JST Kickstart 1.3

[matburton]

OK here's the first 1 disk game I tried with 6.1 (uploaded 29/01/2018 right?)

> jst PrinceOfPersia.slave PRELOAD VERBOSE

(slave v3.1)

Game loads perfectly, and a good player might be able to complete it perhaps.
Not me, I quickly died.
When you die the game dies with you

I can't see anything of interest in the logs

-> Loading file prince.high at $0020C980 [opened]  [read]  [closed] 

-> Loading file Disk.1 at $002C8630 [opened]  [read]  [closed] 

-> Loading file PrinceOfPersia.slave at $00346730 [opened]  [read]  [closed]

I rebooted with Kickstart 3.1 and loaded the same slave with WHDLoad.
No I can die a death without the game dying a death

[Retro1234]

Try NOCACHES

strange at one time I use to run nearly all my .slaves with JST and never had any problems admittedly not on kick 1.3.

Of course you don't have to use .slaves there are JST only installs of many games like Prince Of Persia

and games like Future Wars, Operation Stealth, Cruise for a Corpse might have there own HD install.

It hardly seems worth it if your using WinUae but on real hardware Kick 1.3 only then Yes.

[jotd]

@matburton: I have updated in the zone a few days ago. Pressing a key made any game quit or whatever. Use the latest 6.1 beta in the zone and retry.

[matburton]

Try NOCACHES

If my understanding is correct that will disable CPU caches, but my 68000 has none?

Use the latest 6.1 beta in the zone and retry

I was indeed using the wrong version and Price of Persia now works

but I would stick to arcade games for now (no big savegames), and running from CLI

I'm having some trouble launching some games from the shell e.g:

> jst Zyconix.slave PRELOAD
** Object Zyconix.s not found or empty!!

Why is it trying to load a file called Zyconix.s?

Version 6 (rather than 6.1) does something similar but with even less characters?

> jst.6 Zyconix.slave PRELOAD
** Object Zycon not found or empty!!

[jotd]

Good if you could run Prince now NOCACHE has indeed no effect on a 68000 or 68010.

Oh that "short slave name" thing, that's something that was reported by malko but I could not reproduce it. I'll investigate, as it seems to be very fishy indeed

BTW you don't need PRELOAD in JST. It's by default.

[malko]

Originally Posted by jotd

[...] Oh that "short slave name" thing, that's something that was reported by malko but I could not reproduce it. I'll investigate, as it seems to be very fishy indeed

Yep was post #167

Originally Posted by jotd

[...] I've zoned a new JST 6.1 beta: main fixes (from latest 6.1 beta):
- QUITKEY issue found and fixed
- CUSTOM1=>5 tooltypes are now active
- conditional patchlists now work (trainers whdload v17 style)

So have to free up time to test "Gobliiins" again (language selection)
Thanks for the new " ? " release . Will "fish" it this week

Originally Posted by jotd

- run from WB & savegames issues still here, don't retest, I haven't worked on it
so any tester is welcome, but I would stick to arcade games for now (no big savegames), and running from CLI

(adventure games...)

Edit: Looks like it's no more possible to use the "beta" greek sign. A ? is displayed

[jotd]

This "save back to disk and avoid flashing" part is a hellish part of the code. When I dig into it, all conditions must be met: some time ahead, rested, motivation... like when I "fixed" universe.

I already have the idea, but that would need to be careful in this banana code.

[jotd]

@matburton a few questions since I have no idea why this "short slave issue" is happening:

- are you using kickstart 1.3 as well? can you test the same thing with kickstart 2.0+?
- Prince of persia runs, what's your absolute directory?
- Zyconix doesn't, what's your absolute directory?

[matburton]

Sorry for the slow reply!

Oh that "short slave name" thing, that's something that was reported by malko
Yep was post #167

Woops sorry, late to the party!

- are you using kickstart 1.3 as well? can you test the same thing with kickstart 2.0+?
- Prince of persia runs, what's your absolute directory?
- Zyconix doesn't, what's your absolute directory?

I'm having trouble reproducing this as well now.
I only managed once and then couldn't again after a cold reboot.
Is there any possibility there's an uninitialised variable somewhere?
Maybe I'm just going mad!

Yes I'm using KS1.3 SetPatch'd to 1.3.2 (using WB 1.3.2)
The absolute paths of the dirs containing the slaves etc:

Data:Games/Slaves/PrinceOfPersia/
Data:Games/Slaves/Zyconix/

So have to free up time to test "Gobliiins" again

Gobliiins is a good game I seem to remember that one has a HD installer?
Something like you copy all the disk contents in to a single folder then run:

loader hd lg_gb

But even then it'd still have the colour chart copy protection I guess

[matburton]

Oh no! Wiz 'n' Liz no longer works under JST 6.1 beta. It crashes straight away.

I know it's not a 1 disk arcade game but I mentioned it previously since JST 6.0 played it better than WHDLoad.
Maybe the slave is trying to load high scores from the HD at start-up or something?

[jotd]

@Matburton: time to try Wiz'n'liz on 6.1 by my edit.

All asm global variables are initialized to 0 Maybe a wrong usage of the pre-ReadArgs API. I'm sure that it doesn't happen with Kick 2.0+ (different arg parsing). Time to look at it again.

Gobliiins has a HD installer like a lot of whdload-patched games but:

- it has a document protection
- it doesn't like fast memory (side-effect of some uninitialized variable somewhere in the code)
- you cannot quit back to WB
- the sounds are messy (CPU-dependent replay routine which doesn't wait long enough before/after changing sound DMA register)

[matburton]

- it doesn't like fast memory (side-effect of some uninitialized variable somewhere in the code)
- the sounds are messy (CPU-dependent replay routine which doesn't wait long enough before/after changing sound DMA register)

I see you've been down one or two rabbit holes

On the note of rabbit holes I've managed to reproduce again in WinUAE


Anything useful I can do, maybe save the emulator state and zip it all to you?

Also note that now I'm in this state I can't load Price of Persia either:

> cd /PrinceOfPersia
> jst PrinceOfPersia.slave
** Object PriceOfP not found or empty!!

[jotd]

Could you get JSTD.zip from the zone? It's a special version with a "rainbow screen".

Get past the rainbow screen with LMB. If the problem occurs, then yes, savestate could be handy (knowing that savestate doesn't react well with hard disks, but I'm pretty sure no I/O is done between that rainbow point and the corruption of the name.

[dr.zeissler]

Thank you for working on JST for KS1.3 again!!!

[matburton]

So I loaded my save state with the reproduction (and confirmed I could still reproduce) and then used jstd instead of jst as shown



After having a short seizure (just kidding ) the game loaded



I them began to wonder if that was simply because it's a different binary with slightly different memory locations. So I did this:



It seems with a newcli I'm back to being unable to reproduce!
I can still pass you the save state somehow if that would help?

@Matburton: time to try Wiz'n'liz on 6.1 by my edit.

Sorry not sure I understand what I should be doing next on the Wiz 'n' Liz front?
Is there a different version of 6.1 beta you want me to try?
I tried jstd with Wiz 'n' Liz but it crashes immediately as with 6.1 beta.

[dr.zeissler]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Try NOCACHES

strange at one time I use to run nearly all my .slaves with JST and never had any problems admittedly not on kick 1.3.
Of course you don't have to use .slaves there are JST only installs of many games like Prince Of Persia
and games like Future Wars, Operation Stealth, Cruise for a Corpse might have there own HD install.
It hardly seems worth it if your using WinUae but on real hardware Kick 1.3 only then Yes.

Is there a list what ".slaves" do work with JST.
Thx!

[jotd]

There _should_ be a list of slaves that doesn't work with JST. The compatibility is very high, and I'm implementing a testing system to make it even higher.

A lot of adventure games don't work properly because of some issues with load/save. Also, kickemu (OS) emulated games using directory scanning (ExNext) won't work as ExNext() isn't currently implemented. This is very rare, though.

A list of some which don't work:

- Worms DC crashes
- Goblins 3: loading screen trashes game
- SlamTilt: whd abort: unknown reason: check GetFileSizeDec (again)
- Bloodwych: whd abort: unknown reason
- Speedball 2 (on 68060) unsupported integer instruction. Ok on 68040 and lower
- SWIV locks up before game starts
- WizNLiz (since 6.1 beta)

The list of non-working games isn't very long, as you see (didn't try any demo, but I tried a lot of games).

What also must be noted: JST isn't MMU-aware anymore. Old Ralk (Huvendiek) code has been removed (I don't even know where the source is), it was not part of JST but of a file called "MMUCode". I think the lack of MMU handling can be an issue (unless you're using a 680EC20 or lower).

On WinUAE this is OK, but on my 68060 some games don't work so well (and some work). Ex: Rodland, SWIV don't work on a real miggy, whereas runs on WinUAE.

I'm currently targetting low configurations, and emulators (since the joypad2key feature allows to create keyboardless configurations)

[dr.zeissler]

As you know, A2000/KS1.3/SCSI-HDD/6MB RAM is all I have and all I need.
Thx for your support for the low-end and true amiga gaming.

EDIT:
I only tested some of the preconfigured jst-games on the FTP. I have not tested "whdload-slaves".

[turrican3]

i remember an option like : "mmu=laxist"
was it with jst ?? Or whdload ??
don't remember ... But it gives a good boost on my amiga 4000.
Sadly this amiga is dead !

[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)