PeteD

Yeah, it's Creative Commons (message from him) so free to download but the DVD has bonus material.. Pete

How did they get all those colors on the checkmark (right picture) - surely that is not a result of artifacting. It's a miggy, probably just a copper list changing the colour per line. Never actually thought about it before after seeing that for years but it'd be the easiest way to do it. Pete

I remember the first time I looked at programming the 2600. I couldn't believe anyone ever produced anything on it-- especially with the limitations of assemblers and test platforms in the '70s. I've written a few little test programs on it, but I totally respect anyone who produces a working game for it. I wrote a (mostly working) 2600 emu for GBA a good few years ago and it's doing something like that that'll make you realise just what was possible on it and some of the tricks coders were using to do things. I'd write something that I thought was a "good enough" display system only to have it destroyed by the next game I tested, rewrite, destroy, etc

I suppose it depends how much time is left outside the 100% section if you could fit in a call on scanline 0 then another after the screen, maybe push the screen down a bit, or like you say twice at the bottom and a register push somewhere else. Pete

Does G2F really take that much CPU? I doubt there isn't time left to call RMT twice, although "where" it's called during the frame may be an issue (after messing with SID emulation I know that even a couple ms difference of when sound registers are changed CAN make a noticeable difference in the sound that's produced, I'd presume POKEY is the same). Pete

I sense a logical contradiction here - if a software was designed to use artifacting, it by definition looks desirable - I mean, as desired by the author. That's exactly what FJ is saying in that sentence Pete

Just for another interesting usage of the C64 palette I saw a while ago on Way of the Pixel.. HEXQUISITE CORPSE COLLAB Not same res or colour per square limitations of course but it's nice to see the pixel artists continually rating it as a palette.

I know exactly what you mean Pete, and it relates to the point raised earlier about reflected/ambient light and the way objects are affected by the colour of their surroundings. Sticking to the same shades at differing luminance can make things a bit sterile sometimes. For example, I actually prefer this: ...to this: The second one still looks good, but to me it's a little sterile, not earthy enough. (Yeah, yeah, I know it's meant to be in the cold depths of space or something, but still!) This is an end of level boss that STE'86 did on the C64 back when we were still coding demos. It and some other bits and pieces are in line for making an A8 (and maybe C64, while I'm at it, why not) shooter. It looks boring in 3 greens. The ball thing in the middle opens up and there's a gun inside ready to spray alien death stuff

Indeed. Surprisingly fit for the job in hand, really. The fact that it's difficult to come up with a better fixed 16-colour palette says a lot. I tried some time ago, and in the end about the only change I was happy with was sacrificing the lightest grey in favour of an additional, darker green (I'm sure that will delight dimensionX!). And maybe make the white a very bright grey to compensate (full white can be a bit overkill anyway). There was a suggestion in that thread to ditch the purple in favour of something else, but come on... no grapes, no plums, no purple aliens? Fuhgeddaboutit! I think you're right about the green although I do like the way the limitations of things like that gave C64 graphics a style of their own, like using brown instead of a dark green which I suppose to some people looks like an abomination but to me it's nice because it's different. Pete

I assume it's going to be a hardware waves and volume envelopes thing? Pretty much whatever people ask for within reason. I think multiple calls per frame to get closer to SIDs ADSR times for people wanting to try to recreate SID voices, but to save CPU I'd like to steer clear of the way most multiple call stuff works and basically just do register stuffing on the subsequent calls rather than go through the whole "play a note" code on each call only to find all it needs to do is change a volume register. I think 2ms might be within the realms on reason Pete

I hear it mostly in the poly-bass. I've only experimented with tuning square waves, but I wonder how it would work for the poly sounds. There are three polynomial counters that allow four different pattern lengths (4,5,9,17 bit) and these are shared and sub-sampled by the 4 voices. With the shorter polys it's possible (and quite easy) to pick divisors that match the length of a simple repeating pattern within the sequence. When these divisor values are selected the sound may be different (or silent) depending on the alignment of the register write with the poly counter. I found that some of the settings create desirable sounds if they can be reliably triggered. One way I found is to use STIMER and/or quick SKCTL resets to put the code into alignment with the channels. It's all so tricky, and this is the stuff that drives emulator authors crazy. Yeah, one of the plans was to maybe write a new POKEY emulation too but I think it might be too reliant on things from the rest of the system that it'll be best to maybe simulate some of it for the PC editor (don't want to end up writing a new A8 emu) OR only do a native editor OR persuade someone like Phareon to keep updating Altirra whenever knew stuff is found.

Yes, any example code, snippets of info etc would be handy I've done the basic player that does bugger all atm other than play patterns. It needs sounds and it may as well have all the newly discovered stuff I've got a bit of it sussed but better that I make sure and get any other bits and bobs anyone has. No rush cuz I've got mountains of other stuff to do but just PM stuff to me whenever anyone finds anything out. Ta

Yeah, saw that earlier, that's what I now expect POKEY to sound like. I still hear out of tune bits but they aren't making me cringe, more just go "yeah, they're still there". Saw IS pretty good for POKEY

I'm unsure how on-topic "I like pretty colours" or "I don't think one machine is better", "I do think A8 is better", "I don't think one is better".... ad nauseum, can be for much longer. Either come up with some relevant facts to begin a discussion or when what you're saying is subjective don't get mad when we don't agree. When someone posts an explanation of why what you believe isn't so, or not as clear cut as you think it is, don't presume they're fanboys or liars. It's much easier to ask if you don't understand than to presume some ulterior motive for what we say. I think you'll find there won't be any "attacks" if people aren't somehow antagonised in the first place.

Want to have it that way? Just bring it on. I will really enjoy this. More threats? You've already replied to his post once, now again with "Want to have it that way?" "Just bring it on." What exactly are you planning? I also notice you haven't fixed his bug To give back? To defend myself? If someone brings personal attacks, can i defend myself then and give back? There are ways to defend yourself if you think someone is getting personal, there's a button to report the post to the mods and if they find it to be offensive in ANY way to anyone or a blatant attack on you that poster will be thread banned. You do NOT promise retaliation. Okey, so i will report all postings that are made just to annoy? Oooh, it's going be many. I will start with northpoles posting. Please do, but think on this, if the mods get endless petty reports from you, they aren't stupid and you'll be the one to go. Al for one has read (if he's caught up) this entire thread so knows the score.

Want to have it that way? Just bring it on. I will really enjoy this. More threats? You've already replied to his post once, now again with "Want to have it that way?" "Just bring it on." What exactly are you planning? I also notice you haven't fixed his bug To give back? To defend myself? If someone brings personal attacks, can i defend myself then and give back? There are ways to defend yourself if you think someone is getting personal, there's a button to report the post to the mods and if they find it to be offensive in ANY way to anyone or a blatant attack on you that poster will be thread banned. You do NOT promise retaliation.

Want to have it that way? Just bring it on. I will really enjoy this. More threats? You've already replied to his post once, now again with "Want to have it that way?" "Just bring it on." What exactly are you planning? I also notice you haven't fixed his bug

...and you can only use 128 bytes of RAM, and your code must fit in 4K, and you can only use opcodes whose bits would generate even parity. Well, apart from the silly bit at the end someone tried to run a competition on AA with those rules a while back... but i forget if it went anywhere! Add, "fighting off hordes of Playboy models" just to make it that bit harder (..errm, yes, I did just type that didn't I) and I'm in.

Interesting - thanks for the info! You're welcome. I thought about what I wrote before, and you can actually manipulate the PMG's fully without any DMA. You just have to cram the HPOS and the GRAF registers yourself. In this mode, you can configure GTIA to be very much like TIA. You can set the Player pixels to be as wide as a TIA playfield pixels and stuff and position them in real-time to simulate a playfield. Use whatever's left for the players (as long as you don't need the repeat function). I wonder what the best game is someone could write with no DMA. You want to make A8 coding HARDER?

Yoomp! gets a decent boost from using a line-doubled mode. Yeah, definitely a case of, you can, it doesn't look shit, it makes it faster, why not ? If you try to use it as a comparison with what the C64 can do there'll be a lot of "but it's 1/2 the res", but it's a function of the machine and if you could do it on C64 without losing cycles...

Like I say though, if you saw it on an Apple, especially a good few years ago, would you care if it was kinda slow and sheared? I think I'd just grin at it for 10 mins I think you're right about some of the techniques, if my memory wasn't so poor I'd be able to remember where I read some stuff about it..

Yeah, I'm not expecting sprites flying around in multiple colours and full screen scrollers etc I thought there'd be attempts at the more CPU based effects like 3D, rotozoomers etc. Even if stuff like that runs slow it's still cool to have on your machine

IF I have reason to change my mind because someone has given me facts on a subject that they can back up with proof I will happily do so and thank whoever corrected me/gave me new info. If it's subjective like most of the stuff in this thread has been I'll change my mind if someone shows me something better than I thought was possible. I'm not changing my mind to get out of arguments or peer pressure then changing it back again the next day. I totally disagree with listening to 5 out of 38,000+ to make a decision though. I did that on A8 before I got into the scene and thought POKEY was worse than just about every chip around but wouldn't actually say that to anyone because I knew I'd probably barely scratched the surface. You can go back to the early SID days, listen to 5 tunes from then and get basic waveforms probably using basic sound statements, go forewards a couple of years to Rob Hubbard who had amazing instruments eg great drums, violin etc. Forward more to the start of samples as a 4th voice, newer more advanced players, right up to today when you can basically make a SID sound like an Amiga MOD player. You're not fitting all of that history and enhancement in 5 songs. I'd suggest a top 100 at least for a good cross section of SID and no doubt the same is true of POKEY. I'm talking of to not use any samples but the pure sid sound. You can use samples on Pokey too. Often those tunes are a bit bigger in size. That's ok too, you're still not going to get a good cross section in 5 songs. Probably 1-2% of SID tunes use samples, the "sounds like a mod" thing does but not in the normal C64 way but ignore that too. You've still got huge advances over time in "instruments" people were able to make in the players, just like there's been in POKEY over the years. Like I say, I never expressed an opinion on POKEY to anyone until I had listened to what other people told me were the best examples and it was a lot more than 5.

http://pouet.net/prodlist.php?platform[]=Apple+II&order=&x=26&y=8&page=1&order= Oh cool! Ta for that Pete, never thought to check Pouet. =-) Not a lot of what we'd call demo by the looks of it.

IF I have reason to change my mind because someone has given me facts on a subject that they can back up with proof I will happily do so and thank whoever corrected me/gave me new info. If it's subjective like most of the stuff in this thread has been I'll change my mind if someone shows me something better than I thought was possible. I'm not changing my mind to get out of arguments or peer pressure then changing it back again the next day. I totally disagree with listening to 5 out of 38,000+ to make a decision though. I did that on A8 before I got into the scene and thought POKEY was worse than just about every chip around but wouldn't actually say that to anyone because I knew I'd probably barely scratched the surface. You can go back to the early SID days, listen to 5 tunes from then and get basic waveforms probably using basic sound statements, go forewards a couple of years to Rob Hubbard who had amazing instruments eg great drums, violin etc. Forward more to the start of samples as a 4th voice, newer more advanced players, right up to today when you can basically make a SID sound like an Amiga MOD player. You're not fitting all of that history and enhancement in 5 songs. I'd suggest a top 100 at least for a good cross section of SID and no doubt the same is true of POKEY.