Mercurial > repos > blastem
annotate README @ 1014:ef923c4b8977
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| author | Michael Pavone <pavone@retrodev.com> |
|---|---|
| date | Mon, 02 May 2016 18:27:07 -0700 |
| parents | f2f983e262e2 |
| children | 216fa63749b3 |
| rev | line source |
|---|---|
| 1013 | 1 BlastEm 0.4.0 |
| 468 | 2 ------------- |
| 3 | |
| 4 Installation | |
| 5 ------------ | |
| 6 | |
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7 Extract this archive to a directory of your choosing. If you wish to change the |
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8 configuration settings, copy default.cfg to $HOME/.config/blastem/blastem.cfg and |
| 468 | 9 modify the copy. You may also whish to add the blastem directory to your PATH |
| 10 environment variable. | |
| 11 | |
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12 Usage |
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13 ----- |
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14 |
| 1013 | 15 This version of BlastEm has an experimental GUI that is implemented as a Genesis |
| 16 ROM running inside the emulator. This UI can be operated with either a mouse or | |
| 17 the first emulated gamepad. By default, both the keyboard and the first game | |
| 18 controller are mapped to said gamepad. For more information on bindings see the | |
| 19 Bindings section. | |
| 20 | |
| 21 Some operations are currently only supported through the command line. To get a | |
| 22 list of supported command line options on Linux or OSX type: | |
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23 |
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24 ./blastem -h |
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25 |
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26 From within your BlastEm directory. On Windows type: |
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27 |
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28 blastem.exe -h |
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29 |
| 468 | 30 Configuration |
| 31 ------------- | |
| 32 | |
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33 Configuration is read from the file at $HOME/.config/blastem/blastem.cfg if it |
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34 exists, othwerise it is read from default.cfg from the same directory as the |
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35 BlastEm executable. Sections are denoted by a section name followed by an open |
| 468 | 36 curly bracket, the section's contents and a closing curly bracket. Individual |
| 37 configuration values are set by entering the value's name followed by a space | |
| 38 or tab and followed by the desired value. | |
| 39 | |
| 40 Bindings | |
| 41 -------- | |
| 42 | |
| 43 The keys subsection of bindings maps keyboard keys to gamepad buttons or UI | |
| 44 actions. The key name goes on the left and the action is on the right. | |
| 45 Most keys are named for the character they produce when pressed. Additionally, | |
| 46 the arrow, enter and escape keys have the symbolic names up, down, left, right, | |
| 47 enter and esc respectively. Other keys that do not produce characters are not | |
| 48 yet supported. | |
| 49 | |
| 50 The pads subsection is used to map gamepads and joysticks. Analog axes are not | |
| 51 currently supported. An example configuration is provided in default.cfg to map | |
| 1013 | 52 SDL joystick 0 to the first controller and SDL joystick 1 to the second |
| 53 controller. The button assignments there work well for a 360 controller (at | |
| 54 least on Linux, it's possible the physical button to button number is different | |
| 55 on other operating systems). | |
| 56 | |
| 57 The mice subsection is used to map mice to emulated Mega/Sega mice. The default | |
| 58 configuration maps both the first and second host mice to the first emulated | |
| 59 mouse. This should not need modification for most users. | |
| 60 | |
| 61 One special mapping deserves a mention. By default, the 'r' key is mapped to | |
| 62 ui.release_mouse. When operating in windowed mode the mouse has a capture | |
| 63 behavior. Mouse events are ignored until you click in the window. The mouse | |
| 64 will then be "captured" and the cursor will be both made invisible and locked | |
| 65 to the window. The ui.release_mouse binding releases the mouse so it can be | |
| 66 used normally. | |
| 67 | |
| 68 IO | |
| 69 -- | |
| 70 | |
| 71 This section controls which peripherals are attached to the emulated console. | |
| 72 IO assignments can be overridden by the ROM database when appropriate. For | |
| 73 instance, games with mouse support can automatically use the mouse and games | |
| 74 that only support 3-button pads can automatically force an appropriate pad. | |
| 75 Unforunately, the ROM database is not yet exhaustive so manual configuration | |
| 76 may be needed here in some cases. | |
| 468 | 77 |
| 78 Video | |
| 79 ----- | |
| 80 | |
| 1013 | 81 The video section contains settings that affect the visual output of BlastEm. |
| 82 | |
| 83 "width" is used to control the window size when not in fullscreen mode. The | |
| 84 height of the window is calculated from this value. Both width and height can | |
| 85 be overridden from the command line. | |
| 86 | |
| 87 "vertex_shader" and "fragment_shader" define the GLSL shader program that | |
| 88 produces the final image for each frame. Shaders can be used to add various | |
| 89 visual effects or enhancements. Currently BlastEm only ships with the default | |
| 90 shader. If you write your own shaders, place them in | |
| 91 $HOME/.config/blastem/shaders and then specify the basename of the new shader | |
| 92 files in the "vertex_shader" and "fragment_shader" config options. Note that | |
| 93 shaders are not available in the SDL fallback renderer. | |
| 94 | |
| 95 "scanlines" controls whether there is any emulation of the gaps between display | |
| 96 lines that are present when driving a CRT television with a 240p signal. This | |
| 97 emulation is very basic at the moment so this option is off by default. | |
| 98 | |
| 99 "vsync" controls whether the drawing of frames is synchronized to the monitor | |
| 100 refresh rate. Valid values for this setting are "off", "on" and "tear". The | |
| 101 latter will attempt to use the "late tear" option if it's available and normal | |
| 102 vsync otherwise. Currently it's recommended to leave this at the default of | |
| 103 "off" as BlastEm synchronizes to audio and does not yet have the necessary code | |
| 104 to fully handle conflicts between the audio rate and monitor refresh rate. | |
| 105 Additionally, the "turbo" feature does not function properly with vsync | |
| 106 enabled. These issues will be addressed in a future release. If you wish to use | |
| 107 vsync, please see the VSync section at the bottom of the README. | |
| 468 | 108 |
| 109 Audio | |
| 110 ----- | |
| 111 | |
| 1014 | 112 The audio section contains settings that affect the audio output of BlastEm. |
| 1013 | 113 |
| 114 "rate" selects the preferred sample rate for audio output. Your operating | |
| 115 system may not accept this value in which case a different rate will be chosen. | |
| 116 This should generally be either the native sample rate of your sound card or an | |
| 117 integral divisor of it. Most modern sound cards have a native output rate that | |
| 118 is a multiple of 48000 Hz so the default setting should work well for most users. | |
| 119 | |
| 120 "buffer size" controls how large of a buffer uses for audio data. Smaller values | |
| 121 will reduce latency, but too small of a value can lead to dropouts. 512 works | |
| 122 well for me, but a higher or lower value may be more appropriate for your system. | |
| 123 | |
| 124 "lowpass_cutoff" controls the cutoff, or knee, frequency of the RC-style | |
| 125 low-pass filter. The default value of 3390 Hz is supposedly what is present in | |
| 126 at least some Genesis/Megadrive models. Other models reportedly use an even | |
| 127 lower value. | |
| 468 | 128 |
| 1014 | 129 Clocks |
| 130 ------ | |
| 131 | |
| 132 The clocks section contains settings that affect how fast things run. | |
| 133 | |
| 134 "m68k_divider" describes the relationsip between the master clock (which is | |
| 135 53693175 Hz for NTSC mode and 53203395 Hz for PAL mode). The default value of 7 | |
| 136 matches the real hardware. Set this to a lower number to overclock the 68000 | |
| 137 and set it to a higher number to underclock it. | |
| 138 | |
| 139 "max_cycles" controls how often the system is forced to synchronize all | |
| 140 hardware. BlastEm generally uses a sync on demand approach to synchronizing | |
| 141 components in the system. This can provide perfect synchronization for most | |
| 142 components, but since the Z80 can steal cycles from the 68000 at unpredictable | |
| 143 times 68000/Z80 synchronization is imperfect. The default value of 3420 | |
| 144 corresponds to the number of master clock cycles per line. Larger numbers may | |
| 145 produce a modest performance improvement whereas smaller numbers will improve | |
| 146 68000/Z80 synchronization. | |
| 147 | |
| 148 "speeds" controls the speed of the overall emulated console at different | |
| 149 presets. Preset 0 is the default speed and should normally be set to 100. The | |
| 150 other presets enable the slow/turbo mode functionality. | |
| 151 | |
| 152 UI | |
| 153 -- | |
| 154 | |
| 155 The UI section contains settings that affect the graphical user interface. | |
| 156 | |
| 157 "rom" determines the path of the Genesis/Megadrive ROM that implements the UI. | |
| 158 Relative paths will be loaded relative to the BlastEm executable. | |
| 159 | |
| 160 Other Settings | |
| 161 -------------- | |
| 162 | |
| 163 "default_region" determines the console region that will be used when region | |
| 164 detection fails and when there are multiple valid regions. The default of 'U' | |
| 165 specifies a 60Hz "foreign" console. | |
| 166 | |
| 468 | 167 Debugger |
| 168 -------- | |
| 169 | |
| 170 BlastEm has an integrated command-line debugger loosely based on GDB's | |
| 171 interface. The interface is very rough at the moment. Available commands in the | |
| 172 68K debugger are: | |
| 173 b ADDRESS - Set a breakpoint at ADDRESS | |
| 536 | 174 d BREAKPOINT - Delete a 68K breakpoint |
| 1014 | 175 co BREAKPOINT - Run a list of debugger commands each time |
| 176 BREAKPOINT is hit | |
| 468 | 177 a ADDRESS - Advance to address |
| 178 n - Advance to next instruction | |
| 536 | 179 o - Advance to next instruction ignoring branches to |
| 180 lower addresses (good for breaking out of loops) | |
| 181 s - Advance to next instruction (follows bsr/jsr) | |
| 468 | 182 c - Continue |
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183 bt - Print a backtrace |
| 468 | 184 p[/(x|X|d|c)] VALUE - Print a register or memory location |
| 1014 | 185 di[/(x|X|d|c)] VALUE - Print a register or memory location each time |
| 186 a breakpoint is hit | |
| 468 | 187 vs - Print VDP sprite list |
| 188 vr - Print VDP register info | |
| 536 | 189 zb ADDRESS - Set a Z80 breakpoint |
| 190 zp[/(x|X|d|c)] VALUE - Display a Z80 value | |
| 468 | 191 q - Quit BlastEm |
| 192 Available commands in the Z80 debugger are: | |
| 536 | 193 b ADDRESS - Set a breakpoint at ADDRESS |
| 194 de BREAKPOINT - Delete a Z80 breakpoint | |
| 195 a ADDRESS - Advance to address | |
| 468 | 196 n - Advance to next instruction |
| 197 c - Continue | |
| 198 p[/(x|X|d|c)] VALUE - Print a register or memory location | |
| 1014 | 199 di[/(x|X|d|c)] VALUE - Print a register or memory location each time |
| 200 a breakpoint is hit | |
| 468 | 201 q - Quit BlastEm |
| 202 | |
| 203 The -d flag can be used to cause BlastEm to start in the debugger. | |
| 204 Alternatively, you can use the ui.enter_debugger action (mapped to the 'u' key | |
| 1014 | 205 by default) to enter the debugger while a game is running. To debug the menu |
| 206 ROM, use the -dm flag. | |
| 468 | 207 |
| 536 | 208 GDB Remote Debugging |
| 209 -------------------- | |
| 210 | |
| 211 In addition to the native debugger, BlastEm can also act as a GDB remote | |
| 212 debugging stub. To use this, you'll want to configure your Makefile to produce | |
| 213 both an ELF executable and a raw binary. Invoke an m68k-elf targeted gdb with | |
| 214 the ELF file. Once inside the gdb session, type: | |
| 215 | |
| 216 target remote | BLASTEM_PATH/blastem ROM_FILE.bin -D | |
| 217 | |
| 218 where BLASTEM_PATH is the relative or absolute path to your BlastEm | |
| 219 installation and ROM_FILE.bin is the name of the raw binary for your program. | |
| 220 BlastEm will halt at the beginning of your program's entry point and return | |
| 221 control to GDB. This will allow you to set breakpoints before your code runs. | |
| 222 | |
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223 On Windows, the procedure is slightly different. First run |
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224 blastem.exe ROM_FILE.bin -D |
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225 This will cause BlastEm to wait for a socket connection on port 1234. It will |
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226 appear to be frozen until gdb connects to it. Now open the ELF file in gdb |
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227 and type: |
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228 |
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229 target remote :1234 |
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230 |
| 536 | 231 Trace points and watch points are not currently supported. |
| 232 | |
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233 Included Tools |
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234 -------------- |
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235 |
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236 BlastEm ships with a few small utilities that leverage portions of the emulator |
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237 code. |
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238 |
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239 dis - 68K disassembler |
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240 zdis - Z80 disassembler |
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241 vgmplay - Very basic VGM player |
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242 stateview - GST save state viewer |
| 1013 | 243 |
| 244 VSync | |
| 245 ----- | |
| 246 | |
| 1014 | 247 This section includes information about using VSync with BlastEm. As mentioned |
| 248 above, the code is currently designed to only sync to audio and has some issues | |
| 249 with VSync as a result. That said, if your computer is fast enough and you | |
| 250 don't care about turbo mode, it can generally made to work. | |
| 251 | |
| 252 The native refresh rate of an NTSC Genesis is approximately 59.92 Hz which is | |
| 253 probably not the native refresh rate of your monitor. Fortunately, it is | |
| 254 most likely lower than your refresh rate. As long as this is true, VSync will | |
| 255 generally work as long as your computer is fast enough to cope with the time | |
| 256 lost waiting for VSync and the audio buffer is large enough to not run out of | |
| 257 samples during that delay. Latency will suffer a bit and you'll get a doubled | |
| 258 frame, but things will be fine. | |
| 259 | |
| 260 If you enable VSync and you're getting audio dropouts, first try doubling the | |
| 261 audio buffer setting. If you still experience dropouts, it's possible your | |
| 262 computer is not fast enough or that your monitor's actual refresh rate is in | |
| 263 fact lower than that of the emualted console. Not much can be done about the | |
| 264 former (apart from disabling VSync), but the latter can be dealt with by | |
| 265 lowering the default speed slightly in the "clocks" section. | |
| 266 | |
| 267 A future release will support VSync in a less hacky fashion. | |
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268 |
| 468 | 269 License |
| 270 ------- | |
| 271 | |
| 272 BlastEm is free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public | |
| 273 License version 3 or higher. This gives you the right to redistribute and/or | |
| 274 modify the program as long as you follow the terms of the license. See the file | |
| 275 COPYING for full license details. | |
| 276 | |
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277 Binary releases of BlastEm are packaged with GLEW and SDL2 which have thier own |
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278 licenses. See GLEW-LICENSE and SDL-LICENSE for details. |