How's the DOS port of Kymaera coming along?

[SirPeale]

Just changing the title of a now split topic.

[SirPeale]

Look for a release in the next few days (a week tops).

And the DOS version?

I'm sorry if I keep harping on this, but you haven't answered my question regarding it.  For those of us who do DOS boxes, this seems like it would be a *great* thing.  ArcadeOS has it's place, but Kymaera seems better visually and with better usability.    So I hope you can understand my excitement at the prospect - and the frustration that it doesn't yet work.

[PacManFan]

Peale,
 I don't know what to tell you. The DOS version I built seems to work fine on my machine. I know it's not the easiest to configure, but it works. I've tested it on a 3.5 DOS floppy, the win98 dos mode and win98 DOS box, and it's working fine on all my configurations.

I know the arcade video modes still need a little more work. And I need to be able to provide a utility to set up Kymaera in DOS (KymaeraConfig port.)

The most I can do is to put more debugging code in place and test on more machines to figure out why it is not working on your machine.

-PMF

[SirPeale]

But all just on that one system, correct?

I've tried it on three separate systems now, with no result.  I haven't tried it since the last time we spoke.

I'd like to hear from others that have used the DOS port, but no one has spoken up.

[SirPeale]

I pulled another machine from the attic earlier today.  Since this was brought up, I wanted to give it another shot.

After configuring everything, and putting all relevant files on the hard drive, I moved it over to the attic machine.

Presto!  It ran!  But wait!  Where's my gamelist?  Oh yeah...it think's it's on the F drive...let's make those changes and...

Crash?  Hm... that shouldn't be happening.

Any suggestions?

[Chris]

I know the arcade video modes still need a little more work.

You may not need to... you're using Allegro like I am, and I know that DOSCab works using the AdvanceVBE drivers from AdvanceMAME.

--Chris

[Buddabing]

I pulled another machine from the attic earlier today.

[SirPeale]

The machine already had Windows 98 installed.  I booted bare, with no drivers, to DOS.

[Buddabing]

Okay, how about memory? How much do you have and how much does Kymaera require? do you have the correct himem.sys and emm386.exe? Do you have a dpmi running? Have you run memtest86?

[SirPeale]

This machine has 32M of RAM.  It's runnign himem.sys when it starts and nothing else.  It's only a P100.

It's only when it attempts to load the game list that it crashes.

[Buddabing]

Does MAME run from the command line?
Are you running a DPMI program?
Have you tested your memory with memtest86?

[SirPeale]

Haven't tested the memory, no.

The DPMI is called upon load, it's in the path. 

Mame is actually not loading at all, but it's a version I compiled.  I have not yet tried it with a downloaded version.

Edit: does this mean you've been using the DOS version?

[Buddabing]

Haven't tested the memory, no.

The DPMI is called upon load, it's in the path.

[SirPeale]

I don't think the memory is suspect, but I'll test as soon as I can.  This machine has no floppy.

Pretty sure I must have horked my compilation and that's why it's not running.  Not too worried about it...although when I try to run it, it's weird.  It just sits there, the disk chattering a mile a minute, and does nothing.  I've left it for like five minutes doing that, before giving up.

And like I said, Kymaera *runs* as long as there's no list.  As soon as it gets to that point, *boom.*

[Chris]

Are you loading Smartdrv?  Maybe the disk access is just really slow... if so, the cache may help.

You said your stuff is on F... is that a CD-ROM?  Network drive?  Hard drive?  DVD?

[SirPeale]

Are you loading Smartdrv?  Maybe the disk access is just really slow... if so, the cache may help.

No, just himem.sys.  I don't think it's slow access, as Windows loads rather quickly.

You said your stuff is on F... is that a CD-ROM?  Network drive?  Hard drive?  DVD?

No, I originally set the whole thing up on this system, then moved it to the P100.  So when it went to load the list, it couldn't find it, assuming that it was on 'F' and of course it's on 'C' now.  After I changed the drive letter so it could find the list, THEN it borked.

[Chris]

Are you loading Smartdrv?

[SirPeale]

Done.  Nada.

[Chris]

What form does the crash take?  Does it just hang, or do you get an Allegro traceback?  When it's hung, can you CTRL-ALT-END (the Allegro escape sequence) and get out?

[SirPeale]

It doesn't hang, it goes to an Allegro traceback.  Well, I don't think it's Allegro, but that is the last thing that's noted on screen.

If you consult the logs, the very last thing that it attempts to load is the list.

[Chris]

Might be an overflow... can you set up a test directory with only a couple of games in it and see if you can read that?  I know a new version of Allegro was just released and there was something in there about fixing a bug related to too many files in a folder...

[SirPeale]

Heh...this IS a test system with just a couple games.

[SirPeale]

Well, I got it!  Did a little more configuring for the 8.3 filename limitation.  Finally came down to two files: 'top logo.jpg' and 'toplogo.jpg'.  It was configured for the latter.  Since they're the exact same file, I don't know why they're both there.  But when I moved it to the other, it worked.

Can't say anything about sound support (haven't tried that yet) but it went.  I'll try arcade resolutions pretty soon.  But this *won't* be the system I use, because I tried Galaga and it runs at 24FPS.

[Chris]

Well, I got it!

[SirPeale]

It might, but I'm not holding my breath.  This is a P100 after all.  And it's not a far stretch.  Pretty sure it's running @ 320x240.  Any way to check in-game?

[SirPeale]

I have *finally* figured out why it was crashing on my other machines.

It appears that Kymaera is really finicky if a path it's looking for isn't there.  In my case, it was the flyers, cabinets and titles directories in my Mame folder.  When I placed those empty directories in the Mame folder, it would run on my machine that I could not previously get to run.  I never even thought about it, since I don't use flyers or the others on my cab.

Arcade modes, however, cause it to crash.

[PacManFan]

Awesome,

I knew it had to be something simple like a path or a filename. Now that I know that is crashing looking for a path, I can fix it. It's odd that the Windows version would work, but not the DOS version. I'll put in some code to check for the existance of a path before I try to use that path to generate filenames. I had renamed that "top logo" to "toplogo" to make sure everything was DOS 8.3 compliant.

Let me know how DOS testing goes for you. I'll have some fixes for DOS in the next version, and I'll update the Docs. See if you can get the arcade modes either working under AdvanceVBE, or through the built-in arcade modes.

Good job Buddabing for debugging through this.
Thanks,

-PMF

[SirPeale]

It's not without it's bugs.

Different resolutions seem to have an effect on how fast the MP3 background sounds play.  640x480 plays at normal speeds, while 320x240 will play fast.  But not every time, it was weird.