iGS FAQ Revision History
1.0 17-Sep-99 MRB - Revised for iGS.

Frequently Asked Questions and Known Bugs

Q. What does the "Update HW More Often" menu item do?
A.   On slower Macs (68K's in particular), unchecking this item will
   force XGS to update the GS hardware interrupts less often. For
   instance, if you have a game with a lot of animation and sound
   (such as Arkanoid II or Bard's Tale GS), unchecking this item
   will allow the video and sound updates to sync better. Checking
   this item will attempt to update the hardware 50 times per second,
   therefore the video may not sync well with the sound. Try it out
   and determine which is best for you.
     For faster Macs (PPC's in particular), it is better to keep this
   item checked all the time. In this case, the PPC chip is fast enough
   to emulate the GS and update the GS hardware interrupts 50 times per
   second, therefore the video usually syncs well with the sound.

Q. Loading certain disk images crashes XGS-Mac.
   Some do not load at all. Why?
A. The disk image may be corrupt. However, the disk image loading
   is not perfect yet. Do not use the "*.xgs" images anymore. A
   converter is provided to change it into the '2IMG' format.

Q. What is this '2IMG' format?
A. This format is a result of the collaboration between the author
   of XGS (Joshua M. Thompson), Fast Edie Labs, and input from
   comp.sys.emulators.apple2. Together they decided on this general
   image format to reduce the amount of proprietary formats previously
   used for the "XGS" and "Bernie ][ the Rescue" GS emulators.

Q. How do I create an '2IMG' disk image?
A. See the Disk Image Conversion Procedure in the file
   "Setup Procedures".

Q. XGS does nothing when I run it.. Where can I get the IIGS ROM?
A. Remember, DO NOT ask me to send it to you! You must extract it
   yourself. To do this, follow the ROM Extraction procedure
   described in tbe file "Setup Procedures".

Q. Why is the emulator so slow!?
A. The core is continuously improving, but slow processors will
   probably suffer. See the System Requirements above! You can improve
   the speed in the 68K version by keeping the sound disabled. Although
   it works, sound generation also takes a lot of processing time. You
   may also disable the screen update from the "CPU" menu by un-checking
   the "Update Screen" menu item and re-enable it in a few seconds, if a
   very screen update-intense GS application is running.

Q. XGS crashed my machine! What do I do?
A. Reboot. See the Disclaimer below.. If the crash is clearly
   repeatable, please email me the exact steps to reproduce
   the crash. Please make sure this crash is not a result of some
   other installed software. If you have MacsBug, type 'stdlog' at
   the debugger command line, and send it to me. No guarantees that
   I will be able to track down the problem though.

Q. There are problems with the emulation. Who should I tell?
A. I encourage you to send emulation problems to me, since the mailing
   lists do not exist anymore.

Q. Why does the GS's Graphic Control Panel CDEV change the
   background color to have vertical stripes below the GS menubar?
A. This is due to how the colors are allocated in the GS PixMap.
   It's been around for a long time, and a fix may appear sometime.

Q. Why are some menus not implemented?
A. I'm working on implementing those items or they are under development.

Q. XGS-Mac occasionally seems to miss keys, other times repeats
   some too many times. Also, why is the mouse emulation jerky?
A. XGS cannot track the mouse fast enough. This will improve as
   the core emulator is optimized for speed. Right now,
   WaitNextEvent is a bottleneck I am trying to compensate for!

Q. How about a FAT version?
A. Sorry, this will not happen. The CODE takes up the majority
   of both 68K and PPC applications. Making a FAT version will
   only BLOAT the application to what I would consider too large.