Drakan patch - if your game crashes on GeForce

Shelim · Post by **Shelim** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:48 pm

I really hates to have two replies in row, but you didn't answer my post...

I'm currently learning assembly for serious (as if I did not earlier

) and, as I believe in "Learning by doing" I'm open to suggestions on enhancements to Drakan. If it won't be too time consuming, I promise that I will at least try to do whethever you want

I am also owner licence of C4 game engine (http://www.terathon.com/c4engine/index.php) and I'm pretty good in C++ programming (about 2 years of experience), so in some time I may be able to create 3D game with dragon (or dragon rider) as main protagonist. But it won't happen quick: I'm currently working on "Lost Dream", 3D Science-Fiction TBS (Turn-Based Strategy) and I want to finish it as indy-project (and find publisher) before I start my dragon game

Ah, and there is one more problem - starting at 30 September I begin my first academic year and I honestly doesn't know how much time it will consume.
For now we don't have any website for Lost Dream, but there are some ref-sheets and renders:

Full version: http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8186/fighterqo4.jpg

Full version: http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/1549/frigatedg1.jpg

Full version: http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/471/fighter1xu5.png

Full version: http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1924/frigate2qa1.jpg

Full version: http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/7382/menu7pj8.jpg

AXE · Post by **AXE** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:45 am

Excellent work! Sad to say but your academia is going to consume you and your project. We have seen it occur a few times. Wish you best of luck with all your endeavours, and if you do make it, we will all play it! hehe

Shelim · Post by **Shelim** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:23 pm

Okay, I gained access to some new hardware and I'm going to try to fix Alwarren bug (if it happen to occur on these machines). Could someone send me saved game state just before Alwarren crash?

mail:
shelim [at] o2 [dot] pl

Shelim · Post by **Shelim** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:22 pm

Okay, I recived mail with saved state and been able to recreate problem.
And, most important, I was able to find solution. Now I'm testing it and propably tomorrow (standard GMT time) it will be released to public.

Arokhs Twin · Post by **Arokhs Twin** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:09 am

Thanks for your hard work for the Drakan community. Ill be away for a week so I will put it on the site when it's done. Ill also put the 445b patch on as well so others can find it easilly.

Outlaw Wyvern · Post by **Outlaw Wyvern** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:45 pm

Shelim, your progress is unbelievable.
You're really getting things accomplished.

That's been one of the game's biggest thorns.
Wow....

Outlaw Wyvern · Post by **Outlaw Wyvern** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 4:14 am

Queen Shilla bug next, please!!!

Shelim · Post by **Shelim** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:25 am

This will be much more difficult, though.
On both previous problems we had game crash, so I could find the exact code line where game hangs-up. Now I must check much more code to find that one which are connected with problem. And it can be level design problem as well.

But enough of this complaining. Send me saved game state just before Queen Shilla problem (well, send me both saved states - that one which lead to bug and that which not - as I correctly recall, you can workaround this bug) and I'll try to do my best

Outlaw Wyvern · Post by **Outlaw Wyvern** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:59 pm

Shelim, I don't have a save file for the Queen Shilla bug.
I've just heard that it's one of the major glitches, and a few days ago someone posted that they were having that problem again.
If I find one for download as a workaround, I'll send you that.

Eris · Post by **Eris** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 4:06 pm

I've tried the both ways to get to Shilla but none of them brought to bug. Hehe. Though I've made a couple of saves before Shilla's cutscene and one save before the cutscene in which they're taking Delon to the rift. If someone wants to try the saves and see if the bug happens, tell me, I'll send them to you.

Shelim · Post by **Shelim** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:25 pm

Okay, since there were no replies on Queen Shilla bug, I'm going to look closer to Drakan2: TAG. There is chance, although very, very weak that I may be able to port it to PC in few years (hopefully Sony will drop it's support to this time). I don't want to break copyrights, so I'll never put to you final executables, only patch to original PS2 version of the game.
I discussed the problem today with my friends and we're optimistic: we have full source code of Playstation2 Emulator which contain a lot of useful info. We also have working Playstation2 compiler, so we can test how specific instructions compile into machine code.
First at all - Anyone have Playstation2 and bought PlayStation 2 Linux Kit? There are 5 technical books there which are nowhere else to be found (I searched eBay and others). If you happen to have this book and can send me them (I'll pay for transport) it will speed the process up a lot. I'm looking for books:

* EE Core Instruction Set Manual
* EE Core Users Manual
* EE Users Manual
* GS Users Manual
* VU Users Manual

Och - and I exclaim once again: the chance I will succeed isn't big. There are several thousands of problem that can possible happen, starting from code problems ending in international laws.
Wish me luck

Outlaw Wyvern · Post by **Outlaw Wyvern** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:24 am

You sure know how to set a fire, Shelim!
That's my favorite game. Period.

I wish you the very best of luck with this, and even though I'm not exactly computer savvy, I'll be too happy to help in any way.
Thanks for even the THOUGHT of teasing D:TAG apart for mysteries and access!

Shelim · Post by **Shelim** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:53 pm

Unfortunately I've way miscalculated size of the problem. PS2 uses more than 32 registers, each of 64 bits of memory. On x86 (standard) PC we have only 8 registers, all of them are 32 bits. Translations of assembly code are next to impossible, and manual transcribing will use far more time than I can spare in the next several years. The only promising though for future are new Intel processors, which will have more than 20 cores. It is likely that then emulation of Play Station 2 will be possible at realistic speed.

Sorry for giving you false hope.

~Shelim

Eris · Post by **Eris** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 6:01 pm

Oh, that's sad. But what about emulators from PS to PC? Have you seen how they work? Maybe you could adjust one to work with DTAG. As long as I know none of the existing emulators can do that but they do work with other less complicated games. I've heard that the main problem in the past was the slow performance of PC comparing to that of PS. Does that still remain a problem?

Shelim · Post by **Shelim** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 6:25 pm

PCSX2 can emulate Drakan2 successfully from very beginning to end (with proper settings of renderer). On my machine it has steady speed of 24 - 26 fps. Unfortunately sounds are synchronized to 50 fps and are very choppy. Nevertheless if you have dual core processor and GeForce 8+ you could give it a try.