JST Kickstart 1.3

[jotd]

You didn't break any rules. And I can reproduce everything you described with the save state (good reproducer! and I don't need extracting wb data, just kickstart)

I used a "new" 6.1 version and truncation doesn't occur anymore. In the meanwhile I had increased the argument buffer. Reducing it to old value reproduces the issue. So that one is gone

Bad news: WizNLiz crashes with 6.1 all right, even with my new version. I'll check the diffs vs 6.0. When fixed, I'll publish 6.1 or at least a new beta.

Awesome work there!

[jotd]

update: version 6.1. on my website, with both bugs fixed, and a lot more.

[matburton]

Awesome work there!

You're very much welcome!

both bugs fixed, and a lot more

Wow that was fast!

Life is getting in the way a bit at the moment, so I probably can't do any further 'testing' for a week or two.
(is playing awesome games really testing?)
But if I find anything in the future I'll just submit save states in that format via The Zone! by default

[jotd]

Yes, you do that. That was incredibly helpful. I didn't believe that you could perform save states with HD as files... well, it seems to work.

There are still annoying limitations with JST, specially with game saves. I'll take care of that later in the year, but I wanted to release an official 6.1 in the meantime.

[matburton]

Colour me impressed! Not only have I not found a game that doesn't load under the new JST 6.1 yet it's also been able to load all the demos I've thrown at it so far That includes demos that wouldn't load under JST 6.0 and the previous 6.1 version.

That doesn't mean I've given up trying to find problems just yet though

[jotd]

Good to know that the release works fine. Took me six months to create & decide to release it. The remaining issues are in the savegame department now. Christmas release will fix them

[turrican3]

Originally Posted by jotd

mmu=laxist: jst. whdload:mmu=none

@dr.zeissler: you should use whdload slaves. They are updated for controls, fixes, features... JST slaves aren't updated anymore (I don't even have the means to build them anymore personally)

thank you j-f,
it's just because someone had problems to make run swos smoothly on a 060 and i remember that mmu=laxist can solve this kind of things some times.
mmu=none has the same effect in whdload, then ????
I'll have a try to see.

[jotd]

JST's not so good with MMU. MMU=LAXIST IIRC didn't crash on read/writes out of bounds but still relocated zero page. MMU=NONE does strictly nothing. Worth a try...

[matburton]

It's been a while but I've got one.

Fightin' Spirit starts fine under WHDLoad (OCS but with KS3.1)

However under JST (KS 1.3) it fails to start with this message:

> jst fightinspirit.slave
fightinspirit HD loader (WHDLoad)
JST Using WHDLoad emulation interface


Exception: LINE-F emulation
 
Maybe try with NOCACHES set or/and
MMU=NONE or MMU=LAXIST

Last fine loaded by ReadFile...: disk.1

Also do you need a reproductions or examples for games failing to load under workbench at all? Or do you know what the problem is there already?

[jotd]

yes, if you have a list, I'll take it

[matburton]

yes, if you have a list, I'll take it

Well, I tried to make a reproduction for Zool 2.
But my reproduction doesn't reproduce

It turns out I can load Zool 2 from workbench in my original setup as long as I close the parent folder's window.

I thought maybe the extra window and icons were using up too much chip RAM so in WinUAE I gave myself 2MB of chip RAM rather than 1MB. But that didn't help, it still wouldn't load unless I close the parent window.

Hence I'll have to try harder to make a reproduction another night sorry!

[malko]

Any jst update recently jotd ?

[jotd]

nope. Focusing on CD32load & CD audio (making good progress with it) and also a lot of work ... at work

[turrican3]

jotd,
what did mmu=laxist exactly ???
Because i remember that swos was incredible with this option on my amiga 4000 06 50 mhz... The scrolling was flying !!!
Could it be possible to add this argument to whdload ???
It was really impressive on the 4000.

[jotd]

MMU=LAXIST was just cancelling zero page relocation of MMU, but not checking if program reads/writes out of bounds. In the mist of time, now I don't remember if it did something else. Not sure how it was different from classic MMU=FULL setting.

(also I didn't write the MMU code at the time, Ralf Huvendiek did). If you have a setup like this maybe Toni can analyse what is the MMU configuration.

Whdload has "MMU=OFF" or sthing like that but it probably doesn't do the same thing, like cancelling zero page reloc and thus the game could crash.

[turrican3]

Originally Posted by jotd

MMU=LAXIST was just cancelling zero page relocation of MMU, but not checking if program reads/writes out of bounds. In the mist of time, now I don't remember if it did something else. Not sure how it was different from classic MMU=FULL setting.

(also I didn't write the MMU code at the time, Ralf Huvendiek did). If you have a setup like this maybe Toni can analyse what is the MMU configuration.

Whdload has "MMU=OFF" or sthing like that but it probably doesn't do the same thing, like cancelling zero page reloc and thus the game could crash.

ok will try to make it happen.
Thanks jotd.

[dr.zeissler]

Originally Posted by malko

I have also faced another issue with the latest JST 6.1?. Really often the slave name is truncated .
See example screenshot (with latest JST, 3 times the name of the slave is truncated and as soon as I use another version of JST the slave name is fully taken...)
Edit: The name can be truncated anywhere (after fist letter, 5th, before last, etc.). Sometimes the QUITKEY value is appended to the slave name (ex: Universe.slave0x59)

I am currently checking out some stuff on my A2000 and I have experienced this too. I simply cut the names on the slaves to good old 8.x and it works.
I began to write little "start" files that simply do "jst game.slave" and made them script and executable. So I can just browse to the game-directory and write "start".
Quitting works on some games, but as mentioned before I have to change my 68000 to the 680010+ and then perhaps quitting will also be working.

Though starting a game via workbench-icon is nice, but to be unable to go back to workbench is useless for me. So I will have to go via shell and using my "scripts"
It's not very handy, but it works. If anybody has a better way to start and quit JST driven games then let me know.

A lot of slaves or JSTs do not work due to a memory allocation failure (e.g. bodyblows), bodyblowsgalatic does work. What can I do if I ran into that failure.
I do have 6MB RAM, more is not possible due to my Bridgeboard.

[dr.zeissler]

So, I upgraded my A2000(1.3) with an 68010 to get the quit-key on most (all?) games
I also installed NTP-Commander to make it easier to browse between the files.
I am also able to make "start" batches for making the games directly startable within NTP.
Very nice!

If I have a games/demo that is too big for my 6MB Ram, what can I do?
the "lowmem" flag does not work for e.g. bodyblows.

Thx!

[Lastic]

Greetings fellow retro-enthousiasts

A little introduction, I am from Belgium, partly due to the lockdowns went into a nostalgia craze and bought an Amiga 500 which I always wanted but my parents bought me a 286 PC instead for school back in the days.

I'm a newbie thus to the Amiga altough I have been keeping track of the Demoscene and retro-computers in general (PC/C64/Atari 8 and 16bit/Amiga/PowerPC Macs)

It came with a 512Kb trapdoor expansion , Workbench 1.3 an Agnus 8372A.
So far it has been expanded with an SDBOX, Gotek and a 2MB trapdoor expansion well 512K Chip and 1,5 MB Slow RAM from Amigastore.EU
https://amigastore.eu/en/710-amiga-5...nsion-rtc.html

When using FS-UAE with my SD Card booted as HD and the same hardware settings , I can for example load the following file from
grandis.nu
/Retroplay WHDLoad Packs/Commodore_Amiga_-_WHDLoad_-_Games/S/ShadowOfTheBeastDemo_v1.0.lha

using JST ShadowOfTheBeastDemo.Slave with no options except VERBOSE but I can't on my real A500.

There is only a slight difference in avail memory

FS-UAE
chip 981584
fast 1511456
total 2493040

A500
chip 982648
fast. 1347752
total 2330392

I'm not booting into Workbench just CLI, no extra utilities, no patches, the bare minimum, only mounting the sdbox SD0: which uses the fat95 library.

For example BeyondTheIcePalace WHDload using JST works on both FS-UAE and real A500.

What am I missing or are my memory specs just too low for even JST to load WHDLoad Slaves on a real A500 ?

Happy Easter everybody and thanks for your time

Lastic

[jotd]

yeah, when memory is low JST has a tendency to lock up... Beyond the ice palace is really small.

whdload would need youto softkick to at least 2.04, losing 512k in the process. And then you could (maybe) run Beast demo (without PRELOAD and some flashing probably). I don't know the size of the files.

I have to improve the way JST handles OS swaps. It seems to be a bit dodgy. Maybe not a big issue, but definitely a regression because it used to run well years ago.