MagicEngine

[tisurame]

All those...

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/6659/reswd0.jpg

[dmichel]

Oh I see, all the 1x zoom resolutions... had forgotten those. OK, I will add them back to MagicEngine and MEFX.
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David Michel

[2X4]

I know this won't make a difference at this stage in the game, but I would really like to see 2 things in the next ME:

1 more faithful and accurate emulation of video, sound and controls

2 more streamlined code (one shouldn't need a 3 GHz processor to run an emulator for an 8 bit system)

I really couldn't care less about the extra bells and whistles. as long as you give me full screen at 1x.
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[Layer]

You don't need a 3.0ghz for ME..if you are having issues then there is something else wrong... I get 60 FPS on pretty much all games at full screen on a P4 2.4 - and my machine does't even break a sweat.

[Kaminari]

[Seldane]

The main problem with ME is probably that it takes forever to start up / exit the program. I don't know what the cause is, but I agree with 2X4. It almost feels like you need a 3GHz CPU just to run it properly. Games run fine, but the GUI is super slow.

[Keranu]

I agree, that's the one thing I don't like about ME, the long boot up. Isn't this because it's checking CD drives or whatever? I remember there were some beta releases or something that didn't have to do this so they would boot up faster.
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LaZer Dorks

[dmichel]

Yes, there's a command line option (-nocd) to disable the CD-ROM driver, this makes ME start a bit faster.

I had run some tests a while ago, ME start up is not that slow, what slowing things down is the CD-ROM scanning and the 3D initialization (DirectX is a bit faster than OpenGL), CD scanning could probably be multi-threaded but I can't do anything about 3D initialization, it's the part inside Windows driver that is slow.
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David Michel

[nodtveidt]

I've never had any problems with ME 1.0 starting up at all. The first time it runs, it takes about 4 seconds to start up and that's likely due to DirectX initialisation. Running it after that, startup is almost instant. Other emulators have similar display startup times, so it's nothing all that out-of-the-ordinary.
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Frozen Utopia
Retro gaming was never this cool.

[2X4]

Like others mentioned, I'm just nitpicking about the time it takes to load, which I had suspected was the fault of the gui. I've been a registered user for, well, since the early days, and I remember how efficient the earlier versions were, they loaded quickly and ran smoothly on my old PIII laptop, and they ran cds also. But I was just prodding to see if others agreed. Like I said, I'm just nitpicking, since most of the other things about ME are great. When I tried 1.0 my only disappointment was that it seemed like a lot had been beefed up with the gui, but the (IMO) important stuff was not as prioritized. I think many would agree, and I figured thats what these threads are for.
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[Chris]

so has "Switch Resolution option" gone in Magic Engine ? (no option in Mefx..so i assume as in ME)
this option was very useful with ArcadeVGA card.....

[dmichel]

It's not gone, it will be back.

It's not implemented in MEFX because this option was not really needed, the FX has less resolution choices, only 256 and 320, and 320 is a special case.
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David Michel

[Chris]

thanks again for verification..

[denzilla]

Any updates?

[dmichel]

No, no big news, I'm working on the OS X version of MagicEngine at the moment, I hope to finish it soon to restart the work on ME and MEFX.
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David Michel