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Space Rocks (2600)


SpiceWare

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Not yet but if there is a huge difference then Stella is way off.

 

It's entirely possible. The sound emulation in Stella is adequate, but there are differences from the real thing. Unfortunately, I'm not a sound guy at all, and since I'm pretty much tone-deaf I don't see this improving in Stella anytime soon (unless someone wants to step up and look into it).

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Most of the sounds are at volume level $0C (the ones that are constant anyway)

- All Explosions start at $0C and work downwards.

- The Thrust is at $08 (lower)

- The Shots (player and UFO) start at $0F (the loudest) and work downwards.

- The Extra Ship is at $0F

- The UFOs and Magna-Mines are at $08

- The Player Ship Re-Entry is in a class by itself :)

 

I also just sent SpiceWare an update to the Ship Re-Entry sound.

 

I'm thinking explosions should be the loudest to start ($0F), Shots should be just under that ($0C) and Thrust should stay at $08.

Sounds like a plan?

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I played it last night, and it is an absolute blast. Amazing work SpiceWare, as usual. My friends were watching me play, and they're like, that's not much of an atari improvement. I then fired up the original, and they're like, oh wow, yeah... much better. They were confused when the asteroids deluxe enemy showed up.

 

I do have one complaint though. You are still respawning before the UFO leaves the screen. I am unsure if this is how it is done in Asteroids Deluxe or not, but the ship must be off the screen before you redeploy if you are trying to copy the arcade Asteroids.

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I do have one complaint though. You are still respawning before the UFO leaves the screen. I am unsure if this is how it is done in Asteroids Deluxe or not, but the ship must be off the screen before you redeploy if you are trying to copy the arcade Asteroids.

 

Yeah, I reverted to my old routines as there were some problems that cropped (in blog comments) up after I changed it to only respawn after the UFO left the screen. I haven't gone back to it yet.

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Are you planning to use the difficulty switches?

No. While I don't mind using them on the sixer, I find using the difficulty switches to be annoying on the four switch, Jr. and 7800.

 

 

Can the magnetic mines be turned off to keep the game play truer to the original arcade Asteroids?

I wanted to set it up as a menu option, but ran out of space so I tied it to the LEVEL option. Play Kids or Easy and the Magna-Mines won't show up.

Edited by SpiceWare
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I do have one complaint though. You are still respawning before the UFO leaves the screen. I am unsure if this is how it is done in Asteroids Deluxe or not, but the ship must be off the screen before you redeploy if you are trying to copy the arcade Asteroids.

Yeah, I reverted to my old routines as there were some problems that cropped (in blog comments) up after I changed it to only respawn after the UFO left the screen. I haven't gone back to it yet.

I know it may not be arcade-accurate, but I like the revenge factor of being able to respawn and kill the saucer that killed you.

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I know it may not be arcade-accurate, but I like the revenge factor of being able to respawn and kill the saucer that killed you.

 

You do have a good point there. It did feel good to have revenge on the ufo. I guess its entirely up to him, if he wants to make it truly arcade accurate, or to make it his own little addition to take out revenge on the ufo. :)

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I'm surprised the sounds in E.T. are so off in Stella. I rarely play games on real hardware so I wouldn't have ever known. When E.T. gets lowered to the ground it sounds mesmerizing on a real hardware and meh in emulation. I'll have to compare the sounds for Space Rocks on real hardware and emulation this weekend! Unfortunately I have no equipment to do a comparison and post it like (RT?) did.

Edited by Omegamatrix
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I'm surprised the sounds in E.T. are so off in Stella. I rarely play games on real hardware so I wouldn't have ever known. When E.T. gets lowered to the ground it sounds mesmerizing on a real hardware and meh in emulation. I'll have to compare the sounds for Space Rocks on real hardware and emulation this weekend! Unfortunately I have no equipment to do a comparison and post it like (RT?) did.

 

I'm open to collaboration on looking into/fixing this issue. With the final issues being fixed with the TIA emulation for the 3.8 release, I think the sound emulation is the next big thing to consider. But as I've said above, I'm not a sound guy, so I don't understand a lot of the theory behind it. Also, all the emulators, in one way or another, use the original sound code from Ron Fries. So I suspect they all have the same issue. What we need is research into what's really going on, and attempt to improve that sound code.

 

Finally, the way sound is handled in Stella is due to be reworked anyway, to properly support KidVid audio. Anyway, not to derail this thread anymore. Feel free to PM me or create a new thread to discuss this.

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I'm surprised the sounds in E.T. are so off in Stella. I rarely play games on real hardware so I wouldn't have ever known. When E.T. gets lowered to the ground it sounds mesmerizing on a real hardware and meh in emulation. I'll have to compare the sounds for Space Rocks on real hardware and emulation this weekend! Unfortunately I have no equipment to do a comparison and post it like (RT?) did.

 

I can stream it on Saturday if you want a personal experience :)

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I just played the latest version and I'm amazed! This is great! I like the heartbeat, the thrust graphics, and the explosions. All the new stuff makes the game even more amazing than it was. Too bad we couldn't have had this version in 1982. The only thing I don't like is the green and purple lines at the bottom of the screen, but that's nitpicking. The old 2600 just keeps getting better and better!

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The only thing I don't like is the green and purple lines at the bottom of the screen, but that's nitpicking. The old 2600 just keeps getting better and better!

There's a menu option so you can choose a monochrome color scheme that doesn't have green and purple. (I prefer the light-blue color of Asteroids Deluxe, personally.)

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It's entirely possible. The sound emulation in Stella is adequate, but there are differences from the real thing. Unfortunately, I'm not a sound guy at all, and since I'm pretty much tone-deaf I don't see this improving in Stella anytime soon (unless someone wants to step up and look into it).

 

It just seems weird that Asteroids sounds fine. When I get a chance I'll test on Harmony but it seems more like volume than tone. Mostly because people have told me I'm tone-deaf also. On Asteroids the volume sounds right and I have it as loud as it can go. With Space Rocks the heart beat sounds more quiet especially while shooting. It almost sounds like a static that pops up every once in a while. The UFO shots are like nails on a chalk board loud. I don't know. I'll probably figure out better what I'm hearing when I compare them more and also test on Harmony.

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It just seems weird that Asteroids sounds fine. When I get a chance I'll test on Harmony but it seems more like volume than tone. Mostly because people have told me I'm tone-deaf also. On Asteroids the volume sounds right and I have it as loud as it can go. With Space Rocks the heart beat sounds more quiet especially while shooting. It almost sounds like a static that pops up every once in a while. The UFO shots are like nails on a chalk board loud. I don't know. I'll probably figure out better what I'm hearing when I compare them more and also test on Harmony.

 

Any testing and feedback is appreciated; eventually we'll probably get it sorted out. And when I say I'm tone-deaf, I don't just mean 'tones'. It's more of an overall sound thing; I'm just not into sound/music all that much. Heck, I don't even own a stereo! Aside from listening to a few MP3's in the car, that's the extent of my sound/music experience.

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Thanks!

 

I'm wrapping up the build that Al's going to demo at PRGE. It has updated sound effects, updated Magna Mine graphics, a fix to Magna Mine routines and a revised easter egg. I'll be posting it later on today for playtesting to make sure there's no "show stopping" bugs. I'll appreciate some quick feedback on this as I'm going to have company starting tomorrow so I won't have much time to fix any issues after today.

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