ADFFS 2.34 beta

Discuss ADFFS development and download test releases
JonAbbott
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Re: ADFFS 2.34 beta

Post by JonAbbott »

steve3000 wrote:A4000, 4mb, LCD screen - very good, everything runs pretty much as I expect it to, the 50Hz frame pace must be active because sound is correct speed, although just occasionally a note is lost.
I've not really tested any of the latest betas on RO3.11, so this is useful to know. I'm not going to worry too much about the occasional lost note for the moment, as we still need to decide what to do with frame pacing on IOC before final release. That's largely going to depend on where you get with the 56Hz modes and how usable they are.
steve3000 wrote:Raspberry Pi, RISC OS 5.21 (31st Jan) - first I kept getting internal errors, then realised I hadn't set CPU to ARMv5 (can this be set on demand, or does it require a reboot of the OS?).
I believe it can be done on the fly and was planning to set it when the JIT starts up.
steve3000 wrote:... all of a sudden the keyboard died. Num lock light went out and all keyboard input failed (including Ctrl-break). Shame, because I'd not got that far in PacMania in years
It's an issue that's been there since day one and you're the second person to mention it today. It needs re-raising as a bug on ROOL.
steve3000
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Re: ADFFS 2.34 beta

Post by steve3000 »

Ahh, is it a RISC OS issue? I've never experienced it before, just today after loading the updated RO5.21 with fixed sound (31st Jan build). (although I haven't played RISC OS games on the Pi until today, but I have played emulated BBC games with no issues...).

Currently seems to be brought to the surface by PacMania for me - I've had the keyboard 'crash' three times tonight, all during intense pressing of Z, X, ;, ....
JonAbbott
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Re: ADFFS 2.34 beta

Post by JonAbbott »

steve3000 wrote:Ahh, is it a RISC OS issue?
Its a Pi firmware issue, which has been somewhat confused over the years by unrelated power issues. They even went as far as to fork the firmware in an attempt to fix although I've never tried it.

The root issue is that the USB stack drops packets during high load.
steve3000
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Re: ADFFS 2.34 beta

Post by steve3000 »

JonAbbott wrote:
steve3000 wrote:Ahh, is it a RISC OS issue?
Its a Pi firmware issue, which has been somewhat confused over the years by unrelated power issues. They even went as far as to fork the firmware in an attempt to fix although I've never tried it.

The root issue is that the USB stack drops packets during high load.
Is it RISC OS's handling and recovery of the USB stack after lost packets which actually causes the keyboard to stop responding, or is it all on the firmware side? If it's the firmware, then that's a PITA for game playing on the Pi.

I suspect I already know the answer to this, but in this instance what does 'high load' entail - is it the repeated pressing of keys on the keyboard or the repeated scanning for key presses? If it were the later we could in theory limit the frequency of keyboard scans.

Come to think of it, I have noticed, while editing code on the Pi, that occasionally keys become 'stuck on', space and delete are popular ones to 'stick'. I guess this could be related?
JonAbbott
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Re: ADFFS 2.34 beta

Post by JonAbbott »

It's firmware, as the problem is apparent in Linux as well. In Linux however you can use the FIQ split branch and force Linux down to USB 1 mode to resolve.
JonAbbott
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Re: ADFFS 2.34 beta

Post by JonAbbott »

Xenon 2: Megablast is now working. BlowPipe was working until I added IOC emulation, now it's not detecting disc 2. I've updated this post with the current state of play with the games being tested.

There's still a few minor issues with the IOC emulation which need resolving before the next beta release.
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