Author Topic: DCaSTaway, an Atari ST emulator (Read 17963 times)

Gab1975 · « **Reply #20 on:** November 07, 2014, 07:56:22 am »

Very good job David Knight ! I tried different games and all of them (almost) work at full speed, without glitches !

Maybe I found two "issues":
- the med-res (640x200x4) is supported "badly"... to have an idea it's enough try Psygnosis Brataccas (the game is displayed with a lot of flickering and graphic glitches, moreover when you try to come back to the menu the emulator freezes)... I know, the GCW Zero LCD horizontal resolution is only 320pixels, but there should be a way to make a correct downscaling...
- The games which need a swap disk using the same floppy drive (an example is Palace Barbarian II) don't work properly... when the software asks to insert the disk two I come back to the menu, I change the disk image from the Filemanager and I come back to the emulator playback, but the disk swapping isn't detected ! Just to be sure, I tried also to insert the disk two in the second drive (Y), but without success...

David Knight · « **Reply #21 on:** November 07, 2014, 08:13:19 am »

.

Quote from: Gab1975 on November 07, 2014, 07:56:22 am

- the med-res (640x200x4) is supported "badly"... to have an idea it's enough try Psygnosis Brataccas (the game is displayed with a lot of flickering and graphic glitches, moreover when you try to come back to the menu the emulator freezes)... I know, the GCW Zero LCD horizontal resolution is only 320pixels, but there should be a way to make a correct downscaling...
- The games which need a swap disk using the same floppy drive (an example is Palace Barbarian II) don't work properly... when the software asks to insert the disk two I come back to the menu, I change the disk image from the Filemanager and I come back to the emulator playback, but the disk swapping isn't detected ! Just to be sure, I tried also to insert the disk two in the second drive (Y), but without success...

Thanks, I haven't tested medium resolution so I'll investigate.
For disk swapping, put gamedisk1 in A drive, then gamedisk2 in B drive. The play the game. When it requests disk2 push up the slider. It works fine with cannon fodder.

Gab1975 · « **Reply #22 on:** November 07, 2014, 08:45:08 am »

Quote from: David Knight on November 07, 2014, 08:13:19 am

For disk swapping, put gamedisk1 in A drive, then gamedisk2 in B drive. The play the game. When it requests disk2 push up the slider. It works fine with cannon fodder.

The problem was with the disk images revision... when I changed the Barbarian II "version" the swap disk worked fine... I'm sorry for the "fake issue" !

David Knight · « **Reply #23 on:** November 07, 2014, 09:12:40 am »

No problem, they're the easiest ones to solve

David Knight · « **Reply #24 on:** November 07, 2014, 09:27:49 am »

Quote from: Gab1975 on November 07, 2014, 07:56:22 am

- the med-res (640x200x4) is supported "badly"... to have an idea it's enough try Psygnosis Brataccas (the game is displayed with a lot of flickering and graphic glitches, moreover when you try to come back to the menu the emulator freezes)... I know, the GCW Zero LCD horizontal resolution is only 320pixels, but there should be a way to make a correct downscaling...

This is due to the the code I used to get triplebuffering to work, it doesn't know about higher resolutions. One image is of the correct proportion, the other is still rendering at 320x200. ~~Should be fixable.~~ FIXED, actually it had nothing to do with this.

Please let me know any other issues you find, however minor.

Gab1975 · « **Reply #25 on:** November 07, 2014, 10:10:36 am »

Quote from: David Knight on November 07, 2014, 09:27:49 am

Please let me know any other issues you find, however minor.

This is not a "real issue"... the VSync option should be a redundant option... if I'm not mistaken, this emulator uses the triple buffer and the v-sync is always on...

tintin_uk · « **Reply #26 on:** November 07, 2014, 12:07:48 pm »

Tried using TOS 1.4 UK bios images from a number of sources and it just keeps crashing every time I try and run a rom (zip format). Any ideas?

TT.

Gab1975 · « **Reply #27 on:** November 07, 2014, 01:33:14 pm »

Quote from: tintin_uk on November 07, 2014, 12:07:48 pm

Tried using TOS 1.4 UK bios images from a number of sources and it just keeps crashing every time I try and run a rom (zip format). Any ideas?

TT.

With "ROM" I suppose you mean a disk image... in this case, the file inside the zipped archive must be in .st format and not .stx ...
Is the GEM/TOS loaded correctly (if you don't select any disk image) ?

David Knight · « **Reply #28 on:** November 07, 2014, 10:16:07 pm »

I've fixed the high res corruption bug. I've changed the software downscaler for the hardware downscaler so speed seems faster and resolution looks better, for example the text on the first screen of Brataccas you can now read the text.

Does anyone know of a programme that uses monochrome high res mode?

Gab1975 · « **Reply #29 on:** November 07, 2014, 11:11:59 pm »

Quote from: David Knight on November 07, 2014, 10:16:07 pm

I've fixed the high res corruption bug. I've changed the software downscaler for the hardware downscaler so speed seems faster and resolution looks better, for example the text on the first screen of Brataccas you can now read the text.

Does anyone know of a programme that uses monochrome high res mode?

Nice to know that you solved the corruption bug!

Examples of high-res games can be Activision Shanghai and Oxford Softworks Chess Player 2150...

- If I'm not mistaken, the default buttons are A/B for joystick and X/Y for mouse;
- I noticed a problem with three games (Action Fighter, Cybernoid II and Gods), the joystick fire button (A) isn't operative... I found a "pseudo" solution: activate the mouse mode and use Y button as fire button and analog-stick as joystick... maybe a different (and better) solution could be to leave X and Y mapped as mouse buttons also in joystick mode.

David Knight · « **Reply #30 on:** November 08, 2014, 11:30:21 pm »

Quote from: Gab1975 on November 07, 2014, 11:11:59 pm

Examples of high-res games can be Activision Shanghai and Oxford Softworks Chess Player 2150...

Thanks!

Quote

- If I'm not mistaken, the default buttons are A/B for joystick and X/Y for mouse;
- I noticed a problem with three games (Action Fighter, Cybernoid II and Gods), the joystick fire button (A) isn't operative... I found a "pseudo" solution: activate the mouse mode and use Y button as fire button and analog-stick as joystick... maybe a different (and better) solution could be to leave X and Y mapped as mouse buttons also in joystick mode.

It looks like this was the intended behaviour as X already is mapped to mouse click in joystick mode but Y isn't. I've fixed it anyway.

Hmmm, analog stick as joystick you say? How about controlling the mouse with it instead? Then we don't need mouse mode anymore.

OK no more mouse mode, we only need keyboard mode now.

Gab1975 · « **Reply #31 on:** November 08, 2014, 11:58:44 pm »

Quote from: David Knight on November 08, 2014, 11:30:21 pm

Hmmm, analog stick as joystick you say? How about controlling the mouse with it instead? Then we don't need mouse mode anymore.

I was thinking the same thing, but some users reported a malfunctioning of the analog stick, so (IMHO) it's better preserve the d-pad "mouse mode"...
the best choice would be an option in menu to enable/disable the analog stick as "mouse control"*... but I don't know how much it's difficult to implement !

*e.g: A-Stick off on ... the default should be set "off" ... the option could be put instead of VSync (redundant option).

David Knight · « **Reply #32 on:** November 09, 2014, 01:40:44 am »

Quote from: Gab1975 on November 08, 2014, 11:58:44 pm

*e.g: A-Stick off on ... the default should be set "off" ... the option could be put instead of VSync (redundant option).

Done, default is off, set to on to enable A-stick, DCaSTaway remembers choice.

Any more issues? I'm running out of things to do here

Gab1975 · « **Reply #33 on:** November 09, 2014, 07:05:27 am »

Quote from: David Knight on November 09, 2014, 01:40:44 am

Quote from: Gab1975 on November 08, 2014, 11:58:44 pm
*e.g: A-Stick off on ... the default should be set "off" ... the option could be put instead of VSync (redundant option).
Done, default is off, set to on to enable A-stick, DCaSTaway remembers choice.

Any more issues? I'm running out of things to do here

Great!

Most of the work should be done... just to be overly meticulous, I read the readmegcw.txt and in the "issues" section the third point is:
3)Occasionally sound becomes corrupted, I have not traced the sourceof this bug yet.

I tried various games and the problem should occur when the software takes advantage of a specific method, which simulates a better sound using short digital sound samples (if I'm not mistaken, the technique should be called "digidrum"). An example is the Turrican II intro music...

In any case, this technique is "CPU intensive usage" and the majority of the titles uses the sound chip (YM2149) in the "conventional mode", so it's a paltry issue... in other words, I think that the DCaSTaway is ready to receive e new release!

David Knight · « **Reply #34 on:** November 09, 2014, 10:30:19 pm »

UPDATE!

Many thanks to the playtesters, here's the latest version on DCaSTaway with the following further improvements:

1)Support for 640x240 resolution*
2)Removed vsync option from menu and replaced with the following:
3)Support for mouse emulation with analog mouse. If on will emulate the mouse, if off will emulate the joystick. DCaSTaway will remember your setting between sessions. Presuming you have a functional A-pad there is now no need for mouse mode.
4)Mouse clicks always accessible with X and Y. This solves issues with a few games (Action Fighter, Gods, Cybernoid 2 and others?)

*Keyboard, mouse icons and messages are at fixed resolution and it is not trivial to change these. Given the small number of games at this resolution and that the messages and keyboard is still legible I am inclined to leave this unfixed.

I consider this project completed for now and will only update if I get enough requests for more features.

Have fun!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwYi4RGX-HSadjBUbmF4ZGg0MHM/view?usp=sharing

Gab1975 · « **Reply #35 on:** November 09, 2014, 10:54:47 pm »

Thanks a lot for your work!

Inertia · « **Reply #36 on:** November 11, 2014, 10:32:21 am »

AWESOME!!
Thanks David!!

AtariHERO · « **Reply #37 on:** November 11, 2014, 11:57:39 am »

great work
now lets get that awful psx emulator polished ...

toto · « **Reply #38 on:** November 11, 2014, 12:40:21 pm »

Amazing! Well done mate!

Gab1975 · « **Reply #39 on:** November 11, 2014, 04:31:19 pm »

Quote from: David Knight on November 09, 2014, 10:30:19 pm

4)Mouse clicks always accessible with X and Y. This solves issues with a few games (Action Fighter, Gods, Cybernoid 2 and others?)

I found another game which uses Y instead of A as action button... Codemasters Captain Dynamo, a funny and well made platform-game...

EDIT: same thing also for Codemasters Steg The Slug and the first Cybernoid...

Author Topic: DCaSTaway, an Atari ST emulator (Read 17963 times)

David Knight (OP)

David Knight (OP)

David Knight (OP)

David Knight (OP)

David Knight (OP)

David Knight (OP)

David Knight (OP)