VICE

The commodore-64 emulator the sid-wizard manual assumes when running the tracker on a PC. Key equivalents given by the manual: C64 CONTROL = Tab, RUN/STOP = Esc, C= (Commodore key) = Control, ← (back-arrow) = Tilde or End, £ (Pound) = Insert, ↑ (up-arrow) = PageDown on Linux. Files saved from VICE end up as .P00/.S00, which SWMconvert can turn into .prg/.sid (source: s-sid-wizard-manual).

Setting it up for SID-Wizard (from the book)#

Start x64, enable Double Size, disable Warp Mode, enable sound; in Settings / SID settings choose the chip to emulate — "ReSid gives you the most accurate emulation but it also requires more processing power"; "8580 has more effective filters but a thinner sound than the 6581 (it's still phat though)"; set the sample method to interpolating for clean high pitches; enable PAL emulation for the editor's blur-designed graphics; save settings. A desktop shortcut x64.exe -autostart SID-Wizard-1.6.prg uses seamless folder integration (tunes save next to the .prg as .P00/.S00; SWMconvert turns exported .S00 into .sid); the .d64 route attaches a save disk on drive 9. Alt+D toggles full screen. Jamming has noticeable latency compared with real hardware (source: s-witchmaster-creating-chiptunes-with-sid-wizard). GoatTracker's readme agrees: reSID "is in some cases quite far from the output of a real SID. Especially if filters are in use" (source: s-goattracker-readme).

Engines and models (from the chipmusic.org tutorial)#

Settings > SID Settings holds one "SID Engine/Model" list: FastSID is "the fastest but least accurate emulation", ReSID "more accurate but not as fast", reSID-fp "the most accurate but most CPU-intensive option" — start with reSID-fp and step down if the machine cannot keep up; 4mat's reason: reSID-fp for "filter distortion, compression, general ADSR accuracy". Pick 6581 or 8580 there too ("most people seem to prefer the 6581"); a HardSID or Catweasel card can be selected instead. For full screen tick Keep aspect ratio in the video settings. Practicalities: File > Autostart Disk Image runs a .d64; VICE swaps the +/- keys SID-Wizard uses to select instruments ("PC + is C64 - and PC - is C64 +"); the bundled command-line tool c1541 manages .d64 images (c1541 image.d64, then extract to pull every file out — the way to get an exported .sid off the disk); with the .prg version files save as .P00/.S00 next to it and SWMconvert makes .sid files from the .S00 (source: s-chipmusic-c64-music-for-dummies).

Key equivalents (1.6 charts)#

The SID-Wizard 1.6 charts list every C64 key beside its VICE key (source: s-sid-wizard-charts-and-tables): Shift+F5 → F6, C=+F5 → Ctrl+F5 (or F6), C=+F7 → Ctrl+F7 (or F8), Shift+F7 → F8; CONTROL → Tab; C= → Ctrl; ← → the key above Tab; ↑ and RESTORE (move 8/4 steps) → PageDown/PageUp; DEL/£ and Shift+DEL → Delete/Backspace and Insert; STOP → Esc. On Linux VICE the ↑ key maps to PageDown rather than Del and Del acts as backspace.

Versions and engines, from later sources#

• In 2021 a SID-Maker export that ended in "SAVING ERROR" under VICE 3.1 worked under VICE 3.5 — "Vice 3.1 is not recommended. If possible, try to use Vice 3.5" (on Linux compiled from source) (source: s-lemon64-sid-wizard-instrument-recommendations).
• reSID is Dag Lem's engine, and its source code documents the SID's envelope ("ADSR delay") bug that he reverse-engineered; sidplay2 adopted it and therefore "emulates the SID much more accurate than SIDPLAY", while the old SIDPLAY kept the mixer that can mute single voices — handy for listening to one channel (source: s-ucapps-wavetable-sounds-tutorial-1). The Lemon64 hard-restart thread points to the same file, reSID's envelope.h, "also in VICE" (hard-restart).

A ripper's view (2003)#

• stephan-schmid, HVSC crew: "Vice's emulation quality is slowly nearing perfection", and a multitasking desktop with the other tools open "really makes it a pleasure to work with" for ripping and coding; but he never used it for games, demos or composing — "you just need a real SID chip, the background noise and the humming of the 1084" — and kept a real C64 with a 1541-II next to the PC "only used for transferring disks" (source: s-sidin03-schmid-interview).

• Real chips from VICE (2005–06): Simon White's hardsid patch, and from VICE 1.18 built-in support on Unix ("it detects the presence of hardsid driver and adds support to it"), put a Hardsid entry "below Resid in the sid settings" for the catweasel Mk4 / HardSID cards; Tognon used x64 to play RSID sample tunes through the card, noting that pausing leaves the last note sounding on hardware where reSID stops it (source: s-sidin09-catweasel-6581). nata chose VICE over CCS64 in 2006 because "CCS64 SID emulation is too inaccurate", and for IDE64-fixed games, REU simulation and switching SID models (source: s-sidin09-nata-interview).

Monitor commands for ripping, and three composers' verdicts#

• Tognon's rip of The Trivia Arcade is done in the VICE monitor: break 5000 / break 5003 / break 5006 on the suspected entry points, m 314 to read the IRQ vector, a breakpoint on the IRQ routine to log the raster line ($D012) at each call, > 5009 2 to poke the subtune variable and x to continue — enough to learn a player's calling convention without a disassembler (source: s-sidin12-ripping-trivia-arcade).
• The method is older than that article: in the 2002 Dig Dug rip the monitor is already the whole toolchain — breakpoints to keep "a list of executed addresses", d to disassemble, or save to dump $8000–$BFFF to a file for an external disassembler (sid_dis, or Tognon's own jc64dis) (source: s-sidin01-dig-dug-rip).
• hermit in 2008: "Vice is a very good emulator, but SID emulation isn't as fully good as the real. Analogue filter is important, the other important is the note-frequency dependent samplerate of the SID (44100 Hz is weak for pure analogue)" — he develops on real hardware and uses VICE only away from it (source: s-sidin12-hermit-interview). freedom composed his first tune (2005) in Odin Tracker on VICE and works in emulators for lack of space, but would watch a demo on the real machine; tsm prefers the real thing (source: s-sidin13-tsm-freedom-interview).

Three more jobs it does#

• The listen half of an assembler workflow: matt-gray's public dominator player is built with 64tass.exe dom6-public.asm and the resulting a.out loaded in VICE — assemble, load, listen, edit the source (source: s-sidin14-dominator-player).
• The machine people compose on now: scarzix has composed in emulators since 2013 — he first reopened the jch-editor in VICE, then tried goattracker and others before settling on cheesecutter. His caveat is about the chip, not the emulator: 6581 revisions differ so much that "everyone will say their own C64 had the right sound" (source: s-sidin14-scarzix-interview).
• The smoke test before a release: a defMON release note records a build "untested beyond starting in VICE in NTSC mode" — for a tool author the emulator is the cheapest proof that a build boots at all, and the fastest way to check the other video standard (source: s-defmon-wiki-releases).

Setting it up for defMON (2019 guide)#

The electro·pizza walkthrough runs defmon with x64 defmon-YYYYMMDD.d64 on Linux, with these gotchas: Debian/Ubuntu's apt install vice ships no C64 ROMs — copy vice-3.3/data/C64/* from the source tarball into /usr/lib/vice/C64/; turn hardware scaling and double size off and set the sound device to "alsa" (the guide also drops the sample rate to 22050 Hz and disables drive-sound emulation on weak hardware like the Pocket CHIP); and learn the symbolic keymap traps — ← = _, C= = Ctrl, RUN/STOP = Esc, CONTROL = Tab (the same table as SID-Wizard's above). The author's verdict: fine for practising and sidTAB sound design, not for live sets (source: s-electropizza-defmon-vice-chip). The defMON community's version preference, from the thread: VICE 2.4 with reSID-fp for filter sound, 3.x for ADSR-quirk accuracy (2020-09-23/24) — and frantic stayed native regardless: "then you can work on the real chip and the proper SID sound while you work" (source: s-chipmusic-defmon-thread).

To verify#

• Resolved: the name is spelled out in a 2017 defMON setup guide — "VICE (the VersatIle Commodore Emulator)" (source: s-electropizza-defmon-vice-chip).
• (unverified) That x64sc is specifically the cycle-exact variant. It is named as a distinct, much heavier binary by a working composer — "x64sc takes on both computers approx. 40-50 % of CPU time" against the older x64 he prefers (source: s-chipmusic-defmon-thread) — which is consistent with cycle-exactness but does not state it. VICE's own documentation would settle it.

Related#

sid-wizard · defmon · commodore-64 · sid-format · siddump

Sources#

s-sid-wizard-manual · s-witchmaster-creating-chiptunes-with-sid-wizard · s-goattracker-readme · s-chipmusic-c64-music-for-dummies · s-sid-wizard-charts-and-tables · s-lemon64-sid-wizard-instrument-recommendations · s-ucapps-wavetable-sounds-tutorial-1 · s-sidin03-schmid-interview · s-sidin09-nata-interview · s-sidin09-catweasel-6581 · s-sidin12-ripping-trivia-arcade · s-sidin12-hermit-interview · s-sidin13-tsm-freedom-interview · s-electropizza-defmon-vice-chip · s-chipmusic-defmon-thread · s-sidin01-dig-dug-rip · s-sidin14-dominator-player · s-sidin14-scarzix-interview · s-defmon-wiki-releases