Strange problem with Q*bert and Z26

[Scott Stilphen]

Start a game, and then scroll the picture up (hit 'Page Down' key) until you can't see Q*bert - he'll then fall off the pyramid, die, and then the replacement will keep falling off (w/o dying)!

[Eckhard Stolberg]

In z26 we don't render scanlines that aren't going to be copied out to the screen. Therefore we are not generating collision detection information for these lines either. The Q*bert game seems to check if Q*bert's feet are still making contact with the square he is supposed to be standing on. Since this collision isn't registered, Q*bert is falling down. When a replacement appears, it is supposed to fall down until it hits the top square. Since the game can't detect this either, Q*bert is falling down all the way to the bottom of the pyramid and gets reset again and again.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[Jess Ragan]

Worse yet, I can't make Q-Bert's Qubes work at all with my copy of Z26! When you try to play it, the emulator crashes, and hard. Do I need to get an update or is Z26 still incompatible with the game?

 

JR

[Godzilla]

any tips on getting z26 to work with xp MCE? ive got the latest version (of z26,)

[Eckhard Stolberg]

@Jess:

Q*bert's Qubes works fine for me on z26. If you have an older version, it might be that your version of the ROM dosn't get autodetected as requiring Parker Brothers' type of bankswitching. You could try to download the latest version of z26, or force the correct bankswitching type for this game with the -g3 command line switch.

 

@Godzilla:

Unfortunately there isn't much you can do to get z26 to work properly under XP. Z26 is a DOS program that requires direct access to the hardware, which is something that XP doesn't handle too well. For some reason z26 is only running at half speed under XP, which is why you need to use the -r120 command line switch. Also z26 works best with a real Soundblaster soundcard. On most modern computers Soundblaster compatibility is only provided through rather poor software emulation, which is one of the reasons why the sound in z26 is sometimes so distorted. There is an open source soundcard emulator for XP (see the link that Chris Wilkson posted in the other thread), which is supposedly working better than the one that usually comes with the sound hardware.

 

But the best solution to all the problems, that z26 has under XP, is to port it over to a native Windows application, which is in fact what we are working on right now. It is comming along quite nicely, but there are still some important features missing. Therefore it will still be a while before we will be able to release a first beta version of z26 for Windows.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[Scott Stilphen]

The way I found it was I usually play games in ALT+0 mode (they run a bit slow in default mode), and when you switch to it, usually the screen isn't centered. Is this a problem with the program, or something with my computer? Also, will the upcoming Windows version allow for more features/options? It could really use a 'save game' one

[Scott Stilphen]

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[Eckhard Stolberg]

Mode 0 runs at 70Hz, which is actually faster than the real game on a real VCS. Finding a good screen position for all games is a bit difficult in the smaller modes, like mode 0, since the games usually use the full screen hight, but start at different scanlines. Q*bert is one of those cases where the screen drawing start much later than in other games. This is why we have the manual screen position adjustment keys. Also you can set the first displayed scanline with the -uX command line switch, if you know a good value for the game you want to play.

 

If you want to avoid always having to switch to mode 0, you can create the Z26.CLI in the directory from where you start the emulator, and all command line switches in it will be used as default. To create the file with mode 0 as the default call z26 with z26 -v0. The every time you start z26 normally from now on it will start in mode 0.

 

For now we would be happy, if we can get the Windows version to play all games properly. But since the 32-bit code will have less space restrictions than our old 16-bit setup, so that we can fit in new features more easily now, it seems very likely that we are going to do that at a later date.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[ventrra]

For now we would be happy, if we can get the Windows version to play all games properly.

Oh, yes. If it works as well in a real Windows form as it did in DOS form, I would be VERY Happy! Z26 was my emulator of choice ... until I installed WinXP .

[MegaManFan]

But the best solution to all the problems, that z26 has under XP, is to port it over to a native Windows application, which is in fact what we are working on right now. It is comming along quite nicely, but there are still some important features missing. Therefore it will still be a while before we will be able to release a first beta version of z26 for Windows.

 

And on the day you do, this laptop using Windows XP owning Atari video game playing NUT will be a happy camper.