ADFFS 2.84 public beta

[Vanfanel]

@Jon: Ah, yes, this strange palette thing started with 2.84 BETA, so the VIDC1 and GraphicsV palette gamma correction makes perfect sense.
Hmm.. Maybe it could be possible to disable that optionally? Games looked way better before. And from what you say, they needed manual adjustment on the Arc... Just an idea!

[JonAbbott]

I've noticed Diggers isn't being scaled to fill the screen with the Overlay build, which I'm look into.

This is turning into a can of worms.

The problem, which on the face of it doesn't sound that complicated, is actually not as straightforward as it sounds. The problem is how the VIDC20 GraphicsV driver determines when it should take over from the physical GraphicsV driver. At the point it takes over, it has to note the current screen resolution and buffer address, request the overlay mask colour and then fill the physical screen with that overlay mask.

What's causing the issue with games that use Service_ModeExtension is it's bouncing between VIDC20/GPU GraphicsV drivers which causes ADFFS to get confused about where the GPU screen buffer is and its size. The root of that issue is GraphicsV drivers don't track logical addresses, so although its possible to request the physical address of the screen buffer, that can't be translated into a logical address. It's also not possible to request the current mode details, although I can work around that by tracking all mode changes being passed to the GPU.

Long story short, I need to come up with a reliable way to capture the logical address and size of the screen buffer/resolution once, when the VIDC20 GraphicsV driver takes over.

[JonAbbott]

Update build in the OP.

I've noticed Diggers isn't being scaled to fill the screen with the Overlay build, which I'm look into.

Hopefully fixed in this build. Sensible Soccer was another that wasn't being scaled.

some games like Lemmings and Flashback have somewhat strange colors/palettes: specially noticeable on fade-to-black transitions, and in Lemmings ground tiles which look too red-ish.

Should be fixed in this build.

Also, the aspect ratio thing with CTRL+SHIFT+5 / 8 is fantastic for Alone in the Dark! Is there a way to get that done on launch? Something I can add on the game script or similar.

I've noted which games are now auto-corrected here. There's a few I can't correct without modifying the game code and two require package updates - which I'll sort out in due course.

It only works with the overlay builds.

[Vanfanel]

@Jon

Palette an scaling problems seem to be gone now, at least on the games I tested! Lemmings and Flashback look great again, and Alone in the Dark, GODS, etc... look perfectly centered!

How far has 2.84 came these last weeks thanks to your work!!

[JonAbbott]

How far has 2.84 came these last weeks thanks to your work!!

I just wish I didn't have to make so many compromises for overlays. One being re-introducing micro-stutter - have you noticed it much?

Regarding the scaling correction, it does not restrict the mouse pointer window to the visible screen area. I don't think it's necessarily something I need to address as you'd only notice it in games like Battle Chess where it's not restricting the pointer window. Lemmings for example does restrict it.

I've noticed Hero Quest suffers from shearing - which is a side-effect of overlays being double-buffered and unthreading both the overlay bank-switch and the game's VSync (Hero Quest hard-locks if it receives a threaded VSync - which is suspect is a game-code re-entrancy bug that I've yet to investigate)

I might do a deeper dive into Hero Quest and see if I can fix the issue in-game, as there are other issues to resolve, such as adding a delay when you select the character to play.

[JonAbbott]

I've noticed Hero Quest suffers from shearing - which is a side-effect of overlays being double-buffered and unthreading both the overlay bank-switch and the game's VSync (Hero Quest hard-locks if it receives a threaded VSync - which is suspect is a game-code re-entrancy bug that I've yet to investigate)

I might do a deeper dive into Hero Quest and see if I can fix the issue in-game, as there are other issues to resolve, such as adding a delay when you select the character to play.

The hard-lock turned out to be QTM not returning from QTM_PlayRawSample. I'll feed it back to Steve as there's a couple of other bug fixes in the QTM build that's bundled with ADFFS that weren't merged into the current official QTM build.

As a workaround I recoded Hero Quest to use a CallBack to play samples. That allows VSync to remain threaded and resolves the shearing.

I've yet to find the "IN PLAY" selection code, to see why it doesn't have a delay/debounce when toggling a character. It looks likely it's just using one VSync as there's two general VSync delay loops that are called throughout the code.

[Vanfanel]

I just wish I didn't have to make so many compromises for overlays. One being re-introducing micro-stutter - have you noticed it much?

I am totally sure there are no hiccups if 1080p at 50Hz is used. Totally sure as in "I've been looking at smooth-scrollers for many minutes each, without noticing a single duplicated frame". Good examples are Pac-Mania tittle screen and Fireball II infinite text scroller.
So no, you did NOT compromise smooth framerate at all (And I am very happy about it, being such an obsessive person about smooth scrolls...)

Maybe you mean hiccups in non-50Hz modes. But what kind of barbaric player loads Archimedes games on a 60Hz video mode?

[JonAbbott]

So no, you did NOT compromise smooth framerate at all

That's good to know.

I have noticed BloodLust and Bubble Impact are not scaling the overlay correctly - if you spot any others let me know. Although I've implemented the fix, Bubble Impact is also clipping the bottom of the screen - and I don't know why because manually fixing the size/scale doesn't seem to resolve it, I'm still investigating.

I've now been through all the games I've taken screenshots of and noted any with usual aspect ratios , most will now be corrected in the next update. Again, if you spot any that aren't on the list that aren't scaled to fill the screen, please let me know.

[JonAbbott]

Updated build in the OP

BloodLust and Bubble Impact are not scaling the overlay correctly

Fixed

Hero Quest suffers from shearing

I might do a deeper dive into Hero Quest and see if I can fix the issue in-game, as there are other issues to resolve, such as adding a delay when you select the character to play.

Done. I've fixed the shearing, resolved the hard-lock when VSync is threaded and added a key debounce to the character selection screen.

[Vanfanel]

@Jon: With today's build, Hero Quest is broken.
It shows a message asking about original disk, then if you click "Cancel" it hangs on the picture of the city after the initial text sequence.