@broadblues

The strange thing is I can't remember if some freetype includes were in the newly installed SDK. The other day, I needed freetype and installed libs and includes from os4depot but there were 2 archives there.

Now, in "SDK:Local/common/include", I have :
- a directory "freetype" with a version 1.1.x or 1.2.x inside
- a directory "freetype2/freetype" with a version 1.3.5 inside if I remember correctly, I don't understand why there is this directory freetype2 ...

Even if freetype includes were in the SDK, I don't think static libs were provided else I would not have added these libs.

If I compile my shared SDL_tff with includes in "freetype2/freetype" and I use this shared object, it runs but with includes in "freetype", the final executable crashes.

@broadblues : Yep, it is of course -L, it was a typo. I tried with -LSOBJS: and the object is not found. Only -L/SOBJS seems to work.

@orgin : Thanks for the link !

@afxgroup

Thanks for all your answers.

Quote:

Ok. Just checked and it does not crashed. Nice.

Quote:

With the option "-Wl,--verbose", gcc look into the SDK paths before the ones given with -L. For example my libSDL_ttf.so in the current directory is not chosen because libSDL_ttf.a is found before.

Quote:

My problem is that it seems that the good includes are in "SDK:Local/common/include/freetype2/freetype/"

Quote:[/quote]

Ok. Understood.

So except the strange freetype2 inclue directory, it shoud be good.

Hi,

I tried to compile software with shared objects (a new feature available from the last SDK) and to create one. I have many questions and as the topic was almost never discussed, I would like to group information here. And I also plan to write an article on gurumed.net

To start, I did read the nice Frieden's article on shared objects.


1. What are the difference between -rpath et -rpath-link ? What do they do exactly ?

2. Is it planned to add the version tag in shared objects provided in the system ? It would be easier for updates and version control.

3. Should we check the availability of shared objects in SOBJS: at the beginning of our programs ? Does it crash if the shared object is missing ? I did not tried yet.

4. To avoid links in the SDK lib directory, would it be possible for the compiler to check the path SOBJS: first ? In the article, it is told that "-lSOBJS:" can be added in order to find shared objects in SOBJS:, is it really the case ? It does not seem to work here.

5. For the provided shared objects, could you also put the includes in the SDK ? I think about freetype, I am confused with 2 old libs from os4depot and a shared object without includes (maybe I overwrote them ...).

6. Could someone document more about shared objects, options (like syntax about -rpath, etc.) ?

7. I wonder how versions will be managed because we have already started to create links concerning libSDL / libSDL-1.2, libpng / libpng12, ...

@ice2642

Comparison of PPC processors is a really open (and hard) discussion ... To be short, the pure CPU power will be lower than a G3 but if you compare a G3 AmigaOne with a Sam, other parts of the board give at the end the same global feeling of power. Faster memory, SATA, ... the CPU does not do all in a computer.

That's hard to compare CPUs, even with benchmarks. They all have differences that will make them better in some cases. You can find the result of nbench between several PPC boards but nbench is old and not well designed for modern CPUs. It just gives an overview ... and even strange results sometimes.

Is it proved that MySQL won't continue to be developed ?

Even if it was the case, it would be good to get it on Amiga. I tried and it's not an easy task but nothing is impossible !

At least we have sqlite (look at os4depot) and I even wrote an example to show how to use the libsqlite with a MUI interface.

Hi DosBox users, I've just uploaded DosBox 0.73, it is available on os4depot now. Might be better. I've applied my patches and now sources are stored in my svn repository to keep track on changes.

With some games (like Cannon Fodder, Lost Vikings, Kyrandia) I tried on my AmigaOne (G3 at 800 MHz), the used CPU power is between 40 and 45 % at 3000 cycles with 1 frame skipped.

Slayer : The source diff is included.

kas1e : I have the colour problem both on Linux and OS4, even with DosBox 0.73. It does not seem to be easy to fix. I should add a new bug in the DosBox bugzilla.
About examples you provided me, x-ray now can play almost smoothly with 7000 cycles.

lazi : There is no more problem of pointer with Fatty Bear.

Just tell me your opinions and explain what is wrong.

@kas1e
I've just checked your files (thanks !), I saw that colors are trashed and I have to confirm the problems on another big-endian machine (Linux on MacMini).
Both files require an emulation at the maximum speed because it is even slow at 3000 cycles.
They are good example to check optimizations, thanks ! I would be happy to see them with clean effects and sound at full speed (what is not the case with core speed "auto" on DosBox 0.73).

@Slayer
If diffs are not released, it is because programmers do their changes and forget exactly where they are. It is additionnal work (unarchiving the original source tree, making diff, ...). Not hard but some work though. And maybe developers don't think other people will try themselves.

@kas1e
Thank you for the files, I will test them.

@Slayer
I tried to explain what I did in the readme but yes, it would be better to join the diff, I will do that in the next release (version 0.73).

@Elwood
I use the CPU docky to measure speed.

I've just uploaded my improved version 0.72 on os4depot. Will be available soon ...

Other good news, I've compiled version 0.73 this evening (a raw compilation with option -O2) and it is as good as my optimized version. That means slightly better that the initial version 0.72.

I want to duplicate my changes in the new version 0.73 with other improvements and ideas to test. So if you want to suggest some things, don't hesitate ! For specific games or demos, please send me the link where I can download them.

I am also very interesting in the performance on Sam440.

@fishy_fis

In fact, it failed to compile because the function execlp is missing. I didn't try to fix as I already spent some time trying to optimize version 0.72.

dosbox sources lack documentation. Do you have information about core_prefetch ?

Which core did you use ? I suppose this is the dynamic x86 one ?

If you tell me that version 0.73 is faster maybe I will try again to compile it but first I want to release the improved version 0.72.

Looking deeply in the dosbox sources confirm that the x86 technology is completely irrational, what a mess !

Hi

I've just tried Cannon Fodder with dosbox and to have sound on, I ran "install" and configured sound with interrupt 7 instead of 5.
To avoid the mouse problem, set "autolock" to "true" in "dosbox.conf". Remember that ctrl+F10 allows to get the mouse pointer outside of the box.

On my MicroAOne (G3 at 800 MHz), it takes between 45 and 50 % of the CPU power.

Recently I tried to optimized dosbox and applied some changes that could make things better from 5 to 10%. I was hoping a better improvement but the main part is really hard to optimize.
I will upload this new version soon.

Note that dosbox 0.73 is out for few days but I failed to compile it. I suppose we'd better enjoy having an improved version of dosbox 0.72.

As we are talking about bug tracking, I've just opened a thread on utilitybase because I have freezes without GrimReaper and I don't know how to find the cause. Maybe there is something to prevent that, I don't know if mungwall can be useful (just installed it though).
- How many levels has the debuglevel option in os4_commandline ?
- How to use the kernel in debug mode ?

Hi all ! As I ported DosBox 0.72 on OS4, I am interested in your feedback. I have no Sam440 so except your comments I have no idea about how DosBox runs on this board.

I have to work on DosBox because even if the code is complicated, I think there is room for optimization.

So further comments are welcome !

@spotUP

Sonix is a driver/program that manage webcams with the Sonix' chipset sn9c102, look at this project on os4depot or on the official project page.

About SongPlayer, you're right, it is not on os4depot ... the last release was crashing on OS 4.0 due to a bug in MUI that was fixed in OS 4.1. I will put it on os4depot too ... when a new version will be done.

madmonkey : Looks promising ! Great to see another IDE being developped.

RWO : What about isochronous support ?

Wanderer : Amazing ! I enjoy projects like HD-Rec, The Voyage of Wanderer, ScreenCam and voxel stuff.

Daedalus : Your project on a hardware mp3 decoder is really nice !

Hohoo, many interesting things in this thread.

From my side, here are my projects :
- PointRider : Improve it for a better display of PowerPoint files
- MeltingPoint : Fix it, it will allow converting PPS files into Hollywood projects
- DosBox : I would like to fix it (path problem in some situations) and speed it up
- Sonix : Add FTP support and release the source code
- SongPlayer : After a long time, I would like to work on it again

Thank you Edgar, AmiCygnix is really well packaged and runs at high speed without any problems after some tests. Really a good job !

I have found :)

System calls use interfaces under OS4 : an interface is a structure and an array of function pointers. The offset to call a function is equal to the entry index added by the structure size (58 rouded to 60 due to alignment).

@abalaban : ok, I understand

@Samurai_Crow : How could we get the offsets for OS4 ? In a disassembled code, I would like to find which function match with a particular offset. How can I do that ?

@Rob : Their website seems to be updated but I don't think the asm converter is. I don't know if it really works.

@freddix : Do you talk about Ghostscript ? Do you know it exists on OS4 ?

@abalaban : I don't understand how asm could not be supported .... I've never heard that.

@freddix

Maybe for some basic concepts but PPC :
- has no idea about address or data registers, it has general purpose registers (GPR)
- works with load/store in mind, you can only compute data that is in a register
- there is no register PC, you cannot do "addi pc, pc, 16", you only get the PC (in special register SRR0) when you cause an excpetion
- ....

Take a look at this link for example, it has some comparisons with 68k. There are many documents on Internet about PPC programming.

The PPC instruction set is rather clean and very powerful (bits, branches, cache, condition register(s), ...). It is maybe hard to understand mnemonics at the beginning but their name is very logical at the end.