ADFFS game loading problems

[euphoniac]

Hi, I’m hoping someone can help me with an issue that may be due to some error on my part, but which I’ve struggled to get to the bottom of.

When a run ADFFS (the latest version but also tried with previous versions), reportedly compatible games usually crash (apart from one or two such as Lemmings and Chuck Rock). They either go straight to a black screen and I need to hard reboot, or I get a garbled RISC OS error box with a font that’s unreadable on a black screen (it seems to say something like ‘application error, click to cancel or continue’

I have a Raspberry P model B, running the latest version of RISC OS. I recently tried a brand new vanilla RISC OS SD card bought from RISC OS themselves in case it was my install that was the problem, but with the same results.

On the vanilla OS install I change the cmdline.txt to include disable_mode_changes, use packman to install ADFFS and then packman again to install some games on the compatibility list. The crashes occur whether I double click the game directly, after starting ADFFS, or drag the game disc file onto the ADFFS icon and ‘boot floppy’ (although sometimes the crash is different depending on which of these I do!)

Any advice you could give me would be much appreciated, thanks!

[JonAbbott]

This reads like a near word for word clone of this thread. Do you have Aemulor loaded by any chance?

disable_mode_changes is no longer required required, ADFFS defaults to using GPU overlays for legacy screen modes and scales the overlay to the current desktop resolution without a physical mode change being required, so disabling EDID isn’t needed.

[euphoniac]

Thanks Jon.

I don’t have Aemulor loading, or anything unusual that I know of, as my latest trial is from a vanilla RISC OS SD card with just packman, adffs and a few games installed.

I took a look at the thread you linked and tried a few things. I can’t change my display to 800x480 as it says this is not compatible, the nearest I can get is 720x480, 16m, 60Hz but this doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Running Saloon Cars as an example, by dragging the disc to ADFFS then ‘Boot Floppy’ I get the same garbled error

Application may have gone wrong.Click continue to try to resume or Quit to stop application

Then clicking the Describe button gives something to the effect of:

Internal error at (unreadable text) &FC047798

Although clicking continue, the desktop returns and I get:

*where
Address &FC047798 is at offset &00027494 in module ‘UtilityModule’

And:

*showregs
Register dump (stored at &20003110) is:
R0 = 00008000 R1 = 00001F00 R2 = FFFFFFFE R3 = 00100000
R4 = 00008000 R5 = FA200F50 R6 = 00008000 R7 = 00000001
R8 = 00000010 R9 = 00000000 R10 = 00000000 R11 = 00000001
R12 = 30078270 R13 = FA200EC0 R14 = 00000000 R15 = FC047798
Mode SVC32 flags set: nzCvqjggggeAIft PSR = 20000193

This is the same for others such as GBA and Lemmings actually - I think the success I was getting for Lemmings and Chuck Rock was from a much older version of ADFFS (but that version didn’t work with many games on my setup either).

Any ideas and advice much appreciated!

Thanks

Rob

[JonAbbott]

I really don't have a clue how it’s so broken for you. What's the exact version and date of your OS build, what Pi, and are you using recent Pi firmware?

You don't need to alter your resolution, leave EDID enabled - which is the default for RISC OS on a Pi these days. ADFFS runs games in a GPU overlay and scales them to your desktop resolution, so ideally you want to be an a 24bit resolution that matches your monitor.

I'd stick to PackMan packages for the games, there's no need to mess about with floppy images as I've packaged every game ever released.

If you want to see the actual error, run the game from the supervisor. From the desktop:

Code: Select all

press F12
GOS
DIR $.games (or wherever you've downloaded them to)
!Lemmings

Once you have the error, QUIT will take you back to the desktop

You could try a few simple tests.

This will confirm the legacy mode's are working, provided it prints 13:

Code: Select all

press F12
BASIC
MODE 13
PRINT MODE
*QUIT

This will confirm the JIT starts up and can run the 26bit BASIC Module.

Code: Select all

press F12
GOARM3JIT 0
BASIC
*QUIT
GOARM3JIT

[euphoniac]

Thanks again for your help with this Jon, much appreciated.

I’m running this on a Raspberry Pi Model B Rev 2, with RISC OS 5.30 of 15 May 2024. I know it’s quite an old Pi now - not sure if you’ve had other users with similar hardware meeting with success.

For your suggested tests:

The mode 13 test works fine.

The JIT/BASIC commands complete without error - I wasn’t sure if I was looking for any particular BASIC version etc.

Running games e.g. Lemmings from the supervisor results consistently in a full crash with a black screen and some short white lines at the bottom (that may or may not be the top of some text).

Interestingly, running a game (installed from packman) by double clicking it after starting ADFFS usually results in the garbled Application Error message (photo now at https://ibb.co/fYyyd7N3), but then running it again often gets to a loading/title screen before a different crash takes place.

In Lemmings, the second run gets to the game menu, then when I click to start a game, I get a consistent ADFFS error - the first one I’ve managed to pin down - maybe this will help shed some light - there’s a photo at this link:
https://ibb.co/Zzc1PKY4

Thanks again!

[JonAbbott]

The mode 13 test works fine.

The JIT/BASIC commands complete without error - I wasn’t sure if I was looking for any particular BASIC version etc.

Disappointing, I was hoping one would crash to give me a clue where to look. Your Pi is fine, ADFFS was initially developed on a Pi1 and then extended to cover Pi3/ARMv7.

Try bypassing the boot sequence (hammer ESC at power-on), then run !ADFFS and try running a game - just to rule out other software.

What does *HELP ADFFS show? It should be "ADFFS 2.87 ... ARMv5/6 32bit overlay"

[euphoniac]

Thanks Jon - *HELP ADFFS enabled me to sort it. I hope the reason might be helpful to you as well.

With the version installed via packman, supposedly 2.87, this gave:

2.90 (26 Sept 2025) ARMv7 32bit high vector overlay

So, reporting a higher version, and for the wrong processor I guess.

I uninstalled this and manually installed 2.87 from the website. Now I got:

2.90 (26 Sept 2025) ARMv5/6 32bit high vector overlay

So the right processor, but still reporting a higher version - and still the same crashes.

I then installed v2.86 from the website - it reports version 2.86, and works fine!

[JonAbbott]

Eek, it looks like a test build has got into the release version. That will certain explain the issues your having - I'm really sorry that's happened.

I'll correct them asap.

[JonAbbott]

I've corrected both the manual download on here and the packaged versions of 2.87.

Both were a debug/test build of 2.90 that should never have gone public. On RO3.1x it would probably work unnoticed, but anything that uses the JIT on later OS's would fail horribly.

Once again, I'm really sorry this has gone unnoticed for so long.

[euphoniac]

Fab, thanks Jon - downloaded and working!

And no worries - I’m happy to have helped spot something, and very grateful for your attentive help along the way.

What you are doing here for the community is hugely appreciated!