Hi guys,

I tried CE today and it doesn't work for me :( I see logo but when music should start, the soundtrack gets corrupted and game crashes...

I tried plain ST version, caches&16 mhz on/off, just pure ctrl boot into tos 4.04...

mikro wrote on 29.10.08 at 20:50:27:

Hi guys, I tried CE today and it doesn't work for me :( I see logo but when music should start, the soundtrack gets corrupted and game crashes... I tried plain ST version, caches&16 mhz on/off, just pure ctrl boot into tos 4.04...

Do you refer to the intro? You can skip it if it crashes there.

Very weird though. Maybe re-download the archive or re-transfer the files to your Falcon?

Awaiting for your reply....

hi there,

1. no, download is 100% ok -- it's zip after all, no corruption possible without notice

2. yes, when i skip intro, game continues...

3. ... into some kind of "interlace", it looks really funny. when i don't activate cache/16mhz, it looks a bit better but it's still here. this effect disappears in the main game but i see jerky line in the bottom panel

4. that game kills everything in my falcon ;-) I press hard reset and harddisk is not found anymore! i have to switch off (!!!) the machine. wow. ;)

mikro wrote on 30.10.08 at 22:03:24:

3. ... into some kind of "interlace", it looks really funny. when i don't activate cache/16mhz, it looks a bit better but it's still here. this effect disappears in the main game but i see jerky line in the bottom panel

Hmm, that should be the bitplane shifting. I thought I fixed that one. I'll take another look over the weekend and will let you know :)

Hi Mikro (and anyone else experiencing this problem).

I built 3 different loaders for you to try out (skip the intro please).


Awaiting for your reply! (God I sometimes wish there was an inexpensive way for people sending their machines over for testing!)

[EDIT] Attatchments deleted from this post, as they didn't work

He ggn,

sorry to keep you waiting so long. Not good news after all: all three versions lock in the intro screen :/

mikro wrote on 06.11.08 at 23:20:57:

He ggn, sorry to keep you waiting so long. Not good news after all: all three versions lock in the intro screen :/

Hmmm ok, did you try skipping the intro?

we don't understand each other -- intro screen with dbug logo, crack info and music ;-)

Well, my intro, the Bitmaps' intro, what's the difference eh? ;) (although my intro is very easily skippable :))

Anyway, sorry for the cock-up, here's the proper versions of the loader (tested this time :))

(I would bet my money on mikro2, but I'll let you find out for yourself...)

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ggn wrote on 07.11.08 at 22:42:23:

(I would bet my money on mikro2, but I'll let you find out for yourself...)

Bet in what sense? This version is the worst one ;-) v1 and v3 seems to be working from the beginning (no "interlace") but when second loading appears, interlace is here again. v2 -- totally messed up bitplanes.

Sorry for delay, I'd like to tell you more positive news..

Hi there,

Some techincal info follows...

Does the game looks something like the attached pic? If I understood correctly so far, I would guess so. So let me quote master Paranoid's highly authorative STE FAQ here:


Quote:

? So now i fixed it and it works fine on the STE, but often enough,  bitplanes are screwed up on the Falcon. Why ? ! Remember that the Falcon only allows screen addresses as multiples  of 4, which is not as flexible as on the STE, where it only has to  be a multiple of 2. This is also the case for the Video Counter  Registerts, not only for the Video Base Address.  Make sure that your screen data is stored on an address that is  a multiple of 4 and it will work.

Guessed it yet?


When I tried Chaos engine on the Falcon, I got a screen like the attached one (which I assume is the one you're getting). It took me quite a long time to figure out, but in the end I just aligned the screen buffer in a multiple of 4 and it all worked. I even sent it to my usual testers and all gave me the green light. Great, I thought, release time!

Then you mentioned the problem on your falcon. Which is kinda puzzling I must confess! The only thing I could come up with is that for some reason your Falcon isn't aligning the video base address properly, so I assembled 3 versions, first aligned to 4 bytes, second on first +2, and third on address +4. I thought that at least one of those would work out for you...

So if this is what you're seeing then I have to admit that I'm at the end of my wits here  :-/. The only possible suggestion I can come up with would be to try from alt-boot and load it from floppy. Any exotic hardware installed on your falcon? (mine has a ct63, no problems).

What's your Falcon doing around Outline time? ;)



If you're experiencing something else than what I described, then I'd like to hear about it.

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Hi again,

wait wait :) I probably didn't write it very clear (what a surprise :) -- the v1 and v3 DON'T look like your attached picture (they are just "interlaced".... hey now I got it! You meant interlaced in the another way than me =)) but v2 DOES.

OK, so what I mean under 'interlace' -- interlace like on 8bit demos, like on ST demos when you want to enhance screen resolution. Or Falcon's 400 lines per screen on TV :) This is how looks released version, v1 and v3. v2 is screwed with bitplanes but this is understandable because you aligned it on +2.

So, summary: we didn't solved anything, we just didn't understand each other and you can start from the beginning ;-)

Around Outline I will hopefully be ... at Outline ;)

Hey, that's great! My sanity just returned :). So we are simply talking about wrong videl resolution setup!

Okay, I'll try to see what clobbers the videl. Or maybe try another set of 320x200x4bpp@60hz values...

Anyway, we're back on track!

Hm, do you think it's videl values? For me it's like bad setting of TimerB, sometimes it start on scanline 1, sometimes on scanline 0... btw I'm using vga if I didn't mention it earlier..