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Venture Reloaded


Omegamatrix

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Just checked my ROM collection, it turned out I still had the RC1 version of it, so I just downloaded the updated RC3 version of it, and I will upload that to my Flashback 9/Harmony Encore SD card later this morning and then I'll film my review for the 2600 Edition of The Atari Report for air tomorrow, so watch for it!!!

 

BTW, on the 5200 Edition I will be featuring yet another gem from @playsoft, Scramble for the Atari 5200 SuperSystem!!!

 

.....and then maybe I'll turn the tables on the next episodes of TAR and do Scramble for the 2600 and that already-mentioned 5200 version of Venture I have so you can see it in action and see that yes one DOES exist (please guys, don't ask for that particular ROM after all I don't want to wind up getting banned after all these years! ?)

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Both episodes have already been filmed, it's just now a matter of both compiling, combining and editing the footage, and adding in the narration during the gameplay, but in these two episodes, I just wish I would've done better in my playing them as much as I've gotten great at reviewing them, but that time will eventually come when I just might have to do an shorter edit of a game review in regards to the gameplay itself, once I get my skills of old, You might think that I might've been going at it for about an hour on it, like I used to during my days in high school at Erikson Center in 1982-84!!!

 

The episodes will be uploaded either later tonight or early tomorrow morning, but I think you'll be impressed, I will even give full credit where full credit is due and mention the programmers of both of these great arcade classics, @Omegamatrix for Venture Reloaded for the 2600, and @playsoft for the 5200 version of Scramble.

 

Well, I've gotta get something to eat right about now, so we'll see you later tonight with the 2 all-new episodes of The Atari Report!!!

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  • 1 month later...
4 minutes ago, Omegamatrix said:

It should be in the next batch of AA releases. Design is 99.9% done, so now it just comes down to Al's hard sweat equity. However, this was the purpose of building the clone army so it should be in good hands, many hands...

Yep, everything will be going to the printers soon!  Boxes, manuals, and labels.  For some games, posters.  For some Jaguar games, one has a soundtrack CD and another has a set of postcards that will be included.  Deepstone Catacomb has a nice, two-sided flyer the author created, which will be included with the game and as a flyer with orders for a while, got that in last week.  It's all coming together, can't wait to have everything in hand!  :D

 

 ..Al 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was digging through boxes and came across this. Completely forgot I had these, and it brought back a flood of memories which made me smile so I thought I would post it.

 

20200925_193552.thumb.jpg.ee7c78b026a8ce6dcbfdf159588edb0d.jpg

 

20200925_194100.thumb.jpg.7194a94f34168a3ff6f751992bee39ea.jpg

 

These overlays are all for Atari carts. Growing up though I had a Colecovision. I remember the Colecovision carts had very similar French overlays which came in the boxes. Seeing the ones I collected later in life for Atari made me feel nostalgic. 

 

I love the Venture overlay. I played Venture for the Colecovision for hours on end as a kid. It's a special game for me and a big part of what drove me to create Venture Reloaded. There's no way that I could have made the effort that I did for it without a real love for the game. Just wouldn't have happened.

 

My one regret is that I don't have my original Colecovision cartridge. What happened is my family moved to a different province when I was teenager. I left a little bit earlier than the rest of my family so that I could start high school on time. When my family arrived I learned that the Colecovision had gotten tossed in the moving purge. Perhaps now Venture Reloaded is redemption for its loss, and it lives again in spirit.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
  • 5 weeks later...
2 hours ago, Albert said:

I had 10" x 14" posters printed for Venture Reloaded, and they will be included free with the game!  This isn't mentioned on the store page for the game yet.  :)  Here's a photo after I opened the box to examine them!

 

VentureReloaded_Posters.jpg

 

 ..Al

:oWow:o they look great! Thank you Al.

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22 hours ago, Albert said:

I had 10" x 14" posters printed for Venture Reloaded, and they will be included free with the game!  This isn't mentioned on the store page for the game yet.  :)  Here's a photo after I opened the box to examine them!

 

VentureReloaded_Posters.jpg

 

 ..Al

It's beautiful. I can't find enough words to fully express myself. I'm so very, very grateful for Nathan's vision, skill, and dedication. Al, without your support and hard work these releases would not be possible. Thank you so much @Nathan Strum and @Albert for making this happen. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

 

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Thanks Omega - yeah, there's something wrong on my side and it's really eluding me. 

 

I tried other F4SC games (DK_VCS, Seaweed Assault, Fatal Run, Cave In, etc) and all run fine. I tried other smaller banked superchip games (like Jr. Pac Man) and those run fine.

 

But Venture Reloaded has all kinds of garbled screen issues for my emulator. I can actually play but the walls appear in such strange locations that it causes all kinds of trippy effects :)

 

My code-base is an older version of Stella (heavily modified to produce maximum speed on the Nintendo DS) and I've done code base compares with later versions and that F4SC stuff hasn't changed in a long time. 

 

Maybe it's something not bankswitching related... is there anything unusual that you do that might give me a clue as to where I've messed up?! Thanks much!

 

image.thumb.png.5c2ea56e0c095c5eb117d066dd52288c.png

 

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Can you post a few more screenshots? Maybe we can spot a pattern.

 

The example you posted looks like there is either a sprite enabled and moving left to right. Or that you have timing issues e.g. with PF writes.

Edited by Thomas Jentzsch
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Thanks guys... I double checked and I think I've got all the illegal opcodes implemented and the cycles for the 3 you mentioned (and all the permutations related to them for various addressing mode) I doubled checked and they look good.

 

In case it helps, here is another screenshot from within a room.

 

image.thumb.png.b3dbbd2e1488e6dd7148f26ed977468f.png

 

Let me also say that the player is moving correctly, firing seems fine, music seems spot-on compared to Harmony - not sure if that helps.

Edited by llabnip
clarification
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Let me add: I did find one possible issue due to the older Stella base I inherited on the StellaDS project - the BCD math was not correct and thanks to Thomas and company for the tip and I have that all fixed (the two binaries on this thread are now GREEN):

 

 

One other thing I did notice is that to get the necessary speed on the "ancient" (15 year old) DS handheld hardware, we use the old 6502 "Low" compatibility timing which is faster but the timing is not accurate down to the sub-instruction level.

 

From the source:

/**
  This class provides a high compatibility 6502 microprocessor emulator.  
  The memory accesses and cycle counts it generates are valid at the
  sub-instruction level and "false" reads are generated (such as the ones 
  produced by the Indirect,X addressing when it crosses a page boundary).
  This provides provides better compatibility for hardware that has side
  effects and for games which are very time sensitive.

  @author  Bradford W. Mott
  @version $Id: M6502Hi.hxx,v 1.2 2002/05/13 19:10:25 stephena Exp $
*/

 

So perhaps that's a possible reason...  It's taken a lot of effort to get most games playable at full speed and good compatibility on the DS so I'm not sure how much I'd pursue adding the more accurate timing. To be honest, I don't know what all the differences are since I haven't looked into it enough yet.


Lastly -  I don't mean to hijack your thread - I've played V-R on my Harmony Cart on a real system and this game is incredible!  Was hopeful to get it running on the DS.

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Finally... got it.

 

It was fast timing vs sub-instruction timing. The only real difference is that the cycles are added all at once in fast timing (with the exception of a few page-boundary crossings where an additional cycle is added) vs. tracking the cycles as the instruction is processed.

 

Almost no games are bothered by the difference... and Stella has long since abandoned fast timing for the more accurate timing.

 

I will probably do the same... maybe.  In my case, I've made it my mission statement with StellaDS (as well as A5200DS and A7800DS) to make it as playable as possible - games first, accuracy second. For a decade, the vast majority of games wouldn't run at any playable speed on the DS. I've reversed that trend - and now most games are playable at full speed and look good - though not always pixel perfect nor, as witnessed here, with perfect timing. Stella has the good fortune of generally running on hardware that is always advancing and so being more accurate is a laudable goal when the hardware is outpacing the software. In my case, the 64MHz workhorse that is the DS isn't getting any faster and so some trade-offs are necessary.

 

Still... it wasn't a huge step back in performance. About a 10% drop in frame rate (Venture Reloaded still runs at 60FPS and actually will run at 64FPS even with "flicker free" mode turned on which blends the last 2 frames to eliminate the flicker).

I'm exhausted. I'm going to go play some Venture!

 

image.png

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