lethargeek
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Lethargeek »

will look into it after i'm done with Nightbreed and Forgotten Worlds
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Lethargeek
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better disk emulation

Post by Lethargeek »

public beta 11 - mostly disk-related improvements

beta-disk emulation is still far from perfect (and never was intended to be)
but now more custom loaders and correct (re)formatting should work

please tell me if you find some disk image not working properly
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Lethargeek
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game pack update and kinda bugfix

Post by Lethargeek »

public beta 12 - some Pentagon system software didn't work with ROMCS changes introduced in the last version and i wasn't sure it's all the same in every clone so made it a parameter in the ini (it won't hurt in any case anyway)

also added two big multiload games in the game pack: Forgotten Worlds and Nightbreed+ disk mods

note that Forgotten worlds is the new release extensively bugfixed by several people from zx-pk.ru (including me)
and before this day, there was no proper playable critical bug free 128k version! 8-)

Enjoy!
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Lethargeek
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port logging & sna sound

Post by Lethargeek »

public beta 13

Some more beta-disk emulation improvements (mostly making a difference with the demos only, but why not)

Loading a sna won't reset AY by default now - useful for quickloads in those games not updating all AY registers for a long time (this led to missing in-game music after a quickload in the Heartland mod for example). You can change this behaviour in the ini. Also the system reset (Home key) will reset AY as before if you need it just sometime.

Added masked I/O logging - to use it, make a dux file with one string like: "7FFFFF imask0 imask1 omask0 omask1"
first 2 masks are for input, next 2 masks for output; for mask0, ZERO bits that need to be 0; for mask1, SET bits that need to be 1
for example: "7FFFFF FFFE BFFE FFFE 00FE" - this will log all BFFE reads and all writes to ??FE
(the default mask values are "FFFF 0 FFFF 0", so no port can satisfy these conditions)

start the emulator with the emuL.bat file (or redirect output to a file or give it a name of the log file as a parameter)
load the dux file with the PgDn key as usual to parse it, then press Insert to turn logging on and off whenever you need it
output format is: "i|o ADDRESS <|> PORT : RAMpage ROMpage : BYTE", very similar to the older memory logging
however, unlike memory, this will register every suitable port access each time, and the log file may grow very fast - so beware!
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Lethargeek
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game pack update

Post by Lethargeek »

Thanatos was always one of my favourite games. In addition to great graphics and game play very good job was done on keeping the color clash to a minimum (except when approaching the city walls for a brief time). Still i felt it could benefit from being a little "tidier" and with some colors added and/or replaced (buildings being green always looked a little weird to me). So here's the result. Also note the snapshot here is modded - the original buffer-to-screen transfer was replaced with faster code writing "behind the beam" to improve the video quality even more. And with the great recent MAC's picture replacing the original title screen to boot! ;)

Also two of the older dux files for Academy+ (later levels palettes) and Dizzy-7 remake (one overlooked item) were fixed.
Eugene C.
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Eugene C. »

I hope for GnG and Shinobi.
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Lethargeek
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Lethargeek »

The 1st level of Shinobi was easy, just uploaded it in the same cloud folder so you can check it. But the game is a multiload and positions of the same sprite routines don't match between the levels. So it will need either a separate static dux driver for the each level manually loaded by the player at the right time (very inconvenient) or a tricky universal dynamic driver as with Nightbreed (and that's not fast to match several code branches and make several dynamic pages for them; and won't work for the bosses made of background tiles, these need to be recolored pixel-by-pixel). And in either case i need snapshots for the each level first.

As for GnG, i'm yet to decide which of the available versions is less buggy to choose it.
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Lethargeek
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game pack update!

Post by Lethargeek »

yet two more games - Interchange and Elven Warrior (and now more than 70 in total)
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Lethargeek
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double update

Post by Lethargeek »

public beta 14

Added floating bus aka "port #FF". Note it's absent on the real Pentagon but why not if it allows to run more games. It is off by default in the ini and has nothing to do with the ULAX itself (it reads original Spectrum attrs).

More importantly, build options were tweaked and optimized, as a result there is less CPU load overall and especially in adapturbo, frame skipping mode is faster, and there should be less sound crackling with shorter lag. But just in case something goes wrong, keep the older version for a while.

Also small update for the game pack - very old blade warrior colorization was improved, now with proper separate colors for the each sprite.
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Lethargeek
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game pack update

Post by Lethargeek »

3 new games - black&white, dingo and gimmick! yumetaro odyssey

(for the last one the colorization also fixes some gfx glitches of the original)
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Lethargeek
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game pack update

Post by Lethargeek »

two new games for the 1st of may - Outcast & Intensity

(as suspected, the 2nd one turned out to be a lot more fun when you can really tell what's going on on the screen) :)
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PeterJ
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by PeterJ »

I'm struggling to download [mention]Lethargeek[/mention]:

I click on the download links (avoiding the adverts for very attractive young Russian ladies who are apparently looking for a husband in London), and it takes me to a Dropbox style site. I click on the Download link (Dark blue Button) but nothing seems to happen.

Image

Could someone who has downloaded the latest versions share them via Google Drive or Dropbox?

Many thanks.
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Lethargeek
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Lethargeek »

[mention]PeterJ[/mention], you did everything right, maybe something is blocking it on your pc

alternatively try getting it from the folder:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/3Rzu/33GtNmUof
(right-click on the file, then select download)

also there's a google drive mirror:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... 0pPUWFNZrm
however it's maintained by another person and not updated yet
but it will be there eventually, check it sometime
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PeterJ
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by PeterJ »

Thank you [mention]Lethargeek[/mention],

That first link worked.
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PeterJ
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by PeterJ »

Thanks for all your assistance over PM [mention]Lethargeek[/mention]. I'm now up and running. Do you hope to add a menu system in the future? Maybe similar to ZEsarUX?

Loving Slightly Magic. Amazing!

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Lethargeek
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Lethargeek »

PeterJ wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 6:27 pm Do you hope to add a menu system in the future? Maybe similar to ZEsarUX?
maybe, but it's very low on my priority list right now
my standard menu system is Total Commander with Ctrl+Enter command line combo
it's just so much faster and much more convenient for me than drag&drop or usual dialogs 8-)
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PeterJ
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]Lethargeek[/mention] kindly said that I could add here suggested games for converting. How about Biff?

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=96&id=515

Peter
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Lethargeek
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Lethargeek »

[mention]PeterJ[/mention], ok, this looks like a simple case, check tomorrow for the preliminary version
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Pegaz
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Pegaz »

I also tested ZX ULAX on my LCD TV today and the scroll is perfectly smooth with 50Hz refresh rate.
Then, I tried with the noflick test program, which confirmed that the synchronization was perfect, precise than the one I saw on SpecIDE or Spectaculator.
Personally, I'm not a fan of fancy GUIs and I always value emulation accuracy the most, so this emulator looks very promising to me.
I just really miss the full screen mode and I wish we had it as an option...
btw, I've been playing enhanced "Intensity" for the last half hour and it looks great! :)
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Lethargeek
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Lethargeek »

Pegaz wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 8:29 pm I also tested ZX ULAX on my LCD TV today and the scroll is perfectly smooth with 50Hz refresh rate.
Then, I tried with the noflick test program, which confirmed that the synchronization was perfect, precise than the one I saw on SpecIDE or Spectaculator.
that's because i decided to sync the emulation to the video, not the sound as it was usually done
OTOH a few sophisticated AY demos might not work as intended with a flexible sound system
Pegaz wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 8:29 pm I just really miss the full screen mode and I wish we had it as an option...
maybe i will make "desktop fullscreen" (a fake border covering everything outside the window) once i figure out how to do it seamlessly
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Ast A. Moore »

PeterJ wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 12:10 pm (avoiding the adverts for very attractive young Russian ladies who are apparently looking for a husband in London)
Peter, sometimes I just don’t understand you . . . :?


:lol:
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Lethargeek
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by Lethargeek »

[mention]PeterJ[/mention], you can look for Biff adaptation in the same folder as the last time

there are two variants: one fast with ugly "glass" items and one big with repainted items to make them appear masked

i'm still not completely happy with the paint job but maybe it's ok for you
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PeterJ
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Re: ZX ULAX emulator

Post by PeterJ »

Many thanks [mention]Lethargeek[/mention],

I will have a play tonight.

Peter
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