Weird AI Behaviour in Cannon Fodder on WinUAE

[jarrody2k]

Hey folk,

I was running Cannon Fodder on a A500 setup on an Athlon 2100+ under WinUAE.  When it gets to the more hectic levels, the following things happen:

1) The scrolling/movement is slow
2) The tanks don't move
3) The tanks don't shoot

When I artificially jack it up to 68020 speed:

1) The scrolling and movement is now smooth
2) The players can fire VERY rapidly
3) The opposition infantry can barely fire at all
4) The tanks do move, but still don't shoot
5) The sound is unacceptably laggy

Now I played this game with original disks on my A1200 without a problem.  The game ran smoothly and I don't remember the tanks not shooting (surely! they must have).  But to use A1200 speed on WinUAE I get laggy sound and enemies that can barely shoot.

Are there some settings that are optimal to get the original experience of this game? (bar using an actual Amiga, smartasses )  Any clues?  Anyone?

Jarrod.

ps. Hopefully this isn't a duplicate post, the first one seemed to bomb out.

[Brian]

I have had WinUAE run smoothly on my P3 450 so it's a question of tuning the settings.

First question.. Have you turned JIT buffer on? when I did that the speed increased from 1.5Mips to something closet to 90 if I recall correctly. On my P4 1.7 it's over 500Mips and plenty enough to run most things.

[Brian]

About the game... I'm pritty sure it's normal that the CannonFodder AI doesn't shoot nearly as fast as you do, for the tanks not moving/shooting I can't say.

[graffias79]

I wonder if UAE has issues with random numbers.  When playing with OctaMED 4 sample editor, I hit the Noise button which is supposed to make white noise in the window.  Sometimes it's not very random looking, though.

[jarrody2k]

Hi Brian,

It's not a matter of it being fast.  The 68020 setting does that fine, but it also causes a whole heap of glitches.  The players can fire like they've taken speed and the AI infantry just does barely anything.

It's hardly a reproduction of what you'd get on an A1200.  Somethings wrong with the timing.  The AI must be confused by WinUAE and giving the incorrectly dividing the processing time for the different things on screen.

I might try fiddling a bit further.  But I would have thought that someone would have tried to clock Cannon Fodder on WinUAE by now?!  It's not an obscure game by any means!

Jarrod.

[HopperJF]

                                                                      AMIGA™
                                                        Accept No Imitations.


 :lol:  :-P

[mindprober]

Heh. I thought the subject of this thread was "Weird Al behavior" for a moment... hmmm...does that mean the game will unexpectedly break into a song parody ?

Sorry.

[Waccoon]

@jdryyz:  Nuts.  Beat me to it.  :-)

You should see the problems with the MAME emulation of Hard Drivin'.  The cars fall right through the pavement!

[jarrody2k]

The best way to play Cannon Fodder on WinUAE is to start on the default A1200 configuration (you may have to play around with the blit and copper settings if it crashes).

This way, when get to Phase 5 and later...

1) choppers/tanks/skidoos etc. will shoot if they are armed
2) frame rate is much snappier and more bullets are fired
3) gameplay is slightly more challenging

It makes for a better game when the AI is behaving itself and the graphics and responsiveness are smooth.

Such an awesome game, and now I endeavour to finish it

Jarrod

Edit - Just to add... it is moronic to change the cpu speed while you're playing.  But I'm just the sort of man to do that

The game works fine in A500 mode right up to around Phase 5/6, and then the AI flips out.  So save the game to disk at the Hill screen after Phase 4 and load it up again in A1200 mode and load from the disk.