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| SymbOS MSX multitasking operating system - help needed!
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scratch_disk
msx lover
Berichten: 70 |  Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 08:09 |
Quote:
| Thank you, I just hope, that people will think the same about the speed like me. The problem is, that I never saw another MSX gui in action, so I don't know, what you would expect.
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Thanks for the video, Prodatron
If we come to the term 'speed', I've never seen a GUI for MSX that runs faster than MSX SymbOS. Not to mention that SymbOS is a multitasking GUI OS as well. It is a great job, unparalleled.
The OS looks very convincing, and more than satisfactory.
Do you think that the final release will be slower, especially if you run it in screen7 where video requirements are much higher?
Good luck |
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spl
msx professional
Berichten: 714 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 08:30 |
Looks totally great! It has of course mouse support, no?  |
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wolf_
msx legend
Berichten: 4555 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 08:59 |
That looks neat for that week'ish week of msx-porting 
I figure scr5 must run twice as fast, would it be possible to demo that too (+ moving objects, like windows)? It really screams for 'gfx9k' tho. ^_^ |
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manuel
online
msx guru
Berichten: 3299 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 09:08 |
EVA uses the turboR's PCM for sound output, AFAIK.
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Algorythms
msx freak
Berichten: 175 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 11:59 |
The EVA player can use MSX Audio, COVOX or Turbo R PCM, and it CAN use v9938 if the movies are encoded in screen 8.
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spl
msx professional
Berichten: 714 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 12:20 |
Humm... interesting.
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Prodatron
msx master
Berichten: 1088 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 12:48 |
@spl: I hope I will able to integrate also routines for a proportional mouse. Sonic_aka_T told me, that it's not so easy. Currently only joystick and a keyboard mouse control is integrated, and there is still something missing for the joystick. But these are all not huge problems. I should concentrate on the FDCs first.
@wolf_: Yes, I would like to integrate scr5 and scr7, too. Scr5 has the advantage, that it should be quite fast, too, has 16 colours and a 1:1 aspect ratio. Just the resolution is limited. Scr7 has a high resolution and still 16 colours, but graphic output will be much slower (50% or even less, as 4 colour graphics need to be converted on-the-fly). I hope it still will have a tolerable speed.
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Sonic_aka_T
msx guru
Berichten: 2256 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 13:12 |
Quote:
| @Edwin: Sonic_aka_T told me, that it has never be a problem to send bytes to the VDP without checking the status, if the VDP is ready for new ones. So I hope, that rule counts for every MSX2 or higher.
@Flyguille: I don't know anything about Windows (I never programmed for Windows). I think this methode should be a good one: simple and logical.
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Well, it's not "the right method", but I've yet to a circumstance in which it doesn't work. Perhaps it could be problematic on 'very fast' MSX2 computers that don't properly switch back when accessing the VDP. Anyhow, what I suggested is to make two drivers. One compatibility driver (which also checks the VDP port correctly) and one 'fast driver' which just assumes the VDP is at port $98 and expect the VDP to behave as it would on most (all?) MSX2 computers. |
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PingPong
msx professional
Berichten: 833 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 13:20 |
Quote:
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@wolf_: Yes, I would like to integrate scr5 and scr7, too. Scr5 has the advantage, that it should be quite fast, too, has 16 colours and a 1:1 aspect ratio. Just the resolution is limited. Scr7 has a high resolution and still 16 colours, but graphic output will be much slower (50% or even less, as 4 colour graphics need to be converted on-the-fly). I hope it still will have a tolerable speed.
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Depends: for example if you write charaters in byte mode you are affected by the vram size. (If the size of data is doubled, speed is 1/2).
However, sometimes charaters writes are done in logical mode. In this mode what you are "outing" is the color code. Because of this is always 1 byte length, there should be no difference from scr5 scr6 scr7 & scr8
(Ex: A TPSET or LCCM operation is always done at same speed in all modes) |
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karloch
msx addict
Berichten: 394 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 13:22 |
Really AWESOME. It's the fastest GUI that I have ever seen on MSX. It's even faster that the Philips EASE (for many, the best MSX2 GUI). I can't imagine it with 16 colors (SCR 5), looking colorful, but high resolution is also a good thing.
It looks like you are going to make history on MSX. I'm also looking forward SymStudio releases.
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Sonic_aka_T
msx guru
Berichten: 2256 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 13:23 |
Quote:
| I guessed that conversion would be slow for video files. Personally I think having a video format for each machine is a bad move as it's meant to be cross platform. Perhaps we can combine the two formats into 1 file : cpc frame 1, msx frame 1, cpc frame 2, msx frame 2 etc
However I'd like to see what conclusions you come to for support of the 16,256 + colour modes before I recode all the video and graphics side of symstudio - sorry (You've been on at me about the video for ages) but currently I'm busy with symbasic. Oh and spl the videos don't have sound, though i may look into this.
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That'll make for some big video files tho! Perhaps it's better to just convert the tables on-the-fly using a lookup table? |
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Sonic_aka_T
msx guru
Berichten: 2256 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 13:31 |
Quote:
| I think it's better to make different video files for MSX and CPC. The problem is, that not only the colour encoding is different, but (currently) also the aspect ratio. So the MSX version will even have different frame sizes. The idea of having 1 frame for CPC and one for MSX is not bad, but skipping inside a file also costs a little bit performance.
Btw, this is the routine, which converts graphics from CPC to MSX format:
;HL=data, DE=length
sprcnv1
ld c,(hl)
xor a:rl c:rla
add a:rl c:rla
add a:rl c:rla
add a:rl c:rla
ld b,a
rl c:rla:add a
rl c:rla:add a
rl c:rla:add a
rl c:rla:add a
or b
ld (hl),a
inc hl
dec de
ld a,e
or d
jr nz,sprcnv1
So too much for realtime, or maybe someone can optimize it?
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Maybe something like:
;HL=data, DE=length
SPRCNV1:
LD BC,LOOKUP ; Screen specific #0100 aligned lookup table
.RLP: LD C,(HL)
LD A,(BC)
LD (HL),A
INC HL
DEC DE
LD A,E
OR D
JP NZ,SPRCNV1.RLP would be a tad faster? It shouldn't be too much of a problem to have one 256 byte algined table in memory, right? Of course the table will be a tad bigger for 'bigger' screenmodes, but it looks a tad faster, tho less 'neat'... |
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Sonic_aka_T
msx guru
Berichten: 2256 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 13:33 |
Quote:
| Quote:
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However I'd like to see what conclusions you come to for support of the 16,256 + colour modes before I recode all the video and graphics side of symstudio - sorry (You've been on at me about the video for ages) but currently I'm busy with symbasic. Oh and spl the videos don't have sound, though i may look into this.
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I think that MSX2's SCREEN 8 (256 colors) will be enough. Of course the MSX2+ screen modes are way cool, but they are not a must.
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Once the basic driver is done, it should be easy enough to make a whole host of drivers, for pretty much every screenmode. The only thing with SCREEN11/12 is that it'd be nice if the main OS had a few extra calls which programs could use to use more colors (when possible). We'll cross that bridge when we get there though... |
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Sonic_aka_T
msx guru
Berichten: 2256 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 13:36 |
Quote:
| Quote:
| Btw, you guys should look into the EVA movie format for MSX. It's got sound too.
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Yeah, that's crazy for a standard MSX2! I am still wondering, how they did the sound without any hardware extensions (except the IDE interface). On the CPC it's impossible, as without a sound hardware, where you can fill a buffer, you would get a complete destroyed sound output.
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EVA just uses the PSG, I'd think the same would be possible on the CPC. Of course EVA does use other sound chips when present, but still, PSG sample playing is possible and not much more CPU-intensive than any of the other sound chips EVA uses... Of course implementing this in an OS like SymbOS is impossible unless you temporariliy 'freeze' all the other processes. |
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Sonic_aka_T
msx guru
Berichten: 2256 | Geplaatst: 23 Mei 2006, 13:38 |
Quote:
| IMHO the speed is already fine. As it is already quite fast, a screen mode with the double amount of data should be possible, too.
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