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D.K. VCS


Joe Musashi

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Impressive, yes. But faithful? The flat ramps on the first screen says no. That's something that literally every other console port of DK has managed to get right.

 

I stand by my statement. It captures the essence of the game and is immediately recognizable. This looks, sounds, and plays like Donkey Kong within the limits of the VCS. Furthermore, it has more features of the original arcade game than the VCS port made by Coleco. Therefore, I say this is a faithful port which is not the same as saying it is exactly like the arcade or the most faithful port for any console.

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This looks, sounds, and plays like Donkey Kong within the limits of the VCS.

 

Of course it's within the limits of the VCS-- it's a VCS game. It's within the limits by definition. However, doing ramped platforms is also well within the limits of the VCS. As a result, the single most iconic stage of Donkey Kong looks--entirely avoidably--wrong. Which is a darn shame.

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What about DSP+? Surely that's not within the limits of vintage hardware.

 

The original DPC came out in 1984 as part of Pitfall II. The DPC+ is an improvement over that, but I think it's still comparable to the Super FX chip introduced in SNES cartridges starting the year after the 2600 was discontinued. And don't forget that you could hook a Core i7 up to your 2600 and you'd still only ever have two players, two missiles, a ball and a playfield.

 

It's vintage-ish.

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The ARM on the melody boards is much more powerful than a SuperFX chip. Question is, is there any way to max out the ARM's entire 70Mhz of performance?

 

Ah. I don't know why I keep thinking the ARM's clocked at 20MHz. Must be a leftover from my C64 days when a 20MHz upgrade was the holy grail.

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The ARM on the melody boards is much more powerful than a SuperFX chip. Question is, is there any way to max out the ARM's entire 70Mhz of performance?

The ARM may be more powerful, but its hands are tied. They both have 32K SRAM, but SuperFX has it dedicated to rendering effects, while the Harmony (if I understand correctly) uses that memory for "rom" storage after the game is loaded from flash. Harmony also spends a good chunk of it's cycles doing housekeeping with the address lines, while SuperFX works mostly unfettered.

 

As for unlocking graphic performance, I think bus-stuffing is as good as Harmony and Melody are going to get, with TIA register updates every 3 cycles.

 

So far as how to max out ARM performance within its (and TIA's) constraints, check out recent SpiceWare titles. :)

 

 

It's not.

DPC+ without any additional ARM code isn't that far off DPC, and could have been implemented back in the day with custom silicon. Recall that the idea for bus-stuffing the 2600, which goes further than DPC+, came from Atari engineers back in the day.

 

To me the fact that it could have been implemented (albeit with non-hobby tech) is vintage enough. I hold AtariVox in the same mental category as pure DPC+.

 

Throw in custom ARM functions and game logic though, and that goes out the window.

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Probably you mean that 80 to 85% the game is running on the 6507 displaying the kernel. With a 192 line kernel that's ~74% ((192+3)/262, 3 extra lines for VSYNC) running on the 6507, leaving less than 26% for the ARM. So it is effectively running at around 18 MHz.

Edited by Thomas Jentzsch
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Of course it's within the limits of the VCS-- it's a VCS game. It's within the limits by definition. However, doing ramped platforms is also well within the limits of the VCS. As a result, the single most iconic stage of Donkey Kong looks--entirely avoidably--wrong. Which is a darn shame.

 

You began comparing it to other consoles and debating the faithfulness of the port.

 

 

...every other console port of DK...

 

My point then, was that we were not comparing between consoles. You know as well as anyone that more powerful hardware can accommodate more exact ports. Quite frankly, for the things that this port does right, I don't think the flat girders are all that bothersome.

Edited by yell0w_lantern
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  • 3 weeks later...

This game actually FEELS like donkey kong-I don't care if the platforms aren't inclined. Perhaps that isn't even possible with everything else this game does awesomely.

 

The jumping does remind me of atari 8-bit-but that's ok with me :)

 

I can't say enough good things about this donkey kong version! It is just plain fun. I played it just today-and went all the way to the part where donkey kong falls. That quality is incredible!

 

-Kaz

Edited by kaz321123
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  • 2 weeks later...

Pity there are two homebrew DKs in development right now. I enjoyed elements from both, and if both are ultimately released on cart, I'll prolly buy both. Never can get enough donkey Kong, after all...

 

Shouldn't pity be replaced with yippee? Example:

 

"Yippee! There are two homebrew DKs in development right now! I enjoyed elements from both, and if both are ultimately released on cart, I'll probably buy both. Never can get enough Donkey Kong, after all."

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Shouldn't pity be replaced with yippee? Example:

 

"Yippee! There are two homebrew DKs in development right now! I enjoyed elements from both, and if both are ultimately released on cart, I'll probably buy both. Never can get enough Donkey Kong, after all."

Yeah bad word choice LOL! The only "pity" part is that the authors have to compete on some level. I guess this is sorrta like the Star Castle incident, except both parties expressed interest in sharing their work this time around. Ultimately many Atari fans will only buy one or the other.

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