Topic: dink's FBN Development & Fixes thread

[furiadeoso]

Hi! A good friend is willing to play with Heavy Smash (Data East). It seems to be using DECO156 driver. Is it also included in future updates? Thank you.

Regards.

[Gab75]

Hi! A good friend is willing to play with Heavy Smash (Data East). It seems to be using DECO156 driver. Is it also included in future updates? Thank you.

I guess you got your wish... or perhaps I should say, the next FBA release will accomplish your wish...

[dink]

About a week ago, iq_132 did a driver for the awesome Konami game Flak Attack / MX5000.
I was quick to find out that this game suffered from severe priority issues, for example, the boss would cover up the bullets it shot out, ground turrets would be over the enemies and bullets, etc.  I thought, this will be an easy fix... right? ....
well, 6 days later, and trying about 20 different ways to go about this problem: 1 area would be fixed, yet the next area would not.  Then I got 2 areas fixed, and found yet another one that didn't work right.   Ouch...
I was ready to give up and just kludge out the sprite code#'s, which really is a horrible and last-ditch-effort to do things, the game will appear correct, but doing it this way doesn't look very nice.. and spending this much time working on something, you want it to be the best...  so I took a good 6-7hour break, and thought about it a bit, came back and tried a few things and finally got it when I separated the sprite draws - 1 for low priority, 1 for high priority sprites...  That did the trick, all of the problematic areas are now perfect!  Why is this a big deal?  The game was first emulated in 1999 w/MAME, and since then it has been broken.  If everything goes well, this fix will also make it into MAME as well as FBAlpha, and arcade enthusiasts will be able to finally enjoy a graphically-perfect game.

[dink]

Just some random fixups info:

Heavy Unit: improved the cpu sync a bit, now the attract demos run to their correct spot w/o dieing right away
Double Dribble (upcoming): also improved cpu sync, player dribbles the ball a bit more smoothly
6809/hd6309 cpu cores: removed the ancient busyloop speed hacks, these are totally unnecessary today and are most likely the reason some games using these cpus need even more hacks to run at the right speed.
konami gt/rf2: improved analog controls a bit (revisited)

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

dink's fba-fix news

x Super Hang-On no longer freezes when going to attract mode
x Super Sidekicks / Tokuten Ou & Fatal Fury 2: protection gets disabled on savestate load causing weird issues like frozen controls etc.
x irem m72 dac sound quality improved slightly
x msm6295 could read out of bounds with the cubic interpolater.  thanks barbudreadmon for the *sanitizer report
x fixed crash in the kof2k2 omega hack versions
x raiden 2 sprite issues on arm systems - credits to barbudreadmon for coming up with a fix.  both of us spent way too much time on this one.

best regards,
- dink

[Gab75]

Excellent work dink! Finally also Super Hang-On "bug" is solved !

[dink]

Gab75: yes, it was quite elusive.. to say the least!

[dink]

Kaillera netgaming improvement:

To make setting up & hosting a game a lot easier: games in your Favorite's list are now added to the top of the Kaillera game list.

Anyone who has done this before knows how painfull it is to scroll through the Kaillera gamelist to find a game to host - especially if the game is very far down the list!  Now, just add the game(s) you want to host to your favorite's list before starting a Kaillera net-game (right click & select Favorite in FBA's game list), and it will be near the top of the list

... Coming soon to an FBA near you!

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

I added a Headache Filter (hack/dip option) to Cyvern.  If you're interested, read on...

Cyvern is probably one of the greatest shooters ever made, it's up there with the likes of DonPachi/Anything by Toaplan & Raizing, etc. (of course, this is completely my opinion)
That being said, there is something wrong with it - the game generates some very loud sounds in the mid-upper frequency band.  If you play the game with headphones, especially when doing a 2-ALL run, and you like to play it LOUD, then you're most likely going to end up with a headache before the game is over.  I theorize that the original game/system had a slight filter on the audio output stage, well.. it's probable, anyhow.  A dip option has been added to mimic this theoretical filter, bringing the mid-upper freq's down a bit so that a 2-ALL game will no longer result in a nasty headache. 
Most people won't play the game that long, or that loud with headphones - but for those that do.. there will be an option for you

best regards,
- dink

[el_rika]

Cyvern is probably one of the greatest shooters ever made, it's up there with the likes of DonPachi/Anything by Toaplan & Raizing, etc. (of course, this is completely my opinion)

i think it is amazing as well. When i will have a hardware capable of playing it full speed, i will get into it more seriously.

Can't say i noticed that audio flaw, but any small improvement is welcome 

[dink]

el_rika, Cyvern runs at fullspeed with my 2006-era P4   It doesn't need too much cpu power.  I've seen PC's in the garbage that are more powerful than my pc, so look around.  This game is amazing and must be played

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

A heavy-barrel of confusion...
I finally figured out the cause of recordings/replays to de-sync with the game Heavy Barrel.  While I was testing some new cpu sync. code w/Hbarrel I noticed that the frame advanced while switching windows.  That's not good - it's supposed to just redraw the screen when Windows(TM) asks a window to re-paint.  Turns out proper redraw support wasn't added to the Dec-0 driver, so the only way it could possibly update is to frame advance - and of course this is going to throw the recording off.  Derp!  Wish I would have noticed this before...  That's fixed now.

Also 2nd player inputs for Snow Bros. 2 have been fixed as well.

best regards,
- dink

[el_rika]

el_rika, Cyvern runs at fullspeed with my 2006-era P4   It doesn't need too much cpu power.  I've seen PC's in the garbage that are more powerful than my pc, so look around.  This game is amazing and must be played

best regards,
- dink

Ok, so i've tested a bit more of Cyvern (on Android, as i do not currently have any other means to play it  ). The game acts very strangely.  In Fba core .39 with the hack ON, the video plays perfectly smooth, while the sound of course randomly cuts. With hack OFF, it plays full speed, with perfectly stable framerate numbers, flawless audio, but slight video stutter. I even overclock my CPU to 2.7 Ghz and no change, same slight stutter in the video.

In Fba core .43, with speed hack ON it has good sound but similar video stutter (a bit more stutter i'd say), while with speed hack OFF, it runs abysmally bad, half the framerate and very bad cracky sound as well. There is something here i think, some form of regression. Maybe someone could test/compare, with numbers.

aedit: as reference, i play CPS3 games, Cave shmups (PGM), perfectly smooth, not a single stutter with underclocked CPU (1.7 Ghz) and plenty room to spare.

[dink]

el_rika, sorry about the late response.  I will do some research and see what has changed on a good day

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

Double Dragon.
This game has been kinda bugged since before I can remember.....  With the first report coming from my friend Zazzone back in 2014.  Weird slowdowns, flickering sprites, crash at end of game w/2players (I've personally experienced this happen -twice-.  It's heartbreaking.).  eek.   Well, finally some good news: this has all been fixed with a few small changes to lessen contentions caused by the subcpu and main<->sub comm. ram.

Best regards,
- dink