Coming soon! Steem SSE 3.6

[mOdmate]

Sorry, I am no native speaker. So it was meant as "Hatari, too". As you know, I always prefered Steem since it was released back in the days.

[Steven Seagal]

Don't be sorry, I know that, but I don't want the Hatari team to get big heads.

[npomarede]

Phaleon Giga Demo by NeXT

- Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/73226/
- The scroller in the Chaotic Motion Screen (Interfer) looks buggy (even under Hatari). However, I don't know if this is an emulation bug, as I did not test it on the real machine.
- The opened upper and lower border in the Storm Brothers screen flicker (even Hatari has similar problems with this screen).

"Even Hatari" implies that Steem is wrong far more often than Hatari, this isn't the case so it should be "also Hatari".

I tend to disagree

So for mOdmate, 1st screen by chaotic motion is just "ugly by design", this is not a bug in the emulation, they tried to make a scroll that follows the interferences ...
Screen by Storm Brothers works only in STF mode ; the bottom border removal is another bad example of leaving no margin for the 60/50 Hz switch. On an STF, the last switch can happen as soon as cycle 508, which is still OK to remove bottom border, but just at the limit. But on STE, 508 is not OK, so bottom border is sometimes not removed and you get this bad result.

Don't forget that most demos were coded on STF (either because STE didn't exist yet, or was not really wide spread after), so the best setup to test demos is always to try in STF mode (except of course, if it's explicitely an STE demo)

Nicolas

[mOdmate]

"Ugly by design", hehe.

Transbeauce Demo I by Bushwackers

- Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/65988/
- The Phenix/TBC screen has sync errors in the lower border on Steem when using the ignore wake up state option (on Hatari it flickers, too).

transbeauce.png

Transbeauce Demo II by Bushwackers

- Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/65991/
- The fullscreen main menu is starting only from time to time. In most cases, the loader directly starts the fractals screen. If the main menu starts, the ball is not controllable by the cursor keys. It works on Hatari.

[DrCoolZic]

Hello Steven Seagal

I have just tested your latest beta, and now Crackdown 2 Disks releases loads when disk 2 is inserted, however, the level map is not displayed on screen..... the main sprite is actually "walking in the dark".

You're getting it right i think more and more

I don't see that the situation is changed.
When the counter reaches 0, the next level loads and plays.
I still suspect wrong image, I will try and compare 2disk/1disk versions.

Edit: done, the image is wrong, as established by Steem SSE Boiler.
Sector 1 of track 10 on disk 2 is missing.There's no emulation bug here.
In the output below, you can see "STR 90 ( MO RNF ) " RNF means "record not found".
This doesn't happen with the 1 disk version.

Code: Select all

FDC HBL 1098868 CR $80 drive A side 0 TR 10 SR 1 DR 10
Pasti: Read sector(s). track: 10 (10), side: 0, sector: 1
IP for motor off 0 A0 B1
IP for motor off 0 A0 B1
IP for motor off 0 A0 B1
IP for motor off 0 A0 B1
IP for motor off 0 A0 B1
FDC IRQ HBL 1114494 CR 80 STR 90 ( MO RNF ) TR 10 SR 1 DR 10 ($A) A0: T 10/0 DMA CR 80 $54BFC SR 1 #1 PC A954
FDC SR 2
FDC HBL 1114499 CR $80 drive A side 0 TR 10 SR 2 DR 10
Pasti: Read sector(s). track: 10 (10), side: 0, sector: 2
FDC IRQ HBL 1115544 CR 80 STR 80 ( MO ) TR 10 SR 2 DR 18 ($12) A0: T 10/0 DMA CR 80 $54FFC SR 1 #0 PC A95A
FDC SR 3

thank you Steven, this means that Pasti is unable to image the original 2 disks retail version of Crackdown. And note about this one that my atari STF/E all load the game faithfully. This game is not using any fuzzy or weak bits, so i will create an SCP image once i get my supercard pro (it's in the way )

I would be interested to get the Kryoflux or SCP ram images of the game if you have it so I can (try) to generate the STX file

[Steven Seagal]

Do Things by Cream

- Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/65442/
- The demo doesn't start with STE/1.62/2 or 4 MB (after pressing F1). It works in Steem's STF mode and under Hatari using TOS 1.62/4 MB.

I'm a bit confused, it rocks with me, loads until song menu, various STE configs, but I don't see when you should press F1?
When you post screenshots, it's not essential, but it may help if the Steem window is there with the status bar, like on my site. I do it easily by stopping emulation, pressing alt-print screen, open IrfanView, press ctrl-v, then save. So you don't need to state config.

Note about the demo in STE mode, sounds better with 50Khz SR, stereo 16 bit.

[Steven Seagal]

Transbeauce Demo II by Bushwackers

- Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/65991/
- The fullscreen main menu is starting only from time to time. In most cases, the loader directly starts the fractals screen. If the main menu starts, the ball is not controllable by the cursor keys. It works on Hatari.

Please check option 6301 and it will work, it's a case I know well.

[Steven Seagal]

Pete by Chaos
-----------------

- The first screen by the Mega Four has sync errors in its fullscreen part.
. Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/60162/

Yes, it was a bug standing since v3.4, thx a lot for reporting it.
Steem was looking for "-2" or "+44" shifter effects even when the MMU had already stopped fetching because of another trick ("-106" here).

[mOdmate]

I've sent you an e-mail with my version of Do Things.

[Steven Seagal]

I've sent you an e-mail with my version of Do Things.

It's definitely a different version.
But it works with STE/4MB, both current build and v3.5.4 (and 3.2). Not 2MB.

[npomarede]

Transbeauce Demo I by Bushwackers

- Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/65988/
- The Phenix/TBC screen has sync errors in the lower border on Steem when using the ignore wake up state option (on Hatari it flickers, too).

Looking at the code for this, it's another case of removing the bottom border 4 cycles to early ; could have been an emulator bug, except it's just as unstable on my STF. So yes, this demo is buggy even on real hardware, nothing to fix here.
That's the problem with emulating, you assume all the emulated programs ran fine on real HW, while sometimes they just don't as they were poorly coded. Unless you have a real STF to test, you can waste a lot of time on such issues
I think Hatari and Steem are really close to real HW now for video, so when a demo with low design/code doesn't work on either emulator (you could try Saint too), it's quite likely the demo is really broken.

Nicolas

[Steven Seagal]

Sinfull Sinuses by Chronicle

- Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/66378/
- The four pixel raster effect looks like this:

sinful.png

The question is: how should it look? Is it possible to point at the errors?

[npomarede]

[
The question is: how should it look? Is it possible to point at the errors?

Compare with Hatari Some lines look "duplicated" in Steem in the RGB plasma.

[Steven Seagal]

[
The question is: how should it look? Is it possible to point at the errors?

Compare with Hatari Some lines look "duplicated" in Steem in the RGB plasma.

But when i do it crashes (1.7.0) or it gives the same screen as Steem (1.6.2), that's why I'm asking.

[npomarede]

But when i do it crashes (1.7.0) or it gives the same screen as Steem (1.6.2), that's why I'm asking.

Strange, I just tested again and it works (tos 1.62 fr, 2MB RAM), see attached screenshot

[Steven Seagal]

Hackabounds Demo (STF WS1)



This demo revealed 3 problems.

First there was an "internal" bug in Steem when the instruction STOP is used in trace mode. This caused the emulator to skip an instruction, and the instruction in this case would have cleared one register (A0). Because it is skipped, the register would contain data instead of 0 and this data would be used to fill ("clean") the video RAM. You ended up with trash in a repetitive pattern, the content of register A0:



Next the instructions scroller would shift all the time. It was caused by another CPU timing issue appearing after the prefetch timing overhaul, this time in MOVEM M->R .L. The situation is still not really satisfactory for the MOVEM instructions, prefetch timings aren't where they should be, in order not to break running programs.

The main menu will display fine in Wake State 1 mode in current version.

Edit: clarified some points

[Steven Seagal]

People who browse my development pages and this forum may have noticed that I usually replicate the brags here but save the embarrassing "arghs" (bugs) for my site. So here it's an exception (got that?) because the problem is interesting:

Ishar3 cracktro



Argh! This intro was broken in v3.5 because of a CPU timing change, that has now been corrected, in the -(A) .W effective address type. On the ST, because of the video RAM being part of system RAM, the main bus is shared with the video circuit, and when the CPU can't access the RAM it must wait. In emulation, we generally round the timing up to a multiple of four. But according to instruction sequence, sometimes you must round, sometimes you mustn't. This should be handled somehow.

In Hatari they use specific pairing functions and tables.

In Steem this is done by 2 macros, INSTRUCTION_TIME() and INSTRUCTION_TIME_ROUND(). Apparently this works as well, but it needs some tuning too. It is not excluded that one day we change the system. Of course it's no little matter.

Edit: clarified some points

[Steven Seagal]

Option SF314/SF354

The SF354 floppy drive of Atari was a single sided one, sold with the first ST computers. It was later superseded by the SF314 double sided drive. Strangely the inferior number is for the superior drive. Those references are valid for external drives anyway.



I already thought of adding this, but wondered what's the point? Obviously there's one as this has also been requested. And I had just added the option '256K', that is also a downgrade. Why not then?



Correct emulation! Hmm, reminds me of some woes while adding IPF support to Steem. There are two difficulties in adding this dangerous option to Steem. First, adding the contextual menu in the disk manager when you right click on a drive icon. So it is possible to choose which drive (A or B) will be single sided. Second, conceptually I had called the drive variables SF314 already.



This new option should work with regular ST, MSA, DIM files and with IPF files, and Pasti (STX) if option Hacks is checked (different technique is used for the latter).

It's up to the player to be careful with this option.

[Steven Seagal]

Option 6301: new philosophy

Both the ACIA and the IKBD (also called 6301) are chips involved in keyboard,
mouse and joystick control.

No ACIA/IKBD SSE mods if option '6301' not checked

This is because timings were wrong but the system was somehow adjusted
to them. We can fix some parts of fake ikbd emulation but then some
programs will be reported as not working anymore (like in this thread).

So now, when 6301 option isn't checked, you should get exactly the
same keyboard emulation as in v3.2.
When this option is checked, ACIA emulation is changed, for the
IKBD as well as for MIDI.

This also has the advantage of streamlining the source.

Side note, the drive sounds have been updated:
Current samples are from an Epson SMD-480L, sampled by Stefan jL.

There's also a new file "SpecificHints.txt" that could help having some
programs run in Steem.

Site:
http://ataristeven.t15.org/Steem_360_coming_soon.htm

Beta:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/steemss ... SE%20Beta/?

Edit: clarified some points

[Stefan jL]

Nice
I checked the single sided option and it works for "Turbo Out Run" as that game was released on 3 disks, disk 1 was single sided, disk 2 was double sided and if you had an double sided drive so did you never need the third disk, unfortunatly so was Turbo out Run released as all single sided disks for compilations later on for some reason?

I think "Shadow Warriors" and "Gauntlet 2" also are "enhanced" when played on double sided drives (they show animated intros then), but those do not work in Steem 3,6 beta.

Also the STX's in the "Turbo Out Run" entry at Atarimania is bad, Jake/depression has uploaded correct ones to the Atarimania FTP, he also uploaded double sided "Shadow Warrios" STX there.

[Steven Seagal]

I think "Shadow Warriors" and "Gauntlet 2" also are "enhanced" when played on double sided drives (they show animated intros then), but those do not work in Steem 3,6 beta.

Also the STX's in the "Turbo Out Run" entry at Atarimania is bad, Jake/depression has uploaded correct ones to the Atarimania FTP, he also uploaded double sided "Shadow Warrios" STX there.

Unfortunately for STX I had to "hack" the feature, because pasti is in charge of DMA and the drive, so it could be buggy.

[mOdmate]

"Tragedy For You" by New Trend

- Link: http://demozoo.org/productions/73215/
- The loader screen stops with a red screen using Steem and Hatari. If the slow drive option is selected, the red screen does not appear, but the demo does not start either.
- Edit: The demo works with Saint and is bug free - except for the lower border in the Loader screen (FCopy).

[mOdmate]

"XMAS-2004" by Paradox

- Link: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=15053
- The lower border in the blue vertical scroller screen flickers (it is stable with Hatari).

[mOdmate]

"3d full" by Oxygene

- Link: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=29062
- The fullscreen cube is not filled (works on Hatari).

[Steven Seagal]

But when i do it crashes (1.7.0) or it gives the same screen as Steem (1.6.2), that's why I'm asking.

Strange, I just tested again and it works (tos 1.62 fr, 2MB RAM), see attached screenshot

After further testing...
In Hatari 1.7.0 (Win32), it won't pass beyond the "release" screen with this config, "halt" crash. Is there a difference with the Unix build?
In Steem current beta (today) or in fact v3.2, it will work only with TOS 1.62 French, not 1.06 and no 1.62 UK or DE or US! Another TOS and you get the wrong rasters. The same with Hatari v1.6.2.