ST2004 Emulator Help

                    1. Ramsoft's RealSpectrum

                    2. Jonathan Needle's Spectaculator

                    3. Phillip Kendall's (and FUSE group's) FUSE

A) Ramsoft's RealSpectrum Help

Record / Playback help.

Here's a little step by step help to record and playback your files.

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How to Record:

* Set up the emulator to what it needs to run the game you want to play, so that you don't get a Speed Violation warning, which stops the recording. Use your own custom made INI file for each game. This will only be a problem for players with slow PC's. You can't change any setting after you've started the recording as that will result in a Speed Violation and will stop the recording.

* Go into the Action Recording menu (ALT+F4). (ALT+F8 in RS32, to avoid Windows closing shortcut)

* Enable 'Compo Mode' using the arrow keys. REMEMBER that you must record under compo mode, otherwise your score will be disqualified.

* Go up to 'Start New Recording' and press ENTER.

* Type a random number or 'week code' (if you're recording during last 2 weeks of Tour, week code will be sent via mail to all players) and then press ENTER.

* Now find your directory where you put all the Z80 files that you downloaded from ST04 site. REMEMBER that you must use the Z80 files from the ST04 website, no other files are allowed for being used in the Tour (due to problems with playback).

* Choose the game you want to play.

* Now find the directory where you want to store your AIR/RZX file.

* When you've found it, press TAB.

* Now write the name of the file you want it stored under like 'froggy1', Press ENTER.

* For the Speccy Tour you don't need to write down the A-Code, just press ENTER.

* Choose Stop Recording (ALT-F4) (ALT+F8 in RS32, to avoid Windows closing shortcut) when your game is over and you have put in your initials if possible.

IMPORTANT: Do only play one game in each recording. After each game, stop the recording and reset and start all over. DON'T send me a recording, telling me that the game with your new record is game number 4. ONLY the first game counts !!!

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How to Playback:

* Go into the Action Recording menu (ALT+F4). (ALT+F8 in RS32, to avoid Windows closing shortcut)

  • Go up to 'Start New Playback' and press ENTER.

* Now find your directory where you put all the Z80 files that you downloaded at ST04. REMEMBER that you must use the Z80 files from the ST04 website, no other files can be used to play back your or the other players games.

* Choose the game you want to playback.

* Now find the directory where you've stored the AIR file.

* When you've found the right AIR (RZX) file (which you want to watch), press ENTER.

* Unfortunately, there are incompatibilities among main RZX emulators RealSpectrum vs FUSE & Spectaculator, in the way they treat RZX files at the moment, so you might not be able to watch Fuse's or Spectaculator's RZX in RealSpectrum or viceversa.

* A box is shown with some informations about the recording (depends on are you in normal or judge mode), press ENTER.

  • Choose Stop Playback (ALT-F4) (ALT+F8 in RS32, to avoid Windows closing shortcut) when you've seen 'enough' from recording or checked what you want to see.



B) Jonathan Needle's Spectaculator Help

B.0) FAQ

Q: Do I have to register Spectaculator in order to use it for the tour?
A: No, you can always use this free version that Jonathan Needle allows us to distribute. You can download it at http://www.jaivan.net/Emuladores/spectaculator53.msi

Q: I have registered Spectaculator, can't I use this version rather than the one you provide?
A: Yes, you can. You can also use the evaluation version, if you are in the 30 day trial mode.

B.1 How to record a game properly?

B.1.1.You have two ways of accessing the Action Replay (Recording) menu. You can select Control option of the menu bar and the Action Replay menu OR just clicking the CAMERA ICON available below the Menu bar.

B.1.2 You now must select a filename for your rzx and the location for it.

B.1.3. You must pay attention to the following form, as RZX recorded not the way explained won't be accepted.

In this form Make sure you use the EXTERNAL SNAPSHOT option and not RECORD FROM CURRENT POSITION ONE. The external snapshots to use are the Speccy Tour official snapshots, of course.

Also, Make sure you have selected the Tournament mode checkbox activated. About the week code field, just select the number you want (4 digit). We'll use those week codes in last two weeks of competition, but we'll announce it properly, forget about it at the moment.

B.2)Don't forget that each game you play must be in a new RZX, we won't accept games that are after 4 or 5 games in a RZX.

B.3)To stop recording, just use CONTROL+BREAK, or provoke it trying to access the menus.


  1. FUSE Help

    C.1) FUSE mini how-to in English.

    The above text has been kindly written by David Muriel. It's an explanation of all the steps to compile FUSE with compo mode in Spanish. There is currently info available in English in the FUSE homepage, but I'll write down here some important notes in order to use the emulator correctly for Speccy Tour. When I have some spare time I'll translate also the abobe how to for those experiencing problems to compile FUSE.

    C.2.1) Make sure you have selected the [Options -> RZX -> Competition mode] option, otherwise recording won't be accepted.

    C.2.2.) Make sure you use [File ->Recording -> Record from snapshot] option rather than the simple “Record” option. The snapshots to use are the official Speccy Tour snapshots available at this site, otherwise we won't be able to playback your game properly.

    C.2.3) Don't forget that each game you play must be in a new RZX, we won't accept games that are after 4 or 5 games in a RZX..

    C.2.4) You can forget about week codes in regular Speccy Tour weeks, select the number you wish for now. We'll announce it properly when week codes are required.

    C.2) FUSE mini How-to in Spanish (Thanks to David Muriel)

    Nos vamos a la página del Fuse[1] y nos bajamos la versión 0.6.1[2], que es la que tiene ya implementado el compo mode. Para podercompilar esta versión necesitamos bajar también la versión 0.2.0 [3] libspectrum [4]. Si queremos que funcionen los discos de +3 necesitaremos además la lib765[5] (también es recomendable la libdsk[6])

    [1] http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/spectrum/fuse.html

    [2] http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/spectrum/fuse-0.6.1.tar.gz

    [3] http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/spectrum/libspectrum-0.2.0.tar.gz

    [4] http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/spectrum/libspectrum.html

    [5] http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Unix/LibDsk/lib765-0.3.1.1.tar.gz

    [6] http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Unix/LibDsk/libdsk-1.1.0.tar.gz

    Ahora tenemos que elegir qué interfaz queremos usar. Yo he probadocon GTK+ y con SDL. Con GTK+ me va un poco más rápido de lo que debería y por tanto no me permite grabar RZX en compo mode. Con SDL me funciona perfectamente y además permite ponerlo a pantalla completa y aplicar filtros a la imagen para mejorarla o darle un aspecto más parecido a como se vería en una televisión. Hace falta al menos la versión 1.2.4 para que compile (yo tengo la 1.2.5) También es necesario tener la versión 2.0.0 o superior de libxml (utilizada para los ficheros de configuración), la zlib (para poder usar compresión en los RZX), libpng (para generar screenshots) y libgcrypt (para que pueda firmar los RZX y por tanto poder usar el compo mode). De esta última estoy usando la versión 1.1.12.

    Para compilar, hay que hacerlo en el siguiente orden:

    1. libdsk

    2. lib765

    3. libspectrum

    4. fuse

    Para cada uno de los pasos hay que ejecutar:

    ./configure

    make

    y como root

    make install

    ldconfig (en caso de que estemos instalando una librería)

    Con esto tendremos instalado el fuse y las librerías correspondientes en /usr/local.

    Ahora tenemos que probar si funciona la grabación de partidas (tanto en modo normal como en compo mode). Para esto, seleccionamos un snapshot y lo cargamos en el emulador:

    fuse --snapshot nebulus.z80

    La grabación de partidas la activaremos desde los menús del emulador. Para ello pulsamos F1 y seleccionamos [File -> Recording -> Record from Snapshot]. El emulador empezará a grabar la partida inmediatamente, y generará unRZX llamado record.rzx. Cuando queramos terminar la grabación, volvemos al menú y seleccionamos [File -> Recording -> Stop]. Con esto tendremos en el fichero record.rzx la grabación de la partida que acabamos de jugar.

    Para comprobar que el RZX se ha generado correctamente, ejecutamos:

    fuse nebulus.z80 record.rzx

    Con esto se debería reproducir la partida sin ningún problema. En el caso del compo mode, cargamos el snapshot de la misma forma que en el caso anterior, pero antes de empezar la partida activamos el compo mode desde [Options -> RZX -> Competition mode], y después activamos la grabación igual que en caso anterior. Para parar la grabación podemos salir del emulador o acceder al menú, con lo que se detendrá la grabación de forma inmediata.

    Para reproducir la partida podemos hacerlo de la misma forma que en caso anterior. Una cosa a tener en cuenta es que TENEMOS QUE USAR [File ->Recording -> Record from snapshot] para grabar la partida, y utilizar los snapshots oficiales del Tour para ello



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