Why do Emulators have to be so complicated??

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 8:14 am

Every single VIC emulator I have used so far have been way too complicated. I know I am probably part to blame in that I didn't read any of the instructions but It seems way too complicated. There is all this memory address, 3K/8K/16K setting, etc. Isn't there an emulator out there where you do nothing more that select the game you want to play and click "Start"?

I tried Dos PCVic and found that way over complicated. I tried Vice and had some luck with about 1/2 the software I attempted to run. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Barney

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 8:27 am

http://user.tninet.se/~pug510w/datormuseum/prginfo.html

I still think it would be a great idea to include this program's functionality into VICE's autostart function.

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 9:37 am

These are great rants ... anyone try to let the VICE Team know about this on their project web site?

Project:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vice-emu/

Feature Requests:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_i ... id=1057620

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 9:45 am

Well Gamebase is designed so you can just choose a game and click play

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 9:53 am

Barney,

you probably need to know a bit more about the Vic and its software to manage the emulator.

There are 3 major flavours of Vic software and a fourth minor group split roughly as follows.

1. Unexpanded 69%
2. 3k Expanded <5% - usually an 8k version of these games too
3. 8k or 16k 25% just configure as 16k as these are compatible with 8k too.
4. anything else <1% e.g. 24K, 32k very rare.

Basically you can get away with no expansion or 16k most of the time and tell this by the file size of the game you are trying to load.

A simpler solution would be to download the GameBase for Vic20 version 2 and then install that it will configure plug and play type gaming with winvice being launched from a lovely graphical menu of almost all the Vic-20 software with a prview image.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 11:27 am

Vic20-Ian wrote: 3. 8k or 16k 25% just configure as 16k as these are compatible with 8k too.

Except for all cartridge games that you can run in ram... Most of them is in block 5.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 11:28 am

Mayhem wrote:Well Gamebase is designed so you can just choose a game and click play

Don't you need Microsoft Access to run it?

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 11:40 am

I have a small question. What exactly is gamebase and where do I get it from? Thanks.

Barney

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 11:46 am

rhurst wrote: Feature Requests:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_i ... id=1057620

I did that now. "Improved Autostart for xvic.exe"

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:19 pm

Boray wrote:Don't you need Microsoft Access to run it?

No, it only uses Access compatible database format for the data storage. You can certainly use Access to open the database up, but you can't do much with it without the Gamebase frontend.

Barney wrote:I have a small question. What exactly is gamebase and where do I get it from? Thanks.

Gamebase is a frontend allowing you to create and populate a database for the purposes of running emulated software. You can download the frontend from here:

http://www.bu22.com

The Gamebase database and all associated program files, scans and packaging images can be grabbed here:

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... &start=105

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:33 pm

Barney,

read my post on this page

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... &start=135

it should help after installing Gamebase program from

http://www.gb64.com/downloads.php

You need the frontend download and maybe the Visual Basic 6 runtime if not already on your PC.

PM me if you need help.

Ian

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:37 pm

Hi, Barney,

apart from the assistance given by a tool like GameBase, it is not the emulators being complicated, when it comes to start VIC-20 programs. It is the VIC's design itself. Those times, when you bought a program for the VIC, its memory requirements were clearly pointed out on the package. You would stick the correct expander into (or remove present ones from) the computer, and then run the program from tape, or disk. Or, in case of cartridge software not need to bother anyway, as that kind of software would autostart by its own.

Much of this aspect has been covered by Vic20-Ian's posting above.

Without the help of a database, in essence you need to know exactly the correct memory configuration the program to supposed to run with. What makes it really complicated is the fact, that merely choosing the biggest RAM size - in the hope the program/game then will always fit - doesn't suffice: most programs written for an unexpanded VIC rely on a fixed position for screen memory, unfortunately that position does change with RAM expansions of +8K, or more being present.

The sole exception to this confusion maybe is, that BASIC programs for the unexpanded VIC *usually* also run with a +3K RAM expander. Not that this would buy you much.

Greetings,

Michael

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 2:05 pm

Mayhem wrote:You can certainly use Access to open the database up, but you can't do much with it without the Gamebase frontend.

A front-end that requires Windows and is therefore unavailable to those with taste or clue.

saehn · Post by **saehn** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 10:54 pm

Barney wrote:Every single VIC emulator I have used so far have been way too complicated. I know I am probably part to blame in that I didn't read any of the instructions but It seems way too complicated. There is all this memory address, 3K/8K/16K setting, etc. Isn't there an emulator out there where you do nothing more that select the game you want to play and click "Start"?

No, it will take some reading. It's an emulated computer, not a game machine. This is not meant to denigrate game machines, I like those too. But they're different. I don't think that we can reasonably expect a freeware emulator to not require a little background research.

Now, if you had the actual machine... well then you could just get a MegaCart and not have to worry about any RAM configuration.

GreyGhost · Post by **GreyGhost** » Mon Jan 04, 2010 1:11 am

Something to keep in mind also is to look at the file size of the program on your PC you wish to LOAD. The programs that are 3.5k or less most of the time are unexpanded. This will only work with PRG files, not disk or tape images. And if this doesn't help me, I go down the list of expansions. I try the program without memory and then move up from there. Also, as the program is loading, if the screen fills with garbage that can sometimes point to a program that is larger than the unexpanded Vic and memory needs to be added.

Denial

Why do Emulators have to be so complicated??

Why do Emulators have to be so complicated??

Re: Why do Emulators have to be so complicated??