ADFFS 2.83

[Vanfanel]

@Jon

I've updated to ADFFS 2.84 latest BETA:

-Alone in the Dark is indeed fixed now, no more palette problems! (But there's still an audio problem: effects pitch is too high, try to execute the fighting movements to notice the high-pitched voice as an obvious example, but all effects in-game seem affected.
Also, the game seems to be "compressed" to the upper part of the screen. Looking at the Archimedes version, it seems to be fullscreen?)

-Fireball I-II is also fixed now!

[JonAbbott]

-Alone in the Dark is indeed fixed now, no more palette problems! (But there's still an audio problem: effects pitch is too high

I didn't get as far as playing the game...only checking the intro looked correct .

the game seems to be "compressed" to the upper part of the screen.

I've not seen that before. ADFFS 2.84 will be using GPU overlays by default for the upscaling so it could be something odd with the scaling factor. What resolution/aspect ratio is your Pi configured for in CONFIG/TXT and does the aspect ratio match the physical display. What resolution is your desktop running at?

You can confirm its an overlay scaling issue by renaming ADFFS550 to ADFFS550ov. ADFFS550 uses direct mode changes (ie how it's always done it to date), ADFFS550ov uses a full-screen overlay, over the desktop.

The overlay method is a lot quicker as it doesn't need to blank borders on every blit, or perform software scaling for double-pixel modes. It's also using double-buffering instead of triple, so less lag on keyboard/mouse/joystick input. There are however some issues in BCMVideo that need fixing before I fully commit to it...you might notice on occasion the image will flicker, with every alternative frame missing, which is an issue in BCMVideo. You'd also notice scrolling in games isn't smooth if your desktop isn't at 50Hz.

Long story short, I suspect a specific combination of differing aspect ratios on the physical screen, game mode and desktop mode are confusing the scaling BCMVideo is applying to the overlay.

[Vanfanel]

@Jon

It's very interesting that ADFFS is now using overlays! Are these dispmanx-managed overlays as in old days GNU/Linux Pi1/2 graphics?

About the scaling issue:
Games like Alone in the Dark, GODs, etc.. have a thick black border under the game image, while others are fullscreen like Fireball II.
Maybe the games just need to be centered?

It has always been like that, not something new with ADFFS 2.84 BETA.
I tried using ADFFS550 instead of ADFFS550ov, and the scaling results are the same, so moving to overlays has zero effect on this.

On my config.txt I have:

Code: Select all

hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080
hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=31
disable_overscan=1

..which allows me to run at the native resolution of my monitor, which is 1920x1080.
Now, in Risc OS, I'm using the Other->Generic MDF in 1920x1080 16M colors.
This is how things look best, as expected on a 1080P monitor.

I tried

Code: Select all

hdmi_mode=17

too, and 720x576 in Risc OS monitor too. That made zero difference: same exact scaling results on the games.

Something else about the overlays version:

Something I have noticed and maybe should be looked at: using ADFFS550ov, running GODs and then running Fireball II (for example) without rebooting, results on a black screen. But using ADFFS550, I can run GODs and then any other games without problems. So I believe ADFFS550ov isn't freeing something after terminating the games...

[JonAbbott]

Are these dispmanx-managed overlays as in old days GNU/Linux Pi1/2 graphics?

They're GraphicsV overlays, which in the case of the Pi are handled by BCMVideo and passed through to the GPU via mailboxes to the Pi firmware.

About the scaling issue:
Games like Alone in the Dark, GODs, etc.. have a thick black border under the game image, while others are fullscreen like Fireball II.
Maybe the games just need to be centered?

Ah, that's not a scaling issue then, that's just how the games are as they're PC conversions that only use the first 200 lines.

running GODs and then running Fireball II (for example) without rebooting, results on a black screen

There is a known issue with BCMVideo were it sometimes fails to pass an overlay change onto the GPU because there's no free mailboxes - if you leave it a few minutes, the image does eventually appear if its that issue.

Whilst testing today however, I did notice it wasn't always destroying the overlay when handing over to the hardware GraphicsV driver, so try today's build to see if it behaves the same.

Pac-Mania hangs during gameplay or at quit via CTRL+SHIFT+F12

I've rewritten the scripts for both Pac-Mania releases, so please try both with today's build and see if there's any change.

-Alone in the Dark ... there's still an audio problem: effects pitch is too high, try to execute the fighting movements to notice the high-pitched voice as an obvious example, but all effects in-game seem affected.

I've not managed to reproduce that issue. Does it happen if its the first game you run after a reboot? I'm wondering if something else has changed the pitch and its not being reset correctly when the machine state is reset.

[Vanfanel]

@Jon

-About the issue with games going into a black screen if they are run after another game: Yes, if I wait at the black image, I eventually get the games working, so that's the issue you mentioned.

-About the Alone in the Dark pitch issue: seems to affect the fighting voices, and yes, it happens even if the game is run after a fresh boot.
A question: Would it be possible to have PC-conversion games centered instead of them being displayed with a thick brack bar under the image?

-About the Mac-Mania (F10501700) issue with WiFi: it doesn't happen anymore with today's 2.84 BETA, so seems solved!

-Another game that hangs on different places with WiFi on (hangs on the controls explanation screen, in-game, etc...) is Thundermonk.

[JonAbbott]

A question: Would it be possible to have PC-conversion games centered instead of them being displayed with a thick brack bar under the image?

Not easily as that's how the games were coded as a straight conversion from PC versions. Its more noticeable on a 16:9 display because of the black bars left/right that wouldn't be there on a 5:4 display.

I could potentially add something to the overlay scaling, essential the scaler needs to know the source is not 5:4 (ie 320x256) but 8:5 (320x200). In principle that sounds simple, but not so much in practice as how do you detect its 8:5 and then how do you scale it as there's three factors at play: the physical display aspect ratio, the game mode aspect ratio and the desktop aspect ratio.

-About the Mac-Mania (F10501700) issue with WiFi: it doesn't happen anymore with today's 2.84 BETA, so seems solved!

-Another game that hangs on different places with WiFi on (hangs on the controls explanation screen, in-game, etc...) is Thundermonk.

Nothing was change in ADFFS to fix Pac-mania, I moved its tracker from an IRQ handler to hang off the SoundChannel 1 fill...which would imply the WiFi stack is potentially doing something dodgy with IRQ, like re-enabling them when the OS is threaded and causing IRQ re-entrance issues.

I'll see if I can reproduce the issue with Thundermonk. If you come across any more games that lock with WiFi connected, let me know as I'll need to gather evidence if I need to go back to the ROD/ROOL devs.
It might also be worth retesting with WiFi loaded, but disconnected.

As the same issue is occurring with both WiFi stacks, it would imply it's probably an issue OS side in SDIO and not necessarily the WiFi driver.