Dreamcast 3.0 status.

[SX]

I have no clue......   But maybe I should just go about compiling libraries myself.  I am going to compile libpng again and zlib and see what the success of that is.

[CE]

This is going to make things very difficult....

I think we got two options:

1. Find the cause for the performance differences between KOS and Neill Corlett's toolchain

2. Port the basics of 3.0 over to the bare bones version: 16/32-bit support should be possible, not sure how difficult other resolutions and widescreen is, same for libpng and zlib

[CE]

Bare metal wins again!  I restored all code to old toolchain and everything is running fast and smooth again with all shared libraries for filecaching and soundmixing.

...I would so love to have a binary to play around with

I have no clue......   But maybe I should just go about compiling libraries myself.  I am going to compile libpng again and zlib and see what the success of that is.

Fingers crossed. 


- You wrote somewhere that Dreamcast always ran in 32-bit mode. I read in some guide that Dreamcast's video hardware was optimized for 16-bit tiles and 32-bit display. If I understand this correct, than 16-bit should be comparably simple with the bare bones version. I wonder, and excuse me if this is a stupid question, what would be the disadvantage of using just the 16-bit [or even 32-bit] mode to display both, 8-bit mods and 16-bit mods ?

[SX]

Well you can't display both at once because, its either one or the other at any given moment.

But I have gotten libpng and zlib both working!  So now I just need to focus on video modes.... lets see what will happen.  Here is a build for you.  It will look for bor.pak as usual.

So basically this version is missing 16/32bit mods and widescreen support.  I think we should stick to this toolchain... things are working great so far.  Just need to disable the Now Loading and only use the mode that is specified in the video.txt.

[Kolbek]

YES!

[CE]

I can't selfboot it for some reason, it just resets the Dreamcast. It's also only 800kb in size, while the last working binary using Kos was 200kb bigger ...?

[SX]

I'm using dc-tool-ip and everything is fine....   I can try and burn a disc to see if it boots up.

[CE]

Yeah, that wouldn't hurt, I will try some binary loaders to see if I can get it to load.

[CE]

I found the problem: I had my mod renamed to Crisis_Evil_2.pak to test the builds you've released last week. 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Don't know if this helps but here's my log file for my SGMB mod, I want yall to check this out for the memory. If it's to much then I'll split the mod in 2 for Console play.

[CE]

I found the problem: I had my mod renamed to Crisis_Evil_2.pak to test the builds you've released last week. 

Okay, tested again with the mod renamed to bor.pak but it didn't work. Will try some of the binary loaders now.

Don't know if this helps but here's my log file for my SGMB mod, I want yall to check this out for the memory. If it's to much then I'll split the mod in 2 for Console play.

This certainly looks like a lot, but it's impossible to tell without having a look at the actual files. A billion of simpler entities can need less RAM than say: two playable characters with loads of animations, sound effects and scripts.

One thing you could do is to check your data/chars/ folder in Windows Explorer via right-click -> Properties. But that only works if you got no WIP files in there (e.g. PSD, sound effects variants, entire sprite cheets, unused characters, alternate versions, etc), and even then only gives you an estimate.

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

I've got the download link to the mod with the data file open in the demo section, it's Sega Genesis Mega Brawler.

[CE]

I've got the download link to the mod with the data file open in the demo section, it's Sega Genesis Mega Brawler.

Downloading it now.


@SX: I got it to boot via a binary loader but the cutscenes are still hanging, exactly* like in the KOS version.


*maybe even worse  

[CE]

Okay, the actual gameplay is super smooth! It's just great! I just wish the cutscenes weren't taking two years to skip. 

[SX]

I've finally figured out why loading takes sooooo long.  Seems everytime the video mode is changed, it screws up the internal timers.  Not sure why they are related but that is the cause of all the issues.... so kos might be ok to use if I can reduce the video mode switching to only one change or find out what is causing the introduced lag and how its related to video mode switching.