Help with Hostages please!

[FunkScientist]

Can someone help me please? :D

The ADF image I have of the old game Hostages, does not seem to be working. It loads up perfectly, and I can select which level and mission to play. The loading screen comes up as normal, and then WinUAE seems to lock up. Or rather the disk - cos it stops reading on track 15.

I am using WinUAE 0.8.8r8, with 2Mb Chip/1Mb Fast, KS1.3, 68000 (approximate A500 speed), and OCS chip set.

Can anyone help me out? :)

[RetroMan]

This seems to be a WinUAE Bug in 0.8.8R8 .... try 0.8.14 or 0.8.17 and use ECS ...... Or use Fellow, works perfectly :)

[FunkScientist]

...I shall try a different version of WinUAE, and try Fellow - cos I aint tried that at all yet (for anything!). I've been using WinUAE for ages, but ain't tried Fellow. Will do now tho! ;) Done the exactly the same with CCS64 until I eventually tried VICE! :D

Anywayz. Thanx for the help! I appreciate it! :great

[andreas]

Thank you VERY much for reminding me of this old issue I wanted to tell Toni for ages.

@FunkScientist, in any case, it makes absolutely no sense to post a working configuration here because you cannot play the game anyway! I'm gonna tell you the reason why...

Toni, this is a WinUAE problem. The above can easily be "configured away", but then the actual problems begin!
The hero is shot IMMEDIATELY when he leaves his ambush, even though you avoid ALL flashlights. On the real thing, this does work. You're killed if you move into one of the flashlights, but if you move between them, you can pass.
I don't know what this is, but it CANNOT be cured using a special configuration.
As s4murai says, it works fine on WinFellow.

[FunkScientist]

...and I'm just gonna try out WinFellow shortly... At least I know now that there is no point in trying to get it to work in WinUAE...

Thanx for the help/infos everyone!!

[Toni Wilen]

Thanks Andreas.
Another program added to blitter-abuse list :)

Hostages updates blitter register after starting the blit and of course this blit is used for collision detection... (using blitter zero flag) All other blits seems to be ok.

This can be fixed with yet another hack but it probably breaks some other programs.

Unfortunately only cycle-exact blitter emulation can fix all blitter problems without side-effects.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Toni Wilen
Unfortunately only cycle-exact blitter emulation can fix all blitter problems without side-effects.
So, what is the barrier preventing cycle-exact blitter emulation?

[Toni Wilen]

1: Big performance loss. Cycle-exact blitter is quite easy to implement but without careful optimization it will slow everything down greatly.

2: UAE's CPU emulation wasn't originally designed for Amiga's bus model where custom chips' DMA channels and CPU "fight" for bus cycles. (DMA channels have different priorities with CPU and blitter having the lowest) -> CPU's and blitter's bus accesses affect each others speed -> CPU's memory accesses must also be calculated correctly or blitter's speed can't be correct.

In my opinion it is better to design new bus emulation for both CPU and blitter than try to solve problem 1 and then later solve problem 2 and rewrite blitter code again from scratch :)

This is the last missing piece before I consider UAE "complete"...

[Twistin'Ghost]

Thanks for the info, Toni...that's what I wanted to know. My next question: Is this missing piece of UAE something that is actually in the pipeline or just wishful thinking?

[andreas]

Thanks Andreas.
Another program added to blitter-abuse list.
You're welcome. :)
Do you also have TWINWORLD on this list?
You can put it there too, as it works on DOS Fellow with the Cycle-exact drawing option set. I guess it's the same as "Cycle-exact blits".
On WinUAE, the lower part is missing.

[Toni Wilen]

UAE had cycle-exact drawing/copper since version 0.8.15 (or .14, don't remember) Cycle-exact blitter is different thing.

Twinworld: problem seems to be caused by a bug in UAE's display window size register emulation. Should be easy fix.

Thanks for reporting!

[FunkScientist]

...WinFellow alpha v0.4.3 build 1 either! :confused

The problem occurs when you step out of the doorways etc... You just get killed immediately! Arrgghhh! I'm SURE I've had this game working in ONE version of an emulator before.... :rolleyes

[andreas]

Good news!

Hostages works fine in current release (0.8.21 R2).
However, TWINWORLD problem is still there.
Toni, please don't forget to look into this. :)
Otherwise playing this game is only half as fun ;)

[Interceptor]

i've just gone to play this game on the latest WinUAE, and my solider-dudes get shot to pieces as soon as they step out into the darkness.

has this bug re-appeared? i have cycle exact CPU and Blitter selected.