SpiceWare's Blog

I see the source code and I was curious and decided to download it and look in it. Just some thoughts and questions.

I think that save key driver is already in the game.

   INCLUDE "i2c_v2.3.asm" ; savekey support

I do see it in the .lst file but not 100% sure. Probably can gain space back from not including the driver.

 

The some sound data looks like it can be rle compressed to gain back memory. Either the sound engine can interpret the data table as Sound data, sound length. Or decompress to unused RAM and it can playback sound from there.

example:

   358  7ea7		       00 cb cb cb*	      .byte.b	0, $cb, $cb, $cb, $cb	; _13a_music_opening
    359  7eac		       cb cb cb cb	      .byte.b	$cb, $cb, $cb, $cb	; _13a_music_opening
    360  7eb0		       cb cb cb cb	      .byte.b	$cb, $cb, $cb, $cb	; _13a_music_opening
    361  7eb4		       cb cb cb cb	      .byte.b	$cb, $cb, $cb, $cb	; _13a_music_opening
    362  7eb8		       ca ca c7 c4	      .byte.b	$ca, $ca, $c7, $c4	; _13a_music_opening
    363  7ebc		       ca c7 c4 ca	      .byte.b	$ca, $c7, $c4, $ca	; _13a_music_opening
    364  7ec0		       c7 c4 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c7, $c4, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    365  7ec4		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    366  7ec8		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    367  7ecc		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    368  7ed0		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    369  7ed4		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    370  7ed8		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    371  7edc		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    372  7ee0		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    373  7ee4		       c9 c9 c9 c9	      .byte.b	$c9, $c9, $c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    374  7ee8		       c9 c9		      .byte.b	$c9, $c9	; _13a_music_opening
    375  7ee8		       00 f8	   _13a_music_opening EQU	* - SoundControlVolume - 1

$cb,$10,$ca,$02,

$c7,$01,$c4,$01,

$ca,$01,$c7,$01,

$c4,$01,$ca,$01,

$c7,$01,$c4,$01,

$ca,$01,$c7,$01,

$c4,$01,$c9,$28,$00

 

66 bytes down to 29 bytes.

These are just are my thoughts and saw some pattern in the sound data that can be compressed. I've use unused RAM to decompress data to gain ROM space back in my Flappe Byrd Colecovision project.

 

Draconion RC3 is excellent as it is. I played it a lot lately.

And thanks for sharing the source code. I like reading and learning through it. Colecovision use C as well.

The Save Key include file is like the macro.h include file, a bunch of macros so no space is used unless you use a macro. Only one I tried was on line 2542, and is commented out.

;        i2c_subs ; 109 bytes for savekey subroutines

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I wrote a tool you can find in the audio directory where I did an experiment with storing the sound effect data in a different format to see if it would be worth pursuing as the new, more complex, sound effect driver would take up more room. I neglected to include a readme explaining it, so just wrote one and added it to the blog entry.

 

When I last ran it the data savings was about 160 bytes, which, after considering the increase in driver size, I didn't think would be enough to justify the time spent to rewrite the audio driver (especially with everything else I had left). I just ran it against the final audio data, the _13a_music_opening (and _13b...) was not in there for the prior run, and the new format would now save 204 bytes for the data. Since I never rewrote the audio driver, I don't know how much larger it would become so don't know what the net savings (if any) there would be.

 

Thanks, and you're welcome.