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Reply 40 of 172, by jrdennisoss

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Stiletto wrote on 2022-03-04, 21:45:

In case it helps you, about 9 years ago I scanned and uploaded the C-Cube CL450 User's Manual for Toni Wilen/WinUAE (and for the MAME project). It should be quite a bit larger than the datasheet! I believe that DatasheetArchive and such did make their own copies of my upload, so you may in fact be talking about this document, but it is not a datasheet, it is the user's manual.

You can find it here: http://mess.redump.net/_media/datasheets/c-cube/cl450um.pdf
and errata here: http://mess.redump.net/_media/datasheets/c-cube/cl450mpg.pdf

Dude this is great! Yeah I do often times mix up terminology like datasheet and user manual, however the document I currently have is nowhere near as complete as these... Thank you for posting this! 😀

Reply 41 of 172, by Bobbytoz

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jrdennisoss

If you manage to build a working 486 RealMagic system.
And she will be good at play The Horde (RM) game.
Then perhaps you will be able to make a hardware conversion of magic MPEG to standard MPEG. (Decoder - SVideo - Encoder)
After that, it will be possible to assemble a modified CD image of the game.
In this case, the game will be fully playable.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Games used to be better!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Reply 42 of 172, by jrdennisoss

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Update: I have created a new release for this: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/dosboxrm/relea … /tag/2022-03-05

  • "The Horde" video should now play reasonably well.
  • MPEG tools have also been updated to be able to convert "The Horde" videos to standard MPEG-1 format.

The workaround I am using is getting even more complex, however I decided to put it in anyways because it allows further testing of games.

Bobbytoz

Now an original copy of "The Horde" should play reasonably well in the emulator. I have not completely tested it, but randomly playing some files in SPLAYER.EXE as well as watching the game opening seems to work now. You will still see the macroblock/block boundaries you mentioned before, however video quality for the most part should be good. I created a ticket to track finding a smoothing solution for this so I don't loose sight of it: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/dosboxrm/issues/41

With regards to your goal of creating a patched version of The Horde CD having "clean" MPEG video assets, there is a Linux tool that I included in the repo that will do what you want; the "unlock_the_magic_mpeg_ps" program in the "tools/" directory. This is a 100% lossless conversion as all it does is correct the sequence frame rate code and P/B picture f_code values so that the new file will be playable on MPEG-1 compliant decoders/players. For The Horde, it looks like these MPEG files were encoded with an f_code value of 4, but you can use the "find_magical_f_code" tool to confirm. I haven't analyzed all of them, but just a handful this was true. This is all documented in the "NOTES_MPEG.md" file, but the gist of it is:

First hit 'make' in the "tools/" directory on a Linux machine to build all the MPEG tools in the repo.

Then, find the "magical" f_code. For example:

$ ./find_magical_f_code ../hordecd/INTRO.MPG
Found f_code: 4

Finally, patch the video using the found f_code of 4. For example:

$ ./unlock_the_magic_mpeg_ps 4 ../hordecd/INTRO.MPG INTRO_WORKING.MPG

That will create a new MPEG-1 compliant file called "INTRO_WORKING.MPG" and you should be able to open this new file in your favorite player (e.g. VLC, Windows Media Player, QuickTime) and the file should play without issue. 😀

Bobbytoz wrote on 2022-03-05, 07:39:

After that, it will be possible to assemble a modified CD image of the game.
In this case, the game will be fully playable.

Patching the original CD is certainly not ideal, especially for preservation and archival purposes as I strongly believe an emulator should be able to run these files as-is, but should work well in your case where your "modern" ReelMagic card does not like the old "magical" MPEG files.

Please do let me know how it goes! 😀

Reply 43 of 172, by Uka

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jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-06, 01:41:
Update: I have created a new release for this: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/dosboxrm/relea … /tag/2022-03-05 […]
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Update: I have created a new release for this: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/dosboxrm/relea … /tag/2022-03-05

  • "The Horde" video should now play reasonably well.
  • MPEG tools have also been updated to be able to convert "The Horde" videos to standard MPEG-1 format.

Thanks!
"The Horde" now indeed plays fine!
I have also checked "Space Ace", as it had the same artifacts in videos as "The Horde" did. The videos are fine now there too, but the game still plays incorrectly - skipping many scenes and not responding to pressing the keys.
And "Entity" still shows artifacts.

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Reply 44 of 172, by Bobbytoz

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jrdennisoss

Wow!
I admire your tenacity and perseverance...
You are creating a miracle before our eyes!
Thank you for your hard work and your help.
The project is getting better every day.

The Horde RM MPEG CD:
- It starts (GamePlay playable)
- Magical MPEG works (Rare image artifacts slip through)
- Sound artifacts appeared (Crackling, clicking)
- Exiting the game while playing a video (Intro 100%)
- After the video is black screen, you need to press the actions button to continue (Not as original)

In any case, the progress is great!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Games used to be better!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Reply 45 of 172, by Bobbytoz

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Distraction from the topic )

I decided to make an extensive video about the game for the 30th anniversary of The Horde game.
Therefore, I collect materials on the game.

And one of the tasks that I set myself was to restore the map of the universe of the Horde.
I tried in every possible way to hack the resources of the game to take out the map.
But I didn't succeed (((

Then I decided to restore the map piece by piece, capturing video from the game when a piece of the map scrolls across the screen.
Thus, I got 65% of the map, by painstaking work of articulating the pieces pixel by pixel.

Then I turned on my imagination and began to finish drawing the missing pieces of the map (pieces in the central area and along the edges of the map)
The work was crazy.

In the end, I achieved a good result.

And the other day I found out that in the early sets of the game on floppy disks, a full map on paper was attached to the game.

I found a person who owns such a paper map.
But he doesn't have a scanner.
Therefore, he was able to provide only a photo (But he said he would try to find a way to scan it).

As a result, comparing the two versions of the map, I was amazed at how accurately I restored it. (Relatively).

I hope that I will be able to get a scan of the map and make my own movie about the game.
Thank you to everyone who helps and participates!

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  • THEHORDE_MAP.png
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    Fair use/fair dealing exception

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Games used to be better!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Reply 46 of 172, by Stiletto

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jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-05, 01:37:
Stiletto wrote on 2022-03-04, 21:45:

In case it helps you, about 9 years ago I scanned and uploaded the C-Cube CL450 User's Manual for Toni Wilen/WinUAE (and for the MAME project). It should be quite a bit larger than the datasheet! I believe that DatasheetArchive and such did make their own copies of my upload, so you may in fact be talking about this document, but it is not a datasheet, it is the user's manual.

You can find it here: http://mess.redump.net/_media/datasheets/c-cube/cl450um.pdf
and errata here: http://mess.redump.net/_media/datasheets/c-cube/cl450mpg.pdf

Dude this is great! Yeah I do often times mix up terminology like datasheet and user manual, however the document I currently have is nowhere near as complete as these... Thank you for posting this! 😀

Happy to be of service!

I never looked into what Toni did with the user's manual but it looks like their emulation code is here:
https://github.com/tonioni/WinUAE/blob/master/cd32_fmv.cpp
To the best of my knowledge, it is licensed GPLv2.0 or later.

Notes from time of addition: http://www.indieretronews.com/2014/07/winuae- … mv-holiday.html
(not sure how much of that remains true... might be able to find out by analyzing https://github.com/tonioni/WinUAE/commits/mas … er/cd32_fmv.cpp )

If your code ends up being "better", you should probably let them know! 😉

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 47 of 172, by jrdennisoss

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Uka wrote on 2022-03-06, 03:44:
Thanks! "The Horde" now indeed plays fine! I have also checked "Space Ace", as it had the same artifacts in videos as "The Hord […]
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Thanks!
"The Horde" now indeed plays fine!
I have also checked "Space Ace", as it had the same artifacts in videos as "The Horde" did. The videos are fine now there too, but the game still plays incorrectly - skipping many scenes and not responding to pressing the keys.
And "Entity" still shows artifacts.

Thank you very much for the much appreciated feedback Uka. We are still in the process of getting our Maxima board setup. What a PITA this has become... We FINALLY just got everything installed, card + driver and all, but currently it won't play video. 🙁 We are still working on getting a CD-ROM drive installed in this PC because I suspect this thing wont play MPEG files unless they are on a CD.

There are gaps in the emulator that I am struggling with a bit to identify as well, which is likely the cause of the quirkiness like skipping scenes and unresponsive keys. I created a test tool (https://github.com/jrdennisoss/rmprobe) that we are using to probe the real driver and hardware on our PC which allows us to actually see what is going on under-the-hood on the real deal (and in the DOSBox emulator as well 😀 ). Any chance you would be able to help out by running these tests on your real (preferably 1.11) setup? The log files produced by the tests would be of enormous help to stabilizing the emulator. If so, the DOS binaries and test scripts can be found here in a single zip: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/rmprobe/releas … -07/rmprobe.zip Build script and instructions are also in the "README.md" file if desired. Basically the test process is:

  • Insert the ReelMagic Demo CD, the one that has the "D:\CORP\SIGLOGO.MPG" file.
  • If your CD-ROM is a driver letter other than 'D', update all the "COMMANDS.TXT" files to reflect the proper driver letter.
  • Reboot machine, manually load FMPDRV.EXE (preferable version 1.1)
  • Run the test: RMPROBE.EXE TESTS\TEST01
  • Note any observations that seem off.
  • Reboot machine, manually load FMPDRV.EXE (preferable version 1.1)
  • Run the test: RMPROBE.EXE TESTS\TEST02
  • Note any observations that seem off.
  • ... and so on for all 11 tests
  • Then please post the RMPROBE.LOG files that were generated by running each test in each test directory.

Again, don't feel obligated as eventually I will get the emulator working, but this would really help a lot and accelerate things. 😀

Bobbytoz wrote on 2022-03-06, 04:46:
jrdennisoss […]
Show full quote

jrdennisoss

Wow!
I admire your tenacity and perseverance...
You are creating a miracle before our eyes!
Thank you for your hard work and your help.
The project is getting better every day.

The Horde RM MPEG CD:
- It starts (GamePlay playable)
- Magical MPEG works (Rare image artifacts slip through)
- Sound artifacts appeared (Crackling, clicking)
- Exiting the game while playing a video (Intro 100%)
- After the video is black screen, you need to press the actions button to continue (Not as original)

In any case, the progress is great!

Thank you for the feedback Bobbytoz! I have noted the issues and am currently working on fixing. BTW: Awesome work on the map! I bet that required patients of steel to get the whole thing. 😀

Stiletto wrote on 2022-03-07, 00:14:
Happy to be of service! […]
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Happy to be of service!

I never looked into what Toni did with the user's manual but it looks like their emulation code is here:
https://github.com/tonioni/WinUAE/blob/master/cd32_fmv.cpp
To the best of my knowledge, it is licensed GPLv2.0 or later.

Notes from time of addition: http://www.indieretronews.com/2014/07/winuae- … mv-holiday.html
(not sure how much of that remains true... might be able to find out by analyzing https://github.com/tonioni/WinUAE/commits/mas … er/cd32_fmv.cpp )

If your code ends up being "better", you should probably let them know! 😉

Good to know about that project thanks! I originally started down the path that they are doing; full emulation of the board's chips and their port I/O commands and friends. However, I shifted directions a bit with this because the compute required (lots of buffer copying) of DOSBox would have been a lot higher than just emulating the ReelMagic DOS driver. Also, by emulating just the driver, it looks like it may be possible to achieve better game compatibility with significantly less(er) effort as the more I learn about ReelMagic and all the boards that were produced, there are serious game and hardware compatibility issues. Though that is a good reference to have especially because being able to reference some of the CL450's features give me a clear view of what that chip can actually do. 😀

Reply 48 of 172, by Uka

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jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 04:26:

Any chance you would be able to help out by running these tests on your real (preferably 1.11) setup?

Sure, I can try that. Maybe later today or tomorrow!
In fact, I have two old PCs with such cards - one is ReelMagic (branded FullVideo) Lite @386SX and the other is Maxima@PentiumMMX. You probably need testing both? It is not driver 1.1 though - my FullVideo Lite came with 2.01, and Maxima only has 2.30. I do not think you should stick with the older 1.1?

Reply 49 of 172, by jrdennisoss

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Uka wrote on 2022-03-08, 05:04:

Sure, I can try that. Maybe later today or tomorrow!

Awesome! That would be much appreciated. 😀

In fact, I have two old PCs with such cards - one is ReelMagic (branded FullVideo) Lite @386SX and the other is Maxima@PentiumMMX. You probably need testing both?

Yes please! The more data I can get the better.

It is not driver 1.1 though - my FullVideo Lite came with 2.01, and Maxima only has 2.30.

Gotcha. OK if you don't have 1.11, then yeah starting with 2.01 should be good. Having both results from 2.01 and 2.30 is even better!
Note: The current version of the tester tool only runs in DOS.

I do not think you should stick with the older 1.1?

I definitely do not want to stick with 1.11 as my goal is to make the emulator compatible with all driver versions. In fact, I suspect that current version of the emulator may already support more commands than the 1.11 driver did 😉 However, having some data points with just the old version is extremely useful because it helps show me what are some of the actual changes.

Again thank you so much! 😀

Reply 50 of 172, by Uka

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jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 04:26:

[*] Note any observations that seem off.

OK, here is my first system: the original ReelMagic Lite (with feature connector) and drivers version 2.21 (not 2.01 - I forgot I have already upgraded that).

Tests 01-04 - everything is fine!
Tests 05-06 - the video plays fine, but then the system freezes on its last frame. No LOG files (they are 0 bytes).
Tests 07-09 - the video does not play! The system freezes with a message that the driver is already installed. There are LOG files though.
Test 10 - everything is fine, except that the video pauses for a second in the middle.
Test 11 - the sound plays fine, but only a small part of the video is seen, and after playing the system freezes with a message that the driver is already installed.

It would take more time for me to test the system with Maxima, especially when rebooting after each test 😀

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 04:26:

We are still in the process of getting our Maxima board setup. What a PITA this has become... We FINALLY just got everything installed, card + driver and all, but currently it won't play video. 🙁

Can I help you with anything here? What messages do you get? Have you calibrated the video?

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 04:26:

We are still working on getting a CD-ROM drive installed in this PC because I suspect this thing wont play MPEG files unless they are on a CD.

I do not think so - you can copy any video file to a hard drive, and it would play just fine.

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 05:19:

I definitely do not want to stick with 1.11 as my goal is to make the emulator compatible with all driver versions. In fact, I suspect that current version of the emulator may already support more commands than the 1.11 driver did 😉

Indeed! Sigma did encourage people to update drivers to a later version.
In fact, at least "Man Enough" says it requires "version 2.0 drivers or later"! So all those problems with the games I mentioned above could well be due to incompatible drivers...

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Reply 51 of 172, by Uka

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And here is the test of Maxima!
The official version of drivers is 2.30, but when loaded in DOS it still says it is 2.21. Maybe they did not bother to change the number?
Or maybe there is no real difference - the results are very similar to those of ReelMagic Lite.

Tests 01-04 - everything is fine!
Test 05 - the video plays fine, but then the system freezes on its last frame. No LOG file (0 bytes).
Test 06 - the video plays fine, but then the system reboots instead of freezing! No LOG file (0 bytes).
Tests 07-09 - the video does not play! The system freezes with a black screen and no messages. There are no LOG files (0 bytes).
Test 10 - everything is fine, except that the video pauses for a second in the middle.
Test 11 - the sound plays fine, but only a small part of the video is seen, and after playing the system reboots. No LOG file (0 bytes).

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Reply 52 of 172, by jrdennisoss

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Thank you very much Uka for the test results as these logs are incredible helpful!

Well, the good news is I think I know why the games are acting all screwed up... (well, not the video issues seen in "Entity", but the game itself getting all screwed up)
The bad news is that this is not likely going an easy problem to fix 🙁

Uka wrote on 2022-03-08, 07:16:

OK, here is my first system: the original ReelMagic Lite (with feature connector) and drivers version 2.21 (not 2.01 - I forgot I have already upgraded that).

Looks like the probed driver version reflects this. That's a good sign.

Uka wrote on 2022-03-08, 11:25:

And here is the test of Maxima!
The official version of drivers is 2.30, but when loaded in DOS it still says it is 2.21. Maybe they did not bother to change the number?
Or maybe there is no real difference - the results are very similar to those of ReelMagic Lite.

The probe shows the same thing on our setup too: Installed version is Maxima 2.30, but reported version is 2.21.

Indeed! Sigma did encourage people to update drivers to a later version.
In fact, at least "Man Enough" says it requires "version 2.0 drivers or later"!

It sounds like I need to update the emulator to report the 2.21 value to ReelMagic applications. Having a value from a real world know working setup is incredibly helpful as it makes the emulator more realistic 😀

So all those problems with the games I mentioned above could well be due to incompatible drivers...

It is most certainly due to incompatible drivers. Not so much the reported version number, but rather me just screwing up compatibility in the emulator. 😀

Tests 01-04 - everything is fine! Tests 05-06 - the video plays fine, but then the system freezes on its last frame. No LOG file […]
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Tests 01-04 - everything is fine!
Tests 05-06 - the video plays fine, but then the system freezes on its last frame. No LOG files (they are 0 bytes).
Tests 07-09 - the video does not play! The system freezes with a message that the driver is already installed. There are LOG files though.
Test 10 - everything is fine, except that the video pauses for a second in the middle.
Test 11 - the sound plays fine, but only a small part of the video is seen, and after playing the system freezes with a message that the driver is already installed.

Thank you for the details! Question on tests 01-04 on the ReelMagic Lite: Was there any DOS text overlayed on top of the video on any of those tests?

Can I help you with anything here? What messages do you get? Have you calibrated the video?

Yeah help here would be great! We had to install Windows 3.11 in order just to install the DOS drivers. We are able to run the calibration tool in DOS and move the black rectangle over the pink one. However, the calibration does not run in Windows. (attached photos below) Video does not play in DOS using the same probe tests (01-04) nor in TESTFMP.EXE using "C:\SIGLOGO.MPG" instead of of CD-ROM. The card does seem to respond properly at port address 260h, however I have not yet confirmed if DMA is actually working as this might be the source of our problems. The screen does go black so that tells me that the ReelMagic card is physically installed correctly and able to intercept the VGA signal. We haven't fired up a game yet as we are currently sourcing blank CD-R discs. Also not sure if an IDE CD-ROM is OK for this or if a SCSI CD-ROM drive is needed. Some questions come to mind:

  • Are we supposed to install in Windows then use in DOS? Or is there an actual DOS installer for the Maxima?
  • Is there some step on the Windows install that we are missing or need to do before things work? (we installed just taking all the default parameters/values)
  • Are there compatibility issues with the storage bus/hardware? (for example, the HD (CF disk) and CD-ROM drive we installed are IDE; Does ReelMagic require something like SCSI?)

I do not think so - you can copy any video file to a hard drive, and it would play just fine.

Well that's a bummer. I was hoping it was gonna be something easy like that. 🙁

Unfortunately I gotta do my real day job now 🙁 but I will analyze the logs in more detail later, and brainstorm on the next steps. Just quick looking at the failing tests, crashes, and logs, it would appear that my understanding of calling convention for the driver -> user callback ("CALLRM B 0 0 CBFUNC") is completely wrong. To be honest, I'm surprised the emulator works as well as it does! This would certainly explain the compatibility issues with the games mentioned above as well as the crashes/lockups with the probe. I will revisit my FMPDRV.EXE and Return to Zork projects in Ghidra to see what I am missing. I will also probably end up spending a good few hours with the DOSBox debugger again as this usually yields good information as to what is actually going on. The downside to this approach is that if the emulator is doing something wrong early on, it may be changing the game's behavior with the driver later on and I'm not see what really is supposed to happen. I may need to make some tweaks to the probe so that I can stabilize it and get more information on that callback function... I will probably have to write a couple different probe callback routines in assembly language. I am also thinking of writing a TSR tool which records all the exchanges between a game and the ReelMagic driver. This may be trickier than it sounds though because I would need to be careful not to consume too much precious conventional memory as well as not introduce any unreasonable delays in the ReelMagic calls by writing data to file in-between driver exchanges.

Again thank you very much Uka for running these tests as this data is incredibly helpful!

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Reply 53 of 172, by Uka

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jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 18:18:

Well, the good news is I think I know why the games are acting all screwed up... (well, not the video issues seen in "Entity", but the game itself getting all screwed up)

You mean things like scenes skipping / keys not responding in "Space Ace" and drivers not being recognized in "Crime Patrol"?
Still, I have to say I am impressed that "Entity" works (well, not entirely, but still) with your emulator, but not with the real hardware 😀
Great job!

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 18:18:

Thank you for the details! Question on tests 01-04 on the ReelMagic Lite: Was there any DOS text overlayed on top of the video on any of those tests?

No, nothing like that! As I said, everything is fine with 01-04.

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 18:18:

We had to install Windows 3.11 in order just to install the DOS drivers.

But you could just use Windows 95 instead?

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 18:18:

However, the calibration does not run in Windows. (attached photos below) Video does not play in DOS using the same probe tests (01-04) nor in TESTFMP.EXE using "C:\SIGLOGO.MPG" instead of of CD-ROM. The card does seem to respond properly at port address 260h, however I have not yet confirmed if DMA is actually working as this might be the source of our problems. The screen does go black so that tells me that the ReelMagic card is physically installed correctly and able to intercept the VGA signal.

Oh, that looks like some IRQ/DMA conflict. Sadly that happens on later (Pentium) systems. I had to fiddle with BIOS manually setting "Legacy" ISA for the ReelMagic Maxima to work with the sound card. What Address/IRQ/DMA you chose when installing the drivers in Windows 3.11?

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 18:18:

[*] Are we supposed to install in Windows then use in DOS? Or is there an actual DOS installer for the Maxima?

Yes! Later cards (like Maxima) did not have separate DOS drivers, they were included into Windows 3.1/95 drivers.

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 18:18:

[*] Is there some step on the Windows install that we are missing or need to do before things work? (we installed just taking all the default parameters/values)

No, I don't think so. You can't miss setting up the Address/IRQ when installing the drivers.

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 18:18:

[*] Are there compatibility issues with the storage bus/hardware? (for example, the HD (CF disk) and CD-ROM drive we installed are IDE; Does ReelMagic require something like SCSI?)

No! IDE works just fine - I never had a SCSI drive. And you can see the list of compatible drives (IDE + a lot of proprietary interfaces) in the manual addendum (the one with the list of video cards). Still, I think virtually any later IDE drive should be compatible (in difference from video cards).
On the other hand, I had to change a couple of drives to find the one that would read CD-R disks 😀 As I only have several games on original disks, not all of them.

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-08, 18:18:

Again thank you very much Uka for running these tests as this data is incredibly helpful!

You are welcome 😀 Thanks for your great work on the emulator!

Reply 54 of 172, by Bobbytoz

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jrdennisoss

You can compile files

find_magical_f_code
unlock_the_magic_mpeg_ps

for windows10 x64?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Games used to be better!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Reply 55 of 172, by jrdennisoss

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Uka wrote on 2022-03-08, 19:42:

You mean things like scenes skipping / keys not responding in "Space Ace" and drivers not being recognized in "Crime Patrol"?

Yup. Likely scene skipping and key issues are because of this. The drivers not being recognized could also be related, but less likely. For the driver recognition issue, most likely that answer is in the logs you sent me.

But you could just use Windows 95 instead?

Hoping to stick with DOS just for the initial go at this, but yeah we will probably end up installing Win95 on another disk.

Oh, that looks like some IRQ/DMA conflict. Sadly that happens on later (Pentium) systems. I had to fiddle with BIOS manually setting "Legacy" ISA for the ReelMagic Maxima to work with the sound card. What Address/IRQ/DMA you chose when installing the drivers in Windows 3.11?

Yup that was it! We switched on the "Legacy ISA" setting in the BIOS for the board's IRQ slot and things now work in both Win3.11 and DOS!!! (pics below) Thanks for the suggestion! 😀

I also analyzed the logs and root-caused the issue why some of the tests were crashing and locking up. It looks like I did not have the quite right calling convention in the probe tool. The emulator is robust enough to handle a bad call and "self-correct" where the real deal is not able to do this. As I was using the emulator to test the probe tool, I did not see this bug. I ended up writing a wrapper for the probe tool driver callback in assembly language to ensure that everything is in a perfect state when returning back to the driver. Now I can test this on the real deal with our setup here! 😀 Though it may be worthwhile re-running some of the tests on just your 386SX. I'm going to well test this on our side first though.

Bobbytoz wrote on 2022-03-09, 04:55:
jrdennisoss […]
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jrdennisoss

You can compile files

find_magical_f_code
unlock_the_magic_mpeg_ps

for windows10 x64?

Yeah I think so. Likely the same MinGW cross-compiler I was using to build DOSBox will also work for these tools. I'll give this a try tomorrow!

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Reply 56 of 172, by jrdennisoss

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Update: I have created a new release for this: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/dosboxrm/relea … /tag/2022-03-09

  • Windows binaries for the MPEG diagnostic tools are now included in the "diagtools" folder.
  • No changes to the DOSBox emulator itself.
Bobbytoz wrote on 2022-03-09, 04:55:
jrdennisoss […]
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jrdennisoss

You can compile files

find_magical_f_code
unlock_the_magic_mpeg_ps

for windows10 x64?

This turned out to be a pretty quick and simple update. I ran a quick test on my Windows 10 box with The Horde intro video just to make sure it works correctly. The conversion of the file took about 30-45 seconds. Let me know if you have any questions! 😀

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Reply 57 of 172, by Bobbytoz

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jrdennisoss

That's cool!!! Everything works great! You're a genius! Thank you)))

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Games used to be better!
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Reply 58 of 172, by jrdennisoss

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Uka wrote on 2022-03-08, 19:42:

No, nothing like that! As I said, everything is fine with 01-04.

Uka, I created another RM probe test package. Would you kindly be able to run tests 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, and 11 again please as well as the newly added test 12 please? This would just be on the ReelMagic Lite / 386SX machine. With the exception of the newly added #12, the test files are all the same, but I now have a corrected "RMPROBE.EXE" program which shouldn't cause the crashing and lockups on those tests like before. The new test #12 will help me understand the proper z-ordering of the VGA vs. MPEG feed. It is expected with test 12 that you visibly see the debug output text overlayed on top on the video.

Release: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/rmprobe/releas … /tag/2022-03-10
Direct zip file: https://github.com/jrdennisoss/rmprobe/releas … -10/rmprobe.zip

Reply 59 of 172, by Uka

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jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-11, 03:44:

Uka, I created another RM probe test package. Would you kindly be able to run tests 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, and 11 again please as well as the newly added test 12 please? This would just be on the ReelMagic Lite / 386SX machine. With the exception of the newly added #12, the test files are all the same, but I now have a corrected "RMPROBE.EXE" program which shouldn't cause the crashing and lockups on those tests like before. The new test #12 will help me understand the proper z-ordering of the VGA vs. MPEG feed. It is expected with test 12 that you visibly see the debug output text overlayed on top on the video.

Sure!
Tests 05-06 - everything is fine now!
Tests 07-09 - no video, the left half of the screen just blinks white for a second and exits. LOGs say "Last call failed".
Test 11 - no crash/freeze this time, but the video still shows only a small part of the picture.
Test 12 - the same as with 07-09, but with the LOG text displayed on the screen instead of the video.

jrdennisoss wrote on 2022-03-09, 06:17:

Yup that was it! We switched on the "Legacy ISA" setting in the BIOS for the board's IRQ slot and things now work in both Win3.11 and DOS!!! (pics below) Thanks for the suggestion! 😀

Congratulations 😀
Can you please check "Entity" on your machine?
I am still very curious why does not it show videos on my hardware.

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