Author Topic: dink's FBN Development & Fixes thread  (Read 760438 times)

Offline dink

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1290 on: April 22, 2017, 09:27:25 AM »
Nice. Funny that emulators would have the exact same bugs. Is that due to shared code, or maybe certain things the game does that tend to fail the same way even if the source issue is different?

Usually we have our own video code for things (well, iq_132 writes it), but taito f3 is a very complex beast, so we're using the video code from MAME.  It's funny because even Taito Legends for ps2/xbox have these same bugs :)
Before we ported the F3 driver, I'd never played any F3 game before.  Seeing these great games in such a sad state was heartbreaking, really.  Especially after putting weeks into perfecting the driver for FBAlpha.  Due to the complexity of the F3 video code, it's no wonder that it's been broken for so long, nobody wanted to take the time to figure out how it worked and try to fix it.  There are 3 other video bugs left, and I plan to focus on them for the time being.  Luckily, some of the fixes I make made it back into MAME.  Maybe these will :)

The same exact thing happened with Beast Busters / Mechanized Attack - iq_132 did a driver for these, and having never played the games before, I quickly fell in love with them (Beast Busters especially), but when I finally made it to the end of the game, the ending scene was all broken. (also a few things in Mechanized attack, like the Helicopter in stage 2 or 3) This time we didn't use any code from MAME, but the bug existed in both emulators because it was simply not known how the yscroll+wrapping worked.  Since it was the last games SNK made before Neogeo, a hint on how to fix it was in the Neogeo video code, but it still took a week or 2 of trying things before I got it.  In the end, just like the arabianm fix above, it only required changing 2 lines of code.

best regards,
- dink

Offline Stifu

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1291 on: April 22, 2017, 02:38:56 PM »
Very interesting, thanks for the info. Yeah, bugs are often about analyzing rather than coding.

The bit about Taito Legends is not so surprising, considering many companies have been known to sell bad Internet dumps of their own games... but it's still shameful and unprofessional. Isn't Taito violating the MAME license by using it without making it clear? Sorry, this is getting off topic.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2017, 02:40:11 PM by Stifu »

Offline dink

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1292 on: April 22, 2017, 06:26:03 PM »
Stifu, actually, the MAME guys (Bryan McPhail, et. al) behind the Taito F3 driver worked with the company that brought us Taito Legends.  Since each driver was under the writers own license, I believe it was OK for it to be like that.  See the credits listed here: http://www.mobygames.com/game/ps2/taito-legends/credits

best regards,
- dink

Offline WILOWAR

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1293 on: April 23, 2017, 04:55:58 AM »
Ashura Blaster (World) ashura - graphic glitch found

Offline dink

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1294 on: April 23, 2017, 04:37:55 PM »
many many hours later, another Taito F3 bug fixed!  Compare the 2 pictures :)

Offline dink

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1295 on: April 23, 2017, 11:33:38 PM »
LandMaker has text on the "you lose, you win" screen now!  ;p

Offline dink

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1296 on: April 24, 2017, 09:52:52 AM »
Problem solved, thanks for your report!

Ashura Blaster (World) ashura - graphic glitch found

Offline Stifu

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1297 on: April 24, 2017, 02:47:15 PM »
Great fixes again (although I guess we won't get our hands on them before another 6 months).
I never noticed the missing Land Maker win quotes before. I hope the MAME guys backport it all.

Offline dink

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1298 on: April 29, 2017, 08:17:09 AM »
Fix news from the last couple days...
Came up with a much better fix for gseeker's missing continue screen, this time it looks more accurate to how the real pcb is.  Now it fades out to a black screen & displays the continue message, when coined back up, it'll fade back up.  I'm happy with that.

Warrior Blade / Rastan III had an issue where the controls would stop responding, and...

Space Raider was missing the animated background and had an issue with some sprites being blocky, those are fixed now.  thanks to Gab75 for finding the last 2.

best regards,
- dink

Offline WILOWAR

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1299 on: May 02, 2017, 05:10:09 AM »
VS Block Breaker (Europe) vblokbrk - graphic glitch found on title screen

Kirameki Star Road kirameki - no sound

Dan-Ku-Ga dankuga - graphic missing

« Last Edit: May 02, 2017, 05:11:14 AM by WILOWAR »

Offline Gab75

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1300 on: May 02, 2017, 07:33:08 AM »
Concerning to Dan-Ku-Ga... the game is a prototype, so (IIRC) the graphics missing should be not a bug, but the outcome of an "unfinished product" !

Offline dink

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1301 on: May 02, 2017, 07:40:15 AM »
Vs. Block Breaker does this the first run (when it creates nvram).  Second run it will be OK.

Offline WILOWAR

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1302 on: May 03, 2017, 10:05:38 AM »
Sankokushi (Japan) 3kokushi - graphic glitch on intro found

Offline WILOWAR

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1303 on: May 03, 2017, 10:39:39 AM »
Super Real Darwin (World) srdarwin - sprite priority problem - dinosaur on left and bottom
« Last Edit: May 03, 2017, 10:41:13 AM by WILOWAR »

Offline Gab75

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Re: dink's FBA Development & Fixes thread
« Reply #1304 on: May 03, 2017, 12:54:26 PM »
Sankokushi (Japan) 3kokushi - graphic glitch on intro found

Unfortunately (IIRC) the graphic glitch in the intro is related with a corrupt ROM image, so it's not fixable (a new ROM dump would be needed)...