lr-vice - How to use alternate kernal like Jiffydos

renepela

I'm a big fan off lr-vice which I use for C64 emulation. . It's verys table and I don't understand hy it's still in the experimental packages.
I got everything working just fine, however there's one thing I would realy like.
Is it possible to use an alternate kernal and 1541 rom. I really like to use jiffydos, because that makes loading a lot faster for games that require true drive emulation. It would even be better if I could use dolphin dos, however this als requires a virtual parrallel cabe so I don;t think that's implemented.
But jiffydos should be possible I guess. Hope anybody can help.

mitu

The vice libretro core has an option to read a vicerc configuration file, which should be placed in the $BIOSDIR/vice folder. So, just for a quick test, create a vicerc file in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/vice and add the lines:

[C64]
DosName1541="/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/vice/JiffyDOS_1541-II.bin"
KernalName="/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/vice/JiffyDOS_C64.bin"
KernalRev=-1
Drive8IdleMethod=1

Copy the necessary JiffyDOS ROM files (Kernal and 1541 DOS ROM drive) to the /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/vice/ folder and name them as the files referenced in the config above.
Boot a C64 ROM with lr-vice, then open the core options via RGUI and set

Read 'vicerc to ON
True Drive Emulation to ON

then exit RGUI/RetroArch and boot the game again - it should start in JiffyDos Kernal and using its drive emulation ROM.

renepela

Wow Thanks!! Works just fine.
Just wondering.... Is it also possible to use Dolphin Dos? Dolphin Dos not only requires a kernal and drive rom, but also a (virtual) parallel cable connection and some memory location settings. Would be great if it would be possible, because Dolhin Dos is very fast.

Also wondering if I can make the settings for Jiffy Dos (or Dolhin Dos) on a per game base instead of global. Some of my games require a 1581 drive (d81 files) so it will probably break if I use Jiffydos on these games. haven tried it yet though.

Is there some documentation about vicerc and what lines I can add to it?

mitu

Just wondering.... Is it also possible to use Dolphin Dos? Dolphin Dos not only requires a kernal and drive rom, but also a (virtual) parallel cable connection and some memory location settings. Would be great if it would be possible, because Dolhin Dos is very fast.

I don't know, I haven't used it. When you say 'very fast', are you referring to the disk transfer speed ?

Also wondering if I can make the settings for Jiffy Dos (or Dolhin Dos) on a per game base instead of global. Some of my games require a 1581 drive (d81 files) so it will probably break if I use Jiffydos on these games. haven tried it yet though.

You can enable the Load 'Vicerc' option just for the ROMs you want, by saving the options just for that ROM and then switching back the option (to Off) as a general option. That way, loading a configured ROM will make lr-vice to read the vicerc config file and load JiffyDOS.

Is there some documentation about vicerc and what lines I can add to it?

Look into Vice's documentation - https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io/vice_6.html. Another way to create a correct vicerc is to just use the standalone vice, change the settings you like and then save the configuration file. You can then look in $HOME/.vice/vicerc to see how those configurations were saved.

renepela

Because of all the help in this thread I managed to get it working with Dolphin Dos 3. Even when using true drive emulation loading is very, very fast now because Dolphin Dos uses a parallel cable and a memory expansion which both are emulated by Vice.

Just download Dolphin Dos 3 (it wont't work with Dolphin Dos 2) and modify the vicerc in the following way:

[C64]
DosName1541="/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/vice/DolphinDos_3_1541-II.bin"
KernalName="/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/vice/DolphinDos_3_C64.bin"
KernalRev=-1
Drive8IdleMethod=0
Drive8ParallelCable=2
DriveTrueEmulation=1
DriveSoundEmulation=1
Drive8Type=1542
Drive8RAM2000=0
Drive8RAM4000=1
Drive8RAM6000=1
Drive8RAM8000=1
Drive8RAMA000=0

I like drive sound emulation, but that one is optional of course.
Put the Dolphin Dos 3 files in the /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/vice/ folder and give the files the names mentioned in the vicerc file.

Rion

@renepela @mitu

Great find! Thread bookmarked!

renepela

Unfortunately, after the latest lr-vice update this does no longer work. The good news is lr-vice added support for jiffydos directly from the retroarch menu. The bad news is the vicerc config with the dolphindos settings no longer works.
It does show the dolphin dos 3.0 message on screen, but it looks like the drive rom is ignored now. I hope they will fix it. Is there some lr-vice support forum?

Twerkem

@renepela confirming lr-vice problems too, build fail on linux mint 19.3 x64 (RetroPie 4.6)