Altirra 4.00 released

[StefanD]

I tried today the HyperXF-Rom for the XF551 drive with Altirra 4.10. Wow this really works - Altirra emulates the 8040/50 in the XF551. Very impressive!

 

But I found an issue: The HyperXF menu can't be booted (this comes up when booting without a disk).

I tracked this issue down: The 8039 emulation in Altirra executes the command MOVP3 A,@A (opcode $E3) at location $B21 without respect to SEL MB0 at $B03. So page B is accessed, but page 3 would be correct.

 

Edit: Here is the HyperXF-Rom:

HYPROMA.rom

Edited December 1, 2023 by StefanD
HyperXF-Rom appended, better description

[phaeron]

1 hour ago, StefanD said:

I tried today the HyperXF-Rom for the XF551 drive with Altirra 4.10. Wow this really works - Altirra emulates the 8040/50 in the XF551. Very impressive!

 

But I found an issue: The HyperXF menu can't be booted (this comes up when booting without a disk).

I tracked this issue down: The 8039 emulation in Altirra executes the command MOVP3 A,@A (opcode $E3) at location $B21 without respect to SEL MB0 at $B03. So page B is accessed, but page 3 would be correct.

 

Edit: Here is the HyperXF-Rom:

HYPROMA.rom 8 kB · 0 downloads

Aha, thanks, nice catch. It's actually simpler than that, MOVP3 just needs to ignore all current banking bits -- it's documented as always setting A11-A8 to 0011. I'll have this fixed up for the next 4.10 test release.

[mirao]

On 11/19/2023 at 11:50 AM, mirao said:

An easier way than building from a source exists: using a binary from WineHQ repository: https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu. Then Direct3D 9/11 works too.
So I would prefer to use this repository and not rely on internal Ubuntu repo.

I've just upgraded Ubuntu 23.10 => 24.04 and now "wine" (Ubuntu 9.0~repack-4build3) installed from the internal Ubuntu repo works with Direct3D 9 fine. So IMHO WineHQ repo is not needed anymore.

[mirao]

On 11/19/2023 at 11:50 AM, mirao said:

Wine:

 

Some more "performance" testing in Altirra:

• CPU Ryzen 4700U, GPU AMD Radeon RX Vega 7 - animation with Direct3D 11 is slower than with Direct3D 9
• CPU Ryzen 5800H, GPU AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 - animation with Direct3D 11 is the same as with Direct3D 9

In Ubuntu 24.04, visually there is no difference in performance of graphics in those configurations between D3D9 and D3D11.
What I found interesting is that CPU load of the Altirra process is significantly lower with D3D11 than D3D9 (15% vs. 80% with CPU Ryzen 5800H and 25% vs. 90% with CPU Ryzen 4700U).
One more interesting thing is that with D3D11 when I open Altirra's toolbar menu (e.g. Tools) and move mouse over menu's items (parent or sub-items), graphics and sound starts lagging (though CPU is still low). It doesn't happen with D3D9. But I don't mind, so I'm using D3D11 now.