ADFFS 2.71 beta

[Vanfanel]

@Jon: Updated using the PackMan, with great ease and pleasure. What a difference with the previous ways!
-Elite now works perfectly!
-A game that fails is Rick Dangerous. It gets into a black screen on both 2.70 and 2.17 betas.

[JonAbbott]

-A game that fails is Rick Dangerous. It gets into a black screen on both 2.70 and 2.71 betas.

The packaged 2.71f build is now available, which fixes this issue.

[JonAbbott]

The packaged 2.71j build is now available, which has some fairly major changes where I've modified the way the machine state is stored around SWI. This should have fixed OS_ReadLine32 so it doesn't need to store the state locally, but that doesn't seem to be the case, so I've rolled that bit of code back, everything else that previously stored the machine state locally now uses the stack instead.

This has meant the SWI handler now adds 24 bytes to the SVC32 stack on entry, which isn't ideal, but does mean I've removed virtually all the machine states that were being stored in-line in the code. Essentially this is one small step towards making the ADFFS Module read-only.

I've increased the max memory supported under the JIT from 8MB to 12MB, to support more RISC PC games. This is the maximum I can fit to keep everything below the legacy screen memory (&1FF8000) - I'll post another thread about why this limit exists and how I propose to support up to the legacy Appspace limit of ~27.5mb.

The following games are now packaged for testers:

• F1018701 Haunted House (1993) (The Fourth Dimension)
• F1020901 Ixion (1992) (Software 42)
• F1032801 Shuggy (1997) (Werewolf Software)
• F1036501 TEK 1608 (2002) (R-Comp Interactive)

Haunted House does still randomly lock the machine, which I'm investigating, but I have extensively modified the code so it works on high bpp desktop modes. At some point, I'll do the same to the StrongARM version, which I believe is unchanged (ie same bugs) except for removal of the protection from the original release.

TEK 1608 wants 13MB of memory, so it may well fail with alloc errors at some point given it's only getting 12MB.

EDIT: I've noticed the title screen in Bouncer doesn't work since the GraphicsV changes, so I'll need to work out a patch for it at some point.

[JonAbbott]

The packaged 2.71l build is now available. The Appspace maximum is now 13MB, with RMA reduced to 1MB to compensate, leaving 2MB for codelets.

Codelet allocation now reports if codelet space is exhausted (although the machine currently locks if a fatal error is reported during a screen blit). All 26bit entry/exit points have moved to either Page Zero or just above the RMA in codelet space and BL codelets are now reused.

I've also updated Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 to get rid of the 3 second pause before it starts a game. I've not updated the package version as it's a minor change, so delete it via PackMan and reinstall if you want the updated version.

Whilst testing these changes, I noticed Ballarena (UCS) doesn't get past the loader screen. I'm not sure when it broke, certainly before 2.70c (I've not tested back any further as that involves downgrading the OS version.) The Eterna release does not suffer this issue.

[Vanfanel]

@Jon:
-Rick Dangerous works again
-Pac-Mania [Learning Curve] hangs on quit now!

No way that the original version of Pac-Mania gets joystick support?

Also, any chances that, if I send you the latest versions of "Lemmings" and "Oh no! More Lemmings" with Amiga music patched in, would you pack them so they are installable via PackMan as the other games? Amiga music is WAY better really... That's how the games should be enjoyed IMHO.

[richw]

The lack of Joystick is my bad... I need to get back onto USBJoystick again and get the full keyboard and mouse emulation finished.

[JonAbbott]

-Pac-Mania [Learning Curve] hangs on quit now!

I can't see to repro this, but wait until the next build to see if its resolved. I did spot a few minor issue which I corrected in 2.71m, I'll rollback the big change I'm currently working on and will package 2.71n shortly.

No way that the original version of Pac-Mania gets joystick support?

Richard has now sent me a recent USBJoystick build, which should correct the Pac-mania issue (and hopefully Jahangir Khan Championship Squash as well)

Also, any chances that, if I send you the latest versions of "Lemmings" and "Oh no! More Lemmings" with Amiga music patched in, would you pack them so they are installable via PackMan as the other games? Amiga music is WAY better really... That's how the games should be enjoyed IMHO.

I can't do that as JASPP only owns rights to the Acorn version. Of course this doesn't stop you from creating your own local modified version - there's no point packaging it, just ZIP it up if you want to move it between machines.

[JonAbbott]

The packaged 2.71n build is now available. Pending bug fixes, this will be the final build of this branch so I'll look to release it this month.

[Vanfanel]

@Jon: Pac-Mania [Learning Curve] is still hanging on quit

[JonAbbott]

@Jon: Pac-Mania [Learning Curve] is still hanging on quit

I can't reproduce the issue, are you quitting via CTRL-ESC? I've tried both CTRL-ESC and CTRL-SHIFT-F12 but they both work for me.

Its clutching at straws, but try removing the package and redownload it. You could also try booting the floppy to confirm its the same.

The final thing to try is CTRL-F12 to drop to the command line, then a *GOS and finally change to the Pac-mania folder and run the !Run manually. When you quit, see it reports any errors and if its a blank screen try changing MODE, ie ECHO <22><0>

You might also want to try the original release to see if its the same.