Coming soon! Steem SSE 3.6

[Steven Seagal]

For v3.4 there was true 6301 emu; for v3.5 there was CAPS support; for v3.6 there is...

Drive Sound !!!!

This is Steem 3.6's main new feature.
Floppy drive sound emulation was requested before, but I thought, why not
leave it to SainT?
Recently I realised that the Amiga emulator UAE also offers this feature,
it's less exclusive now, and it's still a heavy request.
Delivered.
Problem: it's hard to find correct Atari ST drive samples that weren't
ripped from SainT.
If you can please sample some more realistic Atari sounds and upload
them at atari-forum. Please don't rip SainT's samples.

Technical notes: with DirectSound, it's in fact rather easy, you just play
the sounds when necessary, you don't need to mix them with the PSG (sound
circuit) sound emulation, it's done by the system. The sounds are WAV files
grouped in a new directory, DriveSound, that should be copied into Steem's
main directory.


Crazy Cars 2



The pasti version of this frustrating game also named F40 Pursuit Simulator was the basis for some improvements in Steem SSE: CPU exceptions, 6301 true emu. It worked in v3.3, 3.4, I broke compatibility in v3.5, and restored it in v3.6. A crazy case!

Here's a hint you may not know ( ): press F7 for keyboard/joystick control.

Please check my site if you want to download the game:
http://ataristeven.t15.org/Steem_360_coming_soon.htm

There is also info about some other improvements on the site, but they were first planned for v3.5.5 and showcased in the 3.5 "coming soon" thread:

The World is My Oyster STF
Panic STF
UMD 8730

Nice fixes, believe me!

Option 256KB (Atari 260ST), Option 2.5MB

V3.6 will not come so soon, as I want to finish code structure changes before the "official" release, but the beta is already available:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/steems ... SE%20Beta/?

[Steven Seagal]

Japtro 100%



The virtual ST would crash at this screen in Steem 3.5 because of some bug in the prefetch timing overhaul. I present no excuses for that, it was clear that such a big change would cause some subtle bugs. Here it's a difference of 2 cycles in instruction CMPI.L #,Dn, found thanks to "powerful prefetch debugging switches".



She's sad but I'm happy! Now it's 100%, STF and STE. While testing this I realised that disk 4 of the demo has some wrong disk images floating around, including in the version offered on my site, which I think was from the Chaos Engine CD. It's been fixed now (version from pouet was OK).

A note on the demo: it starts very impressive, but the numerous scrolling pics quickly get boring.

New beta available today, Win32 and Unix:

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

[dlfrsilver]

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

[Steven Seagal]

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


[mOdmate]

Hello Mr. Seagal,

As I am not sure if you receive my e-mails with bug reports (haven't got any response to my mail sent three weeks ago):

The music of Second Reality 2013 seems to be crippled in v3.6.0. At least one voice sounds completely wrong, esp. in the interference screen, the screen with the scroller behind the leaves and the plasma effect.

Any idea what's wrong here?

Regards,

Torsten

[Steven Seagal]

Hello Mr. Seagal,

As I am not sure if you receive my e-mails with bug reports (haven't got any response to my mail sent three weeks ago):

The music of Second Reality 2013 seems to be crippled in v3.6.0. At least one voice sounds completely wrong, esp. in the interference screen, the screen with the scroller behind the leaves and the plasma effect.

Any idea what's wrong here?

Regards,

Torsten

Yo
So i finally replied to your emails as you know.

Thx a lot for reporting this dude! Did you notice that it sounds better with option Hacks unchecked?
It's because the demo uses the timer D and this interferes with some hack for Audio Artistic Demo... fixed in next version, cheaply fortunately.

[mOdmate]

Hello "Steven",

Thank you very much for replying both here and via email. I am glad you found the reason why the msx sounded crippled in SR 2013; I asked Defjam and he did not know then.

Maybe I found another bug (not sure if it was reported before): The Hackabonds Demo by TVI looks buggy in several ways: The Intro Screen shows artefacts (okay, this may be a question of wrong wake up state), then the Decrunching Screen shifts the planes rapidly (STEEM Debug shows that they are syncing with the electron beam in TB) and the Main Menu has sync errors, too.

You can download it here: ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... CKABND.ZIP

I hope this report is of any use!

Regards,

Torsten

[dlfrsilver]

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 )

[mOdmate]

Another fullscreen bug?

The first two screens in the Revolution Megademo by Stax (selected via HELP key and then F1 and F2) are buggy. I tried both STF and STE mode and some wake-up states, without success.

Get it here: ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... VOLUTN.ZIP

[Orion_]

The Japtro demo has always crashed on my real STe with 4MB, like on Steem 3.2 or SSE 3.3 :/

[Steven Seagal]

Maybe I found another bug (not sure if it was reported before): The Hackabonds Demo by TVI looks buggy in several ways: The Intro Screen shows artefacts (okay, this may be a question of wrong wake up state), then the Decrunching Screen shifts the planes rapidly (STEEM Debug shows that they are syncing with the electron beam in TB) and the Main Menu has sync errors, too.

You can download it here: ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... CKABND.ZIP

I hope this report is of any use!

Regards,

Torsten

It is very useful, it was never reported, so thx a lot... again!
It's all fixed now, of course, but the next beta will be for next WE I'm afraid.

[Steven Seagal]

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 should have tested this before.
If the disks themselves are OK, it's very surprising. Too bad ijor isn't around.

[Steven Seagal]

Another fullscreen bug?

The first two screens in the Revolution Megademo by Stax (selected via HELP key and then F1 and F2) are buggy. I tried both STF and STE mode and some wake-up states, without success.

Get it here: ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... VOLUTN.ZIP

Great news, they work in the current build, they had probably some of the same problems as The Hackabonds Demo, but I must look further. They worked in v3.4. Thx again.

[Steven Seagal]

The Japtro demo has always crashed on my real STe with 4MB, like on Steem 3.2 or SSE 3.3 :/

Mega STE or upgraded STE?
If it's supposed to crash on a STE I can arrange that...

[mOdmate]

Where can I download the latest build? Is http://sourceforge.net/projects/steemss ... SE%20Beta/ the only url for the latest betas?

[mOdmate]

Don't know if it is the same fullscreen emulation bug that caused TVI's and Stax' demo to look strange, but the "Schnusdie..." STE screen from the "Reality Is A Lie" demo has sync errors in the lower part of the screen. (ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... EALITY.ZIP)

[Steven Seagal]

Where can I download the latest build? Is http://sourceforge.net/projects/steemss ... SE%20Beta/ the only url for the latest betas?

Normally there's a text file and a brag page or two, that takes time.
But I can understand that you see little point in testing with the old build.
I uploaded the latest build here, just the files:

http://ataristeven.t15.org/Files/Steem%20SSE%20Beta.zip

[mOdmate]

The "Grumbler In A Rutting Season" demo (ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... UMBLER.ZIP) seems to have a bug in the main menu. The robot cannot be controlled by the cursor keys the way it is possible on the real machine and was possible in v3.2. However, even v3.5.0 shows the same bug.

[Steven Seagal]

Don't know if it is the same fullscreen emulation bug that caused TVI's and Stax' demo to look strange, but the "Schnusdie..." STE screen from the "Reality Is A Lie" demo has sync errors in the lower part of the screen. (ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... EALITY.ZIP)

Yes, the whole screen is wrong now, thx again!, I'll look into it.
Edit: it's OK in v3.5.4 (option Hacks), so it's just a beta bug.
Edit2: because of that it was easy to find. (build updated for the impatient)

About the robot, it's better without 6301 emu, I'll look into that too, but not today!

All your reports (email or here) up to now have been precious.

[mOdmate]

The Symic demo by Axxis still refuses to start. (ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... /SYMIC.ZIP)

I traced the whole thing in the debugger some weeks ago, patched a bit around with $4E71's and so even managed to get the blue loader screen work until the end (it never switched to the music demo though), but the stuff they are doing in their protection is way to high for me. However, I remember that the flashing "lamer" screen also appreared on the real machine when you turned on the Ultimate Ripper during the demo.

[Steven Seagal]

The Symic demo by Axxis still refuses to start. (ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... /SYMIC.ZIP)

I traced the whole thing in the debugger some weeks ago, patched a bit around with $4E71's and so even managed to get the blue loader screen work until the end (it never switched to the music demo though), but the stuff they are doing in their protection is way to high for me. However, I remember that the flashing "lamer" screen also appreared on the real machine when you turned on the Ultimate Ripper during the demo.

Normally it works, try "slow drive"?

[mOdmate]

The "Board and Spheres" screen by NAOS in the Ventura demo by OVR has a logo in the upper border that has plane shifts (tried several wake up states).

ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... ENTURA.ZIP

Regarding the "Symic" demo: Yes, it works. Thanks for the hint!

[mOdmate]

The STAX screen with the blue logo in "Hier sind noch zwei Plätze frei" shows artefacts above the logo when Steem is run in STE mode with TOS 1.06. It works okay when running Steem in STF mode with TOS 1.4.

ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... ERSIND.ZIP

[mOdmate]

The Ishar 3 cracktro by ACF and Vectronix has sync problems, http://demozoo.org/productions/64457/. Lotek Style just gave me that hint, thanks man!

ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/ltk_tscc ... SHAR3D.ZIP

[mOdmate]

One last report for today: The sound in the "Direct Color Zoomer" screen in the 20 years STE megademo sounds crippled after some seconds. (http://demozoo.org/productions/73395/, it's the PDX screen in the upper right corner of the main menu)