Fast Red Zone and other fastmem-relocated projects

[Superman]

A quick test on my A1200 with TF1230 50mhz

[ Show youtube player ]

[jotd]

thanks for the videos! looks good. And the cache isn't working yet so it could be even better.

About SMC here game changes some areas of the code not directly after the SMC code (which explains why 68020 might not experience issues as the cache is small). It sets 3 or 4 instructions with either OR or AND for instance, depending on the draw phase (mask or draw). Not something you can do with more registers, but more with jump indirections and function pointers

doing an indirection in a loop wastes cycles, but wrapping the whole loop in the routine makes the indirection cheap and that should be the solution.

[jotd]

zoned a new version working with caches / fastmem. No glitches seen

[Aardvark]

Originally Posted by jotd

zoned a new version working with caches / fastmem. No glitches seen

Works fine with 50MHz, but with 100MHz the game runs too fast now, and eventually crash [ Show youtube player ]

[jotd]

can you post the coredump?

[Aardvark]

Sure, it's in the Zone.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by jotd

zoned a new version working with caches / fastmem. No glitches seen

Well done. Amazing hard work. Hopefully this game will become playable to the point it is revisited by lots of players.

[jotd]

thanks. I'd say that 100MHz is just too much for your 060 I don't see why it would crash like that (illegal instruction in a random zone) with 100MHz and work with 50 MHz.

Originally Posted by alexh

Well done. Amazing hard work. Hopefully this game will become playable to the point it is revisited by lots of players.

From what I saw it's pretty much playable now. The low framerate was the blocker.

[Superman]

Alpha 2 test on my A1200 with TF1230 50mhz. Seems stable enough so far.


I haven’t tried it on my A600 with Furia yet but I’ll try shortly and post the result.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Aardvark]

Originally Posted by jotd

thanks. I'd say that 100MHz is just too much for your 060 I don't see why it would crash like that (illegal instruction in a random zone) with 100MHz and work with 50 MHz.

The cpu is completely stable at 100MHz, i've thoroughly stress tested it. As can be seen in the video the game runs faster than it's supposed to at 100MhZ (not framerate, but game physics), my guess is the crash is related to that.

This can also probably be reproduced with FPGA and PiStorm accelerators.

[Superman]

Just realised I didn’t try to run the game with “run with rebuilt fast exe” ticked. When I tick that box I get this error on both my A1200 withTF1230 and A600 with Furia.

EDIT: ok adding MMU to the tooltypes got it running on the A1200 but it wont work on the A600 furia as that doesn't have an MMU.

[jotd]

this is a beta version, I'll remove the protectread calll which is a debug function and it will work on your furia.

Originally Posted by Aardvark

The cpu is completely stable at 100MHz, i've thoroughly stress tested it. As can be seen in the video the game runs faster than it's supposed to at 100MhZ (not framerate, but game physics), my guess is the crash is related to that.

This can also probably be reproduced with FPGA and PiStorm accelerators.

This is the first time that "Red Zone" and "running too fast" are in the same sentence

Disabling the caches will probably make the game slower. Or ... running the original exe lol.

[Aardvark]

Originally Posted by jotd

This is the first time that "Red Zone" and "running too fast" are in the same sentence

Disabling the caches will probably make the game slower. Or ... running the original exe lol.

Just to clarify the framerate doesn't increase at 100mhz, but the game timer does, making the game uncontrollable and unstable. It's weird because on WinUAE it's running normal speed even with JIT.

[Angus]

I had some issues with the new build, Jean François. I could not get it to load at all. I tried various parameters as well as using none at all. I have posted a Coredump in the (red) Zone. :-)

[jotd]

From what I see in the coredump file you forgot to enable "fast executable" in the options this time.

There's a bug, for only people who select original game with crap framerate. If it's not that, try with NOCACHE again.

[Angus]

Originally Posted by jotd

From what I see in the coredump file you forgot to enable "fast executable" in the options this time.

There's a bug, for only people who select original game with crap framerate. If it's not that, try with NOCACHE again.

I just tried again. It didn't work with NOCACHE either. :-/


I have posted another Coredump. this time from when I had the Fast exe enabled.



I hope I'm not doing something daft. :-)

[jotd]

ah still the same error. Nothing serious. Will check tonight; Thanks.

[Angus]

Awesome.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Is the original especially rare? £160 and £130 in Ebay (although from same seller)

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Fiery Phoenix

Is the original especially rare? £160 and £130 in Ebay (although from same seller)

Not sure.

I bought an NTSC version on import around 2002 from SoftHut. I don't think it was expensive. Under £36 inc postage (I wouldn't have bought for more because it would have triggered import duties). I bought it not because I particularly wanted the game but at the time it had never been dumped for SoftPres (then CAPS).

Also I don't think people at the time believed an NTSC version existed.

Even now, 18 years after I did the dump, I don't think there is an official IPF. The feedback from SoftPres was "all RedZone disks had a manufacturing flaw. Even NTSC ones."

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php...977#post174977

I'd be interested in knowing what the "Manufacturing error/flaw" was and what it means for the game?