Fail to run XEBEC MFM Controller Rom

[Sleora]

MartyPC seems to don't want to run when I select in the config file hdc = "Xebec" and put an appropriate ROM in the right folder. I pulled the ROM from PCem since you don't provide a link for it so I had to guess.
So, dispite all that, MartyPC won't boot unless I change it back to hdc = "none".

[dbalsom]

Let's verify the correct ROM in use. From PCEM v17 it should be 'ibm_xebec_62x0822_1985.bin'
It sounds like you're using 0.1.3 so it should be directly in your /roms/ folder, no subdirectories.

[Sleora]

That's what bugging me, everything is as it should be and in the right place. Despite all that MartyPC refuse to boot.

[dbalsom]

Please run MartyPC from the command line and share any messages it prints.

[Sleora]

What command line ? The Windows Console ?

[dbalsom]

What command line ? The Windows Console ?

yes.

[Sleora]

It says No valid ROM found for requested feature: XebecHDC dispite having the right ROM in the right place.

[fuel-pcbox]

@Sleora MartyPC checks for ROMs by hashing them using the MD5 algorithm and checking the hash. What's the MD5 hash of your Xebec ROM? The only one MartyPC accepts is 66631d1a095d8d0d54cc917fbdece684

[Sleora]

How do I check what MD5 hash my file has ?

[Sleora]

@qeeg Ok I checked and it was the same ID as the one you gave:

[dbalsom]

It says No valid ROM found for requested feature: XebecHDC dispite having the right ROM in the right place.

did you change model to "IBM_PC_5150" by chance

[Sleora]

Yes? Is it important?

[dbalsom]

yeah, 0.1.3 only supports hard disks on XT. I apologize that the error message is less than helpful in that scenario.

i am going to suggest that you use one of the 0.2 builds - the emulator has pretty much been completely rewritten from 0.1.3, and 0.2 is approaching release candidate.

if you go the Actions tab, click on the last Workflow run entry that says "Windows" and click the link at the bottom to download the build artifact.

in 0.2, the roms folder has been moved to /media/roms. Just put the xebec ROM in there. the config file has changed quite a bit - now you will want to specify a machine configuration name:

config_name = "ibm5160_hdd" will get you an XT with a xebex hdc. try this for now just to make sure it is working. You can look at the different machine configurations in /configs/machines and change it later.

if that still doesn't work, try running martypc --romscan and tell me what it prints.

also I do not recommend putting MartyPC in Program Files. Program Files is a special directory that requires admin privileges to write to, so you will probably get hard disk errors if your VHD is in there, unless you run MartyPC as admin, which I do not recommend.

[Sleora]

Ok, now with the 0.2 version it can boot but I have another problem that arise :

I have no image, just plain grey but it does show something if I take a screenshot.

[dbalsom]

can you screenshot the performance window under the Emulator menu?

[Sleora]

[dbalsom]

GeForce GTX 650 - is this correct? That video card is pretty old, over 10 years old. It may not have proper Vulkan support.

let's try falling back to DX12.

From a command line type this:
set WGPU_BACKEND=dx12

then run martypc from that commandline.

[fuel-pcbox]

It was still getting active driver support until 2021, so it SHOULD support Vulkan, if the drivers are up-to-date.

[Sleora]

He didn't seems to like it :

[Sleora]

And yes, it does support Vulkan (GPU-Z says so)

[dbalsom]

what is your CPU?

[dbalsom]

type
set RUST_LOG=debug

and try again (in the same window) and show what it prints

[Sleora]

Intel i5 2500k

[Sleora]

[dbalsom]

it can't seem to load dx12.

we can try opengl as a last resort.

set WGPU_BACKEND=opengl

[Sleora]

It works !

[fuel-pcbox]

You should probably also upgrade to Windows 10 as well. Windows 7 has been out of support except for ESU updates since 2020, and even the ESU updates have been stopped for a year now. It's time to upgrade. Your old system can still handle Windows 10, especially if you use an SSD.

[dbalsom]

if you go to your System Properties, Environment Variables, you can can add WGPU_BACKEND=opengl under User variables.

This will make that setting available to MartyPC outside of the command line and persist on reboot.

[Sleora]

Well I would like to but the motherboard I'm using was design for Windows 7 (so it's optimized for it) and right now the drive I'm using is a 7200RPM HDD.
I already tried installing Windows 10 on this machine... twice... I'll not do it again.

[Sleora]

Quick last question : is it possible to load a SoundBlaster driver or is it not implemented yet ?

[dbalsom]

The only sound device at the moment is the PC speaker, sorry.

[Sleora]

Oh... thanks anyway

[dbalsom]

At some point I would like to add it, adlib will probably happen first.

If you're all set now I will close this out?