Monthly Archives: February 2012

More languages supported with this update!

Improvements:

1. Chinese (simplified) translations added. – Contributed by “money”!
2. Portuguese translations added. – Contributed by Enio Marconcini!
3. French translations added. – Contributed by Benjamin Siskoo!

Thank you again to Viktor, “money”, Enio Marconcini, and Benjamin Siskoo for taking the time to translate the interface elements!

4DO should default to your system’s default culture. In case you have a different preference (or something goes wrong), you can always set the culture via the “Options” menu. Your default culture is used to append text on the language menu items in case you choose one you can’t read:

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.6.1 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads

4DO now can support multiple languages!

Improvements:

1. Support for multiple languages added. See the related forum post for information on how to contribute a language!
2. Russian translations added. – A gift from Viktor!
3. Patched audio timing bug from 1.1.5.0 and 1.1.5.1 – This bug manifested as an audio skip about every 4-5 seconds when playing any game.
4. Alfred Hitchcock (JP) added to game database.
5. Screen saver is disabled while playing.
6. SlimDX upgraded to January 2012.

I’d also like to draw attention to the 4DO Compatibility List which users are welcome to contribute to. Please try to follow the format suggested.

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.6.0 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads

A couple good fixes this time. There is one currently known bug that I will explain below.

Improvements:

1. Fix for Phoenix 3 hanging in load screens – A continuation of the changes to move 4DO to the new timing behavior. It will not always work (it works about 50/50, in my experience), so you will have to save beforehand and try skipping the cutscenes at differing times. But the game is otherwise quite playable!
2. Once-a-second stuttering/lag spike resolved – It was discovered that some systems were slower to perform than others in polling for input devices, which was causing a noticeable delay in emulation every second. This is now resolved.

However there is one bug I know of in the system which I just recently noticed. As of 1.1.5.0, the emulation is presently working slightly too fast from normal. This is also causing the audio playback to get pushed ahead about once every 4 seconds if using the default audio buffer size. You could run 4DO with “-DebugLogging AudioDebug” to see the symptoms. This is a result of the new timing improvements that are newly worked in, so it will be ironed out in time. Anyway, please be aware that this issue exists in both 1.1.5.0 and 1.1.5.1.

I’ve also updated the about screen to more clearly Viktor’s contributing role. I am hoping he stays motivated to continue helping with core emulation improvements! 🙂

As always, I reiterate that any feedback is appreciated, especially for spotting recent changes!

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.5.1 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads

Viktor, creator of 3DOPlay, has offered his time to introducing his changes to the FreeDO core into 4DO. A more complete list of the changes is:

1. Timing fixes – a more proper fix for the “temporalfixes” setting in FreeDO’s original code
2. Sprites in Doom are fixed
3. Fonts and sound speed in Wicked 18 fixed
4. Sound in games better, no bugs (some examples are Need For Speed, Escape from Monster Manor, Star Fighter, Slayer, Pyramid Intruder)
5. Games work faster (some optimizations added)
6. “Bad Slack Calc” error fixed

Thank you Viktor!

The internal timing improvements have various noticeable improvements in games. I noticed that lip syncing in Lost Eden is now working correctly. Some benefits/changes from 3DOPlay are not added. For example, Phoenix 3 currently still hangs at loading screens in 4DO.

In addition to this, I’ve added a few higher-level changes:

1. In DirectX rendering, fixed diagonal pixel misalignment when using non-smoothed image resizing. – At certain window sizes, this was causing a “slice” down the diagonal at the center of the screen in which pixels were misaligned.
2. 4DO now only emulates controllers/devices that have input bindings. For example, if you have only set up input bindings for controller #1, 4DO will only emulate one attached controller. This resolves the non-responsive controls in Super Wing Commander. However, if you create bindings for all 6 controllers, the game will produce this issue (perhaps the original game acted this way?).

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.5.0 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads

Changes:

1. Controller setup screen now shows currently pressed keys (in yellow).
2. A running game in 4DO now ignores all user input if the controller setup screen is open..
3. Removed “remember pause status” option. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that used it anyway. It has been replaced with a command line option, –StartupPaused
4. Changed a core emulation timing setting. (See more info below).

Regarding the timing setting, I looked into a “__temporalfixes” switch in the FreeDO core code that I set to “1” when I first put 4DO together, and I have changed this to “0” in this release. I have not made sense of what this switch controls, this is very much just ignorant tinkering on my part! It seems to resolve speed issues in PO’ed and Doom. It did not seem to negatively affect any games that I tested out. I would appreciate knowing if you happen to notice that a game that once worked in 1.1.4.0 and is no longer working in 1.1.4.1.

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.4.1 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads

This is one a lot of you have been waiting for!

Changes:

1. Added support for high-resolution (640×480) rendering. You can find the option for the in the “4DO Options” screen, under the “Advanced” tab. This is only of value for 3D games. Additionally, since each frame takes 4 times as long to process, it will cost a lot of CPU! I recommend increasing your audio buffer as well if you enable this.

Here’s a quick visual glance at the differences:

I’d finally gotten enough control over the timing nuances and audio behavior to look into and enable these advanced features from the later revisions of FreeDO. I must stress that, like in FreeDO, this option hogs the CPU quite a bit. This is due to the fact that all graphics processing is essentially software rendering. Not many games handle this well. For the record, I found that Road Rash and Star Fighter both performed well.

So, that wraps up a big block of feature-related changes I intended to knock out. For a while, I intend to take a break from adding new features for a bit and concentrate again on bug fixes.

Also, anybody interested in helping me develop or test 4DO, please introduce yourself in the forums!

Please enjoy!

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.4.0 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads

This release fixes a bug I noticed in the previous release.

Changes:

1. Fixed bug in audio buffer size calculation. This was causing some audio buffer size selections to behave incorrectly.

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.3.1 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads

I’ve added some long-awaited features. Enjoy!

Features:

1. Added the ability to adjust the emulated CPU clock speed. This can result in framerates increased beyond the original hardware limits. This is analogous to the setting in the latest (last?) version of FreeDO. Be aware that many games will not handle this well since they were not coded to support it. I’ve found that Star Fighter is an example of a game that handles a clock speed increase well.
2. Added the ability to adjust the audio buffer size. I have found that audio buffer size is a bit of a personal preference. The default is 100ms, but people who want more protection from audio glitches can now adjust the audio buffer size higher (at the cost of latency).
3. Added a few command-line options for debugging purposes. At the moment, these are mainly for my own purposes, but see the command line usage for specifics.

The “advanced” options from above have been stuffed under a new “Advanced” tab in the options screen:

The command line usage available in 4DO is:

======================================================================
= 4DO command line options Usage                                     =
=   Basic usage: 4DO.exe [-option value][/option "value"][--switch]  =
======================================================================

  --PrintKPrint
         Enables printing of KPrint (3DO Debug output) to the console.
______________________________________________________________________

  -DebugLogging [LoggingOption_1|LoggingOption_2]
         Enable extra logging to the log files Valid values are:
               AudioDebug
               AudioTiming
               CPUTiming
______________________________________________________________________

  -DebugStartupForm [StartupForm]
         Starts an extra dialog at startup. Valid values are:
               None
               ConfigureInput
______________________________________________________________________

  -?   /?   --?   -h   /h   --h   -help   /help   --help
         Displays this help message.

======================================================================

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.3.0 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads

Some minor UI features added in this release. It should make 4DO more user-friendly!

Features:

1. Added option to pause emulation when main window loses focus. – Default is OFF.
2. Added option to ignore keyboard input when main window loses focus. – Default is ON.I figured that joystick operation outside of one program at a time was not likely. Anybody rigidly opposed to playing the game without the game being the active window is more likely to be appeased with the “pause emulation” option.
3. Display area now redraws itself when necessary if the console is paused.

I have also added an updated options screen, including fun little graphics to help explain some of the features to those less familiar with the verbiage in the options.

If you want to try 4DO 1.1.2.3 beta, head to to the download page:
4DO Downloads