U1MB, Incognito, SIDE2, SIDE3, 1088XEL/XLD Firmware 4.0 Released

[phigan]

33 minutes 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).

 

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

 

Thanks, FJC.

Edited June 15, 2021 by phigan
Adding HW.

[+DrVenkman]

I’ll give these updates a shot this afternoon after work. Thanks, Jon!

[flashjazzcat]

13 minutes ago, phigan said:

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

Thank you for fast confirmation.

 

[Mazzspeed]

8 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).

s3loader_0.39_150621.zip 33.06 kB · 9 downloads

 

In addition, a bug in 'Hard Emulation' mode concerning only AtariMax 1MB images has been corrected. Note that the activation of 'Hard emulation' mode is rarely required (and was not even required for the test cases), but a problem was noticed and corrected anyway.

 

Many thanks to @Wrathchild for reaching out by PM regarding issues with the recently released PoP images. Had he not got in touch, I would never have been aware of the issues which required attention (no issues at all having been reported from other sources before these images were released). Apologies for any inconvenience caused and for any confusion regarding the reason for issues (although I understand that the cart images in question had/have some issues of their own, disconnected from the SIDE3 cartridge emulation table errors; nevertheless, everything I was sent now appears to work, whether patched or not).

 

As tirelessly stated already: I am anxious to hear of problems which might plausibly be caused by bugs in the firmware, loader, etc; less so regarding issues caused by software which is self-evidently, or by design, incompatible with the firmware and hardware under discussion. Problems falling into the latter category need to be taken up with the provider of the boot loader, etc.

In any case: I would appeciate any testing of the loader update, and once I am sure the corrections did not cause breakage elsewhere, I will absorb this build into the firmware set on the webite.

 

The Atarimax image boots to a black screen for me, but the other two images work fine. Thanks FJC.

 

I was going to reach out, but personally I believe that's something the lead developer should do regarding issues on certain hardware, which obviously wasn't going to happen due to past conflicts that are no fault of your own. Secondly, I thought you might stumble across the thread, obviously not and after reading the posts regarding he with the user name that's a measurement of his ego, I totally understand why you would have blocked it.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[flashjazzcat]

5 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

The Atarimax image boots to a black screen for me

If you post the image which boots to a black screen for you here, I will check it out. There have been numerous patched images with 'DLI fixes', 'KIL fixes', etc, so this would save time and avoid confusion.

 

[Mazzspeed]

I tried the original Atarimax release here:

 

PoP_Atarimax_20210610.car

 

And the release modified by Rensoup here:

 

pop_atarimax_DLiTest.car

 

 

[+DrVenkman]

Just following - I flashed my SIDE3 with the new Loader version and now all 6 versions of the PoP .CAR that @rensoup has posted load properly on my U1MB-equipped 1200XL - the "official" June 10th builds posted in the first post of the game's thread here, as well as the later three test/demo builds he posted here.

 

So, too, does @Wrathchild's test "no KIL" version he posted here.

 

So all 7 .CAR builds above load perfectly on my SIDE3.

 

???

Edited June 15, 2021 by DrVenkman
typo

[Mazzspeed]

8 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

Just following - I flashed my SIDE3 with the new Loader version and now all 6 versions of the PoP .CAR that @rensoup has posted load properly on my U1MB-equipped 1200XL - the "official" June 10th builds posted in the first post of the game's thread here, as well as the later three test/demo builds he posted here.

 

So, too, does @Wrathchild's test "no KIL" version he posted here.

 

So all 7 .CAR builds above load perfectly on my SIDE3.

 

???

I assume your system is NTSC DrVenkman? I wonder if that's why the Atarimax image won't load for me as a PAL user?

 

Not that it's that big a deal.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[+DrVenkman]

4 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

I assume your system is NTSC DrVenkman? I wonder if that's why the Atarimax image won't load for me as a PAL user?

 

Not that it's that big a deal.

Yes, it is. The only PAL machine I have is my 1088XLD, and although it does technically have a cartridge port, it's internal and I can't plug anything into it easily. A tiny UNO Cart fits great and just barely allows putting the cover on and keeping it in there full-time, but the UNO Cart won't run PoP anyway since even the smallest .CAR image is 256K (UNO is limited to 128K carts). 

 

BTW, for FJC - I also tested the new Loader with my SIDE3 plugged awkwardly into my Incognito 800 and got identical performance - all 7 versions I linked above loaded up fine.

 

[flashjazzcat]

Yeah: without actually downloading the two posted images and testing them (which I can't do until tomorrow), the filenames correspond to what I already found to work here on a PAL system. Perhaps there's some other unknown dependency we don't yet know about.

[Wrathchild]

The KIL supposedly stop the processor and so it could just be a timing thing and that is occurring before the dancer is drawn on your machine. However with the DLI test, this is instead supposed to go into a red screen, so the maybe something specific to your setup, either way, best await the next release version.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Wrathchild

[+DrVenkman]

Well, not being content to leave well enough alone, I decided to try the PoP .CAR files on my 1088XEL from the SIDE3. Unfortunately, they all freeze after 10-12 "hip bumps" from the dancing girl, always to the viewer's left (her right). I realized my XEL hadn't yet been updated to Jon's latest firmware so I flashed the U1MB XEL firmware and tried again but as expected it made no difference. 

 

As far as I can tell, the U1MB settings are generally the same, though I tried various combos. None of them allowed loading the .CAR files from my XEL using the SIDE3 even though the same device works for loading them on my 1200XL and my Incognito 800. Weird. 

[Wrathchild]

11 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

my XEL hadn't yet been updated to Jon's latest firmware so I flashed the U1MB XEL firmware and tried again

Isn't that from 6th June and so you haven't mentioned if you've updated the side loader with the new one on this thread afterwards?

 

[Edit] scrap that idea, the side loader is in the cart isn't it... doh

Edited June 15, 2021 by Wrathchild

[+DrVenkman]

4 minutes ago, Wrathchild said:

Isn't that from 6th June and so you haven't mentioned if you've updated the side loader with the new one on this thread afterwards?

 

[Edit] scrap that idea, the side loader is in the cart isn't it... doh

Yeah. This issue is fundamentally something about the way the game loads, because none of the file versions will load on my XEL via FujiNet either. I could drag my laptop over to it AGAIN and try loading via the built-in SIO2PC-USB interface and RespeQt but ... if it doesn't load via cart, and doesn't load via FujiNet ... it's something in the game loader.

[Wrathchild]

However the KIL fix  should get further I would think although as this could mask or culminate in other issues was only a test, so again is best await the next release although does give Jon something to look at.

[chevymad]

My 1088xel/pal/vbxe will load the DD file version no problem via fujinet. I'm not sure I have any way of loading the .car versions though other then programming my atarimax cart.

[Mazzspeed]

I'm not fussed, the other two .CRT images work fine and loading is a metric tonne faster than xbios via slower than SIO 1x.

 

 

[+DrVenkman]

16 minutes ago, chevymad said:

My 1088xel/pal/vbxe will load the DD file version no problem via fujinet. I'm not sure I have any way of loading the .car versions though other then programming my atarimax cart.

My PAL XEL also loads the DD version over FujiNet, not just the DLI fix version. 

 Makes me think it’s a timing issue in the game’s loader. Nothing to do specifically with Jon’s U1MB firmware except for maybe how the same SIDE3 hardware behaves differently in three different host machines. And that maybe something he has no control over. 

[flashjazzcat]

If there are any doubts about the integrity of SIDE3 data transfer on various machines owing to hardware quirks, it would be a good idea to test different games and demos on those machines to try and eliminate any issues with PoP itself.

[Roydea6]

10 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

In any case: I would appeciate any testing of the loader update, and once I am sure the corrections did not cause breakage elsewhere, I will absorb this build into the firmware set on the webite.

 

I was using my Side3 cartridge with a 130xe and Antonia 4mb by Simius and flashed this new loader and now have no media found and the clock icon just keeps spinning.  I moved the Side3 cartridge to my 800xl u1m installed and with the 800xl with u1m the sd3loader works great.

 

But not with the 130xe with the 4mb antonia upgrade.

 

[flashjazzcat]

6 hours ago, Roydea6 said:

I was using my Side3 cartridge with a 130xe and Antonia 4mb by Simius and flashed this new loader and now have no media found and the clock icon just keeps spinning.  I moved the Side3 cartridge to my 800xl u1m installed and with the 800xl with u1m the sd3loader works great.

 

But not with the 130xe with the 4mb antonia upgrade.

Zero chance this was caused by changes in the cartridge emulation table between 0.38 and 0.39.

[Level42]

8 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

If there are any doubts about the integrity of SIDE3 data transfer on various machines owing to hardware quirks, it would be a good idea to test different games and demos on those machines to try and eliminate any issues with PoP itself.

I have some funky stuff going on, but so far I blamed AntiX to be the cause, but I'm not so sure anymore. I have very little free time at the moment but will try to report any findings.

B.t.w., thanks for fixing the PoP loading issue, I'll download and flash the new firmware and post my results ASAP.

 

[flashjazzcat]

OK: Just tested NINE cart builds on my PAL U1MB 600XL (the seven already existing versions and the two Mazzspeed uploaded in case they were corrupted, etc) with SIDE3 Loader 0.39 and they all worked. Bearing in mind that once the cartridge image has been DMA'd into SRAM, the loader calls a completely clean OS coldstart with the cart's start bank in position, there are only two likely places where problems can occur:

• Transfer errors when loading the data, which would affect all your cart loading operations
• Indeterminate behaviours caused by uninitialised memory, interrupt setup, etc

With cart images, the speed of loading can make no difference at all, since once the data is present and the cart space turned into ROM, an OS coldstart is triggered. So the onus at that point is pretty much on the cartridge image itself to work properly (unless you already observed endemic stability issues with other titles).

[Level42]

Just flashed the new Side3 loader and all cartridge versions of PoP I throw at it now load absolutely fine in both NTSC and PAL ANTIC setting of AntiX (the actual switching process between them is something else though....but that's completely unrelated). 

To be complete this is my system:

Atari 600XL (PAL machine)
PAL GTIA
U1MB
StereoPOKEY
Sophia 1 RGB
AntiX

Glad I asked about this. It triggered Rensoup to release the cartridge versions (completely omitting the need for XBIOS) and FJC to make a small fix to Side3 loader. 
 

it works: I’m happy

here’s a picture of it in PAL ANTIC setting:

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Level42

[Level42]

Here’s NTSC ANTIC setting:

as expected faster and different colours, normal behaviour.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Level42