Ms. Pac-Man

[olavese@online.no]

I do like the game, but the flickering is a bit annoying. After many years, is it possible to improve this and make it smoooooooooth? I mean, there's not that many characters on screen, surely the Atari can handle 5 "software sprites"?

[bfollett]

I do like the game, but the flickering is a bit annoying. After many years, is it possible to improve this and make it smoooooooooth? I mean, there's not that many characters on screen, surely the Atari can handle 5 "software sprites"?

 

There's too many colors going on in ms. pacman to rely on character graphics only(5 colors). You are going to need the combo of both character graphics and player/missles to have a version of ms. pacman that looks as good as the current version... unless you rely on some alternating scan line graphics trick, but those displays flicker too.

 

Bob

Edited December 18, 2010 by bfollett

[atariksi]

I do like the game, but the flickering is a bit annoying. After many years, is it possible to improve this and make it smoooooooooth? I mean, there's not that many characters on screen, surely the Atari can handle 5 "software sprites"?

 

There's too many colors going on in ms. pacman to rely on character graphics only(5 colors). You are going to need the combo of both character graphics and player/missles to have a version of ms. pacman that looks as good as the current version... unless you rely on some alternating scan line graphics trick, but those displays flicker too.

 

Bob

 

I would think just making the fruit software sprite and using normal sprites for the 5 monster/ms. pacman would work. See you use expanded missiles and enable OR mode and overlay with the sprites to get the Ms. pac-man and the three monsters. You multiplex the 4th monster so worst case is only one flickering monster when all 5 are aligned horizontally which is rare. It should be like Joust where the flickering only occurs rarely when many birds are on the same horizontal zone. Currently, the flickering starts with 3 monsters + Ms. pacman on one line rather than 4 monsters + pacman. And if fruit appears on same line, then flicker starts with only 2 monsters + Ms. pacman.

[Creature XL]

I would think just making the fruit software sprite and using normal sprites for the 5 monster/ms. pacman would work. See you use expanded missiles and enable OR mode and overlay with the sprites to get the Ms. pac-man and the three monsters. You multiplex the 4th monster so worst case is only one flickering monster when all 5 are aligned horizontally which is rare. It should be like Joust where the flickering only occurs rarely when many birds are on the same horizontal zone. Currently, the flickering starts with 3 monsters + Ms. pacman on one line rather than 4 monsters + pacman. And if fruit appears on same line, then flicker starts with only 2 monsters + Ms. pacman.

 

As I am doing soft sprites (in char mode) right now and can easily render 5 8*16-sprites in one frame, I think it would be possible without flickering.

I would use the 5 HW-sprites as overlays (maybe even in PRIOR 0 mode).

Yes, I am the one who said "code it, don't talk it" So, if someone provides the gfx

 

To be clear here, I would only try to make it visual possible, I won't code the complete game.

 

 

EDIT:

Wait! I am talking PAL-system here. could very well be that it is NOT that easy on NTSC!

Edited December 19, 2010 by Creature XL

[atariksi]

I would think just making the fruit software sprite and using normal sprites for the 5 monster/ms. pacman would work. See you use expanded missiles and enable OR mode and overlay with the sprites to get the Ms. pac-man and the three monsters. You multiplex the 4th monster so worst case is only one flickering monster when all 5 are aligned horizontally which is rare. It should be like Joust where the flickering only occurs rarely when many birds are on the same horizontal zone. Currently, the flickering starts with 3 monsters + Ms. pacman on one line rather than 4 monsters + pacman. And if fruit appears on same line, then flicker starts with only 2 monsters + Ms. pacman.

 

As I am doing soft sprites (in char mode) right now and can easily render 5 8*16-sprites in one frame, I think it would be possible without flickering.

I would use the 5 HW-sprites as overlays (maybe even in PRIOR 0 mode).

Yes, I am the one who said "code it, don't talk it" So, if someone provides the gfx

 

To be clear here, I would only try to make it visual possible, I won't code the complete game.

 

 

EDIT:

Wait! I am talking PAL-system here. could very well be that it is NOT that easy on NTSC!

 

I don't think Ms. pac-man needs PRIOR 0 w/overlays as the background scenery doesn't use that many colors. Just a fruit software sprite should be nothing for NTSC. I think Dig Dug went narrow mode to save cycles in case that's an issue.

[Bryan]

Overall, I'm pretty happy with Ms Pac Man.

 

The one thing that is really strange is the speed control method. Things are slowed down by making them move around in jerky bursts. If the motion routines could be found, I bet they could be made to look better.