Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[Mazzspeed]

OK.

 

I haven't taken a video, I can if you want, but when running pop_DD_DLiTest.atr via RespeQt there's still sector re reads every time the dancing girl moves her hips. The mouse animation seems OK with no sector re reads. I don't know whether loading is faster or whether we've just shuffled things around to give the impression loading is faster. This is at SIO 1x.

 

However the game does, eventually, load fine.

 

None of the updated cart images work on SIDE3, symptoms are still the same with the Atarimax image booting to self test and the other two images booting to a blue screen.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[Synthpopalooza]

Well, I will say:

 

This is easily the best 8-bit port of the game bar none.  Even better than the C64 version.  Christmas has come early.   Already had a play of it in the emulator and I enjoy it thoroughly.

[rensoup]

23 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

I haven't taken a video, I can if you want, but when running pop_DD_DLiTest.atr via RespeQt there's still sector re reads every time the dancing girl moves her hips. The mouse animation seems OK with no sector re reads. I don't know whether loading is faster or whether we've just shuffled things around to give the impression loading is faster. This is at SIO 1x.

Yes updating the dancer causes a delay, but now it's only happening every 2 seconds or so, so yeah it should be faster... XXL told me that I'm not supposed to delay sector reads by more than 4 scanlines... I'll fix that at some point but for now I'll focus on the crashes...

 

23 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

None of the updated cart images work on SIDE3, symptoms are still the same with the Atarimax image booting to self test and the other two images booting to a blue screen.

For Atarimax, there are different versions of the cart so it's possible that yours won't boot at all until I add the extra bootup code.

The weird thing is that before I fixed my DLi issue, it also went into self test when using the 1200XL config.

 

I'm stumped since I've tried so many configs 600/800/1200xl with all sorts of memory extensions (except u1mb as it requires a bios?) and now they all work in Altirra 4.00

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by rensoup
extra

[Wilheim]

Maybe it's a very long shot, but could it be a register (A, X, Y) that is not restored properly during a NMI?

[rensoup]

1 hour ago, Synthpopalooza said:

This is easily the best 8-bit port of the game bar none

someone's actually enjoying the game ?

[rensoup]

27 minutes ago, Wilheim said:

Maybe it's a very long shot, but could it be a register (A, X, Y) that is not restored properly during a NMI?

that would totally fail in Altirra though...

[manterola]

40 minutes ago, rensoup said:

someone's actually enjoying the game ?

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

[rensoup]

1 hour 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.

careful there, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown ?

[rensoup]

Here's an Atarimax test...

 

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

pop_atarimax_boot210614.zip

[+DrVenkman]

3 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Here's an Atarimax test...

It’s essentially bedtime for those of us with day jobs in the eastern half of the US, so I’ll test this tomorrow afternoon.

[Mazzspeed]

42 minutes 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 · 5 downloads

That's a negative Ghostrider, the bugger still boots into self test on SIDE3.

 

EDIT: It's always tried to boot, you get the SIO pips, then it just drops into self test.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[Atari8guy]

1 hour ago, rensoup said:

Here's an Atarimax test...

 

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

 

With AVG cart it still gets the left-hip crash for me.

[tmp]

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)

 

 

[xxl]

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

[Mazzspeed]

8 minutes 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

Tell me. Do you think crap like this is helping?

[xxl]

for innocent users it is crap, but for an experienced atari user there is a solution do not blame me for your disabilities

[Mazzspeed]

7 minutes ago, xxl said:

for innocent users it is crap, but for an experienced atari user there is a solution do not blame me for your disabilities

If you want to resort to personal insults, don't blame me for your haircut.

[xxl]

my hairstyle is beautiful. Besides, I do not insult you, at school when the teacher advises the children to apply themselves to learning, is it an insult? Just because you don't notice something doesn't mean you are worthless. you are a valuable unit in the community. just as flowers bloom by drawing strength from manure, in the atari  environment coders, graphic designers, musicians and designers grows thanks to you, and for you, only by being there.

Thank you for being.

appreciated enough?

 

[Mazzspeed]

4 minutes ago, xxl said:

my hairstyle is beautiful. Besides, I do not insult you, at school when the teacher advises the children to apply themselves to learning, is it an insult? Just because you don't notice something doesn't mean you are worthless. you are a valuable unit in the community. just as flowers bloom by drawing strength from manure, in the atari  environment coders, graphic designers, musicians and designers grows thanks to you, and for you, only by being there.

Thank you for being.

appreciated enough?

 

This isn't even worthy of a reply. Dear Gawd.

 

Now, back to trying to solve the problem as opposed to proving to everyone our head size is XXL...

Edited June 15, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[Mq.]

2 hours ago, tmp said:

atarimax issue could be old vs new atarimax (a different initial bank)

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.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Mq.

[zbyti]

3 minutes 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.

This gentlemen said the true :]

[ilmenit]

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.

[Jacques]

10 hours ago, rensoup said:

That's why there's a cart version... unbelievably, you're still complaining. 

 

Yeah just ignore the fact that I spend weeks optimizing for space and fixing the bugs it caused?

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.

Yes,  there is cart version, although in this case the cart acts as a floppy disk (game still requires 128KB - no problem for me, though), the loadings are still there, wait-animations, too, although much shorter, of course. Sure the intro is suffering much less, almost not at all. Maybe these animations should be shut-off in case of cartridge, to not point out there's still some loading going on and for even better flow.

 

I believe you spent gazillions of hours on the game, since it's incredible conversion, but does it mean nothing can be improved anymore or one should assume it? 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, it simply raises eyebrows why there is this break with so much loading being done already. If whole intro-screens with music loaded once at the time, play fluently and the next loading was just for chamber-scene, the perception would improve, I believe.

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Jacques

[xxl]

10 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.

I hope that I had to delete your account in the atari.pl domain does not affect the ability to see the fact that the version of the cart we are talking about does not have my loader ?

[Luke210]

On 6/14/2021 at 2:06 AM, rensoup said:

 

ouch, is it 100% ?

 

 

No, only happened once. Weird, i know. Anyhow, the game is great, i'm loving it. I managed to get to level 8 yesterday

 

ps. i'm playing on stock 130xe with avgcart, but i've tested it also on 800xe with sdrive and ram extension from zaxon (512 kb rambo).

Edited June 15, 2021 by Luke210