Discussion Resurrecting Nuance

[toxie]

Then back to the T3K deadlock issue..

One theory i have is the following: Could it be that due to the way the 'instantaneous' DMAs/Comms/etc work in Nuance, that T3K actually relies on these operations to take more cycles than 1?
So that the operations are executed too fast and thus the T3K code cannot react accordingly?
I wonder how one could fix/workaround this.
Add a queue that delays the signalling of certain operations?
Or delay the execution of certain commands by the spec'ed amount of cycles?

 

[The Helper]

I would just slow everything down and work up. Add a bunch of delays and cut them and just brute force it. It is all about the timing.

 

[toxie]

Its not that straight forward though. One would have to buffer things that should be in flight whereas at the moment things are 'just done'.
But maybe its the only solution, who knows. (Jeffs source code could tell )

 

[toxie]

New version:

Release Nuance 0.6.3 · andkrau/NuanceResurrection

Add new (optional) postprocessing CRT-like shader ([UseCRTshader] in the .cfg), enabled by default, looks best in fullscreen Its now possible to specify a file that should be loaded directly from t...

github.com

 

[Stephen]

Wow - change log looks great for this! Downloading and testing it now.

 

[cubanismo]

I just tweaked some more things in your commit, could you please doublecheck/review?

Looked through all the code, yes, great cleanups. Feel free to also delete all the unused variables you commented out, and the commented out code I left as notes to myself during intermediate changes that got squashed and then forgot to delete before sending the pull request. Oof. I even proof-read this.

 

[toxie]

Could you make a PR for this? Cause i don't know exactly which code/comments you mean. Thanks!

 

[The Helper]

Loving the progress!!!

 

[toxie]

New release with minor fixes: https://github.com/andkrau/NuanceResurrection/releases/tag/0.6.4

 

[ZugPlayz]

It is not dumped yet. when I look at the files, Tetris isn't there, even though it lists it to be there.

hopefully songbird will release it soon so we can finally play The Next Tetris without paying $800, Ebay has good deals for some stuff though, I remember one time when the Nuon was on there for $300 with everything with it, after all the controllers are hard to get.

It's actually dumped, didnt research about the next tetris. it's not actually called the next tetris, it's actually called toshiba sampler

 

[The Helper]

Toshiba Sampler contains the only The Next Tetris official release.

 

[Stephen]

While testing Nuance on my laptop, I noticed that the Tempest 3000 demo on the Toshiba sampler also crashes every time trying to start the game. Not sure it will help find the issue, but just another data point.

 

[toxie]

Just a heads up: 0.6.5 has been released: https://github.com/andkrau/NuanceResurrection/releases/tag/0.6.5

btw: Still searching for help on the T3K hang issues. Somebody skilled at reading/interpreting T3Ks audio code and how it syncs would be much appreciated..

 

[toxie]

Then back to the T3K deadlock issue..

One theory i have is the following: Could it be that due to the way the 'instantaneous' DMAs/Comms/etc work in Nuance, that T3K actually relies on these operations to take more cycles than 1?
So that the operations are executed too fast and thus the T3K code cannot react accordingly?
I wonder how one could fix/workaround this.
Add a queue that delays the signalling of certain operations?
Or delay the execution of certain commands by the spec'ed amount of cycles?

I by now also experimented with that one. So waiting on the respective MPE until a DMA is finished up, similar to the real HW, but with no positive change. Instead, obviously the emulation just got slower overall. :/

 

[The Helper]

Buffer overflow Need proper real time memory debugging tools.

 

[toxie]

I don't think that would help. This is either some race condition somewhere, or something unhandled in general in the emulation.
Or some wrong opcode emulation.
I'm currently checking things all over the place in the hope to find more details.

But i desperately still need somebody skilled in Nuon development to reverse engineer T3Ks music (loading) code.
Or somebody with connections to Jeff Minter himself, cause he didn't answer my questions so far. Maybe he would be willing to share the source, or at least the respective snippets.

 

[The Helper]

I don't think Yak will give up any info unless we give him some cash. Like what VM Labs owes him maybe plus some. I do not believe his last invoice was paid at VM Labs and that is why there is no Jeff Minter involvement in NUON, imho. I do not blame him. As an independent contractor myself I feel the same way when people do not pay me. However, if someone came and paid me for that work I would help them after that even though I got screwed. If they negotiated with me and they did not truly screw me on purpose. That is just me though but I understand where the Yak is on the NUON. Since we are the last vestige of VM Labs left in the world - the most official there is - I kinda think it falls on us to make Yak happy! If we want any help from him.