Exult - Ultima VII port for AGA

[trixster]

I found the HD stuttering ok actually, but I've not moved out of the first town.

I'll give the new version a try tonight, and have a play with the midi bits and bobs.

I've found that pushing smooth scrolling to 50% helps, and setting the map draw size to 320x200 also helps a bit. Having said that, 320x256 with map size at auto didn't slow things too much. I'm interested that rodpulsar managed a higher resolution, I'll give that a try too.

Mad-Matt, are you saying that it should be possible to get midi music runnig on a normal Amiga? Can you give some specific instructions on how to achieve this, or is it a matter of moving the camd library into LIBS and then installing gmplay/softsynth? Are these easy to setup?

[Mad-Matt]

That's pretty much it. Once you run SoftSynth, it will preload what it wants from gmplay (mapfiles/instruments) and will then just listen for anything being streamed to camd.library and play it.

[trixster]

The update completely fixes the mouse issue, thanks!

I'm struggling to get midi music and sound working though.

I've installed gmplay and softsynth. I have softsynth running before loading Exult. Softsynth seems to start correctly and says its 'Listening to Midi'. At this point no other music program such as Winamp will work because it appears the ahi.device has been allocated already. All good so far I think.

Once in Exult in the game options im enabling CAMD midi and selecting GS as the device type, but no sounds or music is playing. Any ideas? None of the other device types works either.

Upon quitting Exult the shell leaves behind three lines saying:

Opening digital SFX's file: "Data/sqsfxbg.flx"
No channel was available to play sfx '48'
Destroying AudioMixer

So I think it's trying to play the midi files but the midi can't allocate a channel. In my ahi setup Unit 0 is set to 4 channels (although I'm not sure this is relevant).

Any ideas on the way forward?

I'm not sure if I've installed the camd.library correctly though - all I did was copy camd.library into LIBS: - is this correct? What about the other files out of camd.lha? I've created Devs:midi and put the in there. Correct?

[trixster]

Right, looking at the SoftSynth readme there's a line that says "there is no AHI support yet"

Midi is definitely working properly because I can get GMP-G to play the demo midi files in the GMPlay directory ok.

I guess this SoftSynth issue is the problem - it's hogging the audio otput and Exult can't use AHI when SoftSynth is running!

[AMike]

Hi novacoder - your last version works great on my A4000 - also with the Roland support! Thank you for your hard work. Two comments/questions. The intro of Part 2 (The Silver Seed) is too fast - it "runs" over the screen - also the speech is way to fast in comparison to the rest of the intro. Second, is it possible to get a RTG version like ScummVM? 320x256 is with AGA playable, but all resolutions above are stuttering. Thank you

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Amicol

I get about 2.3mb/s transfer speed but I don't have an IDE Express or Fast ATA. I didn't know there was a 060 specific PFS, would this improve speed?

There probably isn't such a version, what seems likely to be is that PFS has simply more efficient I/O routines than FFS, which reduces load times and incidentally stuttering.

Maybe it could be possible to modify the pre-loading routines to be asynchronous and transfer smaller chunks of data each time but that might be difficult if the code was designed for synchronous transfers.

[Amicol]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

There probably isn't such a version, what seems likely to be is that PFS has simply more efficient I/O routines than FFS, which reduces load times and incidentally stuttering.

Maybe it could be possible to modify the pre-loading routines to be asynchronous and transfer smaller chunks of data each time but that might be difficult if the code was designed for synchronous transfers.

I use PFS3AIO on my drive (downloaded from Aminet). I think 2.3 MB/s is probably as fast as native IDE gets. The pauses are long at times and affect the enjoyment of the game a bit. Also many pauses in some games on NovaCoder's ScummVM port. Will buying a Fast IDE get rid of these issues. I haven't taken the plunge yet as I've read it can't be installed together with the Indi AGA 1200

[trixster]

The long pauses in Ultima vii don't seem to occur at the same time as HD access, in my experience. I reckon it's something else.

Apparently you can install a fastata as well as an indivision mk2 (not sure if this is the case for both mk2 and the mk2 cr version), there are threads on here and Amiga.org about it.

[AMike]

What is "long" in this case? With SCSI III and SSD the loading times are between 1-4 seconds. But that's not an Exult problem - on a DOS PC (486) you have the same loading times.

[rodpulsar]

@Amicol : "Will buying a Fast IDE get rid of these issues. I haven't taken the plunge yet as I've read it can't be installed together with the Indi AGA 1200"

-> Getting a FastATA will not help you get rid of these issues as I have two (MKI and IV) and it changes nothing at all. I personnaly think it comes from the overall IDE CPU relative process (will test asap with an SCSI disk.

BTW I use both FastATA with an MK2 without problem, but you'll need some ROM socket adjustement in height.

[rodpulsar]

It may be some kind of uncompressing process too, unable to be changed (or not easily without changing code ?).

[trixster]

I agree, I think it's an uncompressing issue too.

[Amicol]

Originally Posted by rodpulsar

BTW I use both FastATA with an MK2 without problem, but you'll need some ROM socket adjustement in height.

Thanks rodpulsar & trixster, I found a few threads and some pictures. I might buy one to go in my desktop. I think it will help with ScummVM at least.


Even with these pauses, it's a great port! Brings back some nice memories

[rodpulsar]

Ok so I just did some tests this night with the game running on :
- the same SSD as precedently on the FastATA MKIV
- the same SSD plugged in SCSI behind an ACARD behind the Blizzard

I get exactly the same "zone loading times", so it seems to be NOT a question of available CPU

[dlfrsilver]

yes this game uses some compression (and maybe some encryption).

However, it crash for an unknown reason on my 68030 right at the beginning.......

[NovaCoder]

That's probably because it needs an 060..

[dlfrsilver]

i have used snoopdos, it checks for cybergraphics.library. I have not seen anything related to the 060 processor.

Question : can you compile it for 030 ?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

i have used snoopdos, it checks for cybergraphics.library. I have not seen anything related to the 060 processor.

Question : can you compile it for 030 ?

Yes it's compiled specifically for 060 (same as most of my AGA ports), it probably won't work properly on any other CPU.

There's no point in compiling for 030 I'm afraid, it would be too damn slow to be enjoyable. Even the original PC game needed a fast 486 to run properly BTW.

[dlfrsilver]

heh i would like to try if you agree to make a try

[rodpulsar]

One last test yesterday with Dynamicache and 11,2 MB/s instead of 6,5 : no change. So I confirm my precedent confirmation that freezes have nothing to do with transfer speed