Prince Of Persia - fastmem

[Torti-the-Smurf]

The BIGGEST offender in my book is .....

Star Trek 25th Anniversary

I mean... what the ....

The Slowest Slug ever on AMIGA and it would not have to be this way.

Is there any hope to fix this ?

They did the AMIGA Dirty

[jotd]

Originally Posted by alexh

I'm not particularly knowledgable about patching but can blitter routines be easily detected and patched to equivalent CPU routines?

Ambermoon for example runs a speed test at the start of the game and if it thinks the CPU is faster for blits than the blitter it uses different routines.

When you replace the blitter by something else, the most annoying thing is to emulate the blitter using the same interface as the original routines.


Shifting & masking aren't trivial. I think there are some of those routines somewhere.


But seriously where exactly Prince of Persia is crawling?

[rare_j]

When a few things are moving at the same time, it will slow right down, e.g. some lamps flickering, a door closing, some tiles falling, the prince jumping, it happens quite often.

[jotd]

if you can test the fastmem version and tell me...

[Pyromania]

Great game with fluid motion.

[Pyromania]

Great game with fluid motion.

[Aardvark]

All slowdowns are gone with the fastmem version on my 060.

[rare_j]

Originally Posted by jotd

if you can test the fastmem version and tell me...

Sorry jodt I had a look at the mantis issue page but couldn't see the dropbox link.
Also, I don't have real hardware anymore, so this is going from my memory of playing on A500+ back in the day, although I remember clearly the slowdowns while playing and the conditions that caused it.
Happy to test it out if you can direct me to a link but I would be using WinUAE.

Although, just looking the issue in mantis again, the user specifies A600 ACA620 and A1200 M-tec 1230. Aren't these accelerators notorious for slow chip ram access, slower than non-accelerated hardware?
I don't have those accelerators and I don't know if WinUAE emulates the slow chipram (why would it?) so i think you'll need someone with slow chipram on real hardware to compare and see if it is any better in fastmem.

[jotd]

Originally Posted by Aardvark

All slowdowns are gone with the fastmem version on my 060.

Thanks for confirming. Someone else already reported that, now I'm sure.

@rare_j you can use the official install from now. Still issues with non-UK versions being fixed. But you're 100% right on the rest: testing on WinUAE doesn't change anything. The only way to see an improvement is to use an accelerator where chipmem is darn slow.

[turrican3]

Perhaps toni could improve the accuracy of the chipmem speed ???
Could help to make some tests.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by jotd

Thanks for confirming. Someone else already reported that, now I'm sure.

@rare_j you can use the official install from now. Still issues with non-UK versions being fixed. But you're 100% right on the rest: testing on WinUAE doesn't change anything. The only way to see an improvement is to use an accelerator where chipmem is darn slow.

tested Prince de Perse..... the keyboard or the commands are wrong.

The game when starting is put straight on pause.....

However, Castle Master and Driller run exquisitely fast on A500 or A600 with fast under whdload.

Could you do that also with Interphase or Starglider 2 or even Epic ?

[CFou!]

Originally Posted by jotd

just checked the source code from whdload install and directory is a mess, it contains 6 or more slaves, I don't know which one I should start from. Maybe CFou! knows better (after all he wrote that)

I don't understand, can you explain a bit more?

[jotd]

Originally Posted by CFou!

I don't understand, can you explain a bit more?

in the "src" subdir there are 6 various asm files, that's all.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

tested Prince de Perse..... the keyboard or the commands are wrong.

The game when starting is put straight on pause.....

that's a problem I had at first. I'll release a new version soon because Hexae found more bugs in some versions, and suggested NTSC speedup on PAL versions,which needs screen centering (and it's also cheating since everything is faster but not the timer). Maybe you renamed some reloc file into another? anyways new reloc files are available, some stuff was missing.

I also had the surprise to find that the german version disables password level completely, no need to crack it. It's the only original version that has this "feature".

However, Castle Master and Driller run exquisitely fast on A500 or A600 with fast under whdload.

good to hear. Accelerated machines I suppose.

Could you do that also with Interphase or Starglider 2 or even Epic ?

Yes, each 3D game running in chip memory is a crime.

[CFou!]

Originally Posted by jotd

in the "src" subdir there are 6 various asm files, that's all.

I just understood that you were talking about Shadow Warrior...

I can't remember if the game was slow on A500 too.

But it is possible that it is slowed down with fast amiga due to the large number of additions of WaitBLT in the Slave to avoid GFX bugs.

WaitBLT can be removed using a CUSTOM tooltype

[jotd]

just publish a Prince of Persia update. There was a lot of bugs (missing music, corrupt saves on some versions...)

Plus it's possible to play the PAL game in NTSC with centered screen for super-fast movement. But it's a bit of a cheat since character runs faster (game is faster too, which makes it more difficult). But the timer seems to rely on some non vblank timer so it's not changing.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by jotd

in the "src" subdir there are 6 various asm files, that's all.



that's a problem I had at first. I'll release a new version soon because Hexae found more bugs in some versions, and suggested NTSC speedup on PAL versions,which needs screen centering (and it's also cheating since everything is faster but not the timer). Maybe you renamed some reloc file into another? anyways new reloc files are available, some stuff was missing.

I also had the surprise to find that the german version disables password level completely, no need to crack it. It's the only original version that has this "feature".



good to hear. Accelerated machines I suppose.



Yes, each 3D game running in chip memory is a crime.

I mean on unaccelerated machines !

With a single 68000, Driller is simply flying, as is Castlemaster !

You pass from 5 fps to 30fps !

[jotd]

good to hear. Castlemaster forced chip usage so whdload fix allows to relocate to fast.

But Driller should use fastmem already (without whdload). whdload slave prevented to run from fastmem.

I quickly checked Starglider 2 and Epic and they should have a good framerate with fastmem.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by jotd

good to hear. Castlemaster forced chip usage so whdload fix allows to relocate to fast.

But Driller should use fastmem already (without whdload). whdload slave prevented to run from fastmem.

I quickly checked Starglider 2 and Epic and they should have a good framerate with fastmem.

That's awesome ! Can't wait to test those !

here is Driller on A600 + 8mb fast ram + HD :

[ Show youtube player ]

[turrican3]

Originally Posted by CFou!

I just understood that you were talking about Shadow Warrior...

I can't remember if the game was slow on A500 too.

But it is possible that it is slowed down with fast amiga due to the large number of additions of WaitBLT in the Slave to avoid GFX bugs.

WaitBLT can be removed using a CUSTOM tooltype

I just tested it with the ipf version and it slowdow when you have more than 1 enemy on screen, it's really full speed with 0 enemy.
More you have enemies and more it slowdown and it's too bad because it's a really good conversion.
I tested it with a500 config and ipf.
same than in my memories on the real thing.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by jotd

good to hear. Castlemaster forced chip usage so whdload fix allows to relocate to fast.

But Driller should use fastmem already (without whdload). whdload slave prevented to run from fastmem.

I quickly checked Starglider 2 and Epic and they should have a good framerate with fastmem.

I've not tried Indianapolis 500 in a long time but does that game also benefit from FastRAM like these other 3D games?

http://whdload.de/games/Indianapolis500.html