Kool-Aid Man Rom Problem?

[atariready]

How come when I play Kool-Aid Man on Stella, it doesn't work right? Kool-Aid Man bounces around in the upper-left corner and cannot be moved. Why? Thanks.

[+stephena]

How come when I play Kool-Aid Man on Stella, it doesn't work right? Kool-Aid Man bounces around in the upper-left corner and cannot be moved. Why? Thanks.

This is a known problem with the emulation in Stella. There's nothing wrong with the ROM; the emulation is just incomplete in this area. This is being worked on for a future release.

[+thegoldenband]

Interesting, I'd run into the same problem many moons ago when I was using some 1.x version of Stella, but I hadn't gotten around to trying it again since. Out of curiosity, what's the technical issue that keeps Kool-Aid Man from moving? And are there any other significant games (i.e. not multicarts or oddball pirates) that are equally broken in Stella, or is Kool-Aid Man the only major title that's not playable?

[Nukey Shay]

Try this

 

That hack should work on anything AFAIK (at least I never got any negative feedback about it). It's based on the fix posted to [stella] by Eckhard and Fabrizio waaaay back in 2002...edited to make it Supercharger-compatable.

[+stephena]

Interesting, I'd run into the same problem many moons ago when I was using some 1.x version of Stella, but I hadn't gotten around to trying it again since. Out of curiosity, what's the technical issue that keeps Kool-Aid Man from moving? And are there any other significant games (i.e. not multicarts or oddball pirates) that are equally broken in Stella, or is Kool-Aid Man the only major title that's not playable?

I'll leave the more in-depth, technical explanation for someone else, but I believe it's related to not quite complete HMOVE emulation. Previously to Stella 3.1, this manifested itself in many ROMs, the most visible being GIJoe (if you test this in older versions of Stella, you'll see it's completely messed up). But since version 3.1, you can see that most (but not all) of these have been fixed.

 

I have a list of about 20-30 ROMs somewhere that still cause some graphical glitches with the current Stella code, and the TIA emulation is being improved to fixed these. But pre-3.1, this list was perhaps 100-200 ROMs, so the emulation is definitely becoming more precise. Kool Aid Man is probably the most visible of the commercial ROMs, since it basically doesn't work at all ...

[+stephena]

Try this

 

That hack should work on anything AFAIK (at least I never got any negative feedback about it). It's based on the fix posted to [stella] by Eckhard and Fabrizio waaaay back in 2002...edited to make it Supercharger-compatable.

Yes, this ROM is confirmed to work in Stella 3.1.2 (the latest release). In fact, this ROM will be helpful in adding correct support for the other ROM, since it lets me see exactly how things should be working.

[+Mitch]

I think Kool-Aid Man also has the same problem on real 2600s that have the buggy TIA chip.

 

Mitch

[Omegamatrix]

I think Kool-Aid Man also has the same problem on real 2600s that have the buggy TIA chip.

 

Mitch

I have a late release Taiwanese Jr. that has one of these buggy chips. It is my most valuable console because it's great to test games on.

 

 

Thunderground's score gets messed up on my buggy Jr, but the same Thunderground cartridge plays great on other consoles. I think at one point I wrote a hack that fixed this buggy score.

 

I also found my Jr doesn't like opcode ASR. Too bad, because it was one of my favorite illegal opcodes. Now I won't use because it will fail on other buggy Jr's as well.

 

 

LAX and SBX do work fine, thank God!

[Video]

The game really does that with some later 2600's and a good chunk of 7800's too. I don't know what causes it exactly (shitty programming probably) But as for the emulator, I use Z26, and it runs the game fine, try different emulators.

[Trebor]

I use Z26, and it runs the game fine, try different emulators.

 

It plays fine under MESS as well

[Nukey Shay]

BTW the original message is here.

 

Certian functions are unreliable when executing too soon after an HMOVE. The description "a bug that was just fortunate to work out right" (on original hardware) is a good one.

[Arenafoot]

How come when I play Kool-Aid Man on Stella, it doesn't work right? Kool-Aid Man bounces around in the upper-left corner and cannot be moved. Why? Thanks.

I just bought a copy of Kool-Aid Man and tried to play it on my 2600jr (made in tawian) and its doing this same thing......bummer. Wish I would have known about this before buying it.