analmux Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 (edited) I think I've found a way to get rid of the dirty line of character mode (antic) 4. The trick is to write to Vscrol to copy the first line of graphics over the whole screen down to the lowest line. (see konop's mode) (I remember I discussed this Vscrol trick with Heaven once) If I'm right this stops Antic from reading the character data (but still the font data), now this is a normal DMA line instead of a dirty line. The only drawback now is that we would need as many fonts as there are graphics lines (i.e. 24 or 30 fonts). ------------additional explanations------------ Dirty line is why you cannot make raster changes: make setcolor changes (in G2F or other code) in the middle of scanline. Every character mode (2,3,4,5,6,7) has a dirty line (the first line of because ANTIC must fetch 80 bytes: 40 character data + 40 fontdata Then there's no On-screen CPU time available. I'll give some examples of my trick later but this is the principle: You must fool ANTIC with some weird writes to Vscrol address, and then the screen will look like it's a 40*1 charmode, where characters (in antic 4) are 4 pixels wide and 192 pixels high: therefore you must change the fontpage every 8 scanlines by th DLinterrupt. Then ANTIC doesn't update it's internal buffer, so will not cause any badlines on the rest of the screen. This trick does not work with antic 2 or 3 (unfortunately), so no 320 or 80 pixels resolution graphics with this trick. But that doesn't matter because in GED-- we can always use bitmap antic 15 (with or without GTIA modes), and in hires we didn't have the 5th color anyway. ------AIM------- I contacted TeBe (writer of Graph2Font) about this. G2F has a mode GED+ It's color enhancement in charmode antic 4 with midscanline setcolor register changes. These changes normally don't have effect in dirty lines. But with the trick I found out last weekend these don't appear, then we will have screen where the rasterchanges have effect on ALL scanlines. Edited June 23, 2005 by analmux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 http://www.s-direktnet.de/homepages/k_nadj/mode9++.html just in case someone needs more indepth info... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 There is one handycap.... If pokey is not reading the charset data, the inversion (the 5th colour) is not handled correctly. This makes charmode nearly useless for G2F. One the other hand... This news shows that active v-scrolling is saving cpu time when using the char-mode. So you have to write a fast action game now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted June 23, 2005 Author Share Posted June 23, 2005 (edited) There is one handycap....If pokey is not reading the charset data, the inversion (the 5th colour) is not handled correctly. This makes charmode nearly useless for G2F. One the other hand... This news shows that active v-scrolling is saving cpu time when using the char-mode. So you have to write a fast action game now 879582[/snapback] I haven't thought about that. Yep, that's right, okay this limits the use of this display method. You're the first pointing out this disadvantage....while it was my goal to gain the 5th color in a GED display. ...but just imagine a game-engine with horizontal scrolling shooter, then 40 bytes to handle the whole screen gives extremely fast action (in theory )......however horizontal scrolling GED must yet be invented Edited June 23, 2005 by analmux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 There is one handycap....If pokey is not reading the charset data, the inversion (the 5th colour) is not handled correctly. This makes charmode nearly useless for G2F. Wow, I never thought of using Pokey to generate a display!! -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 There is one handycap....If pokey is not reading the charset data, the inversion (the 5th colour) is not handled correctly. This makes charmode nearly useless for G2F. Wow, I never thought of using Pokey to generate a display!! -Bry 879592[/snapback] Oops.... seems I'm messing around with the POKEY too much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 I haven't thought about that. Yep, that's right, okay this limits the use of this display method. You're the first pointing out this disadvantage....while it was my goal to gain the 5th color in a GED display. Sometimes it is necessary to have a block(several charmode-lines) of those inversions... a given possibility would make the scrolling and to have the continous midline-changes useful... For this, it must be possible to switch the v-scroll on and off during the image is displayed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted June 23, 2005 Author Share Posted June 23, 2005 There is one handycap....If pokey is not reading the charset data, the inversion (the 5th colour) is not handled correctly. This makes charmode nearly useless for G2F. So we don't have the inverse flag attribute for all independent 4*8 pixel areas, but only for 4*192 pixel areas, but we can still treat them like raster changes (one bonus raster change ), be it a more flexible one, because raster change areas normally are 16 to 24 pixels wide, whereas the 5th color raster change can be alternating every 4 pixels without extra CPU intervention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted June 23, 2005 Author Share Posted June 23, 2005 I haven't thought about that. Yep, that's right, okay this limits the use of this display method. You're the first pointing out this disadvantage....while it was my goal to gain the 5th color in a GED display. Sometimes it is necessary to have a block(several charmode-lines) of those inversions... a given possibility would make the scrolling and to have the continous midline-changes useful... For this, it must be possible to switch the v-scroll on and off during the image is displayed. 879629[/snapback] And we can still divide the screen up in horizontal bands: we can put back a dirty line when no rasterchanges are needed, but instead there are new 5th color flags needed. (...aah, don't you love the atari 8bit , it's still a very intrigueing machine every solution brings a new problem with it, but the new problem again has a solution) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 And we can still divide the screen up in horizontal bands: we can put back a dirty line when no rasterchanges are needed, but instead there are new 5th color flags needed. Having a look at TMR's REAXION, it would be possible to have even more colorful tiles for the A8 version....(Using charmode plus multiplexed Players ( h. & v.) The first line of the tiles will not allow to multiplex the player, but that's no problem, because enough colours are available for that scanline due to the Charmode... (...aah, don't you love the atari 8bit , it's still a very intrigueing machine every solution brings a new problem with it, but the new problem again has a solution) 879635[/snapback] I would name that "puzzling".... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted June 23, 2005 Author Share Posted June 23, 2005 Having a look at TMR's REAXION, it would be possible to have even more colorful tiles for the A8 version....(Using charmode plus multiplexed Players ( h. & v.) The first line of the tiles will not allow to multiplex the player, but that's no problem, because enough colours are available for that scanline due to the Charmode... Then it's a shame TMR has mastered it (already ?) to tape. Why did he want to release it so fast Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 better a finished game than no game... (re: super mario, boinxx, etc...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 better a finished game than no game... (re: super mario, boinxx, etc...) 879706[/snapback] It'll probably be my last. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 you last game? or your last on atari??? what about Blitz!? and other ideas you mentioned??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 Having a look at TMR's REAXION, it would be possible to have even more colorful tiles for the A8 version....(Using charmode plus multiplexed Players ( h. & v.) The first line of the tiles will not allow to multiplex the player, but that's no problem, because enough colours are available for that scanline due to the Charmode... If you can write a better game, then please do it instead of critiquing those who are devoting their time and energy to supporting the Atari. This is the only forum where some seem so ungrateful. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 you last game? or your last on atari??? what about Blitz!? and other ideas you mentioned??? 880205[/snapback] Last on the Atari, possibly. i've had a particularly bad couple of weeks so it might be them talking right now but i simply don't see any incentive write or even finish little projects like Lunar Blitz (let alone bigger ones) just to have them picked apart before anyone's actually played them. For now i'm going to step back a little and think it over... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 If you can write a better game, then please do it instead of critiquing those who are devoting their time and energy to supporting the Atari. This is the only forum where some seem so ungrateful. Sorry, but from what point of view is "giving examples" equal to "critism"? The main cause for this is to give "thoughts" to people. If they want to create new software, they know what is possible, before they do their stuff. It may help either to prevent doing unfinishable projects and to optimize their project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 Sorry, but from what point of view is "giving examples" equal to "critism"? The main cause for this is to give "thoughts" to people. If they want to create new software, they know what is possible, before they do their stuff. It may help either to prevent doing unfinishable projects and to optimize their project. 880330[/snapback] I just think you need to be a little more sensitive to the developers who are in this forum. When it comes to programming, not everyone is as hardcore as you. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 i am planning to release a vic-20 and a c64 version of boinxx...maybe in the year of 2010 but why not....1st the atari version.... played around with the 1st enemy code... btw. i will buy Reaxion from cronosoft just for sake... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 and to be honest... i dont give a f... about emkay's or whoever "advice" in coding... i am doing my stuff....oftern criitisised by taquart members and that's it... when you are coding and publishing stuff in the general public then you have to stay the critics... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 and to be honest... i dont give a f... about emkay's or whoever "advice" in coding... i am doing my stuff....oftern criitisised by taquart members and that's it... when you are coding and publishing stuff in the general public then you have to stay the critics... 880516[/snapback] It's like someone says "I don't" give a F... about commercials". Some weeks later someone is going to do some shopping and buying something like "Willybix" because he knows that name.... Having a look at Boinxx, it uses G2F(MCS) pictures and the graphics inside the game are done more consciously.... Don't you agree that the game is heavily influenced by some of those "critism" threads? I'm not shure, where any "worse" is to find here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 yup. boinxx looks far better with your advices... compared to the 1st versions... but it's interesting that you never mentioned ingame music or ingame gfx... i was (or am...) waiting for the typical "you have to use g2f" inside the game... and that's EXACTLY why i have put there the small g2f boinxx ingame logo... hehehe.... but nevermind any comments still welcome... 7 hours to go...Germany vs Brasil.... schweinsteiger vs kaka & adriano... ole.... (for our american's...soccer... ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 oh...damned hang over from last night... schweinsteiger is not playing...forgot that... 12 Lehmann - 3 A. Friedrich, 17 Mertesacker, 4 Huth, 16 Hitzlsperger - 8 Frings - 10 Deisler, 13 Ballack, 19 B. Schneider - 22 Kuranyi, 20 Podolski - Trainer: Klinsmann vs 1 Dida - 13 Cicinho, 3 Lucio, 4 Roque Junior, 6 Gilberto - 5 Emerson, 11 Zé Roberto - 10 Ronaldinho, 8 Kaka - 7 Robinho, 9 Adriano - Trainer: Parreira well...i use to play brasil in Pro Evolution Soccer 4.... oh...back to thread... being little off topic... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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