CaSTaway GP feedback

[Mark1970]

Demonix wrote:

2. A graphical "A" drive "B" drive selection screen where you can see what file
is/was selected for A/B and perhaps automatic database lookup and
display the content (if known) below the selection - the file picker can be at the
bottom of the screen?

I agree that information on which disk is actually in what emulated drive in the disk selection menu might be very helpfull. Especially when deleting that disk image that just didn´t work on Castaway, but what friggin´ disk image was that....o the memory fails.....

Cheers, keep up the good work.

 

[ldaneels]

Here are some things I have been looking for (I know, I repeat myself - it comes with age...):

- linear contrast change
- selectable resolutions - mainly to avoid the small green screens that appear in some games (hounds of shadows, magnetic scrolls games,...)
- save states. There are a lot of good reasons for them other than cheating. Personally, I am not hardcore enough to play all the games I want to play without any saving method (rick dangerous 1 & 2, Dizzy games,...).
- fixed mouse controls (100% accurate all the time, even after resolution changes)
- keyboard / joystick toggle with L
- Injector where you can preconfigure games with specific controls / keys (cf ZXA for the GBA or on the GP32 when it comes out) & general settings.
- possiblity to change directory in the file selector
- Insert disk bound to a specific key combination (in my opinion L+R would be best)
- Fix the drive B usage. Every time I tried to use drive B to play (well, to insert a second disk, that is) a game (BAT & amberstar among others), the emu crashes
- fixed digitized sounds (cf Mortville manor, Xenon 2 intro,...)
- FPS indicator
- disk drive status indicator
- more intuitive (& closer to the real thing) way to handle saves - I always find it confusing how the saves work in CaSTaway (or maybe a clear description of how it is working could solve my problem). Problem is that would involve being able to write directly to the ST files
- fix database support for stand alone games (just fixed...Thanks Skeezix)
- reverse use of the database: menu selector shows the actual games list (ie: lists the games inside a compilation & not the comilation itself) with no duplicates. Pressing Select pops up a menu showing which disks have the game & then any button to start that specific disk.
- add more delay to cursors (too sensitive right now) - same thing within the disk selector. In Dungeon Master, I end up killing my guys on the walls way too often On the other hand, Shufflepuck Cafe's controls are a bit unresponsive (try to play against Biff Raunch & you will see what I mean !). Maybe it would be possible to select the controls sensitivity (be it cursors, mouse, joystick or keyboard) through the menu.
- save current config so that when you restart the emu it restarts with the previous settings
- a selectable splash screen or animation (since so many people are requesting it). I wouldn't mind haveing a nice picture in the background.
- add all the keys to the keyboard (well, at least /, Shift & *)
- clean restart through the "Restart CaSTaway / GP" option. It often happens that the emu runs erratically after a restart (mouse not working, games crashing,...), while everything runs fine on a fresh start.

Well, that should give you a nice to do list...
With that, you should have the ultimate emu (well, it's my opinion at least).
Thanks for your support,

Loic

PS: for alphabetical lisiting, when preparing to transfer the files through PClink, just sort the files by name & everything will be in alphabetical order in the file selector. Going further along these lines, you could transfer the files sequentially to get the exact listing you want (first the TOS, then DiskA & DiskB, then the games,...)

 

[ldaneels]

Oooooh ohhhhoooooo.. thats a magic phrase...

True. Dungeon Master from savestate shoud load in a couple seconds, as opposed to waiting a minute or two from fresh.

OKay, thats worth doing then Just express everythign in terms of Dungeon Master to get my attention

jeff

Skeezix, you are so vain
Glad to see we finally found a valid argument for save states....
Good luck,

Loic

 

[skeezix]

- selectable resolutions - mainly to avoid the small green screens that appear in some games (hounds of shadows, magnetic scrolls games,...)
- more intuitive (& closer to the real thing) way to handle saves - I always find it confusing how the saves work in CaSTaway (or maybe a clear description of how it is working could solve my problem). Problem is that would involve being able to write directly to the ST files

Small green screens?

If you mean you see a medium res screen actually as two screens on the GP32, then switch to the "fast" rendering for now; it knows how to deal with medium res right. The accurate renderer doesn't have a medium res side yet. Soon

ie: Go thr GEM desktop, and go to medium res, and toggle fast and accurate renders to see what I mean.

As to saves.. whsts wrong with them?

steps to save..

1) Save in the emulation
2) Save the disk to SMC

Done

To load..

1) Pick the .SAV disk image instead of the original disk image.

IF you're saving to an alternate save disk, then you need to do a disk swap in each of those steps.

jeff

 

[stickofjoy]

What happens when you want to save a .SAV? does it overwrite?

 

[ldaneels]

Hi, I just tried the Med res trick & it works just fine. Thanks for the tip.
As for the saves, I suppose it doesn't really matter if you end up including save states.
Thanks for all the help,

Loic

 

[A600]

- add more delay to cursors (too sensitive right now) - same thing within the disk selector. In Dungeon Master, I end up killing my guys on the walls way too often On the other hand, Shufflepuck Cafe's controls are a bit unresponsive (try to play against Biff Raunch & you will see what I mean !). Maybe it would be possible to select the controls sensitivity (be it cursors, mouse, joystick or keyboard) through the menu.

Yes, I have the same problem. Menus and keyboard are tooo sensisitive (when I press down or up, the cursor always advances two rows instead of one). In beta 5 the button timer was raised form 500 to 600. If that value is stored in a constant would be great to have a castaway.ini file where change that value.

 

[skeezix]

What happens when you want to save a .SAV? does it overwrite?

When you open a .SAV file, and then hit Save again, it does in fact overwrite it. So once you've started saving to a disk image on the SMC, just open that save image and you'll always end up saving over it. It works out very well.

(ie: If you save games onto the same image as the game is launched from, its perfect. First save creates the .sav disk, and then just open it and save at leisure, never a worry)

jeff

 

[AdamDawes]

In beta 5 the button timer was raised form 500 to 600. If that value is stored in a constant would be great to have a castaway.ini file where change that value.

IMHO the best solution is to have a "key repeat delay" as well as a "key repeat speed." Until the key repeat delay has elapsed, no repeat takes place. This means that individual presses aren't duplicated, and holding a key still has the desired effect. Hold down a key in any text editor and it'll do it.

 

[stickofjoy]

What happens when you want to save a .SAV? does it overwrite?

When you open a .SAV file, and then hit Save again, it does in fact overwrite it. So once you've started saving to a disk image on the SMC, just open that save image and you'll always end up saving over it. It works out very well.

(ie: If you save games onto the same image as the game is launched from, its perfect. First save creates the .sav disk, and then just open it and save at leisure, never a worry)

jeff

could we not, then, cut out the middle man and offer saving to game disc as a user selected option? as it makes sense to cut down on disc space used.

 

[Tobriand]

Well, if you want saving to game disk, its pretty simple to achieve already... just rename all your files to .sav (not certain it'd work on .msa's but prolly)

I have to say I'd prefer realtime patching of a disk, rather than the complete image - i.e. it compares the .sav file to the .stt file and gets rid of everything that's identical, then on loading the stt, it patches it with the .sav file (now a lot smaller) in realtime such that its effectively the same as having direct to-disk saving. With that method, though, it'd be useful to put .sav files in a directory like gp:\gpmm\atarist\savs\ in order to avoid making various roms vanish at the 200 mark.

 

[stickofjoy]

Well, if you want saving to game disk, its pretty simple to achieve already... just rename all your files to .sav (not certain it'd work on .msa's but prolly)

I have to say I'd prefer realtime patching of a disk, rather than the complete image - i.e. it compares the .sav file to the .stt file and gets rid of everything that's identical, then on loading the stt, it patches it with the .sav file (now a lot smaller) in realtime such that its effectively the same as having direct to-disk saving. With that method, though, it'd be useful to put .sav files in a directory like gp:\gpmm\atarist\savs\ in order to avoid making various roms vanish at the 200 mark.

Patching is my preferred method, too.

 

[Bonks]

Why should save states be classed as 'cheating' :blink:

aye, awright, fair enough ill be able to reload my game once i die in Turrican, but why do you think 99% of games released now have a 'savestate'

not being able to save when you want is so old, nobody has the patience anymore for that kinda crap

<holds his banner up screaming>WE WANT SAVE STATE<wobbles banner some>

all emus should have savestate


did i mention id REALLY like savestate? not actually using the emu much purely cause i cant save with the games i wanna play testing loads in the hope it happens tho

oh, and some kinda gamma control, even if it makes the colours wash out like SMS emu does, id rather that than not being able to see anything at all (dark scenes in Another World as an example)

 

[stickofjoy]

oh, and some kinda gamma control, even if it makes the colours wash out like SMS emu does, id rather that than not being able to see anything at all (dark scenes in Another World as an example)

and Super Cars II!

http://www.atari.st/data/shots/1699.gif

 

[Tobriand]

Well, I'm very satisfied with what we've got. I'm sure I've said a load of this before, but hey - oerhaps some of them are new ideas

Savestates - yes, but if not I'll manage.
Reduced size saving would also be nice (i.e. real-time patching)
A note to tell you which disk was in which drive, and a fix of the restarting-on-inserting-a-disk bug...
Ideally a game-list rather than disk-list... but that could be awkward (the system'd need to be changed a little so it knew the difference between 68a and 68b - else it might well not know which one actually had "Disk 2" on it. Which would be awkward.
FM sound I'm really hoping for - at least, slightly better than it is at the moment. Garbled hissing ain't exactly ideal...
And a keybind mode.
Hard-drive would also be nice for the sake of installing a few games that don't like floppies (Ultima 6)

Anything else I can think of in terms of nitpicking annoyingness... no - don't think so atm.

Love what's there - just wondering if anything else is possible too

 

[skeezix]

I will take a look into save states in a bit; ran out of free time right now but I'll get on it soon

FMSound shoudl be very good right now; the onyl sound issues shoudl be with samples, really.. it shoudl sound great right now..

Better.SAV dropping.. could do. Good idea.

Hard drive I'll leave for last when I've got a lot of time.. its not the most fun thing to do

jeff

 

[Vanamonde]

Hard drive I'll leave for last when I've got a lot of time.. its not the most fun thing to do

What about re- implementing a one button toggle to quickly switch between keyboard/joystick/mouse like the early versions of Castaway. Would make playing Carrier Command far easier...

 

[stickofjoy]

L = toggle keyboard would make my day.

 

[Bonks]

L = toggle keyboard would make my day.

I second that

 

[xav]

Well, now that we've got save states (thank you so much Skeezix, it really makes it practical to just have a quick blast of Xenon 2 every now and then, without having to wait for it to decompress), my next vote would also be for L=Keyboard. I'm sure it would also make it much easier to play Dungeon Master