TFX on a PiStorm32

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by paraj

Thanks for testing, but I need more info. In particular is this using an unsupported mode (e.g. "1-frame")? Less than 2-frame is not anticipated by the base game, and has issues that the original game programmers did not foresee. I prioritize issues that could arise from normal game play much higher.

I'll test the new beta release but currently I'm using RC8 020 version, I did not notice this occurring in previous releases.

[hexaae]

Missiles and F8 (normal and I.R. view) seem ok now!

There is a minor glitch in I.R. mode in the bottom 1-pixel line of the screen which gets stuck switching view with F8 (possibly an original game bug)

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by paraj

Thanks for testing, but I need more info. In particular is this using an unsupported mode (e.g. "1-frame")? Less than 2-frame is not anticipated by the base game, and has issues that the original game programmers did not foresee. I prioritize issues that could arise from normal game play much higher.

Tested beta1 but the missile problem, at least for me, remains on both frame modes however it only occurs randomly oddly enough, for example it may happen on my first load-up but if I quit the game and then restart it may not occur on the second load.

I have noticed that it does not happen if pressing spacebar to fire the missile it's only when using a joypad and even then I tried a different joypad to rule that out but it's the same result.

On a different note, is it normal for the plane to be constantly dipping? I find having to keep the plane level a bit annoying.

[hexaae]

Originally Posted by wiz12

Tested beta1 but the missile problem, at least for me, remains on both frame modes however it only occurs randomly oddly enough, for example it may happen on my first load-up but if I quit the game and then restart it may not occur on the second load.

I have noticed that it does not happen if pressing spacebar to fire the missile it's only when using a joypad and even then I tried a different joypad to rule that out but it's the same result.

On a different note, is it normal for the plane to be constantly dipping? I find having to keep the plane level a bit annoying.

Can't reproduce the crash when using joystick... Can you share your cfg files?

I randomly see this small glitch (corrupt background square) under mouse pointer, when cursor is left in the upper-left and I press SHIFT+Q to quit or I open settings panel:

[paraj]

Funky mouse cursor is a feature (or not, but I think it was like that when I "got here"), so not going to bother unless it's an easy fix

Missile thing doesn't cause a crash right? Just that two missiles are fired for every joystick press? I can reproduce that in WinUAE, but not on my 060 (probably because it's too slow). Button press on joystick just fakes a space bar press, and code handling it clears pressed key afterwards, so it's a bit weird that it results in double press, but I'm looking into it.

[hexaae]

Originally Posted by paraj

Funky mouse cursor is a feature (or not, but I think it was like that when I "got here"), so not going to bother unless it's an easy fix

Seems it started with this new beta though... Never experienced that with previous betas or public WHDLOad version. Just a heads up

[paraj]

Originally Posted by hexaae

Seems it started with this new beta though... Never experienced that with previous betas or public WHDLOad version. Just a heads up

I don't see it things exactly like in your screenshot, but in amipal's video (post #416) at 8:10 you can mouse pointer glitching. I see something similar in WinUAE/A1260. I suspect it's writing some some random garbage to part of the mouse cursor, and maybe the updated version slightly changed the values on your setup. Since I'm back in the game I may as well fix it to avoid further bad reviews from influential youtube streamers

Also think I see where extra "button press" is coming from, but have to look at how to fix it without breaking something else. Think this is original game logic bug that is masked by 2-frame limit (which is why I was reluctant to start looking into these things... but here we are).

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by paraj

Missile thing doesn't cause a crash right? Just that two missiles are fired for every joystick press? I can reproduce that in WinUAE, but not on my 060 (probably because it's too slow). Button press on joystick just fakes a space bar press, and code handling it clears pressed key afterwards, so it's a bit weird that it results in double press, but I'm looking into it.

Yes, that's basically it in a nutshell. It's strange how it doesn't occur every game so it appears to be random when it happens.

[paraj]

Originally Posted by wiz12

Yes, that's basically it in a nutshell. It's strange how it doesn't occur every game so it appears to be random when it happens.

What FPS are you getting? For PAL I'm guessing more than 25 but less than 50 (for NTSC more than 30 but less than 60) right?

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by paraj

What FPS are you getting? For PAL I'm guessing more than 25 but less than 50 (for NTSC more than 30 but less than 60) right?

I'm getting roughly 24.6fps PAL, V1200.

[paraj]

TFXAGA_2.1b3.7z in the zone. Changelog:
- Fix double missile fire (plain 020 version only)
- Fix glitchy mouse cursor in config menu
- Support NTSC tool type/command line option.

Originally Posted by wiz12

I'm getting roughly 24.6fps PAL, V1200.

I think it can only happen if games runs faster than 2-frame, so the sporadic occurrences are probably due to it being just around that point. Aynway, new beta version should fix it (does in WinUAE at least).

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by paraj

TFXAGA_2.1b2.7z in the zone. Changelog:
- Fix double missile fire (plain 020 version only)
- Fix glitchy mouse cursor in config menu
- Support NTSC tool type/command line option.



I think it can only happen if games runs faster than 2-frame, so the sporadic occurrences are probably due to it being just around that point. Aynway, new beta version should fix it (does in WinUAE at least).

Thanks for the update, after testing it the good news is that the double fire missile problem is fixed when the 1 frame limit option is enabled but the bad news is with the 1 frame limit option disabled the problem still occurs but not every time. I tried about five games and in three of them the double missile firing happened but in the other two it didn't.

[paraj]

Originally Posted by wiz12

Thanks for the update, after testing it the good news is that the double fire missile problem is fixed when the 1 frame limit option is enabled but the bad news is with the 1 frame limit option disabled the problem still occurs but not every time. I tried about five games and in three of them the double missile firing happened but in the other two it didn't.

Fix was only applied if 1-frame/uncapped mode was selected (in beta 2), so not so bad news, as it should be benign and can be enabled unconditionally I've uploaded a third beta that does that (and deleted b2).


Bit puzzled why it was only noticed now, but then again, I've only previously been testing with keyboard input myself.

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by paraj

Fix was only applied if 1-frame/uncapped mode was selected (in beta 2), so not so bad news, as it should be benign and can be enabled unconditionally I've uploaded a third beta that does that (and deleted b2).


Bit puzzled why it was only noticed now, but then again, I've only previously been testing with keyboard input myself.

Success! beta 3 has fixed the problem, many thanks paraj for your efforts on this!

The funny thing is I didn't notice this problem in any of the earlier release candidates though I'll admit I didn't really spend much time playing them, it's really only now I'm investing some time into the game.

[paraj]

Originally Posted by wiz12

Success! beta 3 has fixed the problem, many thanks paraj for your efforts on this!

The funny thing is I didn't notice this problem in any of the earlier release candidates though I'll admit I didn't really spend much time playing them, it's really only now I'm investing some time into the game.

Excellent! I think 2.1b3 should be good for playing, but let me know if you encounter other issues.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following is only for very dedicated TFX testers. It is NOT for general testing, and will NOT be part of 2.1.

Attached is EXTREMELY hacky build that is meant to test possible speed of chunky-only version (will be removed in not too long). Only interesting thing is whether FPS is significantly improved over 2.1b3.

Polyfill routines have been converted, but nothing else, and as such it will look horrible and wrong. For default view it is expected to look something like:





Other views should be better, and idea is to see if this is a worthwhile path to explore. From very quick testing on my 060 it seems to be a bit better and more importantly give reasonably stable FPS. It will be a large effort to get properly working though, so no promises.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by paraj

Excellent! I think 2.1b3 should be good for playing, but let me know if you encounter other issues.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following is only for very dedicated TFX testers. It is NOT for general testing, and will NOT be part of 2.1.

Attached is EXTREMELY hacky build that is meant to test possible speed of chunky-only version (will be removed in not too long).

Unfortunetly this version doesn't even start the game here...

It is just cycling the empty selection screen and the "GUILTY" magazine screen. It never actually starts the game to be able to test it.
I also tried a lot of CUSTOM whdload options and always the same.

[hexaae]

Originally Posted by paraj

TFXAGA_2.1b3.7z in the zone. Changelog:
- Fix glitchy mouse cursor in config menu

Randomly glitchy mouse cursor still reproducible with SHIFT+Q though. Very low pri of course
I've also experienced strange results running first the config panel... but I will report them later...

Double missile bug confirmed fixed!

[paraj]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Unfortunetly this version doesn't even start the game here...

It is just cycling the empty selection screen and the "GUILTY" magazine screen. It never actually starts the game to be able to test it.
I also tried a lot of CUSTOM whdload options and always the same.

CUSTOM settings not working was expected, as I had disabled all of them to hopefully just get FPS number (other things aren't expected to work). Too bad that it didn't work. It did (with the caveats in WinUAE and on my 060). If you want to try I've attached one with most custom settings back (except executable - only 020 plain would ever be supported here), but don't spend too much time on it. It's just to gauge whether it would be even be worthwhile to look at doing a "pure" chunky version. It would take a large amount of effort to get properly working, but it does seem like on 060/050 FPS could increase a bit in rough spots (something like 9->13).

Originally Posted by hexaae

Randomly glitchy mouse cursor still reproducible with SHIFT+Q though. Very low pri of course
I've also experienced strange results running first the config panel... but I will report them later...

Double missile bug confirmed fixed!

All rightly, but please remember to specify test system (if WinUAE, including configuration is easiest) and the custom settings. Custom4 bit 4 "start action mode" is likely a trouble maker for example (it fakes mouse clicks and skips fades etc. in hacky ways), but it makes development bareable

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by paraj

CUSTOM settings not working was expected, as I had disabled all of them to hopefully just get FPS number (other things aren't expected to work). Too bad that it didn't work. It did (with the caveats in WinUAE and on my 060). If you want to try I've attached one with most custom settings back (except executable - only 020 plain would ever be supported here), but don't spend too much time on it.

Success It benefits the most when doing gouraud shading (as you suspected). With the cocpit view it actually has 1 or 2 fps less than the last b3 you posted :







It is 10+ FPS better when gouraud shaded stuff is on screen.

Video:

[ Show youtube player ]

[tomcat666]

Well, good news for pistorm32 users. User SID-6581 used different WHDLoad.prefs settings - he did not have "NOMMU" tool type set and he got 70 FPS in the Game. To get this performance also use ICNT=255 in EmuControl.
So I had to try this and I get rock solid 70 FPS in "Unlimited" mode... and basically perfect 50 FPS in the "1-frame capped" mode - regardless if the gouraud shading is used or not, it is ALWAYS 50 FPS You will see that in uncapped mode and 70 fps there are a lot of glitches with drawing the screen ! So use only 1-frame capped mode !

Video:

[ Show youtube player ]

Unfortunetly with the chunky version I don't get these good results. It doesn't go over 65 FPS in uncapped mode, so it is worse than the b3 version.