1.1.2.1 Great release

[CurlyPaul]

I for one now have no audio problems with Need for Speed, thanks very much!

I'd like to help test the compatibility of the games. Can I just edit the wiki pages myself, or should I report in the forum for somebody to check what I find?

[CurlyPaul]

OK well Novastorm loads and plays ok. Sound is much better than last build, but during the intro the bass was making it hard for me to hear the actors voices. Not sure if this is normal as I don't have a real 3DO to check it against.

[CurlyPaul]

Daedalus Encounter is also much better than previous builds. The bass here still seems a little high, but I can make out the audio track, which is more than I could do with the previous build.

Good work

Edit: There is a repeatable pause in sound and video at the start of scene 4, after you switch the floodlight on and see one of the alien bodies.

And there is another bug need the end of scene 4, after the ship has crashed pressing the analysis button causes the emulation to hang. The log file contains the following:

Code: Select all

04/02/2012 23:23:17 4DO Starting up
04/02/2012 23:23:17 Video Render - DirectX canvas initialization failed! Will attempt to fall back to windows(GDI) rendering. Error was: SlimDX.Direct3D9.Direct3D9Exception: D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE: Not available (-2005530518)
   at SlimDX.Result.Throw[T](Object dataKey, Object dataValue)
   at SlimDX.Result.Record[T](Int32 hr, Boolean failed, Object dataKey, Object dataValue)
   at SlimDX.Direct3D9.Device..ctor(Direct3D direct3D, Int32 adapter, DeviceType deviceType, IntPtr controlHandle, CreateFlags createFlags, PresentParameters[] presentParameters)
   at FourDO.UI.Canvases.SlimDXCanvas.Initialize()
   at FourDO.UI.GameCanvas.CreateChildCanvas()
04/02/2012 23:38:16 4DO Shutting down
Object of type SlimDX.Direct3D9.Direct3D was not disposed. Stack trace of object creation:
Object of type SlimDX.DirectSound.SecondarySoundBuffer was not disposed. Stack trace of object creation:
Object of type SlimDX.DirectInput.Joystick was not disposed. Stack trace of object creation:


[BryWI]

Feel Free to make an account and make chages to the compatibility list if you would like. I usualy monitor all changes and verify tests if need be.

Btw, regarding the hang in Daedalus Encounter... Can you make a save file just before it happens and post it or PM me a link? There is nothing related to the hang in that log.

IT is saying however that it couldn't load DirectX 9 rendering. Did you install the DirectX 9 updates? (link is on the downloads page).

Regarding the bass being too high.. I do not have this issue at all. I am going to assume it is a problem with your sound card setup or speaker setup. As far as I know, 4DO does not "color" the sound at all. It's strictly the console output and nothing added.

I did just find out that Novastorm will not load on the FZ-1 BIOS... weird.

[CurlyPaul]

I'll pm you a dropbox link with the save file as I can't compress it enough to attach it here. When the ship crashes you have a 10-20 seconds before its game over, in that time you have to press and hold L, then press down to highlight the second icon in the list and finally A to select it. I've tried this a few times and it just hangs there.

I was wondering how the emulator will cope when I come to change the disk?

I noticed the log says that it can't start DirectX and falls back to GDI, it does that on all the games that I've tried and yes I did install the DirectX updates. I was going to look into this today sometime. My PC is by no means a gaming PC, its a bottom of the range Acer and I have trouble running a lot of the more modern games. I did have a look at the source, and from what I can tell the current frame is produced by FreeDoCore and that image is drawn on the canvas. Not sure why DirectX would fail at such a simple task.

I was using an FZ-10 bios to load and run Novastorm, which worked for me. I hope to get an actual 3DO soon so I'll be able to check things like this against what the real hardware does.

[BryWI]

Thank You for the save state. It's causing a 3do software freeze and it's a bug in the FreeDO Core. I was not able to get past that part in any current emulator. It seems perhaps you got past it? According to the NVRAM you can jump to scene 6. Or does the game just let you jump ahead one scene if you are stuck? I have to be honest, I have not played this game before.

If you do happen to make it to the end of the disc and you can't change discs, please let us know. If I remember correctly... Putting a different disc into the system other than what you are playing would make the 3do reset. So maybe games had to be programmed to save and then tell you to change discs. If this is not the case, a save state just before disc change would probably be helpful if you make it that far.

Regarding DriectX... The intel express graphics chipset has been known to cause problems with 4DO. Do you have that chipset by any chance? Since you said you were using previous versions, I am going to assume you actually ran the SlimDX installer in the past. Now that SlimDX.dll is included in the zip, I am looking out for problems that might be caused by not running the installer. I am sure 99% sure that it's safe to just include the .dll... but there's always that chance. The intel express chipset though used to crash FreeDO with an error about not being able to setup dx9, which is why the fall back to GDI was put in.

[CurlyPaul]

Yep, intel express graphics chipset here, so that explains the GDi rendering. I had installed the previous release of 4DO, so yes I have also run the SlimDx installer. Looks like its normally a GACed dll, should be fine just placed in the working directory, but you never know.

I've still not managed to get past that part, and exiting to the menu just before the hang does not let me choose scene 6. Only up to scene 4, and believe the hang is just at the start of scene 5.

With the bugs in the core dll, are you able to make changes to the code to fix these? I've had a quick look at the source for it, but tbh I've never coded with an emulator before is its going to take me a while to get my head around whats going on in there.

I'll find an ISO for another multidisk game and see what happens. In all the other console SDK's that I've looked at, opening the disk tray triggers an event that is handled within the game. Normally this would kick you back to the system menu, but the game could keep running while you switch disks. I have played some early multidisk games that work as you mentioned - create a save and then soft reset from the next disk. Not sure what the 3DO normally does as this is my first foray into this particular console.

[BryWI]

Wel FreeDO Core bugs are not the particualr focus right now so I don't know when Johnny will be fixing this. And am I able to fix it? Nope! My ability in coding is very minimal. I can make very small changes and thats about it. Last time I looked at the FreeDO core I didn't understand most of it.

It's good to know that it was the intel chipset being the culprit once again.

I knew the SlimDX.dll would be ok in the directory but what I was worried about was if I missed something that SlimDX installer was installing. I am pretty sure I saw everything though. Seems to install c++ runtimes, slimdx.dll and updates directx.

I wonder if game guru has any cheats to unlock all the scenes. Then we can get down to the bottom of what happens on a disc change. I think I will look into this.

[Johnny]

Howdy Paul,

As far as changing CD's goes, I think games save to the save-game NVRAM and ask you to reset the console with the new CD. And, regarding the Intel Express chipset, I don't know what it's deal is exactly, but at least the GDI rendering fallback irons it out.

I'm glad to hear the audio is behaving better on your machine. I spent a long time on it! Bry also helped quite a bit with back-and-forth and deliberating on the root causes of the odd audio behavior.

Just to fill you in, there haven't been any code changes to the FreeDO core that would affect its behavior. It's really just been me with the code and I haven't attempted to make changes to it since it's a delicate machine. On the bright side, the FreeDO core that went open source seems to be more compatible with games than any release I know about. If you felt capable enough with coding, you could try to resolve the issue with Daedalus Encounter. Be warned that it could get very complicated. At the very worst, you'd be debugging the game's machine code (as in, not even assembly) and also be doing so without a debugger. But with enough effort, it would ultimately be doable! I would be very happy to enlist help on this.

There's another emulator floating around based on the same FreeDO's code: it's called 3DOPlay. The author of that has been attempting to make changes to the FreeDO core, and his changes are open source. I have tried out his changes verbatim, but they seem to be trading some problems for others, so I'm unsure yet what changes from 3DOPlay would be good additions for 4DO. Those changes are timing-related, which is tough to get right, and they seem to be guesstimates. It's looking they must not be quite "right" yet. Even so, I would consider trying Daedalus Encounter on 3DOPlay.

[CurlyPaul]

Hello Johnny,

I would love to get into the brains of an emulator. I've been coding my whole life but this is something that is pretty new to me. I've only had a quick look through the freeDo source, and it doesn't immediately make much sense to me. I'll try and find some time this week to get into the tech docs and the code, and see if I can find this bug.

I notice on the 3DO Zero boards there is some talk of homebrew development, what with the disk encryption being cracked just lately. Is there a site where I could d'load an SDK and some examples? Might be easier to figure out the emulator if I had a 'Hello World' program to run in it.

I am ok to make a branch in the repository so that I can mess around with it?

Great work on the emulator btw, the interface is clean and easy and its impressive that it's working as well as it does in GDI.