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Doing some custom tuning is slowly paying off, but there's still a lot of things I need to figure out. Maybe I'm crazy or maybe I'm onto something but I hope I can fully get most notes to sound better between each others. For now I only changed the Distortion A in 64khz mode tuning table, where the actual pattern of notes being "in-tune" appears to be around 444hz in NTSC, running the same frequencies in PAL is a near 440hz pattern ? For the moment I had to make my own patched RMT version to actually be able to test what I have figured out without having to make an instrument for literally each note, but that did work well I believe. A few notes may still sound a bit wrong but otherwise most do sound pretty good together, there is a nice resonance going with the distortion bass now :3c Corridors of Time Alternate Tuning.mp4 To make that RMT2LZSS conversion I had to be a little creative but thankfully that did work well, haha In short I exported a .xex from the patched RMT version I made currently, recorded as SAPR in Altirra and then threw it into RMT2LZSS. The song looping twice then fading out was actually done manually, couldn't be bothered to manually make the "loop" out of a SAP dump The RMT version itself is actually nothing too special, it's just the Distortion A table changed to my own table, which is still not perfect so I wouldn't recommend using this one seriously, in fact I do not like having to rely on a hacked version at all, but it made my tests a lot easier to do The .txt file is mostly a dump of ramble, ideas, and guesswork, so again I do not recommend taking anything from it too seriously, but maybe it could be useful, it's definitely something I want to improve later. Corridors of Time Alternate Tuning.xex Rmt Vin Tuning Patch V1.exe POKEY Table 64khz (A=443hz) WIP14.txt

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing ARKANOID on tomorrow's (Fri Feb 26, 2021) stream LIVE on Twitch at 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT! Hope everyone can watch! ZPH Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/ Games: Arkanoid (2021 WIP | 7800) by Matt Smith @mksmith Dragon's Havoc (2021 WIP | 7800) by Todd Furmanski @Revontuli Froggie (2016 Retail | 7800) by Matthais Luedtke @Schmutzpuppe (SET VIDEO TO 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY)

LOL... I'd never give $700 for an XEX. Most XEX's are worth way less than that; and in fact many of the best ones are totally free. A few may be worth as much as $100 (very few); but that's only for CIB copies with all the packaging bells and whistles. Ebay's prices are just getting WAY too out of hand these days. People need to stop overpaying for what is obviously just a bunch of hype and herd-mentality retro-shopping mania. Don't give in to all these ethicless, opportunist ripoff artists.

Wow. I've been on this site (and around this site) for almost 20 years. Now THAT's staying power!

New version available of Dm2k v3.2 Fixed a problem with loosing the CRU address of the source device after copying a file to a device with a different CRU address. See www.ti99-geek.nl

New in this update: Snippers will now speed up if you shoot 2 of them in a round. Shooting a 3rd still triggers the bonus where the Snippers will no longer spawn and are replaced by coins. Reduced the number of targets you have to shoot in the Bonus Cave from 15 to 10. I don't know why, but for some reason, the bonus round seems much more difficult now. I just couldn't get to 15 no matter what. I'm thinking my old collision detection was just way too generous. There were some bugs I didn't notice before when you collided with or shot a coin or power-up. I didn't adjust for the new kernel properly. Those bugs have been fixed. Fixed a bug in the intermission which caused the hat and the Notelies to fly to the right when the Blob appeared on screen. I didn't notice this before, as I was testing the intermission by triggering it at start-up, which didn't allow for some variables to be set. So the intermission ran fine at start-up, but during game play, if you reached the intermission, things didn't quite work so well. Various other minor bug fixes and a bit of improved efficiency in some parts of the code. I also wanted to share some wonderful news. I don't want to be posting a lot of personal stuff here, and I realize no one here really knows me too well, but this is great news and I'm sharing it with everyone I can. Shortly after I started development of this game back in September of 2019, my fiancée was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The initial prognosis was quite bad. As far as this game goes, she encouraged me to continue working on it, and doing so has been a nice distraction through a very tough time. Since it initially appeared her time left was limited, this sort of made me want to get the game finished as quickly as possible (well, I didn't do a good job there). Along the way, I tried to get her involved in anything I could, so she wrote the little tune you hear during the intermission. The piece itself is much longer than what you hear in the game, but naturally, I had to cut it down to fit it in there. Anyway, I did say it was good news... Last week, we got the word from her doctor that she is now in remission. Her original doctor gave her virtually zero chance of survival, but fortunately, we found the right guy for the job, and after a lot of chemo and a major surgery, she is now in remission and on the road to recovery. I can now take my time with the rest of the game. ? Mr_Yo-Yo_B20210225.bin Mr_Yo-Yo_B20210225.a

I've been meaning to get this done for years. My video game collection has been in storage crates, stuck in the basement, for the past 7 years since my last move ... until now! I finally got my video game center custom-built a couple of months ago. Now I have a place for everything (including my remaining Lego spaceships). I always intended to set it up as a small retro living room, with a couple of chairs and a small coffee table, so there is still work to be done; but at least I finally got to get my stuff out of storage! Now, that's the organizational setup. I still need to hook everything up (yes, I am slow and tend to procrastinate). I do have a multi-system switch box to enable me to easily switch between the various consoles. My aim is to configure it in a way that requires minimum effort to play, so I can just pick a console, grab a cartridge (or disc, or card, or whatever), and play. The consoles shown above are (below the TV, from left to right): Intellivision Master Component ColecoVision Nintendo Wii Nintendo GameCube Playstation 2 (standard and compact) Playstation 3 In addition, we have: Vectrex (to the right of the TV) iCade (to the left of the TV) Apple Homepod (far left on the base platform) Nintendo DS in carrying case (two-shelves above the Homepod) Apple iPod Mini (to the right of the DS case) Intellivision 25 Direct-to-TV game (far right, fourth shelf from the top) Games on display are: Intellivision games main collection (to the far right, to three shelves) Intellivision Home-brews collection (to the far right, bottom shelf) Intellivision duplicates CIB (to the far left, top shelf) Intellivision duplicates cart-only (sandwich between Homepod and iCade) Playstation 1, 2, 3 games (to the far left below Intellivision duplicates) Nintendo DS games (on shelf with Playstation games) Nintendo Wii and GameCube games (below Playstation games) Hidden from view scattered within the cabinets are: Additional Intellivision duplicate carts Various Intellivision components Intellivision Master Component (quite a few: Scart/Peritel, PAL, and NTSC) Intellivision II Master Component (2x Sealed) Intellivoice (quite a few, with and without boxes) ECS (1 CIB American edition, 1 CIB European "brown" edition) System Changer ColecoVision Expansion Module #1 (Atari Adapter) Various Flashback units Intellivision (3x: 1 signed by Keith, 1 signed by all other BSRs, 1 retail bought at Dollar General) Atari 2600 Sega Genesis ColecoVision Various Playstation 2 components: EyeToy Logitech Driving Force (steering wheel/pedals) Pelican Real Arcade joystick control panel Guitar Hero controller And of course, what's left of my Lego Star Wars spaceship collection, after I sold most of them in preparation for my last move (at the very top of the cabinet): Tie Interceptor X-Wing Fighter AT-ST Walker (not shown, because it fell apart and needs to be re-built) Everything shown (and not shown) is in perfect working order. In fact, apart from a few sealed Intellivision II consoles and a few shrink-wrapped Intellivision games, everything is intended for (semi-)regular use. My aim is to get everything hooked up and ready to go by summer (yep, I'm counting on that procrastination kicking in). -dZ.

I am neither on Facebook nor Discord (etc. pp.), because I value my privacy and do not provide my data to companies who will use it to manipulate me.

Ataris don´t die. Sometime they just fall asleep, but can be awakened.

MCDONALD'S IS THE PLACE TO ROCK IT IS A RESTAURANT WHERE THEY BUY FOOD TO EAT

Intelligame Cartridge with Two Games.. Probably the only one in the world. AD&D and Dracula

So I dug into this a bit, since it does hit me sometimes too, and my theory about branches holds no water. I found it and fixed it - there was a race with the Windows message pump. Basically, hitting F1 to continue would update the internal emulation state, resume the CPU, etc, and send a message off to update the Window menu state. If you breakpointed again before Windows processed the message, the CPU would be stopped correctly, then Windows would receive the "hey, we're playing again" message, and start the CPU back up. The fix was to differentiate between command messages and visual update messages, already done in a few places. The next update is nearly ready and should be out this weekend, hopefully.

Are the angels on the Angel Soft packages dead kids?

I don't really consider Discord a serious alternative to forums like this. Discord is much nicer than IRC, and more organized in that you can split a server up into multiple channels, but conversations are short-lived as they scroll off into the temporal distance. And searching through Discord channels is tedious. It can be handy if you need an answer Right Now, but for prolonged discussions on particular topics that you might want to reference at a future date, to say nothing of managing files, it's just not very good, in my opinion. Facebook is only marginally better on that front. So, you basically started this conversation to try and get people to talk about Vectrex on Discord and abandon AtariAge? ..Al

In this video you will be able to see a little bit more of the gameplay in Asteroite. (@SlidellMan, please note your title logo, and the save-tube in this video)

Hehe ... see what I mean? I wondered why the Windows zip file for 0.229 was 20 MiB larger than for 0.228, and guess why ... My pack script found the older mame64.exe (which was not overwritten) and put it inside the zip, next to the newer mame.exe. ? I re-uploaded the 0.229 Windows release to WHTech now. (By the way, I did not know about this change when it was committed, and I was doing some work in MAME right then, but none of my edits seem to have an effect - started tearing my hair ... until I noticed that I was simply using the older version, and all changes went into the new executable.)

Somebody's been busy...

Ok, doing a 180° turn here... I've decided to go back to my source code before I started rewriting it from the arcade z80 code. I was finding more and more subroutines that I have to convert (I just wanted the enemy movement). I figured the chance of it running after re-vamping almost the entire program from what I *believe* the conversion from z80 would be slim to none... and me being able to figure out what's wrong if it just crashes would also be slim to none. I think I've read enough to know the jist of what they were doing, so I may still be ahead of the game.

I think that's a great idea. He also needs to add control via the console switches!

Here's something I'd wanted to do for some time after I did pokey-explorer. This is a spreadsheat with all 16-bit and 8-bit tunings for distortion 10, both PAL and NTSC. You can fiddle with the clocks (these are 800XL clocks), but you can also change the frequence of A4. If you change it to something else, all values automagically change. Everything from Handel's tuning fork at 422.5Hz, Beethoven's fork at 455.4Hz, and everything in between should work All tables are tunes towards 12-TET (12 Tone Equal Temperament). It could be nice to replace the 12-TET column with a different tuning. For example, if you know your song is in D Major, you could put a D Major just intonated table in place, and let the spreadsheet do its magic, and return to pre-Bach just intonation. Like a breath of fresh air. On a G string Atari Tuned Notes A4=x.ods

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Computer ?

There you go Corridors of Time Alternate Tuning 50hz.xex It sounds a bit different since I only really adjusted the tempo, nothing else was changed. Tuning may be a bit off as well, but I plan to look into PAL later as well Oh yeah might as well post the modules. They rely on the tuning of my custom notes table in the RMT version I posted earlier in the thread, but otherwise they might still work fine in Vanilla RMT 1.28 (1.30) Corridors of Time Alternate Tuning Final Loop Adjusted.rmt Corridors of Time Alternate Tuning Final Loop Adjusted 50hz.rmt

I agree. I included the visual changes while still trying to test for bugs. These changes did not affect game play or testing, so I included and shared them. There are still some of us testing scenarios, and I have fixed a few bugs, which did alter game play slightly. I wouldn't hold up calling this done for a few pixels. I would love to call this done as is, but we need to verify a few things for stability's sake.

Educational walk through of SUPERBLITZ game entry features and visual effects Hoping to inspire more Atari 2600 10 line BASIC games for 2021! There are only two small rem statements in the code but SuperCharger BASIC is a very verbose classic BASIC with listings that are easy to understand. Biggest drawback to writing 10 liners in SuperCharger BASIC is that only one if-then-else statement is allowed per line and some language intrinsics take up many precious characters. Biggest feature is probably the Camera object; a soft ANTIC that is very easy for A8 programmers to conceptualize and control transparently setting x,y coordinates in BASIC: SUPERBLITZ uses the camera in simple mode to pan the entire screen, but a8 coders will like the display lists where horizontal sections of the screen can be split into multiple camera zones and scrolled independently. rem ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rem --- SUPERBLITZ Throttle Control 3/2021 rem --- basic10liner.com competition verison rem --- Waves and Missions rem ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rem --- Insignia on Plane revealed after Night Mission is completed! rem --- Multiple Waves over differently colored Sky's and Cities rem --- More optical illusions: Some color combinations create unreal artifacting such as textured bricks - rem --- complete several rounds and describe what you encounter! rem --- note: Classic hardware and a CRT required to experience artifacting textures and additional illusions rem --- unique features - you control your speed and difficulty increases as you play rem --- BW switch pegs the throttle (Advanced) rem --- Each wave achieved keeps it's colors in Attract mode! rem --- Unlimited continues until powering off the console! 0 data city 5,9,6,9,7,6,7,5,9,5,5,5,5,6,6,7,5,8,5,8,7,5,8,8,5,5,6,6,7,5,7,8,9,8,8,7,8,9,5,6,8,5,9,6,6,7,5,7,5,5,8,5 1 if g=0 or CXP0FB>126 then CXCLR=0:for j=0 to 9:player1(j)=189:player0(j)=pl(j):rowcolors(j)=178+w:next j else goto 3 2 for j=20 to 71:k=j-20:k=city(k):for i=k to 9:vwpixel(j,i,on):next i,j:player0y=96:player0x=84:y=11:g=1:w=16*z 3 if f<player0y/52 and joy0right=0 and SWCHB|247=255 then f=f+1:goto 9 else AUDC1=7:AUDF1=BITIndex/5:AUDV1=BITIndex:f=0 4 AUDV0=f:scrollvirtualworldtoggle=1:BITIndex=BITIndex+1:missile0x=missile0x+2:data pl 0,224,127,231,252,192,128,0 5 if joy0fire=1 and y>8 then AUDF0=12:AUDC0=9:SUSTAINFORFRAMES=7:x=BITIndex+9:i=96-player0y:i=i/10:y=1+i:remPlayahTune 6 if y<10 then vwpixel(x,y,bindplayer1):COLUP1=M(y):y=y+1:data M 122,138,12,170,154,250,234,218,202,186,42,58,74,28 7 if y<10 and vwpixel(x,y,poll)>0 then vwpixel(x,y,flip):player1x=0:player1y=0:AUDC0=y:y=21:AUDF0=4:AUDV0=15:rem Hit! 8 if BITIndex>71 then BITIndex=0:player0y=player0y-2 else missile1x=missile1x+1:missile1y=missile1y+3:rem SUPERBLITZ 86 9 if player0y=0 then g=0:player0colors(3)=14:player0colors(4)=112+z:COLUBK=M(z)-10:z=z+1 else missile0y=missile0y+2 The interesting optical illusion that you control with the throttle is designed for CRT, but it can be seen on LCD if you fully maximize the screen: (For Stella emulation turn off phosphor and merge frames as well) Try SUPERBLITZ online in Javatari!

Seeing as a replacement will cost you $250+ on eBay, it's probably worth the hassle to open it up and look.

Gave up how? Anything can be fixed. If you need help, let people know generally where you live and maybe you can find someone local to assist.

If you're not having any issues, I don't think there's any need to update, no. The last update was to fix some compatibility issues with certain chip revisions of the Jaguar GPU. There will be an update before too long with CD support, though.

I played way more complex shmups on 8 bit machines. The gfx look pretty in screenshots but in motion it's really dull: the backdrop is 100% static wallpaper, very limited animation and parallax, no music and cheesy sound. Considering the specs of the Jag it's a joke. Then look what 2 guys coul do on the Genesis:

I just uploaded MAME 0.229 (restricted to the TI-99 family) to WHTech for Windows, Raspbian, and Linux. See https://ftp.whtech.com/emulators/MAME/ti99/ As I already mentioned, the executable file is from now on mame (Raspbian, Linux) and mame.exe (Windows). The "64" suffix has been dropped. Please make sure to update your launch scripts and to remove the old mame64(.exe) in your installation. Otherwise, you may unintentionally run the 0.228 (or earlier) version. In doubt, check the title bar of the window or look inside the OSD menu, option "About MAME". You should see "0.229". There is one thing that is interesting for us: For the Geneve, the debugger did not allow the user to write values into memory (using the memory view); this is now fixed.

The single most common cause of boomerang machines at the moment seems to be power supplies. I'm using a modern switching power supply here which puts out 5.36V and I was puzzled when a perfectly working 600XL with U1MB, Sophia, PokeyMAX and SIDE3 was sent back because it crashed with the SIDE3 plugged in when at the owner's house. Plugged it in with my PSU: worked. Plugged it into the owner's PSU: crashed. Bingo. The Meanwell PSU the owner sent up appears to be a perfectly good piece of kit, but puts out 5V on the nose and this seemed to be the issue. Tried another (mains to USB) PSU with the exact same miserable result. The 600XL works fine with either PSU as long as SIDE3 isn't plugged in. Other than that, we have connectivity problems (crappy third-party video cables, etc), choice of SD and CF card (which is why I now ask people to send in their storage media as well), and good old PEBCAK. But this is all 'part and parcel' of the undertaking, and a big part of it is talking the user through any problems they may have. Managing expectations is extremely important. With these old computers, there are innumerable variables, and with the current crop of interesting new upgrades using BGA FPGAs, we appear to still be in the discovery phase regarding what will actually work reliably with what on the user's desk. Send it to someone who charges reasonable money (preferably no-fix, no-fee) and won't let the thing gather dust for months. I can't imagine any tech who conducts themselves in that manner would get much in the way of business. I knew it from the get go since it was abundantly apparent from install #1 in 2016 that Rapidus and U1MB had issues. Unfortunate that it took four or five years for this to actually be acknowledged.

It is always a challenge since everyone's install, retro computer, etc. will be different. I let the size and cost factors take priority here, and it should also make modding and installing easier (fewer holes to get exactly lined up, etc.)

15kh mode, or 16bit tuning combined to high pass filter can work for creating convincing SID bass on POKEY

Vocelli: Pooyan 2885 Still don't get this game. Strategy X: 7980 Had a breakthru game today! Felt good!

Hehehe, sure. Once I finally get it hooked up. It may be a while, though. I think the cabinet is more impressive than my collection. @Rev came over to see it one day and sort of laughed off that I actually called it a "collection." He said something like, "where's the rest? Oh ... that's it? Meh. Lightweight." I don't pretend to be a real collector, everything I buy I ostensibly intend to play with. -dZ.

Just now, I thanked UniWarS for this.

My favorite was a person who claimed to sell his whole game collection on a Swedish auction site. "I am now practically giving all of this stuff away, because I want to invest in life instead" (each item had an individual auction, so he must have spent some of time on putting up the auctions at least?) - I really don't understand that you cannot invest in life, and have games? Even if you don't play them today, you might play them tomorrow. (or some child, or anybody else who might be interested?)

It will depend on where you are in the queue, of course. I have more than one hundred orders to process and it will take me at least a week to get caught up. But the first batch goes out today to a few plucky customers!

@ZeroPage Homebrew This game has a plethora of controller options (e.g. joystick, paddles, driving controller, trak-ball, st-mouse). I may have missed one, but IIRC all of these options have been tested and tuned. There may not be enough space on the box, to list all of the options.? I may be biased, but I like playing this version, much more than the actual arcade coin-op. The "spinner' on the arcade cabinet has a "weighty" feel to it. At least it does for me and that always felt a bit odd. However, this game is a personal fav of mine. I look forward to seeing you guys play it too.

I don't think it's a good idea to install the "D" driver for the loader and place it that low but it's possible. in a DOS attachment that leaves memory free from $ 700, fits in the boot sector, configures itself to sector size 128/256. automatically runs the "AUTORUN" file dos700.atr --- a much better solution is to add a configuration file to xBIOS and then it will allow you to load in a civilized way even from $200 (with OS OFF) --- or if you reeeeeallly need OS and "D" then xBootDOS memlo $980, all formats dos2, dir size 64/128, binary load for Atari Basic etc. https://xxl.atari.pl/xbootdos/

Setting the scale flag dynamically has been added to the API and will be in the next API release, and from there into JagStudio.

Hey, here is a quick update on my progress building F18As: I have received the right pins and the board now fits nicely into the machine unless the TMS9901 has been socketed. I'm still waiting for a few parts to arrive. Mouser has some ICs in a Texas that apparently has difficulty getting things out of the door at present. I've also ordered the VGA pigtails in China and they were produced and shipped yesterday: This was a nice experience and the first time that I had things made in China on my order. It is really these parts that prevent me from finishing boards for anyone else, as soldering the VGA cable is rather delicate and time consuming. There are currently 18 people on my list, so I may be able to fulfill the demand in the end. The new run of PCBs that I have ordered has not arrived yet. A few of them will have the trace re-added that is missing in the layout on CircuitMaker. I'll share the Gerbers once I know that my fix is OK. If you intend to build the F18A yourself, make sure that you're using the BOM that Matthew has posted earlier. It is easy to order parts with the same part number but the wrong voltage rating or package if you're not very careful. Cheers, Hans

Armed with this new tool for faster VDP access I had to re-write my VDP driver. You know I had to. It makes everything just a little more "perky". I like it. All the benchmarks that do anything with the screen like the TURSI sprite benchmark, go faster and even compiling is a touch quicker because we can get things in and out of the PAB faster. Only took me 5 years to get here. ? It also made me look some very early code and discover how I had used 4 instructions in my VWTR word where I only needed 2. I guess I am getting a little better at this Assembly Language thing. With these faster Forth words I don't feel a real need for sub-routine access to VMBR and VMBW anymore. I pays to listen to the experts. I have not tried this stuff on real iron yet. I hope it doesn't over run the VDP. Example: (edit: Found an extra instruction from the old version that was not needed) \ VSBR Forth style, on the stack CODE: VC@ ( VDP-adr -- char ) \ Video CHAR fetch 0 LIMI, R1 STWP, 9 (R1) 8C02 @@ MOVB, \ write odd byte from TOS ie R4 TOS 8C02 @@ MOVB, \ write even bytes from TOS VDPRD @@ TOS MOVB, \ READ char from VDP RAM into TOS TOS 8 SRL, \ move the damned byte to correct half of the word 2 LIMI, NEXT, END-CODE

Although it didn't make it to cartridge, it was one of the titles you could program into a ROMOX cartridge at one of their cartridge kiosks. I suspect a manual did exist for those users who bought it that way, but one never knows, as the stores may not have provided manuals for any of the titles in their equipment just to keep costs down. I wonder if Kyle knows, as he saw a few of them in use BITD. I'll have to ping him on that (unless he actually shows up here in the near future--which would be a good thing).

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing the retail version of FROGGIE on tomorrow's (Fri Feb 26, 2021) stream LIVE on Twitch at 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT! Hope everyone can watch! ZPH Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/ Games: Arkanoid (2021 WIP | 7800) by Matt Smith @mksmith Dragon's Havoc (2021 WIP | 7800) by Todd Furmanski @Revontuli Froggie (2016 Retail | 7800) by Matthais Luedtke @Schmutzpuppe

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing DRAGON'S HAVOC on tomorrow's (Fri Feb 26, 2021) stream LIVE on Twitch at 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT! Hope everyone can watch! ZPH Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/ Games: Arkanoid (2021 WIP | 7800) by Matt Smith @mksmith Dragon's Havoc (2021 WIP | 7800) by Todd Furmanski @Revontuli Froggie (2016 Retail | 7800) by Matthais Luedtke @Schmutzpuppe (SET VIDEO TO 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY)

Pooyan 4635

I contacted Barb on Etsy and had a response. Sounds like there may be more available in a few months. I purchased an 800 cover from her back in 2018. "Hi Perry! Thank you for your email and sorry I was slow to respond. We live in a suburb of Dallas and we have been having ice, snow, sleet, now power, etc.! My embroidery machine needed repair, took it in on December 17th, it needs a part which is on back order and I won't be getting it back until the beginning of March at his point! I do not make the 1200XL but I do make the 400, check my listings on eBay around the middle of March, I hope to have my inventory stocked well again! Take care! Barb"

Mega Man on PC. Mega Man III on PC was a tiny bit better, but not by much.