jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-29, 03:42:
Awesome, thanks!
That's a lot of progress 😀
I have checked all the games again:
1. "Crime Patrol" - no changes: the game still does not launch complaining that the driver is not found, fatal error etc.
2. "Dragon's Lair" - well, the videos are fine, but it still seems that the game does not react to pressing any keys. However it is all different now! With the previous version of the emulator, it was like a non-interactive demo with hero successully passing all scenes automatically - and now he dies at the very first scene. There are some more comments below!
3. "Drug Wars" - no changes: the game still does not launch for some reason.
4. "Entity" - now I have found something! The subtitles are fine (at least the English ones in the intro), but - I now see where those video messages should be displayed. Sadly the DOSBox crashes there... And it is because of the MPEG videos, as everything is fine in the non-MPEG version. Just near the start of the first level there is a scroll on the ground: you can pick it up by pressing 'down' arrow. Maybe the LOG files would tell what is wrong there in the MPEG version?
5. "Flash Traffic" - no changes: there is no video and no pictures, just the subtitles (and other text messages).
6. "Man Enough" - the minor green blocks are now gone! Other things are the same as before - almost everything is fine except a very few garbled videos.
7. "Space Ace" - no changes: the videos are fine, but pressing any key freezes the game.
8. "The Horde" - everything is fine except the well-known bug with the new-game video. But now it is possible to skip it!
9. "The Lord of the Rings" - everything seems to be fine, except that pressing Space + Esc in the intro still freezes the game.
10. "Return to Zork" - everything seems to be fine! Except in some places the framerate with HeavyDebug drops to like 5 FPS.
jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-29, 03:42:
Comparing the emulator to the Maxima here, it seems to be about the same with the exception of "lives X" screen completely fading to black on the real setup. (I think I know why this is: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/dosboxrm/issues/78) However, I see the same behavior on both setups where it plays as a non-interactive demo. The keyboard don't seem to do anything aside from the start screen. Does this game work differently on your 386SX vs. your Maxima vs. the emulator? If this only works on the 386SX with the older ReelMagic card (w/VGA feature cable), then it may be worthwhile seeing if the data recorder / spy tool will run on that PC and capture what is happening differently. Also, do you know what keys are supposed to do what?
jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-29, 03:42:In the latest version, there is now yet another debugging
Maybe... It would be interesting to see if "Dragon's Lair" does the same thing on your 386SX setup.
Well, I can confirm that "Dragon's Lair" DOES work and reacts to keys pressing on my 386SX with ReelMagic Lite. It is just very difficuly to play! You have to press keys with precisely exact timings - but both joystick and keyboard work fine if you know what and when to press. Still I was never able to pass far enough - that's why the best choice here would be SVN-Daum as it has save states for DOS games 😉
In fact, it is probably the very first RealMagic game created - my disk is dated 22 November 1993 - and maybe it is just too raw or maybe CPU speed is relevant? I have this game in jewel case with the manual, but no system requirements are listed. And I have heard that there was an updated version of "Dragon's Lair MPEG" released in 1994, but I do not have it.
I attach some hints from the manual about using the control keys and passing the first scene - can you please try it with both your Maxima and DOSBox-RM? I tried emulating joystick in DOSBox-RM, but I am not sure I did it correctly as the game still does not react to pressing Space or "FIRE/SWORD" button.
jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-29, 03:42:
Should be all good now 😀 I haven't watched the placement of the many subtitles though, just a handful of the French ones (as that's really the only other language I understand) and they seemed to be correct. The emulator uses much bigger decoder buffers than the original chip does and while it's unlikely, the reported stream advancements may be a tad on the far side for the game's liking. Please let me know if you find anywhere where the subtitles appear in the wrong place or too early.
I have checked only the English subtitles - everything is fine there, exactly like on the real machine!
But that's only for the intro, of course - I am now more concerned about video messages not appearing. Yes, the game does freeze when picking scrolls on 386SX with ReelMagic Lite as well. As if it tries to play some files from the disk and cannot do that. Maybe some more ISO modification is needed?..
jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-29, 03:42:
Further analysis shows that this game uses the same streaming DMA mechanism that Return to Zork uses. I am shocked that it works as well as it does. It also looks like the "magic key" used for picture correction is also the same one Return to Zork uses. I'm unsure where the video artifacts are originating, but I am investigating. This could be something related to the DMA stuff, but more likely to be something else I have missed on the "magical" MPEG side of things. The DMA stuff likely impacts the subtitles not showing.
There are still artifacts in a few videos, but I am quite sure that the subtitles not showing is the original feature. It is the same on the real hardware - there are no subtitles in video scenes (like the intro and the Jerry first part) - only in later parts where there are just pictures (and sound), not videos.
jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-29, 03:42:In the latest version, there is now yet another debugging parameter "a206debug=false" which can be disabled to accelerate things running in the debugger. "Dragon's Lair" hammers this call for some reason so shutting it up in the debug logs helps keep the emulator running on time. 😀
Thanks, "Dragon's Lair" runs fine with HeavyDebug and "a206debug=false" 😀
Only the first logo intro of "Man Enough" and some small scenes in "Return to Zork" have FPS dropping, but that's a minor issue, of course.