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10 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

I just checked Psion Chess, and it starts game well in 2D. And in 3D too. Tried 3 times in 2D. Maybe grabbing piece with mouse is what works not so easy, sometimes need to try couple times.

Will do Engl. v. of Chess Champion 2175 soon.

I really cannot figure out what is wrong with Psion on my STE. Every other Chess game and also other games tested works perfectly. Also as i said Psion works everytime in 3-D mode but when switching to 2-D the New Game screen hangs so i cannot click Yes or No, same goes with Help screen (in 2-D). If i exit Ramdisk TOS 1.4 by pressing "*" and restart it does work but not everytime. I`m quite sure there is a bug somewhere since everything else work fine but since you cannot reproduce it it is quite hard to do something about it, a little sad cause i love that Chess game. Is it a way to test it outside the Ramdisk TOS? Have you made a floppy version?

 

Looking forward to the Chess Champion english adaption btw, best and strongest Chess game on Atari....

 

Also i did some testing on Daily Double Horse Racing. Seems to work good, great gambling game which i played alot 30 years ago. Will do some more testing when i have time, dont expect to find any problems though cause the game is simple, just bet and start race, bet and start race.

Edited by complicated
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Reporting on "Dreadnoughts":

 

Loaded and started from my Mega STe, TOS v2.06 equipped with 4 megs

of RAM and an internal US/SD-card and HDDriver.

 

Started from the desktop without any issues, didn't even have to drop the

ACC's or AUTO folder, or go to low-res, etc,... Played a short while without

any issues and quit cleanly to the desktop.

 

Will report back more when I actually play a full mission/game.

 

Great work Peter - many thanks!  :)

 

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@ParanoidLittleMan Thank You Peter for all these great hdd adaptations (i'm actually testing Manhattan dealers) ?

 

To show you my happiness for your work i'm just sending you a new donation (from Jeremy) with pleasure. @all please encourage Peter doing a donation for his great work, we really have chance having Peter doing this fantastic work ?

 

Thx Thx Thx 

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Paranoid,

 

Found another "mouse klick" problem like i have with Psion Chess. Was playing your HD adaption of the game Risk, i played a 2 player short UK Game which i won quite fast. When trying to start a new game i could not klick Yes or No with the mouse, i could however klick return but mouse klick did not respond, moving the mouse works fine though. I can see that both Psion Chess and Risk are "Hage Version", so there must be some kind of mouse klick bug in Hage/Tos Ramdisk.

 

Can you investigate this issue? I know you havent been able to reproduce the problem on your machine. Can i do something to help? Maybe i statesave or something when mouse klick hangs?

Edited by complicated
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20 hours ago, complicated said:

Paranoid,

 

Found another "mouse klick" problem like i have with Psion Chess. Was playing your HD adaption of the game Risk, i played a 2 player short UK Game which i won quite fast. When trying to start a new game i could not klick Yes or No with the mouse, i could however klick return but mouse klick did not respond, moving the mouse works fine though. I can see that both Psion Chess and Risk are "Hage Version", so there must be some kind of mouse klick bug in Hage/Tos Ramdisk.

 

Can you investigate this issue? I know you havent been able to reproduce the problem on your machine. Can i do something to help? Maybe i statesave or something when mouse klick hangs?

TOS in RAM is faithful reassembled version of org. TOS 1.04 UK. It was tested really a lot. The fact that it works in RAM changes not work of mouse, GEM. There are few programs which need little correction(s), otherwise may not even start, or for instance joystick works not - but that's because it works not with org. TOS 1.04 too.  I think that your STE may be not so reliable after so many years. For instance should check PSU, do recapping of it - electrolyte capacitors have not so long lifetime.

I did plenty of tests with my Mega STE in last 3 years with HAGE and it's TOS in RAM, and never had such not responding on mouse click problem.  With diverse TOS versions, improved TOS versions.

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Thanx eLLuigi  ?

 

I spotted this: 20 Great Public Domain Games - it is on 4 floppies. And there are actually 21 games. Decided to deal with it. Went relative fast, by some needed some special corrections, usual not working joystick in higher TOS versions fix .. Most of it starts from Desktop, uses some GEM functions (often without real need), but games self are simple and don't need much RAM.

 

21GRPDG.ZIP

 

YouTube video: https://youtu.be/Z9qPVDOhWDw

 

 Game list:

Breakanoid
Bomber
Clowns - actually it is Monkeys and Balloons
Cpoker - actually  Draw Poker
Darts
Driventure
Escape  - color and mono modes
Galactic War
Hac Man
Jumpster
Labyrinth
Lunar
MegaMaze - color and mono modes
Motor
Pengo  - actually Pengy
ROCM is Companion
ST Vegas
Tetrix  - color and mono modes
Trifide
Worm War
ZXYM is Aircraft

 

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17 hours ago, delvis said:

Thanks for the link but the download page comes back 404. (Sundog)

And I thought I did something wrong here. Every game I tried to download the last week or longer results in a 404!

 

@ParanoidLittleMan I think you are already aware of this problem? Forum doesn't work either ("... is marked as crashed and should be repaired")! ?

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10 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

TOS in RAM is faithful reassembled version of org. TOS 1.04 UK. It was tested really a lot. The fact that it works in RAM changes not work of mouse, GEM. There are few programs which need little correction(s), otherwise may not even start, or for instance joystick works not - but that's because it works not with org. TOS 1.04 too.  I think that your STE may be not so reliable after so many years. For instance should check PSU, do recapping of it - electrolyte capacitors have not so long lifetime.

I did plenty of tests with my Mega STE in last 3 years with HAGE and it's TOS in RAM, and never had such not responding on mouse click problem.  With diverse TOS versions, improved TOS versions.

Do you have dual TOS on your Mega STE? Have you tested Psion Chess using TOS 2.06 as base? I have an extra STE with TOS 1.62 and on that machine Psion worked fine.

 

I`ve seen some of your youtube videos of games and looks like you are using TOS 1.62?

 

EDIT - I just tested Psion Chess using Steem Emulator on my PC with TOS 2.06 and same problem there, mouseklick issues when trying to start a new game. I KNEW it was not my Atari STE that was causing the problem, i take care of my stuff! There is for sure some compability issues with Hage and TOS 2.06, as i suspected. I did have one issue with Colossus Chess also during a game when suddenly I could not move the chess pieces, this only happened once though.

Edited by complicated
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OK, so it is TOS 2.06 when problem appears. I just checked.  What I used in last YT videos is actually 2.16 - combo of 1.62 and 2.06 . Lower RAM usage is same as in 1.62 . Problem is because some part of it is filled by 2.06 and it is not fully cleared when TOS in RAM starts. So, I need to expand that area, as I see after short test. Funny thing is that so far it did not make problem, or at least nobody noticed. Surely appears only in specific situations.

 

I had earlier quad TOS in Mega STE (and in Mega ST), but because of testing EPROMs with iTOS before shipping, and overall, I removed switches. So, there is now some of iTOS versions usually. I have org. 2.06 UK too, of course. But now I have problem with sockets. And worst is that I replaced them about half years ago - as result of lot of EPROM change. And these new ones appear as crap. So, I ordered sockets from outland, and will put them in this days. Situation here in Hu with electronic parts is really miserable - high prices, very low quality. It stays for connectors too, and other things. Wholesale just cares only for profit, and they buy faulty ware for very low prices.  This is where new age 'progress' led us ?

 

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1 hour ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Here is updated TOS 1.04 for RAM and HAGE:  T14AG.ZIP

Passed tests with Psion. Will need more, like with Omnicron ...

 

Looked Frantick - it needs 2 MB only if want to play music from second floppy. Otherwise 1MB with floppy run is OK. So, will work from hard disk with 2 MB min. Will need trainer too ..

Nice, you are fast. Will test it for sure. The games i have noticed problem with is Psion Chess, Colossus Chess and Risk. Also Risk has a terrible bug, after creating a new game and the territories are divided between the players the screen starts scrolling from side to side and you cannot play on. Dont think it has anything to do with either Ramdisk Tos or Hage though, i have a "small" memory i did see this bug when playing Risk on floppy 30 years ago.

 

A question about Hage. You sent me an improved version of Hage were you removed the "background flashing with disk access" ... Have you done some more testing and updated it more?

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Well, it would be probably faster if I knew that problem happens with TOS 2.06 . TOS memory handling is not perfect, and it is stated in Atari ST ProfiBuch too. RAM allocation should clear RAM too, because some SW may not work well with non clear one. But it happens only when starting some PRG, for it's RAM area.

I would not call HAGE v. with removed background flashing during disk access as improved. Nobody else complained about it, and it is good to know when disk access happens. I still put flashing v. in new adaptations. Otherwise I don't see that it needs some update. It handles hard disk access, setting TOS in RAM, starting game, setting RAM layout, state saves, etc. Games will access some HAGA function only in those cases, and that might be not often - like hour or more between - depending how long game is played. With 4 MB RAM disk access does not happen after start, if no write to disk. On the other side, for games using TOS calls, it is accessed all time.

One of problems with plenty of games is that they use AES/GEM functions without real need - for operations which can be done with GEMDOS/VDI/LineA functions.

That means using more RAM, and even little slower work. In past I rewrote those AES calls to mentioned other functions above, but that needs lot of time, and there is plenty of such games. Then, there are such ones which use Windows, Dialogs, so really need HAGE (complete TOS with GEM), so I made HAGE. 3 years ago. That made adapting much faster. For instance 21 PD games would took 10x more time without it (only 3 do not use GEM calls), at least, and some would be not done, most likely.

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1 hour ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Well, it would be probably faster if I knew that problem happens with TOS 2.06 . TOS memory handling is not perfect, and it is stated in Atari ST ProfiBuch too. RAM allocation should clear RAM too, because some SW may not work well with non clear one. But it happens only when starting some PRG, for it's RAM area.

I would not call HAGE v. with removed background flashing during disk access as improved. Nobody else complained about it, and it is good to know when disk access happens. I still put flashing v. in new adaptations. Otherwise I don't see that it needs some update. It handles hard disk access, setting TOS in RAM, starting game, setting RAM layout, state saves, etc. Games will access some HAGA function only in those cases, and that might be not often - like hour or more between - depending how long game is played. With 4 MB RAM disk access does not happen after start, if no write to disk. On the other side, for games using TOS calls, it is accessed all time.

One of problems with plenty of games is that they use AES/GEM functions without real need - for operations which can be done with GEMDOS/VDI/LineA functions.

That means using more RAM, and even little slower work. In past I rewrote those AES calls to mentioned other functions above, but that needs lot of time, and there is plenty of such games. Then, there are such ones which use Windows, Dialogs, so really need HAGE (complete TOS with GEM), so I made HAGE. 3 years ago. That made adapting much faster. For instance 21 PD games would took 10x more time without it (only 3 do not use GEM calls), at least, and some would be not done, most likely.

I havent found that "flashing" in HAGE a problem when playing some of your adaptions, only with Colossus Chess where it actually broke the gameplay a bit. It`s always good having that non flashing version around if a game like Colossus turns up and starts to flash during gameplay.

 

Just tested your updated T14AG file and Psion Chess works fine on my 4mb STE with TOS 2.06 now. Did test it with Colossus Chess also and didnt not find any problems, however the mouse issue only happended once there so need some more games to see if its stable.

 

Will do some testing with Risk also. If i can redproduce that scrolling issues i will try to film it with my cellphone and show whats going on.

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Played a couple games of Risk using the updated T14AG file and did not find any issues at all. So my guess is the mouse klick and scrolling issues was related to TOS 2.06.

 

The 8bitguy who requested the hd adaption of Risk posted it worked perfectly on his STE. Would be nice to know which TOS version he used, my guess is 1.62.

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