PCAE 2.6+XP+p4 3.06 w/HT not working

[Goochman]

I just got a new PC (P4 3.06 w/Hyper Threading) running XP Professional SP1 and havent any trouble with any emulator except PCAE 2.6 - All I get is that stupid (Hey Windows found a problem, send the error report to the MS Bit Bucket)?

 

I have another XP Pro and XP Home machine that dont have a problem running PCAE, regular PIII machines............

 

Any thoughts?

 

This new system has the network card on the motherboard which required some updated system drivers be loaded.

[saltwaterpizza]

Since no one has replied to Goochman, I though I'd chime in that I'm having the exact same problem. I'm got a brand-new eMachines 2.4 Mhz machine with 512 MB RAM, SoundBlaster Audigy, and WinXP. I get the same error with PCAE (latest version), but all other emulators seem to work fine. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

Thanks!

 

Scott

[Goochman]

OK good - glad Im not alone

 

Z26 Win works well for me (the beta version)

 

Does the PCAE Author hang out here?

[RCorcoran]

Since I installed SP3 for Win2k, PCAEWin 2.6 no longer works for me. It worked fine under Win2k SP2, but now it just generates an error and closes. Btw, PCAEWin works fine on my WinME and WinXP boxes... Go figure

 

Here is a screenshot of the error. No, I am not running XP. It's Win2k SP3 running WindowBlinds 3.5 Enhanced. Yes, I get this error with WB disabled.

[mos6507]

PCAtari has known issues. It was written in Borland Pascal or something else that doesn't integrate well with windows. It's very buggy. I think the graphics are all GDI based, not DirectX, so it's pretty slow. I can't get the fullscreen mode to work at all.

 

Unfortunately it's the only 2600 emulator with a halfway decent interactive debugger so I need to use it.

 

On my PII350 running Win2K it actually runs well enough for debugging purposes.

 

Cyberstella really needs that debugger added to it.

[Mindfield]

It was written in Borland Delphi, and yes, it does have issues, though I've never had a problem with it so far. (Athlon XP 1800, 512MB DDR333, GF3Ti200 vid, DirectX 9, WinXP Pro, no service pack -- heard horror stories). Mind you, John has been very good at implementing my bug fixes and suggestions in the past, though I haven't had any significant contact with him in a long time. (My last bug report to him is dated December 26th, 2000. :-)

[Goochman]

Could someone contact John about the issues with newer Service Packs of 2000 and XP.

 

The Pacsal explains alot of the performance drag I see.

[Quietleaf]

I check out the site regularly, but I don't troll the forums often

 

I'm running Win2kPro SP2 on my PCs, so I haven't had any problems with PCAE. I'm extremely reluctant to put SP3 on, since I don't agree with Microsoft's policy of forcing auto updates on me (and I completely *refuse* to run XP--I'll switch to Linux first).

 

We have some XP machines at work, so if it's possible I'll see if I can test PCAE there and see what happens. If it blows up, I'll have to investigate. The PCAE you all have was compiled with Delphi 5. I have D6 now, so the first thing I'll try is recompiling. I'm involved in another project using D6 (AutoREALM) and so far no one has reported any problems.

 

My gut feeling is that the main crash culprit is the IE hook. PCAEWin (and IntvWin) hook into a DLL provided by Internet Explorer for viewing game instruction files. The reason for this is because that way the emulators can view any file format that IE can. If you have the PDF plugin, for example, then PCAE should be able to open PDF files. I haven't tried it in a very long while, but the last time I did, it worked.

 

You shouldn't harp on the Pascal aspect too much; it allows inline assembly, and I wrote the emulator core in 32-bit asm. It's as fast as I know how to make it. I spent years scraping every clock cycle out of the most critical areas that I could. My experience with D6 is that it's extremely efficient.

 

I know, I haven't been around in a long time. I'm a dev on a project called AutoREALM at the moment, and I'm involved in some other things (like writing a book). I've just put together new versions of IntvDOS and IntvWin, and as soon as the people at vg-network tell me how to update the site they're going up. If you have a list of problems in PCAE that need attention, please put them up on BOTH this forum and send them to my email (johnpcae@yahoo.com), and *hopefully* I'll be able to fix them in a relatively timely manner (though no guarantees )

 

John Dullea

[Quietleaf]

One other thing: the graphics do use DirectX, though it's double buffered. It's never going to match the raw speed of the DOS version, which writes *directly* to the hardware, but it should be fast.

[rasty]

Hi John!

 

I'm extremely reluctant to put SP3 on, since I don't agree with Microsoft's policy of forcing auto updates on me

To work around this, I'd suggest installing some simple free personal firewall like http://www.sygate.com's and block AutoUpdate from accessing the network...!

(Personally I use ZoneAlarm but it lacks on some areas)

 

Hope it helps...!

 

Regards,

Rasty.-

[Goochman]

John,

 

Thanks for the update - it appears SP3 and above are the issue with PCAE. I look forward to an update when you get some free time