Beeblebrox Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 (edited) So I picked up an Ultimate cart as part of a bundle. I also own a Side3 which I often play the game Henry's House off with no issues on either stock or U1MB A8s I own. I copied the same XEX Henry's House game file to the Ultimate cart and ran it. Oddly when I run from the Ultimate cart on any A8 I own, stock or with U1MB the main character of Henry is all wrong with the PMG colours off. What would could this on the Ultimate cart I wonder? So here you can see what I mean - again only occurs running the game from the Ultimate cart. (No video enhancement upgrades in any of the A8s iy occurs on): when I run as normal off my SIDE3 on the same systems there are no issues: Edited March 25, 2023 by Beeblebrox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 Probably the XEX loader not completely clearing the video hardware registers and the game assuming everything's in a clean power-up state or something. A lot of water's passed under the bridge since the Ultimate Cart loader was written, and the SIDE loaders have benefitted from a lot of contrived compatibility tweaks during that time to deal with software which fails to initialise memory, relies on SIO timings, etc. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 Are there different xex versions you could compare to? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted March 25, 2023 Author Share Posted March 25, 2023 I don't have other Henry's house XEXs no, but FJC's explanation makes perfect sense. I was just curious as to why it might occur running off the Ultimate cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 I know there were a few updates to the ultimate cart firmware over the years but many people either didn't or were not capable of updating the firmware. Was there another method to get modification like a file of some kind on the card in it etc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 Nope. You need (IIRC) a USB Blaster cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nasty niff Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 what xex files are you using? mr bacardi crack? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 (edited) To be a little more descriptive, you need to do the acrsnet update via blaster and quartus, with his pof from github and if you want extensions to control the ultimate cart from a command line or with some hard drive on an 800 you need _Boot.rom in the SD card that will make sure you have the best chance of not having any issues, I hadn't heard any other complaints after that but it's possible this is a new issue Edited March 25, 2023 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 I don't remember if all fixes were unified so you might ask all 3 individuals that did the fixes about this and maybe one or all of them will have an answer or do a final update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 No need. I don't see any code clearing the video hardware, so my best guess is doing that would fix the problem. Or it could be something else. The Ultimate Cart isn't emulated, so testing changes will be a trial-and-error process. If someone has the time and inclination to give it a try, that's my suggestion (zero out the entire ANTIC and GTIA address space in a loop before opening the screen editor prior to commencing the XEX load). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ascrnet Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 2 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said: To be a little more descriptive, you need to do the acrsnet update via blaster and quartus, with his pof from github and if you want extensions to control the ultimate cart from a command line or with some hard drive on an 800 you need _Boot.rom in the SD card I don't know who it is... 🤣maybe a relative...😅 but back to the subject. I add to the information there is indeed an improved version with support for some cartridges made by me and other changes made by @flashjazzcat For the complete update you must have the file plus the blaster cable, but you can modify the menu just as @_The Doctor__ indicates. Unfortunately my ultimate stopped working some time ago, that's why I didn't continue with improvements and experiments on this great cartridge. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted March 26, 2023 Share Posted March 26, 2023 Downloaded this copy of Henry's House from a randomly chosen location, ran it on my Ultimate Cart and didn't experience any problems with the main character whatsoever thus far: Henry's House (1987)(Mastertronic)(GB)[h Mr. Bacardi].zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted March 26, 2023 Author Share Posted March 26, 2023 Here is my only HH copy to test. Unfortunately I don't possess a usb blaster anymore. Just a Xilinx. HenrysH.xex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nasty niff Posted March 26, 2023 Share Posted March 26, 2023 First pic is side3 Second is ultimate Must be this xex file, as Mr Bacardi's file version is fine on both, strange...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted March 26, 2023 Author Share Posted March 26, 2023 @mistapaul ah very interesting. Well I'll try the other uploaded one. All part of getting to the bottom of these things eh? If anything it's got us all playing one of the greatest platform classics on the A8 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted March 26, 2023 Share Posted March 26, 2023 Not really, we've covered xex loaders in other topics before. Ultimate was one of the earlier ones and the others have evolved from lessons learnt. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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