[ongoing] Blake Stone

[BSzili]

Thanks. To be honest Corridor 7 wasn't all that bad (except that annoying jumpscare face), it's definitely the best among the Capstone FPS games.

Back to Blake Stone, I found that some file systems (at least PFS3) don't like having more than one write locks on the same file. This breaks the saving after the level transition. If you get the error

Unit: $81 Error: $03

then don't worry, I will add a workaround.

[Nobby_UK]

Just had a go of Corridor 7 ---
Where's the Blue Key ?
Or are you to rush past
when the first beastie
opens the door ?

Not as attractive as BS but playable.

[BSzili]

Beats me, I haven't played that game in ages. It has some interesting effects on its own, like masked walls.
I updated both executables, fixed the save game bug and made some small improvements to the sprite drawing.

[Aladin]

Tested under happiga with raspberry3, work fine

[BSzili]

Seeing that a lot of people had trouble finding or patching Aliens of Gold to the correct version (2.10R), I wrote a patch tool. It currently supports 2.00R and 3.00R. If anybody has the 1.00R version from the Apogee Throwback Pack, just send it to me, and I'll create the diffs. Since it calculates the checksum, it can also be used to verify the data integrity.

[BSzili]

I released the source code for the Amiga port. It's a bit messy (hey, it was a 16-bit real mode DOS game), but I did my best to clean things up. The game archives will soon go to aminet as well. There won't be any functional changes, just some readme files.

[snowpile79]

Hi I bought the gog.com version of BS-AOG, grabbed the files plopped them into the folder with the amiga aog files and fired it up (after installing AHI 4.7 think that was the version anyways I installed the recommended version).

After it converts all the audio I get the screen mode selector. It doesnt matter if I select PAL or NTSC after I select either it flips off the workbench and sits at a gray screen forever. I ran the included version checker tool and it says all my files are fine. My rig is an A1200 with an aca1233n 68030 40mhz accelerator with 128megs fast ram. I watched a youtube video of someone loading this port up and it did the same thing to that individual also. I tried to see what they did to fix it in the video but I just cant see the detail.

So I can click in the upper right corner of the gray screen and flip back to workbench. It shows the last thing to appear in the BSAOG console window. So basically the game just stops loading at this one point after setvgaplanemode. (link to screenshot below)

Ive fussed with ahi (I use the paula device for music. Set it to 11khz stereo hope thats right. Tried other settings but made no diff). So No idea where things are hosing up. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for porting this awesome game.

https://ibb.co/dWp4UG

[BSzili]

Unfortunately this gray screen thing doesn't tell me much, there is an infinite combination of Amiga hw and sw with all the different turbo cards and patches out there Did the other person with the gray screen had a similar config?

[snowpile79]

Hmmm the youtube video individual had a different setup for sure. Ok I was concerned I did not have AHI setup correct. I have paula selected for music and its set to 8bit stereo fast at 11khz. I understand on the multiple reasons. Based on my screenshot can you tell me what should happen next after it sets up the VL_VGAPlaneMode? If I know what the next step after that should be then maybe it will point to the issue or some startup thing. Im using classic WB lite (no cyberfix stuff). I did try a no startup bare wb3.1 and got the same gray screen though. Anyways if you could tell what the next step is I'll try to investigate more.

[BSzili]

The screenshot doesn't tell me anything, that's just a leftover debug message with the screen modeid. What I need is some way to replicate your config, at least from the software side. Have you tried UAE with ClassicWB Lite?

[snowpile79]

Ok sorry about that. The details of my setup: A1200 1.D4. rev motheboard
with aca 1233n 68030 at 40mhz with 128meg ram Fresh install of Classic WB lite on a 2gig Cardflash amiga formatted partition connected to the internal a1200 IDE port with no custom mods to classicwb lite except the installation of AHI, selecting paula for music and stereo fast 8bit 11khz for audio. OK I will try this same Classic WB lite in a winUAE session duplicating this setup as close as possible and report back hopefully soon. Thanks

[BSzili]

No need to apologize. I didn't mean to sound too harsh, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. I'll make a clean install of ClassicWB Lite as well with a similar config in WinUAE, and see how it goes.
edit: I just tried, and there are quite a few options to choose from when installing ClassicWB. Could you tell me what options you chose when installing? I assume you used WB3.1 disks.

[snowpile79]

I'll hopefully get to try the re-install tonight. I had prepared the flash card weeks ago with classicwb Lite while waiting for a1200 to arrive in the mail (My first a1200 Im an a2000/a500 guy originally haha) so it arrived a few days ago. Id have to run through the setup again to keep track of exactly what I did. I will prep another flash card and keep track of the steps I took then try again plus report back here. Oh yes I used Workbench 3.1 disks. thanks

[BSzili]

In the meantime I did some experiments, and I was able to reproduce your problem with ClassicWB in UAE. Can you try this executable?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ic9...ew?usp=sharing

[snowpile79]

You, sir, make dreams come true! Thank you!!! Perfect! Ok here is what I had to do.

I did a re-install of classicwb lite and it didnt work even with your new binary (but it must have worked for you) so I then went and started disabling "components" in Classic WB Lite.

Once I disabled Smartwin Component it works! But only with your new binary. I did try moving the old binary back with Smartwin disabled and old binary still does not work.

So the magic combination is 1) your new binary and 2) make sure smartwin is disabled in components section.

thank you thank you!!!! I appreciate it

[DamienD]

@BSzili; legend!!!

...I'm yet to try any of your very cool ports; you know, been kinda busy, but will eventually get around to them

[BSzili]

Originally Posted by snowpile79

You, sir, make dreams come true! Thank you!!! Perfect! Ok here is what I had to do.

I did a re-install of classicwb lite and it didnt work even with your new binary (but it must have worked for you) so I then went and started disabling "components" in Classic WB Lite.

Once I disabled Smartwin Component it works! But only with your new binary. I did try moving the old binary back with Smartwin disabled and old binary still does not work.

So the magic combination is 1) your new binary and 2) make sure smartwin is disabled in components section.

thank you thank you!!!! I appreciate it

Great! I'll see if I can fix the issue with smartwin as well, I think I have to force window to be simple refresh. Once that's done I'll apply the fixes to Planet Strike as well, and upload them to Aminet.
BTW thanks for contacting me, it can be really frustrating when there's some problem, but I never hear about it and it goes on unfixed If you don't mind, could you make a short video about how the game runs on your machine? I only had a chance to test it on high end configs, i.e. A1200 060, A500 V500+ and WinUAE, so I don't have a lot of reference about the performance on mid-range 030 cards.

Originally Posted by DamienD

@BSzili; legend!!!

...I'm yet to try any of your very cool ports; you know, been kinda busy, but will eventually get around to them

And there's more to come

[snowpile79]

Originally Posted by BSzili

Great! I'll see if I can fix the issue with smartwin as well, I think I have to force window to be simple refresh. Once that's done I'll apply the fixes to Planet Strike as well, and upload them to Aminet.
BTW thanks for contacting me, it can be really frustrating when there's some problem, but I never hear about it and it goes on unfixed If you don't mind, could you make a short video about how the game runs on your machine? I only had a chance to test it on high end configs, i.e. A1200 060, A500 V500+ and WinUAE, so I don't have a lot of reference about the performance on mid-range 030 cards.


And there's more to come

Wonderful! Ok yes I can make a video. I hope to be able to do this today or tomorrow. I think it runs exceptional on the aca1233n 68030 40mhz. I assume the best place for the video is youtube and just to put a link here.

Yes I understand about issues lurking in secret with nobody speaking up. With how common Workbench Classic is Im surprised to be the first to report it! Brilliant fix.

[BSzili]

The problem was actually caused by a mistake I made. I accidentally disabled the optimized C2P functions at compile time, and WriteChunkyPixels8 from graphics.library kept locking up for some reason (hence the empty gray screen). The SmartWIN one will be trickier, because I can't reproduce it - for me it works fine either way. Maybe I have to enable another patch in addition? I assume you get the same "gray screen of death" with it.
As for the video, yes YouTube would be the perfect place for it

edit: I added the simple refresh flag, and updated the executable. The link remains the same. It may or may not work depending on how SmartWin patches the OpenWindow function. You can also try to add the "NOBACKDROP=TRUE" tooltype to the SmartWin icon.

[BSzili]

Alright, version 1.1 is now available on Aminet for both games, with the fixes for the "gray screen of death".