Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[zbyti]

36 minutes ago, ilmenit said:

Guys, yes, the game is using a loader known for causing issues for many, done by disreputable person. It is however decision of @rensoup to use it. Complaining here may discourage the developer, just like it happened in case of Stunt Car Racer, and it's really tiring to read the meaningless scuffles with the loader author.

Yes if anyone will still discuss about XXL stuff in this thread I will hack the AtariAge and give temporary ban to that person  

 

I have notorious reputation in this matter  

Edited June 15, 2021 by zbyti

[Mq.]

I think the trolls are everyone which attack xxl here and there in every thread where xbios or other xxl's stuff appear.
I think every x-series xxl's products are very good in their purposes.
I use x-loader for tapes, which is implemented in newest Turgen system, and it is very good loader, very small and usefull.
I use xbootdos too, which has very low memlo, and is very small too (fits in bootsector).
Next, xbios is one and only loader which allows to simple game developing for cartriges and floppy paralely. It is small, low memory utilising, and very usefull with many options.

As I know, PoP is first big production which is developing such way. So anyone should be helpful instead criticize.
Personaly I will use all that xxl's products, because they are just very good. Not only I do think so, other programmers are going in that same direction too, and that's fine.
If some time ago and now the people would be helpful to improve xbios instead of trolling, then now we could be part of the progress instead of part of the disruption of the comunity.
But I'm sory for off topic, and eot.

 

Good luck with completing the game, which will be very, very good anyway.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Mq.

[xxl]

xBIOS is a good solution, it leaves control over rules that other systems cannot control. it also allows you to bend these rules, but with this comes the danger that someone may also try to break the rules. In other words, if the guidelines are followed, everything will work flawlessly.

[Mq.]

Yes xxl. But please: You are right, but you should be helpful too, so when something is going wrong, then don't be glad that something not works on this or other extension, but think about how to adjust yours software for such configurations if possible (maybe partialy).

 

Anyway, in this case the author have to find all problems systematically, not dependent of xbios. So x-trolling is definitely unwanted.

[globe]

First, big thanks to all involved for absolutely awesome port of a great game.

Keeping my fingers crossed so finishing goes as smoothly as possible.

 

Working my way through the game I found a cosmetic glitch in level  4.

In the room with the mirror blocking player's way if you jump up while being reflected, couple of sprite glitches appears above torches.

[Synthpopalooza]

12 hours ago, manterola said:

The game is wonderful, beautiful and suuuper enjoyable. And on top of that, it is such an staple in classic video game history.

My only regret is I don't have 128K in my 1200XL yet, so it's emulation for me.  Amazing feat this is and what we deserved back in the day.

[Wilheim]

Well, I tested on real Atarimax flash cartridges. I have an older (bank 127) and newer (bank 0) ones. Used the first 20210614 version.

 

I could see that it worked fine on the real older bank 127 cartridge, sometimes it doesn't boot. Not sure if it's and issue of the cartridge or not. On the other hand, I see that it just doesn't work on the newer cartridge with initial bank 0.

 

I just did a quick view to the first 20210614 Atarimax rom, and I see it only works with bank 127 as init bank. That leaves out every Atarimax cartridge with init bank 0.

 

@xxl does XBIOS feature handling both atarimax version on the same rom image? If not, is it possible to add it? I think it would be a great feature!

[ivop]

5 hours ago, Mq. said:

because they are just very good.

And Open Source, so if somebody doesn't like how some things are handled, that somebody can change it to their own liking. Oh, the forks of xBIOS!

Edited June 15, 2021 by ivop

[xxl]

9 minutes ago, Wilheim said:

xxl does XBIOS feature handling both atarimax version on the same rom image? If not, is it possible to add it? I think it would be a great feature!

of course yes, but remember that the CAR version of PoP doesn't use xB.

[Wrathchild]

 

27 minutes ago, Wilheim said:

That leaves out every Atarimax cartridge with init bank 0.

 

This is something rensoup is already aware off and intends to resolve.

 

Remember that the bank 0 version has no id mapper in Altirra and so as a matter of course with AtariMax 8Mbit implementations it is a good idea to use bank 127 as a redirect to bank 0 so that the same image will work on both versions and support the '42/$2A' in the CAR header for emulation / cart image supporting carts like AVG.  

Edited June 15, 2021 by Wrathchild
and->as

[Wilheim]

Just now, Wrathchild said:

 

 

This is something rensoup is already aware off and intends to resolve.

 

Remember that the bank 0 version has no id mapper in Altirra and so as a matter of course with AtariMax 8Mbit implementations it is a good idea to use bank 127 and a redirect to bank 0 so that the same image will work on both versions and support the '42/$2A' in the CAR header for emulation / cart image supporting carts like AVG.  

Ok, I just gave my feedback. I'm not following every post on here and I wasn't sure if @rensoup is fully aware.

 

I do my cartridge conversions the same way you described, in order to gave support to both formats as well. It's a good practice.

 

[globe]

One more bug report:

 

Encountered a crash in level 9 in a room with small poison potion after a hallway with two slicers.

 

 

Rest is all cosmetics or small details:

 

During the last minute countdown the timer blinks, in some rooms it's more noticeable than in others (timeout1.avi, timeout2.avi)

 

Level 5 - pillar base outlines started to blink as soon as I climbed down to get HP flask and didn't stop till I climbed back up (blinking pillar bases.avi)

Barely noticeable but strange.

 

Level 7 - after getting knocked down by a guard, he didn't follow and stayed glued to the edge of upper platform knocking me down (without damage) each time I climbed back. Tried to reset his position by running around, leaving room, even going farther away but it didn't help. Not game breaking but slightly annoying because only way to proceed was suicide. This happens rarely, during several hours of play I only encountered it twice in the same place. (guard knockdown.avi)

 

Level 8 - when climbing platforms on far right side of the level, player's sprite parts are not masked like elsewhere.

[+DjayBee]

1 hour ago, globe said:

Encountered a crash in level 9 in a room with small poison potion after a hallway with two slicers.

Push F8 and see what happens.

 

Following this thread it seems that rensoup used KIL opcodes in several places. On hardware this calls an interrupt and usually continues.

The emulator jumps to the debugger and will probably continue as expected (if you "continue" which is F8).

Edited June 15, 2021 by DjayBee

[globe]

26 minutes ago, DjayBee said:

Push F8 and see what happens.

I'll try next time I get there.

[xxl]

  

5 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Here's an update for the SIDE3 loader which includes some fixes for MegaCart and Sic! cart types, the addition of type 75 (AtariMax 1MB 'New', startup bank 0) and correction of AtariMax 1MB tyie 42 (startup bank 127).

  

4 hours ago, phigan said:

Applied this update and all three of those PoP carts now work for me. Stock 130XE.

 

how it's possible? it turned out it's not my fault? it was enough to implement the second part of the Atarimax standard in SIDEB? maybe they implement the second half of the PIA addressing standard in U1MB? although not ... I will be the first person in history to have my own "Guru Meditation" option in HW :D

 

 

which of course does not exhaust the topic ... The PoP should have the first bank corrected anyway.

Edited June 15, 2021 by xxl

[Atari8guy]

14 hours ago, tmp said:

just a few thoughts, 8bitguy1 is having crashes on u1mb xegs (but not u1mb 800xl), it might be related to enabling xegs missile rom somewhere during loading (which seems to be happening, $b2 to portb), try switching to xegs in altirra to reproduce

atarimax issue could be old vs new atarimax (a different initial bank), side3 might be emulating the other version than the rest of multicarts (speculation)

 

 

Just further to this.  Removing the XEGS jumper from my U1MB allows the XEGS to run the game.  As tmp speculated....

[globe]

1 hour ago, DjayBee said:

Push F8 and see what happens.

After mashing and holding F8 for a few moments (KILL was triggered 5 times per frame) I made it out of the cursed KILL room.

 

To my surprise after finishing last demo level, I got into next one and still was able to move around a bit.

 

 

 

[Mazzspeed]

2 hours ago, xxl said:

  

  

 

how it's possible? it turned out it's not my fault? it was enough to implement the second part of the Atarimax standard in SIDEB? maybe they implement the second half of the PIA addressing standard in U1MB? although not ... I will be the first person in history to have my own "Guru Meditation" option in HW :D

 

 

which of course does not exhaust the topic ... The PoP should have the first bank corrected anyway.

You need to understand that your actions indirectly caused part of this problem.

 

Had you been an approachable and friendly contributor that didn't have a history of deliberately manipulating software under certain hardware configurations and posting snide remarks regarding certain hardware, a certain conflict between two developers wouldn't have even happened in another thread - Meaning a certain individual would have seen the problem and corrected it in a quick and timely manner, or the lead developer of PoP would have felt comfortable contacting FJC and asking for assistance. Luckily FJC was notified of the situation he otherwise would not have seen and corrected the issue.

 

It's situations such as this that hold the A8 back as a platform.

 

Don't bother with your mishmash of words as a reply, I'm not interested. But understand, you created the issue you're in - Respect is earned. I'm sure you're a good coder, but your attitude sucks.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[rensoup]

16 hours ago, xxl said:

very possible, people have some habits, so just like u1mb emulates just half of the standard PIA $D3xx similarly SIDEB half of the Atarimax standard, probably the last bank emulation is missing and there is only the first one bank emulation  I know - I'm malicious

 

14 hours ago, Mq. said:

This is important thing. Some Atarimax 8Mbit starts with bank 0 on, and some of them starts with bank 127 on. This is because of minor phisical differences of cartridge production revisions. Because of that there are two types of Atarimax cartridges emulated in Altirra, called "new" and "old". To do correct cartridge image, which will work for everyone, it should be cartridge boot code placed both in bank 0 and 127. Then no matter what version of cartridge you have, it will work on every of them. Additionally we probably don't know which version of Atarimax is emulated on multicartridges, but it doesn't matter, if we will code both banks 0 and 127 in the cartridge image for universal work.

 

14 hours ago, zbyti said:

This gentlemen said the true :]

 

That's right, and the test from earlier corrected that:

 

18 hours ago, rensoup said:

Here's an Atarimax test...

 

I'm curious if it boots at all or still goes into self test ???

pop_atarimax_boot210614.zip 146.03 kB · 13 downloads

 

But it still went into self test because the Side3 firmware turned out to be buggy... Not sure how Space Harrier worked with it though...

 

 

[rensoup]

10 hours ago, globe said:

First, big thanks to all involved for absolutely awesome port of a great game.

Keeping my fingers crossed so finishing goes as smoothly as possible.

 

Working my way through the game I found a cosmetic glitch in level  4.

In the room with the mirror blocking player's way if you jump up while being reflected, couple of sprite glitches appears above torches.

Thanks, yeah I'm aware of it... not sure it's worth fixing though... because modifying that code means retesting the whole game carefully...

 

There are other graphics glitches that also on most(all?) 8bit plaftorms I think, and it hasn't been a problem.

[rensoup]

4 hours ago, globe said:

One more bug report:

 

Encountered a crash in level 9 in a room with small poison potion after a hallway with two slicers.

Nice skills, getting to Level 9 isn't that easy!

 

Thanks for the bug report, you caught the DLI assert meaning my code messed up setting the DLIs for PMG reuse... Damn!

 

I'm going to change that KIL to a color flicker.

 

I can't play your avis with VLC btw.

 

 

[ivop]

6 hours ago, Wrathchild said:

Remember that the bank 0 version has no id mapper in Altirra and so

Does that mean Altirra doesn't support the new "bank 0" version cartridges? If so, perhaps @phaeron could add it.

Edited June 15, 2021 by ivop

[Wilheim]

3 minutes ago, ivop said:

Does that mean Altirra doesn't support the new "bank 0" version cartridges? If so, perhaps @phaeron could add it.

It does support it, but because there is no "formal" ID for that type of cartridge, it doesn't bring a .CAR header.

[candle]

19 minutes ago, rensoup said:

I can't play your avis with VLC btw.

i can...

you need ZMBV codec or similiar - mine apperantly came with dosbox installation

 

[rensoup]

14 hours ago, Jacques said:

Why "complaining"? ? Why do you need to put an opinion in negative context immediately? There's a new pre-release demo which obviously triggers discussion.

If you keep mentioning the same loading speed issue while ignoring the fact that there is a cart version, that's complaining.

 

That's like saying your regular Coke has too much sugar while there's a 0% next to it but you can't be bothered to extend your arm to get it.

 

Saying that it's not a real cart version because it requires 128KB of RAM is equally silly. You could say the same about any cart requiring 64KB of RAM not being able to run with 16KB of RAM. 

 

The Atari version sticks to the original Apple2 limits. I want to make the best looking version, you seem to want the fastest loading one, that's not the version I'm making otherwise I'd just go the CPC464 way and chop all the animations and there you go: fast loading! How about all backgrounds in monochrome for even faster loading?

 

You're complaining the cart version isn't fast enough because it's streaming.... That's called decompression, something that a lot of cartridge games on all sorts of platforms have used forever. Somehow you're oversensitive to it just for PoP.

 

14 hours ago, Jacques said:

When there's around 1 minute of loading to display 3 static screens, and then the music stops  for another almost 10 seconds to display title-screen,

Ignoring the cart version then...

 

That's because there are technical implications that you can't be bothered to hear (same with XBIOS) but I'll try anyway.

 

I don't erase everything that's not needed because I'd rather have the game load faster than have the attract mode load fast. How many times do you watch the attract mode vs how many times do you play the game ?

The SD version has the some of the sprites on Disk1,  if I erased those, the user would have to flip the disks constantly.