xxl Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 54 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said: I loaded up the 1st ATR disk A. Initially I get the A8 blue screen 53 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said: testing on my 65XE 320K A8 after flashing my SIDE3 this device does not have full ATR emulation, use the version dedicated to your device, eg Atarimax. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 2 hours ago, Beeblebrox said: Cart Versions: Atarimax:PoP_Atarimax_20210610.rar - N/A as don't have a 1MB setup to test on Errrm, the Atarimax version is 8Mbit/1MB in size, but does not require a computer with 1MB RAM. A computer with 128k RAM (or maybe just 64k RAM? -have not tested-) would be enough. The same is true for the other cart versions, Megacart and SIC! versions of POP do not require 320k RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 3 hours ago, Beeblebrox said: Honestly ...the intro animation - a joy to watch! I love the Sultan's cape animation as he turns to leave! Animation is great. Can't wait to see more colours coming into the cut scene in future releases, (I'm sure I read somewhere there this is the plan for the final release.) Agreed, and I think @TIX will be pleased to read that too! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 14 hours ago, Jacques said: If there's no way, then there's no way. Thanks for explaining ? It's always possible to have an optional RAMdisk but as you can see this is messy enough already... 3 hours ago, Jacques said: Today I ran PoP DD version attract mode in a loop on 130XE with real disk drive and it froze during one of loadings (mouse) on 3rd iteration, iirc. I think similiar issues were reported already, just want to confirm it happening on my hardware. Does it happen all the time on the 3rd iteration ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 1 hour ago, CharlieChaplin said: A computer with 128k RAM (or maybe just 64k RAM? -have not tested-) would be enough. The game requires 128K; it says so right after loading. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 I tried to load the game again from my SIDE3 Cart on my 1088XEL (NTSC), but no dice. In every instance the game freezes during the cart load animation. I then tried again with my FuijNet. The DD ATR from the first post gets into loading but freezes right about the time the animation changes from the dancing girl to the mouse. The exact same symptoms occur at the same point with the DLI fix test demo posted. Meanwhile, the .CAR binaries still load and play as normal on my 1200XL+U1MB from the same SIDE3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 2 hours ago, xxl said: this device does not have full ATR emulation, use the version dedicated to your device, eg Atarimax. really ? I'm kind of losing track of what works and what doesn't... some folks have reported ot works with fujinet but I don't really know how those devices are interconnected. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazzspeed Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 1 minute ago, rensoup said: really ? I'm kind of losing track of what works and what doesn't... some folks have reported ot works with fujinet but I don't really know how those devices are interconnected. I can load from FujiNet-PC reliably over and over again at SIO 1x, which technically should be almost identical to stand alone FujiNet I assume. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 6 minutes ago, DrVenkman said: I tried to load the game again from my SIDE3 Cart on my 1088XEL (NTSC), but no dice. In every instance the game freezes during the cart load animation. I'm really starting to think there's an compatibility issue with that machine... I don't think anybody reported it not working on original Ataris (at least one of the versions worked for everybody ?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, rensoup said: I'm kind of losing track of what works and what doesn't... some folks have reported ot works with fujinet but I don't really know how those devices are interconnected There are still timing issues with the loader being used by this game. The very same FujiNet device reliably loads the game on my PAL 1088XLD, but fails 100% of the time with my NTSC 1088XEL. Both of these machines are 100% reliable, both built by me within the last 2-3 years, and before this game have NEVER failed to load a game that works on other vintage hardware. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elkino Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 (edited) On 6/14/2021 at 10:40 PM, 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 · 23 downloads Awesome!!! This atarimax car load and shows presentation and initial demo. No playable. Works for me on NTSC 600XL expanded with 1MB and SIDE3 cartrige!!! Edited June 16, 2021 by Elkino 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 2 minutes ago, rensoup said: I'm really starting to think there's an compatibility issue with that machine... I don't think anybody reported it not working on original Ataris (at least one of the versions worked for everybody ?) This is the first and ONLY NTSC title that has failed to run on this hardware. As painful as it is to hear, it seems very much to me to be the loading code present in both the .CAR and ATR versions during that animation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 16 hours ago, Mq. said: Ok. I just tested this Atarimax cartridge image, and it works for me properly in Altirra, and in my own project cartridge compatible with Atarimax too (on real machine). But this version is not able to play the game. Game starts, intro works, every screens appears one by one as expected, and then it starts in demo mode (attract mode). Is it ok, was that version intentionaly made like this? yes intentional, I'll add it to the filename next time. Thanks for the info about Atarimax, I'll update the cart! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 7 minutes ago, DrVenkman said: This is the first and ONLY NTSC title that has failed to run on this hardware. As painful as it is to hear, it seems very much to me to be the loading code present in both the .CAR and ATR versions during that animation. Like I said, the CAR and Disk versions don't use the same loading code at all, the only thing that's common is the decompressor (unlikely to cause any harm) and the animation itself which plays inside the VBi and takes too long causing the disk version to retry... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 (edited) 11 minutes ago, rensoup said: and the animation itself which plays inside the VBi and takes too long causing the disk version to retry... The animation also plays during CAR loading and that's where the game is hanging on this machine, right about the time the animation is supposed to change to mouse for a moment before the text intro screen. Edited June 16, 2021 by DrVenkman Clarification Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 (edited) New test version... UNPLAYABLE (3 versions Amax Megac DDATR) -fixes the Atarimax issues that @Mq. mentioned. -has my beautiful hack to take out the dancing girl anim out of the VBi -slightly more robust boot process (reset stack ptr just in case, write to NMIRES) the hack involves changing the RTI return address in the VBi, to redirect it to the animation code which then returns to the original RTI return address. I like this hack, it's almost like multitasking ?. Now I don't have a clue how well it works outside Altirra of course! Let me know how it goes... pop_bhack_2106017.zip Edit: I just realized that the hack may not actually do much since it's still going to block disk access polling... damn.... Edited June 16, 2021 by rensoup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 10 minutes ago, DrVenkman said: The animation also plays during CAR loading and that's where the game is hanging on this machine, right about the time the animation is supposed to change to mouse for a moment before the text intro screen. The problem is the exact timing... I'd need to set the background color for debugging purposes to figure that out... The moment the mouse shows up is (or used to be, because I've changed it now) when it loads graphics data, so the game has already been initialized. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mq. Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 45 minutes ago, rensoup said: New test version... UNPLAYABLE (3 versions Amax Megac DDATR) -fixes the Atarimax issues that @Mq. mentioned. -has my beautiful hack to take out the dancing girl anim out of the VBi -slightly more robust boot process (reset stack ptr just in case, write to NMIRES) the hack involves changing the RTI return address in the VBi, to redirect it to the animation code which then returns to the original RTI return address. I like this hack, it's almost like multitasking ?. Now I don't have a clue how well it works outside Altirra of course! Let me know how it goes... pop_bhack_2106017.zip 436.9 kB · 4 downloads Edit: I just realized that the hack may not actually do much since it's still going to block disk access polling... damn.... I tested Atarimax image. Works perfectly for me: - in altirra as older cartridge (bank 127) - in altirra as newer cartridge (bank 127) - on real machine in my cartridge compatible with Atarimax with full two memory chips (8Mbit, starting from bank 0) - on real machine in my cartridge compatible with Atarimax with one memory chip only (4Mbit, starting from bank 0) The atr generated from Maxflash Studio is now less then 180kB, so it fits on DD disk if someone need it. I attach such atr, which programs Atarimax cartridge properly in Atari (real machine, and emulator). Thanks a lot for this fixes! pop_atarimax_beautifulhack_NOTPLAYABLE210617.atr 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 2 hours ago, rensoup said: The problem is the exact timing... I'd need to set the background color for debugging purposes to figure that out... The moment the mouse shows up is (or used to be, because I've changed it now) when it loads graphics data, so the game has already been initialized. I'm happy to try any test builds if you want. I'm really stumped why my 1088XEL is acting so differently with these .CAR files and binaries as opposed to my U1MB 1200XL and Incognito 800. This XEL is a seriously solid machine and I'm astounded it is choking on this one game when the older machines handle it well now. If you have any suggestions or tests you'd like me to make to help improve compatibility, I'm all ears. The only thing I can think of is some small otherwise-innocuous differences in the XEL/CEF version of the U1MB firmware that @flashjazzcat builds, or some odd difference in architecture that @mytek might understand that escapes me. The fact that this machine chokes on both the SIDE3 .CAR binaries *and* loading over SIO is perplexing. (*) (*) FOOTNOTE: I tried tonight to load via the XEL's Sparkfun USB-to-SIO interface and it fails even sooner than loading from FujiNet or via the SIDE3. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chevymad Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, DrVenkman said: I tried to load the game again from my SIDE3 Cart on my 1088XEL (NTSC), but no dice. In every instance the game freezes during the cart load animation. I then tried again with my FuijNet. The DD ATR from the first post gets into loading but freezes right about the time the animation changes from the dancing girl to the mouse. The exact same symptoms occur at the same point with the DLI fix test demo posted. Meanwhile, the .CAR binaries still load and play as normal on my 1200XL+U1MB from the same SIDE3. Just want to point out that my 1088xel/vbxe PAL machine will load the DD file through fujinet fine. So the difference between working/not working between our 2 machines might be pal vs ntsc. Not so much pointing that out to DrVenkman, more so for anyone trying to work out the problem. Edited June 17, 2021 by chevymad 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazzspeed Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 1 hour ago, chevymad said: Just want to point out that my 1088xel/vbxe PAL machine will load the DD file through fujinet fine. So the difference between working/not working between our 2 machines might be pal vs ntsc. Not so much pointing that out to DrVenkman, more so for anyone trying to work out the problem. My 600XL is also PAL and loads the DD release via FujiNet-PC just fine. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxl Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 5 hours ago, rensoup said: really ? I'm kind of losing track of what works and what doesn't... some folks have reported ot works with fujinet but I don't really know how those devices are interconnected. he tried to run the DD version on SIDE3 - SIDE3 has full ATR emulation on ads only. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxl Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 (edited) tests should be performed on original equipment. after stability, on copies or self-made devices - what is a hardware or PoP test? Edited June 17, 2021 by xxl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 17, 2021 Author Share Posted June 17, 2021 3 hours ago, DrVenkman said: I'm happy to try any test builds if you want. I'm really stumped why my 1088XEL is acting so differently with these .CAR files and binaries as opposed to my U1MB 1200XL and Incognito 800. This XEL is a seriously solid machine and I'm astounded it is choking on this one game when the older machines handle it well now. For now I'm trying to improve things where I know there is a problem, and rejigging some code that may potentially be flawed... so if you could keep testing those new builds and let me know the results? Once the number of configs that fail has gone down, I could start making builds with color changes that show loading progression. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rensoup Posted June 17, 2021 Author Share Posted June 17, 2021 26 minutes ago, xxl said: tests should be performed on original equipment. after stability, on copies or self-made devices - what is a hardware or PoP test? not sure what you mean ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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