Revontuli Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 (edited) 9 hours ago, Karl G said: Probably @Revontuli as well. Hey, I wouldn't say "no" to a Concerto! I'm fine with the price listed, and would love to have a way of testing the games I'm developing (and some ideas I'm testing in code right now). The "Dragon" games are not the only things I've been working on... I will say I just have my 1 console (NTSC) to actually test on, and I'm actually curious how "healthy" it is - some games or controllers I have function oddly from time to time. Edited August 8, 2020 by Revontuli 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Muddyfunster Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 6 hours ago, batari said: The blue text you quoted from post 1617 refers to Concertino, not concerto. Sorry for any confusion. Thanks for clarifying For Concerto, what would the answers to my queries be for Max ROM size, POKEY location and on cart RAM? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 5 hours ago, Muddyfunster said: Thanks for clarifying For Concerto, what would the answers to my queries be for Max ROM size, POKEY location and on cart RAM? Thanks! For Concerto, max ROM size is 512k, it supports cart RAM and Maria DMA. Pokey location is currently $4000 but it might be possible to support other locations. For Concertino, ROM size is probably around 480k, and while it may be able to cope with cart RAM, it likely can't handle Maria DMA. POKEY is probably only capable at $4000. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Muddyfunster Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 20 minutes ago, batari said: For Concerto, max ROM size is 512k, it supports cart RAM and Maria DMA. Pokey location is currently $4000 but it might be possible to support other locations. For Concertino, ROM size is probably around 480k, and while it may be able to cope with cart RAM, it likely can't handle Maria DMA. POKEY is probably only capable at $4000. Thanks @batari appreciate the clarification Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 The consistency results revealed a probable cause of loading errors! I am posting a firmware that attempts to work around the issue. This is considered a test firmware, and provided I did it right, it should fix or at least improve loading. Note that it slows down the loading slightly, so don't update your firmware unless you are experiencing issues with a particular console and want to test it vs. the prior firmware. To update firmware, select the file attached here in the menu. The firmware will update itself automatically, and ask you to press a button to reboot. The reboot feature is broken right now, so don't worry if it crashes after pressing the button, just do a power cycle manually. concerto_test2.cbi 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 Do you have a link to all the concerto firmware versions amd directions. I have no idea how to do any of it anymore as I did this once years ago... Thank you for putting more work into this!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 For Concerto, just copy the file to your SD card, boot up your Concerto and select the file as if it were a game. The Concerto will recognize it as a BIOS file and update the BIOS. Once loaded, turn off the 7800 and back on again. You can also update firmware over a USB cable, but as long as your Concerto has a functioning menu, there is no need to do it this way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 I just tried it. The BIOS says version .91 now. I forgot to check what it was previously. There doesn't seem to be much change, it still has intermittent booting issues and corrupt/crashing games. Mitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 Ok thanks for the refresher!! Btw everyone is excited to see you active on here again. The 7800 scene needs this! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 3 minutes ago, Mitch said: I just tried it. The BIOS says version .91 now. I forgot to check what it was previously. There doesn't seem to be much change, it still has intermittent booting issues and corrupt/crashing games. Mitch That is the bios version I am using... there was 2 versions back when it was released. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 8 minutes ago, Mitch said: I just tried it. The BIOS says version .91 now. I forgot to check what it was previously. There doesn't seem to be much change, it still has intermittent booting issues and corrupt/crashing games. Mitch There isn't much change, only some small things to test a theory. The hope is that it will least improve the loading errors. If the integrity is improved, I am on the right track. Can you tell me if the integrity check is improved with this version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 I just ran it twice. The first time the same four blocks were red but 9400 was also red. The second time I ran it, the same original four blocks were red but 9400 was now green but 9000 was red. BTW, I am doing all of the testing on the same 7800 for consistency. Mitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 55 minutes ago, Mitch said: I just ran it twice. The first time the same four blocks were red but 9400 was also red. The second time I ran it, the same original four blocks were red but 9400 was now green but 9000 was red. BTW, I am doing all of the testing on the same 7800 for consistency. Mitch Thanks. Can you post up the 8480 page from the memory explorer? That could reveal some useful info. Much appreciated. I tested all 12 of my consoles again, and once again, all green. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 So you want to see if 8480 changed? Mitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 2 minutes ago, Mitch said: So you want to see if 8480 changed? Mitch Yes, I expect that it did change. To what exactly, I don't know though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+evg2000 Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 i have a concerto, where can i get the test program? do i need to have a pokey installed to test? thx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 This is the test program. I will try to grab another pic shortly. Mitch 7800utilitycart.bas.zip 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 Here is the new 8480 along with 9000 and 9080 in case you want them. Mitch 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 The output is different. The good news is that the difference was exactly in line with my error, given that I did not work around the problem quite right, which confirmed the source of the issue. There are some more issues that were recently discovered with the help of RevEng, and the solutions he presented to me will be implemented soon, but for now, I'm just trying to tackle the corrupted game loading. This latest attempt is a more robust workaround of this particular issue. concerto_test3.cbi 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 Will test the new firmware shortly. Just to clarify, there are three main areas that have issues that I see. 1. Concerto won't boot to the menu, either just having a black screen or crashing at the splash screen. 2. When loading a game from the menu, during the loading process the Concerto will hang. 3. The game loads but has graphics or gameplay corruption. It sounds like you are working on correcting number two at present. Is that correct. Mitch 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceHart Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 I haven't logged on in ages... but then I saw this update pop up from Batari. I would love to have a Concerto ... I won't be much help for testing, but as they become available for consumption, I'd spring for it. Sorry if that's not helpful, but at least Batari now knows I have an interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 1 hour ago, Mitch said: Will test the new firmware shortly. Just to clarify, there are three main areas that have issues that I see. 1. Concerto won't boot to the menu, either just having a black screen or crashing at the splash screen. 2. When loading a game from the menu, during the loading process the Concerto will hang. 3. The game loads but has graphics or gameplay corruption. It sounds like you are working on correcting number two at present. Is that correct. Mitch #3, actually. I'm trying to make the game load into memory without corruption, and the integrity test should reveal any corruption that exists. As for #2, with the help of RevEng, we have found the probable cause for that as well, but this current BIOS doesn't yet have these fixes. #1: Crashing at the splash screen likely has a similar cause to one of the above issues, and a similar resolution. As for booting to a black screen, the cause of that isn't known yet. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mksmith Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 Great job team! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 10, 2020 Share Posted August 10, 2020 When this gets sorted, put me down for one please. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted August 10, 2020 Share Posted August 10, 2020 OK, after rev 3 bios the integrity screen is back to where it was before rev 2 bios but it hasn't improved. Testing games seem to fail about the same as previously. One thing to note, this particular 7800 seems to dislike the Concerto. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. Mitch 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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