+Pat Brady Posted April 7, 2020 Share Posted April 7, 2020 Starting a new thread here as I am now working on this (as allowed by my other responsibilities of course). I hoped to do a 124x96 or maybe 128x96 playfield with each game pixel being 2 lines tall. Both the total area and the pixels would be fairly close to square. The 7800 has enough RAM to store the information, but alas, I don’t think I can coerce MARIA to repeat raster lines. It’s going to be tight but I think I can do 96x150. The total area will still be nearly square visually but the pixels will be very horizontal (like many 7800 games). I think it will be okay if I limit objects’ horizontal speed. This might be better than the earlier idea anyway. For comparison the 5200 port’s playfield is 124x82. Pixels are squarish but the total area is horizontal. I’m not sure of the arcade version’s exact resolution but it must be over 200 in both dimensions. EDIT (2022.3.9): I understand MARIA much better than when I first wrote this post. Current version has 191x171 resolution. Latest version: 7iX-2022-03-05.a78 7iX-2022-03-05-128k.a78 Spoiler EDIT: This version does not work on hardware. Hopefully the next snapshot will. 7ix-2020-06-25-A.a78 7ix-2020-06-25-A.bin 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted April 8, 2020 Share Posted April 8, 2020 (edited) Will sound be TIA or POKEY? If POKEY, I got a technique for getting the Qix hum ... 16-bit on 0 and 1, store a low F#1 frequency in the second and first channels, then randomly fade the volumes between the two channels to get that random vibration. If you are using 7800basic I will do up some code for you. Edited April 8, 2020 by Synthpopalooza 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Pat Brady Posted April 8, 2020 Author Share Posted April 8, 2020 Initially TIA. Down the road, not sure. I hope to do some experimenting with the various different options. Thanks for the suggestion. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 8, 2020 Share Posted April 8, 2020 I'm currently working on a cover of C64 Qix's title music with the TIA. That could be the title theme for this 7800 port once it's finished. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted April 8, 2020 Share Posted April 8, 2020 I also think TIA distortion 6 will make good sounds for area fill-in. there are E notes and B notes on 3 octaves, and cycling the same note real quick makes for those random sounding timbres. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 According to MAME, QIX runs at 256x256. You could probably move the score to the side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 Yeah baby Qix.ttt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 What kind of file is that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Pat Brady Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 4 hours ago, The Usotsuki said: According to MAME, QIX runs at 256x256. You could probably move the score to the side. Interesting. arcade-museum.com says it’s standard resolution which it defines as 240x336. But that’s the same ballpark. Work is coming along. Sometimes I think wow, the 7800 is really well suited for this. Other times I think wow, the 7800 is really NOT well suited for this. But overall I’m pretty optimistic. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 9 hours ago, Jinks said: What kind of file is that? It's a TIATracker project file. I guess I probably should have done a bin export too. I'll do that later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 I tried doing a bin export, but it doesn't sound very good. Some instruments are completely missing and the song kinda corrupts itself after the first playthrough. Maybe one of you guys can help me with this? I also provided the assembly files, if anything can be done with those. Qix.bin Qix_init.asm Qix_player.asm Qix_player_framework.asm Qix_trackdata.asm Qix_variables.asm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mksmith Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 Hi, I've converted over the tiatracker player to work with batari Basic and 7800basic if that is of any assistance. See my signature for the links. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Okay, I downloaded the module, but I don't know what it means when it says to copy the tiatracker folder into the root of my source folder. What source folder? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I genuinely don't know what this means. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Actually, this whole process is really confusing. I managed to export a ROM, but it just plays the built in test song. I'm no programmer and I can't figure any of this out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Okay wait, I think I'm actually understanding this now. The only problem is that Visual Studio Code won't let me save a 78b file for whatever reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 I'm sorry. I genuinely can't figure this out. I posted the asm files above for Qix if anybody wants to help. I really don't know what I'm doing here. Again, I'm not a programmer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mksmith Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Hi, So you downloaded the source for the player itself which gives an example of setting up the music to play in batari Basic and 7800basic. Following the instructions at the bottom of the post (on the forum here) you export the track to dasm format which will replace the sample ones provided and manually remove to variables from the source. From there you compile up with 7800basic and off you go. I did an export as well but somewhere in the track export there is a mis-configuration which is providing numbers greater than 255 which is not possible to compile. I've max'd those to $ff (255) - see track_trackdata.asm for notes (around lines 272). Anyway, see attached - it's compiled up for the 2600 and 7800 and the source is included ? Sounds good! Hope that helps! QIX.TIATrackerPlayer.zip 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Thank you for doing an export. I tried doing exactly what you told me, but it still only plays the demo tune. So, I'm still lost on that, but I appreciate your help. I believe the problem was that I used more instruments than TIATracker allows you to use. So, I cleaned up the original project file and also properly formatted it for NTSC. Hope this makes for a better export. Qix.ttt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mksmith Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Perfect - working now ? QIX.TIATrackerPlayer.v2.zip 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaden (JRH) Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Awesome, thank you so much! I feel bad that I couldn't get the module working and I honestly don't know what I was doing wrong. But I'm glad that you could help render this for me. Maybe one day, I'll get around to learning 7800basic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mksmith Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 No probs - it's a little tricky to setup unfortunately but its a really good tracker program. Would love to be able to get it to play multiple tracks but that's beyond my abilities! Happy to help again if you need it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 On 4/8/2020 at 10:40 PM, The Usotsuki said: According to MAME, QIX runs at 256x256. You could probably move the score to the side. On 4/9/2020 at 11:18 AM, bizarrostormy said: Interesting. arcade-museum.com says it’s standard resolution which it defines as 240x336. But that’s the same ballpark. Work is coming along. Sometimes I think wow, the 7800 is really well suited for this. Other times I think wow, the 7800 is really NOT well suited for this. But overall I’m pretty optimistic. The raw output from MAME for the entire screen is 256x256. However, when that raw output is isolated for just the playfield, the result is 223x199, without a border; rounding even, ~224x200. 256x256: ~224x200: The above images do not account for nor adjust to Aspect Ratio (The Arcade is a vertical game 3:4). The one I played a lot BITD, is an unofficial port (AKA Stix), by A. Trott, on the C64: 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Pat Brady Posted April 13, 2020 Author Share Posted April 13, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, Trebor said: The raw output from MAME for the entire screen is 256x256. However, when that raw output is isolated for just the playfield, the result is 223x199, without a border; rounding even, ~224x200. Thank you for determining this. I had assumed that the arcade playfield was less than 1:1 because it’s on a 3:4 screen, the score display is less than 1/4 of the total height, and the horizontal lines look about as thick as the vertical lines. I guess I was wrong about line thickness. (It wouldn’t take much to go from slightly less than 1:1 to slightly more.) It’s been several decades since I played it on actual arcade hardware. I think I have figured out how to fit everything into 4K to please MARIA, and without using exorbitant ROM. Whether SALLY can keep up remains to be seen. I have started coding but don’t have anything to show yet. Edited April 13, 2020 by bizarrostormy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 The NES seems to be able to pull it off, but that's quite different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Pat Brady Posted April 13, 2020 Author Share Posted April 13, 2020 2 hours ago, The Usotsuki said: The NES seems to be able to pull it off, but that's quite different. Yeah, it’s hard to compare, especially without knowing how much cart RAM it uses. I am fairly optimistic SALLY will be up to the task without requiring big compromises. I just don’t know yet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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