STUNT CAR RACER?

[Fox-1 / mnx]

Putting xbios to the discussion isn't that bad. As long as the arguments are valid it's info that may be used to improve/change things, but arguing and complaining aren't interchangeable.

 

No matter the outcome, it's up to the coder to make such decisions.

[Heaven/TQA]

I think never... Much on the contrary, you have already stated you don't give a f_ck for those who think otherwise.

 

You have been vey clear about it.

Yes it was harsh but in the end of the day its coders decision what framework etc he is using. And its not a kickstarter where you actually put money into it.

 

And I was in the witchhunt when Arsantica 2 fucked up at Silly venture on the compo machine and a disk drive.

 

But as I stated it was my decision to use it and my responsibility so I take the blame.

 

My impression is that xbios is for some ppl a red card...

 

Yes I do listen to ppl but coding on a8 is always a trade off. And thats what I like with its tons of hardware expansion its a nightmare to support all of it.

 

And as it is a hobby I appreciate the work of others. But they should respect as well when coder made a decision to support or not to support protocols and hardware. That was my point.

[Heaven/TQA]

Communications alert

 

You could understand it from two sides.

The Coder may do as he like to do the code.

But the rest might care for having it running best on the used setup.

 

Programs should run on native and original hardware. If people decide to use strange setups, they could change the code themselves

Yeah thats the good on the C64 scene always stock hardwAre

 

And I know and listen to both sides but sometimes I am a dictator and do what I want

[Faicuai]

You just need to discuss price

 

A-ha!!!

 

Guys, the work and effort you put into this is VALUABLE, especially in the case of SCR which is (effectively) a NEW title in Atari's SW database, without mentioning its intrinsic quality!

 

BE JEALOUS about your work. Don't let the "I do what the f_uk I want" mentality trump the opportunity to capitalize on it. We are NO LONGER in the 80's... in the sense that there has been a lot of recent work on both the SW *AND* HW departments.

 

If I were you, I would consider ALWAYS the following approach for any titles like SCR (which do have INTRINSIC value):

 

1. Create a baseline SIO version, "universally" compatible, and distribute it for free, so those that who do not give a flying f_ck for your work (nor the actual HW developers) can use it at no cost. At the end of the day, you are not responsible for those who prefer to remain on their respective sh_t-holes.

 

2. Create a robust and well-enhanced version that will support recent HW developments (e.g. Ultimate, Incognito, SIDE, The! Cart, etc.) and ***CHARGE*** for the such ENHANCEMENTS, at least a modest sum (e.g. U.S. $4.95 per any of the versions, for instance). Handling cross-platform updates ALSO has intrinsic value (because of the time and effort involved, as well benefit for the end user), and it adds-up to the title's value itself. It is well justified. Plus it creates a positive feedback-loop, in which HW developers AND users will have more motivation to keep improving, as SW exploits such improvements.

 

3. If anyone else comes here and argues against #2 (knowing that #1 option is still available), don't even pay attention. Don't let them drag you down. If anyone here can't come up with $4.95, their lives are probably a self-inflicted mess, anyway.

 

That is a much more sensible approach than trying to justify (as some here) provincial and technically-obscurantist decisions. You will not lose popularity, and make some incremental money along the way, especially if you keep releasing nice and new titles from time to time.

 

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go back to C++ development of real-time, Stock-Market trading algorithms in which even a millisecond is worth thousands of U.S. $.

​

Cheers!

[Lost Dragon]

Wow.

 

The A8 gets a game i would of killed for back in the day as an 800XL and 1010 then XC12 owner,something up there with A8 Space Harrier in terms of my utmost respect going out to those who made it possible...

 

And now a thread dedicated to the game is descending into an argument?.

 

I've not touched an A8 in years,never coded etc,just follow the scene to see what lost code turns up and the amazing achivements people are making...

 

But i will never understand the Atari scene,if i live to be a 1000 :-))

 

I'm from an era where you prayed to what evet deity took your fancy the damn thing would load,no Boot Error and be worth the 15 Minute Plus loading time. :-))

Edited May 10, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Level42]

 

I totally agree . And this is what people need to keep in mind when getting something for FREE.

 

"not

 

So people stop your bitching and appreciate the fact that you can now play this great game on your A8.

I totally agree . And this is what people need to keep in mind when getting something for FREE.

 

"not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes."

 

So people stop your bitching and appreciate the fact that you can now play this great game on your A8.

That's what worries me.

 

If I would have produced something brilliant like SCR, give it away freely and would have to deal with so much whining about loading times, i might think twice to release ANYTHING in the future.

 

I'm not exactly known for kissing asses but I sure hope to see more brilliant stuff like this in the future. Sure, you can make a point about ideas to further improve it, but why keep going on about it if the people involved simply say they're not going to do it, for whatever reason they might come up with (as if that is even required). Simply accept their answer thank them for their incredible work and either put up with it or fix it yourself.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Level42

[+Adam+]

@Faicuai, you don't have to overreact and offend the authors of SCR because of a silly joke made by R0ger, who had nothing to do with creating this title and because of what Heaven/TQA wrote (also no connection).

Edited May 10, 2018 by +Adam+

[Jacques]

I'm not sure if we're talking Chinese here or it's Babel Tower syndromme

 

I think we shouldn't discuss if or not SCR should be xBios based as it's already done, authors opted to choose it, fine.

From my understanding, the trouble is that current ATR is using older version of xBios, while XXL recently admitted he solved the problems in the latest one.

 

Fandal's quote:

 

The final version of SCR uses latest public available xBIOS build (v4.3 I guess). Unfortunately, this version doesn't support fast SIO, at least in emulators, if xBIOS core is not located in its default memory area (which is our case).

xxl tried to fix that problem and he really was VERY supportive with this issue. Several different xBIOS builds were used in the development but there were too many problems reported by out betatesters (especially on real HW).

There NEVER was any intention to disable or block SCR from booting on HDD or any other device. I was pretty surprised that HDD users had troubles with it and I'm sorry for this. It seems that xBIOS is not friendly with these modern expansions but there is nothing I could do with it.

 

XXL's quote:

 

The problem was in the lack of buffer relocation when using the system I/O driver. Currently, there is no such problem, the buffer is relocated with system I/O driver also.

download from the project website: xxl.atari.pl

 

 

If that's the case and newer xBios that allows at least higher SIO speeds is available, why couldn't new ATR be prepared by involved parties to improve things, please?

Edited May 10, 2018 by Jacques

[+mytek]

If I would have produced something brilliant like SCR, give it away freely and would have to deal with so much whining about loading times, i might think twice to release ANYTHING in the future.

 

I'm not exactly known for kissing asses but I sure hope to see more brilliant stuff like this in the future. Sure, you can make a point about ideas to further improve it, but why keep going on about it if the people involved simply say they're not going to do it, for whatever reason they might come up with (as if that is even required). Simply accept their answer thank them for their incredible work and either put up with it or fix it yourself.

 

Agreed 100%. I ran into some of the same negativity to my approach when I first started the 1088XEL development and decided to share it with the community. Luckily it never got too out of hand, and quickly went away as the project progressed. Hopefully the same will occur in this thread, and soon before the developers decide it's not worth dealing with and stop participating in the discussion. I am strongly of the opinion that when someone, anyone, decides to volunteer their time to create something that didn't prior exist to their efforts, and to top it off don't take anyone's money in the process, that they can do whatever the hell they want to... end of story.

 

To those that disapprove of the choices made by the SCR developers... we get it, it's written all over your face. But enough is enough, now it's time to shut it down.

 

 

Sure is a cute baby, and maybe a future Atarian. Quick put a joystick in his hand before he gets older and spoiled by the newer tech .

[Faicuai]

@Faicuai, you don't have to overreact and offend the authors of SCR because of a silly joke made by R0ger, who had nothing to do with creating this title and because of what Heaven/TQA wrote (also no connection).

There is NO SUCH offense. Unless you just fabricated it, or we are dealing with paper-thin egoes (I don't thibk so).

 

Bottom-line is: if you release and make something PUBLIC, expect a PUBLIC reaction, which may not be a complacient one.

 

PLENTY of Kudos here, from ALL of us for SCR-port. We are beyond that, now,

[Faicuai]

I'm not sure if we're talking Chinese here or it's Babel Tower syndromme

 

I think we shouldn't discuss if or not SCR should be xBios based as it's already done, authors opted to choose it, fine.

From my understanding, the trouble is that current ATR is using older version of xBios, while XXL recently admitted he solved the problems in the latest one.

 

Fandal's quote:

 

 

XXL's quote:

 

 

 

If that's the case and newer xBios that allows at least higher SIO speeds is available, why couldn't new ATR be prepared by involved parties to improve things, please?

Absolutely!

[Gunstar]

I'm not a fan of Xbios at all, basically because I have found it impossible to make a real disk of it that saves, everything else works but that. I have to load it through SIO2PC ATR image if I want to save. That being said, I love SCR and would still love it no matter the format released. If it were released only as a .cas file that somehow could not be changed to any other format and you were stuck loading via tape and waiting half an hour for it to load, I would still be happy and thankful for the game. I say that if you abandon traditional media like tape or floppy disk on the real media with the real peripherals and only use modern cartridge or PBI HD/flash/whatever, and it doesn't work that way, tuff shit. Sure it would be great if it did, and I use those too and would like it, but I'm happy it's in any format and satisfied with it.

[flashjazzcat]

In the context of SCR, simply dropping the restrictive, obstructive internal SIO routine from XBIOS would solve all problems at a stroke. I see nothing about the SCR loading screen which couldn't be handled equally well by segmenting the binary and letting an INIT block handle the animations (Yoomp!, Numen, etc). Creating a tiny FMS for the purpose of allowing high-score saves and the like is laudable, and if a title is too memory starved to run with DOS, one can even agree with a tiny loader obliging one to use a particular file system. But using an on-board SIO driver which doesn't poll the PBI handlers first is puzzling and just makes the game awkward to use with the majority of popular modern storage solutions. Of course there are several vintage titles which to this day refuse to work with a lot of the modern solutions for the same reason, and there were pretty good arguments (anti-piracy, etc) for making stuff difficult to copy or run from anything but the original media when A8 software was commercially viable. But today... well, this seems like a quarrel which could have been very easily avoided. The Atari has rather nice hardware abstraction in the OS which allows everything to 'just work' if you perform IO by calling the OS.

 

Of course I'm not a gamer anyway: it was enough for me to sit through the loading process once and acknowledge with my own eyes what a wonderful achievement SCR is, and beyond that it makes little difference to me whether the title runs from a modern storage solution or not. But as one who has spent time patching loaders to make them work with the broadest possible range of titles, it seems to me a fairly good idea to allow the end user some flexibility in how they launch the software, unless there is some killer feature which makes that goal more trouble than it is worth.

Edited May 11, 2018 by flashjazzcat

[Heaven/TQA]

Ok.

 

What is a modern storage device? An ide HDD?

 

How many ppl using one? Is it really mass storage?

[flashjazzcat]

Usually an IDE HDD, yes. They're quite prolific now: SIDE, SIDE2, MYIDE, MYIDE II, IDE Plus 2.0; all of which provide some means of mounting ATRs (although SIDE/SIDE2 rely on U1MB for that). Users often store something approximating the entire Atari software catalogue (subject to compatibility) on a 4GB or 8GB CF card. It's not compulsory to join that party, though.

 

Then you have The!Cart which supports ATRs by patching the binaries (looking for SIO calls, I suppose), and the UNO Cart, which uses SD cards and a patched OS (also reliant on calls to the OS SIO)...

Edited May 11, 2018 by flashjazzcat

[Heaven/TQA]

Ah forgot those CF cards (I even replaced my Amiga 600 hdd with a CF).... ok. Always thought of real HDDs.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Solution by Fandal:

 

http://www.atarionline.pl/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=4438&page=2#Item_35

 

newest/latest XBIOS version with SCR. Test it on your ultraspeed floppy drives and PBI devices, please...

[Faicuai]

Solution by Fandal:

 

http://www.atarionline.pl/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=4438&page=2#Item_35

 

newest/latest XBIOS version with SCR. Test it on your ultraspeed floppy drives and PBI devices, please...

NICE!!!

 

When decisive action trumps self-inflicted, "who the f_ck cares"" complacency, as evidently shown here by some hard-core apologists...

 

KUDOS to Fandal & Co. for the effort! Now, let's see how this baby launches with Incognito / Ultimate wonderful BIOS... :-)

 

(UPDATE: It loads VERY FAST! You can even launch SCR directly from SDX prompt, on Incognito! Although, as noted on above link, there seem to be some Load / Save operations not fully working...)

[+mytek]

Very nice I'll have to give this a whirl on my XEL-CF hardware .

 

BTW, I'm not a hard-core apologists, but I do think when you solicit an idea and the person(s) it's directed towards don't care or don't wish to implement it, then that's all you can do in the moment and then move on. Of course it doesn't mean that someone else can't jump in an implement it on their own . And I'm actually very happy to see that a CF solution was arrived at . Great job Fandal .

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well, some (sad) update:

 

http://www.atarionline.pl/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=4438&page=2#Item_38

Edited May 12, 2018 by CharlieChaplin

[xxl]

xB was chosen because it is flexible, has the ability to relocate all variables, library code, driver code, buffers and even RUNAD and INITAD vectors,

Thanks to this, it can be configured to work with any project. However, there is the price of such flexibility - we avoid the Atari ROM calls.

SCR with such adapted xB will be able to read and write data to files on the disk.

However, the SCR was not written for the Atari platform, it overwrites some of the memory that is necessary for Atari operating system,

so during the game you can not use the I/O Atari OS function - AtariOS does not have any variable and vector relocation. a deeper change in the game code would be needed.

If we agree to the limited AtariOS then you will be able to quickly load the game with xB and eg HDD, but you will no longer be able to read and write data in files during game.

and this is not the fault of xBIOS but construction of the game :-) thanks to xBIOS you can get around it and so was the version published at the beginning by Fandal.

Instead of trolling Fandal, do something useful :-)

[emkay]

What is the problem exactly? Anyone could load the game into the emulator, save a memory dump, make it self starting and load the game "fast" . After that, the XBIOS could still work with the defined device access. Which means a device that is accessible via SIO ...

[+Adam+]

What is the problem exactly? Anyone could load the game into the emulator, save a memory dump, make it self starting and load the game "fast" . After that, the XBIOS could still work with the defined device access. Which means a device that is accessible via SIO ...

 

The problem is that there are people who are much more interested in SCR's loading time than in actually playing this game.

Edited May 12, 2018 by +Adam+

[Irgendwer]

Fandal:

OK. I'm giving it up.

The game is crashing on several places now and I'm really not going to spend another week or month by fixing more and more problems just because SCR is not working with fast SIO.

I'm sorry.

I wish I never started this project.

 

 

 

To the ones it concerns (you know who you are): THANK YOU!

 

[Irgendwer]

What is the problem exactly? Anyone could load the game into the emulator, save a memory dump, make it self starting and load the game "fast" . After that, the XBIOS could still work with the defined device access. Which means a device that is accessible via SIO ...

 

...and which part of the code/memory does actually perform the "load" and self start if you don't mean just do apply a memory dump to the memory of the emulator?

Edited May 13, 2018 by Irgendwer