Castaway Beta 004.5

[skeezix]

This isn't release 5 yet, as theres lots to be done yet. But I wanted to get feedback on the farty-sound..

Sound is there,and really pretty good, but with a lot of background pops. I'm not sure why yet.. if its the sound subsystem, or the castaway sound generation (I don't have a Pocket PC to know if CastCE makes the same farting sound or not :/)

So give it a shot and let me know what you think. Xenon 2 sounds pretty good

Release 005 will have an option to turn off the sound

If you liek it quiet, use 004

http://www.codejedi.com/castaway/binaries/...s/gpcst0045.zip

This is more alpha than beta

jeff

 

[MrT]

Thanks Jeff

Just given the newbie a go.

On the whole I think I can live with the background noise (farting) as It's better to have any sound than nothing, and where sound is apparent it is fine, thefarting only appears where there is no sound (if this makes sense)

I am only playing Dungeon Master (again after what must be about 10 years) so this is quite a restrictive "review"

What I do notice though, and this could be just me, is that the control appear to be more responsive, when turning around in DM, I turn further than I meant to. That's the best way to describe it anyway.

Either that ort I am being propelled into random directions.

I am not complaining, I love absolutely what you've achieved, and I shall be "donating" to you for the hard work that you have put into this and for what you have done for me personally and for scene

(anyone else interested in supporting - http://www.codejedi.com/shadowplan/register.html just buy something)

Oh I bought the Shadow Plan for Handheld and Windows Desktop (SKU6668) (Palm OS)

But I don't really need this, so there's no need to send me patches or whatever, I just want to show you how much I appreciate your work on the GP32

Thanks Jeff

MrT

 

[Flack]

T I did the same thing, I bought XCade for the PocketPC (I don't even own one). I also offered to donate to the author of GP2600 but that person wouldn't accept my money. The Frodo guys and rlyeh (I can never remember how to spell that) are next on my list of donations.

 

[Axeman]

Cool... sound - farty, but sound all the same

Keep 'em coming skeezix!

 

[Tobriand]

Yay - there's sound! And at nowhere near the loss of speed experienced in other emus (i.e. SNES) - which can only be a good thing.

The "farty" background doesn't really matter too much, imho - ok, its annoying when you first hear it, and then its just part of general background noise like the hum of a computer.

With that said, are you compiling with the newest sound libraries - I heard somewhere that that was responsible for "farty"-ish sounds on GP32 in the past, and that there are some newer ones out which don't have the problem. Of course, it could be elsewhere, but that might explain it if you can't find any problems in the code itself.

Keep 'em coming Skeezix - you've made Magic Pockets portable... what's next? lol

 

[Tuxedosteve]

Nice.

I get a constant crackle/popping on any game I play but the important thing is that behind the crackle the real sound seems to be working with no problems.

Do we know how much the sound is impacting on the speed yet?

Very nice release though. Many thanks.

 

[Tobriand]

Well, so far it seems to have forced an increase in frameskip by 1 for most games... 2 for some - prolly about an increase of 1.5, but it depends on whether it needed to be closer to 1, 0, or 2 as to how much you need to increase by.

 

[Retroid]

Wanks, farts..... does this say something about Atari ST owners...?

::Runs away shouting "Sorry, I just couldn't resist!"::

(Can't wait to try this thing out myself when I get my GP32)

 

[Retroid]

Any chance of an auto-frameskip, depending on CPU load? This might help with the depacking most packed games use...

 

[Nutzo]

Skeezix, you rock! =)

Not just because you're doing such nice work on the emu, but because you're making the development process so much fun for all of us! Thank you so much for your sense of humor and constant posts. Us GP32 fans really appreciate the way you've been doing things.

 

[Avigrace]

Skeezix, you rock! =)

Not just because you're doing such nice work on the emu, but because you're making the development process so much fun for all of us! Thank you so much for your sense of humor and constant posts. Us GP32 fans really appreciate the way you've been doing things.

Completly agree



And the sound is definatly there and good behind the crackle

 

[tapsel]

@ MrT or anybody else who plays Dungeon Master:

I tried different versions of the game, but somehow I just can't get
past the dungeon door. I can open it pushing the button, but I can't
move, neither with mouse, keybord or cursor buttons. Can someone
help me?

BTW, has somebody managed to get Cadaver to work yet? I haven't found
a working version to date...

 

[timthepig]

dungeon master works - use castaway in mouse mode(no text is visible) -

Type 'dungeon master' in google - there is a great tribute site with all versions

and cadaver works - looks at debug\automation menu

-if anything takes too long to load - raise the frameskip high as possible - until its loaded - then lower frameskip back down again

-If mouse doesn't reach far enough(you'll know what I mean when you get there) - move it to its furthest point left then righ - do it again. This also works with up and down - and the mouse will reach further.

 

[skeezix]

Yeah, the sound doesn't bother me too much.. since the actual true sound comes across fine, just with a cracle in the background. I need to figure out whats causing that so I can get rid of it though.. doesn't look like its coming out of my code, but from the audio subsystem. So coudl be old libraries, or the way I'm talking to the GP32 or something.. sort of strange. Audio is my weak side.. but I'll get it. I'm no ashamed to ask questions of other devo's.. everyone has a weak side Very strange indeed.

But I'll fix up other things, and work on sound some more, and then make a 005 release.

The sound is really good for some games.. like Xenon Megablast, yuou can barely hear the popping at all.

jeff

 

[skeezix]

Skeezix, you rock! =)

Not just because you're doing such nice work on the emu, but because you're making the development process so much fun for all of us! Thank you so much for your sense of humor and constant posts. Us GP32 fans really appreciate the way you've been doing things.

Hey, no problem I'm writing for love of the ST, so why woudl I keep it to myself? I always release after preliminary testing, and I always warn to the degree of uncertainty in my apps, and if you wanna try 'em out, thats cool. Of course, theyr'e always pretty solid, as I'm not goign to release cap.. but I'm always goign to release early, to get feedback to kick off the next round.

The way I see it.. the more releases and the mroe feedback, the more you end up where you need to go. If you jjst work constant for a few months, without much feedback, you might end up somewhere no one wants.

I've done too many jobs for big companies where you work for a year on a couple million dollar project, and end up with crap no one wants in the end... that you missed the targets. I hate that.

jeff

 

[Bonks]

Skeezix,

dunno if this will help but i put a post ages ago when i first got mine about a lot of stuff having crackling sound (like this does) and if it was just me, and Craig replied saying something that it was to do with an old version of the sound libs or something, and if it was compiled with the new ones it would be much better. Not a coder so im only saying what i was told

As for what i tried, just tried Another World and Gem-X, the crackling is constant and IMHO it is annoyingly off putting, but you do hear the game.

At the mo i would want to turn it off, just my 2c :unsure:

 

[DarkWolfNine]

Skeezix,

how do you switch do Disk b once Disk a has loaded.. (Shadow of the Beast a and b.) 'a' loads.. gets past title, and then asks for disk b.. I have tried what I thought was everything, and it just keeps asking for it. (I have them both set to a and b accordingly before launched)

thanks.. Love the emu. keep up the great work

 

[Bonks]

You cant at the mo DarkWolfNine, no disk wapping yet (unless hes slipped it in )

lotta games need this, namely Fire & Ice, Sabre Team to name but a few

 

[Retroid]

Can't wait to hear this thing with proper sound (if it's completely possible).

A few questions:

Will you support disk writing via the emu? Having a Gem desktop might be useful, esp. as it's default res is small enough to fit completely onto the GP32's screen.

Something I've wondered for a while: just how advanced was the ST's sound hardware? Everything I heard was pretty much comparable to the 128K Spectrum (except, of course, with more memory to store any samples).

Again, along with everyone else here.... amazing work, Jeff ^_^

 

[skeezix]

Disk saving is already in there; push "Select", thoguh sometuiems the colour choices of the menu make it invisible. Woops!

The ST sound hardware is quite basic.

Disk swapping will come.

It turns out the problem is a bug in the GP32 hardware; looks like if you do certain types of operaiotns too fast, it make sa popping noise. Ouch! Thats goign to be a pain to work around :/

If I rebuild without optimizations on, we lose 10% of the emu performance, but 90% of the popping noise goes away :/ (the optimizations make it ncie and fast,a dn the GP32 hardware can't handle it)

Annoying. So looks like we might have a problem until I "de-tune" it :/

I'll include two versions of the app.. one optimized and no sound, and one unoptimized, with sound. Drag.

jeff