On each palette reload, diff against the previous captured palette and log how many of the 256 entries changed plus the first few index:old->new. Confirms the static/dynamic split: pal1/pal2 load once (static base structure -- red in odd entries, etc.), pal0 is rewritten ~28x. In this capture pal0 is doing the intro FadeToWhite -- ~216/256 entries ramping in lockstep from 0 to ~60/63 -- i.e. animating the whole display brightness via the palette without redrawing the framebuffer. Selective per-element flashing (targeted small deltas) would need an active mission to observe; this probe is the instrument for it. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
VPX device — DOSBox-X integration
Our original source for the emulated Division VPX link adapter. Kept here under
version control because the DOSBox-X source tree itself
(emulator/src/, ~490 MB) is git-ignored.
vpxlog.cpp— Phase 1 logging device. Impersonates the INMOS C012 link adapter at I/O base0x150, answers status reads so the game keeps transmitting, and logs every access to$VPXLOG. (Phase 2 will grow this into a responding transputer-monitor + i860-loader + frame-stream renderer, or fork into a separatevpx.cpp.)
Applying to a DOSBox-X source checkout
Tested against DOSBox-X v2026.06.02, MSYS2 mingw64.
- Copy the device in:
cp emulator/vpx-device/vpxlog.cpp emulator/src/src/hardware/vpxlog.cpp - Add it to the hardware build — in
src/src/hardware/Makefile.am, appendvpxlog.cpptolibhardware_a_SOURCES(we inserted it afterglide.cpp). - Call the init — in
src/src/gui/sdlmain.cpp, declarevoid VPXLOG_Init();next to the other*_Init()prototypes and callVPXLOG_Init();right afterGLIDE_Init();in the machine bring-up sequence. - Build:
Output:
cd emulator/src ./build-mingw-sdl2 --enable-debug=heavysrc/src/dosbox-x.exe.
Running
set VPXLOG=C:\VWE\TeslaRel410\emulator\vpxlog.txt
emulator\src\src\dosbox-x.exe -conf emulator\capture.conf
python emulator\analyze_capture.py
With VPXLOG unset the device is inert and the build behaves like stock
DOSBox-X.