openMSX 0.3.1 released

by mth on 18-05-2003, 21:50
Topic: Emulation
Languages:

Today a new version of openMSX was released: openMSX 0.3.1 - Quibus Birthday Release. The released version runs on Linux. We're working together closely with Reikan, so you can expect a Win32 version soon. The release notes are included below.

Release notes for openMSX 0.3.1 (2003-05-18)

It's been a short time since 0.3.0, but we thought the following changes are important enough to release now:

  • Fixed compilation on GCC 3.3.
  • Fixed SDLGL renderer on XFree86 4.3.

Regular development continued as well, so this release also contains the following improvements:

  • New feature: configurable file-extentions.
  • Improved layout of help text (try "openmsx -h").
  • Many improvements to the console, including:
    - Extended the console editing keys (left, right, del, bs, home, end etc).
    - Added key repeat.
    - Reset the scrollback when any key other than page up/down is used.
    - Added resizing and moving to the console.
    - SDL console characters are no longer blended (improved readability).
    - SDL backgroundimage can be scaled and can have any pixel format.
    - Fixed colour of font on GLConsole overlayed on Text1 mode.
  • Emulation and event handling are now done in a single thread. The previous multi-threaded solution was not very portable among platforms or even different versions of the same platform. As a bonus, the single thread model is simpler and more efficient.
  • Improved "make install".
  • Cleanups of the directory structure.

Read the "ChangeLog" inside the archive for a detailed list of changes. In "doc/openMSX-HOWTO.txt" you can find a lot of useful information on openMSX, make sure you read this if you haven't used openMSX before.

Known issues / caveats:

  • In its current alpha state, openMSX is usable for power users, but its interface is not very friendly to casual users yet.
  • Emulation is not perfect yet. However, in the emulator comparison of msx.org, openMSX scored highest on accuracy of all emulators tested. See the bug tracker on sourceforge.net for known bugs.
  • Until we reach version 1.0.0, file formats can change in an incompatible way without backwards compatiblity. Keep this in mind if you create machine descriptions, rom database entries etc.
  • This openMSX release is only tested on Linux. Reikan maintains a Win32 port, which follows openMSX CVS closely, but is not the same. You can find it at www.ranpub.com/openMSX4Win32/
    Running on BSD, Mac OS X, BeOS etc (wherever SDL runs) should be possible, but will probably not work out-of-the-box. If you are compiling on such a platform, please share your experiences (see below for contact info), so we can make openMSX more portable.
  • CPU and graphics performance varies a lot, depending on the openMSX settings and the MSX hardware and software you're emulating. Some things run fine on a 200MHz machine, others are slow on a 2GHz machine. Some performance tips:
    - Make sure there are no CPU consuming background processes running.
    - Generally, MSX1 emulation is fastest and turbo R emulation is slowest.
    - SDLGL renderer needs hardware acceleration to run at a decent speed. Disabling scanlines and blur (set to 0) helps on older graphics cards.
    - Use 16-bit colour mode instead of 32-bit (platform setting is used).
    - Use line accuracy (default) instead of pixel accuracy.
    - Turn on frame skip ("set frameskip auto").
    - Use low-res SDLLo renderer (75% less pixels to fill).

If you want to contact the openMSX development team you can:

  • Send a message to the openmsx-devel mailing list.
  • Talk to us on channel openmsx on irc.freenode.net.
  • Use the "Support" tab on the project page.

Relevant links: openMSX Home Page, Project page on SourceForge

Comments (2)

By Haze

Master (152)

Haze's picture

19-05-2003, 13:08

Is it me, or is the new openMSX 0.3.1 Win32 port already released today? Tongue

From the site:
"2003-05-19(JST)
openMSX-0.3.1-UnOfficialWin32 pre-alpha 0.01 release."

By snout

Ascended (15187)

snout's picture

19-05-2003, 23:04

So it was.. next time you could also submit a newspost about it Wink