Reicast-emulator: Fix DOA2 LE crashes/NBA 2K crashes. [$105]

[twinaphex]

The goal of this bounty is to get these games working. DOA2 LE can crash when selecting a character in Time Attack mode or Survival. This does not happen with the older DOA2 US version.

EDIT: This is the bountysource URL - seems the integration still does not work right -
https://www.bountysource.com/issues/59487065-edge-cases-in-ta-parameter-parsing-nfl-2k-doa2-le

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Did you help close this issue? Go claim the $105 bounty on Bountysource.

[skmp]

This is also SMC. It is also what breaks shenmue and all.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2018 at 16:37, Twinaphex [e-mail] wrote:

Apparently redream fixed several games such as Dead or Alive 2 Limited
Edition (Shokai Genteiban) and NFL 2K by addressing this.

The goal of this bounty is to get these games working. DOA2 LE can crash
when selecting a character in Time Attack mode or Survival. This does not
happen with the older DOA2 US version.

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~skmp

[anothername99]

Just to be clear, is this about making the dynarec more accurate, or is it about game-specific hacks?

I chipped in $50 anyway.

[skmp]

It’s to make it more accurate. SMC detection was removed in 2008 to fit in
the psp feature set - nulldc has a full impl of it

On Sun, 10 Jun 2018 at 17:52, anothername99 [e-mail]
wrote:

Just to be clear, is this about making the dynarec more accurate, or is it
about game-specific hacks?

I chipped in $50 anyway.

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~skmp

[skmp]

Looks like this crash is not related to SMC afterall, it is a ta staging buffer overflow. doa2le also crashes because of smc, but that is after the loading screen.

doa2le has a bug on the loading screen where it actually overflows the ta/pvr parameter storage area. The first frame fails to render, but then the game ignores that and moves on.

Reicast atm has a 2mb max size for TA parameters, without a size check, which when overflown leads to crashes.

We could add a size check and support multiple buffers. I wonder what kind of perf hit that would have?

Meanwhile, a workaround is to increase the buffer size from 2 to 8 megs.

diff --git a/core/hw/pvr/ta_ctx.h b/core/hw/pvr/ta_ctx.h
index cbc7e1f4..832f656f 100644
--- a/core/hw/pvr/ta_ctx.h
+++ b/core/hw/pvr/ta_ctx.h
@@ -157,7 +157,7 @@ struct TA_context
        }
        void Alloc()
        {
-               tad.Reset((u8*)OS_aligned_malloc(32, 2*1024*1024));
+               tad.Reset((u8*)OS_aligned_malloc(32, 8*1024*1024));

                rend.verts.InitBytes(1024*1024,&rend.Overrun); //up to 1 mb of vtx data/frame = ~ 38k vtx/frame
                rend.idx.Init(60*1024,&rend.Overrun);                   //up to 60K indexes ( idx have stripification overhead )

[skmp]

@twinaphex is NBA part of this ticket? Can we split to to a separate one, preferably in the gamedb tracker?

[twinaphex]

@skmp Hmm, I will have to test NBA to see if there is actually a problem there. Sorry for mentioning it here when I wasn't being sure.

[twinaphex]

Also, as promised, here is one half of the $50 I promised I would add to this issue. The other half is coming as soon as I transfer some funds around. Let's see if the page actually self-updates with the new amount.

[twinaphex]

I just tested NBA 2K (USA version). After the FMV copyright/intro screens there is no picture. With cable type set to TV (RGB) it just displays a blue screen, with cable type set to VGA (RGB) it displays a black screen. You can hear the sound and it will react to button input.

Anyway, if you prefer it, we can split this up into a separate ticket, whatever you prefer.

[twinaphex]

I feel satisfied about this and would be willing to close the issue and let you collect the bounty. Both games are working on my end.

[skmp]

Alrighty.

[anothername99]

https://github.com/libretro/reicast-emulator/commit/130cee6ba26018eaf14fee6f642d2d3218ac5ec7 says "workaround". Was this actually fixed?

[skmp]

This is fixed for DOA2LE, but might break again if some game uses more than the new allocation size (= unlikely).

The SMC task was in another issue afair.

we should split off from here

• [x] Somehow implement variable size support for TA staging buffers (low priority / easy workaround if it reappears)

[skmp]

(Follow up ticket created, workaround merged to master)