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Post by xorrox on Aug 5, 2019 15:35:36 GMT
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Post by alessandro on Aug 6, 2019 11:11:25 GMT
To be honest I never cared about ULA Plus, my games are designed to be played with the traditional Spectrum colours. The fact that ULA Plus was set by default, without users of AGD not knowing it, and without having a chance to turn it off, was a major oversight, to put it mildly. Despite what Jonathan says, neither me, nor - I am inclined to think, given the results - many other developers ever read anything about that. I was completely unaware of the issue, until I noticed that after opening a game file in MPAGD, blocks had those funky non-standard colours. Besides, I find it rather hard to believe that 500 and more people own a ZX-HD by now. I even doubt there are more than 100 people throughout a country like Italy still using a genuine Spectrum, let alone that every one of them pairs it with such a niche product. Pity for the ZX-Vega though; I even contributed with Cousin Horace to its initial game pack, but since the first level was not designed with AGD, I didn't notice anything when a user tried it under my eyes when the console was officially presented in London four years ago. Anyway, I tested some of my previous games up to the most recent Sophia II with SpecEmu and Spectramine with ULA Plus enabled. Unfortunately all of them displayed false colours. Tests with ZesarUX emulating the ZX-Uno did not yield any result instead (actually I tested some single game development files because the ZX-Uno starts in 48K mode and I do not know how to switch to 128K). Maybe because more recent versions of the ZX-Uno BIOS made ULA Plus optional (see here). I don't think I would want to do anything for games that already have been released, or are soon to be released, on physical media. It would be unfair for those user who already bought them. Remaining titles will have to be corrected by applying the POKE 32698,201 correction suggested by Dave Hughes. And when you created several games spanning across multiple levels, each one coming in six languages, that's going to give you some major headaches, and require a lot of time.  On a side note, since you mentioned it: I would really like the AGD Labs team to let people (like myself) who do not want to delve into that horrible, evil mess that is Facebook know about the development of AGDX and download newer versions through this forum. The version on itch.io is even older than the one I got through a link provided with a video posted on You Tube by Mr Highrise (A. Turvey) himself. It would be the case to update it. |
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Post by xorrox on Aug 11, 2019 18:49:41 GMT
Hello Alessandro. Thank you for your response. I completely agree. That is why I'm trying to do something about it by creating awareness under AGD developers, AGD edition maintainers and gamers. Besides the article I posted above for AGD devs and maintainers, I created a seperate one especially for gamers that own a ULAplus enabled device because ULAplus was getting an undeserved bad wrap. As you read in the AGD devs article above, I also suggested some changes to AGD which would prevent it altogether. Let's hope that it's being picked up. That's the number the developer of ZX-HD, Ben Versteeg gave me himself.  Yes, as described in the article, ULAplus is enabled in all games and with the non-standard colour palette. The ZX-Uno has a divMMC with esxDOS and that is not compatible with the 128 ROMs and thus doesn't display the boot menu. Instead it boots in the so-called USR0 mode 48k ROM in which the 128 banks and AY are in fact enabled. When selecting a ZX-Uno VM in ZEsarUX alas not all Uno features are enabled automatically (also not with all other possible machines). You'll have to manually enable it through its menu (F5/Settings/Display/ULAplus support), or specify --enableulaplus on the commandline. Alternatively, if you select a ZX-Uno in RetroVirtualMachine, all Uno features will indeed be enabled by default. Yes, the BIOS has the option to enabled, disable, auto-select extended video modes such as Radastan and ULAplus. But my advice to Uno users would be to not disable ULAplus in general as they then would miss out on games and demos that use it. To still give people with a ULAplus enabled device that bought physical media the opportunity to play your games like you intended, you could offer a fixed digital download instead. I think that would be fairer than that they won't be able to enjoy your game like you intended at all? If you'd go the manual route with the poke suggested by Dave, then indeed a lot of work could go into it. (I didn't test it but it could be that the poke doesn't work for all AGD(x) editions). That's why I created the application called non-ULAplus AGD-Games Colour Fixer mentioned in the article that you can find more info on and download here: xor-rox.itch.io/nuagcfGamers and developers alike can simply drag the .tap / .tzx / .trd or .scl file on the application's window and a fixed copy will be created next to it. Done  |
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Post by alessandro on Aug 26, 2019 21:33:27 GMT
Hi xorrox, I already "sanitized" the following titles from the unwanted ULA Plus presence: - Lost In My Spectrum
- Apulija-13
- Al's Double Bill
- Sophia
- Sophia II
They can be downloaded from my website and, in a few days (weeks?), from the Spectrum Computing archive. Unfortunately your tool is of no use to me for more than a reason. The majority of my games are not built around a single AGD code, in fact they are made with several levels, each one being a separate AGD project, kept together by a management program dealing with menu options, bank switching, message displaying etc. Moreover, data compression is always employed with them, in order to fit levels into the 16 KB of each memory bank, or to reduce loading times, or both. So dragging and dropping files over the executable won't help. Hence, I had to do it differently, for instance inserting a couple of lines in the management program before executing the level code: LD A,201
LD (32698),AFor newly-produced games (there's one already in the pipeline), I created custom .POK files with all of the necessary memory changes. This way everything can be done through an emulator with a couple of clicks. It also allows me to fill the ULA Plus palette routine space with zeroes in order to improve data compression. The commented AGD source code in the MPAGD package helped me greatly in doing this. About already commercially released games: they have been released through the Monument Microgames label, with printed colour manuals, gadgets etc., so a digital download is not in their plans. However I changed my mind, in fact the two Sophias should be released on tape within this year, yet I provided the fixed files for download as before. I guess people with a Vega or a ZX-Uno won't load software from physical tapes anyway On a side note: I know what USR0 mode is. I mentioned it in my book, the Spectrumpedia, and have employed it to load level data across memory banks for six years by now This allows me to keep compatibility with the DivIDE/DivMMC interfaces. I own a DivMMC EnJoy myself which I use to test compatibility with such devices. Currently it mounts ESXDOS 0.8.7. EDIT: I almost forgot... Your suspicions are well-founded the ULA Plus routine starts at 32698 in AGD v4.7. For AGD v4.6 the starting address is 32667. (Thanks to Dave Hughes for pointing this out.) |
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Post by alessandro on Sept 28, 2019 17:59:26 GMT
Update: Cousin Horace, which was partially designed with AGD, has been cleansed of the "ULA Plus bug". Chapters affected were 3 and 5. There are also the following changes and improvements: - in Chapter 1, you now start with 40 units of health instead of 20, and the medikit gives you 10 units of health instead of 5;
- Chapter 2 has custom sound effects now;
- all TZX files (except for the intro) have been customized with the SetoLOAD turbo loader.
The updated game and documentation can be downloaded from my website as usual. Enjoy! |
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Post by highrise on Oct 7, 2019 10:14:32 GMT
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Post by xorrox on Oct 10, 2019 12:04:12 GMT
Hi Alessandro. Sorry that I didn't notice your replies earlier. Thanks for them and the insights Nice that you did the updates. I also saw that Bitmap Soft is going to publish Cousin Horace on tape - cool  I assume that will be the updated version?. |
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Post by alessandro on Oct 10, 2019 15:04:18 GMT
Nice that you did the updates. I also saw that Bitmap Soft is going to publish Cousin Horace on tape - cool I assume that will be the updated version?. Thank you Certainly, the tape will host the revised version of Cousin Horace. |
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Post by alessandro on Oct 10, 2019 15:09:51 GMT
Hi, thanks for the link, but the most recent AGDx there is version Ke, while from here it is possible to download another package with version Mg. Still about version Mg, me and another subscriber of this forum found that while editing the P0 code, some script lines appear and disappear. |
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Post by lammers on Oct 10, 2019 15:50:58 GMT
Probably a daft question, but is the ADGx source available?
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Post by alessandro on Oct 12, 2019 18:01:32 GMT
Just wanted to say that the now freely available Seto Taisho To Kazan and Doom Pit have also been fixed Now there would be only Cronopios Y Famas to "cure". However I would like to release an enhanced version so it will take some other time. Funky Fungus won't be updated instead, there is a new exciting "reloaded" version just around the corner (cannot say more at this time!), and the old game will be kept as a historical curiosity only. |
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I assume that will be the updated version?.