rensoup

The C64 version in its current form would require at least 192KB of RAM if it was released on disk (vs 128KB for the A2, A8 and BBCM versions). Potentially more based on filled up the ROM is. Could it be made to run in 128KB of RAM? Most definitely yes but it would be slower. A very fine quote, unfortunately you are not arrogant enough and its meaning just flew above your head... Yes because the thread ban feature was broken (from the mods admission), at least you had the decency to not show up anymore.

No C64 or BBC version either... The best part is that the guy lives next door in the console forums I actually watched a bunch of his videos when I was looking for an interesting project to port after PoP. He can be a little sarcastic which I enjoy Perhaps he could be persuaded to make an update?

Just because you couldn't find any hard figures doesn't mean he didn't write about it. Unfortunately it was too technical and you weren't arrogant enough so it didn't click. You're a perpetual victim and now that got started you will not stop and another thread will suffer. You had to be escorted out actually...

Well it's chunky but I kind of like the look of it! Just to be clear, you're not using Prior0 and Oring the PMGs on top of the PF colors, right? I'm asking because your PF colors are grey... each of the green characters use a PMG (all 5) and then you're repositioning/updating colors/gfx 2 PMGs ?

You know pointless better than anybody, it just takes a glance at your posting history in the PoP thread. The C64 version uses more memory than the A2 according to its author but you know better as usual.

I wrote a tool to semi manually colorize pictures for the A8 (piccolo) I used it for the title picture in PoP and I also released a slideshow before that: I tested it with many C64 pictures ranging from simple (few colors in the original) to complex (changing palette for just about every 4x8 char). I don't think any of the original C64 pictures were enhanced with sprites. In my experience it is simply impossible to convert complex C64 picture with a reasonable degree of accuracy because there are just too many colors per line. On the A8, you can potentially reach 8/9 colors per line when using mode4 + PMGs while the C64 can have all 16 I believe. So whenever I tried to convert anything by Facet for instance (prolific C64 artist https://csdb.dk/scener/?id=21388) it would usually end up looking disastrous. This is a major advantage for the C64 and it makes porting newer C64 games which boast lots of colors potentially difficult to port faithfully. I was only able to convert semi complex pictures and usually with some reduction in quality but the palette selection being better on the A8, I was able to improve a few of them. That said, the PoP title picture turned out really good and doesn't really look like anything on the C64 so yeah it's important to use the target machine's strengths

It's pointless discussing anything technical with you, so sure PoP C64 runs in 64KB just like PoP NES runs in 2KB

Well I'm curious to see that, I saw you posted a screenshot and noticed you used your favourite chunky graphics mode again

For most pratical uses (for games) RAM = ROM because most of your data never changes It's fair to use ROM of course, consoles/ arcades did that for decades but nobody would boast that PoP on the NES runs in 16KB of RAM (or whatever it is the mapper uses) Joe Musachi's amazing Donkey Kong on the VCS runs in just 512 -bytes- of RAM Or that any NeoGeo game run in just 150KB of RAM (wiki figures) That would be complete nonsense even if factually accurate. In the case of the NeoGeo, it's pretty simple to find out what the real RAM figures are because of the NeoGeo CD which was created to reduce cart costs and has to load all the data it needs before starting a game level. And according to wiki it has 7 whopping Megabytes of RAM

I didn't know any of those, interesting that all of them look similar with that 4/5 color background and a different palette for the main player... all of them are a little bland and unmistakably old gen Atari. DW already looks better in that respect.

small issue: -enable stereo mode -enable downmixing to mono -disable stereo mode -OK ->crash using 4.10 test 18 (doesn't seem to save the downmixing setting either)

So what does your palette look like ? perhaps you could use that grey to spice up that purple enemy and/or the hero with software sprites ?

Yes that's a big issue but again if you're willing to push it, you could consider using kernels and do midline palette changes (perhaps just on parts of the screen) or sprites repositioning (just like the PoP intro) You could also use double or even quad width sprites as underlays (for backgrounds or moving objects) to get more colors. And bring software sprites into the mix. The A2 has 6 colors btw (with restrictions)

Well try it again and see. I remember it slowing down PoP style on The Apple2, only to get back to 60fps a split second later causing your ship to crash into something... Good times

hmm... so how long before we consider it hopeless ?

That's the problem... I believe Sonic needs the DMA feature because the screen moves quickly and it needs to update a large portion of it... Wouldn't it For most people though, RType is a single level game because it's so damn difficult (and slow paced)!

"weaker platform" isn't the whole story The A8 version runs in 128KB just like the original but the sprites are (partially) using 5 colors. That takes an extra bit of storage (3 bits per pixel instead of 2). The sprites take about 38KB of memory on the A2 so that's an additional 19KB in theory. It also uses a mix of hardware and software sprites. As you know PMGs require an extra 1.2KB of memory and remember that they're flexible so you can choose their priority against the backgrounds... except that PoP uses them over and under the background so that requires a mask buffer (memory) All the sprites routines are optimized which helps the game tremendously when there's a lot going on (up to twice faster than the original) and that has a cost too. The main routine alone takes several KBs with all the required tables Tunes are much more sophisticated hence taking a lot more space as well. PoP A8 is faster and looks a lot better than the original while sticking to the original memory requirements, you will never see a significantly better looking version on any 8 bit platforms, even if you were going to port this one, simply because there is no memory left. Anything you'd want to add you'd need to make space for it first. PoP C64 requires 512KB to run. PoP BBCM runs in 128KB and 8 colors but all the prince animation frames were chopped in half because of the screen memory requirements (I think this could have been avoided though) The lesson being that making a port that takes advantage of the target platform requires a lot of work. You just need the right trick for the right game

Let's do it! it's been said many times but it's worth repeating: Sonic C64 requires a REU to run This makes it not stock at all anymore because it has a DMA feature https://codebase64.org/doku.php?id=base:reu_programming If I'm reading this right, when the screen is off, the transfer rate is 1byte/ cycle, that's 10x faster than 6502 unrolled asm I wouldn't say the A8 can't do certain types of games. Sure some arcade ports are near impossible (a fast and *good* looking Bubble Bobble for instance) but I wouldn't rule out entire genres like horizontal platformers/shooters. I think games like RType, Green Beret,... could potentially be pretty good. The amount of work required is huge though, at least if you want a faithful port. I may be against the tide but some demo tricks can be useful and really help push the A8 beyond people's expectations. edit: what's up with the quote colors ? not super readable...

Ah yes, cool stuff! So are you going to give it a try ?

Shame indeed, that would have been an excellent conversion!

That's pretty good indeed, looks like the sprites are mainly used for the snakes, not the warrior so potentially there could be a 2nd one... anyobdy knows if there's a 2 player mode ?

So is it a modified version of Atari800 which runs an A2 executable ?

Glad you managed to dig out useful info, hopefully you'll put it to good use. It was one of my goals to push the A8 (and hopefully inspire others!)

Obviously Perhaps you could list the things left to do ? (Might help remotivate too!) Cool! So what are the differences compared to the XL (beside the 48KB limit) ? I read that you basically have to leave the original VBi running and link to your own ? Thus losing cycles in the process ? ...and DLi are also impacted ? Do you have to leave some memory for the OS ? No disk version ? You have the OS available after all Looking good!

You haven't been following the PoP thread closely enough