Buggy Boy WHD

[vagrant]

So we are playing buggy boy in the competition and there's a problem with the WHD version under winuae - works ok on real amiga.

The game freezes whenever you crash into rocks or walls etc, forcing you to reset.

I've tried CE modes on/off, nocache etc.

To reproduce just start the first track and crash into the first rocks you see

[Toni Wilen]

It is a bug and not a bug.. (I guessed what happens without testing)

68020+ modes have audio hack that stops audio immediately when audio DMA is disabled to prevent programs that have CPU audio DMA wait delays to execute too fast in 68020+ modes. (=missing samples etc.., this is very common, on real hardware slow chip ram accesses can hide this bug easily)

But this game needs the delay.

Real problem is design flaw in Paula audio hardware, there is no 100% reliable way to know if audio channel is idle or still active and it is not possible to force it to immediate idle state. (except wait long enough and waste time)

Next version will disable this hack when using 68020 "cycle-exact" mode because it should be slow enough since 2.7.0 but it won't fix 68020+ non-ce modes. At least in JIT modes it is impossible to emulate it correctly.

[vagrant]

Interesting.. could this hack cause other occasional audio side-effects? eg. beginning of samples sometimes clipped, samples not always playing when they should etc

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by ED-209

Interesting.. could this hack cause other occasional audio side-effects? eg. beginning of samples sometimes clipped, samples not always playing when they should etc

It should not. It prevents that from happening, even if CPU is "too fast". Examples?

[vagrant]

Nothing worth reporting, I've noticed this sometimes on a few games. Real amiga probably behaves the same way

Toni the buggy boy problem may not be audio hack at all, leathered said it freezes on his real 030.. I tried the game again with audio emulation disabled but it still froze..(unless the hack is still active with audio disabled.)

[Toni Wilen]

http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.zip will fix the hang (improved audio hack implemented, not yet sure if it works as designed..)

[ransom1122]

I was a long time player of buggy boy on a real a500 with 1mb mem. And did find the game froze like that every now and then and not only on rocks. But on the poles leading into the bridge over the water as well.

[dlfrsilver]

just a hint, the game has been ported by the team behind ghosts'n'goblins. If it is again the mark cooksey music driver used in buggy boy, this could explain that, as ghosts'n'goblins had frozes due to the music driver.

Maybe it needs an update (Don Adan could maybe have a look?)

[vagrant]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.zip will fix the hang (improved audio hack implemented, not yet sure if it works as designed..)

Yep, it's working now thanks toni!
I guess now it will *occasionally* freeze like on real amiga, which is much better than crashing all the time

I see Don Adan helped fix GNG, I guess if freezing is persistent enough then could be worth asking. Thanks guys

[Toni Wilen]

Remaining rare hangs may be caused by something totally different.

[amilo3438]

Ive checked an adf version on the latest WinUAE 2.8.0 most common config. ...

Ive got freezing only when mouse touchpad on my laptop is enabled (there is a hw-switch) and in that case if press LMB it usually continues to work.

But, when the mouse touchpad is disabled and how many times I tried it did not froze ... weird ?!

(p.s. It also happens with QS 1.2 0.5Mb+0.5Mb config!)