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Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 10:16 am
by sixxie
There seems to be a very rare bug where the screen goes a bit crazy with the game hung. I've seen it in Zombo and Parachute. Here's what happens:

http://www.6809.org.uk/tmp/da/parachute.mp4

Best guess is it's in the sprite drawing routing, exclusive-ORing data onto the screen, but the offsets and counters are screwy.

Also, oddly, sometimes I notice the loading screen is corrupt - like there was a single bad sector read in the middle of it or something, which was ignored. Sometimes a game will crash on starting, which could easily be a similar problem. Hard to know if it's a problem with XRoar's disk emulation in this case though...

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:42 pm
by .mad.
The AGD games only seem to work with Tano Dragon 64 (NTSC) with MAME.
and i havent seen that parachute bug... yet.
using MAME Dragon 64 and they all crash at the loading screen.

so it might be NTSC timing/setting in the conversion tool.
just a wild guess on my part, i have no real clue. ;)

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 5:40 pm
by sixxie
.mad. wrote: Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:42 pm The AGD games only seem to work with Tano Dragon 64 (NTSC) with MAME.
and i havent seen that parachute bug... yet.
using MAME Dragon 64 and they all crash at the loading screen.

so it might be NTSC timing/setting in the conversion tool.
just a wild guess on my part, i have no real clue. ;)
Nah, they all (usually) work fine in XRoar Dragon 64.

Anyway, last I knew, MAME pretty much made the timings of a Dragon 64 be NTSC anyway...

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 6:47 pm
by robcfg
I’ve noticed that on MAME, and maybe this is something to tell to @Pernod70, you get the ntsc color artifacting on pmode 4 (black and white), which pal machines don’t do.

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:38 am
by sixxie
Droid Buster: go up, enter gate, kill droids (assuming you don't die, which you probably will). Exit room, reappear in same, empty room.

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:40 am
by sixxie
I don't get the MAME Dragon thing - so many other fixes have been made, but it's still run as a 60Hz machine defaulting to NTSC display after all this time.

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 10:37 am
by pser1
sixxie wrote: Tue Mar 26, 2019 10:16 am There seems to be a very rare bug where the screen goes a bit crazy with the game hung. I've seen it in Zombo and Parachute. Here's what happens:
http://www.6809.org.uk/tmp/da/parachute.mp4
Best guess is it's in the sprite drawing routing, exclusive-ORing data onto the screen, but the offsets and counters are screwy.
Also, oddly, sometimes I notice the loading screen is corrupt - like there was a single bad sector read in the middle of it or something, which was ignored. Sometimes a game will crash on starting, which could easily be a similar problem. Hard to know if it's a problem with XRoar's disk emulation in this case though...
Hi Ciaran,
we are working on these issues.
- Jumpcollision needed a few command changes, most probably due to the converter
- Parachute did that awful screen only once to me. I have changed a long series of IF to be an IF-ELSE ladder.
It has not happened again, but as it is sooo random it is really complicated to find out the actual reason.
- Zombo works without problems, none of us has suffered the problem. I have recompiled it with last engine version
for maybe it could help.
Concerning the first screen, it is loaded from Basic to RAM and then copied to high RAM after switching to MAP1
I have seen this problem with XRoar but don't remember it on the real Dragon64 or Tano. IIRC it didn't affect playing
but when it happens I use to press break and start all over again ...
We will have a peek at your last finding (Droidbuster).
I plan to release a second update pack with these games together with an extra pack (#26) with a few games we could get to work
cheers
pere

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:09 am
by pser1
sixxie wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:38 am Droid Buster: go up, enter gate, kill droids (assuming you don't die, which you probably will). Exit room, reappear in same, empty room.
Hi Ciaran,
thanks for finding these awful behaviours ...
Again the converter worked wrongly. Just converting again with the very last version solves that problem ...
But this opens Pandora's box
Once entered into the correct screens, I have found a lot of other features that make me think that the game was not designed
with an AGD version compatible with our converter. Anyway I have been making changes to the script and solved most of the
issues. Now there is only an esthetic case where a bullet is not erased while moving so it can leave a white point on the screen
This is not the first game that has this flaw.
I will be making some more tests and finally will add it to the 'update pack #2' to be released very soon.
cheers
pere

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:57 am
by sixxie
pser1 wrote: Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:09 am thanks for finding these awful behaviours ...
Again the converter worked wrongly. Just converting again with the very last version solves that problem ...
But this opens Pandora's box
Oh dear! Well, sounds like the engine & converter are getting better all the time :)

Interesting that the AGD language doesn't seem to be very forward-portable at all... I guess they (just "he"?) must have made fundamental changes to how existing operators functioned.

As for Droid Buster the game - it seems to be incredibly hard even aside from these issues...

Re: AGD converted games. ISSUES found

Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2019 12:30 pm
by pser1
sixxie wrote: Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:57 am Oh dear! Well, sounds like the engine & converter are getting better all the time :)
Interesting that the AGD language doesn't seem to be very forward-portable at all... I guess they (just "he"?) must have made fundamental changes to how existing operators functioned.
As for Droid Buster the game - it seems to be incredibly hard even aside from these issues...
Hi Ciaran,
you have guessed it right!
I have a doc where I can see 35 diferent AGD versions/releases begining with v0.3 and ending with v4.7, not that bad
The big hurdle is that each command in the macro script has a code (token) and unfortunately, as the application grew
they added new commands but let's say they did re-order commands alphabetically and this meant that a certain command
has got different associated token in different versions and this fools the converter, for sure.
I have heard that they are working on an app that would load all the versions and then save them to last version.
This would allow us to get hands on some 40 more games ... just need to wait and see ;-)
Concerning the DroidBuster, you are right, it is almost unplayable due to the easy of being killed :-(
I have modified the script and added a damage control that allows me to play almost with infinite lives (in fact you have only one).
Will try to low it a bit so that it is challenging instead of too easy as is my version right now, but I needed to play!
cheers
pere