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Post by dshadoff on Apr 20, 2019 20:40:54 GMT
I’ll volunteer !
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Post by theoldman on Apr 20, 2019 22:14:18 GMT
I'm in.
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Post by elmer on Apr 20, 2019 22:49:33 GMT
Thank you all, I'll be in touch by PM.
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Post by elmer on Apr 21, 2019 19:07:17 GMT
By the way, in case you are trying to re-implement the os.pce, be aware that the FPGA zaps values into the memory, overwriting whatever was there. Specifically, in the $8106-$810B area, several "System Information"-type values are placed there during boot, which aren't otherwise available via registers. These include Serial Number, assembly date and time, etc. Hmmmmm ... now that I've actually run TEOS as a replacement for OS.PCE, it actually doesn't *seem* like the Stage 2 Bootloader actually copies those System Information values into the OS. It certainly didn't put them there when it loaded TEOS, and instead I had to go and retrieve them from the Stage 2 Bootloader itself in banks $43 & $44. That could possibly be why you saw that OS.PCE had mapped bank $44 into MPR3, when you dumped out the MPR registers on OS startup? FYI ... the assembly date, time and serial number are stored at $6100 in bank $43, and the Bootloader 2 version number is stored at $7FF0 in bank $44 (both in the TED2's 512KB bank 0).
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Post by dshadoff on Apr 21, 2019 19:32:05 GMT
That's interesting... I didn't see a place where the os.pce went to fetch them...
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Post by elmer on May 14, 2019 21:43:48 GMT
Just a quick update ... no this hasn't been forgotten, and is still progressing. After feedback from the beta testers, I've toned-down the blue background (boo!!!!). I've also decided to experiment with using hires mode for the HuCard menu, since it avoids having to scroll the names. I *think* that it'll still come across OK on a TV, since the fonts are all using 2-pixel wide stems, but it'll definitely need testing.
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Post by dshadoff on May 14, 2019 22:44:18 GMT
That looks fantastic ! I can try it on both a Commodore 1702. Composite monitor and an Upergrafx DVI/HDMI setup...
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keithcourage
Punkic Cyborg
https://www.facebook.com/turbografxfan/
Posts: 231
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Post by keithcourage on Sept 27, 2019 9:49:47 GMT
Fantastic work guys! I need to remember to check the development threads more often because these little updates are awesome. Where does one acquire the updated OS?
Also, saw you mentioned issues with populous and street fighter II. What issues are there? I've never had any problems playing either game on my V1.3 or my V2.4 everdrive.
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Post by dshadoff on Sept 27, 2019 10:15:37 GMT
It's not released yet... Elmer made a substantial amount of progress, but then got busy with non-PCE things. It sounds like he'll be back to PCE things in about another month.
The 'problem' games of Populous and Street Fighter II have additional hardware setup to initialize (Populous has RAM; SFII has extra banked ROM). That comment wasn't about whether there was a problem with the regular TE OS for those titles, but rather that those titles need special test cases to ensure that they are working OK on his new OS).
I'm sure he'll post some news when he's back and ready.
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Post by elmer on Sept 28, 2019 19:08:03 GMT
It's not released yet... Elmer made a substantial amount of progress, but then got busy with non-PCE things. It sounds like he'll be back to PCE things in about another month. Yep, I'm finally (but slowly) getting back into PCE development again ... but I also have to take the time to resurrect my main development PC, which had a motherboard failure at the end of last year (no files or data were lost). Fantastic work guys! I need to remember to check the development threads more often because these little updates are awesome. Where does one acquire the updated OS? As Dave said, I've not released it yet. The whole OS got delayed when we started looking at the Memory Base 128, and adding support for loading/saving the contents of that to SD card. Also, saw you mentioned issues with populous and street fighter II. What issues are there? I've never had any problems playing either game on my V1.3 or my V2.4 everdrive. Again, as Dave said, it was mostly a case of detecting those specific HuCard images, and then enabling the correct settings for the Turbo Everdrive. Except for Populous, which shouldn't actually run at all on TED V1.3, but will if you have a CD unit attached so it can use the CD RAM in banks $80..$83 instead of the original HuCard's RAM in banks $40..$43. Even then, especially with the V2 Everdrive, Populous starts up with some graphical glitches (stray black pixels), and then has problems when you actually play the game. That isn't a problem with the Everdrive itself, it's a bug caused by how Krikzz's OS actually starts the cart image. My TEOS doesn't seem to have that problem, and appears to run the game just fine.
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Post by dshadoff on Oct 14, 2019 20:08:12 GMT
Elmer, while I was writing something else recently, I noticed that HuC sets bit 2 (value #$04) on the color control register ($0400), but I suspect that the original TEOS doesn't...
Original TEOS sets the video mode to 320 horizontal resolution, but the characters end up with edges/corners with color artifacts, and I seems or recall when writing HuC, that setting the color control register fixes this for text (it certainly made the text on my new development more clear).
I was just wondering which mode you were using on the new version.
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Post by elmer on Oct 17, 2019 1:03:59 GMT
I was just wondering which mode you were using on the new version. Hi Dave, That's an excellent suggestion, thank you! Nope, I not currently setting that bit, I always forget about it, because it's not described in the English version of Hudson's PCE docs, and I've only seen it mentioned in Charles MacDonald's documentation. I'll have to give it a try, and see if it helps with the color artefacts that I'm seeing on the awful-quality LCD screen that I'm using at the moment.
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Post by elmer on Oct 18, 2019 4:27:48 GMT
I'll have to give it a try, and see if it helps with the color artefacts that I'm seeing on the awful-quality LCD screen that I'm using at the moment. Wow, that's so cool, thanks again Dave! With that bit set, the color artefacts on the TEOS text in 320-wide mode have totally disappeared, with little-if-any negative effect on the display. On the "Run HuCard" menu, with its 480-wide text, there does appear to be a little more blurring than before, but once again, the color artefacts that were previously there have now disappeared. All in all, this is a really nice improvement!
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Post by dshadoff on Oct 18, 2019 10:59:54 GMT
Wow, that's so cool, thanks again Dave! With that bit set, the color artefacts on the TEOS text in 320-wide mode have totally disappeared, with little-if-any negative effect on the display. On the "Run HuCard" menu, with its 480-wide text, there does appear to be a little more blurring than before, but once again, the color artefacts that were previously there have now disappeared. All in all, this is a really nice improvement! Glad I could help ! It only occurred to me to ask because the krikzz TEOS display seemed lower-quality than a 320-wide screen I was writing. I don't remember where I got the information from, but I do remember testing it out on a real machine, doing lots of A/B tests, and concluding about the same. I checked the HuC source (old one though - 3.21), and it's always set for the HuC-based function (although it's an option for the assembler-level call). Somebody referred to it as a "blur bit", but really it just seems to try aligning timing to coincide with the phosphor dots on the screen.... which means it's great for text, but may not allow an artist to create as many artifact-color shades. By the way, I sent you a PM on another matter - not sure whether you saw the notification.
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Post by elmer on Dec 1, 2019 5:50:04 GMT
There is an initial realease of some of the source to TEOS here ... github.com/jbrandwood/teos. This is NOT buildable by itself, it is just a dump of some of the sourcecode libraries so that assembly-language programmers can experiment with SD card FAT32-partition reading and writing on the TED2. There is other fun stuff there too, such as the patching code for HuCards and CD games, and the aPLib compressed 1-bit font data with runtime shadow generation ... but few people will care about those. Enjoy!
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