Reindeer Rescue Bug
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS DONE it turns out I'm not.
Anyway, I'll just reproduce what Al wrote to me and ask: anybody have any explanations or a fix?
Hi Bob,When playing the game (NTSC) on a real 2600, I ran into an interesting bug. When starting the game, if you don't do anything, Santa ends up running right through the playfield, and the game shortly resets back to the title screen after that. I burned two games to boards to test, and only discovered this after I played int the third level. It was a fluke that I noticed this at all, but it's a pretty serious problem so I'm going to start erasing the 100 (well, uhhr, 98) EPROMs I burned.This does not happen in Stella, which is probably why nobody saw it. before. Do any of the other testers have Krokodile Carts or Cuttle Carts they can use to test this on a real 2600?
Message Two:
I did some more digging-- it seems that the game only fails on one type of EPROM, the Texas Instruments 27C128. This is strange, as I use these all the time for Thrust+ Platinum. The game does seem to work fine with all the other types of EPROMs I programmed (five other types). Unfortunately, the TI 27C128s are the ones I have the most of, and comprise probably 60 of the EPROMs I programmed. Really strange that this problem only occurs with this one part. I assume it's some kind of weird timing issue. I'm hoping that you might be able to come up with some theories as to why this might be happening and maybe a fix? I'm a bit nervous about soldering more boards until I hear back from you.
If anybody has a Kroc cart or a CC and want to test Reindeer Runner for me? Manuel, I'm assuming that you have already, since you ran this on a real TV to test the PAL colors.This has me baffled; it is beyond my "expertise."The only weird thing that the game does is hit HMOVE at an odd time and, as mentioned in Eric B's weblog, it outputs 270 scanlines (NTSC); I do store the value of CXP0FB in RAM halfway down the screen (right before drawing the string of Christmas lights) and then use that stored value to process collisions between Santa and the playfield; so I suppose that maybe that value is being corrupted or lost somehow...? I dunno.Help?
(Note: I'm going to post this same thing on the [stella] list...)
73 Comments
Recommended Comments