Please test! Run Full Throttle and The Dig using slot-2 RAM

MaxArt · Post by **MaxArt** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:43 pm

eriktorbjorn wrote:
MaxArt wrote: Finally, the Italian version of The Dig doesn't even start. It loads for some seconds, the mouse icon appear on the top screen then it crashes and loads the debug console. The error message is:
(10x1A46): Unknown frame subChunk found : ZFOB, 27386!
I think that means the movie files have been compressed, and that this version of ScummVM doesn't support that. Have you tried using the original movie files?

Actually no. Using the uncompressed flics would get about 500 MB, I thought it was a bit too large plus I was running out out space on my SD card!
Ok, I'll try with the other version.

And oh, by the way, the error number was 1

0x1A46, non

... My bad.

agentq · Post by **agentq** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:16 pm

Thanks to everyone who has tested! I've been burning the midnight oil trying the get the stadium driving section running, and that part of the game uses a huge amount of RAM. I've got it stable until the part where you run around on fire, but I can't make that section work properly, although it is close to fitting.

And about the DSi... no homebrew works on it yet, but it's probably just a matter of time. When it does, you can look forward to Full Throttle and The Dig running without problems. The higher resolution games would still be tricky, but it's certainly a little more feasable.

another world · Post by **another world** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:51 pm

agentq wrote:Thanks to everyone who has tested! I've been burning the midnight oil trying the get the stadium driving section running, and that part of the game uses a huge amount of RAM. I've got it stable until the part where you run around on fire, but I can't make that section work properly, although it is close to fitting.

thanks for the update and your hard work.

-another world

Mortys · Post by **Mortys** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:58 pm

Thanks agentq

MaxArt · Post by **MaxArt** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 10:26 pm

agentq wrote:Thanks to everyone who has tested! I've been burning the midnight oil trying the get the stadium driving section running, and that part of the game uses a huge amount of RAM. I've got it stable until the part where you run around on fire, but I can't make that section work properly, although it is close to fitting.

Geez. Lucky me that I've a 32 MB expansion RAM. I guess it's a hell to make it work with smaller packs, like the Opera Expansion (8 MB). As far as I know, even the glorious EZ 3-in-1 has only 16 MB, am I wrong?

Anyway, yours is an excellent work. Impressive, really.

chojin · Post by **chojin** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:04 am

MaxArt wrote:As far as I know, even the glorious EZ 3-in-1 has only 16 MB, am I wrong?

You're not:

Code: Select all

Ext. RAM type&#58; 'EZ'
Ext. RAM size&#58; 16777216 bytes

Not sure about the new EZ flash 3in1+. Which ext. pack do you own?

agentq · Post by **agentq** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:58 am

It's not the external RAM running out that's the problem. 8Mb of that is plenty. The stuff that's running out is the DS internal 4Mb, which is needed for certain types of data which don't work in external RAM.

So people with a smaller external RAM pack are not at a disadvantage.

Mortys · Post by **Mortys** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:35 am

Hi agentq
Do you get back your DS Lite to debug the Opera Ram pack support ?

agentq · Post by **agentq** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:54 am

Nope, it's going to be a few weeks before I get it back. I'm still on a phat for now.

If anyone had a phat version of the Opera RAM expansion they want to post to me, I could get it done sooner.

Mortys · Post by **Mortys** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:09 am

Sorry, I only got a Lite one.

MaxArt · Post by **MaxArt** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:50 pm

agentq wrote:It's not the external RAM running out that's the problem. 8Mb of that is plenty. The stuff that's running out is the DS internal 4Mb, which is needed for certain types of data which don't work in external RAM.

So people with a smaller external RAM pack are not at a disadvantage.

Now I get it. In order to make FT and TD run, you need some extra RAM. But also some extra fast RAM...
When someone will make the additional RAM of the DSi available for homebrews, it will be a piece of cake for you to make them run.

I guess that the actual release, with some minor adjustments, would already do the work.

May I ask you what do you exactly need to be loaded fast in the memory?
And about the issue of the power source room in The Dig, are there any news?

another world · Post by **another world** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:42 pm

chojin wrote:As far as I know, even the Not sure about the new EZ flash 3in1+.

the psram is the same, 16mb, the nor ram was increased to 64mb. this is due to a lack of 32mb hardware, team ez was forced to upgrade. its all a moot point as the gba can only access 32mb at any one time. however, ez did code a multiloader that lets you add more than 1 game, and then you launch the loader first. exactly like how the old gba flash linkers were working in the end of their highest hour. other than that only the bytes to access the expansion ram was offset, and took longer to find.

-another world

noculture · Post by **noculture** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:44 pm

Full Throttle crashed a few times while trying to pacify the dog in the junkyard, got through it eventually. If it happens again I'll make a note of the error.

another world · Post by **another world** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:30 am

noculture wrote:Full Throttle crashed a few times while trying to pacify the dog in the junkyard, got through it eventually. If it happens again I'll make a note of the error.

what flash linker, firmware and msd are you using? i had no errors, got through that part with no problems. i had to replay it a few times to figure out what to do. it was smooth each attempt. i'm thinking this might be a latency issue with your msd. -=/ did you format it with the panasonic formatter? if not you really should.

here is a link:
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/s ... atter.html

if your msd is less than 2gb you can format it using your o/s to a higher cluster size, which will speed it up to a certain extent. (using Windows: format G: /Q /A:64k /FS:FAT)

test some of these options and report back if it fixed your problem.

-another world

megane72 · Post by **megane72** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:30 pm

Hi all...this is my 2cent add-on on this topic.

A similar project using a slot-2 memory card add-on has already been done by a guy with quake2 on ds...

http://quake.drunkencoders.com/index_q2.html

On his page you will find a link to another program that from slot-1 will test the speed of the slot-2 cards

http://www.pineight.com/ds/

http://www.pineight.com/ds/memtestARM-0.03.zip

I tested time ago my 2 cards and this are the results:

Supercard 32768 KiB
Slow OK
GBA KO

Ez-Flash4 16384 KiB
GBA OK
OC OK

The program test the speed of the mem on the slot-2 in 3 steps: slow, gba, overclocked

The fastest mem can sustain the OC speed.

You can use it to test your cards and compare with others and see if the problem with scummvm are due to slow speed of the ram...as example the supercard is known to have a bad ram chipset.

Hope this will help.