07866: pitfight3: Game crashes randomly in later matches

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
07866	Crash/Freeze	Critical (emulation)	Random	Feb 1, 2021, 16:37	Feb 11, 2021, 20:25

Tester	rcoltrane	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To	galibert	Resolution	Fixed	OS	Windows 10 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Resolved			Driver	atari/atarig1.cpp
Version	0.228	Fixed in Version	0.229	Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	07866: pitfight3: Game crashes randomly in later matches
Description	Ok, after some more testing with the latest MAME version (0.228) it happened again, so it's definitely happening and I had to open a new bug report. This time I've recorded an .inp file that shows the game crashing at the beginning of match 8. The .inp file is attached to this report.
Steps To Reproduce	Just play the game. Sometimes it will crash all of a sudden (like in the .inp file attached here), sometimes the graphics will start glitching up right before crashing and sometimes, it will play to the end without crashing (yeah, that happens too). It seems to happen more in later matches, after match 6.
Additional Information	It may have a relation with the recent Rampart changes made by OG, since both games use a slapstic protection routine. Or maybe it has no relation at all. But as far as I remember, it looks like a slapstic issue since I remember very well the slapstic glithes/crashes of when it was not fully emulated/simulated by Aaron in versions 036b7 up to 0.53. In version 0.53, the slapstic protection got a major update to make Pit-Fighter fully playable. Since then, I don't remember it crashing or glitching up anymore (and I play this game A LOT) until version 0.227.
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version	0.227
Affected Sets / Systems	pitfight3

Attached Files	pitfight3 - crash level 8 hardest.inp (208,829 bytes) Feb 1, 2021, 16:37 Uploaded by rcoltrane

No.18439 rcoltrane Tester Feb 5, 2021, 22:06	Tested it several times using MAME 0.226 and the game did not crash at all. It didn't show graphic glitches too, so now it's safe to assume this as a regression started in version 0.227. Possibly related to the changes made in the Rampart driver and its slapstic protection. So I'm flagging it as a regression.
No.18444 rcoltrane Tester Feb 8, 2021, 16:20 edited on: Feb 8, 2021, 16:21	According to an article published by Aaron Giles on his website, Pit-Fighter and Rampart use different slapstic protection chips and these slapstic chips are not interchangeable. So, I suppose that this new 0.227 Pit-Fighter bug that is glithing/crashing the game in later matches is not related to Rampart or its slapstic protection chip as I was thinking, it must be somemthing else that was changed and/or introduced in version 0.227 that is affecting Pit-Fighter in some negative way.
No.18445 galibert Developer Feb 8, 2021, 18:37	I've entirely reimplemented the slapstic, annoyingly your inp desyncs now in the 5th match. Hopefully it's fixed though. If you're capable of compiling the current master, please do and tell me whether it works (or do a new inp if it doesn't :-) OG.
No.18448 rcoltrane Tester Feb 9, 2021, 12:21 edited on: Feb 9, 2021, 12:46	I will try to compile the current master to test it for you and update this report later with the results. Thanks OG
No.18449 hap Developer Feb 9, 2021, 20:00	You can also get a recent build from github actions: https://github.com/mamedev/mame/actions Click one that says "CI (Windows)" and has a green checkmark, then download the 'artifact'.
No.18457 rcoltrane Tester Feb 11, 2021, 19:42	After successfully compiling the current mame master, I did several tests and Pit-Fighter did not crash anymore. And there's no graphic glitches to be found anywhere as well. So, it seems that the slapstic protection for this game is fixed. I did not test the other Pit-Fighter romsets since I'm only using rev.3 (pitfight3), but I believe that all slapstics for other versions of this game were fixed as well by OG. Thank you OG, great work as always!!