Outcast (castaway Module) - Second Alpha Released

[skeezix]

I'm tied up tonight so thought I'd squeeze in something as best I could this morning..

Get alpha 002 here:
http://www.codejedi.com/outcast/

I'll try and upload it to the archive as well.

See the README for changes but I'll copy some of it here:

Known issue: .msa files don't seem to work
Known issue: Sound is nasty, though sometimes 'okay'
Known issue: Exit to gp2x launcher isn't working
Known issue: Various menu items don't apply or work (most work fine)

Changes for alpha 002
---------------------
FIX: Flicker in the menus nolonger exists.
CHG: Clears the screen and shows a message when firing up the emu, so you
know to wait a moment and whats going on, and no junk at bottom
NEW: Enabled throttling by default, to approximately 60Hz though the menu
lets you specify 60, or 50 Hz, or even 30Hz to slow things down.. to
no throttle at all for max speed (like in alpha 001 default)
CHG: Added a lame comment to loader to make it feel more authentic; I really
need to add a sin-boncey-text intro for the real deal
NEW: Theres an operational ST keyboard for entering text, that is used for
the Make a Savestate operation in the menu, and a few other spots
NEW: Savestates and loadstates should work; while in the emu, hit START
to bring up the runtime menu, and hit Make a Savestate; there you can
enter a filename with the ST keyboard, and save out the state. You can
load the savestate (.ss file) from the Disk Picker just like loading
a floppy into the machine is done.

Remember, the run-time menu is toggled on and off with the START button. Use
that menu to swap floppies during runtime, play with frameskip, drop out
savestates, etc; the disk picker in there can also load savestates and look
up what games are on most floppies, etc.

Hope you enjoy

jeff

 

[DaveC]

Cool I will have to try later.

Were you ever able to get the new Cyclone working? I know Franxis says he has it working completely in MAME, and that most if not all bugs are fixed.

 

[Watto]

Don't you ever go to sleep jeff ? Not that I'm complaining, as I will now put this version through its paces .

Keep em coming jeff...

 

[skeezix]

DaveC -- I'll worry about cyclone later .. I want to get things usable first, and then I'll slip in the latest cyclone (I think Franxis let out the mame sources so it shoudl all be in there for me to nab.) Lets hope its working now.

I'll just make it an option, to use Cyclone or not, so folks can experiment with compatibility. Thats better than just ignoring it

I'll try and get the virtual keyboard in place tomorrow sometime, and then things will really shape up fast

(Also note that in the disk picker, you can use joystick left/right to scroll a screen at a time)

On modes..
--------------

I'm thinking the joystick+mouse on the same mode (on gp2x joystick) seems to work very well -- really, I can't think of any game on any system that watches both mouse and joystick for movement at the _same time_, so why not? This also reduces the mode requirements and I'm thinking along these lines now..

START for toggling the runtime menu, as it does now
SELECT for toggling the onscreen keyboard, which captures the gp2x joystick while in use
No 'frameskip mode' as in the gp32 -- I doubt we need to fine-tune frameskip 'live' all that much, instead just having frameskip in the runtime menu (I think its in there now)

Suddenly, we've got all the operations we mostly need, with only two modes that we toggle using SELECT.

This leaves the shoulder buttons as entirely bindable via config file or the like .. to allocate them to alter frameskip say, or do various ST keyboard pushes, or pull up a menu of custom modes like in the GP32 config file menu. (Really, with config files, the shoulders and A/B/X/Y/SELECT buttons will be all configurable.)

Further, at launch-emu-time it should be possible to specify cyclone or my regular C core, and which emu module to use (CaSTaway being the only one for right now); and maybe add options for hard drive mounts, though I expect I'll just mount /mnt/sd/roms/atari-st-harddisk or somesuch as the hard drive..

jeff

 

[LHC]

CaSTaway ran at an awesome speed on GP32 without Cyclone.

I imagine at 200Mhz+ and with Cyclone, it would be ridiculous.

 

[skeezix]

Thats why I've not worried so much .. its getting pretty well tuned, so it runs pretty well regardless .. ie: usually at frameskip 0 or 1. The only times its slow at 200Mhz are when theres a lot of math going on .. it needs some more tuning there, but thats not too often.

ie: Would many people notice?

It could speed up the loading of DM, but thats not relevent since you only do it once and then drop a savestate.

What games are slow?

I guess the ones I play aren't impacted by speed so it never scratched my itch Stuntcar Racer maybe...

Anyway, I'll build cyclone in, and if its good maybe I can backport it to the gp32 as well.. it could certainly help in the gp32 version to get that last needed 10 or 15%, but on the 2x we're throttling.. almost always

jeff

 

[Tobriand]

Well, for one thing, it probably wouldn;t need 200MHz - which means our batteries get to last a fair bit longer. Or we get to play our own MP3s in the background. Or something

 

[Watto]

I find like yourself jeff, that this is running really sweet speed wise, at least everything I've thrown at it (llamatron, midwinter, starglider II, xenon II). My only gripe is with the sound , seems very weedy, and has trouble with samples (try llamatron and you'll see what I mean). I'm in no doubt that this will be addressed in due course .

One final thing, if a chatboard or other keyboard becomes available, will you be supporting it ?

Tony

 

[TJFBryant]

I am a new proud user of the Atari ST, (Virgin user and all) Will you be adding MSA file support? Most of the games I bought years ago are MSA. Thanks Skeezix

 

[skeezix]

yep MSA will come; it should work fine right now.. no clue why it doesn't (spent 20mins this morning searching a bit. If you use 002, you'll notice it says "looks like msa" when you insert one of those

Sound will get much cleaner very soon once I sort out a few things. (again, I'm not sure why its so crunchy, but I'll sort itout quick.)

I already support chatboard in the GP32 veresion, but thats via Spivs little driver; again, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it

jeff

 

[ruffnutts]

Will we be able to install apps aswell

 

[Radek]

Will we be able to install apps aswell

​

Yep - the apps and lots of them! Once the speed of 68000 emulation could be set they should work pretty fast. Only if I could connect my low profile keyboard to gp2x...

BTW. Try ST version of Nebulus and compare it with the native port...

 

[IanJ]

Beta 2 is behaving poorly for me. Controls are very tempramental to say the least. Often I can't move in the menu or in games. Mostly up/down don't seem to register. Left/right are ok tho. Very weird. :blink:

 

[ThorC]

Working great here, and very enjoyable. Just looking forward to the sound working and I'll be good to go.

Just a quick possible feature suggestion: Could it be possible in the (distant) future to add a button that could speed up the mouse? (Most usefully customly asignable, so only assigned when useful) In games such as arkanoid, this is pretty vital, needing to move the mouse fast, and if there was a button which when held down would double mouse movement, I think it'd be quite useful. Just a possible suggestion, perhaps

 

[skeezix]

I'll likely just speed up the mouse; right now it moves 2px per frame I think, so I could make it go 3 and see if thats sufficient. It works better on the analog PSP stick, so it can move relative to pressure, but I can either add a mouse-speed menu item or just make it move 3 or 4. (Too far a move makes it hard to hit small things though.. so maybe a speed-button makes sense?)

IanJ - "alpha"; I'll make it beta when its fully featured (ie: virtual keyboard and decent sound).

After awhile, it may become unresponsive.. a long standing bug I need to track; in that case, just exit and restart. But when you fire up the emu from the gp2x launcher, it should work nicely. I'll look into it.

jeff

 

[Iorgy77]

I noticed a problem with the earlier version but haven't had time to try the newer version. Games like Super Cars and APB that require holding the fire button and moving the joystick at the same time act weird for example in supercars turning left and right stops the car from accelerating. Could this be because of the mouse/joystick at the same time? I am sure Super Cars II was fine. I will test it further tonight.

 

[skeezix]

Firebutton is part of the joystick subsystem and should be fine. Itspossible the game doesn't liek the mouse oging left while the joystick fire is down, but ..

If its a problem, I'll just do modes as I've always done, but it seems attractive to skip them if I can

Or maybe I'll do them, just to keep things kocher; SELECT to pop up a mode menu instead of toggling.

jeff

 

[DaveC]

Thats why I've not worried so much .. its getting pretty well tuned, so it runs pretty well regardless .. ie: usually at frameskip 0 or 1. The only times its slow at 200Mhz are when theres a lot of math going on .. it needs some more tuning there, but thats not too often.

ie: Would many people notice?

It could speed up the loading of DM, but thats not relevent since you only do it once and then drop a savestate.

What games are slow?

I guess the ones I play aren't impacted by speed so it never scratched my itch Stuntcar Racer maybe...

Anyway, I'll build cyclone in, and if its good maybe I can backport it to the gp32 as well.. it could certainly help in the gp32 version to get that last needed 10 or 15%, but on the 2x we're throttling.. almost always

jeff

​

Well is is always good to have it run faster. For one thing it would run TWICE as smooth with FS0 than it would at FS1 (60 FPS vs 30 FPS).

Then if it had power to spare you could add in those fancy raster effects, and accurate sound that was cut out in present versions to speed up emulation.

All of this will make it feel like a real ST rather than an almost close simulation of one

Then there is always the possibility to run at a lower clock speed to save battery. Instead of 1 hour per charge we could get 3.

So yeah I think it is worthwhile to have cyclone

 

[ingrin]

What is Cyclone? You mean the "C"-esq programing language?

 

[Hanz™]

What is Cyclone? You mean the "C"-esq programing language?

​

They are talking about code that emulates cyclone CPU core in Assembly (a very low-level programming langauge). The core was written by fdave I think, but it has since been improved by numerous other programers in the GP32/2X scene.
It would increase the speed of the emu, at the expense of compatability.