Mission Elevator sound (yet again?)

[DamienD]

Cheers for the new version Toni

Since we are getting close to final release I thought I better spend sometime testing all the games that in the past I've had issues with or were hard to configure properly...

Anyway, so far so good, out of the 100 or so I've tested today the only game I've found a problem with is "Mission Elevator".

Same configuration as before i.e. OCS / KS 1.2 / 512 KB Chip RAM only (see attached). Same thing happens with the equivalent Quickstart also.

The game loads ok and can start playing but randomly sound effects play (which are jumbled and seem to be from the mission briefing). It's quite hard to explain...

Works fine in v3.3.0 or older.

Can anyone else test? Toni do you need logs or something?

[Toni Wilen]

I think you forgot the main rule: does it happen with last official version and so on..

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I think you forgot the main rule: does it happen with last official version and so on..

I already mentioned in my post that it doesn't happen with the last official version i.e. v3.3.0

[Toni Wilen]

It was too low

Sounds similar that Mission Elevator did long time ago.. EDIT: Mission Impossible or Mission Elevator?

EDIT: Finding last working beta is the next step.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

EDIT: Finding last working beta is the next step.

Ok will do that now Toni

...and "Mission Elevator".

[DamienD]

Ok, tested the betas from 10 backwards. Unfortunately it occurs in all betas

Tested again with v3.3.0 and after playing for a while the same thing eventually happens

...guess I need to go back and test official versions now.

[DamienD]

So tested the following official versions:

... WinUAE v3.0.0
... WinUAE v3.1.0
... WinUAE v3.2.0
... WinUAE v3.2.1
... WinUAE v3.2.2
... WinUAE v3.3.0

The issue occurs in all version except for v3.0.0; I played the game for a good 5 minutes so am pretty certain that everything is ok with v3.0.0

Toni; this definitely isn't beta related, sorry about that...

Do you want me to move all these "Mission Elevator" posts to a new thread?

[DamienD]

Shite, scrap the above. Played again using v3.0.0 and it just happened

Back to the drawing board...

[Arnie]

Damien,

I found turning off CE helped.

[DamienD]

Thanks for moving out of the beta thread Toni; I was just about to do the same

Ok so have now tested all the way back:

... WinUAE v2.3.0
... WinUAE v2.4.0
... WinUAE v2.5.0
... WinUAE v2.6.0
... WinUAE v2.7.0

All versions have this issue; ancient bug it seems.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Arnie

Damien,

I found turning off CE helped.

If I do that I get random 1-2 second pauses every now and then; plus the issue with the sound is still there so this option makes things worse

[Arnie]

You need a new PC. What you got, Gateway, Tiny PC?

Personaly I don't get sound issues with the teleprinter, only in game (garbled) turning off CE helped me.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Arnie

You need a new PC. What you got, Gateway, Tiny PC?

Personaly I don't get sound issues with the teleprinter, only in game (garbled) turning off CE helped me.

ROFL

I'm positive that my laptop is probably more powerful than what-ever it is you are using (even though it's 5 years old but was top of the range back then).

I don't get issues with the teleprinter either...

Yes garbled in game on occasion as my post mentions; like "sped up / grabled" sounds from teleprinter screen which shouldn't occur mid game.

[amilo3438]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Same configuration as before i.e. OCS / KS 1.2 / 512 KB Chip RAM only (see attached). Same thing happens with the equivalent Quickstart also.

The game loads ok and can start playing but randomly sound effects play (which are jumbled and seem to be from the mission briefing). It's quite hard to explain...

It happens on WinFellow_alpha_v0.5.3.1004 too ! (I guess, probably in the game problem)

Originally Posted by Arnie

I found turning off CE helped.

It happens also with CE off ! (at least on my testing)

[Asman]

I'm not sure if this help but for me is strength that this game works on real machine. Because there are programmer bugs, especially about sound. I spent sleepless nights (and many emails too) to found and fix this in WHDLoad slave (hunk 28 offset $458 - move.l #$703,$dff0a4 ---> move.w #$703,$dff0a4).

[Toni Wilen]

This problem is caused by stupid audio irq wait (start dma, do something, clear interrupt [This should have been done first!], poll for interrupt). I debugged this years and years ago. There is at least one other game that uses exact same stupid routine.

There is still, possibly only 1-2 cycle, timing difference.

[amilo3438]

Can be added a hack to "fix" it ? (at least temporarily)

(I guess reaching the 100% cycle compatibility is almost impossible task not worth the trouble.
Having cycle compatibility of 99.99% is good enough anyway.)

[Toni Wilen]

I won't do any changes until I have analyzed it more.

[amilo3438]

Yeah, of course, because the problem makes the gameplay really annoying after a while.

[Toni Wilen]

This has been there for years and when it is found you want instant workaround? Think about it first.