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Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 8:56 am
by Letiumtide
I'm kind of interested by this RGB nonsense, primarily since (once again) I play my games through my xbox (component) on my Plasma TV, which... in all honesty looks closer to the emulation screenshot vs the other two. It looks like a very pure image, though I do admit that the RGB looks better than the second picture in all cases.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 6:07 pm
by Ghaleon
RGB is the best way to hook up non-HD consoles, but doing it costs a purdy penny. My X-RGB-2+ was $250 I think; RGB cables are $8-30, depending on the system; you might need some kind of SCART splitter to deal with audio = maybe $20; plus you have to rewire an SCART-to-SCART cable to work right with the X-RGB-2 from said SCART splitter box. And since my HDTV doesn't have a VGA port, a couple years ago I bought a VGA --> component box for $100 (bought it for MvC2 on DC). Ugh.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 8:15 pm
by Randam Hajile
shotgummer wrote:hey randam hajile, did you know that your name backwards is elijah madnar? and that you're really an android!
Damn! Hahahahah

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 6:23 am
by Fly
Between the cableporn and the ruined jokes, I'm almost starting to miss the poetry. All we need is a discussion about whether X could beat Y in a fight and we've got the thread derail set.

VHS Baby!

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 8:53 am
by JonnyTanna
Artemio wrote:
JonnyTanna wrote:
Man I love the way those games look through RGB. Shame a standard television has sharpness lines. Even worst, all those folk who upgraded to HD-TV's can't appreciate the 16bit era without stretching the images..
Those are pictures taken from an HD LCD =P
Are you sh*ttin' me?

If you ain't.. then I take back what I said..

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:10 am
by Artemio
Ghaleon wrote:RGB is the best way to hook up non-HD consoles, but doing it costs a purdy penny. My X-RGB-2+ was $250 I think; RGB cables are $8-30, depending on the system; you might need some kind of SCART splitter to deal with audio = maybe $20; plus you have to rewire an SCART-to-SCART cable to work right with the X-RGB-2 from said SCART splitter box. And since my HDTV doesn't have a VGA port, a couple years ago I bought a VGA --> component box for $100 (bought it for MvC2 on DC). Ugh.
Yes costs can definitively escalate like that. In order to keep them down I opted for Japanese RGB cables, the audio issute though.. I am living with the xrgb line out whenever the console doesn't have a separate line out (mainly the SNES). Luckily my TV does have VGA and HDMI/DVI-D (I am using the VGA out on the XRGB though, I prefer my games with scanlines).

One way to keep the costs down as well, is to get all the cables form the same source. One way of doing this si with UK based seller (recommended by 8bitsonic) Chaoticjelly games. He si very trustworthy, a pleasure to deal with and makes custom cables. He can also give you the option to have the audio in a separate RCA pair if you need it outside of the SCART box.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:01 pm
by Kojima_Devotee
Interesting pics. I myself have been looking for an upscaling device for my older consoles, and, sadly, they're all $100+. At least the PS2 doesn't look bad at all on an HDTV with Component Cabling, but the Wii appears outright atrocious with Composite Cables.

The other big cost of the HD transition was the loss of GunCon support for Time Crisis games 1 through 3. While an LCD Gun exists, it's quite expensive, and buying two would be a huge expense. I had to say good bye.

At least I can still play LifeLife.

Image
Voice Action Adventure with Tactical Espionage Action!!!!!1

I'll return to mainstream games when they're fun again. Listening, Ubisoft?

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:01 pm
by HorseFactory
Back in the day, an RGB cable was mandatory whenever I bought a new console. I had an awesome 30something inch Mitsubishi through my mid-late teens and let me tell you the SEGA logo never looked so good on Dreamcast launch day.

It's obviously objective that a nice CRT with RGB cables is going to look much, much nicer for older games but as one who loves convenience and is pushed for space, I'd rather just play them on my HD LCD and take the hit than try and find room for a second, dedicated CRT set.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:23 pm
by Artemio
HorseFactory wrote:It's obviously objective that a nice CRT with RGB cables is going to look much, much nicer for older games but as one who loves convenience and is pushed for space, I'd rather just play them on my HD LCD and take the hit than try and find room for a second, dedicated CRT set.
That's why I got the XRGB and the rest of RGB cables =)

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:06 pm
by Phenomenal Flea
Artemio wrote:That's why I got the XRGB and the rest of RGB cables =)
Oh! I've been looking for these things for ages. I kept my distance because there were always more pressing matters that needed my money. Now that I have settled on an HDTV, I admire those pictures you uploaded. Wow.

Say, Artemio, where did you buy yours? Can you recommend a place with a reasonable price?

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:17 pm
by Artemio
Phenomenal Flea wrote:Say, Artemio, where did you buy yours? Can you recommend a place with a reasonable price?
I got all my stuff (but some cables I ordered form ChaoticJelly Games) from Yahoo Auctions Japan. The guy from this site (http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/ recommended read) states that he can get them as well. I got mine for around 20000 Yen, plus shipping, etc.

Re: Current Project Status (1/14/09): Alpha Testing

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:36 pm
by Piratero
slowbeef wrote:Fuck 13, you know why?

We just fixed (obviated, really) a crash bug Konami missed in the original game (it's that one I had mentioned much earlier), so that means we're at 12! Hooray!
Oh! Do tell what they missed! Be as technical as you can possibly be. :D

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 12:38 am
by DarkTetsuya
Kojima_Devotee wrote:Interesting pics. I myself have been looking for an upscaling device for my older consoles, and, sadly, they're all $100+. At least the PS2 doesn't look bad at all on an HDTV with Component Cabling, but the Wii appears outright atrocious with Composite Cables.

The other big cost of the HD transition was the loss of GunCon support for Time Crisis games 1 through 3. While an LCD Gun exists, it's quite expensive, and buying two would be a huge expense. I had to say good bye.

At least I can still play LifeLife.

Image
Voice Action Adventure with Tactical Espionage Action!!!!!1

I'll return to mainstream games when they're fun again. Listening, Ubisoft?

That reminds me of one of my favorite X-Play moments:

Adam: "Bark like a dog..."
Female Protagonist: "Little dog? arf arf! or big dog? WOOF WOOF" (Mentioned in their review, that was an easter egg in one of the early versions of the game... don't think it made it to the retail copy but as the game sucked so much, I never bothered to check it out to find out.)

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 1:58 pm
by slowbeef
DarkTetsuya wrote: Adam: "Bark like a dog..."
Female Protagonist: "Little dog? arf arf! or big dog? WOOF WOOF" (Mentioned in their review, that was an easter egg in one of the early versions of the game... don't think it made it to the retail copy but as the game sucked so much, I never bothered to check it out to find out.)
Nope it's in the retail version as well.

Piratero, I'm actually writing up a bit of tech explanations, but honestly when I get free time, I tend to work on our remaining issues. I'll see if I can get something up tonight.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:24 pm
by DarkTetsuya
slowbeef wrote:
DarkTetsuya wrote: Adam: "Bark like a dog..."
Female Protagonist: "Little dog? arf arf! or big dog? WOOF WOOF" (Mentioned in their review, that was an easter egg in one of the early versions of the game... don't think it made it to the retail copy but as the game sucked so much, I never bothered to check it out to find out.)
Nope it's in the retail version as well.

Piratero, I'm actually writing up a bit of tech explanations, but honestly when I get free time, I tend to work on our remaining issues. I'll see if I can get something up tonight.
orly? well the review made it sound like it was taken out before the final release, but yeah I heard the game sucked so I didn't bother to test it myself. :P

Are you guys still on the last bug? Or just waiting to officially confirm that it's been squashed (in which case I totally understand, you wanna make absolutely sure it's dead before even thinking of beta. :P)

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:31 pm
by Haycob
DarkTetsuya wrote:Are you guys still on the last bug? Or just waiting to officially confirm that it's been squashed (in which case I totally understand, you wanna make absolutely sure it's dead before even thinking of beta. :P)
The team has already expressed their feelings on questions like these. So stop fishing for info and just wait patiently like everyone else please... :/

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:51 pm
by Kojima_Devotee
Whoa, easy there, Haycob. That's the type of mentality that made this forum a chore to visit during the Silent Year - As I said before, speaking of the patch as a taboo subject in its own thread is bullying at best. We're free to discuss it, we're not free to badger the team.

DarkTetsuya, your lurking skills need work, but the official word is that the final bug, a crashing issue during the end credits, will be ignored. It's not something that can easily be fixed in the game's code, and the problem itself is the result of an emulation error in pSX. Therefore, it's for the pSX staff to work on, and they have officially acknowledged the problem.

The "holdup" between Alpha and Beta is attributed to a few additional tasks, such as a script rewrite. Currently, Marc's on vacation for two weeks. (I believe this is Week 1 - I'm not sure since I've been ill with the flu the last few days.) So, we're just waiting in anticipation for the team to reconvene and resume operations.

To make the wait easier, play God Hand.

Re: Current Project Status (1/14/09): Alpha Testing

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:18 pm
by slowbeef
Piratero wrote:Oh! Do tell what they missed! Be as technical as you can possibly be. :D
One of the features Policenauts had - which was a pain in the ass for us - was summaries. When you load a saved game, you get an optional summary (View Summary Screen? Yes/No) which you can view to "catch up" on the story up until that point.

The summary loads a full-screen PAK graphic (uncompressed Run Length Encoded graphic with standard PSX 16-bit aBGR coloring) and overlays text on it. The first problem is that English is just wordier in Japanese when it comes to longer blocks of text, so we had to squeeze the line spacing so we can fit it onscreen. Fortunately, it never went TOO far over, so the effect looks pretty good.

But there was a much worse problem.

Now Policenauts doesn't let you save a game during "action sequences". Actually, it usually doesn't let you get to the System Menu at all for things like the shooting parts, but sometimes you'll get a shorter version of the Systems Menu that pretty much just lets you change memory cards or the cursor speed...

Or load a savegame. This part is important.

Okay, so during one of these "action sequence", there's a lot going on onscreen. Specifically, there's a bunch of things being drawn over it.

What Policenauts does is relatively simple. It has a keyword in the text sector, that is the name of a small executable. The game executes this executable during gameplay in a multithreaded fashion - so there's a running thread to draw all this stuff onscreen while it draws everything else and handles music and all the other stuff the video game is using.

Here's the catch.

You're not supposed to be able to exit this sequence unless you:

- Quit the game
- Power off the console
- Finish it through normal gameplay

But the Systems menu gives you a fourth way. You can exit this scene by loading a savegame.

Funnily enough, when the game says "View Summary Screen? (Yes/No)", the graphics still keep drawing the thing from the previous scene over the menu. Haha, silly Policenauts! Nothing told that drawing thread to end, so it's just looping over its executable in parallel and still drawing!

This stops being funny if you view a summary or actually just go to the next scene...

Because the code is overwritten with data but nothing tells the thread to stop executing. So it tries to execute data as code, which leads to illegal opcodes all over the place. It's visible in pSX's console window - and if anyone wants to verify on their original copy of the game (spoilers follow):
Spoiler:
Load your savegame when the swarm of massquitos are onscreen. You'll have to leave Moon Corner and go to Coral Hall
The kicker is that this scene takes place over four rooms - you actually have to go to rooms 2, 3, or 4 in order to load the game - the option is not present otherwise.

So what's the deal here?

Konami tries to obviate this threading issue by - instead of correctly ending the thread on load - simply removing your option to load a savegame during it. Ah, but they forgot the scene is actually four rooms long, so in the other three rooms, you can load the game and break it. It crashes on pSX and ePSXe. To be honest, I haven't actually tried replicating it on hardware.

By the time I got around to looking at this bug, I'd learned a lot about the SZ event sector byte code, so I just finished Konami's original job and removed the option to Load for all 4 rooms in that sequence.

Yes, admittedly, the proper solution is to actually ensure the threading issue ends on load, but to be honest, this was pretty hard to do in the event sector (since it's all compiled proprietary bytecode in there and not easy to deal with). So the second best solution is to remove the method by which the player can trigger this bug... which like I said, was Konami's solution anyway.

Why didn't they find it?

I dunno. The fact that they removed it from 1/4 of the sequence says they did know about it at least at one point. But to be fair to them, that takes really really rigorous playtesting even by today's standards. I mean, can you imagine if your assignment was to go to every single room and different points in a video game and load a save game each and everytime?

Without savestates?

So, to be honest, it's not at all surprising that they didn't find it... although honestly, I'd have expected them to have missed it entirely than partially fixed it.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:27 pm
by slowbeef
Just so you know, Marc's absence does not hold us up from further bug testing and fixes, so we're not just waiting on him.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:40 pm
by Piratero
Interesting. I wouldn't of have thought Konami would be using a multi-threaded system.

The oldest system that I know of that openly uses threads is the N64.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:39 pm
by slowbeef
Piratero wrote:Interesting. I wouldn't of have thought Konami would be using a multi-threaded system.

The oldest system that I know of that openly uses threads is the N64.
If you open up the game you'll see KERNEL.SC - it's a plaintext file that lists all the processes the game uses.

The first one is OPEN, and you'll find (if you figure out the DPK files) OPEN.BIN, an executable. This does the Konami intro logo. The most important one is ITP - the game's script bytecode InTerPreter.

If you look at the end credits. you'll see someone's credited for the "Kernel design" - so it might actually be multiprocessed and not multithreaded, but I usually consider mutliprocessing to be something controlled by an Operating System kernel and not just a main executable the game is calling a Kernel. I could be wrong, though - it's been a long time since my OS classes in college.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:19 am
by Piratero
slowbeef wrote:
Piratero wrote:Interesting. I wouldn't of have thought Konami would be using a multi-threaded system.

The oldest system that I know of that openly uses threads is the N64.
If you open up the game you'll see KERNEL.SC - it's a plaintext file that lists all the processes the game uses.

The first one is OPEN, and you'll find (if you figure out the DPK files) OPEN.BIN, an executable. This does the Konami intro logo. The most important one is ITP - the game's script bytecode InTerPreter.

If you look at the end credits. you'll see someone's credited for the "Kernel design" - so it might actually be multiprocessed and not multithreaded, but I usually consider mutliprocessing to be something controlled by an Operating System kernel and not just a main executable the game is calling a Kernel. I could be wrong, though - it's been a long time since my OS classes in college.
Give it up for Konami.

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 2:57 am
by Andrigaar
I'll be damned, a white knight showed up. Anyway...
Piratero wrote:Interesting. I wouldn't of have thought Konami would be using a multi-threaded system.

The oldest system that I know of that openly uses threads is the N64.
What about the Sega Saturn? I'm pretty sure that oddball beast had two GPU's and an SPU... that sounds wrong.
[checks Wiki] ... Wiki:Sega Saturn/Processors
Oh geeze, no wonder no one wanted to program for it:
Processors
  • Two Hitachi SuperH-2 7604 32-bit RISC processors at 28.63 MHz (50 MIPS)—each has 4 kB on-chip cache, of which 2 kB can alternatively be used as directly addressable Scratchpad RAM
  • SH-1 32-bit RISC processor (controlling the CD-ROM)
  • Custom VDP 1 32-bit video display processor (running at 7.1590 MHz on NTSC Systems, 6.7116 MHz for PAL Systems)
  • Custom VDP 2 32-bit video display processor (running at 7.1590 MHz on NTSC Systems, 6.7116 MHz for PAL Systems)
  • Custom System Control Unit (SCU) with DSP for geometry processing and DMA controller (running at 14.3 MHz)
  • Motorola 68EC000 sound controller (running at 11.3 MHz / 1.5 MIPS)
  • Yamaha FH1 DSP sound processor, "Saturn Custom Sound Processor" (SCSP), running at 22.6 MHz
  • Hitachi 4-bit MCU, "System Manager & Peripheral Control" (SMPC)

Re: Current Status (4/26/09): 1 Bug Till Beta

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:14 am
by Piratero
Andrigaar wrote:I'll be damned, a white knight showed up. Anyway...
Piratero wrote:Interesting. I wouldn't of have thought Konami would be using a multi-threaded system.

The oldest system that I know of that openly uses threads is the N64.
What about the Sega Saturn? I'm pretty sure that oddball beast had two GPU's and an SPU... that sounds wrong.
[checks Wiki] ... Wiki:Sega Saturn/Processors
Oh geeze, no wonder no one wanted to program for it:
Processors
  • Two Hitachi SuperH-2 7604 32-bit RISC processors at 28.63 MHz (50 MIPS)—each has 4 kB on-chip cache, of which 2 kB can alternatively be used as directly addressable Scratchpad RAM
  • SH-1 32-bit RISC processor (controlling the CD-ROM)
  • Custom VDP 1 32-bit video display processor (running at 7.1590 MHz on NTSC Systems, 6.7116 MHz for PAL Systems)
  • Custom VDP 2 32-bit video display processor (running at 7.1590 MHz on NTSC Systems, 6.7116 MHz for PAL Systems)
  • Custom System Control Unit (SCU) with DSP for geometry processing and DMA controller (running at 14.3 MHz)
  • Motorola 68EC000 sound controller (running at 11.3 MHz / 1.5 MIPS)
  • Yamaha FH1 DSP sound processor, "Saturn Custom Sound Processor" (SCSP), running at 22.6 MHz
  • Hitachi 4-bit MCU, "System Manager & Peripheral Control" (SMPC)
Good point. The Saturn by default (the BIOS) only initializes the master CPU. The slave CPU (is enabled through the SMPC) doesn't have to be used. In other words, it's up to the developers if they want to create a multi thread system.

As for no one wanting to develop for it, I developed LIBYAUL (incomplete). It's a library that is suppose to make life easier to develop on the Saturn. There is of course another open source library called LAPETUS. I would say it has a lot more exotic features.

The hardware is very interesting. It has a lot of limitations, but if you know how to take advantage of the console, it proves to be extremely powerful. Hell, it even has pixel based priority between backgrounds on the VDP2.

The VDP2 alone has 144 registers to work with. There are so many features, it's unbelivable. I haven't even come close to implementing all the features into my library!

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:57 pm
by JonnyTanna
Completely off topic and I understand if it get's moved, but would any of you good people care to help contribute to this project?

http://www.cameraslens.com/forum/index.php?topic=7248.0

It's the translation of Fatal Frame for the wii. Actually it's kinda on Topic, as it's a translation project and it's developed by Grasshopper Manufacture.