The VirtualRPC-SA sound options window
The options window contains a number of different settings, all on separate "tabs". Clicking on the appropriate "tab" at the top of the window will open those options.
Not all versions of VirtualRPC-SA support the ADFS image filing system. Most versions use the HostFS filing system instead. HostFS is faster than ADFS and can be read by both RISC OS and Windows. For more details on the HardDiscs tab please see the Hard Disc appendices.
This tab contains various general options for VirtualRPC-SA.
The top section of this tab contains two options. Pause in Background will halt all of RISC OS if the VirtualRPC-SA window does is not the top window on screen. The top window on a Microsoft Windows PC usually has a blue title bar, other windows have a grey title bar. Note that turning on Pause in Background will stop All RISC OS functions including the clock.
Power on Reset means that VirtualRPC-SA will behave as though the RISC OS side of things has just been tuned on at the mains after each Reset from the Action menu.
Setting processor Speed
This tab also contains an option to manually set the processor speed of your PC. VirtualRPC-SA will normally select the correct speed of your computer, and run RISC OS correctly (VirtualRPC-SA needs to know the speed of your PCs processor so it can set all the RISC OS timers). On some machines VirtualRPC-SA cannot determine the correct speed of your processor, and hence can run too slowly, or too fast. If this happens you can select the "Manual" option and enter the correct figure yourself. For more details please see the Troubleshooting Section.
DrawBorder
Turning on this option will display the normal RISC OS black borders around the RISC OS screen display. In normal use this option should be left off.
Auto Window resize
Automatically resizes the Windows window to match the RISC OS screen mode. This option should be left on in normal use.
Start full screen
As we have seen earlier VirtualRPC-SA can run either in a window, or in "full screen" mode. Turning this option on forces VirtualRPC-SA to always start in full screen.
Hardware Scale
VirtualRPC-SA includes two methods of displaying the screen, Software scaling and Hardware scaling. The default option is for VirtualRPC-SA to use the software scaling method, this is recommended for processors above 900Mhz, regardless of the type of graphics adapter fitted. When software scaling is used VirtualRPC-SA handles the update of the RISC OS screen display itself, using the PCs main processor, without using the processor on the graphics adapter.
Users of lower speed PCs that have a good quality graphics card, for example a Voodoo3, GeForce2 or a Riva TNT2, may well find that they get better performance from VirtualRPC-SA by using the hardware scaling option. The Hardware scaling option is not recommended for use on laptop/notebook computers unless the machine in question has a Radeon or GeForce chip set.
Large screen modes are handled differently by Hardware and Software scaling. When a large mode is displayed using Hardware scaling the entire screen will be displayed scaled to fit the monitor. For example it is possible to display a 1024x768 screen mode on a monitor/graphics card that only supports 800x600 displays. A good graphics card will be able to scale the display and anti-alias it so it looks smooth with only a very tiny performance penalty. A poor graphics card, or one with badly written drivers will cause VirtualRPC-SA to almost grind to a halt.
When Software scaling is used you will only be able to see part of a large screen mode. As you move the RISC OS mouse around you will see that the entire RISC OS desktop scrolls around. The type of graphics card you have makes almost no difference to the speed of VirtualRPC-SA.
Frame Skip
VirtualRPC-SA can display every frame generated by RISC OS, or you can choose to only display some frames. For example if you set the Frame Skip to 1 then only every other frame is displayed on screen. The lower the frame skip value the smoother the mouse pointer becomes. Frameskip should be set to 0 unless you are advised to change the value by VirtualAcorn technical support.
Allow Windows to change mode
This means that VirtualRPC-SA is allowed to change the Windows screen mode to match that required by RISC OS. For example when changing from 800x600 to 1024x768 using the RISC OS Display manager. With this setting on VirtualRPC-SA will automatically alter the resolution of your graphics card to match the resolution used by RISC OS. VirtualRPC-SA will also use the highest refresh rate supported by your graphics card that falls between the Min and Max settings. If this option is off then the RISC OS desktop will be displayed in your current Windows screen resolution. For example an 800x600 RISC OS screen will be displayed in the centre with large borders when running in a 1024x768 Windows resolution.
Menu key emulation
This option allows you to alter which mouse button (ADJUST, MENU or SELECT) the Windows Menu key on your keyboard will emulate. The Windows Menu Key is normally on the bottom of the keyboard and between the Windows Key and the Ctrl key to the right of the spacebar. This key can be used to open RISC OS menus when you only have a two button mouse.
Button
This option allows you to alter the button mapping for the mouse buttons. The configuration shown in the picture above is correct, as RISC OS and Windows have different numbering conventions for mouse buttons. Button number two on a Windows mouse is actually the right button, and button number 3 is the middle button. These option are provided to allow the user to customise the mouse options, for example to reverse the positions of SELECT and ADJUST for left handed users.
Windows key is Break Key
Turning this option on forces the Windows key to act like the RISC OS BREAK key. For example if a program hangs in RISC OS you would press ALT and BREAK to quit it. (under Windows you would use Ctrl, Alt and Delete). The break key on the keyboard is normally top right. If you do use this option then make sure you don't accidentally press the Windows key (which will be BREAK) instead of the Windows Menu Key (MENU button on Mouse)
Joystick
VirtualRPC-SA will allow you to use a PC Joystick in RISC OS games that support an Acorn joystick.
Enabled
You will need to ensure this button is turned on to use a Joystick.
Threshold
This option sets the amount of change in the movement of the Joystick that is required for VirtualRPC-SA to register the joysticks movement. Unlike analogue PC joysticks, Acorn joysticks were digital devices hence the need for a threshold value. In the example above if a user was to move the joystick more than 12% to the left a joystick left command would be sent to RISC OS.
VirtualRPC-SA comes already set up with one HostFS mount. A Mount is simply a folder on your Windows PCs hard disc that RISC OS uses as its own hard disc. Under no circumstances should you set up a HostFS mount that points to the root of your Windows hard disc, or to your Windows folder. If you do this then it is possible for someone using VirtualRPC-SA to accidentally corrupt your Windows System folder.
Adding a new HostFS Mount
HostFS can support up to 16 mounts and it is very easy to add a new one (which RISC OS sees as another hard disc). To do this simply click on the ... button to open a normal Windows file dialogue box.
You can see in the example above that a folder called New HostFS Mount is selected. This will be our new hard disc. In this example we would select the folder and click on the OK button. The new mount will now be displayed in the options window.
In the example above we have called the new mount "New". If you want RISC OS to be able to Boot from this new drive at some future point then you need to click the Bootable tick box. Once you have done this click on the Add button. The new mount will now appear below the Mount called HardDisc4. Finally click Apply then Ok to activate the new mount.
In order to use this new mount you will now need to reset RISC OS. Go to the VirtualRPC-SA action menu, and click on Hard Reset. When the RISC OS desktop re-appears you will see your new mount as a hard disc on the RISC OS icon bar to the right of the HardDisc4 icon.
Removing a HostFS Mount
As well as adding mounts you can also remove them. Select the mount in the list that you want to remove and click on the Remove button. The mount will now be removed from the list. Note that this does note delete the folder that contains the contents of the mount on your PCs hard drive. Instead it just removes the link between RISC OS and the folder on your PCs hard disc.
Take care when removing mounts, if you remove the HardDisc4 mount then RISC OS will not be able to Boot correctly and may cease to function.
HostFS Options
You can see from the screen shot above that HostFS also comes with some configuration options.
Bootable
This option must be turned on if you want to boot from a particular mount. The default HardDisc4 mount has the option turned on so that VirtualRPC-SA can load its Boot sequence. This is equivalent to performing a *OPT 4,2 on a "real" RISC OS machine.
No Types
If this option is selected then HostFS file extensions will not be added to files when they are saved. By default HostFS will add a comma extension after a file to identify its file type (for example a drawfile will be saved as Drawfile,aff). However sometimes when sharing files on a mount that is accessed by both Windows and RISC OS it can be useful to save files without these extensions as then the Windows side can still see the correct file name. Note that you should never turn this option on on the main HardDisc4 mount as RISC OS may not boot correctly.
Show DOS extensions
If this option is selected then the new mount will display files with an extension the same way as a "real" RISC OS machine. As an example Index.htm will appear as Index/htm. If this option is off then the file would just appear as Index. In both cases the file will be given the correct filetype so that RISC OS knows what the file is. This option can be very useful when designing websites using VirtualRPC-SA.
You should only enable this option when using older HostFS mounts (from VirtualRPC-SA V 1.3 or earlier) with caution as you may find that VirtualRPC-SA will not boot correctly as some file names may change as far as RISC OS is concerned. For example Obey files such as !Run may suddenly show the full file name (!Run/oby) and hence not be run by RISC OS. VirtualAcorn has a tool to convert old format mounts to new ones.
VirtualRPC-SA comes with a large number of mappings built in, these mappings allow RISC OS to see the .JPG extension as ,C85 and hence know that the file is a JPEG image without you having to do anything. You can add further mappings using this window. The mapping for a JPEG file is shown in the picture above.
To add a new mapping simply type in the RISC OS file type Type, and then type in the extensions that match into the Extensions icon. Click Add to add your new extension. If you end up with a faulty mapping you can hi-light it in the list and click on Delete.
Note that you should not alter any of the existing HostFS mappings unless you are totally sure what you are doing.
DrivePop Drive Manager
DrivePop is a HostFS mount manager. It allows you to make new HostFS mounts, which appear as discs on the iconbar. DrivePop performs 2 functions, firstly it can scan for new drives, for example memory sticks or cameras. It can also create now HostFS mounts, for example for a USB floppy disc drive.
When you insert a drive type device, such as a camera or a memory stick, into a Windows PC the computer will allocate the new drive a unique letter. For example Drive A is a floppy or card reader, Drive C is usually the harddisc etc. Before using DrivePop you need to set it up so it knows which drive letters it should check for new devices. To do this simply click Menu over the DrivePop icon on the iconbar and click on Options.... An options window will open allowing you to choose which drive letters are scanned. Each individual drive letter can be turned on or off. As an example lets suppose that your computer has a harddisc (called Drive C) and a DVD drive (called Drive D). The next logical drive letter is therefore E. So if you plug in a pen drive it is very likely that it will appear from the Windows My Computer window as Drive E. So you would set up DrivePop to scan for drives E and perhaps F and G as well in case you plug in further devices.
If you have a card reader instead of a floppy drive this would normally appear as Drive A, so you would want to scan this drive as well. There is normally little point in scanning existing drives.
Having set up the drives you want to scan click on the Update Drive Scan list button. Now all you need to do to scan for pop up drives is click Select on the DrivePop icon. Make sure the drive is ready before clicking or you will need to click for a second time. The best way to do this is to plug the drive in, wait for Windows to beep, then click on DrivePop.
.New drives will appear as HostFS mounts on the RISC OS icon bar. They will be named according to the Windows drive letter, for example DriveE.
As well as scanning for new drives DrivePop can also make new HostFS mounts manually. To open the dialogue box for this click Menu over the DrivePop icon on the iconbar and click on New.... The HostFS Mount Manager window will now open.
From here you can make a new mount, rename an existing HostFS mount, or delete a mount. Note that you can only apply these actions to mounts that are created from inside RISC OS, not mounts created from the VirtualAcorn Options window under Windows. You can open a a list of the current mounts by clicking on the menu icon. You can select any existing mount by clicking on it from the menu.
Renaming a Mount
You can rename an existing mount easily. Select it from the menu, type in a new name (up to 10 characters) in the Display icon with following name writable icon. Click on the Rename this mount and the mount will be renamed.
Removing a Mount
You can also remove an existing mount easily. Select it from the menu and click on the Remove mount from list button. DrivePop will prompt you to make sure you want to remove the mount. If you go ahead the mount will be closed. Make sure you don't have any open files on the mount before removing it.
Adding a new Mount
You can easily add a new HostFS mount. Type in the Widows path name in the top writable icon, type in the name that RISC OS will use for the drive in the Display icon with following name writable icon. Now you can create the new mount by clicking on the Add mount to list button. The new mount will appear on the iconbar immediately.
Standard Mounts
DrivePop includes three standard mounts that can easily be created. These are for a USB Floppy drive, the root of Drive C and the root of Drive D (this is normally a CD/DVD drive). To create one of these standard mounts simply click on the relevant button and then click on the Add mount to list button.
You can close the Mount Manager by clicking on the Close Mount Manager button.
VirtualAcorn recommend that HostFS mounts you use on a regular basis, for example HardDisc4, or a mount pointing to the Windows "My Documents" folder are created from the Windows side of VirtualAcorn. See the earlier section in this chapter of the manual. DrivePop should only be used for low traffic or transient mounts.
All the settings are saved when DrivePop is quit. Note that quitting DrivePop will also remove all the new mounts from the RISC OS iconbar.
VRPC manual - draft number 150.001 10th May 2006