1 |
Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.1 |
Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.3 |
2 |
================================================================ |
================================================================ |
3 |
|
|
4 |
Copyright (C) 2003-2006 Anders Gavare. |
Copyright (C) 2003-2006 Anders Gavare. |
14 |
systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats. |
systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats. |
15 |
|
|
16 |
|
|
17 |
Changes between release 0.4.0.1 and 0.4.1 include, among other things: |
Changes between release 0.4.2 and 0.4.3 include, among other things: |
18 |
|
|
19 |
o) Some bugs in the dynamic translation core have been fixed, making |
o) SuperH (SH4) emulation is now stable enough to let a NetBSD/dreamcast |
20 |
all emulation modes (especially the MIPS mode) more stable. |
GENERIC_MD (ramdisk) kernel reach userland. |
21 |
|
|
22 |
o) In the refactoring effort between 0.4.0 and 0.4.0.1, single-stepping |
o) There is now a simple framework for letting emulated clocks, as seen |
23 |
(and instruction tracing) of 64-bit programs was accidentally broken. |
by guest operating systems, run at the same speed as the host clock. |
|
Single-stepping in 64-bit mode could result in strange exceptions. |
|
|
This has been fixed in 0.4.1. |
|
24 |
|
|
25 |
o) MIPS emulation performance has been improved somewhat: |
So far, the DECstation, MobilePro (hpcmips), NetWinder, CATS, Malta |
26 |
|
(evbmips), Cobalt, Algor, Dreamcast, and testmips machine modes |
27 |
|
use the new clock/timer framework. |
28 |
|
|
29 |
R3000: After removing some buggy code (hints for physical page |
o) Some changes to the way expressions are evaluated in the built-in |
30 |
translations), it was possible to remove the workaround for R3000 |
debugger, and some changes in command behaviour: |
|
caches which was needed in 0.4.0.1 to make Linux and Ultrix run. |
|
|
This gives an overall speedup for R2000/R3000. |
|
31 |
|
|
32 |
For non-R3000, there have been some speedups as well. After fixing |
x) Expressions (including assignments) can now be arbitrarily |
33 |
reference count bugs for 64-bit addressing in the dyntrans system, |
complex, using parentheses, and the following operators: |
|
workarounds/hacks in the tlbwr/tlbwi instructions and in the ASID |
|
|
change helper function could be removed. |
|
34 |
|
|
35 |
o) A new -s command line option is now available, for dumping |
+ - * / % (modulo) ^ (xor) & (and) | (or) |
|
raw runtime data/statistics on every instruction to a file. |
|
36 |
|
|
37 |
Currently, the following kinds of data can be dumped: |
x) Some internal emulator variables can now be read/written using |
38 |
|
normal expressions. Examples of commands that did not work |
39 |
|
earlier, but should work now: |
40 |
|
|
41 |
1. the program counter (virtual address) |
print verbose |
42 |
2. the physical address representation of the program counter |
r5 = sp - arch_pagesize * 4 |
43 |
3. the internal dyntrans instruction call pointer, useful when |
machine[0].statistics_enabled = 1 |
|
developing/optimizing the emulator |
|
44 |
|
|
45 |
This data can then be analyzed by external tools. |
x) To force a name to be interpreted as a setting/register name, |
46 |
|
a hash sign (#) is now used instead of the percentage sign (%). |
47 |
|
(In the new expression evaluator, % means arithmetic modulo.) |
48 |
|
|
49 |
(There was a -s command line option in previous releases of |
x) The 'focus' command now also selects a cpu, in addition to |
50 |
the emulator, but it did not work as intended, and was not |
selecting machine and emul. |
51 |
usable from dyntrans emulation modes.) |
|
52 |
|
x) The 'reg' command only prints registers for one cpu now, not |
53 |
|
all cpus in the currently focused machine. |
54 |
|
|
55 |
|
o) The wdc (standard IDE controller) had a bug which prevented disk |
56 |
|
images larger than 2 GB to work correctly. This has been fixed. |
57 |
|
|
58 |
|
o) For MIPS emulation, some combinations of emulated processor + guest |
59 |
|
operating system should now work better when idling (i.e. the host |
60 |
|
should not run at 100% CPU): |
61 |
|
|
62 |
|
x) For MIPS32/MIPS64 and RM5200, the 'wait' instruction should |
63 |
|
now work more or less as expected. |
64 |
|
|
65 |
|
x) For VR41xx (e.g. MobilePro) emulation, the standby instruction |
66 |
|
should work like the 'wait' instruction. |
67 |
|
|
68 |
|
x) For R3000 emulation, where there is no hardware wait instruction, |
69 |
|
I've implemented "instruction combination" hacks for both |
70 |
|
NetBSD/pmax and Debian/pmax, so that their cpu idle loops are |
71 |
|
detected and treated almost as a wait instruction. |
72 |
|
|
73 |
|
o) MIPS 64-bit address translation (X=1) was not fully working before; |
74 |
|
TLB exception handling for xkseg and larger-than-2GB-userland should |
75 |
|
now actually work. (Thanks to Juli Mallett and Carl van Schaik for |
76 |
|
noticing these problems.) |
77 |
|
|
78 |
|
o) The mouse cursor update routines in DECstation (LK201) emulation |
79 |
|
previously used the fact that guest OSes set the _hardware_ |
80 |
|
cursor position. In order to support X Windows when emulating |
81 |
|
modern versions of NetBSD/pmax, which don't set the hardware |
82 |
|
position anymore, a workaround has been implemented which only |
83 |
|
sends relative coordinates to the guest OS. This has two drawbacks: |
84 |
|
|
85 |
|
1. Ultrix emulation with dual- and tripple-head emulation will |
86 |
|
most likely feel very strange. It will still work, though. |
87 |
|
|
88 |
|
2. Cursor movement feels "accelerated", because the emulator |
89 |
|
sends unaccelerated movements to the guest OS, which then |
90 |
|
accelerates them. This can however be compensated to some |
91 |
|
degree by running 'xset m 1 0' in the guest OS. |
92 |
|
|
93 |
|
Having weird accelerated mouse movement is better than having no |
94 |
|
mouse support at all, so this change was necessary. |
95 |
|
|
96 |
Please read the HISTORY files for more details. |
Please read the HISTORY files for more details. |
97 |
|
|
190 |
|
|
191 |
This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA. |
This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA. |
192 |
|
|
193 |
|
This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt. |
194 |
|
|
195 |
Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following: |
Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following: |
196 |
|
|
197 |
Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University. |
Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University. |
209 |
or reuse code. |
or reuse code. |
210 |
|
|
211 |
|
|
|
Thanks to (in no specific order) Joachim Buss, Olivier Houchard, Juli Mallett, |
|
|
Juan Romero Pardines, Alec Voropay, Göran Weinholt, Alexander Yurchenko, and |
|
|
everyone else who has provided me with feedback. |
|
|
|
|
212 |
If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments |
If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments |
213 |
or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se. |
or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se. |
214 |
|
|