TED v2 Programming Notes

[Bonknuts]

So, if you enable write mode for ram.. that means all ram is writable? 'Cause Gate of Thunder tries to overwrite a constant in the $fffx range of bank 0 of the system card, at initial boot. The one that's used to setup the starting bank (it's either $f4 or $f5).

[elmer]

So, if you enable write mode for ram.. that means all ram is writable?

Yes, that seems to be the case.

If you want to use your own CD-access routines you can use the entire 1MB of unbanked space.

That's a pretty good amount of space for a 4th-gen console.

Doing that would limit you to the TED2, or CD Stupid Card, or my mythical 1MB-RAM card ... but you could get some nice results.

Going for the full 4MB could be impressive ... but then you'd be limited to just the TED2 ... probably "forever", since the 4MB CellularRAM chip that KRIKzz is using is already "end-of-life" AFAIK.

'Cause Gate of Thunder tries to overwrite a constant in the $fffx range of bank 0 of the system card, at initial boot. The one that's used to setup the starting bank (it's either $f4 or $f5).

It overwrites $00:$1ff5.

If you look at the source for the System Card patch, I repair the damage twice ... once in the EX_SCRSIZ call that "Gate of Thunder" makes just after overwriting that location, and again when the System Card is restarted, just-in-case someone resets the card in the exact microsecond between the write and the fix ... or if something else in "Gate of Thunder" overwrites that location.

[videogameattic]

This is awesome!  I wish I would've waited and got a 2.0 Everdrive though is there a way to patch the rom to use a file on the SD card for the extra ram to be used on the Everdrive 1.2?  Sorry if this topic has been covered.

[elmer]

Sorry, it's just not possible on the Everdrive 1.2

[videogameattic]

Oh well, looks like it's time to upgrade.  Good job on this though

[Johnpv]

I was asked to cross post this hear from the Ys IV thread.

"So I wanted to see if anyone else noticed this about Ys IV, or more specifically the dubbed version.  I have a Turboeverdrive 2.4 and normally I just leave it in and use the modded system 3.01 bios with it.  With the patched version of Ys IV though I noticed the game really doesn't like that.  If I run it with the the modded for everdrive bios I get a lot of lock ups, graphical glitches and other issues.  If I play the game without the everdrive in the system, and using just the Duo's bios, I get none of these issues.   Has anyone else run into this?  I guess I should also mention I'm playing on a PCE Duo."

[Vimtoman]

I think your not suppose to use the moddified bios on an Everdrive with a Duo as it could possibly damage it.

[elmer]

I think your not suppose to use the moddified bios on an Everdrive with a Duo as it could possibly damage it.

Nope ... exactly the opposite.

You are supposed to use the modified Super System Card image on a TED v2, and not use the original unmodified image.

I'll take a look and try to recreate the problem with Ys IV when I can find the time.

It sounds weird that it would only have problems on the translation patch and not on the original version.

[Bonknuts]

I was asked to cross post this hear from the Ys IV thread.

"So I wanted to see if anyone else noticed this about Ys IV, or more specifically the dubbed version.  I have a Turboeverdrive 2.4 and normally I just leave it in and use the modded system 3.01 bios with it.  With the patched version of Ys IV though I noticed the game really doesn't like that.  If I run it with the the modded for everdrive bios I get a lot of lock ups, graphical glitches and other issues.  If I play the game without the everdrive in the system, and using just the Duo's bios, I get none of these issues.   Has anyone else run into this?  I guess I should also mention I'm playing on a PCE Duo."

 I think there were a couple revision to that modded bios. Are you using the newest one in which elmer fixed the bus conflict/fighting issue for Duo and SCD units?

[Vimtoman]

I think your not suppose to use the moddified bios on an Everdrive with a Duo as it could possibly damage it.

Nope ... exactly the opposite.

You are supposed to use the modified Super System Card image on a TED v2, and not use the original unmodified image.

Ah that was it  :oops:

[Johnpv]

I'll take a look and try to recreate the problem with Ys IV when I can find the time.

It sounds weird that it would only have problems on the translation patch and not on the original version.

Would it help any if I could get you footage of it?  I don't know if it does cause the problem on the original version.  I have the original version but I've just been playing through the translated patched one. 

 I think there were a couple revision to that modded bios. Are you using the newest one in which elmer fixed the bus conflict/fighting issue for Duo and SCD units?

I do believe I am, but I will check and make sure when I get home from work later today. 

[mj9123456]

Elmer, did you ever find out whether or not running the BIOS on the TED v1.2 is a problem?

[elmer]

Elmer, did you ever find out whether or not running the BIOS on the TED v1.2 is a problem?

Sorry, I've still not run a test.

When I eventually do, I really I don't think that it's going to show us any reason to avoid using the System Card 3 BIOS image on a TED v1 on a DUO.

People have been doing that for a while, and as far as I can tell, nobody has reported any problems.

It may be bad in an "academic" fashion, but it doesn't seem (so far) to be bad in a "practical" fashion.

The TED v2 with its random RAM contents on startup is a very different piece of hardware.

Would it help any if I could get you footage of it?  I don't know if it does cause the problem on the original version.  I have the original version but I've just been playing through the translated patched one.

Nope, not really. Random corruption isn't useful for debugging.

Now, if you can get it to *always* do something wrong at the same point in the game, then that's totally useful information.

I played through the first couple of levels of the translation in Mednafen with various breakpoints to spot corruption and I haven't seen anything.

At this point, there's not much more that I can do without a bug report that's repeatable.

To be honest, your report sounds similar to the guy on Krikzz's forum that was having problems with the TED v2 on his SuperGrafx.

In that case, it eventually turned out that he just needed to give his cartridge connector a really, really good cleaning.

I don't know if that's the problem that you're having, but a good cleaning certainly couldn't hurt!

[mj9123456]

Elmer, did you ever find out whether or not running the BIOS on the TED v1.2 is a problem?

Sorry, I've still not run a test.

When I eventually do, I really I don't think that it's going to show us any reason to avoid using the System Card 3 BIOS image on a TED v1 on a DUO.

People have been doing that for a while, and as far as I can tell, nobody has reported any problems.

It may be bad in an "academic" fashion, but it doesn't seem (so far) to be bad in a "practical" fashion.

The TED v2 with its random RAM contents on startup is a very different piece of hardware.

Thanks for letting me know.

[Johnpv]

Nope, not really. Random corruption isn't useful for debugging.

Now, if you can get it to *always* do something wrong at the same point in the game, then that's totally useful information.

I played through the first couple of levels of the translation in Mednafen with various breakpoints to spot corruption and I haven't seen anything.

At this point, there's not much more that I can do without a bug report that's repeatable.

To be honest, your report sounds similar to the guy on Krikzz's forum that was having problems with the TED v2 on his SuperGrafx.

In that case, it eventually turned out that he just needed to give his cartridge connector a really, really good cleaning.

I don't know if that's the problem that you're having, but a good cleaning certainly couldn't hurt!

I'll definitely give the hucard connector a cleaning.   It was repeatable for the lock ups.  Like in the ice cave, if I used my TED V2 there within a few steps into one of the two caves in the snow ice area, the game would lock up.  Every single time.  Not using the Everdrive in that portion and it would work fine.