Post by Torti-the-Smurf in Star Dust Wars - Director's Cut comments

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Hi Sheepy, it has been a while.

New Bugs where introduced with this update, like ZERO SOUNDin "Cutscenes", you know, like the destruction of the Deathstar & Co.

The only "Cutscene" that has Sound is the Main Menu.
The Sceenshift to the right side is also pretty heavy, while "the game" itself is centered, the Main Menu and the "Cutscenes" are all the way to the right (it was not so bad previously, looks a bit "off")

Yes its true, that the videos are a bit clearer now, but i go back to an older version until those BUGS are fixed ;)

A option that saves the Soundvolume (or lets set it via Tooltypes would be also very appreciated, cause everytime i start SDW i first have to press F10 in the Main Menu and the 1or2 for the soundFX volume.

The default volume is ..... "not optimal" ;)
Sometimes some small gfx glitches are visable in the Edge area, mostly on blacks.

Dont know what can be done about those.

Anyways, keep on sheeping;

Thanks, greetz & respect

Torti

Sövény Imre39 days ago

Hi Torti!

I've uploaded the fix. Feel free to try it out.

The cutscenes really didn't have sound (my fault). Now they do.

The volume (Music+Sfx) is now saved ...in theory. That's all I can do for 8-bit audio... if I don't want any loss in sample quality.

I'm constantly struggling with "glitches". I don't really understand why they occur either, since I completely clear every frame due to the background animation.

I don't really understand the positioning of the shifted screen though. There are three different versions. All three versions center the screen in the same position for both the game and the cutscreens.
Visually, only the rotate version is different for me, because for technical reasons I can't crop the right side of the image at such an angle and size that it aligns with the left side, so it might look bigger and shift to the right?! Is this the problem?

Sövény Imre

Torti-the-Smurf22 days ago (7 edits)

Hi Sövény & sorry for the late response !

Thanks for the fast fixes. That is very nice of you!
About the Screen Shift; thats my bad, my stupid Brain played tricks on me; nothing changed between the Versions just like you said. I think i got that messed up because of the jumps between Emulation (for a quick test but that "autocenters") and then playing on MIST FPGA. However, The Main Menu (that is handled like the "Cutscenes" is shifted to the Right side, just like the "Cutscenes" itself. The Gameplay sections are more centered. Hmm, i make Photos later on, so you can see what i mean. Until then.

Thanks Sövény for all the Time and Effort

that went into this.

Bless you and määääähh the Force be with you,

always !

Torti-the-Smurf22 days ago

Hello there !

I tried the new exe and the Sound is back in the Cutscenes.

You stream Sound and Video at the same time from different sources/files ?
Uff, thats heavy Man ! ;)

The Saving of the Sound options does not work.It saves ...something, but not the Music/sfx loudness.

All Levels are already unlocked which may a bit weird for new Players because they would start at the last Level.

I add a few Pics so you can see the "off center Cutscenes/Menu".No biggie really, just wanted to report it.
(my Monitor is perfectly adjusted for fullsceen overscan)

greetings, thanks and respect.

Torti

Sövény Imre21 days ago

:/ I tried to fix it quite purposefully. I don't understand why, but of course I'll watch it again and then adjust the offset if I can (as I see it, unfortunately my emulator doesn't display it that way for me either, and my TV distorts it.) Unfortunately, I'm open for other ideas/solutions but also feel forced to stream the audio from a separate file (if you do not have enough fast ram). The reason for this is that on slower machines, the sound would also be choppy along with the image, and that's quite annoying. I don't jump within a file because it would take more time to position back and forth, and the amos anim handler ignores the audio chunks. This way, I can even switch on the fly, and the file is easily replaceable to any other audio sample.

Sövény Imre21 days ago

Please try the patch.

Saving the volume works and I tried centering every screen.

Torti-the-Smurf20 days ago

Morning Söv (T_T)

Played the Game from the first Mission to the last and the "Cutscenes" are now perfecly centered and the alignment matches exactly the Gameplay sections. Perfect !!!

The Soundsettings/loudness is saved proper.

Thats very,good and userfriendly !!!
(i go for 10music and 1sfx and then play it LOUD)

= Epic :)

Now, there is a small issue .... oo ohhh

(i have a bad feeling about this)

The "HOT CAVEs".

Like i said earlier, i started right at the start and everything went smooth, literally.

Until i was in the "HOT CAVE".

After a while this happend ......

Sövény Imre20 days ago

The NOT A CAVE level is a single continuous full-screen animation. I can't do anything about the "bottleneck", I can only speed it up at the expense of quality. You can find the (try/solution=)result of this attempt in the CD32_Real version. It only differs from the normal version in the quality (=bitrate?) of the animation. VHS quality...not pretty and I wouldn't say much faster either. What would speed it up is a well-timed machine code, but I'm not good at that.

But I have a tip against freezing, which I hope will help. It is not related to the previous fix and not a specific NOT A CAVE level problem.... but since more data is being loaded(processed) in this scene, the error probably occurs more easily. Essentially, I think it happens simply because chip is running out and I didn't check this when loading the speech at the beginning/end of the level (since the problem didn't occur before). This could also be the reason for the black flickering (corrupted display, ect...)... I probably loaded the sound data into an already used memory address+area. So... to avoid freezing, if there is not enough chip RAM, this sound operation is skipped.

New patch is uploaded.

Thank You, donation not needed, but appreciated.

Torti-the-Smurf20 days ago

Hi Söv (T_T)

Yes, its called "NOT A CAVE" (like Han said in the movie) .... i always read it as HOT CAVE .. (besides, there is an A in the middle)

I am so stupid XD (sometimes) XD

So the "NOT A CAVE" level does not use Loops ? hmmm i could have sworn ....

Huh... the other stages runs sooo smoooth tho... is it really so much more demanding, compare to the other levels ?

(i play on the MIST FPGA. I love this little thing. For Star Dust Wars DC it has to be in the fastest mode)
I think i will try the "Not A Cave" file from the Cd32 version later on.

Btw. What does the new Patch do ?

greetz & thanks

Torti

Torti-the-Smurf20 days ago

PS: its me ... again.
I fool asked what the patch do?

;you told me already.

"So... to avoid freezing, if there is not enough chip RAM, this sound operation is skipped."

..stupid me!

(did not test the patch yet in fpga)

Just tried the NoCave files from the Iso versions

in WinUae. (for a quick and easy test)

Both look kinda odd. (even more so in motion)

Why is this ?

; one of the NoCave Anims from the iso is even slightly bigger then the default that comes with the normal StarDustWars.zip

Thank you Sövény. (T_T)

itch.io

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