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Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!


rensoup

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1 hour ago, xxl said:

This variant of xB offers nothing more than the US device can handle ? maybe a little more - devices cannot handle more than one US speed and xB can ;-) I know your comparison is as usual ... infantile ?

It would be absolutely hilarious to see you talk to my face with the same attitude you exhibit behind a keyboard, of that I'm definitely certain.

 

I'm stating that I can load titles via devices connected using SIO much faster using the DOS of my choosing than I can using xbios - And that's all that matters at the end of the day. Obviously, an artificial ceiling of 128k has been set in stone regarding this title, and that's - Admirable. I'm stating that if I had to rely solely on xbios speeds via SIO due to this set in stone limitation I would not be interested in this game as it's not 1986 anymore.

 

I am also stating, as evidenced by this thread, that the notion of maximizing compatibility by using xbios has been a bit of a fail, as we're using xbios in an attempt to maximize compatibility at the expense of speed, but there's still compatibility issues while you dance around the issue with snide little abbreviated remarks in pseudo talk while taking the piss out of hardware made by others - As a result, to get 'speed' .CRT images have had to be implemented resulting in a totally different subset of issues - Some of which have been resolved, some of which are apparently as inexplicable as the compatibility issues experienced using xbios via SIO.

 

So whether xbios was used or not, the only benefit I can see is the adhesion to the 128k limitation. Considering only one A8 comes standard with 128k, I think it's safe to say the target audience has been made considerably smaller as a result unless machines are 'modified' for larger memory capacities, in which case you'd expand the machine higher than just an additional 64k. Therefore, xbios has been made, effectively, largely moot.

 

If you want respect from me, you earn it.

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guys… being A8 coder myself… we always had compatibility issues on all those mess of devices out there in meantime.

 

Does not matter if xBios is the key or drivers or whatever… hardware bugs, pc software bugs etc etc etc…

 

i am no fan of Sparta Dos etc… BeWedos, BiboDos, Dos 3.0 etc etc etc all have issues one or another… so what?

 

Coder of PoP can decide himself when he is finished and fed up with this endless bashing on both sides…

 

release the game on tape please so all can shut up…

Edited by Heaven/TQA
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52 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

As a result, to get 'speed' .CRT images have had to be implemented resulting in a totally different subset of issues - Some of which have been resolved, some of which are apparently as inexplicable as the compatibility issues experienced using xbios via SIO.

And in the end CRT version acts like a disk anyway (just loading quicker) and not the proper ROM, since the data has to be transferred to RAM and still requires 128KB machine, which is a bit odd.

But I understand that it was quicker and already available solution to work from cartridge almost out of the box.

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32 minutes ago, Jacques said:

And in the end CRT version acts like a disk anyway (just loading quicker) and not the proper ROM, since the data has to be transferred to RAM and still requires 128KB machine, which is a bit odd.

But I understand that it was quicker and already available solution to work from cartridge almost out of the box.

But you guys know that a game needs to be written and designed for a cart with all different banking schemes?

 

 

Edited by Heaven/TQA
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2 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

I am also stating, as evidenced by this thread, that the notion of maximizing compatibility by using xbios has been a bit of a fail, as we're using xbios in an attempt to maximize compatibility at the expense of speed

you keep trying to prove that it's xB's fault and every time you look like a fool, the first time it was SIDEB's fault and then FN ... don't stop trying and compromise yourself more ?

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Regarding XBIOS...

- what needs to be done to make it work with 3x SIO ?

- what needs to be done to make it work up to Pokey divisor zero ?

 

Think I read somewhere that it is up to the programmer to make XBIOS work faster with his program. But, what precisely does he have to do (what code must he use / insert / enable / program) to make XBIOS load faster ? And when XBIOS loads faster, does it require more memory for extra code (if so, how much more memory) ?

 

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to run US you need to copy the value from the variable:
xHSPEED equ xBIOS + $ 3e7; ULTRA SPEED
to the variable:
xSPEED equ xBIOS + $ 3e6; STD SPEED
and that's all.

it is associated with greater time restrictions depending on the US value, the US value is taken from the device and you can not write it out of your head because the device may not support the speed that we come up with, and besides, some devices switch to the US only when they receive a request o US - what a failure. The US system itself has a lot of drawbacks and pitfalls in systems with more than one device, this is very often manifested. Not every device has a properly implemented US. Not every device will switch to US after an error ?

Increasing the read speed will do little because of the time gaps between reading sectors. You will gain little and you will lose a lot as a developer.

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I don't really understand any of your technical bickering, but this game loads up on my MiSTer set to normal speed in ~1 minute 30 seconds, so I don't really see the problem. It's not blazing fast, but not that bad either. And if it allows more people to experience the game then it's not a high price to pay.

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@xxl Is it possible to sacrifice a few bytes of RAM for an xBIOS-internal LRU sector cache in extended memory (if somebody has more than 128K in total)?

 

This way everything would have to be read only once from disk instead of every time IF the computer has enough RAM.

And it certainly would speed up all these directory lookups needed for PoP.

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of course, and there are at least two methods for this:
for external devices that do not map memory in the cpu space, we can index files which will eliminate reading the directory to open the file
for devices that map memory, e.g. ramdisk / car, we replace the I / O module (xBIOS_SET_DEVICE) - I used this model when I showed how to transfer PoP to CAR, but you can also load the whole game into RAM-disk and run from RAM.

Edited by xxl
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46 minutes ago, DjayBee said:

This way everything would have to be read only once from disk instead of every time IF the computer has enough RAM.

And it certainly would speed up all these directory lookups needed for PoP.

Other option could be e.g. reading PoP disk to QMEG's RAM-DISK X or Y and booting from any of these, but it's not going to work because of xB (TESTED).

Oh, and it would still crash later on, because of depacking to same EXT-RAM banks, so no go anyway.
 

Edited by Jacques
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I thought of a more dynamic way which also would be transparent to the running program.

 

It would also circumvent two problems:

- If you want to copy the whole disk to RAM disk, the RAM disk must be big enough to hold everything.

- And you need to wait until the whole disk has been copied to the RAM disk which gives an even bigger delay as we already have in PoP.

 

The developer defines once how much extended RAM (and perhaps which pages) he will use.

xBIOS checks the amount of available extended memory during startup "subtracts" what's needed by the developer and adds the remainder to its cache.

 

Each sector is read preferably from extended memory.

In case a sector has not already been cached, it will be read from disk and moved to the cache.

If the cache gets full, the least recently used sector's data is overwritten.

 

This way, the cache is filled on the fly and it must not be big enough to hold the whole disk image.

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1 hour ago, youxia said:

I don't really understand any of your technical bickering, but this game loads up on my MiSTer set to normal speed in ~1 minute 30 seconds, so I don't really see the problem. It's not blazing fast, but not that bad either. And if it allows more people to experience the game then it's not a high price to pay.

That was my feeling, too... Loads faster (don't care if 19kbit or Highspeed or Ultraspeed) than e.g. Stunt Car Racer... and a lot faster than 1986 on my 1050 and a lot lot lot faster than on my 1010 :D

 

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1 minute ago, Heaven/TQA said:

Loads faster

Even faster on Indus/GT and Track/Sector Buffering with RAMcharger... regardless of standard SIO-soeed...

 

It's funny to see it, at times, looping through the intro-demo with absolutely no magnetic-reads and no disk-spin, at all... ??

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Hehe, the Speedy 1050 has a cache like the Happy drive - but whenever you insert a new disk into the drive, it checks the density AND keeps the boot and dir. sectors in the cache (until you change the disk). So even when POP reads the dir. 1000 times, the Speedy reads the directory from its cache and not from diskette.

 

Furthermore, the Speedy requires a driver to work in ultraspeed (3x SIO) mode, but even without any driver it is faster than 19k2 baud in its normal mode (19k2 mode = slow mode for the Speedy). Do not know the exact baudrate, but think I read somewhere the normal speed of the Speedy is between 29kBaud and 30kBaud - maybe someone can tell the exact baudrate (would not be surprised if the baudrate I gave is wrong).

 

Advertizing: The mini Speedy and the mini Super Speedy for the 1050 drive (afaik, now PAL and NTSC frequency compatible) can be purchased from Abbuc or tf_hh. ;-)

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10 hours ago, xxl said:

you keep trying to prove that it's xB's fault and every time you look like a fool, the first time it was SIDEB's fault and then FN ... don't stop trying and compromise yourself more ?

Hang on, you're shifting the goalposts here. This is what I said:

Quote

If it wasn't for working .CAR images I wouldn't have played this game beyond the initial beta releases. I'm not interested in a pure SIO 1x experience no matter what the game, and this is where xbios is definitely a limiting factor.

Of which the reply was that the game wouldn't fit into 128k due to OS overheads, which is blatantly obvious, where I stated:

Quote

Increase the memory requirement.

That's it. No A8 with the exception of the 130XE (interestingly enough, the very machine you have) has 128k as standard, so I find the whole limitation of 128k odd.

 

Nowhere in there did I make any incorrect statements regarding xbios, as the fact is: It's slow as molasses in 2021 and it hasn't really resolved any compatibility issues. Even after the SIDE3 loader update there's still oddities running the game on certain configurations using either xbios via SIO or the .CRT image via a multicart (issues not limited to SIDE3) - So the point stands that by using xbios to eliminate compatibility issues, we still have compatibility issues and the added complexity of an entirely new subset of issues surrounding .CRT images.

Edited by Mazzspeed
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10 hours ago, youxia said:

I don't really understand any of your technical bickering, but this game loads up on my MiSTer set to normal speed in ~1 minute 30 seconds, so I don't really see the problem. It's not blazing fast, but not that bad either. And if it allows more people to experience the game then it's not a high price to pay.

That only gets you to the hardware config/intro screen. From that point on there's another minute of loading. Furthermore, there's still sector retries, meaning technically the game is still loading at slower than standard SIO 1x.

 

However, as stated, I'm not bothered as I have a working .CRT file.

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31 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

This is one of the most depressing threads on AA at the moment but I can't stop reading it because at some point something wonderful will happen. 

Maybe they'll get it to load reliably at 1x SIO before it hits 100 pages. That would be impressive.

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Hello Steve

 

34 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

... because at some point something wonderful will happen. 

 

You mean like, rensoup decides to come to the Fujiama this year (and stay the whole week) and the combined knowledge of the people present there helps him solve the problems we are seeing with PoP at the moment?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

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Hello guys

 

17 hours ago, Faicuai said:

For example, any code that was originally written to sparsely run in $C000-$FFFF space of ANOTHER machine, may not be fully relocatable or modifiable, therefore needing the exact same address-space on the target port-platform (our own)... 

 

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

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17 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

Increase the memory requirement.

an extra 64KB for faster loading on some devices. Brilliant...

 ?

17 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

And likewise there are many that obviously do have expanded machines and would like to load the game at a pace faster than waiting for Frogger to load from cassette - I know I'm not the only one on these forums that would have chosen not to play the game had a workable .CAR not been made available.

 

It's obvious that one way or another you're alienating certain users no matter what direction you go, xbios isn't really an ideal solution. As it is, the only 'stock' machine the game will run on even using xbios is a 130XE.

Not going to try to define nostalgia to you ?

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