@BigD

CRAZY !!! I've got it working!!!!

It outputs the Napalm menu screen to my RGB monitor and the actual game to the VGA monitor!!!!

Nutts but at least I can play link up 2-player tonight

Any idea why it doesn't use the VGA monitor for the full game?

Last edited by BigD on 21-Jul-2008 at 06:24 PM.

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@BigD

Played 4-player BlitzBombers in the end

Managed to get Napalm working on both Amigas but it failed to load a 2-player game on the 'serial cable synchronisation screen'! i.e. nothing happened - both computers searching but not finding!

Is Napalm the most horrible Amiga game to configure ever???

Last edited by BigD on 22-Jul-2008 at 04:55 PM.

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@BigD

Well we did make Blitzbombers playable on a base 1200

I don't recall having the immense problems you are with Napalm, but I do know it was not so much fun to play on a base A4000 with 16MB fast and a 68040/25 (especially when linked to my 1200T which had my CSPPC and CV in). Aside from limiting you to a lower resolution of 320x240 (or 320x256), the scrolling was sluggish and actions such as selecting a group by clicking and drawing a box over them was very slow when compared to the faster machine, meaning the faster machine player has an unfair advantage.

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@_Steve_

I would be pairing a 030/50 with 32mb fast ram with the 040/25 with 48mb of fast ram and Picasso IV graphics card. I don't think the speed difference would be that marked! I would obviously be limited to 320 x 256 though

The game is well worth playing in my opinion and I love 2-player strategy games! 2-player Settlers was also awesome and playable with 2 mice on one machine - co-op or against each other

With Napalm the serial link does seem a bit hit and miss. Do you find both machines need to be running OS3.5 for the link up to work? What baud rate should I be using in the setup options for a null modem cable?

Last edited by BigD on 23-Jul-2008 at 10:19 AM.

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@Thread

So any advice on getting working the Napalm 2-player link game or the fact my A4000T outputs the menu screen to the RGB monitor and the game itself to the VGA Picasso IV screen?

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@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @_Steve_ With Napalm the serial link does seem a bit hit and miss. Do you find both machines need to be running OS3.5 for the link up to work? What baud rate should I be using in the setup options for a null modem cable?

When I had it linked up, one machine had a base 3.1 install and the other was runnig 3.9, so I don't think it matters that they are 3.5 or not. Your baud rate settings will make a difference though, as both machines really should match. Using the built in serial port with each machine you'll be looking at quite low baud rate speeds (typically 9600/8/N/1 - although you may get away with 19200 baud rate).

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@_Steve_

Quote:

_Steve_ wrote: @BigD Quote: BigD wrote: @_Steve_ With Napalm the serial link does seem a bit hit and miss. Do you find both machines need to be running OS3.5 for the link up to work? What baud rate should I be using in the setup options for a null modem cable? When I had it linked up, one machine had a base 3.1 install and the other was runnig 3.9, so I don't think it matters that they are 3.5... the built in serial port with each machine you'll be looking at quite low baud rate speeds (typically 9600/8/N/1 - although you may get away with 19200 baud rate).

The key factor to get the Null Modem game running stably is to use the original disc version not the 1.4 patch. With my 060 machine, Workbench 3.1 seems the most compatible whereas I get RTGMaster issues with 3.1 on the AGA 030 system! Therefore OS3.5 is the best. 14400 baud is then possible although the 060's game clock runs significantly slower! The original version seems more tolerant of this timing issue!

... it's a similar situation to Xtreme Racing where the addition of the Data Disks corrupts the Null Modem feature hence you have to revert to the original version to get it to work!

Last edited by BigD on 05-Aug-2020 at 09:34 AM.

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@Thread

When using patched version 1.4 I got constant Network Consistency Failures! I haven't found a good explanation of this other than for ADoomPPC on Aminet:


Quote:

CONSISTENCY FAILURE: -------------------- Several people reported their net games ended unexpectedly with a message like: "Error: consistency failure (24805 should be 24806)" What's going on is that DOOM calculates a kind of checksum of the game's status --- player and monster positions and that kind of thing --- and sends it to all the other players in every net packet. If all the programs and WADs are identical, then they all calculate exactly the same checksum. However, if someone is using a slightly different WAD version or an incompatible version of DOOM, then a monster might be one more pixel to the left, say, and the result is "consistency failure". The test is very precise. All net nodes must run compatible versions of DOOM and all must use exactly the same WAD file and game options. To be compatible, 2 versions of DOOM must provide exactly the same features. Furthermore, they must use exactly the same random number generator and they must round arithmetic calculations exactly the same way. I have to be careful adding new features to ADoom. For example, I can't use the random number generator for anything new, nor can I add any new features that might change player and monster positions. If I optimise anything, I can't make any approximations. Otherwise ADoom definitely won't work with PC DOOM any more. Please keep this in mind if you send me source code for inclusion in ADoom. (The ideal solution would be to compile DOOM for all different platforms, MSDOS, Win95, Mac, Linux, Amiga, PSX,... from a single source. Then new features can be added simultaneously on all platforms. Now there's a job for someone...) I suspect "consistency failure" might also happen if you get network errors, such as serial line overruns. Try lowering your serial line speed, and make sure hardware handshaking is working properly. Also, if you all specify -pcchecksum things might be more reliable. That's because the default Linux net packet checksum isn't really a checksum at all. It's always 0. So any errors in the net packet are not detected unless you all use -pcchecksum. (The net packet checksum is different to the consistency checksum.) In the above, substitute ADoomPPC for ADoom. I was too lazy to retype all the above. :^}

It's interesting the section about using the same version of the game and possibly the having the baud speed lowered. This at least gave me some guidance to know whtat the likely issue was as there was nothing about this in the Napalm instructions or online specifically directed at Napalm.

I wonder if these issues effect the Network Patch that is supposed to allow Napalm 2-player games online?

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@Thread

No joy I'm afraid A Network Consistency Failure is notified once at the start of the game on the unpatched Version 1 of the game but it HAS failed completely! The players will not encounter one another at all and it allows you to play on!

What a waste of time!

Back to testing V1.4 now but the intermittent "Network Consistency Failure, recovering data" notifications are very annoying. I didn't have this issue with two 030 machines playing 2-player! Maybe they sync better? Trying a 9600 Baud connection.

Last edited by BigD on 05-Aug-2020 at 02:02 PM.

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@BigD

Napalm would be a resource heavy game. To my knowledge. The serial port may choke the CPU too much. Since they never did optimise the CIA with DMA. I wonder if a serial card would help? If the serial can use another device. For an A1200 you have The Whippet. I have one of those.

@Hypex

I think part of the problem is that the 060 machine is lagging because it's running in AGA rather than through the PIV card! Can't seem to get the screen mode requester for the PIV screen modes to show up on initially loading the game!

Last edited by BigD on 05-Aug-2020 at 06:39 PM.

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@Thread

Reinstalled RTGMaster (not the one on the CD) and the Picasso IV screen modes show up now! It's finicky as hell getting this set up and I've been at this game for decades!

There's a visable speed boost already though! Let's hope it is enough!

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@Hypex

Yes, you were right it is CPU heavy especially at high res! But if you've got a Graphics Card then you have to use it to help matters!

Great! Looking forward to some RTS 2-Player fun with my children! It was worth persevering!

Final answer was:

030 50Mhz AGA machine on OS3.5 - Low Res 320 x 256

060 PIV machine on Workbench 3.1 - High Res with RTG Screen (8bit 640 x 400)

Baud rate: 9600

No lag and game speed 8 maintains the connection!

Thanks for your help and listening!

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The first game only made it to 20 minutes before Network Consistency Failures again! There may have been one computer still set to only 2400 baud though. Bumped both to 14400 now and working well!

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54 minutes before Network Consistency Failure issues that time! Hardly rock solid but a lot better than it was! I wonder if the baud rate is a bit high during the higher CPU load during big battles? Maybe 9600 baud is the sweet spot?

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@BigD

That's good it's going a bit better. Though it would make sense for these games to use parallel port as it's faster to send more bits through.

The slower machine may cause some lag.

Does it totally drop out or can it reconnect after link loss?

@Hypex

It'll normally recover after letting the lagging machine catch up (can see the Network Consistency Failure error message while the time code corrects to match the other machine), clever really! I think what happened in the last game 54 minutes in was I launched a major offensive with many action, rockets, explosions etc at once and it never recovered from that point although seemingly trying to, it never got there sadly. It was running the game with a jitter with error message flashing on and off as the timer ran forward slowly on both machines! I was even able to escape out to Workbench on both machines from that state!

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@Hypex

Same problem tonight the big tank rush stage of the game lags the machine running in high resolution! Shame to have to run the 060 in low resolution to get a more stable null modem game but maybe that's the only way. I guess if two 50mhz 060 RTG machines were playing each other in high res then they'd probably lag the same amount and stay in sync! I guess it's the asymmetrical CPU loading on the mismatched machines that is hard for the game to manage but Doom managed it as long as the same game version was being used.

Last edited by BigD on 06-Aug-2020 at 09:18 PM.

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@Thread

Quote:

Shame to have to run the 060 in low resolution to get a more stable null modem game but maybe that's the only way.

Yep, no problem when the 060 PIV is running in low res. We got to the end of the match fine. My 4 year old did really well and we'll say he won fair and square with a full robot aerial bombardment

What would it take to pimp my 060 machine running high res to match the game speed of the 030 machine running in low res? Would the new ZZ9000 graphics card help or would I need a 66 MHz 060?

Last edited by BigD on 07-Aug-2020 at 05:09 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 07-Aug-2020 at 05:05 PM.

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@BigD

I would have expected it to use the lower machine as a reference so it doesn't get left behind.

Also, can you press pause? Would help if you could press pause, so the faster machine is put on hold, while the stalled one catches up. But it looks like it didn't hold your son back from winning.

Quote:

What would it take to pimp my 060 machine running high res to match the game speed of the 030 machine running in low res? Would the new ZZ9000 graphics card help or would I need a 66 MHz 060?

To match the 030 I think you need to anti-pimp it and take it down a notch!

I don't think a ZZ9000 would help your 060 but it would help to speed up your 030!

I think even a faster 040 would help in the 030 machine. But by the looks of it going back in this thread the game is graphic heavy so a graphic card can help. I don't know by how much if it's slower on AGA but AGA does have hardware scrolling, where as I don't know if the RTG API allows for hardware scrolling or even hardware accelerated scrollng. 12 years old lol, and the problem remains.