#Philips CD-i

1 messages Ā· Page 13 of 1

wintry dust
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the youtube video? yeah it has audio

jolly folio
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I just tested it on my phone and it works.

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Weird, obviously a me issue, not sure what happened.

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Oh no, I just realised, I muted chrome in the volume mixer yesterday for the Eli (Game Bub) interview. I forgot to invite it šŸ¤¦ā€ā™‚ļø

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@terse flare
Are you okay with adding a pinned comment highlighting my mistake?

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Or, I could nuke the video completely.

terse flare
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I was more worried that YouTube alters my videos because of the audio infringing some copyrights. After all, this is copyrighted material.

jolly folio
terse flare
jolly folio
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Haha, bloody work.

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Have a good night, and thanks to the update.

foggy epoch
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@terse flare just to clarify, did you go the Risc route? or did you use that mpegfpga library?

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Ah, I see

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Nice work!

terse flare
# foggy epoch https://github.com/Slamy/fpga_soft_mpeg/

This repository is a mess with too many branches. The MPEG video stuff is currently on the ddr branch, because adding support for memory with latency and burst access required some changes. The audio stuff is on the mister_cdi_fma branch. Right now there is not really a connection between this repo and the CD-i project. This might be problematic when trying to find the correct source code to build the firmware. The MiSTer source code currently only contains the firmware binary.

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Keeping it as separate projects turned out to be vital because simulation speed is much better when the MPEG decoder doesn't have a whole CD-i attached to it.

foggy epoch
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This could be the basis for a dvd player. And maybe the Daphne stuff I started ages ago

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Keeping it separate might make it possible to build other cores more easily

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Mazamar and I contemplated implementing something similar to his Pocket RISC stuff

terse flare
foggy epoch
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@hardy hedge actually had a look at that core a couple of days ago. He got it working in the sim again.. it seems like it will need some pretty fast RAM to work well

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The mpegfpga one

terse flare
foggy epoch
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Your risc core is at 30mhz I saw?

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It looks like CDI version of Lair is pretty great!

terse flare
# foggy epoch Your risc core is at 30mhz I saw?

It was at first and still is for audio. But that wasn't sufficient. Right now all 3 RISC V doing the video are clocked at 80 MHz. They were at 90 but the cache I've built is awfully designed so I had to reduce the speed. A VexiiRiscv can be clocked at least with 100 MHz on the Cyclone V without issues.

viral root
foggy epoch
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I agree, if it worksā€¦

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You could have done it all Linux side probably somehow

terse flare
foggy epoch
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And that would have needed justification

viral root
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As you build confidence with mpeg maybe you can move more of it to hardware. Or not

jolly folio
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I thought I'd share this comment.

delicate sapphire
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Space Ace's intro is also playable for me with this new core, but the sound disappears a couple of seconds after the playback starts. It starts again once an interactive sequence begins, but disappears once again in a second.
Litil Divil plays back the intro sequence, but with multiple visual glitches and no sound. Once the game starts, the sound appears, but it's terribly distorted.

valid onyx
# jolly folio

Hm, looking back at the video posted, there seem to be white blocks at spots where you don't have to press. Also, I don't see them on footage of cd-i dragon's lair on youtube, so I, for now, remain skeptical.

gray badge
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On the upside, @terse flare getting a nice shoutout on the @wise fern show.

On the other sideā€¦

wintry dust
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DVD?!?!?

glacial herald
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No one loves the CD-i more

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young grotto
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thats awesome that jeff is following progress

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he's the reason i got into misterfpga to begin with

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also i had no idea software emulators couldn't play dvc? thats really cool if mister is the first

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hopefully the software emulators can learn from the work here and catch up as well

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errant surge
glacial herald
errant surge
golden axle
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Wow wtf really? No software emulators do DVC? I just assumed that at least would have been implemented at this point. That might make this core one of the greatest to exist on MiSTer then

nocturne vortex
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Whatā€™s a Jeff Gerstman, Smokemonster was my mister enabler

golden axle
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My motivator was not being an analogue fanboy

errant surge
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Jeff is where I heard about Smokemonster

golden axle
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Smokemonster i was aware of in the past because I downloaded his packs for my SD2SNES 10 years ago

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But wasn't my motivator

wintry dust
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covid lockdown youtube/twitch was the best

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like SM's entire mister core series, tons of streams, bands doing weird shit on youtube etc

golden axle
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I miss the VR communities

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Everyone stuck at home and desperate for social contact was beautiful when playing Pavlov

viral root
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best part of covid was when all those celebrities sang Imagine

wintry dust
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I was so moved

gray badge
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thats how we beat covid

terse flare
# errant surge I think that https://www.cdiemu.org/ is ahead on that front but it's relatively ...

Yes, we need to be careful to not spread wrong information here. While MAME has no support for the DVC MPEG features (yet), cdiemu offered partial support for VMPEG and GMPEG emulation before this core did. The developer cdifan was also helpful in regard to specific questions. I don't know how faithful the emulation is since his emulator crashes frequently when I want to execute games on it. But that might have something to do with me running Linux and trying to get that thing to run on Wine.šŸ·

nocturne vortex
lunar nexus
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Ooo why's that channel age restricted?

timid magnet
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Only children are allowed to post in it

lunar nexus
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Er, right. Thanks..

terse flare
deep roost
valid onyx
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Just tried Dragon's lair, its so amazing to see this. I'm quite surprized at how not-crap this looks šŸ™‚ I view this on a 1600x1200 lcd screen (Samsung Syncmaster 204B), and use the Display Specific/Sony Trinitron filter to kill some of the pixels, and its very watchable šŸ™‚ I even managed to kill some snakeyesies from the moat. Only to die shortly after.

valid onyx
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It is also fun to see that some other things are starting to work! Because I'm eager to show my brother-in-law someday, I have already had a copy of the educational 'Politiebevoegdheden in het Opsporingsonderzoek' (translated from dutch: Police powers in criminal investigations, and he is in the dutch police) on my mister. It never worked before as it needed a TLA that shall not be named. Now it does start, and it actually 'works' for a bit. No audio (well, unless you pause and resume). Hilarious to see this dated material, and I wonder if I'm the first to see this in very many years šŸ™‚

valid onyx
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So: thank you for making this possible!!

trim oyster
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Yeah the framing varies but plenty of dvc discs seem to show something and the video quality is great for the time

fierce shoal
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In case anyone was wondering, I'm certified now. So ... be impressed.

2025091719150623.png
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This update is so cool...I'm finding a ton of fun stuff.

nocturne vortex
foggy tide
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sorry , not really keeping up with the core cause ....life, possibly a stupid question, is there a way to switch on the digital video cartridge yet? I tried playing a couple games but it gives me that error, i haven't updated the core in a while

gray badge
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nope, that's what Slamy is working on. if you want to play dragon's lair, there is a beta core you can use here #1103404843512631357 message but it is very very beta

foggy tide
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Thanks !

valid onyx
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I've posted the following in the PSX chat too, but I thought I'd ask here too: I'm looking to buy 2tb of storage; for cost saving reasons, I'm considering spinning disks. WIll that cause problems for CD-based systems - like the CDi?

gray badge
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I have no problem with my spinning disk external

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But I havenā€™t tested it extensively. All cores worked when I tried them

valid onyx
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and that's good to hear šŸ™‚

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I do have to say, it feels odd to search for spinning disks in '25 šŸ™‚

nocturne vortex
glacial herald
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The USB 2.0 ports on the MiSTer are substantially faster than the disc drives on these consoles

wintry dust
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it is not a given that a core is as tolerant of timings that would be 'original disc drive' so it is not really a matter of comparing the speeds

vapid flax
wintry dust
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for instance the psx core requires data to come back within ~11ms or so I think. less if you bump up the core's cdrom speed

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timid magnet
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hybrid eagle
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I have not had any issues but a) I havenā€™t tested it extensively (I was testing something else with help PDFs) and b) a lot of folks here are saying that the spinning drives cause problems

hybrid eagle
gray badge
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yeah, like I said, I havenā€™t had any issues but I definitely havenā€™t leaned on it too hard

valid cairn
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I had problems with 5400rpm 3.5 inch drives

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A one or two second long freeze every 5 or 10 minutes

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Then I used a 2.5 laptop drive in a little usb 3.0 enclosure and have had no problems

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These are all old drives from my drawer full of drives

errant surge
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I have had hitching issues with the psx core and a 4tb spinning drive. I swicthed to a 2tb ssd.

nimble epoch
terse flare
eager pier
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I take it this core is intended just for Dragon's Lair? Since any other game I try the audio is a loud scratchy mess even if it's not a DVC game

fast jacinth
eager pier
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Yeah, I get that it's very early

stiff flare
west pagoda
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Slamy sure is a divine verilog conjurer

eager pier
terse flare
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It is very interesting to hear though that there are additional audio issues from the base machine with this experimental stuff. It shouldn't be.

eager pier
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No no, it's fine. I know the mpeg support is still new and very unfinished

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And yeah, now I'm starting to wonder if it's my mister or something. Literally every game that wasn't Dragons Lair regardless if it used the video card or not had very loud and staticky audio

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Even the CD-I bootup logo, which sounded fine in Dragon's Lair

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Original CD-I core sounds fine

terse flare
eager pier
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Heh

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At least I was finally able to try Mutant Rampage now. The audio was a mess and the video sequences were all a heavily diagonally skewed mess as well, but thankfully the main game doesn't rely on video, they're just cutscenes

quasi viper
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intro of Dragons Lair II plays fine too šŸ™‚

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nice

quasi viper
strange crater
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Anyone tried Lost Eden yet?

valid onyx
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nope, will give it a go, good one

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doesn't work - returns to the main menu after starting

stiff flare
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I played Lucky Luke on the newest DVC build and it worked.

viral pine
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I am impressed. People actually are watching this mornings video. Never happens for CD-i

merry oyster
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CD-i am impressed as well!

nimble epoch
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Lucky Luke, Litil Divil, Uncover featuring Tatjana, Thunder in paradise, Mutant Rampage.
Several games are booting or even ingame with CDi_dvc_dragonslair_intro2.

deep roost
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I wanna know.

Excluding Mister FPGA, is DVC truly unemulated everywhere, including MAME?

spring gate
deep roost
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So the support is there, but it's in its infancy. Kinda.

So far, the race (if you wanna call it that), is more of a collab effort between three: this core, CDIemu, and MAME.

spring gate
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Yeah, fellow travellers. Although Slamy seems to be the most active in charging ahead.

sacred oasis
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"we travel, we battle!!" XD

deft talon
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holy guacamole!!! canā€™t believe how good the core looks on my crts ! Running S vid , composite and hdmi simultaneously

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Has anyone done much testing on crt ?

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Sound is also incredible

vapid flax
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Itā€™s not dot crawl, all other cores look fine

spring gate
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It may be worth Slamy updating the .sys for the next build. It probably won't fix that but there have been some updates over the past few months to .sys around video things

errant island
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Is it known that the sound on The Apprentice (USA) is getting crazy with scratching sounds and really loud levels once entering stage 1 ?

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#1103404843512631357 message

unreal sparrow
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it is better to use last release for Apprentice

errant island
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Okay, I will revert to a more stable version, same for Tetris.

unreal sparrow
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or other games

spring gate
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Version in Unstable Nightlies the best one to use for non DVC still?

unreal sparrow
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yes I think so

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but DVC ones have sound issues

deft talon
deft talon
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Also I gotta say that the sound definition is amazing ! It sounds better than any other cd based core of the same era

terse flare
spring gate
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Maybe a friendly sys updating elf can help you by updating that.

quartz crest
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That change probably won't affect that.

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@native venture might be able to take a look at why YC isn't working quite right. I don't know if there is even an entry in the YC txt file in main yet.

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That sys update is just for potential future products to be a little better I think.

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spring gate
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Ah, that's a good point if the YC text file needs updated whenever there is a new core. Super Cassette Vision may be in a similar boat as it dropped around the same time as CDi

young grotto
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that subcarrier stuff is for a new kind of io board porkchop is working on

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and yeah cdi isn't in yc.txt at all

gray badge
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I swore I tested cdi with svideo

young grotto
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only composite needs a yc entry iirc

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Yes

young grotto
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and it doesn't really need it , it's just how you tune the dot crawl

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Oh is composite the issue? Not sure I tested that

young grotto
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i'm not sure how the values are made - possibly just trial + error until it matches the real thing

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could use an existing console as a baseline

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ideally need someone with real hardware and a crt to do a lot of legwork really

vapid flax
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Hereā€™s what I see on composite if it helps

spring gate
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Where does yc.txt live?

gray badge
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In /media/fat.

glacial herald
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composite looks fine for me too (using the CDi_2player core)
yc.txt values would just reduce dot crawl

spring gate
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I was meaning on GitHub

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Mister main I think

glacial herald
eager pier
terse flare
unreal sparrow
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@stable stone could help to fix unstable build

stable stone
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Is building now, let's see in some minutes

gray badge
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looks like it failed?

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or is that an older build

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oh nm, 2 hours ago

terse flare
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It has finished 1 minute ago and worked. I don't know what went wrong. It seems @stable stone has pushed the unstable main to the commit of the main in mister-devel. Is this required every time? I'm confused because I thought the github actions need to be performed in the mister-devel Project.

deft talon
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It just hit ! Iā€™ll be testing the composite output in about 15 mins

terse flare
deft talon
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Any games in particular you want tested @terse flare ?

deft talon
spring gate
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Oh nice, reading the notes, does this have Zakk's Bob deinterlace option now as well?

terse flare
spring gate
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Yeah, that's what confused me - but understand now those are the sys notes

terse flare
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Hmm.. I still need to get used to this unstable build stuff. It seems to only reflect on the latest commit message.
One other change is a fix for the ADPCM decoder. The sound group parameters always exist twice but only one of those is actually used. The CD-i core has used the first but real hardware uses the second copy. The green book says that both need to be equal to conform to the standard. The title "Golf Tips" doesn't do that, so the audio in the menu was corrupted. Now, this core always uses the other set and thus fixes this issue.

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We have to thank Vincent Halver, currently developer of the MAME CD-i code, for this most fabulous finding.

terse flare
terse flare
stable stone
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The whole CI setup can be done in 2 different ways: either following the instructions from here (https://github.com/MiSTer-unstable-nightlies/Build-Automation_MiSTer?tab=readme-ov-file#how-to-add-an-official-repository-to-unstable-nightlies), or the way you were setting it up in the repo from MiSTer-devel itself. The latter one required adding a token with permissions to push the notifications, so it wasn't working yet. But in the end I ended up fixing it in the way of the readme method because it allows all the members of unstable org to troubleshoot that CI-only repo in the future without having to send PRs, which I thought was better for making the nightlies a bit more resilient.

stiff flare
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Pins updated with links to the latest unstable core and the latest Experimental DVC core

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terse flare
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of course it is :p

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that was a test (you passed) šŸ˜„

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(I somehow had asterix in my head)

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ok so interestingly

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the dot crawl is NTSC only

spring gate
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Better that than Obelix in your body

gray badge
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it's fine on PAL

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Was that already known? I am coming to this late.

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Anyway, if it wasn't already known:

  • Audio Video set to PAL: No Dot Crawl on Composite
  • Audio Video set to NTSC: Dot Crawl on Composite
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hotel mario still has music issues, but I assume that is known

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so obviously the answer is to use PAL as God intended

vapid flax
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I couldnā€™t get a stable sync with PAL and composite. The image was flying all over the place

terse flare
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terse flare
terse flare
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deft talon
terse flare
# gray badge well the unstable you just built - not the DVC unstable

Maybe this is a translation issue or I'm already too sleepy. You say the music in Hotel Mario is wrong? It seems with the DVC core there is indeed a big issue somewhere I will try to investigate as soon as MPEG is stable. I don't even know where this comes from.pengusip
But with the unstable from just now I won't expect problems.

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deft talon
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I got it loaded up rn and it sounds perfect on my end ā€¦ hmmm

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its intermittent. I had to reboot the core and set it to PAL

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like reload the core completely

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seems to maybe only have a chance to happen on a fresh core boot?

deft talon
deft talon
gray badge
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but it's not every time, it's real weird

deft talon
spring gate
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Pesuably that must have been in for awhile, a .sys change shouldn't have impacted that

gray badge
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don't mind me just ruining slamy's day

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and with no reliable way to reproduce it

OK.gif
copper ridge
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I couldnā€™t figure out how to make this core work with a NTSC CRT via composite or component. Is there a way?

errant surge
glacial herald
copper ridge
terse flare
# deft talon

We need to be careful not to mix anything up.
Based on the OSD Layout, I do know that this is the experimental DVC core. That has base case audio issues for some reason. Please don't use it for something like Hotel Mario.

terse flare
# gray badge and with no reliable way to reproduce it

This issue is actually known rather well. I have even created an issue for this in the past.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/CDi_MiSTer/issues/7
This is caused by the catastrophic software design choices of the MiSTer Main binary and the core not having a workaround for this.. yet...
You can fix this problem (and cause it again) by

  • making a screenshot
  • inserting or removing a USB gamepad
  • a seek operation (this should always fix the issue)
    The Linux side is only handled by one thread and the CD data is stalled sometimes, resulting into a desynchronisation between the audiomap handling and the buffer filling.
    On a real CD-i the concept of CD data stalling doesn't exist. A sector either comes in time or not at all. I'm slightly lost on this problem.
    There is one experiment I still would like to perform on my real CD-i. I want to corrupt the connection between the CD drive digital output circuit and the CDIC to investigate how this would behave. I have no measurements for this scenario so far.
    The core needs to have a method to get around this problem.
    One thing that I have not tried yet is to just change the target buffer of the CD sector to the one resulting in correct audio playback when an issue like this occurs. A CD stall should then result into a hiccup for a few milliseconds and an immediate fix afterwards.
spring gate
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Oh, is this something Sorg or someone needs to fix in Main?

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This reads like something @wintry dust may be interested to know about, that seems really odd

terse flare
# spring gate Oh, is this something Sorg or someone needs to fix in Main?

I think we had a discussion about this for quite a while in the dev-talk. MiSTer Main is not suited for low latency handling when it comes to multiple events occurring. It is not possible to perform I/O operations the same time as - for example - screenshots are made. These are actually problems that are fixable by using the DDR3 for I/O operations. Then, the CD drive emulation can be running as a separate thread. Sometimes I have a certain feeling that the Main executable should be redesigned.

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Maybe the PSX core is doing something different. Maybe I should introduce a CD buffer into the core to avoid small realtime related problems.

spring gate
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Might be worth raising a ticket against Main so Sorg sees it. Maybe something he can factor in while working on Main for the next board

terse flare
spring gate
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Yeah, but I suspect a good number of those are not issues but feature requests and dumb things raised by non Devs like me. I know I have a few in there. šŸ™‚

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It probably needs some serious housekeeping as well, I bet a lot could be closed

young grotto
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its not like, unsolvable or anything

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its a side effect of how the mister code is just one big loop doing everything

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tawny haven
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It is the same issue and I already have a cache implemented. I suspect the issue will go away if I make the cache larger.

deft talon
tawny haven
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This is also why I started the CD implementation with loading the entire cd into DDR first. It avoids the issue if you can skip the Main interface. Of course it also limits CD size and requires multiple minutes to load images.

copper ridge
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Wondering if the quad-core HPS from the DE25-nano could help latency-wise? Maybe having one of the cores dedicated to data streaming, another for USB input reading and another for the MT32pi? Fourth core would run main coordinating everything, etc

bold dragon
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The slowest CPU core on DE25 is roughly twice the clock speed of the DE10, and there's double the cores - so it's definitely going to be better. whether it's measurable is a different matter,

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Fastest core is close to triple the speed.

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It won't need to be broken into threads or separate processes - that adds complexity. But it could

pulsar moth
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Does it allow some things that need to be combined like Genesis/32x/Sega CD? And I'm sure there are others but I don't recall them.

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And would that improve N64 or anything else that had to be compromised to get it to work on the DE10?

bold dragon
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You're asking about the DE25 ? It's hard to say what specific things benefit. It's a better chip and board in almost every way, but "is it enough better to be meaningful" is a significant question that still needs to be answered

nocturne vortex
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So far it makes a good coffee coaster and it keeps dust off a portion of my desk and that is more than I can say for a tower of power

eager pier
native venture
native venture
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CD-i_59.6=131191030900 in the yc.txt fixes NTSC

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PAL seems fine

gray badge
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Awesome. Iā€™ll test it in a sec

native venture
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what else needs fixing! Its been a while

glacial herald
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arcade turtles in time

native venture
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taitof2 as well, ill fix as well

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PM me anything else, I dont want to flood the chat with YC stuff

glacial herald
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CD-i composite looks solid now with the new yc timing- awesome work!

gray badge
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yup, confirmed. beautiful work as always, mike

native venture
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Pushed to main with a bunch of other changes as well

eager pier
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Does the latest CD-I unstable from 9/24 contain the DVC or is that a fork for now?

odd trout
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#1103404843512631357 message

eager pier
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ok

terse flare
eager pier
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The intro2 is the latest DVC one right? I am not the only one getting horribly glitched sound in any game DVC or not that isn't Dragon's Lair right? That's something everyone is expirencing?

terse flare
young grotto
eager pier
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So far every title other than Dragon's Lair has done that for me, but just as long as it's not just me and I badly lost the silicon lottery with my mister that's fine

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And I didn't just badly lose*

spring gate
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Would it make sense to bring your DV branch up to date if you are going to be working on it for awhile, then will be easier to merge back when it's time and any unstable builds will have all the fixes etc. in mainline?

terse flare
# spring gate Would it make sense to bring your DV branch up to date if you are going to be wo...

This is very philosophical question. I've wondered about how to proceed when the time comes. I think it might make sense to squash all DVC changes into a single commit to have an accumulative change. I'm not really into git merge commits. I'm more a rebase guy.
I consider the "unstable builds" to be a pre-release of something that I think is ready. All hot-fixes I do will end up not in the DVC branch but instead into mainline. So far the DVC branch hasn't missed big changes from mainline. Does that make sense? Hopefully it is not lost in translation.

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So, don't worry. The mainline will always have all the fixes. It is the DVC branch that is behind.

spring gate
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What ever makes sense to you and is going to make life easier. šŸ™‚

terse flare
# spring gate What ever makes sense to you and is going to make life easier. šŸ™‚

My life would be easier without FPGAs. Quartus can be quite nasty: It took me a week to find out that the block ram I've infered using a verilog template causes undefined behavior. I'm now using RAM from the IP browser to fix this. So confusing... The values written into deviated from what was read out. That was actually the cause of those weird squares we have seen in the videos. Random data.... šŸ™
With Altera proprietary code it seems to work now. Some cleanup is now needed and then I think in the next days it should be possible to have Dragon's lair playable. As much as it was playable to begin with.pengusip

spring gate
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That's great news you fixed the rogue squares issue

west pagoda
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weirdā€¦as a complete idiot asking stupid questions, could it be a difference in the way the ram is defined vs utilized? I was just following the thread on the mister forum about the atari vbxe implementation and how it can be provisioned differentlyā€¦

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I assume the ip browser is also selecting block ram?

terse flare
# west pagoda weirdā€¦as a complete idiot asking stupid questions, could it be a difference in t...

You are correct. There are multiple ways of instancing block ram. You can use the wizards from the IP browsers to configure your memory and generate a black box which does exactly what the configuration has advertised. This black box usually doesn't go too well with simulation tools like Verilator. This is why I usually go for templates. Quartus has its own generator for that.
This mostly results into something like this
https://github.com/Slamy/CDi_MiSTer/blob/dvc/rtl/mpeg/fmv/dualport_shared_ram.sv
And this file is actually also the problematic one. But maybe I'm partially to blame. It started as a multi-clock true dual port RAM for communication between decoder and worker RISC-V cores. But they do no longer have a different clock. So maybe the template should just be changed....

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I have to see. As long as I have a working solution I can deviate from that and experiment.

west pagoda
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well, the code doesnā€™t look suspicious, but then again, I donā€™t know much about quartus and what sort of arcane ide options that may need to be set to appropriately configure ram

#

other than defining ram depth then shiftingā€¦I guess that is to reflect the total amount of ram defined by the packed array?

terse flare
#

One advantage of developing something that many have interest in, is having more testers than just doing that part alone. When Pixel Cherry Ninja has posted his video I've noticed that the intro of 7th Guest looks weird. And with weird I don't mean the random data at the bottom. I knew that frame sizes were not handled yet.
What I'm referring to is the top. Without knowing the original footage it wasn't clear for me at first that the top part of the picture is missing. But where can it be?
It is not clear in his video but the same issue occurs with the Philips Logo.

image.png
#

I've simulated it and the top is also missing. But when I just take the raw YUV data and display it, I get the right picture.
So this means that the view is obstructed.

video_310.png video_000.png
#

The reason for this is probably the lack of the offset registers which helps to position some MPEG video footage when not the full frame size is utilized. The 7th guest uses video data with a small height.

#

I think fixing this is a low hanging fruit. šŸ™‚

valid onyx
#

NICE! I'm really looking forward to the 7th guest in particular. That game was for me the 'omg what can cd-rom bring to games' release

#

Oddly when I tried it last time, it didn't get past the philips logo, so Im eager to see if I just have a shitty USB stick (I do), or if my version was wrong.

#

...I hadn't pushed a botton. Once I did, it did continue...

#

I love how much better the vid quality is compared to the pc version

stiff flare
valid onyx
valid onyx
stiff flare
terse flare
valid onyx
stiff flare
nocturne vortex
#

Yeah it was a long running joke for me until Slamy got going and following this development has been great

eager pier
#

Uh oh, will the CD-I dethrone the N64 for Robby?

west pagoda
#

Depends on how many train based infotainment titles there are.

harsh ember
#

Are there any cd-i train based infotainment titles? This is very much my jam

quasi viper
nocturne vortex
#

Wow sucking up to Robby so blatantly for extra discord privileges

stiff flare
gray badge
#

y/c updates are live btw

nimble epoch
#

I've been testing the disc 2 Unlimited - Beyond Limits (Europe) image with both cores cd-i and cd-i DVC experimental.
Received a disc is dirty message.
Tried the same disc with Same CD-I and the disc was booting.

#

Retroarch core

#

DVC is required but the disc can boot without the DVC cartridge.

spring gate
#

Wow, someone else trying the enhance CD discs. I can't remember my findings on that one, will need to doubt check tomorrow. Maybe it is logged on the sheet

#

Checking notes. That one requires DVC. No Tribal Dance for you my friend. Yet.

harsh ember
#

I tried out the DVC test build with waynes world, star trek vi, and clue.

Clue worked pretty well for a few minutes, which was cool.

Star trek and waynes world have garbled video, then no video. The menus and audio work though. Its pretty cool.

strange crater
#

Looking forward to seeing that Clue game running. Iā€™ve run parties around that one before - itā€™s pretty fun.

lunar nexus
nimble epoch
#

This is the screen I have when booting the same disc image on my Mister.
Tested with the experimental dvc and stable non dvc core.

2-Unlimited.JPG
eager pier
#

I wonder if the emulators are just telling the game that there is a DVC card installed but since it's not supported the game thinks the console isn't reading the disk right and that the disk must be dirty

nimble epoch
#

I've tried to fiddle with the settings but nothing was improved.

#

from the tests I have done for the DVC required media with the experimental core, this is the first one that gave me a dirty disc message.

terse flare
terse flare
#

The subchannel Q data during the Lead In seems to be the cause. At some point I've changed the way, the Table of Contents is shown during the Lead In Track in an attempt to make it more accurate. And that change was applied to the core and to my custom MAME as well. It seems I've made a mistake at this step.
Maybe this correlates to the issue that audio CDs can no longer be played. At some point during MPEG development I've noticed it was no longer working but I don't know since when it is broken.

terse flare
#

I wasn't sure whether I should upload something today. But there are probably enough changes to justify it.
This is based on #1103404843512631357 message but with additional changes.

FMA: Fixed MP2 decoding during stereo mode change
  - Fixes audio stop during Space Ace intro, caused by an underflow of data, caused by pl_mpeg just throwing frames away.
FMV: Added handling of SYSCMD register
  - MPEG Video Playback can now be restarted. Dragon's Lair can be played!
FMV: Fixed data corruption in shared memory of workers
  - Caused by wrong inference of block RAM
  - Fixes small white and big transparent colored squares during playback
FMV: Fixed inference of worker cache memory
  - Reduces number of occupied ALMS and such reduces build time by 4 minutes
FMV: Fixed some discrepancy between simulation and synthesis
  - Also allows the workers to clear their caches now. Fixes weird stripes every 20 frames or so.
FMV: Handling of different frame sizes
  - Removal of residual pixel data at the bottom
FMV: Fixed reset conditions and "Clear FIFO" command
  - It should now be possible to reset the core without reprogramming the FPGA (not that much tested)
FMV: Handling of different frame rates
  - Untested but the support should be there
FMV: Added display offset registers
  - Fixes the cut off picture with "The 7th Guest".

Please keep in mind that something is still off. "The 7th Guest" is hanging for yet unknown reasons. The intro of Space Ace is also just hanging at the end and you need to press a button to continue. I assume that there is some mechanism to tell the software that the stream has ended and that this is not working correctly.

šŸ“Ž CDi_dvc_rc0.rbf
#

Concerning Dragon's Lair, there is still something on my mind that bothers me and should be considered by people testing it! The game is very difficult (and awful). Please keep in mind that I don't yet have evidence that the timing of this experimental DVC core is accurate. It might be possible that

  • the frames are shown up to 4 MPEG frames (8 video frames) too late, even so I'm following the rules of the ISO standard.
  • the software is getting false timing information back from the DVC driver.
    There is custom test that needs to be build to ensure that what I'm doing here is according to real hardware.
#

The fact that I'm even thinking about something like this is a testament to how far we already are with this.

unreal sparrow
#

šŸ¤Æ

20250929_153426-screen.png
valid onyx
#

OMG SOMEONE IS THE BEST!

unreal sparrow
valid onyx
terse flare
valid onyx
valid cairn
#

This is me running home to test some cd-i

valid onyx
#

I shouldn't, but I am testing tooo šŸ™‚

#

Seems to be a small offset (non centered, top-right) on my hdmi output, but omg star trek is working too

unreal sparrow
#

Thank you Slamy šŸ™‚

valid onyx
#

Yeah, completely so much thank you @terse flare

valid onyx
#

Believe it or not, I just had fun with space ace!

terse flare
valid onyx
#

Managed to get to a flying part, and then I didnt know what to do anymore

#

no flashy hints of where to go which got me through the first section

terse flare
valid onyx
terse flare
#

This game design has aged horribly. It is a quick time event like from the modern era, without any visual indicator that it is occurring. These games were also ported to modern PCs with visual indicators rendered in to help a little.

valid onyx
#

I keep being surprised by the video quality of the vcd things I tried, its much better than I had expected, and a lot better than the pc port I played at the time. Again, playing with a 1600x1200 tft with crt filters to mimic a tv. Pretty great quality that I wasn't expecting!

lunar nexus
#

I'm happy with Gateshead in the 1900s. šŸ™‚

nimble epoch
#

It's amazing, fmv corruption in Litil Divil and Mutant Rampage Bodyslam fixed.

stiff flare
#

So is this latest core the latest latest or just DVC latest

nimble epoch
#

latest DVC RC0

terse flare
stiff flare
#

They are very informative, thank you for doing that.

valid onyx
#

@terse flare I'm assuming this is still too early to report bugs on <abbreviation> titles?

proper ridge
#

DVC (DreamVirtualCast)

terse flare
valid onyx
# terse flare I do know that there are a ton of problems. But if it wasn't mentioned yet, just...

K, will report some later when I play more with it then! I did notice an issue with mad dog mccree, but that might be the same 'vid ends, not communicated' problem you reported. Also, I had some very weird sound bugs on the police procedures disk I mentioned in the past; something with the left & right audio channel not going quite right, as if they are not of the same volume maybe? Or out of sync? Can delve deeper if you want.

#

And I think you are already aware of the image being in the topleft as oppsed to centered on the screen?

terse flare
terse flare
gleaming echo
#

Slamy, you are a genius, never thought I would ever be able to watch a movie on the MiSTer but as you seen by wark Top Gun VCD is now working on the latest DVC core

unreal sparrow
#

Top Gun hangs at some point on 1st CD maybe after 30 min of playing ^^

gray badge
#

the core can only handle so much Iceman

unreal sparrow
#

Val Kilmer is so young of this movie.

coarse mirage
#

"mister night" - watching cdi movies with friends

young grotto
#

super exciting progress! thanks for the detailed update

gleaming echo
#

Just to let people know... Thunder in Paradise works šŸ™‚

errant island
#

I will try some titles later today.

#

My uncle was one of the most avid CD-i movie collectors back in the day (1992-1994).
He lost everything in a fire 18 months ago, but I scanned and backed everything up beforehand.

errant island
#

Video CD are freezing after the first screen (I tried with The Secret of NIMH), so I will test only CD-i Video titles.

young grotto
#

is the cdi (with dvc) actually a generic vcd player aswell then?

#

i dont think i knew that

errant island
#

Yes, absolutely.

young grotto
#

neat

#

wonder if we can master new vcd images for it to play

errant island
#

We had almost 420 movies with my uncle, part CD-i Video, part Video CD.

#

Most of them aren't referenced at Redump, as I've done the dumps and scans way before the existence of the group, and the originals are smoke now.

#

But copies on CD-R from these files are working perfectly on an original system and partially on cdiemu.

young grotto
#

it should be possible to create new VCDs out of more recent media

errant island
#

Good luck with the authoring tools.

young grotto
#

i used to do this back in the day but its been like 15 years or more lol

errant island
#

Okay, for Video CD.

#

In my mind, I was in recreating CD-I Video (Green Book) discs.

young grotto
#

now that would be a challenge

unreal sparrow
#

we can have MiSTer News on VCD šŸ˜€

errant island
young grotto
#

finally a decent way to watch shrek on mister

spring gate
#

That's interesting if Top Gun freezes after 30 mins, I wonder if all VCD films do this.

young grotto
#

could be? probably most games dont have single video segments so long?

errant island
#

NIMH freezes almost instantly (VCD).

#

Let me check my Top Gun dumps.

#

Top Gun is CD-i Video (Digital Video on CD-i).

#

That's not the same encode.

unreal sparrow
#

@errant island Is this screen means the core detects a VCD but it is not official CDi Video ?

20250929_195312-screen.png
errant island
#

When you have that screen, that's a green book disc, a CD-i Video disc.
That's an official CD-i disc.

#

The Video CD discs have only a small message (don't copy, don't modify and such) on a black screen and white characters.

unreal sparrow
errant island
#

Some discs don't have it, there are always exceptions.

#

The physical distinction is on the box too.

351201839.avif
#

On CD-I Video discs, you have a case marked CD-i and that sticker.

#

For Video CD, you have that kind of case with Video CD marked on it.

pdf_624b3b64-4855-11e6-962e-1b6cfa74c5ea.jpg
#

The CD-i Video discs are only for the system, Video CD are readable with a standard player.

#

CD-i Video could have also more advanced menus, and sometimes even mini-games.

#

Addams Family Values enters into the menus and crashes instantly.

#

That's already something.

#

On the second and third tries, it crashes on the copyright screen.
My external hard drive may not be reliable or fast enough for testing.
That's all for the next few days, good luck.
I wanted to give it a try, out of curiosity.

valid onyx
#

Lost Eden does not show anything and crashes back to the menu screen

fierce shoal
#

Ah, I see it is Top Gun from later in the thread.

unreal sparrow
#

in Indonesia, they still provided new contents for vcd

img013.png
fierce shoal
#

I've been updating every checkin and testing Wayne's World, which up until now ran like it was on a pay per view channel in the 80s. Exciting! I can't wait to watch it in the second worst format I own!

valid onyx
#

Hm, when perusing the library, I noticed the title 'The Cream of Eric Clapton'. Not sure who thought that title was a good idea.

fierce shoal
#

...

#

Woof.

valid onyx
#

Also, 'De Zaak van Sam' (interactive movie with english subs' largely works, but sound cuts out

fierce shoal
#

Everyone should definitely try the AVM FMV demo disc. With the caveat that the first section is real gastric surgery, so... yeesh. But it's 90s overload.

valid onyx
#

will check it out once I or 7th guest think that game has been enough

fierce shoal
#

I love the intro poem to that. I've been excited to hear it play.

#

Sorry if this has been asked and answered, but does dual SDRAM provide any advantages yet or is it just wired up to build, but not currently doing anything?

I built it but noticed literally zero difference (this was last week's checkin, not current).

spring gate
#

There isn't a dual ram build of CDi...

fierce shoal
#

There is if you build it yourself.

#

And add the dual ram file to the qfp

#

There was literally a checkin enabling it a while ago. But, I dunno if it does anything useful or makes timings a little tighter or is just integration at this point.

#

*qsf

wintry dust
#

I think what you're seeing was just a changelog copied from the sys update

fierce shoal
#

That's kinda what I thought, but I hadn't dug in.

#

I saw dual ram and got those interleave performance boost shakes and just went off without looking too deeply.

#

One day that sunk cost will pay off. <narrator: It didn't.>*

This is a joke, I know where it pays off...but ROI is not great.

nimble epoch
#

The Last Bounty Hunter get's into attract mode.

cosmic aurora
#

I tried images from redump of "green book" CD-i movies and "white book" VCDs, all mastered by Philips. PAL and NTSC. Results:

  • core horizontal resolution is wrong for VCD in both PAL and NTSC (too large, I think it is the resolution of CD-i movies, picture aligned to the left)
  • core horizontal resolution is correct for CD-i in both PAL and NTSC
  • sound stops playing after some time, can be made working again by pause/unpause
  • navigation in the CD-i player app works
fierce shoal
#

@terse flare have you heard the interesting audio track mixing bug on the Burger King orientation video? It blends all 3 audio track and cycles through them every ~half second.

cosmic aurora
#

As I brought VCDs from China in the 90s, this is very nostalgic for me šŸ™‚

terse flare
fierce shoal
#

It's kind of awesome.

terse flare
cosmic aurora
#

yes, CD-i is larger

#

VCD (white book): 352 x 240 (NTSC), 352 x 288 (PAL)
CD-i 384x288 (PAL), did not find NTSC value

valid onyx
fierce shoal
#

Yeah. That's probably where it belongs.

radiant minnow
#

Oh my god! This is a dream come true!! I am playing Dragon's Lair on the CD-i!! šŸ˜®

#

Hmm.. either this version of Dragon's Lair is very different from the arcade, or something is a bit off: I can't pass the second room, the one with the earthquake and the falling floor.
On the arcade, it's RIGHT, RIGHT, as floor starts trembling. Here, as soon as I press RIGHT, I get killed. Have you guys been able to pass that second room?

valid onyx
#

oh wait - is that maybe the 1st? I was talking about the one just past the bridge

#

I believe sometimes the rooms after the one I described, the 'hall' - are different. I had one going down, one with swining things on a path, and a fiery pit so far

radiant minnow
radiant minnow
#

And well, after some Dragon's Lair, I am going to celebrate this happy day where humanity got back the CD-i video play back capability (I am serious, I love the thing for it's refinement and cultural side) and I am watching The Addams Family on it!
It seems that audio disappears sometimes, but pausing/unpausing brings it back.
I want to make it memorable: this 90's classic with awesome actors will be my first movie watched on the CD-i and I will always remember this magical moment in time! šŸ™‚

photo_2025-09-30_00-20-33.jpg
strange crater
golden axle
#

Audio cutting out on coneheads but working if you pause/unpause. Probably a thing for most movies I imagine

sonic summit
#

Can anyone confirm if Ninja Scroll the movie was ever on the Philips CD-i?

spring gate
#

As in, did it have a VCD release?

#

It did have a VCD release, I can see some on eBay

sonic summit
#

wow Thank You for finding that

#

can you play VCD movies on the Philips Cd-i?

#

I seen a list of Philips cdi movie released for the system and Ninja Scroll was on that list but I have never seen any pictures on the internet about it.

spring gate
#

Yeah, actual CDi units can play VCDs. Most DVD and Blu Ray players can also play regular VCDs

#

The format was hugely popular in east Asia

shut flint
unreal sparrow
radiant minnow
#

I couldn't finish watching The Addams Family on the CD-i core: when playing the second disc, audio is missing and the pause/unpause trick doesn't work anymore because the CD-i resets itself upon trying to enter menu.
But it was VERY fun and I will watch many movies on the core in the future, that's for sure!

unborn grove
#

On archive.org there is a collection of Japanese CD-i Karaoke discs that someone dumped I am very much interested in watching these Itā€™s around 100 discs

valid onyx
#

Albeit that it too is affected by the audio dropping out and needing a restart

#

I have no audio cd images to test if they work

deep roost
#

It's a sign!

opal mural
#

THANKS SLAMY!

#

Here a video of 2 minutes of Dragonā€™s Lair Iā€™ve played until ā€œdisc is dirtyā€ message, Iā€™ve used the latest unstable MiSTer main

valid onyx
opal mural
valid onyx
#

with spinning disks, and over wifi?

opal mural
#

over 1Gb Ethernet

#

Cable

valid onyx
#

(just trying to collect possibly relevant data, in hopes of helping :))

opal mural
#

However Iā€™ve tried other videos on this RC0 core and I think the NAS can be the culpritā€¦

golden axle
#

I got a dirty disc warning last night after awhile on naked gun 2, playing off a ssd connected with usb

shy fossil
#

got dirty disc message after a while

#

a lots of audio sync issue. Si far it's really cool to play obsolete version of theses movies : thanks Slamy

spring gate
#

I wonder what is going wrong with the video after a VCD plays fine for awhile

#

On software you might think there is a memory leak or it is running out of ram, but presumably those can't be issues on FPGA

tawny haven
#

I would guess that the data streaming did not come in fast enough from MiSTer Main

unreal sparrow
#

You could reproduce easily by taking screenshots during playing vcd

shy fossil
#

yes, it makes the slow down occur on demand

nimble epoch
#

I was able to get ingame briefly with the game Who Shot Johnny Rock by spamming the action button on my controller during the CapDisc logo.
Unable to calibrate the gun because the crosshair disappears during the calibration.
Trackball seemed to work fine.

#

Tested with CD-I RC0

nimble epoch
#

Same with The Last Bounty Hunter

unborn grove
#

How is Tetris working?

#

Is it perfect?

nimble epoch
#

Tested a few games with the DVC rc0
Drug Wars
Crime Patrol
Mad Dog Mc Cree 2
Who Shot Johnny Rock?
The Last Bounty Hunter
They all seem to have the same issue, firing during the introduction sequence is working, reloading also.

As soon as the firing sequence starts, I'm unable to shoot.
The video freezes early ingame.
Only game I was able to fire ingame was Who Shot Johnny Rock.

unborn grove
#

Thank you

#

I owned a CD-i in the 90s

eager pier
#

So I guess this is basically just the Movie Night channel now huh? šŸ™‚ šŸæ

terse flare
# unborn grove How is Tetris working?

I recall that Tetris was the first commercial title ever working on this core. Please don't use the experimental DVC build to play it. Use the stable one via MiSTer update. I'm unable to feel, see or hear a difference compared to real hardware. It is actually a technically unimpressive game when it comes to the hardware capabilities of the CD-i. But the OST is very nice and has a warm atmosphere.^^

stray plank
#

The Valkieser Multi Media demo disc works with the experimental build! So cool to see the place where I was an intern working on CD-i related projects.

#

Looks flawless so far

#

Maybe just slightly shifted to the left (HDMI out)

#

Aww, it just froze, audio keeps playing

stray plank
#

The intro video of "In the wake of Captain Cook" freezes after a few seconds.

spring gate
# unborn grove On archive.org there is a collection of Japanese CD-i Karaoke discs that someone...

If you are interested in helping test these Karaoke discs on the core, then they should in theory all work now (for the Japanese ones you need to set to NTSC), currently nobody has really tested them though. If you do look at them and are able to log your findings on the testing sheet that would be much appreciated. There are tabs for the Karaoke discs on tabs to the far right:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FZLnEOovdDEiX_JmbGvESgzCks_el1L4twahspjt8y8/edit?gid=2088473781#gid=2088473781
Just request edit access and I can give you that

Google Docs
MiSTer CD-i Testing
opal mural
#

so the "dirty disc" problem is not linked to the NAS?

gray badge
#

no

shy fossil
eager pier
unborn grove
valid cairn
#

You can't just test them in silence though.

#

You have to sing

#

Otherwise doesn't count

spring gate
#

Incidentally, in addition to 2 Unlimited enhanced music CD, there were only two others that require DVC:
Tangerine Dream - Tyranny of Beauty - A Multimedia Presentation (Italy) (En,It)
Antonio Vega - Oceano del Sol (Spain)

So may be worth a look for anyone digging into these.

quasi viper
spring gate
#

Well there is an assumption they all work, and they should do, but I don't think anyone has done any real testing. Would be good for someone interested in there to do a bit of testing.

quasi viper
#

I ran through around 80 of them. The BMB series (150 discs) and the CDI karaoke series (165 discs) all use the exact same base program/engine.

spring gate
#

Ah, a shame you didn't log your findings on the sheet, but good to know you looked at a lot of them

quasi viper
#

there;s a bunch of european karaoke discs as well. they all use a similar setup as well. There's not a lot of interesting tech stuff behinf it

#

There's not that much to log anyway. They don't use a hw mpeg decoder.

unborn grove
#

Thank you fierman Those karaoke discs are so interesting Is there a list of all of these Karaoke discs?

#

But I guess the video is MPEG1?

quasi viper
#

There is no video. They all have still images in a slideshow, and text overlayed.

unborn grove
#

What?! OMG

quasi viper
#

that's karaoke 1990s for you šŸ™‚

#

sorry for lame sorting

unborn grove
#

Thank you

#

Wow I didnā€™t even release

#

Itā€™s not MPEG1 video

#

Thatā€™s too bad

#

I wonder what the audio format on these discs is

quasi viper
#

mpeg-1 i assume

unborn grove
quasi viper
eager pier
#

That rc0 is the latest expiremental version with DVC support right?

eager pier
#

Has anyone tried Brain Dead 13? I can't get it to work. I just get a black screen, not even the Philips logo shows up on either the DVC or non-DVC cores.

#

Also, are the "vmpega.rom" and "xmpegx.rom" BIOS files needed for the DVC, or does it just need the three boot roms even for DVC?

golden axle
#

I believe its just the three boot roms

#

Think of those is the DVC bios rom. Wanna say update all downloaded it before the core even supported it

eager pier
#

update_all didn't download those two, I had them in there, but it seems they might not be needed?

#

I tried removing all the bios roms and running update_all again, and it only downloaded the three boot roms, but DVC games still worked

#

.... except for Brain Dead 13 which I have never managed to get to boot

spring gate
#

The BIOS DB (enabled from update all menu) has grabbed all the BIOS files needed for awhile, including DVC one

golden axle
#

Just got home and loaded up brain dead, nothing but a black screen for me so it's safe to say it doesn't boot

eager pier
golden axle
eager pier
#

I thought it was just the three regions of the console

eager pier
golden axle
#

I'm running the redump set too, likely just an odd case. I watched half of coneheads the other night on the core until the second disc and it started having issues there where you can't open the menu to pause and unpause to sync the audio.

#

Software emulators i believe are in worse shape than this core. This is bleeding edge

spring gate
#

The boot files aren't for regions, that third one is for the DVC

eager pier
undone nimbus
#

i can easily imagine the falconhoof cd i game

spring gate
#

Kill jester.

undone nimbus
#

you move the paddle cursor over letters on an onscreen keyboard to type that command, then it loads and the little fmv plays

spring gate
#

Bring yer team.

deft talon
#

Gonna put some time into this barbarity of a game !

IMG_4268.jpg
undone nimbus
#

the exit button is a scroll but the other buttons are stone slabs

#

is it because a scroll is made of parchment, which symbolizes finitude and mortality due to its fragile nature, whilst stone is permanent?

deft talon
#

Nothing is permanent.. itā€™s just a way for the developers to highlight the duality of the world

eager pier
#

Or maybe the devs realized too late they forgot to place an exit button in that UI and just slapped something on there šŸ™‚

coarse mirage
#

something about seeing this makes me smile more than it should

image.png
stiff flare
cerulean hornet
#

Anybody had issues getting the cdi core to display properly on CRT? I hadnā€™t really messed with the core at all but when i opened it up the display was all out of whack. I saw Region was set to PAL in the menu so figured that was my problem but nothing happened when i changed it to NTSC šŸ˜”

glacial herald
cerulean hornet
deft talon
deft talon
cerulean hornet
#

also before I start trying to load up games and stuff - any other weirdness i should know about to get things to work? I have all my games in .chd format, I saw there's a older pinned post about how to load the bios files does that still apply or is that stuff automatically grabbed from updateall now

strange crater
spring gate
#

Sounds good, be good to keep DVC and non DVC on separate tabs. Do you have numbers on how many DVC Vs non DVC titles there are for the main disc types (i.e. Games, Edutainment)

eager pier
young grotto
#

we're never realistically going to be able to test even 1% of vcds is that even worth tracking?

spring gate
#

Yeah, it avoids duplication of testing and as the list grows provides a good overview of what has been checked and any issues found

#

Someone posting here "I checked Cliffhanger and is crashed after twenty minutes" or "Basic Instinct played fine" is information that will be lost in the chat within the hour

tranquil leaf
#

I have the french Video-CD from redum "un indien dans la ville" kinda working. Audio or sound freeze regularly but pausing/unpausing or FF fixes the problem.

#

Pete Townshend Live (USA) also from redump seems to works with the same symptoms

spring gate
#

It sounds like at this stage the issues are going to be pretty much universal, as the discs are presumably, mostly, in the same format

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Not sure if Slamy has specifically looked at VCDs since the DVC WIP core dropped, maybe we will get a little text update for CDi Friday šŸ™‚

tranquil leaf
#

Yeah, i reported these two as it looks some kind of buffer or desynchronization issue... Maybe (but maybe not) some low hanging fruit

terse flare
# spring gate Not sure if Slamy has specifically looked at VCDs since the DVC WIP core dropped...

Alright alrightderpsmile , to celebrate CD-Friday, an update in form of text. I'm well aware of this sync issue and this something I'm fixing for the next release. It is not really low hanging, but I think it can be tested rather well with some simulation. What I have in mind, is a cache which is prefilled during the seeking time. The CDi has plenty of that, as the laser seek costs about 200ms on my real machine. The size of that cache? I don't know yet. I'm currently going for 16kB which is enough to hold 13 sectors. I'm planning to observe the FIFO level using SignalTap on the real machine when doing screenshots to check how large it must be. This shall not only fix the Hotel Mario music issue someone has mentioned but also the issues with data starvation during MPEG playback.

#

The next release will also fix the Burger King issue with the multiple MPEG streams and the audio disappearing during "2 Unlimited ā€“ Beyond Limits". Sadly the last title also has other issues with a weird red screen.

#

Right now, white book related issues concerning pixel aspect ratio are not yet fixed and I still don't understand the hangup during the space ace intro.

spring gate
#

Thanks for the update Slamy, sounds like you are cooking. šŸ™‚

tranquil leaf
#

cooking with gas

spring gate
#

All issues seem to be core side rather than needing anything done to Main?

terse flare
#

Assuming it is working of course. šŸ˜„ I'm still simulating to rule out any issues. There are so many edge cases that I make sure to have catched. Like, when the CDIC seeks, the cache must be invalidated and reading needs to begin from the start.

wintry dust
#

at least movies are mostly sequential data šŸ˜…

terse flare
young grotto
#

thanks for the update as always!

strange crater
# spring gate Sounds good, be good to keep DVC and non DVC on separate tabs. Do you have numb...

Yep - I catalogued most of them when I did the initial sort. Itā€™s a smaller quantity, but a lot of the DVC games are heavy hitters for the platform.

One Iā€™m really looking forward to trying out on the core is Cyber Soldier Sharaku - I havenā€™t gotten to test it yet, but itā€™s a recently found early game by the team who would eventually found Studio Mangosteen (best known for Putlestory and Pantos Story, alongside a number of intricately detailed animations set in the same universe).

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Total is about 475 discs between the different categories, about 140 of which are games.

spring gate
#

Nice, that's very manageable to test

valid onyx
#

(this is about Cyber Soldier)

#

So maybe I didnt get to a part that required the vcd

strange crater
#

Interesting - you will encounter visual glitches on it outside of NTSC mode due to the way certain Japanese titles interact with the hardware. Thatā€™s common with a lot of Japanese software by JIM.

I hadnā€™t tested it before now due to it being previously lost, though - it looks like youā€™re right. Iā€™d assumed that intro video was MPEG, but everything seems to run correctly on the stock hardware.

eager pier
#

From my expirence if a game uses the VCD it will not let you play it at all, generally giving an error message that the VCD was not found on boot

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Mutant Rampage does that despite only using it for skippable cutscenes and the main gameplay not using it

valid onyx
strange crater
#

It was bought and dumped by another collector; a user from the Lost Media Wiki. Another copy showed up for sale on Whatnot, and they bought it.

eager pier
#

What was? Cyber Soldier?

tranquil leaf
strange crater
#

In the end, I think it cost them all of $2 plus shipping, according to the listing they posted - not bad at all considering some people have been searching for that one for years, and itā€™s one of only two copies known to exist.

#

I added an entry for it to the No-DVC Games sheet for Asia.

Not super English-friendly, with a lot of spoken Japanese dialogue, but has some great art & animation (good enough for myself and multiple other sources I looked at to think it was a MPEG title from the intro).

rugged panther
# terse flare This game design has aged horribly. It is a quick time event like from the moder...

It aged horribly back in the day. I don't know why some people have nostalgia for it. I remember seeing Dragon's Lair and thinking "wow, it's a cartoon you can play!" but it cost $1 back then which was expensive for an arcade game. I begged my parents and finally they let me play it.

I stuck $1 in, the screen flashed, I pushed a button, I died. "What the hell?" I thought to myself, then it happened again. It flashed, I pressed something, I died. After a few times, my dollar was gone. I was really pissed.

What a horrible game

quasi estuaryBOT
#

ā€Ž šŸŽ©

šŸ§æšŸ‘„šŸ§æ pissfingersāœØ
ā€Ž šŸ«“

rugged panther
strange crater
# rugged panther It aged horribly back in the day. I don't know why some people have nostalgia f...

Thatā€™s one of those things in the re-releases thatā€™s a vast improvement over the original 1983 arcade game - because the original hardware had no frame buffer & had to seek to the correct position on the disc, the original board would drop video whenever you made a wrong move.

Even people who own original arcade cabinets often donā€™t know that, as upgraded hardware revisions & solid-state LD replacements like Dexter fixed that bug.

rugged panther
#

It's still an awful game design IMO lol

#

At least it doesn't cost $1 per play now

radiant minnow
#

I disagree! I had a lot of run with Dragon's Lair in Amiga, MegaCD, DOS, Hypseus-Singe/MAME and now CD-i versions šŸ™‚
It looks so incredible! Playability is certainly limited, but it's fun to play and look/hear. It's a very familiar game to me (I've had a lot of the original versions since the 90s at home) and I love each room and situation because I know them so damn well

rugged panther
#

I think that's the problem I have no clue what to do lol

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It's very frustrating

radiant minnow
#

There are online guides, but note that the CD-i version has some variations on the correct movements

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Using guides in that game is perfectly allowed šŸ˜„

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Once you master it, it becomes a nice 80's animation film and familiar castle sometimes you wanna go where every body knows your name šŸ˜›

rugged panther
#

I imagine a world where we can watch cartoons and not be forced to do QTE's to see what happens

golden axle
#

I wish every cartoon had QTE's

west pagoda
#

Yeah, just imagine what horrors could have been if you failed a qte in the ā€œRats of NIMHā€

strange crater
#

Iā€™ve heard these games described as ā€œjoystick DDRā€ before, and I somewhat lovingly agree. Theyā€™re based on timing and memorization, memorizing the different movement patterns of each room to progress.

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I will say, however, thatā€™s one of many reasons why I donā€™t think the CD-i version of Dragonā€™s Lair is a great port. It not only changes the patterns for several areas (which were often originally choreographed with light flashes in the environment on the gameplay display, hinting where you should move to), it also dramatically reduces the window to input game commands on controllers which already arenā€™t designed with precise timing in mind.

abstract oyster
#

Thanks to this core I discovered Thunder in Paradise šŸ˜‚

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90 vibes

eager pier
#

You mess with them, you're messing with your lives

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..... that's literally all I know abotu that show, I remember seeing the intro all the time as a kid, don't think I ever watched it

umbral blade
radiant minnow
eager pier
#

Clearly the solution is to port a Dragon's Lair arcade core to Mister, the CHD is only like, 11 gigs CDI

strange crater
#

Honestly, I think Dragon's Lair is a good proof-of-concept for more complex LaserDisc hardware on the MiSTer (ie. LaserActive, Halcyon, etc.).

#

Once we have a working base for LaserDisc player simulation, it's probably one of the most straightforward systems to implement (though it would require making some decisions on how to handle the scoreboard).

terse flare
sinful hornet
#

Is it the CD-izi Authoring Tool?

terse flare
# sinful hornet Is it the CD-izi Authoring Tool?

That is a valid question. I had to look it up. It seems this project was never established. It is mentioned on the CD-i discord here #797170589604511754 message the last time. The question is answered here #797170589604511754 message . The tools I was thinking about is a collection based on the original DOS tools.
https://github.com/TwBurn/cdi-sdk TwBurn is probably the only active Homebrew developer for the CD-i. This repo contains an archaic C compiler (Win32 executable), some documentation and also the DOS tools for mastering discs.
According to the documentation, the original developing machines were Sun machines and there was also a SCSI CD drive emulator attached to them. The DOS tools are probably for budget production.

terse flare
#

I'm not sure if it is the right time to make an experimental release. There are not many changes in form of features. But maybe the sum of them is large enough. It is more about stability than new features:

AD7528: Fix of signed integer math
 - Fixes base case audio mixing (was audible as very distorted audio)
CDIC: Added CD sector cache
 - Ensures a consistent stream of CD data from HPS, even when MiSTer Main stumbles once. (Currently 6 sectors in size)
 - This will still not allow screenshots being performed, as MiSTer Main will hang for a second.
FMV: Fix DDR stall after frame invalidation or reset
 - DVC core can now be reset and still functions (at least I hope)
FMA: Allow underflow of MPEG audio stream
 - I don't like this change yet. Sometimes, the MPEG Audio stream is getting dangerously low. More analysis needed.
 - It is required for VideoCDs I've authored using TMPGEnc and vcdxbuild
VMPEG: Added Stream filter
 - Fixes audio playback of "Burger King - CD-i Training - November, 1997 (USA)"
FMV: Added validity state to frame player
 - Only show data that was committed by the decoder. Avoids scrambled graphics before playback starts.
VMPEG: Avoid detection of PES headers during PES data
 - Fixes audio during intro of "2 Unlimited ā€“ Beyond Limits"
šŸ“Ž CDi_dvc_rc1.rbf
#

There are still open issues I'm aware of: Top Gun causes weird problems. At some point, the software decides to pause the video. This causes green blocks to appear but playback continues. The pause command to the FMV is not yet supported. I still need to reverse engineer how that works.
Also, the end of the stream is still not detected. I assume there is a correlation somewhere.

#

It should be possible to explore "2 Unlimited ā€“ Beyond Limits" now. I actually like the music.

unreal sparrow
#

Thank you Slamy šŸ™‚

valid onyx
#

owww cdimonday!!!

terse flare
# valid onyx owww cdimonday!!!

I hope it is ok for you, if I post this on Monday.flushedshy I do realize that CD-Friday is holy. But at the weekends I have more time to tinker. And why should it sit there for a week...?

young grotto
#

cd-friday is a state of mind really

valid onyx
#

And not sure what that Doom is, let's fire up the mister!

terse flare
# valid onyx And not sure what that Doom is, let's fire up the mister!

Speaking of firing up the MiSTer. For months I've seen one nasty glitch I'm unable to catch, because it is occurring rarely and only when I'm not trying to analyze it. Sometimes the first try to boot a disc is failing and the CD-i is reset. I've never read about this in this thread so I'm not sure if I'm the only one seeing that.

#

This is nothing related to the experimental DVC core. All cores that I've provided for a year now have this. And it confuses me because I'm not sure if this is caused by Main or the the FPGA logic. I call it a Heisenbug

gray badge
#

but yes, I've seen it, and I also have no idea what causes it

#

I chalked it up to my disks being on a NAS and there being some sort of hiccup at just the right time

valid onyx
wintry dust
#

I would be wary of correlating the saturn thing with this

#

Saturn has a lot of internal state that doesn't get reset when discs are changed

gray badge
wintry dust
#

it's the same deal with ST-V and it sometimes just randomly failing to load a game until you reboot

valid onyx
terse flare
#

Ok, so I conclude that this is indeed a systematic problem, shared by users. We just don't get the nature of it yet. At least I don't understand it. Still, it seems to only affect the first read. Afterwards the software seems to run normally... I need a way to reproduce it more consistently...

valid onyx
#

I think also I now can see the cursor in the 7th guest, which I thought I didn't see last time I tried

terse flare
valid onyx
#

On a quick inspection, it seems like the core is a lot more stable, sound wise! I'm watching/playing/experiencing 'De zaak van sam' (english subs available), and the sound is not cutting out anymore!

#

Core didn't fix the awful acting though.

#

It's interesting how the subtitles are 'optional' - they seem to just them off from the video, in which they are embedded šŸ™‚

#

just chopped off the bottom part of the vid šŸ™‚

west pagoda
#

MonDVC?

tranquil leaf
#

Yep... Looks like the problem i reported on some VideoCDs are fixed now. CDi core is now my favorite VideoCD player. Even if compatibility is still not perfect, it's so easy to use and enjoyable on a CRT !

glacial herald
#

Nice that the files are small too, compared to a DVD. This is great!

eager pier
glacial herald
coarse mirage
#

ā¤ļø

valid onyx
whole thicket
#

Not even mad

eager pier
#

The sound didn't work for you?

golden axle
#

Watched the other half of Coneheads on cd 2 on today's core and there wasn't any issues other than it resetting if you press any button on the controller instead of bringing up the UI like the first disc, I'm not sure if this is intended behavior

spring gate
#

Slamy mentioned pause wasn't implemented so maybe that?

golden axle
#

Maybe it's connected to that in some way but the first disc pauses fine and brings up the UI

#

I guess second disc did bring up the dirty disc message after the credits were over too so there's that as well

spring gate
#

Hmm, that's odd then

#

You would expect both discs to work the same

golden axle
#

You would think so

#

I put on "golf my way" disc 1 and I haven't really been paying attention to it but it did freeze on a frame but the audio is still working

#

Attempted to screenshot it and got the dirty disc message immediately

#

but that's to be expected anyways according to the notes

#

Screenshot worked but got the dirty message error

20251007_013702-screen.png
spring gate
#

Have added DVC core to WIP DB, will try keep on top of the new builds

glacial herald
#

If I get a freeze pressing the fast forward button seems to get the gears moving again

spring gate
#

How is the audio on VCDs now?

#

Thinking out loud, it might now be very easy to evaluate the audio having some MDFourier style sound test encoded as a VCD and compare recording from the core to being played on actual hardware

#

I wonder if such a recording exists...

stiff flare
#

@terse flare Weirdly the multimedia disc ā€œImagination in Motionā€ has the video freeze a few seconds into any selection option but the music keeps going.

spring gate
#

Is that a disc that needs DVC?

stiff flare
river idol
# terse flare The offset calculations might still be wrong. And there is one important feature...

This offset issue, is it only for DVC? I have a non-DVC title in which they overlay low-color bitmaps onto a high-color (YUV?) background, and the y-offset of the bitmaps is misaligned and moves around during the animation. I checked a video on Youtube and the background and overlay animation are properly aligned on real hardware. Could this be the same or related issue? It happens in the intro animation, so it's an easy repro case if you're looking for one.

20251006_234457-screen.png 20251006_234306-screen.png 20251006_234244-screen.png
tranquil leaf
#

It should be possible to explore "2 Unlimited ā€“ Beyond Limits" now. I actually like the music.

#

Which one it is ? I run redump (Europe) version both bin/cue and chd and i get direct "your cd is dirty" message

whole thicket
eager pier
#

It worked for me

solid quest
stiff flare
coarse mirage
#

robby is a true artist blobfoxheart

nimble epoch
#

Uncover featuring Tatjana has ingame graphics now (black picture when you complete the level), Litil Divil audio fixed, The last bounty hunter can be played now but has a delay when shooting.

terse flare
terse flare
strange crater
#

Europe DVC Games, Europe Regional DVC Games, & US DVC Games sections are up in the testing sheet. Iā€™ll start working on the remaining sections later tonight.

radiant minnow
river idol
shy stump
#

The CD-i intro audio on the DVC core is really blown out for some reason

terse flare
terse flare
shy stump
#

Oh I did not see that update, thank you

vernal kiln
#

Slamy, you sir, are a genius. Thank you so much for this. Wow, this is beyond impressive. I'm from the software side and I have been deep into FPGA for a while now, and I just had to come on here and give huge kudos where it's due. Again, well done and thank you! I'm following this thread for any updates.

idle trench
#

Just dropped in to tell you guys that VCDs are still getting released in Asia to this day. According to Yes Asia there are around 18000 Video CD releases in the Asian regions. Movies like The Descent, Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2, Godzilla 2000 or Inglorious Bastards all got an official release on VCD in Asian regions. Does anybody know if all Asian VCD releases are dumped šŸ˜› ? These releases should play on the CD-i Mister core as well right ?

shy stump
#

Are they still being officially released or are they just bootlegs?

#

I know they were releasing VCDs in Asia up to the mid-2010s

strange crater
#

I donā€™t think mainstream Hollywood releases are still being distributed on VCD - I think the last batch of those were released by Warner Bros. Pictures around 2015-2016, and after that it was mostly quietly discontinued by the studios. (San Andreas being one of the notable last releases.)

#

The last major batch of Chinese-language regional releases appear to have hit YesAsia around 2021, with some sporadic releases in 2022 and a single release in 2024. While there may be more that arenā€™t on the site, the format does appear to have quietly died off in its home market over the last few years.

young grotto
#

i'll probably try and figure out a powershell script to convert modern mkv/h264 type stuff to vcd bin/cue at some point - if anyones interested

glacial herald
#

Would the size of a created VCD matter since a bunch of movies are split between 2 discs? Be nice to just have the whole thing on one file if we can make our own.

maiden dove
#

hey slammy congratulations on perfecting the cdi core!!! https://youtu.be/49R-z8ulHO0

YouTube
Video Game Esoterica
CD-i Core Perfected! MiSTer FPGA Makes Dreams Come True

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL : http://www.patreon.com/VideoGameEsoterica

Itā€™s MiSTer FPGA NEWS AND UPDATES time! N64 FPGA core news, MiSTer FPGA Sega Saturn core news, MiSTer FPGA arcade game newsā€¦and more!

but today we are talking MiSTer FPGA CD-i core which now has partial CD-i Digital Video Cartridge support! and THUNDER IN PARADISE!

and if yo...

ā–¶ Play video
#

(sarcasm)

shy stump
#

Why does Mutant Rampage Bodyslam have such small FMV windows?

#

I just wanna know if itā€™s a thing with my setup or a core thing

idle trench
# shy stump Are they still being officially released or are they just bootlegs?

As far as I could find out these are official releases. But like @strange crater correctly pointed out the releases slowed down a lot in the last 3-4 years but then are there really no new releases in the Asian regions or is Yes Asia just not listing them anymore due to slow / poor sales ? Hard to find out / to tell really. But I'm really on the fence to buy a few of these Asian VCD releases just for the hell of it and to dump them to see if they run on the CD-i core šŸ˜› .

terse flare
terse flare
maiden dove
#

he does that for clickbait. it's annoying. real information would be a lot more respectful to the work core developers do. but this is the world we live in.

young grotto
terse flare
young grotto
#

nice

#

maybe it has a commandline i can use

strange crater
whole thicket
#

does anyone have tips for getting sound to work on vcds?

#

do i need a special build of mister or something???

#

Or am I the only one having issues???

#

Wonder if I have an out of date Mister binary somehowā€¦

#

Figured it outā€¦Disable Audio Att was enabled in Debug Options

#

Oh man, the Rick Roll is even more epic!!! šŸ™ŒšŸ˜Ž

harsh ember
#

waynes world plays great šŸ˜®

harsh ember
#

A National Parks Tour does not work though

unborn grove
#

Is there a group that ripped all the European and US Video CD/CD-i Video releases from the 90s?

#

There are so many good movies and music titles released on that format when the CD-i was still alive

shy fossil
#

all CD-i branded

#

got it with a Mpeg Saturn

river sphinx
stiff flare
jolly folio
#

@terse flare if you're around, pop into chat and say hi.
#share-media message

#

If you are free of course.

patent crest
#

This was honestly my most wanted to work as when I had my CD-i years ago, this was on heavy rotation. One of my favorite albums and of course needed the CD-i disc with it.

#

Forget if it was in full screen on my old 220, but this is great to be able to see it again

#

BTW, if someone could make a CD-i profile for the RetroTink 4K, thatā€™d be awesome. šŸ˜Ž

#

Still, thank you SO DAMN MUCH @terse flare!

merry oyster
maiden dove
#

"clearly"

merry oyster
#

Literally in "quotes" in the thumbnail.

#

No need to take it so seriously.

maiden dove
#

quotes without context mean the opposite of what your implying. and the description says the core is perfected without any quotes at all

merry oyster
#

Like I said, no need to take it so seriously. It's just a fun update video and he makes light of it throughout it.

maiden dove
#

it's not an issue of taking it too seriously. it's needlessly confusing. not everyone (hardly anyone) is following his output enough to get the joke

merry oyster
#

Nah, you're definitely taking it too seriously.

maiden dove
#

oh?

merry oyster
# maiden dove oh?

When you're specifically calling out the core developer and making a big production of it to get a response, yeah that's kind of taking it too seriously. But that's enough on that. The point has been made and no need to derail the thread anymore over it.

maiden dove
#

i forgot about this like 6 hours ago dude

patent crest
# maiden dove

Iā€™m literally loading up my microSD with mainly DVC titles. Pretty much anything that interests me. So, gonna give those a whirl this weekend. Really bad weekend for me so trying to dive into something to forget about it.

#

Like honestly, being able to play that CD-i earlier was at the right time I really needed to see it. Had some happy tears instead of sad ones.

#

I DID notice an issue though. When I tried the Burger King CD-i disc, as I got to the broiler part, the video froze but I still heard audio. Rebooted the MiSTer and set the video to NTSC (for some reason it defaults to PAL), and donā€™t know which one or both did it, but it was working flawlessly after that.

wanton agate
#

yeah its been happening

#

not sure if it happens to the vcds i make myself

patent crest
#

BTW, the core ALSO works with TOSEC (ISO+CUE) so if you REALLY love Thunder in Paradise (looking at YOU Yahel), then you can watch the episode disc as well with the new beta. Working fine so far!

IMG_6701.jpg
#

And just as I said that, the freezing issue came back, this time with an NTSC setting on a USA disc. Wondering if it just happens as random.

#

This just popped up when I went to rewind it. Maybe a clue to the freezing issues?

IMG_6702.jpg
#

Also, unlike the Burger King disc, fast forward and rewind cause the image to crash out. Black screen but can still hear audio. So it can be easily duplicated if need be

viral pine
#

Itā€™s a joke. In the first minute I said the core is not done and I am having fun with thunder in paradise jokes. Perfect is in quotation marks in the thumbnail. Stop chasing imaginary boogeymen

patent crest
#

Okay, so rebooted the MiSTer and Thunder in Paradiseā€™s episode disc freezes up at the same part. Right around two or three minutes in where we go back to the factory and you see the swimming pool.

patent crest
viral pine
patent crest
#

Oh good. Thank goodness lol

gleaming echo
#

Mr Bacon is always so passive šŸ™‚

viral pine
#

Iā€™m just awake because our puppy decided 3 am was his time to poop lol

patent crest
#

I just saw Thunder in Paradise and Iā€™m like what did I do? lol

#

Testing NFLā€™s 100 Greatest Touchdowns now

patent crest
viral pine
patent crest
#

Not only is it 25 years since I was taken from an abusive family but also a day where my late best friend who I lost earlier in the year wouldā€™ve turned 40. So trying to put my energy into testing instead. Trying to keep my mind clear.

#

Sorry if itā€™s TMI

viral pine
#

But Iā€™m going back to bed. Or gonna try haha

patent crest
#

Good luck with the Cubbies. My Yankees shit the bed so Iā€™m out of the race lol

#

Just got a freeze on the NFL 100 Touchdowns disc. I pressed the menu button to save, rebooted the core, and after a couple seconds of black screen, it resumed play but froze again a short time later

#

So seems like longer than a few minutes straight, the video freezes for now

#

At least from the few discs Iā€™ve tested

#

But when the video is working, itā€™s nice and clear. Maybe a buffering issue?

wanton agate
#

ya robocop and beverly hills cop did the same for me, but robocop got about 30 mins in, but the labyrinth played all the way through

patent crest
#

Might have to stopwatch it later. Not sure if itā€™s the disc like TiP or if itā€™s at random like this NFL disc and the Burger King one

patent crest
wanton agate
#

i was testing the first one

patent crest
#

Found a few movies like that, Bill & Ted, Shawshank Redemption, and a couple others

#

Just have the Redump set on the PC and the TOSEC disc for the TiP episode disc

wanton agate
#

ive had big buck on for hours now and it hasnt froze

#

but im not sure if thats because it is looping

golden axle
patent crest
#

Every little bit helps no matter how obscure

wanton agate
#

he needed his Malort nightcap

patent crest
bold dragon
#

The only VCDs I ever actually saw, were pretty much bootleg copies I picked up in Hong Kong. The pressings were inconsistent, and they would occasionally stall and so on. So I wouldn't put too much trust in whatever random rips were found...

patent crest
#

These are verified redump copies for the actual console

midnight jungle
#

I cannot get dragon liar to run on the mister after update all. Hotel Mario works fine. Unstable hardware Application requires DVB and extra megabyte of memory.

valid onyx
unreal sparrow
valid onyx
#

but it might be that it is not on your usb drive, if you use that?

unreal sparrow
valid onyx
patent crest
#

The bios files should download, but the core beta youā€™d have to grab here

midnight jungle
#

when you say download from here. I am complete newbie when it comes to discord. is there a download section

valid onyx
#

This post contains the latestest beta

viral pine
midnight jungle
#

Working now thank you !

patent crest
#

Gonna give the new beta a whirl after Crown Jewel. The NFL disc kept freezing and locked completely around the 30 count even after saving the position I was at and rebooting.

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The disc program counts the TDā€™s from 100 down

patent crest
#

Giving the new beta a spin now. Kinda weird going from Crown Jewel to Thunder in Paradise. Feels like going from watching WWE or WCW to this back in the day

spring gate
#

Does Thunder In Paradise really play without issues now?

patent crest
#

Nope. Freezes in same spot. Now mind you, Iā€™m talking about disc 2 (The Episode) where it is the full episode without gameplay watchable as a movie. Havenā€™t tested the game disc.

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Testing the NFL 100 Touchdowns disc now

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The core still said RC1 so not sure if it was updated and kept the name or if a newer file was supposed to be pinned and wasnā€™t.

#

Still freezes in the same spots. Not sure if the newer file was put up.

#

Wouldnā€™t the new beta be RC2?

gleaming echo
#

There was a RC0 and then RC1 dropped a few days ago

patent crest
#

Wanted to make sure I had the right one as the one I downloaded yesterday was RC1 as well

gleaming echo
#

Yeah RC1 is the latest šŸ™‚

patent crest
#

So no changes from last night to today so far then?

gleaming echo
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Nope nothing since Monday, I am sure Slamy is working on something big and we probably wont hear anything for a while

#

I would have a guess at all dirty disc errors, audio dropouts etc etc will all get fixed before we see another release

patent crest
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Oh okay. No need to run the same discs then. Gotta move on to other ones.

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Knock on wood, I had no audio dropouts yet. In fact, Iā€™ve had where the audio continued fine even when the video froze

viral pine
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But the video playback is solid and the gameplay works

stiff flare
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reminder that the pins always have the latest core pinned. if you dont use the pins I get fired marioohno

viral pine
#

We take your pension

terse flare
# patent crest So no changes from last night to today so far then?

I'm not a hero like Robert Peip, who has uploaded one N64 build nearly every day. I need some time.šŸ«  Sometimes certain slow downs occur because I'm exhausted or I still need to figure out how things work. CD-i software emulation is in bad state and I need to reverse engineer the hardware to learn how certain things work.
If there are new changes, don't worry. This channel will be the first to hear it.

bold dragon
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Only a very few machines have a decent amount of easy-to-access information, such as NES, SNES, Playstation, N64, GameBoy

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Pretty much everything else needs the secrets to be extracted, and that's the most time-consuming piece of all

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And that's especially true for the less-popular machines

viral pine
viral pine
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Trying to help someone with the pinout on an arcade board where no manual exists. Itā€™s like half guessing at shit except the magic smoke is at stake šŸ¤£

20251011_134343.jpg IMG_7537.png
terse flare
#

I'm sure silicon manufacturers design their chips with some resilience. At least I hope so.

a8tg4c.png
viral pine
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I donā€™t envy you having to do it for an entire system haha

patent crest
#

As for not being a hero, considering I was able to play a disc I havenā€™t seen in a long time on a day I really needed to see it, you kinda are a hero already to me.

terse flare
patent crest
strange crater
#

I have a feature request for Muzak/AEI CD-BGM discs which are date-locked.

Would it be possible to have an optional file in the game directory which sets a custom date/time on startup? Otherwise, you have to manually go in and change the date for each of these releases.

terse flare
# strange crater I have a feature request for Muzak/AEI CD-BGM discs which are date-locked. Wou...

The gears in my head are already turning. The time is actually part of the NvRAM image. It is just getting overwritten by the HPS. In theory it should be possible to ignore the time coming from HPS and just use the one that has been typed in once. I'm thinking about that. If you want, you can create an issue on github, so I don't forget that. But I don't know when I have time to tackle that. This will be a change in MiSTer Main and there is also another issue on github for quite some time. Someone is unhappy about the names of the save files.
Is the time of the date lock always the same?

buoyant vapor
#

The GBA core has a solid RTC implementation. It uses the real time from Linux, but when you set the time in-game, the time diff compared to the Linux time is saved and then the RTC time will be Linux time + diff.

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(I would love to see the RTC working like that on SNES and Saturn too)

buoyant vapor
rugged panther
strange crater
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The start and expiry dates are different for each release, as they were often distributed monthly.

terse flare
strange crater
# terse flare Is there a common date that satisfies them all?

No - it varies by the disc and publisher. Most of the FM1 set, for instance, had a 10-year expiry, so they will work from 2008-2010 up until 2018-2020.

Meanwhile, many of the AEI/DMX discs were locked to a single month, so it will refuse to play unless you run the disc within the date range of a month that matches the original release. (For Commuter Pop May 2000, for example, youā€™d have to play it with the date set to a day in May 2000, etc.)

patent crest
#

7th Guest seems to freeze when playing any sort of video. You can press the button to go to the next one, but itā€™ll still freeze

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Right from the Phillips logo on

terse flare
# patent crest 7th Guest Issue https://youtu.be/BN9C-TLPoCw

This issue is known but not yet fully understood. At first I've assumed a correlation to a similar freeze with the intro of Space Ace but it seems to be a different problem. Today I've discovered something though. The driver for the FMV hardware is really unhappy with the state of the registers. The videos are playing but the driver is still waiting for the video to start, even so it is running already. I assume, some of the problems are related to that. It will take some time to figure this out.
One weird thing with 7th Guest is that I could have sworn that the video that plays when you turn around and click the door has worked at some point. But maybe I've dreamed that or I've seen that on the real machine.

patent crest
#

I havenā€™t had a CD-i in about five years or so, so my memory is blank on that one. I wish I remembered that.

valid onyx
#

(aka: monday)

spring gate
#

What would be the best solution for BMG discs? Would it be the ability to set the date from the OSD? Does anyone other core do something that could potentially be ported over?

odd trout
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A magic date override file, kinda like psx cores noreset, that can live beside a disk image, and set the date on the cd-i for that disk if it's detected?

wintry dust
#

I assume the cdi has a way to configure the time

patent crest
#

Isnā€™t that what the timekeeper chip was for? The one that always goes bad?

wintry dust
#

and the core does per-disc nvram files, so just configure the time and save? the only thing it probably needs is some way to tell it not to reset the time to the mister's system time

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so probably something like optiroc suggested

vernal kiln
#

Re: CDi_20251006.rbf - Hey Slamy, I just wanted to take a moment to come over to discord and thank you personally, for the amazing job you have done on this core! I'm in software myself and what you have accomplished in FPGA is truly top tier. It's amazing seeing these games and movies from the 90's come to life! You brought me way back and I can't thank you enough for that. FYI, I got that version of the CDi core from one of my scripts, it must be in one of the repositories now. Cheers, Chris.

terse flare
vernal kiln
wintry dust
#

he cheated šŸ˜‰

vernal kiln
#

Not sure where this version came from, but one of my scripts downloaded it right into my _Console folder: CDi_20251006.rbf - looks like the same file from WIP. šŸ˜‰

vernal kiln
terse flare
wintry dust
#

instead of the pain of hdl mpeg, he opted for the pain of softcore mpeg!

terse flare
#

Something bothers me. What is release CDi_20251006 ? I don't having something released on that date.

vernal kiln
vernal kiln
terse flare
#

Is that CDi_dvc_rc1.rbf in disguise?

odd trout
#

manually renamed RC1 release? It's not from the main repo, or the wip repo.

vernal kiln
vernal kiln
gray badge
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I wonder if dandy put it in the WIP database and renamed it?

vernal kiln
#

I'm going to look more deeply into this for us. What are the unstable nightly's up to now? I think it was around 950ish when I checked last. Could it be a renamed unstable nightly? Don't know I'll look into it for us.

gray badge
spring gate
#

Yeah, doubled checked and it is CDi_dvc_rc1.rbf that goes to the Unstable folder

vernal kiln
#

Very strange indeed.

#

Here's my update order, just so you gentlemen have it:
downloader.ini is stock but with the Insert_Coin repository added
update_all.sh is the latest version.
All options for all repositories: Enabled
Distribution download order: AitorGomez Fork, Followed by

#

Followed by: Official MiSTer, then DB9
Then I will run the update_all_insertcoin

That's the latest, somehow the core might have come from one of those. I need to look at my logs.

vernal kiln
# terse flare Is that CDi_dvc_rc1.rbf in disguise?

Well, the last run of update_all.sh downloaded the correct version of the core so that's good: CDi_20250626.rbf, if I find out some concrete details where that CDi_20251006.rbf came from, I'll let you know.

vernal kiln
# terse flare Is that CDi_dvc_rc1.rbf in disguise?

Got is Slamy, mystery solved as to where it came from 100%. It came from the update_all_insertcoin script, here's the portion of the log that downloaded it:
/media/fat/_Console/MegaCD_20240408.rbf
/media/fat/_Console/Jaguar_20250724.rbf
/media/fat/_Console/GnW_20250717.rbf
/media/fat/_Console/Gameboy_20250618.rbf
/media/fat/_Console/ColecoVision_20240502.rbf
/media/fat/_Console/CDi_20251006.rbf

Here are the file details as to where it's coming from:
[funkycochise/Insert-Coin]
db_url = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/funkycochise/Insert-Coin/db/db.json.zip

terse flare
#

@shy fossil Please don't upload experimental cores with only these dates. It might confuse the end user.

vernal kiln
#

Here's the .zip, found it looking into it with Visual Studio - it's right here, and downloaded by :
https://github.com/funkycochise/Insert-Coin/blob/main/Scripts/%23insertcoin/update/update_console.sh

Then it follows up to download this exact file, Slamy:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/funkycochise/Insert-Coin_Res/main/CDi.zip

It's in the .zip.

GitHub
Insert-Coin/Scripts/#insertcoin/update/update_console.sh at main Ā·...

Contribute to funkycochise/Insert-Coin development by creating an account on GitHub.

#

There, so we aren't going nuts after all!

#

Looks like he renamed your WIP file to that new file name, the script then deletes: 626, and installs CDi_20251006.rbf in it's place, so any user that runs that, this will be the behavior.

vernal kiln
terse flare
vernal kiln
gray badge
#

They are also in the discord if itā€™s easier to ping them

wintry dust
#

stares

gentle ember
#

sorry to have to ask but I am trying to use the experimental DVC core and I keep getting the error that I do not have a DVC installed. What am I mising here for use?

odd trout
gentle ember
shy fossil
vernal kiln
shy fossil
#

maintaining things on the long run is the most challenging.
Any help is welcomed. By the way, any support to me will be given to core developers afterward.

terse flare
#

@strange crater I had an idea right now while showering. It flushed it into my mindderpsmile . The N64 core uses this database text file thing with settings for every rom. I don't know how N64 software emulators do it, I expect they have a similar thing. Now my suggestion: The CD-i core has a file like that too. And it contains a date and whether it should be launched as PAL or NTSC. This way, we avoid having a file in every folder and that becomes a file that can be shared between users and maybe even can be delivered by the update process.

#

My next question would be, how other emulators have solved it. I suspect cdiemu and MAME have the same problem and maybe If you like my suggestion about this file, there can be made an agreement with the other developers to have the same format. That would be more efficient.

vernal kiln
# terse flare <@502870743244079111> I had an idea right now while showering. It flushed it int...

Slamy I might be able to help a little with this, it does indeed have a centralised configuration file where it provides setup, much like other HLE emulators do on the PC side.
The file is called: N64-database.txt
The file is located on everyone's MiSTer in the games/N64 folder.
It's a good solve for the issues the dev was having to ensure a higher level of compat. That file gets delivered to everyone's MiSTer automatically and is necessary to provide full compat with the N64 library. Features like ensuring NTSC/PAL are in there as well.

wintry dust
#

I guess I'm still confused as to why you can't just set the time in the cdi operating system and save that with nvram?

patent crest
wintry dust
#

you gotta give people the real experience!

spring gate
#

The other issue there is people who download a DMG disc image have no idea what dates they are set to run unless that info is also provided. Having a file with all these dates set would make this a lot less painful. It could also be used for Karaoke CDs to default them to NTSC when they display garbled in PAL. I think the DB solution is probably the winner here. Potentially has other uses for discs that need a specific setting.

valid onyx
#

Also, @terse flare IDK if there is a way to get around the issue that some people might have CHD and others might have bin/cues - is there a way to tell for you which CD it is, regardless of how it happens to be stored on disk?

shy fossil
#

does anybody how I can RIP a physical VCD disc to an image file ?

indigo tartan
shy fossil
#

I'll try it out

terse flare
#

I do realize that this is slightly off topic but I have a personal vendetta with ChatGPT due to my work. At the company I work, there was an occurence of a person creating a datasheet of a new microchip we were working with, using ChatGPT. This resulted into many wasted hours because of hallucinated registers. In my opinion AI generated content must be labeled as such.
We also had an issue on Forum64, where a user had an issue about a fake SD card slot of the MiSTer. This slot never existed. Luckily the user has labeled the info as such, so we knew where that came from.

wintry dust
#

the invisible 3rd sdcard slot

terse flare
# valid onyx Also, <@328601793565294592> IDK if there is a way to get around the issue that s...

I'm not yet sure how this can be solved. Every CD-i title should have an application name on the disc. But I'm not sure whether this entry is unique for every produced title. It might even be possible to hash certain sectors. Whether the disc is stored as CHD or CUE/BIN doesn't matter in that case. The difference is abstracted away in software. Before a solution like this is chosen, we need to check at first, whether it actually makes sense to create a database like this.

spring gate
#

So first step presumably to make a file, like the N64 one, with all the Muzak CDs entered and their dates. Elphive, do you have these already in a file?

wintry dust
#

well no the first step is to see if you can even identify discs

spring gate
#

Yeah, posted that before Slamy's response popped up

#

Hopefully there is a way to ID these discs

wintry dust
#

how many of these are there, even?

terse flare
spring gate
#

It's a lot, hundreds of them, Elphive was tracking them down so he will have a better answer of what is all dumped

valid onyx
spring gate
#

If you search on archive for "CD-BGM" you will find a load of them

wintry dust
#

you people are convincing slamy to put effort into muzak discs, lol

#

let me boot up the core to listen to the music I used to hear at Red Robin while eating a hamburger

terse flare
spring gate
#

Is down there with CD+G and keyboard support

#

Would be good to know if it is theoretically possible though, without taking up a lot of time or implementing anything. Would mean others can curate the discs out there and work on a file with dates if it even is

terse flare
gray badge
cosmic aurora
#

Sounded very generative AI to me as well. Users posting idiotic responses from AI chats are infecting multiple forums that I use regularly and it's a pain.

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(and you would not believe the AI garbage some of our students have submitted as "their" work in the past year. They are always surprised when we call them out)

bold dragon
#

That would be because they don't know how to tell the difference

eager pier
#

I think most roms like SNES and N64 have a CRC in the header anyway

terse flare
eager pier
#

Would these headers all be unique for these disks though?

terse flare
spring gate
#

They presumably have something unique to the format if there there is a date lock on the discs, but whether it is unique or not is another question

eager pier
#

I think your suggestion that we can have some crack auto-applied if it's the same for every disk to be easier to handle than making a huge database. The N64 core applies patches to a handful of problematic games. If the crack is the same for every disk it could even be a toggle in the UI

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Though I guess we would still need a way to tell if the disk needs the crack

wintry dust
#

cracking them feels like something more useful beyond mister too

eager pier
#

Better than busting out the code wheel for the AO486 core XD

strange crater
#

I do like the idea of patching the discs. The players themselves do differ between manufacturers, though (AEI & Muzak being the main ones), which does make this approach a bit challenging.

One of the issues with using a detection table of known disc images is that the CD-BGM set is very incomplete. While they likely share the same player code as currently archived discs, there are likely over a thousand discs in this standard that are undumped^. As such, any new discs that become found would require being manually added to the patch list (and, at that point, itā€™s probably easier just setting a custom date/time in a detection table rather than creating a unique patch for each individual release).

Now, as @eager pier mentioned, that would be different if the headers for CD-BGM are found to be either the same, or predictable in some meaningful way we can work from. A general patch could then be applied to the detected players, reducing the amount of unique configurations needed.

(^One of the more notable examples of currently unarchived CD-BGM discs are the GAP CD-BGM collection by Muzak, which currently only exists as a partial collection of lossy extractions from the original XA files - it really sucks those images arenā€™t around, given just how great some of those sets aged. My favorite has to be September 1999, which I strongly recommend seeking out if youā€™re a fan of 90ā€™s jungle.)

spring gate
#

Is there any difference in CD image/PCM playback between the latest unstable nightlies (non DVC) and the DVC WIP rbf?

spring gate
#

A more obscure question, anyone know if any Photo CDs use audio that isn't red book?