R-Comp / RCI announcements for SW Show

Rather than lots of little posts, I thought I’d wrap our various announcements into one larger post covering as much as possible. Hopefully that’ll avoid too much “thread spam” on here.

Software-wise, we have a new release in the form of Quake Resurrection – 2018 edition. This is an updated version of our Quake Resurrection game, now supporting a huge range of machines from RiscPC (real and virtual) through Iyonix, Pi, ARMini(X), ARMX6, TiMachine etc. With various code-paths included, each generation of machine should benefit from a great Quake experience. Quake has always been a good test of RISC OS hardware. It is available now on !Store.

For those unfamiliar, Quake is an explore-and-shoot FPS game with lots of true-3D levels and enemies. The Resurrection pack includes a number of add-ons giving loads of content to play (80-100 levels, I think, although I haven’t counted). This new addition includes a whole extra episode and also new control options. We’ve added the ability to use modern FPS-style mouse+keyboard controls (as well as the classic keyboard-based controls) to make the game feel more natural and involving.

NetFetch 5.03 has been released, with improvements to setup of multiple SMTP servers. v5’s two major enhancements related to secure mail transfers (which were enhanced further in 5.02) and multi-SMTP handling, so it was fitting that the latter was enhanced in 5.03. The changes are largely in the setup area – the user interface/experience is improved based on customer feedback/suggestions.

ARMX6 sees the release of OS Update 11 with support for 16 colour modes as well as 4k and 64k colours, and teletext MODE 7. I’m told this allows !6502em to run for that classic BBC feeling! There are also reliability improvements, especially when using VFP-based code. This ties in nicely to the new VFP-based version of BASIC which allows ordinary programs to benefit from the fast mathematical capabilities of modern ARM processors. There are also USB and networking enhancements plus other goodies.

TiMachine owners see version 4 of our high-resolution/multi-monitor software which includes 256 colour support, several new super-wide monitor formats and improved recovery from any problems (both in single and multi-monitor setups). TiMachine had an OS upgrade not so long back, so we’ll be concentrating on showing off the system’s capability with various interesting options.

We’ll also be showing/talking about the early first fruits of some exciting new developments – multi-core RISC OS and accelerated desktop graphics.

We’ll have some special deals on hardware and monitors, to accompany our computer systems. As some of you may know, we act as a “general dealer” locally, but don’t advertise that fact too widely because of standing on the toes of CJE and others. We’ll be bringing a few more of these items to the SW show in their absence, and offer free shipping for anything we can’t fit in the car!

With my RISC OS Developments hat on, you’ll be able to purchase OBrowser CDs from both ourselves and Orpheus Internet stands.

RISC OS Open have kindly sent up a few items such as RISC OS Pi cards and ePic cards so that show visitors can purchase some of these popular items at the exhibition.

As usual, I’ve probably forgotten a whole bunch of things – I always walk away from talks/shows thinking “oh, I wish I’d remembered to mention X/Y/Z”, but hey, hopefully there’s plenty there to whet your appetite. :)

We’ve added the ability to use modern FPS-style mouse+keyboard controls

Please tell me you’re not serious! I was playing the PC version of Quake with keyboard+mouse 20 years ago. I know it required a bit of config tweaking to set it up sensibly (which PC Gamer magazine or somesuch had to tell me how to do, because back then “WASD” controls truly were new), but I’d be very surprised if your earlier releases of Quake couldn’t be configured in the same way.

Jeffrey – the old versions could be configured up that way if you didn’t mind messing around with config.cfg and/or autoexec.cfg files and learning which commands to add. (Also, you needed to config it for each add-on separately, as each add-on can have its own custom controls/settings/configurations).

The new version comes with pre-created “drop on” files so that a user wishing to play with modern controls can do so by just dropping the new controls onto the game. You can also revert back in a similar manner. It is a small thing, sure, but I know that I wasted some time trying to ensure everything was set up right when I was playing, and I think having it all work “out of the box” is quite helpful. I figured that since I’d spent half and hour setting everything up right, it’d be nice to save everyone else the hassle.

Good, I was hoping it was something like that :-)

Perhaps it would be possible to have some demo’s running on RISC OS machines – like OvnPro/ProCad?
(for the authors who can’t make it to the Show)

Both of those programs are in my “Demo” folder for demo-ing ARMX6 and TiMachine systems, so if you’d like to see either running, please just ask.

with support for 16 colour modes

Off topic question…

Is that something that’s hardware generic that could be fed back into the RISC OS codebase eventually? I ask because it’s something Jeffrey and I discussed adding several years ago, but didn’t really get anywhere. Although I did eventually implement 1/2/4/8bpp for game support, its specifically aimed at the Pi, emulating VIDC20 without upscaling and not suitable for the OS as it’s not a full GraphicsV driver implementation.

Nope – 16 colour support is natively supported by the IMX6 hardware. It’s just something that got overlooked during the initial driver implementation.

Builtin, OS-wide low-colour mode emulation, software/hardware display scaling, etc. is still buried in my todo list somewhere.

This is an updated version of our Quake Resurrection game, now supporting a huge range of machines from RiscPC (real and virtual) through Iyonix, Pi, ARMini(X), ARMX6, TiMachine etc.

But not Pi 3, as it turns out. I was astounded to find that something released almost two years after the Pi 3 immediately crashes due to having SWP instructions in it.

Edit: Sorted; see posts below.

Does PatchSWP solve the problem?

It appears to, but that’s not the point; it shouldn’t be necessary to patch newly-updated software.

Edit: It appeared to work at first glance (I was able to play through part of a level) but I just tried to play it “properly” and found that the music doesn’t work, and it also managed to crash the whole system when I tried to quit. I selected Quit, confirmed by pressing Y, and the screen went black. I didn’t get the “Returning to RISC OS” message and neither Alt-Break nor Ctrl-Break got the system up and running again.

Hi Chris, thanks for the feedback. We’ll look into resolving that once I return after the show. We don’t have a Pi3 setup because, frankly, this is only the second query I’ve ever had concerning a Pi3. Our (software-buying) customers don’t tend to run on Pi, so it isn’t really a focus for us. Obviously we have no desire to stop products working on that, but equally with limited time, we focus our testing on the various full computer systems released over the years.

Anyway, shouldn’t be too tricky to resolve once we’re back in action. Please email me privately though so I can get you any updates for testing. The ROOL forums are not the place for technical support. Also, Quake music relied on analogue redbook audio from physical CDs.

We don’t have a Pi3 setup because, frankly, this is only the second query I’ve ever had

At the moment the Pi3 is one of the worst case scenarios for CPU compliance, so is possibly the best platform to test software on. If software doesn’t work on a Pi3, it’s probably been compiled without ARMv8 compliance.

Quake music relied on analogue redbook audio from physical CDs.

I’ve not tried Quake to see if it makes the necessary CD calls, but I have extended CDFaker to support redbook audio, so it should be possible to get CD audio with a BIN/CUE CD image. I’ve been holding off making it publicly available as it does introduce microstutter when buffering audio, but I suppose I could make a beta available at some point.

Our (software-buying) customers don’t tend to run on Pi, so it isn’t really a focus for us. Obviously we have no desire to stop products working on that, but equally with limited time, we focus our testing on the various full computer systems released over the years.

It might be useful to consider how that can lead to the users of those systems sitting in a slight cul-de-sac. The change from low to high vector build OS releases highlighted errors in software as a side effect of a change designed to make other OS developments possible. All the buggy software worked without a recorded error on low vector builds.

If there had been a low-vector-ZeroPain it would have shown the error wasn’t caused by the high vector build, but revealed by it. Would the software authors have done any more corrective work than they had in the previous 20 years of the zero page use deprecation if all the module did was reveal a lack of compliance with a 20 year old requirement? Probably not.

At the moment the Pi3 is one of the worst case scenarios for CPU compliance, so is possibly the best platform to test software on. If software doesn’t work on a Pi3, it’s probably been compiled without ARMv8 compliance.

Which, while not a current across the board issue, is likely to become a show stopper in the not too distant future.

It should be noted that R-Comp probably have had the biggest collection of ZeroPain and latterly SWP related errors because they probably have the biggest collection of actively sold/developed apps – bigger collection, more hits. As a percentage of the total?

Our (software-buying) customers don’t tend to run on Pi, so it isn’t really a focus for us.

Is that the definition of catch 22? If the most high profile RISC OS platform isn’t your focus, then don’t be surprised when those customers don’t buy from you

I’ve not tried Quake to see if it makes the necessary CD calls, but I have extended CDFaker to support redbook audio, so it should be possible to get CD audio with a BIN/CUE CD image.

I’ve just tried it under emulation and it appears to play the CD audio, so I’ll see if I can get CDFaker into a state for public use.

Is that the definition of catch 22? If the most high profile RISC OS platform isn’t your focus, then don’t be surprised when those customers don’t buy from you

No I see it as a statement that their customers buy ARMX6, TiMachine & ARM emulation systems from them as that is what they sell not Pi systems and hence their focus.

I’ve always found RComp responsive when issues have been raised with them so rather than been negative about a company that has done more than most to support users of RISC OS I’d say give them the information and hopefully they will sort it.

No I see it as a statement that their customers buy ARMX6, TiMachine & ARM emulation systems from them as that is what they sell not Pi systems and hence their focus

Focus is good, provided it doesn’t narrow into tunnel vision. If being more expansive is cheap then why not?

I’d say give them the information and hopefully they will sort it

That, I think, was the spirit in which Jon suggested using the Pi3 for testing i.e. anything that works on Pi3 has passed all the CPU quirk tests. It’s also a relatively cheap test platform.

Most emphatically not kicking R-Comp, just suggesting that tests with a cheap platform that demonstrates that the software works across the board is probably time and money well spent.

Focus is good, provided it doesn’t narrow into tunnel vision. If being more expansive is cheap then why not?

I agree but we do need to be careful here in that RISC OS now has a great range of hardware to run on and the companies we depend on have to balance things out as testing can both delay and also add costs to a product, though lack of can also break a companies reputation as well.

I see it that we all have a part to play and help where we can.

I think we all agree that RISC OS today is a lot better and supported on many platforms and thus whilst it is great for us users it adds even more headaches for those supporting us.

It looks like I may have touched a nerve here, which wasn’t my intention!

Andrew, I’ll contact you later; I knew you’d been busy with the show so had used the forums in the meantime to see whether there was a “quick fix”, and indeed PatchSWP got me most of the way there.

It looks like I may have touched a nerve here, which wasn’t my intention!

More like helped promote a healthy debate about the many challanges developers face in what is thankfully a lot more thriving RISC OS hardware and software market thanks to the likes of you who making a real effort to get every part of RISC OS in to a more modern state.

To clarify, 90% of our stuff uses Acorn/ROOL C, and is fine on Pi3 AFAIK. Quake used a 2012 vintage GCC binary which I found to be most stable of binaries I tested. Frustratingly, I forgot that GCC in 2012 was SWP-prone :( I will be back in the office by end of week. Right now my arm/shoulder has deteriorated further to point where cannot drive home so am stuck here left-handed-typing on laptop.

Obviously games (in particular) need Pi support as that is the best-fit audience demographic when I think about it. Pi folk buy games more so than other users. Being honest, since I put a version of Quake (sw-data) on NutPi, I assumed no further work was needed for Pi (I started working from the version in a “Pi” folder on my drive, ironically. Bad assumption! We’d checked/updated the rest of our NutPi sofware with Pi3 18 months ago, you see, with help of Sprow (testing).

Being honest, since I put a version of Quake (sw-data) on NutPi, I assumed no further work was needed for Pi (I started working from the version in a “Pi” folder on my drive, ironically. Bad assumption! We’d checked/updated the rest of our NutPi sofware with Pi3 18 months ago, you see, with help of Sprow (testing).

I don’t remember Quake being one of the things I tested, and it’s not mentioned on the list of NutPi contents. In fact, I don’t remember any games on NutPi – certainly all the binaries were decompressed and searched for SWP instructions at the time.

Right now my arm/shoulder has deteriorated further to point where cannot drive home so am stuck here left-handed-typing on laptop.

Oh dear. Fortunately it’s all left turns from Webbington to Knutsford though!

It’s not in my (old) NutPi.

I will be back in the office by end of week. Right now my arm/shoulder has deteriorated further to point where cannot drive home so am stuck here left-handed-typing on laptop.

That’s no good :(

No rush; I haven’t even emailed you yet.

Hi, is there a demo version of Quake Resurrection available somewhere? I’m using RISC OS RC15 on Raspberry Pi 2 and I would like to make sure it runs ok before I buy a full version. So far I have been using SDL Quake from riscosports.co.uk, but it crashes now and then, usually after 10-15 minutes of playing. If Quake Resurrection is more stable, I would gladly use it instead. Thanks!