While I’m still in the progress of a Coppenheimer update (as in: gathering motivation), I’ve learned of a new profiling/debugging suite: ENGINE9000

Awesome name! :) It supports Neo Geo and Mega Drive as well, and the Amiga core is based on WinUAE (via PUAE). Hence, the visual debugging starts off with similar visualizations and DMA masks (to disable single bitplanes, sprites, or audio channels), but then adds a whole bunch of custom helpers: There’s a pixel-exact copper inspector, a flashing blitter highlighter, a sprite info feature, etc.

Here’s a cool video showcasing some of the visual debugging aides: Brian the Lion (Mode 7ish).

ENGINE9000 does much more than visual debugging: There’s source-level debugging in C or assembly language, per-frame controls (forward and backward stepping, looping), profiling, etc. You have to get used to the UI, I guess, and sometimes I ran into graphics glitches – probably just a configuration issue.

Squinty in the sky (without roses)

Once you get it to work, the blitter visualizer alone sure is trippy:

A great project, and lots of nifty features!

Coppenheimer has its own niche and value; for example, the live memory dump can help you understand the “Brian the Lion” logo effects way better than the video linked above. But it sure could use some new features! Maybe something like that blitter visualization, but also in the memory view, and for all DMA channels?