WinUAE 1.5.0 Released

[adolescent]

WinUAE 1.5.0 (19.06.2008)
=========================

Requires Windows 2000 or newer. Does not run on Windows 9x/ME.

New features/improvements:

- Picasso96 emulation rewrite.
  * Major speed increase.
  * Optimized blitter operations.
  * Hardware (flicker free) mouse cursor emulated.
  * Picasso96 <> native switch without screen/window reopening if old and new size matches (instant mode switching).
  * Fullscreen to fullscreen switch without desktop flashing.

  * Color space conversion, all RTG color depths supported in windowed mode as long as Windows desktop has same or higher color depth.
  * Simple scaling support added, fill to whole screen instead of switching resolution. (Useful with low resolution games and demos in windowed mode or if host resolutions like 320x200 are not supported).
  * Configurable 15/16/24/32 bit color space formats.
  * Important notes if slowdown is noticed:
    - Select "NonLocalVRAM" in Misc-panel (if major slowdown)
    - Make sure display panel depth setting is same as Picasso96 depth setting (or tick "Match host and RTG color depth if possible") Color space conversion is always slower than direct match.
- Filter update.
  * Scaling and centering are now more intuitive (NOTE: old settings are not compatible).
  * "FS" scale multiplier added (fill whole screen).
  * "1/2" scale multipler added.
  * Hq3x and hq4x filters added.
  * Onscreen leds are not filtered anymore.
  * Keep aspect ratio option added.
  * Direct3D/OpenGL filters not yet updated.
- PCMCIA SRAM card emulation, includes real PCMCIA SRAM card support.
- ROM scanner byteswapped and even/odd ROM image support.
- Multithreaded AVI recording, huge speed increase with 2+ core CPUs
- Right mouse button over image selection buttons opens favorites menu (can add/remove/edit shortcut paths to disk/rom/harddrive images).
- Sprite emulation updates, sprite doublescan support improved (for example Fantastic Dizzy CD32 background), yet another missing undocumented feature implemented.
- More compatible with timing changes caused by power saving features.
- Missing uaescsi.device CMD_GETGEOMETRY added.
- Debugger, GUI debugger improvements.
- A600/A1200/A4000 IDE emulation LBA48 (>128G) support.
- Input handling is more Windows-like, only release mouse/joystick/keyboard when WinUAE loses focus (previously when mouse was not captured)
- Added 1.5M Chip RAM (A600 + 0.5M trap door expansion) and 384M/768/1.5G Z3 RAM (configures two emulated RAM boards) configurations.
- Configuration file cache implemented, increases initial configuration list loading speed.
- 5.1 sound settings include center and LFE channel (all 4 channels mixed)

Bug fixes:

- uaenet.device random deadlock fix, NSCMD_DEVICEQUERY works correctly.
- Gayle interrupt handling update.
- CPU emulation fixes, EXTB.L and CHK.L was 68000 (should be 68020+).
- Sprite emulation fix, Super Skid Marks hires mode cars and Marvin's Marvellous Adventure score/cloud interference.
- "HAM4" and "HAM5" is displayed properly.
- Sound emulation fix, fixes Weird Dreams hospital scene sound problem.
- More compatible CD32 state restore support.
- AGA mode sprite garbage may have appeared in some cases. (1.4.5+)
- DOS formatted HD floppy image crash.
- Rare real harddrive detection crash.
- CD32 compatibility improved (Liberation CD32)
- Display emulation fix, mixed interlaced and non-interlaced modes don't cause random display errors anymore, same with doublescanned interlaced modes. (for example hires-mode Pinball Illusions)
- Autoconfig emulation update, Action Replay 3 does not detect non-existing fast RAM board anymore.
- Many lha/lzh archives mounted as a harddrive crashed.
- Mousehack (tablet) mode works again.
- On the fly mouse/joystick switching crash fix.
- A3000 1.3 SuperKickstart works again.
- Many "non-standard" resolutions were missing in Picasso96 mode.

and more..

Download it from www.winuae.net.

[jj]

ONce again another set of amazing aditions and fixes.

This must be the best and most feature rich of any emulator of any platform

[adolescent]

Yep, Toni does a great job.  I hope people appreciate his work. (read: send him a few $$$ once in a while.)

[amigadave]

Quote:

This must be the best and most feature rich of
any emulator of any platform.

End Quote:

(using AmiKit and AWeb3.5.09 has limitations on
what keys I can use typing this message)

It is the best emulator BECAUSE it is emulating
the best computer ever invented!

I can remember it just like it was yesterday when
many Amiga users wrote - a PC will never be able
to emulate an Amiga as fast as a real A4000/060.

WinUAE has become the best thing that has happened
to and for the Amiga community.  I cannot talk from
personal experience, but would like to hear from
those that have run AOS4.0 and/or MorphOS on Classic
and AmigaOne, or PegasOS machines comparing the
speed and features of systems like AmiKit running
AmigaOS3.9 with all the bells and whistles, or
AmigaSys, which claims to be faster and to have the
same or similar rich features.

I know that AmiKit and AmigaSys which use WinUAE
are more compatible running older Amiga software
than AOS4.0, or MorphOS, but how does AmigaOS3.9
using one of those enhancement systems on a PC
compare to a native AOS4.0, or MorphOS machine?

Never having been tempted to buy into either
AOS4.0 w/AmigaOne, or MorphOS w/PegasOS hardware
I do not know which is better or why (I mean between
AmigaOS3.9 on WinUAE and the other two Next Gen
Amiga like systems, not between AOS4.0 & MorphOS,
no more Red vs Blue wars please).  I have so
much Classic hardware, I have always leaned in that
direction and appreciate greatly what Toni and the
WinUAE team have done over the years to duplicate
an Amiga on modern hardware.

They did what many said could not be done.  My hat
is off to them, they are coding GODS!

[mingle]

@amigadave,

Well said... It's breathed far more life in Amiga than any of the other offerings and still allows me to use my old Amiga config - I copied the ENTIRE contents of my A1200 hard disk into a ZIP file and copied it across (via the serial port using TwinExpress!) to my PC...

WinUAE rules!

Mike.

[swift240]

WOW this is far far faster, great work.

[whiteb]

- Multithreaded AVI recording, huge speed increase with 2+ core CPUs

SWEET !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[alexatkin]

Wow, those are some impressive improvements.  The ONLY bad thing about it is I primarily use Linux so cannot benefit from these improvements. :boohoo:

I wish E-UAE was as well developed as WinUAE.  Recently I was trying to access a REAL Amiga HD using E-UAE and realised you can't, only WinUAE supports that.  Or perhaps you can, but its rock hard to figure out how.

Still, those speed improvements might make it more usable on my Pentium M 900 tablet running XP, which I was always planning to try WinUAE on.

Never the less, a big thumbs up to the WinUAE developers.  While I do not use it very often when I do its an amazing piece of software.  Especially over the past year or two where its features seem to have expanded so much with speed increases and stability too.  If only all emulators got so much love.  

I wish they would realise some of us want Amiga classics on Wii or 360, not Genesis and SNES versions.

[cantido]

> REAL Amiga HD using E-UAE and realised
> you can't,

You can; You configure the block device for the drive as a hardfile in your .uaerc. I've used this method to create CF cards with WB et al. from scratch with E-UAE then connected them to a real Amiga.