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Assembler games member has Sonic xtreme POV stuff

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Spinksy, Oct 21, 2014.

  1. Spinksy

    Spinksy

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    Litterally the second thought I had upon reading about this whole thing was 'I wonder what Chris Senn will say when he finds out' lol

    Nice to see he's cool and he even admires and fully respects all your hard work on AXSX.

    Good stuff!

    EDIT:

    It's also awesome to read how closely your AXSX levels match the exact proportions of the actual levels - that is a testoment to your work! :-)
     
  2. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    I mentioned to JR last night that Senn was a bang up guy and wondered how he'd feel about all this. My opinion on Chris Senn remains high, what a wonderful ambassador to the Sonic Community he's been.
     
  3. 360

    360

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    Just read this. Thanks for linking us to that. So Chris Senn feels positive about this and supports us? That's awesome. Beyond awesome in fact since I was somewhat worried that he may have put up some resistance. I know that seems unlikely given he generally seems like an awesome and supportive guy but still it's great to read such positive and supportive comments from someone so profoundly important.

    So I guess now we wait for Andrew, CoolJerk and JR to co-operate, collaborate and eventually release the results of their findings. Exciting times.
     
  4. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    Okay guys ! Sega Saturn build is up and running ! The level seems to quickly fly around the screen with Sonic, Rings and a Badniks!
    The screen was taken in SSF emulator. However when we attempted to run it on Saturn hardware it did not seem to make it past the initial red screen. JR will be debugging it when he gets his Cartdev next week to see why the game stops at that screen. (he can see if it stops for a missing file, or it crashes somewhere)
    Just in case you're wondering, there are three versions of the STI source code and two more from POV.

    So yes ! after 18 years ... yes 18 long years here it is ! Sonic xtreme for Saturn complete with fisheye ! ( although not really on Saturn lol )
    [​IMG]

    P.S. we tested it on 2 Saturn's with the same result.
     
  5. I wasn't expecting to see something so soon. This is off to a great start already!
     
  6. LordOfSquad

    LordOfSquad

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    making cool music no one gives a shit about
    Incredible stuff, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm so excited.
     
  7. This is amazing stuff! Can you actually control Sonic or just move the camera around the screen? Is the 30fps framerate consistent?
     
  8. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    No it does not look like we can control sonic at all here. the level is moving way to fast from the background to the forground , I cant figure out how to control anything.( yes other games control fine)
    Perhaps something needs to be done in code to fix the issue. So far I attempted in 3 emulators, I could not get it to boot in SSF myself Although that's where JR said the screen was taken. I can run it in Satourne and Yabause. ( as for my hardware Sega Saturn, only disk swap works, I installed a spare modchip that I have over here and can also change the regon with a switch, my burned games work fine, but Sonic xtreme wont boot with the modchip for some reason, just like SSF.
    I have no problems with SSF all games boot normally. Anyhow this is all for now.
     
  9. Even just seeing a screenshot at this stage is a promising start, and even though it's nothing new yet, it's still exciting that this will finally see the light of day.
     
  10. McAleeCh

    McAleeCh

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    Amazing stuff to wake up to - a brand-new screenshot of the genuine Sonic X-Treme! Who'd have thought it was possible?

    Looking forward to seeing what future developments bring...! = D
     
  11. AnimatedAF

    AnimatedAF

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    Wow, that was quick! Amazing progress in such a short time, and running on a Saturn emulator! :O
     
  12. Spinksy

    Spinksy

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    This is awesome!

    I'm amazed you have stuff to show already, really exciting stuff that I genuinely can't wait to see more of!!

    Keep up the great work.
     
  13. EmerlForgotten

    EmerlForgotten

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    This is amazing. How far we've come with supposedly "lost" assets of Sonic games really gives me hope for future projects the Retro community will tackle. This may be the best discovery since the Windy Hill Beta find.
     
  14. Sparks

    Sparks

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    I love how there's always a new grail to be found by this community. Amazing work! :thumbsup: Can't wait to see the real deal in motion.
     
  15. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    This is looking incredible. I wonder which level that is.

    A few months was realistic...but it's been less than two days till we've got some data. :D
     
  16. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    I told you guys this JR fellow was pretty good :)
     
  17. TheKazeblade

    TheKazeblade

    "Our Life is More than a Side-Effect" Member
    Are the missing components purely on the hardware side, or are there specific files that are missing to cause the issues you guys are running into?
     
  18. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    Actually, most of the hardware needed is either in-hand right now or on its way. The problems are almost entirely software. Prepping this source to build is difficult, and it's really in a state of mid-development. Lots of "If(0)" statements and entire sections commented out, specifically on the software renderer side of things.

    I hit up JR earlier today for clarification as to why Sonic isn't controllable in the Saturn build. When JR was going over the source with me, he mentioned that you build an NV1 object that sort of handles all the stuff for the card, and I'm guessing controller polling goes through that. I'm wondering, then, if there exists any controller polling code for the Saturn build at all.
     
  19. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    Whoo boy, I have gotten some flat-out stupid emails and messages over this stuff (mainly from other boards) so I'd like to take a moment to dispel some notions:

    we are not hording the source code. First of all, the source code is neigh useless to the vast, vast, vast majority of people. Why is it not useless in our hands? Because JR has professional experience developing for the Sega Saturn, and as a result has sega saturn development hardware. We understand the need to preserve old games - we, all 3 of us, are active in various video game preservation societies, from arcade board preservation to stuff like this. We have taken steps to ensure the source code isn't going to die on some person's hardware, we have preserved the source. But we will not distribute it. Why? Because the author of the source specifically asked us not to. Now, I get some people are thinking, "if you're already going behind backs to release this stuff in the first place, what's the harm of going against Ofer's wishes?" That is a bad sign of trust to do that. This stuff doesn't operate in a vacuum. Aside from burning bridges with Ofer Alon, who isn't really a bad person to know in general, we would be demonstrating to other people that we are not operating in good faith among developers. This could impact our potential to gain access to future prototypes. So the situation we're faced with - either release a largely useless source code to satiate a bunch of people online who really don't know the situation to begin with at the expense of our future ability to uncover prototypes... or not. The choice is obvious.

    We are not interested in "owning" a rare version of Sonic Xtreme. We don't really get any joy out of holding onto something like this. I think especially Andrew75 and I are mostly excited to be the people who are bringing this stuff out to the community, not part of some super secret club or whatever. Which is to say, what we care about most is releasing Sonic Xtreme, not gaining exclusive access to it.

    The NV1 SDK, which is being used in this project, would be of no help towards a theoretical sega saturn emulator development. This in particular is weird, I keep getting hit up from people demanding we release the NV1 SDK so that "a real sega saturn emulator can be developed." This is just a gross misunderstanding of the way this tech works. Firstly, the NV1 and Sega Saturn are entirely different beasts. JR joked with me that the most these machines share in common is that they run on electricity. Obviously, they both use quadratic primatives, but that wasn't uncommon in 1996. My Creative 3DO blaster, for example, does the same thing.Quads weren't a unique quirk of the saturn's hardware. Beyond the use of quads as a primitive, the NV1 is radically different from the Saturn. Case in point - the NV1 is a single GPU by itself. When you code for the NV1, you create an NV1 object (nvschedule or whatever) and that handles all communication to the card. It works as a single entity. The Saturn uses dual VDPs to render its graphics, with a pipeline running between them. you are, for all intent and purposes, coding for 2 graphics chips when working with the saturn. The hardware between the NV1 and Saturn is so radically different.

    Further, the NV1 SDK we have wasn't part of this leak. This SDK is freely floating around on the internet. Anybody can grab it, it's not something we're holding on to. It's been out there, in the wild, since 1996. And it's useless to Sega Saturn emulation development. And, most importantly, Sega saturn emulators already exist.

    Long short of this is, we're 3 people with day jobs, who have spent quite a bit of personal money on this without accepting donations (nor do we wish to), who hold day jobs and have personal lives. Girlfriends, wives, kids, pets, that sort of thing. Additionally, being passionate professionals, we all also have other projects and hobbies that take up our time. Without getting into JR's personal life, Andrew75 alone is working on Project AXSX (of which he's spent several grand of his own money) and I am doing stuff for Half Life 2 VR. So the work we do for this release is being done out of passion and a desire to distribute this to the greater whole because we realize this is worth doing. We're gonna lose money on this endeavor, but it's worth it to us. While accusations of greed honestly doesn't surprise me, given the nature of the internet, please realize that you likely don't have a good grasp of the situation and how much we're personally contributing to get something into everybody's hands for free.

    If nothing else, everybody owes JR an enormous debt of gratitude because his work has been extremely generous and selfless. What he's doing is pretty much the exact opposite of greed. So please - and realize I'm speaking to an audience greater than Sonic Retro here, mainly to those who are coming to this forum for news on this release in general - try to understand that this is a phenomenal amount of work being undertaken, at no cost, entirely for the benefit of stranger's he'll never even meet.
     
  20. Saidian

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    People being dicks about this is not surprising in the least, I wish Cooljerk didn't need to post messages like that. I have no goddamn clue about the technical side to all this but I know enough not to keep pestering the people taking the time to actually get this stuff into our hands.

    I for one don't want future proto discoveries ruined because some idiots (who have no idea what they're talking about) scared these collectors off