Castaway/GP Beta 004 (Atari ST emu)

[Demonix]

Dungeon Master works even better now.. with the addition of the Cursor Key controls we've got an almost playable version! A save game option would be the dogs danglies!

 

[skeezix]

This is truly amazing - both the fact that it's been achieved, and the speed at which its been done.

One thing I've been noticing with it on my GP though is that the screen flickers *a lot* on most games. Is this likely to be a result of using a UK TOS image as opposed to, say, a US one, or some other reason?
Thanks (Using TOS 1.02)

Can you list games that flicker a lot, so I can see what you mean? I've noticed no "flicker" per se. Sometimes the colours are flashig nlike mad.. usually due to pakcers, but some games change the palette every few scanlines, and that screws up the paltte for the other guys, the way I do it now.. So if the screen is flickering, then thats something I may have fixed in awhile But if its flickering as in shimmering... thats weird. Never seen that.

jeff

 

[Tuxedosteve]

Oids flickered for me at frameskip 0 but not at fs 1. I don't remember it doing that at release 3.

No biggie though. It still played fine at fs1.

I'm looking forward to a release with sound. I can't wait to have my Little Computer Person talk and play the piano for me

 

[skeezix]

Dungeon Master works even better now.. with the addition of the Cursor Key controls we've got an almost playable version! A save game option would be the dogs danglies!

Dude, check the readme for 004 You *can* save now

START is pause, and SELECT is "save".

So you tell the game to save to floppy like normal. Then you tell Castawya/GP with SELECT to save the disk image from RAM into SMC, and voila.

So, save your game to (say) disk A. Then push SELECT, then A, then SELECT or whatever to confirm, andit'll write out a diskimage.SAV; then next time, you open the .SAV image instead of the original disk you did before. (I didnt' want to clobber the originals, so I use the .sav file instead).

So you can save DM, Captive, CSB, all the goodness.. no problem

I'm planning on beating DM and CSB with the GP32

Let me know if you come up with some cool idea to make it more playable.

jeff

 

[Anderson]

hi folks
can anybody point me to a working dungeon master image. have 2 cant get either to run
cheers

 

[skeezix]

hi folks
can anybody point me to a working dungeon master image. have 2 cant get either to run
cheers

Automation 97 seems to work for some peopel, but not for others. Weird. I'm using a disk image made from a real DM disk, and it works perfectly. Somethign about the cracks screwed up some of them :/ See if you can find a real DM image.

jeff

 

[Shrike]

heh, i'm still looking for a real DM image....who made it? that could help

 

[Tobriand]

Well, off the top of my head, the game that's flickered the most is Batman the Movie (as in it's constantly doing it and never stops). Others do so too, but I can't remember the titles. Basically, it looks like its constantly decompressing it, but the gameplay is going on at the same time...

Others seem to simply be at the wrong Hz or something, which is why I wondered if US/UK TOS might be an issue.

Sorry about lack of info on game names...

 

[TheOldManx]

this site seems to be literally everything dungeon master you could think of Dungeon Master including disk images and Manuals ,Don't know if they are any good,i've only just got my gp32(as i write this it is in fact flashing up welcome to dungeonmaster very slowly so i guess the image does something) i'm slowly getting the hang of this awesome machine

 

[Demonix]

Oooooh yuuuuuuuuuuuuurs! The save option does indeed work! Nice one!
Mmmmmmmmmmmm all I need now is a couple of hundred hours of free time and some spare batteries.

 

[Demonix]

A control set specially desiged for Dungeon Master would be cool.... A bit like "Cursor" but with A and B being rotate Left and Right? This would aid with wandering about searching for stuff and moving away from monsters quicker?!

 

[daffyduck]

seen as most of us here are no programming minded *myself included*
i think we should donate summat to skeezix
for the good work he is doing
then maybe he`ll port some more emus as he knows what hes doing
i would gladly send him some money even if its just a small donation
without him there would be no st emu to play on
so what do u guys think
i can pay via nochex
a £ or $ at least it will help him out
knowing that we appreciate what hes doing
if u have a nochex link skeezix
then post it here ill send a few quid.
come on u tight arses *DONATE*

 

[Hazel]

Okay now that the batteries are charging I've got some time to write what I noticed after trying a couple of titles. One general note: the emulator rocks okay on with the games:
CANNON FODDER - boots fine and gets to the intro/credits but won't go any further Tried in STew and it just needs a leftmouseclick so I don't know why it doesn't work. And it's strangely soo dark.
GOBLIINS - now that the keyboard is expanded I can get past the first animation but it doesn't take the 2nd disk from B drive. Will need diskswapping soon
GODS - loads fine, can watch some nice graphics but then it gets to the LOADING screen and won't go any further (I tried waiting looong). Maybe just my version (Atari ST Pirate Gold Games)
INTERNATIONAL NINJA RABBITS boots fine, works fine, game poor
SENSIBLE SOCCER 1.2 - gets to the credits scroller, then i hit space and the background starts changing colours very fast and won't go further (btw the emu starts acting strange from then on - everything works slower)
ISHAR - now that's a strange story. most times i get stuck at the FUZZION logo, sometimes at the cracktro but I never got to the Silmaris logo
KING'S QUEST - loads fine, seems to be working OK
LOOM - fine
POPULOUS 2 - this one seems to be working really really good; only one thing - when it gets to the menu, the mouse cursor disappears on certain areas of the screen. They're clickable anyway (but you have to aim without seeing the cursor) and the game looks very good though I've never played it in my whole life before. I just remember a review and a screenshot in a Polish magazine a "couple" of years ago. I always wanted to try it from then on
CHAOS ENGINE - this one looks very promising if one error gets fixed - in the game itself the background (or the ground, you name it) keeps flashing white/gray. Could be a tiny little bit faster too.
ANOTHER WORLD - (aka The Ultimate Game) For Me All The Other Games Could Not Work If Only Another World Did. And it does!!! !!! Loads fine, the intro is beautiful and the game is pure beauty. I just hope it gets a bit faster and a bit lighter (beacuse I can't see those worms falling from the ceiling!). I only remember it from Amiga and it had such beautiful music - is it so nice on the ST? And does the alien friend also say "maydzioroobah"?

10 titles so far. Will try more when the batteries are back.

So generally I will pray my knees off just to see these functions in the next releases:
- disk switching. or in other words inserting disks without resetting
- brightness adjusting
And I bet they will seeing from the progress. I love you man and owe you a beer or a dozen
Greetings.

 

[skeezix]

A control set specially desiged for Dungeon Master would be cool.... A bit like "Cursor" but with A and B being rotate Left and Right? This would aid with wandering about searching for stuff and moving away from monsters quicker?!

Thats what Cursor is for; A and B are Insert and Home, which in DM, turns you left and right I think it also works for Captive.

jeff

 

[A600]

Great work!, Jeff

Sol Negro, Rick Dangerous, Jim Power and Risky Woods also work (at least with Geepee32 emu)
The waiting of my FLU GP32 is killing me! :angry:

A little suggestion: In keyboard mode A and R-shoulder buttons aren't used, so they could be used as the space and enter ST keys (both keys are used a lot in text adventures).

 

[nufu]

And does the alien friend also say "maydzioroobah"?

wuchena grow, wuchena grow grow

 

[stickofjoy]

GREAT WORK JEFF! you almost have me in tears, here. :rolleyes:

i can recommend Atari Pirate Gold disks for nice, mostly uncompressed versions of the classics. see JOE'S FTP.

I've also posted about Sensible Soccer in that thread, which is the only game we're waiting on working in my eyes.

matt

 

[ldaneels]

First, thank you very much for your dedication & support. I can't think of that many emu coders who listen & inform its user base as much as you do. So once again, thank you for being there.
Second, thank you for this awesome emu. It has been said more than enough, but I need to say it one more time. I keep getting amazed at how well the emu runs. I also enjoy greatly seeing the emu progress with each release, checking the games & finding the improvements. It's so cool to see an emu coming together...
Third are a few suggestions if they are not too hard to implement:
- ability to change the contrast through the menu. I have a FLU unit & even then, it can be pretty dark, even with V4.
- ability to bind controls. I know you already said you would not because it is too tedious, but I thought if enough people expressed interest in this, you might end up looking into this eventually (even if it's in a year - I am extremely patient).
- ability to play the emu in full screen. I assume it would be a bitch to resize the screen, but if it is not too tedious, that would be nice
- an injector (cf ZXA on GBA & soon on GP32) were you can basically add roms to the emu & bind the controls once & for all (well, you can still change them afterwards if you need to). You could probably contact Hive (author of ZXA) & I'm sure he would be glad to help. Honestly I have tested over 4000 ZX roms & I found out that binding the controls through an injector solves a lot of problems (ie: A for jumping, Home & Ins, ....). This way you wouldn't have to think of a way to assign buttons, everybody could do it for themselves. Heck, I would even volunteer to set up default bindings for each game (trust me I have plenty of free time & would be more than willing to do it - your emu is more than worth it). Well, at least I could do it for straight dumps, not on the menus (for obvious reasons)
- You already mentioned it, but the ability to switch renderer would be nice (this way everybody have what they want)
- support for MSA files. I don't know if that is easy or even feasible, but if it is, that would solve a lot of time for everybody (well, not for you, I fear - at least when it comes to implementing)

Well, I that's all I can see so far. But don't worry about my queries, just get to them if you find them useful & when you have the time. As I already stated I love to see emus mature little by little (that would be no fun if the emu was perfect overnight). Feel free to email or PM me if you need any precisions.
Thanks again & good luck,

Loic

 

[skeezix]

First, thank you very much for your dedication & support. I can't think of that many emu coders who listen & inform its user base as much as you do. So once again, thank you for being there.
Second, thank you for this awesome emu. It has been said more than enough, but I need to say it one more time. I keep getting amazed at how well the emu runs. I also enjoy greatly seeing the emu progress with each release, checking the games & finding the improvements. It's so cool to see an emu coming together...
Third are a few suggestions if they are not too hard to implement:
- ability to change the contrast through the menu. I have a FLU unit & even then, it can be pretty dark, even with V4.
- ability to bind controls. I know you already said you would not because it is too tedious, but I thought if enough people expressed interest in this, you might end up looking into this eventually (even if it's in a year - I am extremely patient).
- ability to play the emu in full screen. I assume it would be a bitch to resize the screen, but if it is not too tedious, that would be nice
- an injector (cf ZXA on GBA & soon on GP32) were you can basically add roms to the emu & bind the controls once & for all (well, you can still change them afterwards if you need to). You could probably contact Hive (author of ZXA) & I'm sure he would be glad to help. Honestly I have tested over 4000 ZX roms & I found out that binding the controls through an injector solves a lot of problems (ie: A for jumping, Home & Ins, ....). This way you wouldn't have to think of a way to assign buttons, everybody could do it for themselves. Heck, I would even volunteer to set up default bindings for each game (trust me I have plenty of free time & would be more than willing to do it - your emu is more than worth it). Well, at least I could do it for straight dumps, not on the menus (for obvious reasons)
- You already mentioned it, but the ability to switch renderer would be nice (this way everybody have what they want)
- support for MSA files. I don't know if that is easy or even feasible, but if it is, that would solve a lot of time for everybody (well, not for you, I fear - at least when it comes to implementing)

Well, I that's all I can see so far. But don't worry about my queries, just get to them if you find them useful & when you have the time. As I already stated I love to see emus mature little by little (that would be no fun if the emu was perfect overnight). Feel free to email or PM me if you need any precisions.
Thanks again & good luck,

Loic

Your welcome, and I try Its important to keep things fun.. updates, reports, etc, keep people hopping, which keeps it fun for me and you both

Contrast is tough in that with release 004, it uses the full brightness range of the GP .. the ST dark is the lowest, and the ST bright is the highest. I think the GP display is clear and big, but its just not the brightest? By the nature of a FLU it necessarily washes things out a bit, too. (I've got both FLU and non-FLU). But yeah, we'll tweak it.. I'd rather avoid unnecessary menus (at least until I build a good dialog/menu system I've always liked to give options to people, but it tends to confuse people, and few people need many options.. they just want it to "work". We'll see

Control binding.. remind me once everything else is stable. It could coincide with macros. If I get that far

Full screen is doable, but it could cost a frameskip, or half a frameskip. It may not look good, since it would be a non-factored strewtch.. ie: Not 2:1, it'd be like 1.2:1 so you'd get every 5th line being doubled.. might look funny. Lessee.. 200 to 240 is an extra 40 lines so about 1 in 5. *shrug* Again, I'll wait till I get the per-scanline-palettes in place.. go for accuracy and compatability, and then frills

Injector is just a way of binding keys on a per-game basis, then? Shoudl be easy to do if we do binding above.

MSA will come; its nearly ready.

If you've got lots of free time.. would you be interested in helping build a game description database? How many disk images do you have? I might just build a tool where you geed it a filename and a descroiption, and then it spits out a md5-hash to description database, and then we can use that for automatic game lists on the GP32 so you dont' have to remember what games are in which filenames...

jeff

 

[ldaneels]

Hi,
You are right about the basics first & the frills when everything is stable. My comments were more for the long term.
The real purpose of the injector is to consolidate all the roms & the emu into one file & set up the rom in whichever way you please (in my example, the key bindings - but that could include rendering, brightness, framerate & so on). The advantage is you don't have to have a thousand files (ok, I am exaggerating a bit) lying around on your SMC & every game is preconfigured so you can just load & play (well you might still have to pull the keyboard for specific actions, but at least the process is greatly simplified)
if you give me the specifics, I would be more than happy to help with a game description database. Actually I think this is an awesome idea (the ST roms are such a mess...). I have the single roms TOSEC set (atari ST - games [0.22]) & I have most (actually I probably have all of them & then some) of the Automation, cynix, FOF, Medway Boys, Pompey pirates, superGAU & vectronix compilations. My only concern is that it would probably be more relevant to base the database on the TOSEC sets (or does it recognise the file whatever the name ?) & I don't have them for the compilations.
Well, let me know how that would work & I will see what I can do.

Loic