Serious Timing Problem?

About BasiliskII, a 68k Mac emulator for Windows, MacOSX, and Linux that can run System 7.x through MacOS 8.1.

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Korkman
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Serious Timing Problem?

Post by Korkman »

I'm using Basilisk II JIT in WinXP (that one that makes Speedometer Benchmarks look like spaceshuttle launch). Arcade gaming, Spreadsheet calculations, 3D Ego-Shooters - all works fine (I'm really impressed by the performance of BII). Btw, I'm a Pentium II @ 400 MHz.

Only in a few cases there occur really weird problems:
HyperCard: The "dissolve" effect takes years though it's a really simple operation, meant for Mac Plus.
Royal Flush (Pinball): Superb reaction time, but the ball moves in extreme slomo
ChuckYeager's Air Combat: Same as Royal Flush, the plane flies in slomo - but with 30 FPS or so!

I don't understand alot of Emulation, but this seems to be a timing problem. App calculates a wrong framerate, this stuff. I've tried several settings, I think all MacOS BII runs (7.0.1, 7.5.5, 7.6.1, 8.1) and disabling functions such as sound.

Is this a known problem? Does anyone else have this prob? Is anyone developing new versions of Basilisk II? HELP!
Mac Emu
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Post by Mac Emu »

Under Basilisk II/JIT, Warcraft is too slow for play. It's a known problem. No one is currently, publicly working on the Windows port of Basilisk II. But one or more people have been working on the Linux builds of Basilisk II.
Korkman
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Post by Korkman »

Very interesting. This seems to be a major problem of Basilisk II, not only JIT builds. But it can't possibly have anything to do with CPU power - as I said, it's running at full framerate. Only in slomo. Especially the HyperCard dissolve effect surprised me. I'll try to build a current Linux version.
Mac Emu
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Post by Mac Emu »

This occurs on my Athlon T-bird 1.4 GHz as well. I've noticed several programs that run certain effects slower-then-real-68k over the years. I will note that these slow effects under Basilisk II/JIT were not present under Fusion PC 2.3.1/3.0. Warcraft ran nicely on Fusion. Other games that will not play on Basilisk II but run fine on Fusion PC are Aperion (due to ADB problem) and Dark Forces (cannot finish loading or it takes way to long to load).
Korkman
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Post by Korkman »

I see. Is there a Fusion PC Version which runs within Windows? How compares Fusion PC with Basilisk II?
The Balance Of Judgement
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Fusion

Post by The Balance Of Judgement »

Fusion 3 can be run from within a DOS window in 9x/XP. It is downloadable from emulators.com. (via ftp)

It runs fairly well, on my Celeron 900 the audio has a somewhat odd electronic echo to it, but I assume that will be the case with any emulation.

To be honest, you can probably find an old Macintosh someone is practically willing to throw out to play this game on, and you can get it for free. For example, I got a LC III from a Mac shop. SO you might find it easier to do it that way, you'd get much better performance. 68K macs are laughably cheap now, you can get them on ebay for 10 dollars US.
Korkman
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Post by Korkman »

Oh well, usually the performance of Basilisk II exceeds the performance of any 68k Mac ever built, with more recent PCs even many old PowerMacs will me slower. Further, I do have an 68k Mac - a IIcx. Running very fine, connected to the world via 10 MBit Ethernet and a Linux Box. HyperCard of course runs fine, especially the dissolve effect.

So hum ... I'll try Fusion. Basilisk II has high quality stereo sound, and I guess on a faster PC than mine (400 MHz) even SoundTracker Modules will be mixed correctly (when doin' extreme sound mixing, it creates skips).

For a quick comparison: In Basilisk II, with extensions disabled, MacOS 8.1 boots in exacly 10 seconds.
PPC68k

Post by PPC68k »

Basilisk also doesn't handle the timing properly with any 68k Midi App that uses FreeMidi (Mark of the Unicorn).
Fusion doesn't have any problems at all with FreeMidi.


I think there is some timing bug lurking deep within Basilisk's code.
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