Date   : Wed, 12 Nov 1997 18:36:14 +0000 (GMT)
From   : Chris Evans <chris@...>
Subject: Re: Speeding up BeebEm

On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, Dave Gilbert wrote:

>   On the Unix version of beebem with sound support (0.6 was the last one
> I released - I'm not sure about hte one modified my MikeBUK@...) I think
> I allowed it to regulate its speed based on the sound buffer; so it
> should run at about the right speed.

Aha! With sound support compiled in, my P225 MMX runs at pretty much
exactly beeb speed. About 2/3 CPU is used under Linux/X, and this is
pretty much split 50/50 between BeebEm and X.

One thing that would improve performance under X, is correcting the mode 2
aspect ratio (as used by many games), so that pixels are half as wide in
this mode. I'm about to hack this up in the next few days, and use mit-SHM
if it isn't already. Maybe I'll get it working at 16bpp too, so I can take
a screenshot of Linux running Quake (native), duke3d (dosemu), exile
(BeebEm) and an Amiga game (UAE) all on the same display!

I'm happy to report that Exile now works under v0.8 of BeebEm!!! Amazing.
There is minor bugginess in the sound code, however, as the cool Exile
speech stops working bit by bit after a few "ouch"es said by the main
character. The speech slowly gets truncated until it doesn't play any more
:-( Other sound remains fine. Anyone know what I might have to look into
to get this working?

Cheers
Chris