Project-M 2.0

[Rybags]

Oh, should have mentioned... you have to change COLBAK to zero again on the luma lines, since we have a similar annoying phenonema in Gr. 9 mode - COLBAK gets ORed with the pixel value.

 

Doing that will also get rid of that annoying venetian blind effect in the border.

[emkay]

 

By the way, I did a fast test mirroring the screen and got this:

 

 

I suppose that with some texture planning it could look decent.. and I should say that using it would be a big boost to the frame rate and a great memory saver.

 

 

Come on. Forget this quickly. It ruins all.

[emkay]

Oh, should have mentioned... you have to change COLBAK to zero again on the luma lines, since we have a similar annoying phenonema in Gr. 9 mode - COLBAK gets ORed with the pixel value.

 

Doing that will also get rid of that annoying venetian blind effect in the border.

 

 

Same here. Simply forget this. The graphics are well as they are already.

[Rybags]

Did someone die and suddenly make you project manager?

 

 

It's experimentation that got A8 gaming and demos finally into the 21st Century, and not perpetually stuck within the pathetic realms of what the Hardware Manual and DeRe Atari said was possible or not.

Edited December 26, 2010 by Rybags

[emkay]

Did someone die and suddenly make you project manager?

 

 

It's experimentation that got A8 gaming and demos finally into the 21st Century, and not perpetually stuck within the pathetic realms of what the Hardware Manual and DeRe Atari said was possible or not.

 

 

That's the problem.

What you try to do is to drop the new for using old technics.

 

NRV did already the "impossible" ... now you guys want to go back to 1982....

[MaPa]

 

By the way, I did a fast test mirroring the screen and got this:

 

 

I suppose that with some texture planning it could look decent.. and I should say that using it would be a big boost to the frame rate and a great memory saver.

 

Hmm I see 21 fps on this screenshot, it doesn't look like big boost to frame rate or am I missing something ? Btw.on the screenshot above this one shows 24 fps with no mirrored texture and larger view area

[emkay]

By the way, I did a fast test mirroring the screen and got this:

 

 

I suppose that with some texture planning it could look decent.. and I should say that using it would be a big boost to the frame rate and a great memory saver.

 

Hmm I see 21 fps on this screenshot, it doesn't look like big boost to frame rate or am I missing something ? Btw.on the screenshot above this one shows 24 fps with no mirrored texture and larger view area

 

 

And the Wolf 3D impression is gone, and it's only the metallic looking stuff.

Not to think about the bricks, that will look even worse.

[Jacques]

The 2.0 as it looks is perfect, if the actual game could be built this way, it would be great. The floor and ceiling look bad when they of the same colour.

Edited December 26, 2010 by Jacques

[Irgendwer]

Come on. Forget this quickly. It ruins all.

 

I'm not sure about this:

+ I would like to see this running on 64k mirrored, rather than on 128k without mirroring (the first seems more 'magic' to me)

+ the play-field could be made greater, game-play complexer, enemies smarter or SFX complexer when saving cycles. The impression of running through a maze is improved. IMHO no 'ruin'.

 

And the Wolf 3D impression is gone, and it's only the metallic looking stuff.

Not to think about the bricks, that will look even worse.

 

I think the 'master' just used this metallic texture because the bricks he had don't look good mirrored. But of course you can also make good looking mirrored bricks (attached). BTW: The tiles from 'Yoomp!' are also mirrored and do not ruin the game.

 

What I like to see in this mirrored mode would be the GR. 10 substitution for the GR. 11 lines (with 9 good colour representatives) to inspect the pseudo resolution enhancement and a colour change on the horizon to have ceiling and floor in a different colours.

(I's imaginable to have a second colour change from e.g. green to red, which is moss on the upper half and blood on the lower - just a question of textures...)

 

NRV, pretty please?

Edited December 26, 2010 by Irgendwer

[Rybags]

I've got doubts about the merits of mirrored, especially if it's a case of LMS reuse of the same data - that automatically means no other playfield objects (unless they're mirrored too).

 

The idea might work in a "shortcut" type of sense for certain objects like doors where the data could be written to two locations as a column is built, but I imagine that'd create a whole new coding problem with a seperate render routine needed, plus the overhead of working out which one to call for each column of pixels.

[emkay]

NRV, pretty please?

 

 

 

The pictures look not that good. And in movement it will get even worse.

 

This doubling is not worth to think about.

I remember C64 freaks thinking about doubling for some kind of "Yoomp!" game.... but you need real different content in the upper and lower part of the screen.

[emkay]

The idea might work in a "shortcut" type of sense for certain objects like doors where the data could be written to two locations as a column is built, but I imagine that'd create a whole new coding problem with a seperate render routine needed, plus the overhead of working out which one to call for each column of pixels.

 

Possibly, in some "special running level" (or this black level, when some "flashlight" fx get needed) when higher fps might be needed, this could help a lot. As soon as textures come into the screen, doubling is no solution anymore.

Edited December 26, 2010 by emkay

[Jacques]

Come on, forget 64 KB at all costs, after all it's Wolfenstein and 130XE was standard Atari. Do we really have to have worse game just to make Commodore users not complaining it uses more RAM than they have? The 2.0 demo LOOKS perfect. If the full game can be made this way technically (even with some slow downs when Nazis appear), it'll still be perfect. And having EXACT Wolfenstein 3D conversion will speak volumes! Or maybe two versions, simpler for 64KB, but please don't sacrifice quality, it's 21 st century and we do have RAM

Edited December 26, 2010 by Jacques

[Irgendwer]

...

it's 21 st century and we do have RAM

...

 

Yes and VBXE, and >2 GHz PCs. Why bother with 1.79MHz...

[Irgendwer]

The pictures look not that good. And in movement it will get even worse.

 

The point is, that they may look good enough! Saving 50% isn't easy...

 

This doubling is not worth to think about.

 

When supporting enemies, weapons etc. the struggle for resources just begun...

 

but you need real different content in the upper and lower part of the screen.

 

As mentioned: colour registers and PMGs will support it. Just think about even the GR. 10 replacement with the 9 colours.

Be strict and take away 4 colours exclusive for PMGs (which can result in 6 colours for them (GRAF-mode) - e.g. 3 skin tones, three for uniforms etc.).

5 colors are left, resulting in total 80 shades (like gray, blue, brown, red and green scale).

Sacrifice one scale to be changed at the horizon and you have the different floor/ceiling colour.

I think that reuse of textures in different colours is also done now, but at the moment you have to remap the values. Applying different scales on various levels is easy when you just have to change the base colour scale register...

 

I might have a wrong impression, but ATM it seems that a single texture tile/wall segment uses a single colour scale anyway. NRV?

Edited December 26, 2010 by Irgendwer

[Heaven/TQA]

i would vote for 130xe as this was standard hardware.

[emkay]

...

it's 21 st century and we do have RAM

...

 

Yes and VBXE, and >2 GHz PCs. Why bother with 1.79MHz...

 

 

Because it never was limited to RAM. It's a brainchild of C64 freaks, nothing else. The limits belong to the built hardware and the 8 bit CPU. A "super CPU" is 16 Bit, so no base to defend.... when talking about 8 bit computers.

The "Super CPU" also will not bring 256 colours to computers with only 16 of them

 

On the other hand, Put the intro out and load every map from Disk or Cartridge, still will "save" the 64K memory.

And "stock" 128K binded to the original 8 bit 6502, will surely be enough for a clean "Wolf 3D" experience.

[Jacques]

...

it's 21 st century and we do have RAM

...

 

Yes and VBXE, and >2 GHz PCs. Why bother with 1.79MHz...

 

Geez, come on... Don't take this out of proportions Just 130XE would be great and it's a stock A8. Forget Commodore moaners about their 64KB. If Atari custom chips and 6502 can deliver such great things, why to limit it because of stupid 64KB talking...

Edited December 26, 2010 by Jacques

[Irgendwer]

Because it never was limited to RAM.

 

Yes and especially ROM. But I'm not thinking only in terms of memory here. Every little feature will put down the frame rate.

But maybe I will be surprised and NVR applies some magic again...

We will see.

What ever happens, I would suggest (if he stays under the 128k limit) entering the ABBUC contest with the final version.

He really deserves a first place and some monetary gratification.

[emkay]

The pictures look not that good. And in movement it will get even worse.

 

The point is, that they may look good enough! Saving 50% isn't easy...

 

 

Hm. Sometimes I don't understand waht other people mean

 

The "Demo" that runs now in a 64K machine , well, other would have sold it in the 80s as a full playable game.

So , it's proven that it works on stock machines.

 

Now chose a "standard device" , as used in the 70s already, called "Cartridge" . Just as ROM for storing all textures. So, at the end, all will run on a stock machine.

[miker]

Attached PAL/NTSC versions patched for use with Atari800WinPlus emulator only.

 

So don't tell anyone if it won't work elsewhere.

PM2_A800WinPLus.zip

[+Stephen]

...

it's 21 st century and we do have RAM

...

 

Yes and VBXE, and >2 GHz PCs. Why bother with 1.79MHz...

Because the 130XE came out way back in 1985. Atari suffered from the mentality - why target a 48K machine when people with 16K 400s might get to miss out? And look what we got for many years - shit games that would run on a 16K machine.

[Rybags]

Yep.

 

Count the 64K "exclusives" before 1990 - you'd probably be lucky to hit a dozen (disregard stuff like cart versions of existing games that needed 64K).

 

And count the turd versions of games that also came out on C64 that were feature-reduced to work on 48K or less - so many potentially good games gone to ruin.

[José Pereira]

Hi, great that this is already been discussed at "lemon64.com" Forum on the "Chit Chat"

But I think they probably get a sleep, probably some Drinks more and they don't post anything since yesterday Night

 

 

José Pereira.

[Irgendwer]

The "Demo" that runs now in a 64K machine , well, other would have sold it in the 80s as a full playable game.

So , it's proven that it works on stock machines.

 

Yes. And no one takes away that demo from you. But I think/hope NRV will proceed to get something playable like Wolf 3D.

This is not easy. What I wrote are just hints which may help NRV to get there.

 

Now chose a "standard device" , as used in the 70s already, called "Cartridge" . Just as ROM for storing all textures. So, at the end, all will run on a stock machine.

 

All correct. But just a few thoughts:

+ not everyone likes to have a cartridge (remember that poll?) (and self modifying code on cartridge is hard... )

+ more memory usage means less user range: 128k? 320k? 512k? 1MB?

+ more memory usage doesn't mean better programs (remember that huge karateka demo?)

+ programs which won't work on a stock 130XE are not allowed to participate the ABBUC contest

+ I appreciate 'Space Harrier' but at least now, it doesn't seem to run without cart

+ using much memory for something isn't retro - I could digitize 'Gone with the Wind' to APAC, building a huge ROM. But what does it show?

+ I don't care, but C64 guys will start complaining if leaving their limited 64k view of the A8

+ using our 'co-processor' ANTIC to speed-up visualization or allow other neat things AND additionally save memory IS cool and something other machines can't!

+ remember 'Bomb Jake' and the problem of some users to load big files? The compressed version was very appreciated.

 

Hm. Sometimes I don't understand waht other people mean

 

Hopefully now.

Edited December 26, 2010 by Irgendwer