Post by Arcziii in VanillaConquer - Amiga port comments

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Thanks for a report.

"When starting the game, sometimes it goes to a black screen and hangs, sometimes it skips the intro title card, and goes to the green Westwood logo. The game used to always load up normally before this update."

Yeah, noticed too, will investigate.

"The version numbers in the corner of the title screen seem random, this could say V1.03 or something."

That's a git revision of sources but it is not updated in my build , I will change it to my versioning.

The FMVs play too quickly, and goes out of sync with the audio after one second.

Current playaback code is too demanding even for WinUAE.

I have converted all movies to mpg. They will be played with Riva. Copy Riva to game folder.

https://mega.nz/file/x9lQhBrK#m0Q_1lbH4srfD3oez4Zsvejq2Mx4iqG24Z-Y47DgwiU

https://mega.nz/file/Eo8wzIBZ#1UeD7-0mZKaDBx2yqi9C8cvftQTeVQKVYeOKjRCNoj4

When selecting multiple helicopters to re-arm at the helipad, only the first one will land and re-arm, the rest must be done manually. I dont know if this is native to the game, by re-arming 8 helicopters can get very boring.

Sometimes when selecting a destination for the helicopters after a battle, one will often land and gets left behind in enemy territory. Clicking the destination target twice usually fixes this bug.

Can you send me save file again ?

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago (1 edit)

Here is a save of the last level of the friendly missions, where you can play with the helicopters. Word of warning, there are four enemy power plants still active on the level, so dont take on the laser towers until you have taken out 3 of the 4 generators. One of them is hidden in the bottom right corner, along with the nuclear warhead building. If you shoot at the warhead building, your home base will be blown up!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FRNdhkDKYbAfdKihmOO1j540dghXdVpn/view?usp=sharing

I copied Riva over and now the FMVs all play fine (have not checked Austria, which was corrupt before), with the audio now in sync.

With this update, there are still some clicking noises with the audio on the FMVs and title music, but in the game it seemed fine. I went to the music page in the game but it locked up, and I was unable to scroll down through the music tracks.

With this update, the scrolling seems to be even more broken than it was before. The scrolling starts off very slow, and slowly accelerates to full speed. I was going to say that the scrolling was a bit too sensitive before, and that it was hard to rush back to parts of the map without scrolling beyond where you wanted to stop. But with this version is seems even harder. I moved the scroll speed back to the top, but it seemed to make no difference.

Arcziii3 years ago (1 edit)

"With this update, there are still some clicking noises with the audio on the FMVs"

I will upload movies with higher audio bit rate (160 instead 128k)

EDIT: https://mega.nz/file/481ESTLI#zUojE99BCnA1jQAPRPjlew4HH1rLMnidoUgyyiGMX5c

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago

Just tried NOD mission 2, Egypt, and it doesn't load. The interface still works, but nothing appears on the level.

There were a few errors reported by Riva about locking onto the executable. The FMVs play in 16:9 but they used to be 4:3 before, which I think looks better. The game seems to not hang on loading with this update.

Arcziii3 years ago

Doesn't it need NOD mission disk files?

Arcziii3 years ago (1 edit)

Yup, loads 2nd mission with NOD files.

EDIT: PC build works. Amiga not.

Arcziii3 years ago (1 edit)

Scrolling is indeed not accurate, it was 4 times normal speed so I reverted it to original for v4. On faster WinUAE it may behave differently. I'll set it in the middle then with 2 times the normal speed.

Arcziii3 years ago

https://mega.nz/file/Yss2EKKB#DDi8R1tyNUCQ0Js9RhyyQUftuZWroANXQJPULOjZRlw

Here scroll speed is with 2x multiplier

Arcziii3 years ago

I can scroll music box just fine.

Arcziii3 years ago

Regarding helicopters best solution is to build as many helipads as orcas.

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago

Hi again. The Enemy Mission 1 seems to work fine, and the intro works fine for mission 2 - Egypt, but the game itself doesn't come up. I tried pressing F1 but it wont advance to the next level. I tried copying files over from a PC version, General.NOD, Conquer.mix (2mb) and Sounds.mix (2mb) are now copied to that folder, but seems they make no difference to the game. If helicopters are not meant to auto-rearm then I guess thats how it was meant to be. The scroll speed bar doesn't seem to work for me in the game. If x1 is too slow on my PPC setup, perhaps vampire would be the same. Will try your new x2 speed file and report back.

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago (1 edit)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJHac1GhpaA

With the scrolling it is the acceleration speed which is the main issue for me, rather than the scroll speed itself. It is hard to show on a video, but above is a link to a video I made today. The first half shows the current version which is publicly available, uploaded 8 days ago. If you ignore the part where the scrolling goes crazy, I managed to complete the friendly game with this setup, and it seemed ok. The second half of the video shows X2 speed version. Again it is sometimes hard to stop the screen on a certain spot, and it is slow to scroll and move around quickly. So while X4 is too quick, X2 still feels a bit slow. X4 felt a bit too sensitive, but X2 feels a bit slow? Can't really explain it and is difficult to see in the video (which is still processing). I think you do amazing work, and the game no longer feels unstable, so there is definitely progress, and maybe 80% complete now. I notice the game is being talked about in this weeks The Retro Hour, which might be interesting? :)

Arcziii3 years ago

Thanks, I may watch it. In my video it seems that Scroll Rate setting _makes_ a difference:

I have found that pressing RMB makes scrolling slower.

Arcziii3 years ago

Actually videos are 2:1 (320x156)

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago

Perhaps the black area of the video is not being noticed by my emulator anymore, as it usually crops this off and stretches the image to full screen size.. I guess it sees the black border as part of the mpeg, and refuses to crop it.?

Here are stills of the intro anim.

The first one with the big border is the latest mp2 X2 build. The one below that is the older 0.98 build.

I notice with the older build, there is more contrast in the image, and it seems bigger and centred?

It's not a huge deal, it just seems odd that there is a huge border. Perhaps it is simply a limitation of Riva?

Arcziii3 years ago

I have not changed riva parameters between those builds, you must have perhaps, changed WinUAE settings?

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago (2 edits)

I meant the bottom image was from the release without riva required. The top image uses the MPeg 2 library you sent to me recently.

I havent changed any settings from the ones in my first post.

Arcziii3 years ago (2 edits)

Yea, Riva doesn't stretch video. Maybe there is option to do it, haven't checked. I have re-uploaded movies with better quality , 1500k vs 1250k. Also I archive is smaller because there were videos from RA somehow, lol.

EDIT: RIVA can stretch if I run it from WB.

EDIT2: Here video is played in Fullscreen without any black borders at all. https://mega.nz/file/I81x1YgI#EYVeRLngQj82tDNuuOV30qwfTgWlULRErMqtIus0D3E

https://mega.nz/file/4xVBXQJa#h5LeFsTgeIhLqIhV0CrWC7lcoxpjkT86LEWhbLp4Qdk

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago (2 edits)

Now the FMVs are off the edge of my screen, with no sound.

Is there any way to get the Enemy NOD mission 2 working?

I would love to start those mission. :)

Arcziii3 years ago

Must be different RIVA version.

Reason why NOD missions doesn't load is that scenario files from NOD's GENERAL.MIX aren't loaded. You can extract those with XCC Mixer and m2 will load. Probably something with paths.

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago

It would be great for fans to have a fully working game, and I've heard a lot of things about the NOD missions and the story line, so I think many will be interested in those. I downloaded XCC Mixer but it said I need the C&C CD. I only have the ZIP files from the abandoneware sites online, and I dont have a clue about editing games, I just play them. :) The FMVs you sent in that first update were for both scenarios, and so those cant be viewed. Is is possible please to update the main game archive file to include the missing NOD files? I'm sure all of this stuff is copyright free by now.

With Riva, I got the latest one from Animet. The screen being double in size is almost like it is meant to be in interlace? Or like it is showing a PAL screen on an NTSC setup. Heroes of Might and Magic 2 plays fine with all cut scenes so not sure what to suggest there.

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago

Just tried the latest EXE you sent, but now everything is messed up. The FMVs play in a small window over the top of the main screen, I'd guess maybe Riva was meant to be set to full screen instead of windowed mode?

I couldn't load in any missions as the game just quit with an error/software failure. #80000026

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago

I ran snoopdos on the latest version of the EXE and it reported that it failed to open the following files:

sides.pal
scb01ea.ini

With the old EXE, the game still works fine.

Arcziii3 years ago

I will upload today full game with working missions of GDI and NOD. Videos works too. Just need to play with Riva parameters.

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago

Last update for today. ;)

These Riva settings seem to work to get the videos playing full screen:

Riva movies/intro2.mpg display=pip fullpip

If you have a 16:9 display, the movies play back in 16:9. If you have a 4:3 display (like me), they play back in 4:3.

Hopefully this looks good for you? :) Unfortunately I can't fix the sound issues, even with lower audio settings, so I guess this is a limitation. I tried HQAudio but this can make the audio go out of sync. I also tried AHI mode, but this also seems to not be much better.

Arcziii3 years ago

"Riva movies/intro2.mpg display=pip fullpip"

Yeah, I have used this options.

Arcziii3 years ago

Re-uploaded full game archive, please test.

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago

YAY! :) :)

I can confirm the NOD missions are working. For some reason, the movies are so quiet they are almost silent. Not sure why.

The scrolling speed was much better before, it is still very slow even with scroll speed set at full. Perhaps x3 times faster than normal would be better than x2.

Just wondering about key shortcuts. I tried CTRL+1 to set a group, then pressed 1 to select the group, but nothing happened.

lifeschool @ lemonamiga3 years ago (2 edits)

Not much to report back this week.

-The game still randomly freezes sometimes at startup, before the intro screen comes up. Most of the time it will skip the title and go to the intro anim. You know about this already and I guess there isn't much can be done about this. Not really a big issue.

-The cut scenes are still at the top of the screen, with a black border. If you say you tried the PIP method, is that the one where it chopped off the bottom of the image? The audio isn't working for the most part, and it just clicks.

- This is a long standing bug which I forgot to mention. Sometimes if you save the game while a harvester is in the refinery, and then quit and reload that save without quitting the game first, sometimes the harvester gets stuck in the refinery and doesn't come out. This can be fixed by quitting the emulator, and starting it again, and then most of the time the harvester leaves the refinery. But then, sometimes if you save the game here, and come back to it, the harvester doesn't harvest anymore. Here is a save file of that happening:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S2pp8qpR9EQFxH91SII2AHz-b61hSbeq/view?usp=shari...

- The map area leaves the green border on the screen when moving around, which eventually covers the map in green. Clicking on the map area fixes this and refreshes the display. This could be an issue with the emulator?, as the same thing happens with Heroes of Might and Magic 2.

I just beat the whole game. Thanks a lot for this conversion ! :)

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