It's Conner time 2 (Dormant, I'm thinking about going back to finish ICT first)

[Ecernosoft]

Hello!

I am working on ICT2.  (Not at the moment, I'm waiting to see if there's even enough intrest for the first to be finished before the 2nd is completed!)

This is all I have at the moment, version 1.45.

320Dtest (8).a78; This is binary

320Dtest (1).a; This is code

 

WARNING: This game will look different if you use Composite / RF or S-Video, RGB or better. it does use artifacting.

WARNING: Sprites don't look right on the real 7800. This is a 7800 hardware bug and it will be fixed.

 

It's not much, just a test. ICT2 is coming though, so be ready!

 

Great news! ICT2 is in high resolution!

You might ask why I'm using basically the worst 320 mode- 320D. (And 320B for the sprites)

Well I was going to use 320B but it uses too much DMA to be practical. You can do a full screen with 320B but then you only get 2 8 pixel wide sprites per line which is terrible.

Instead I'm going to use 320D. Here's all the benefits of 320D:

1. Low DMA costs

2. 12 colors on RF/Composite

3. Low storage required for tiles (32 bytes per 16*16)

4. 320B for sprites

 

I'm also hoping in later versions to add HSC compatibility if there's enough ROM in the 48K space left.

No pictures yet as the sprites are still bugged on the real 7800 and the background is glitched in the emulator.

Edit: I might make a ROM hack of ICT1 to use 320 modes so it will look better on real 7800.

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Ecernosoft

[Traxx]

On emulator it shows this and then moves downward offscreen

 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Traxx

[Ecernosoft]

46 minutes ago, Traxx said:

On emulator it shows this and then moves downward offscreen

 

Hit reset.

[Traxx]

Good start,by the way linking to JS7800 is fixed

Edited September 1, 2022 by Traxx

[Ecernosoft]

21 hours ago, Traxx said:

Good start,by the way linking to JS7800 is fixed

OOk. How do you make a link like that? Do you load your game and copy the URL?

[Mord]

Just a note, if memory serves, JS7800 is one of those emulators that doesn't display 320B correctly. That's why it's not showing the hardware bug that you'll see on real hardware. I recommend not using it for debugging/testing if you're going to use 320B. You can use JS7800 to link to the thread of course to show everyone but to make sure the graphics glitch doesn't get past you you'll want to check it out with A7800, MAME, or BupSystem when you add new sprites. Those 3 at the very least appear to display 320B sprites properly. (aka: like it would on real hardware.)

 

 

[Ecernosoft]

7 hours ago, Mord said:

Just a note, if memory serves, JS7800 is one of those emulators that doesn't display 320B correctly. That's why it's not showing the hardware bug that you'll see on real hardware. I recommend not using it for debugging/testing if you're going to use 320B. You can use JS7800 to link to the thread of course to show everyone but to make sure the graphics glitch doesn't get past you you'll want to check it out with A7800, MAME, or BupSystem when you add new sprites. Those 3 at the very least appear to display 320B sprites properly. (aka: like it would on real hardware.)

 

 

I do usually use real hardware for my tests. Just the emulator I usually dev it on doesn't support half the things the 7800 can do.

No 320B, 320C, 320D, or 160B

No B/W mode

No Expansions

No Kangaroo mode

 

And worst of all, the TIA emulation is pitched down some.

 

That's why I use JS7800. Also, it's partially because I couldn't get DASM to work yet.

[gambler172]

Hi

 the whole thing does not work  on emulator. And on real hardware, I can move a sprite fron left to right.And why do you call it ICT 2 ?

 

[Ecernosoft]

27 minutes ago, gambler172 said:

Hi

 the whole thing does not work  on emulator. And on real hardware, I can move a sprite from left to right. And why do you call it ICT 2 ?

 

ICT2 is an acronym for It's Conner Time 2.

It works on JS7800 and on real hardware.

This was a test of 320D because I was thinking about using 320 modes BUT I might use Direct mode with 160A to get more colors.

Direct mode works via making lots of sprites in a grid instead of indirect (Char) mode.

Pros:

Each sprite can be it's own pallete

Very colorful

Great for 320A if you need lots of color and high resolution

Cons:

Uses lots of RAM in DL space

Complex to set up

Could be slow if you don't set up an efficient draw kernal

 

I was also thinking about using 16KB of RAM and 160C (Trick to get 169 colors on stock atari 7800, best with 16KB of RAM) to get a bitmap square pixel mode. It makes the 7800 able to produce amazing pictures at a 2 major costs:

1. Max resolution is 160*96

2. Slow if you want to update the background on the fly.

 

So I'm not going to use 160C.

I think I'll go with 160A and direct mode. I can make it efficient by saving DMA cycles by making blank tiles point to HDMA space, having an 11*11 grid of 16*16 160A sprites (11 across so one tile is just off-screen for scroll purposes) and having a buffer to load new tiles in.

ICT2 will be completley reworked to use direct mode as a test. It will prove the 7800 is colorful if that wasn't obvious already.

ICT2 was meant as a Demoscene game.

The reason behind it was ICT was "Supposed" to prove the 7800 was more powerful than the NES but the way I set it up didn't really show that. It looked bad too.

Most anyone not familiar with the 7800 probably (Including myself at one point) viewed it as an "Inferior NES" and I wanted to disprove that common theory.

[gambler172]

What does the demo do?

On my Concerto, I can move the player only from left to right....On my other multicarts, it does not work at all

[Traxx]

Yeah,that's all it does right now Gambler.

 

JS7800 ICT2

Edited September 6, 2022 by Traxx

[gambler172]

18 hours ago, Traxx said:

Yeah,that's all it does right now Gambler.

 

JS7800 ICT2

on my Concerto.. the player can be moved from left to right....not down 😉

[SIO2]

The sprite (I guess it is Conner) reminds me of a foosball man.  What about Conner 7800 Foosball?

 

 

[Silver Back]

6 hours ago, SIO2 said:

The sprite (I guess it is Conner) reminds me of a foosball man.  What about Conner 7800 Foosball?

 

 

Foosball is an interesting idea. As I've gotten older I've really come to enjoy video pinball games so I wonder if a foosball game could be as much fun. Especially if you included like a straight up foosball mode and a more video game naxat style mode.  

[Ecernosoft]

18 hours ago, SIO2 said:

The sprite (I guess it is Conner) reminds me of a foosball man.  What about Conner 7800 Foosball?

 

 

Someone else did a football game. And I'm not a huge sports fan... so maybe not. I might though!

 

Edit: I just realized you said foosball and not football. Maybe! Would probably make more sense as a 2600 game.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Ecernosoft

[Ecernosoft]

On 10/19/2022 at 7:28 PM, Ecernosoft said:

Someone else did a football game. And I'm not a huge sports fan... so maybe not. I might though!

 

Edit: I just realized you said foosball and not football. Maybe! Would probably make more sense as a 2600 game.

Speaking of, I’m currently deving ICT3 (it’s a sequel to ICT2 on 2600)

so go check that out!

[Ecernosoft]

This project has been canceled. Sorry.

 

ICT1 doesn't exist in the ICT timeline because it never got finished... ICT1 2600 takes it's place.