MiSTer FPGA Forum

Hi there

From the first versions to the latest betas, I have always seen that games like Jazz Jackrabbit, SuperFrog or Prehistorik Man 2 have graphics and audio problems.

Seeing how this core has progressed lately, and having tried a lot of combinations of CPU speed, refresh rate, etc... I was dondering: has someone tried those and got them working?
It seems amazing (and a bit worrying) that the scope of this core is on raw speed for Window$ setups while classic VGA DOS games are left in the cold...

The DOS compatibility issues are weird, perhaps is related to the memory configuration from our side or something not standard in this core for a common 386/486 machine. Games that would not give any problem in almost any real DOS HW, or even DOSBox, are not working or present glitches (we should make a list, but usually games after the dos4gw or when you load a table in Psichopinball, old games like 1on1, etc.).

Sure, probably most of these games are really bad designed and programmed then, but I would say that you would never have a problem with real HW (we are not talking about problems with the processor overspeed for very old games, usually are critical memory errors on Warcraft2, etc.) and at the same time this core is able to run very complex tasks under Windows98. So the instructions, configuration, memory management, etc. should be really solid.

Hello,

SuperFrog has a sound configuration problem I think (irq), but it is not configurable with the version I have.
On the other hand Jazz Jck Rabit works very well, but you need a suitable memory configuration in any case for my version: Himem without EMM386

I have not tested the third game, I will ...

tontonkaloun wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:57 am Hello,

SuperFrog has a sound configuration problem I think (irq), but it is not configurable with the version I have.
On the other hand Jazz Jck Rabit works very well, but you need a suitable memory configuration in any case for my version: Himem without EMM386

I have not tested the third game, I will ...

Hmm... Jazz works here with no special memory requeriments, but it shows scrolling errors on the RIGHT part of the screen. Can you see them? Like white vertical bards at the edge.

As for SuperFrog, it sounds for me but as A LOT of static noise, same as Prehistorik 2. If you get SuperFrog to sound, tell me if you also get static in audio.

We should probably let the core stabilize to start testing (?)

It is easier to have trouble getting games to run if the core is in active development and features are being tested...

Jazz Jackrabbit and Prehistorik are both known to have problems on some graphics cards in real machines too. Not sure about Prehistorik, but I remember Jazz Jackrabbit used a non-standard video mode, something like 320x199. Anyway, here is a chart that shows problematic games and graphics card compatibility: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

That being said, I agree with NightShadowPT, might be best to wait for a stable release.

vanfanel wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 12:24 pm

tontonkaloun wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:57 am Hello,

SuperFrog has a sound configuration problem I think (irq), but it is not configurable with the version I have.
On the other hand Jazz Jck Rabit works very well, but you need a suitable memory configuration in any case for my version: Himem without EMM386

I have not tested the third game, I will ...

Hmm... Jazz works here with no special memory requeriments, but it shows scrolling errors on the RIGHT part of the screen. Can you see them? Like white vertical bards at the edge.

As for SuperFrog, it sounds for me but as A LOT of static noise, same as Prehistorik 2. If you get SuperFrog to sound, tell me if you also get static in audio.

this bar looks more like a display of the overscan area than a bug in the game. But maybe I'm wrong!

Budokan still has graphics glitches on the last build I tried. I suppose the VGA implementation may still have something missing?

@Newsdee

My guess also it that VGA has something missing (which I believe is much more interesting than throwing Windows 98 stuff at the core).
SuperFrog also has strange dots in the background.

Has anybody already tried Epic Pinball ? On my side, once I start to play a table, I've the sound working fine for let's say 10 seconds than it starts having problem (a lot of cracks which makes the music and effects completely inaudible). Once it happens, I downgrade to 15 mhz than go back to 90 mhz and the sound reappears like it was at the beginning. Have double checked the sound setting, they are correct, tried different configs and core versions this happen always.
I also had glitches in the dotted text at the jill of Jungle table but this seems to do not happen anymore since a couple of previous cores.

I also have noise every now and then on Epic Pinball. However, they disappear on their own without adjusting the speed of the Core.