The Sinclair QL Forum

Hello,

I am learning the world of QL and sometimes making progress and sometimes hitting invisible brick walls, although this issue feels more like being fired from an invisible catapult that I wasn't aware I was standing on.

I have QL2K working nicely on windows 10, and the speed is fine in basic.

However when I load a MDv file, the game runs, but at a million miles an hour.

But basic is fine.

Can anyone help advise me! please?

If you want an emulator that runs at QL speed then use Q-Emulator
http://www.terdina.net/ql/q-emulator.html

Or use sQLux, sQLay3, all work with every version of QDOS rom.

sQLux has a Slug command to allow the emulator down.

There are free, but Q-emulatoris good as well, registration is well worth the money.

I'm assuming you have been through the QL2K speed settings, using the FT_bas program supplied, and set the speed setting in the clock multiplier box in the startup dialogue of QL2K?

Many QL games use the equivalent of the KEYROW command to read keyboard (to allow combination key presses), so there is no auto-repeat etc, making response speed seem faster than usual. Not a lot that can be done about this unless you have the source code to reprogram the game.

There is software such as Norman Dunbar's Slowgold which can help to slow down or slug a fast system in cases where nothing else works. https://dilwyn.qlforum.co.uk/utils/index.html

sQLux has a Slug command to slow the emulator down.

The preferred way to slow down sQLux is to set the speed variable in sqlux.ini
https://github.com/SinclairQL/sQLux/blo ... s/sqlux.md

To quote the relevant section:

SPEED Sets the execution speed of the emulator. Useful when running software that was written for an original QL. A value of 1 approximates to the speed of an original QL. Larger values map to multiples of the original QL speed. Specified as a floating point number, so small adjustments can be made if required. Defaults to 0.0 (maximum speed). When running at original speed a faster start-up is achieved by using the JS ROM and setting FAST_START to 1.

dilwyn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 8:21 pm I'm assuming you have been through the QL2K speed settings, using the FT_bas program supplied, and set the speed setting in the clock multiplier box in the startup dialogue of QL2K?

Many QL games use the equivalent of the KEYROW command to read keyboard (to allow combination key presses), so there is no auto-repeat etc, making response speed seem faster than usual. Not a lot that can be done about this unless you have the source code to reprogram the game.

There is software such as Norman Dunbar's Slowgold which can help to slow down or slug a fast system in cases where nothing else works. https://dilwyn.qlforum.co.uk/utils/index.html

Yes I ran the FT program and it works fine in s basic, but when I run a game the speed goes crazy, and a single key press is like hitting a button 50 times, making games impossible to play

I tried a game called space pods, for which I have a QLAY mdv file.

The game loads at a normal speed, and everything seems good.

But when the game starts it runs so fast that I die in the blink of an eye and its game over.

I am now using QLAY2 on windows 10.

Super basic is running fine, and at the normal speed. I can make a video if it helps

As I haven't had QL2K installed for some time, I reinstalled yesterday to see if I could find anything to help you. Not used it for a few years now.

Initially, I couldn't get MDV drives to work at all - QL2K froze each time I did DIR MDV1_ . I later found it would only work if I had a maximum of one or two MDV and WIN drives. I'm sure it used to work with more than that. I tried both the JM and Minerva ROMs with various amounts of memory and with Fast MDV on and off.

Eventually got the Josiah Oobadiah .MDV image (from QLay) to work with it. I'm afraid to say that was so slow, such sluggish keyboard response and gameplay that it was unplayable.

Needless to say, it's about 16 years since the emulator was last updated, so perhaps not surprising it doesn't work too well on modern systems. And QLay and QLay 2 are a little older.

That's as far as I was able to get, I'm afraid.

dilwyn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2024 10:14 am Eventually got the Josiah Oobadiah .MDV image .

This was the one game I managed to play!!! lol

I managed to get is working reasonably well with QLAY on win 10.

OK- the main issues was I thought it was me doing something wrong, or that I have corrupted copies of the MDVs. Now I understand it might not be me.

Thank you for looking into it

The SpacePods MDV on the games page on my website is for the MIST FPGA system. If that's where you got it from, it's possible it might not work properly on QLay/QL2K anyway. The other version on my site is just two standard files, a boot and a _cde file, so can be used on most systems. (I've assumed we're talking about the same game here of course!)

QL2K recognised the .MDV file after unzipping it. I LRESPRed the _cde file to start it and it seems to work, surprisingly. I only played it for a couple of minutes (admission: I am useless at arcade games!).

For anyone who doesn't know it, SpacePods is a kind of Asteroids game by Simon Quinn, where you use the arrow keys to control the craft and space to fire. To my surprise, the game not only worked, it ran at the speed I expected, without the excess key speeds you experienced. It had also had quite good sound, which surprised me as I hadn't bothered to check if I'd set up the QL2K sound settings or not. Screenshot attached.