rensoup

you hacked code in ? Any more info on what you're trying to achieve ?

Good to hear (hopefully )! Note that if your tune has long repeated songline sequences, you can chop up the tune manually into different subtunes to save some memory, then instead of having 1 part (tune repeating at songline 0) or 2 parts (tune repeating at non 0 songline ), you'd have more parts. Yes that should be automated but I'll leave it for later. The drawback is that starting a new part causes a new init of the player which is slightly slower (perhaps 1 extra scanline?)

Interesting, seems like they took the ZX architecture and built the AtariST around it ? (with bitplanes, just to make it even worse!)

I wish it did graphics copying via the stack, that'd be less hassle than emulating hardware sprites with software sprites... but I'm nowhere near getting started on that! Well I could agree with that for spectrum games like you said, plus you've got 16 extra KB compared to the ZX I guess? Indeed with an arcade port, this will likely be different... it's about squeezing about 6-7mhz worth of Z80 code + beefy sprite hardware into a 1.3mhz 6502 and 4 PMGs. There's a lot of gameplay code and even though some may be seldom used, I can't afford it causing spikes so any gameplay code may need some optimization work. While there's of course code for attract, game over, high score, ... that's not the bulk of it. So perhaps not 100% but certainly a lot more than 20 ? I'm going with a conversion to C# first so I'll be hopefully able to carry out higher level optimizations later. I gradually convert Z80-> C# subroutines then I do simple interception calls to bypass the Z80 code and call the new C# code. It's not perfect though and it's pretty horrible to convert code that does all sorts of bit manipulation too. I'm curious how the ZX spectrum Z80 @3.5Mhz compares with the the A8's 6502. I don't have much experience with the Z80 but its instruction set seems way more efficient than the 6502 perhaps at the expense of taking many more cycles per instruction ? Cool! Hopefully not a 1981 title ? ? I'll potentially do these things if I ever get to a fully working C# prototype! You mentioned a while back that 7800 sprite hardware is super powerful compared to the A8. I don't think I'll have that kind of luxury and will have to go with some very specialized software sprite trickery. Hopefully the A8 is versatile enough to run an arcade game made for a much more powerful hardware (except for that horizontal resolution)

https://www.gamesdatabase.org/list.aspx?DM=0&system=arcade&year=1981&sort=Game ? Like I said, it's a massive job though... There's no guarantee that I'll have the motivation or that's it's even doable. The challenge is different from porting PoP: -PoP being a A2 game originally, I knew it was doable on the A8 from the start. The unknown was the quality that could be achieved. -There are still many parts of the PoP code I don't know even though I've probably browsed all of it. This new challenge is Z80 based which means every bit of code requires porting and a reasonable understanding of what it does. On top of that, a naive Z80 -> 6502 conversion is guaranteed to fail too because it would be too slow. Ground level would be a functioning PC port in a high level language (C# in my case) ready to be ported to 6502. Right now I'm underwater way down in the abyss ?

I did start something new like I said previously... It's arcade based so I built a standalone emulator with a bunch of debugging features but it's an enormous job, probably as big as PoP, but without any guarantee that it can actually be done...

Had never heard of it, interesting though it doesn't look very appealing visually... I've been investigating a title for the past few weeks though I still have no idea if it's actually doable and probably will not know before spending a few months on it... At which point I may drop it completely ?

Thanks Snowpile, everybody who worked on the game did it with passion (and a lot of swearing). Glad you were able to get some enjoyment out of it. There are people who take the time to post a thank you note, which is nice but not mandatory of course. Plenty of people will silently download and not even bother with "like" clicking which is fine too. And there is a tiny minority who will download each release, complain about it relentlessly while not contributing anything useful and then throw insults once the final release is safely backed up on their hispeed SIO device ?

I'm sticking to facts but I'll reply with the same tone the other party's using. The bottom line is: If you care about running your project on stock machines and need as much memory as possible, XBios is the only solution available. It's been used on several projects. In PoP's case, the final disk release has 1700+ downloads and no complaint about the game not loading. So XBios has proven useful and reliable. Anyone claiming the opposite should back it up with proof or deserves to be called a troll. For those who enjoyed the game on disk, they should be grateful because having this tool means no compromise had to be made (half resolution on all animation frames like the BBC). Loading speed is a minor annoyance in that regard.

Very cool, no idea this project existed. I found out from the ZPH thread!

Hi again, this has been discussed/trolled over and over again hence the irritation. When trolls starts making false claims, like PoP not loading reliably (because of XBios) it's important to reiterate that it's not the case otherwise those claims tend to stick. See the latest example from early 2022: Check post 3610 where the user didn't press a key and blamed xbios for the game not starting. That's the result of constant XB bashing. If it's not about high speed but compatibility, PoP is already compatible with every popular device so why complain ? Custom disk loading is 100% part of the specs and allows disk loading at the cost of 1KB of memory. There's no alternative to choose from. Sure, discussion is fine if it doesn't go around in circle... Right now that circle is carved deep into the ground. The unmovable constraint is: stick to 128KB of RAM, same specs as the original. 3 solutions: 1. OS loading: requires 16KB of RAM for the OS and some KB of RAM for keeping OS data around impossible unless downgrading the game 2. Same as 1. but hotswap the OS to save those 16KB of RAM, still requires unknown amount of KB for OS data. possible? I don't know and don't want to spend some unknown amount of time trying to figure this out. 3. XBios requires 1KB of memory. lifesaver. In summary, I don't have the luxury of choice: I can't use the OS. ( I don't know how PBI loading works but I suppose it's done by patching the OS, so that's ruled out as well ). Same reasoning applies to StuntCar racer. A 64KB version is possible but at the cost of a 512KB ROM and hopefully I look into it at some point. A real 64KB is of course impossible unless it became a text adventure.

I've said this many times: If there was an XBios alternative that also supports high speed loading, I would use it. A minority of users has complained relentlessly about it (ever since it was used in Stunt Car 4 years ago!), yet offered no credible alternative. I'm not going to bump up the RAM requirements to 256KB just so that it loads quicker on some paranoid schitzophrenic's machine who thinks there's an evil alliance against 1x+ SIO speeds. On the code side, XXL is perhaps the person who contributed the most to making PoP a better game by providing a small loader, a file decompressor for ZX5, and even fixing a joystick bug as well as random useful advice. Some would like to believe it's all because of my tongue skills but XXL happens to be a fan of the game. Well, put your money where your mouth is and start working on that alternative. A fast loader with small RAM requirements that will work with every device out there. Until then, I'll keep using XB, if it's suitable for my project and those who don't like it have the choice of not downloading.

You've had your head up so far every troll's ass in the PoP thread (phantom anti-hardware checks, loading speed, Title picture,...), that would explain the blindness. At least now that the game has been released you can let it all out and be your usual psycho self.

Every disk build I posted loads on stock hardware. Some may load slower but they will run properly. If it doesn't work with your fancy device, the issue is on your side. For proper disk emulation, check the AVGCart.

Glad you're enjoying it... PoP's been tested on many NTSC configurations and works fine. Too bad no NTSC user chimed in to help you diagnose the issue.

Damn troll, another cheap shot at Xbios in your inimitable douchey style... The only device it didn't work with was yours because you couldn't be bothered to add proper bankswitching for AtariMax, SIC and Megacart. ? Right on target ? Refrain from giving any advice regarding PoP because you're just misleading people

If you used 4 PMGs for ghosts and had less than 4 of them on the same Y coordinate, no flickering would be required. If 5 of them were chasing you on the same Y, flickering would be required of course. Interpolating colors can look so so on the A8, just because of the coarse horizontal resolution. On top of that the levels use different palettes so it'd be tricky to get consistent extra colors. It's about picking the right battles too... if there was an opportunity to make it look really cool, it would be worth considering... ...along with KFM, GnG, RType,...

Not sure why you'd use dithering on the ghosts when PMGs are perfectly fit for the job... In fact there's no other possible use for them in Pacmania except the fruit bonus. This leaves you with 4/5 colors for the level, the pills and pacman. Seems tricky to make it look good. Just have look at the updated STe version (not the original ST one), it looks decent with 16 colors and twice the resolution. The occlusion is wouldn't be the trickiest part. Don't care much for 3D on the A8 beyond wireframe because the resolution or frame rate takes a hit. Agreed on some of those ? Starglider has that nostalgia factor because of the wireframe mode although not a very good game... KFM is one of my favorite games ever . It's also really demanding for an A8... it would be impossible to get it to run nicely even with 128KB of RAM. Perhaps with 64KB and a 512KB ROM. No 8bit version does the arcade justice. The Nes version seems ok though. If it doesn't play like KFM, it shouldn't be named KFM. In other news, SCUMM on the ST, running MI1&2 and Indiana Jones http://www.happydaze.se/scummvm-lite-atari/ Looking pretty good for 16 colors but requires huge amounts of RAM and a fast CPU. And it sound really good, It's the kind of stuff that's motivating! (doesn't mean I'm ready to tackle that challenge ?)

No need to apologize, your results are great! I'm just questioning the methods... You seem to be blissfully opening cans of worms after cans of worms, that's all? If you're enjoying that and don't care how many years it takes to get to the results you want, by all means, keep going but that's not the vibe I'm getting from your posts. Seems that everything takes a lot longer than you'd want and that's in no small part due to that 6502 player. Adding news stuff is more complicated, cause CPU hog, mem hog and sometimes news issues. So you get trapped into that cycle: hack in feature, break stuff in the process optimize for CPU optimize for RAM fix some of the broken stuff (leave some for later) You might be loving right now (I know I wouldn't) but how are you going to feel about it in a year when you've invested considerable effort and time and it gets worse and worse to maintain? The more you invest yourself into something, the harder it gets to step back and consider that's it's the wrong path and pivot. ☮️

The choices are -mostly- Arcade, Nes, and perhaps C64/BBC. Nes and C64 are both 6502 so the path for a port would be: -> very basic Nes/C64 emulation to get the targeted game to run -> port to A8/ optimize. The Nes is more difficult because of the increased resolution. For arcade, it's more complicated, most machines before 85/86 are z80 based (multiple ones) and higher resolution: -> very basic arcade emulation (using Mame as a guide) -> conversion to high level language(*) -> conversion to 6502/ port to A8 (*) that step is required for higher level optimization, otherwise there's no way to maintain a good frame rate

I wouldn't start from an existing A8 game. If a game is good enough on the A8, no point in touching it. If it's no good, better start from scratch. Maybe something around those years ? It'd be stock A8 of course because that's the machine I grew up with! The A8 JetSetWilly port is pretty nice already ? I was just about to start work on that one, thanks for saving me a bunch of work ? Interesting choice, a little complicated in terms of colors though... potentially all ghosts, pacman and the background can be on the same scanlines! It would look just like the original ? This one would be less difficult technically, it's a fairly decent game too... Would be a good addition to the A8 library for sure but it doesn't have that spark though. That demo had potential... Ouch, vaguely remember that one, doesn't seem too great, and hopelessly impossible ! Those are best played with a mouse, not too many people have one on the A8. Paddle based games would be a slightly more mainstream alternative.

Pretty much, broadly speaking... No shit, that's what RMT2LZSS does and what I've argued for for about a year but encountered great resistance from the dutchs and the canadians ? Once you go that road you can't output regular xex players anymore and must use LZSS though. ? That doesn't look stable at all... You don't seem to use effects... if you look at emkay's latest vid, it wobbles a lot more depending on what he's using. RMT can do 8x but it potentially leaves no CPU for anything else.

Cool! Going to watch it! I didn't have a speech acceptance ready (sorry James)... but here goes: Thanks to ZP and all voters for crowning this fine piece of gaming history, I think we made the A8 proud! The game could have been a nice conversion but thanks to the pigheadedness of all involved, it is the best 8bit one ? Special mention to those who spammed the AA thread for 2 years and contributed nothing ?

So am I ? Probably something on a smaller scale though. It takes a lot of preliminary investigation before deciding a project -isn't- worth pursuing! SOB, yet another great tech demo with limited playability... You seem to have an interest in those ( And so did I ? ). I too would be curious to know how well those parallaxes would translate to the A8 but (not enough to spend any time on it though!) Limbo's never been released for the C64, supposedly coming out in 2024... Don't think I'm going to wait for it Donkey Kong SGB! Wouldn't that be cool ? Oh Wait...? It'd be quite difficult to make any Bitmap brothers game look good on an A8, they really did use those 16 colors nicely. Xenon 1 would be fun and yes we've got the tune already ? I did consider GnG obviously ?. Damn difficult though, multi directional scroll and colorful sprites. Depends how faithful you'd want a conversion to be of course. The in-progress CPC version is amazing, the C64 one not so much. Im' sure an excellent IM port is possible, not something I'd want to do though. There are very few games that I'd be interested to port from the C64. One game I really enjoyed back in the day on a friend's C64 was SuperPipeline which I considered porting but somehow wasn't motivated. Never heard of I, Robot... crazy filled vectors for 1983! Not sure what's going on with the gameplay but pretty sure it wouldn't run well on the A8 ? (started investigating something else...smaller scale yet difficult, old, classic, although perhaps not that popular anymore... will probably end up in the bin ?)

That'd be a very interesting one indeed (I did consider it) and quite a challenge if aiming for a good frame rate, lots of colors, and lots of sprites with a reasonable memory footprint. You mean road race (not lotus esprit) ? I don't know, I played it back in the day but totally forgot about it... but yeah a good racer is potentially one of those games where the A8 could shine compared the other 8bit platforms (I did consider one too ?)