[Coco] OVCC development decisions

[Walter Zambotti]

Hi people.

 

I need to make a decision as to a feature I am adding to OVCC.

 

I have finished testing the MMU hardware emulation and it considerably
speeds up the CoCo CPU performance.

 

My Intel i7-3740QM which previously topped out at 160mhz now reaches 225mhz.
Which is about 40% faster.

 

I have now set up a mechanism to switch between hardware MMU and software
MMU from the configuration
panel (just like with the CPU).

 

However this slows down the max speed to 210mhz.  So a little is lost when
it is made configurable.

 

Now the hardware MMU version will only work on Linux (only the software
version will work on Windows).

 

So instead of making it selectable which could only happen on Linux (as
there is only one choice on windows)
I though rather than making it configurable I could make it a separate
executable.

 

The Linux would have two builds one with hardware MMU and one without
(Windows would just have one
without) and for us speed freaks we would run with hardware MMU unless we
found some incompatibility and
had to run the other.

 

My thinking is if the hardware MMU works compatibly 100% of the time on
Linux why else would you select the 
slower model.

 

Oh and my new land speed record for OVCC is 566mhz (hardware MMU) on an
i7-8700.

 

I have also decided to remove the assembly version of the 6309.  The code
will remain in the git repo for 
interest only.

 

I have also managed to get the Linux version of OVCC running on WSL on
Windows.  It needs an Xserver and a pulse
audio server installed but it does work.

 

However it is not very stable.  The GL support in the Xserver is not perfect
and it is not possible open up any secondary 
window (like the config or about or file dialog) without it crashing when
the secondary window closes.

 

I can see there are some unimplemented X-GL protocols.  I might need to try
a different Xserver!

 

My intention here is if OVCC can run well in WSL then there is no longer a
need to maintain two builds!

 

It does however mean  a more difficult setup on Windows for OVCC.

 

Thoughts guys/girls

 

Walter