DCaSTaway beta-one released !

[DCEmu_Newsposter]

[br]- Filemanager bugs fixed.[br]- New sound core (hatari).[br]- Complete menu like UAE4ALL.[br]- 2 joysticks emulated.[br]- Autoframeskip for real speed.[br]- ZIP support bug fixed.[br][br]Downloads at DCaSTaway homepage. (http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/dcastaway.shtml)

[wraggster]

excellent news :)

[qw3rty]

Great new release :D

Feature request :
- proper V-Sync (maybe you could use the vertical refresh for speed-limit, like DreamFRODO - that's what makes DreamFRODO better than any PC-C64 emu - syncing with a monitor with the correct refresh rate (50 / 60 Hz)
- option to hide the soft-keyboard
- 50 / 60 Hz mode (some games support this, but the emu doesn't)
- high resolution screen-mode (640x400 black&white)

Now off to some more testing :)

[arqueiro]

very cool i was wainting for this release

[thebear99]

I am still getting a black screen after selecting run or reset. I get to the title screen okay, selecting an image okay. Do you still need diskb? Is there any way to include support for multiple versions of tos on the same cd so we who don't have it working can try various versions of tos without reburning?
I am using mac dream tool to create a bootable cd. It works fine for creating a uae4all cd (which works fine), but the DCaSTaway just isn't happening yet. :(
I am really looking forward to the day I get this thing working on my DC.
Thanks for all your efforts.
Tom

[fil]

great release! ;D

just a couple of bugs that could do with been 'ironed out'

- widening the text display area for disk image selection, to preferably 27 chars, full length of dreamcast max text chars, as at the moment its only small, about 10 chars, not enough to see the name of everthing, eg automation 01, displays as just automation, so not possible to see what number the disk, along with games 1 & 2 etc..

- increasing the luminosity / contrast of the st screen, the menu and and virtual keyboard are very bright and vivid, but the st screen is very dark

- some games appear to 'tear' when they scroll, yet some seem ok, maybe vsync would fix it, with a 50/60hz switch would be excellent

- when setting the frameskip to 0, i would think that would set the dt at the correct speed, but the framerate is too fast

- cannot get arrow keys on the virtual keyboad, needed for a lot d-bug compact disk to move up and down game

- could do with a hide keyboard option

- could do with a stretch screen option or hide borders option? as screen seems very small, and bottom is cut off

- if selecting shift or ctrl or alt, it could do with being 'highlighted' so it stays on while another key is depressed, to get the rest of the keyboard, maybe including the arrow keys? although im not sure where the arrow/cursor keys are on the ST

thats about it! otherwise most excellent, off to enjoy and test more!

:o

[fil]

3 other things i thought of :D

- remembering file position in file manager, so when you go back in to the menu to select a new disk image it in the same place, good if you need to insert a disk B

- configurable button on dc controller, assigning space /enter / escape etc to buttons on controller

- changable tos image, for increased compatibilty, tos 1.0, 1.02, 1.62, 2.06 etc

[qatmix]

excellent update Chui

[pang1978]

excelent work chui!

thanks again

;D

[thebear99]

I just tried the 1.04 UK tos with 1st_read.bin (beta1), an ip.bin, several games from planetemu. I get the title screen, select a disk image, but when I go to run, the screen turns black, every time.
Can anyone suggest a fix? I'm burning with a mac. I even put diska and diskb on at the same time, which I don't think you have to do anymore. the title screen comes up and the file manager. I even put a blank disk image in and tried to run it, but can't even get a green atari desktop.
Could it be the ip.bin? Does it matter which one you use?
Sorry for the newbie questions.
Tom

[chui]

Are you sure that you have a valid TOS file like 'ROM' renamed at cdrom root?
The best method for testing TOS+disk images is test with PC-MAC Castaway.

[Ian_micheal]

Only bugs i have is the mouse emulation or pointer axis problems had this my self in sdl ports. Might be able to help on that but i cant compile a working version at the moment of this port.

Control problems were it seems to stick on games try 1943 it's over speed but the controls have problems.

Speed is faster then normal on some games zero frameskip make it%130 ? auto frameskip seems to be acting as a throttle. Maybe throtle the speed to the sound genration..

It's a great release got me play some old fav games. For a change not nintendo or sega but 16 bit computers.

[VampiricS]

Could it be possibe to add something like HDF compatibility (not sure of the format tho), something to emulate hard disk image emulation. I ask the same for the amiga emu as well.

[thebear99]

Chui,
I have tested with Nostalgia and Hatari. The same tos and game disks work fine there. Is there a mac CaSTaway? The tos roms work fine. Is it possible it's a hardware issue? NTSC vs. PAL or something like that? I have two NTSC machines.
When I am in DCaSTaway, I notice in the file manager that rom has been renamed to rom.img, I assume by the emulator. Is that supposed to happen?
Thanks
Tom

[VampiricS]

Chui,
I have tested with Nostalgia and Hatari. The same tos and game disks work fine there. Is there a mac CaSTaway? The tos roms work fine. Is it possible it's a hardware issue? NTSC vs. PAL or something like that? I have two NTSC machines.
When I am in DCaSTaway, I notice in the file manager that rom has been renamed to rom.img, I assume by the emulator. Is that supposed to happen?
Thanks
Tom

The thing is that you're not supposed to have a 'rom.img' file, it MUST be 'ROM' only, no extension.

[Eric]

how do you get arid of the extensions

[thebear99]

The thing is that you're not supposed to have a 'rom.img' file, it MUST be 'ROM' only, no extension.



I only name it ROM, but when you look in the file manager (DCaSTaway's), it has been named rom.img, I assumed by the emulator itself.
Is anyone else still getting black screen with beta one?
Tom

[VampiricS]

how do you get arid of the extensions

Pretty simple, before burning you just rename the file and you remove the part after the '.'

[thebear99]

Pretty simple, before burning you just rename the file and you remove the part after the '.'


It's hardly simple if after removing the .img, you then burn the cd and find out that through some process unbeknownst, it's returned!
Why don't you do us a favour and check your filemanager inside DCaSTaway and see if yours too, doesn't rename the rom file with an "img" extension. This would certainly be a start in determining what is wrong. If in the file manager where you select a game, yours simply says "rom" with no .img afterwards, I would suspect this could be related to we who are having problems.
Perhaps Chui could tell us whether his software adds the ".img" extender when displaying the file list in DCaSTaway.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Tom

is anyone else using mac dream tool to burn a mac image and

[beezle]

I also tried to create a selfboot CD with 'MacPack 4.0' and Mkisofs for Mac OS X and unfortunately I get some similar results:

When I push the 'run' button the screen turns black and nothing happens. I also see that the 'ROM' file is now called 'rom.rom' in the file manager of DCaSTaway.

I think this is a problem of 'Mkisofs' which may have problems handling files without extensions. Maybe the DCaSTaway authors can add an option to select the TOS ROM file - this would fix this problem. ;)

Anyway - if somebody wants to try my old Atari games, they can be found here: http://www.maedicke.de/atari/games.htm. But take care: They are all in german! Please tell me the results...

[beezle]

Sorry, the forum software did change the link above. That's really funny.
;D

German speakers try this instead: x-com.atari.org.

[VampiricS]

It's hardly simple if after removing the .img, you then burn the cd and find out that through some process unbeknownst, it's returned!
Why don't you do us a favour and check your filemanager inside DCaSTaway and see if yours too, doesn't rename the rom file with an "img" extension. This would certainly be a start in determining what is wrong. If in the file manager where you select a game, yours simply says "rom" with no .img afterwards, I would suspect this could be related to we who are having problems.
Perhaps Chui could tell us whether his software adds the ".img" extender when displaying the file list in DCaSTaway.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Tom

is anyone else using mac dream tool to burn a mac image and

Well it sure is simple, i did just what i wrote, i removed all extensions, for the games and the TOS file now named only ROM, and in my file manager of the emulator it's not displayed at all. I did myself a selfboot version with around 800 games all sorted in different folders and i am using the neta-onen release (latest), so far everything works fine for me. i can't really help more then that i guess. I used dir2boot.exe to selfboot it.

[thebear99]

Well it sure is simple, i did just what i wrote, i removed all extensions, for the games and the TOS file now named only ROM, and in my file manager of the emulator it's not displayed at all. I did myself a selfboot version with around 800 games all sorted in different folders and i am using the neta-onen release (latest), so far everything works fine for me. i can't really help more then that i guess. I used dir2boot.exe to selfboot it.


You have helped. You told us what we needed to know, namely mac selfboot programs seem to be adding an extender when they create the iso. This could be what is creating problems for some of us who get black screen after pressing run. Hopefully the author could add tos selection and we could fix this problem.

Are any mac users using mac dream tool making cds that work?
Thanks
Tom

[Ian_micheal]

No harder to burn then any thing else.. Use changetype cool tools on windows to rename files.

it's really easy thats prolly why not much info none is needed. Most developers uses coders cable to test things and dont write out big faqs on burning thats not the devlopers fault or need to show you how to burn any thing. We do it some times any way.

Really it is easyer with dir2boot and windows. about 2 mouse clicks.

[Eric]

Okay all i have to say is thanks that the reason why i have been having these problems but i should get a working version started soon

all i need to know is where to get dir2boot

[thebear99]

mac dream tool is the problem. The isos it creates put an extension on the rom file that make it unrecognizable when dcastaway looks for the rom.
I have also noticed random joystick freezes.
But wow, awesome, it's great to have it working, even if I have to fire up windoze to do it.

[Ian_micheal]

Yeah I get the random joystick freezing to but it's pretty dam good lets people that grew up in usa test ST which to me is better then gensis and snes but im baised.

[VampiricS]

Okay all i have to say is thanks that the reason why i have been having these problems but i should get a working version started soon

all i need to know is where to get dir2boot

Get the 'tools package from there' : http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCStuff/IP_Tut.shtml

Oh and while being there you may want to read the various tutorials that are there. That can always be handy. Have Fun

[qw3rty]

After more testing-sessions last night, I came across some bugs and glitches.

- Sound / Music doesn't work in some games
- The user can move the mouse off-screen (the cursor stays on screen, but the actual x and y positions are off-screen)
(This mouse-bug makes PIRATES! nearly unplayable)
- The mouse movement is only possible in the upper half of the screen in MED-Resolution mode (e.g. Balance of Power)
- The mouse button does "autofire" sometimes (e.g. "Lords of Chaos")

hehe....mainly mouse-glitches here...other than that pretty perfect :D

EDIT (additional bugs/glitches,etc):

- The graphics are really messed up in some cracker-intros
- PLEASE, PLEASE, make the software-keyboard optional / hideable (This is my biggest concern right now ;) )

[arqueiro]

i heard that this keyb hide option is already there, is not ?

[Ian_micheal]

Not that i can find Would not mind a true fullscreen options ether maybe throttle speed via sound.

[Eric]

I think i used an older version of Dir2Boot cause i started the process and all it did after i selected the folder was close on me and i am using WinXP so i dont know

When opening in C prompt it said could not open file also i have reinstalled the program many of times and all the files i have in my folder are IP.bin,1st_read.bin, and ROM and the game with no extension

[Ian_micheal]

Me and vamp use dir2boot with out fail on winxp.. It has Allways been the easyest best program to use. There is a TUT on my site how to use it there has been for over 1 year.

Give exact errors but this is offtopic so i say take to a help forum or some thing..

[STguru]

I just wanted to say this is a great emulator. I wonder if there will ever be a way to save files to a VMU. Also, there seems to be a bug in medium resolution. You can only move the mouse pointer in a small portion of the screen. I tested some applications on this emu. and it is working pretty good in low resolution. I think I will try running Pascal or C programming languages on this just for fun.

[qatmix]

It would be good if you could set up a DC-PC network with teh BBA (like DCplaya) Then you can save files on your PC and use teh Excellent Art packages on the ST and Amiga. (DPaint rules). You could even use word processors etc.

[Ian_micheal]

Yeah there is many great apps on the amiga and st most dont need fullspeed to be totaly useable. Video title software on the amiga was used in movies. ST had a great sound apps cubase but that was for the st1024fm. Still there is many great things both have every type of app you can think of was on both.There more then just games machines. Amos is a great lang to program for as well many basic like langs if the amiga or st run the game or program straight up it would allmost be seemless for new apps and games for the amiga and st written for the emulators and dreamcast.

Both are great really fun messing around with both again forgot about how fun both were and when gaming was game play..

[arqueiro]

It would be good if you could set up a DC-PC network with teh BBA (like DCplaya) Then you can save files on your PC and use teh Excellent Art packages on the ST and Amiga. (DPaint rules). You could even use word processors etc.


but just a small amount of people have bba, so, the cool will be save that thing on vmu, like i said before

[Ian_micheal]

Bit small the vmu for any real use.

[qw3rty]

You could only save the changes, not the whole disk, and zip the data.
Save-games should be possible, but not a whole disk.

[Ian_micheal]

Yeah sure just not whole disks.

[qw3rty]

...
- The user can move the mouse off-screen (the cursor stays on screen, but the actual x and y positions are off-screen)
(This mouse-bug makes PIRATES! nearly unplayable)
- The mouse movement is only possible in the upper half of the screen in MED-Resolution mode (e.g. Balance of Power)
- The mouse button does "autofire" sometimes (e.g. "Lords of Chaos")
....


I finally tried DCastaway with a real mouse - most mouse-bugs are non-existant with a real mouse, the cursor stays in it's given area (the whole screen for the desktop, a small circular area around the ship in Pirates!).
However, the "autofire-bug" in "Lords of Chaos" is still present :(


EDIT :

I forgot to mention, that the mouse doesn't "feel" right - it's very hard to move the cursor exactly (I was almost throwing my mouse at the wall, while playing "Sundog") - maybe it's just the way the ST-mouse was (I hope it wasn't :O) - or it's a problem with the driver / DCastaway.
I hope the mouse "feels" better on the next release ;)