Dot-matrix engine - Page 3

Tsak · 24 July 2020, 19:44

Well done man! Nice music & demo!

saimo · 13 March 2021, 15:34

I just found out that the demo earned me a nomination in the New Talent category of The Meteoriks 2021 (that's the demoscene equivalent of the Oscars)

Nominees presentation: [ Show youtube player ]
Meteoriks 2021 website: https://2021.meteoriks.org/nominees
THE CURE webpage: https://retream.itch.io/the-cure
THE CURE video: [ Show youtube player ]

DamienD · 13 March 2021, 15:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by saimo

I just found out that the demo earned me a nomination in the New Talent category of The Meteoriks 2021 (that's the demoscene equivalent of the Oscars)

Nominees presentation: [ Show youtube player ]
Meteoriks 2021 website: https://2021.meteoriks.org/nominees
THE CURE webpage: https://retream.itch.io/the-cure
THE CURE video: [ Show youtube player ]

Congratulations, and hope you win

saimo · 14 March 2021, 10:39

Thanks!

nikosidis · 14 March 2021, 11:05

Well deserved Saimo

Also very cool

When is this?

saimo · 14 March 2021, 11:43

Thank you!
The awards will be given at the Revision 2021, on Easter.

Foebane · 14 March 2021, 16:20

Nice demo indeed, but isn't it rather... political? Chip told me it wasn't his cup of tea, anyway.

saimo · 14 March 2021, 16:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foebane

Nice demo indeed, but isn't it rather... political?

Yes, it's political. But, before and more than that, social and personal

Quote:

Chip told me it wasn't his cup of tea, anyway.

No problem, everybody has their own preferences.

vulture · 14 March 2021, 20:43

Congrats saimo

klx300r · 14 March 2021, 23:18

congrats you deserve it Simone

saimo · 15 March 2021, 00:25

Thank you, guys!
BTW: let's not forget it's just a nomination, I haven't won anything

saimo · 02 June 2021, 13:57

Lately I realized I could make the startup and cleanup code of SkillGrid more robust, so I improved it further. I decided to apply the same improvements to my other productions, and today it was THE CURE's turn...

v1.1 (20210602)
* Made startup and cleanup code more robust.
* Fixed (unlikely) memory leak in cleanup code.
* Replaced "actual" with "current" in standings graphics.
* Fixed/improved README.

The new version is available for free download from https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE.

nikosidis · 02 June 2021, 23:35

That is great Saimo. I just tried the demo "The Cure" and works great.
That demo is something special. I hope there will be more demos using that engine.

Don_Adan · 03 June 2021, 00:01

For me this dot matrix engine will be perfect to use for sub games for new Amiga AGA pinball game

saimo · 03 June 2021, 16:44

@nikosidis

Thanks a lot!
It's very unlikely I'll ever do another demo, and even less likely that I'll use the same engine again - it would feel stale, plus I like to innovate

@Don Adan

Check out my post#8 here

saimo · 04 August 2021, 22:14

Just released a slightly revised version.

v1.2 (04.08.2021)
* Made startup and cleanup code more robust.
* Made a few tiny optimizations.

https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE

saimo · 19 August 2021, 15:07

While working on the SkillGrid update, backporting to it all the improvements I recently made to my other projects, I realized that those improvements came with a couple of new bugs. THE CURE was affected by them, so here's a new bugfixed version.

https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE

v1.3 (19.08.2021)
* Fixed recently-introduced memory leak in startup code.
* Replaced unreliable CIA-access-based delay code at startup with machine-agnostic code.
* Made a couple of minor internal changes.

@admin

Could you change the title of the thread to "Demo THE CURE (was: Dot-matrix engine)" or something like that, please?

saimo · 29 April 2022, 21:58

This update was not planned, but, still, it happened - and makes the demo even better. In short: it improves the music, it improves the audio-to-video sychronization, it adds a few more palette effects and brings other little improvements (for the details, check out the changelog below).

Get THE CURE v1.4 from https://retream.itch.io/the-cure and enjoy!

v1.4 (29.04.2022)
* Improved music: improved S/N ratio by eliminating a peak (caused by the "str" of "street" in the spoken part) and re-normalizing the waveform; amplified initial part a little bit; reduced greatly the noise that affected the coda (due to the 8-bit quantization) by amplifying that part of the waveform to the maximum and balancing that with a real-time volume change; increased sampling frequency to 29073 Hz (side effects: channels 2 and 3 can no longer be used, so the output volume is lower; music decoding takes a little longer as there is more data to decode each frame; the CHIP bus time taken by audio DMA is almost halved, which makes the demo less demanding).
* Added switch-off of filter to ensure music sounds as it is supposed to.
* Fixed audio-to-video synchronization: fixed drifting caused by the difference between the actual and theoretical rates (~49.92 VS 50 Hz) of the video refresh (that, by the end of the demo, caused an asynchronism of ~0.5 s); fixed 60 ms asynchronism caused by the fact that the first three frames required for music setup/buffering were ignored; fixed a few timing marks in the script (an off-by-one mark which caused a peak of operations in the specified frame; a mark that caused the following effect to execute 4 frames too late; a few marks that were off by a frame).
* Fixed a bad routine pointer (caused by a wrong letter in a label in the source code; it is quite incredible that this did not produce disastrous results).
* Added some palette effects.
* Optimized music decoding by unpacking and undeltaing data at the same time (why it was not like this right from the beginning is a mistery).
* Made some other small optimizations.
* Made startup and cleanup code more robust by shielding some critical operations from NMIs and by dealing with audio playback performed with direct hardware access by other programs concurrently.
* Added version string.
* Improved/extended README.

torturedutopian · 30 April 2022, 15:18

As always : thanks for your continued support & attention to detail !

saimo · 02 January 2024, 14:01

@torturedutopian

Quote:

Originally Posted by torturedutopian

As always : thanks for your continued support & attention to detail !

I must have missed your post - oh, well, you're welcome!

@all

Just released a little update. This should cure (heh) the stuttering I've seen on some boards that are more than capable of running the demo at full speed.

https://retream.itch.io/the-cure

v1.5 (2.1.2024)
* Improved CPU data cache handling on 68040 and 68060.
* Ensured the system MMU setup does not affect performance.
* Ensured the 68060 susperscalar dispatch is enabled.
* Made some small optimizations.
* Made startup and cleanup code more robust.

29 April 2022, 21:58	#58
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	This update was not planned, but, still, it happened - and makes the demo even better. In short: it improves the music, it improves the audio-to-video sychronization, it adds a few more palette effects and brings other little improvements (for the details, check out the changelog below). Get THE CURE v1.4 from https://retream.itch.io/the-cure and enjoy! v1.4 (29.04.2022) * Improved music: improved S/N ratio by eliminating a peak (caused by the "str" of "street" in the spoken part) and re-normalizing the waveform; amplified initial part a little bit; reduced greatly the noise that affected the coda (due to the 8-bit quantization) by amplifying that part of the waveform to the maximum and balancing that with a real-time volume change; increased sampling frequency to 29073 Hz (side effects: channels 2 and 3 can no longer be used, so the output volume is lower; music decoding takes a little longer as there is more data to decode each frame; the CHIP bus time taken by audio DMA is almost halved, which makes the demo less demanding). * Added switch-off of filter to ensure music sounds as it is supposed to. * Fixed audio-to-video synchronization: fixed drifting caused by the difference between the actual and theoretical rates (~49.92 VS 50 Hz) of the video refresh (that, by the end of the demo, caused an asynchronism of ~0.5 s); fixed 60 ms asynchronism caused by the fact that the first three frames required for music setup/buffering were ignored; fixed a few timing marks in the script (an off-by-one mark which caused a peak of operations in the specified frame; a mark that caused the following effect to execute 4 frames too late; a few marks that were off by a frame). * Fixed a bad routine pointer (caused by a wrong letter in a label in the source code; it is quite incredible that this did not produce disastrous results). * Added some palette effects. * Optimized music decoding by unpacking and undeltaing data at the same time (why it was not like this right from the beginning is a mistery). * Made some other small optimizations. * Made startup and cleanup code more robust by shielding some critical operations from NMIs and by dealing with audio playback performed with direct hardware access by other programs concurrently. * Added version string. * Improved/extended README. Last edited by saimo; 01 May 2022 at 11:15.

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24 July 2020, 19:44	#41
Tsak Pixelglass/Reimagine Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Athens Posts: 1,031	Well done man! Nice music & demo!

13 March 2021, 15:34	#42
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	I just found out that the demo earned me a nomination in the New Talent category of The Meteoriks 2021 (that's the demoscene equivalent of the Oscars) Nominees presentation: [ Show youtube player ] Meteoriks 2021 website: https://2021.meteoriks.org/nominees THE CURE webpage: https://retream.itch.io/the-cure THE CURE video: [ Show youtube player ]

14 March 2021, 10:39	#44
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	Thanks!

14 March 2021, 11:05	#45
nikosidis Registered User Join Date: Jan 2020 Location: oslo/norway Posts: 1,607	Well deserved Saimo Also very cool When is this?

14 March 2021, 11:43	#46
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	Thank you! The awards will be given at the Revision 2021, on Easter.

14 March 2021, 16:20	#47
Foebane Banned Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Cardiff, UK Age: 51 Posts: 2,871	Nice demo indeed, but isn't it rather... political? Chip told me it wasn't his cup of tea, anyway.

14 March 2021, 20:43	#49
vulture Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Athens , Greece Posts: 1,840	Congrats saimo

14 March 2021, 23:18	#50
klx300r Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,593	congrats you deserve it Simone

15 March 2021, 00:25	#51
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	Thank you, guys! BTW: let's not forget it's just a nomination, I haven't won anything

02 June 2021, 13:57	#52
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	Lately I realized I could make the startup and cleanup code of SkillGrid more robust, so I improved it further. I decided to apply the same improvements to my other productions, and today it was THE CURE's turn... v1.1 (20210602) * Made startup and cleanup code more robust. * Fixed (unlikely) memory leak in cleanup code. * Replaced "actual" with "current" in standings graphics. * Fixed/improved README. The new version is available for free download from https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE.

02 June 2021, 23:35	#53
nikosidis Registered User Join Date: Jan 2020 Location: oslo/norway Posts: 1,607	That is great Saimo. I just tried the demo "The Cure" and works great. That demo is something special. I hope there will be more demos using that engine.

03 June 2021, 00:01	#54
Don_Adan Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Warsaw/Poland Age: 55 Posts: 1,959	For me this dot matrix engine will be perfect to use for sub games for new Amiga AGA pinball game

03 June 2021, 16:44	#55
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	@nikosidis Thanks a lot! It's very unlikely I'll ever do another demo, and even less likely that I'll use the same engine again - it would feel stale, plus I like to innovate @Don Adan Check out my post#8 here

04 August 2021, 22:14	#56
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	Just released a slightly revised version. v1.2 (04.08.2021) * Made startup and cleanup code more robust. * Made a few tiny optimizations. https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE

19 August 2021, 15:07	#57
saimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 787	While working on the SkillGrid update, backporting to it all the improvements I recently made to my other projects, I realized that those improvements came with a couple of new bugs. THE CURE was affected by them, so here's a new bugfixed version. https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE v1.3 (19.08.2021) * Fixed recently-introduced memory leak in startup code. * Replaced unreliable CIA-access-based delay code at startup with machine-agnostic code. * Made a couple of minor internal changes. @admin Could you change the title of the thread to "Demo THE CURE (was: Dot-matrix engine)" or something like that, please?

30 April 2022, 15:18	#59
torturedutopian Registered User Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: France Age: 41 Posts: 433	As always : thanks for your continued support & attention to detail !

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