R0ger

I've been asking similar question, and got some good advice here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273633-altirra-300-released/page-22 Look for my name on this page ..

That's good point. Altirra supports Multijoy just about perfectly, and it might be good alternative for trying out Multijoy games. Here is search for 'Multijoy' in game description in Fandal's archive: http://a8.fandal.cz/search.php?search=multijoy&butt_details_x=x Some are new, some are mods for old games. I played Mashed turtles, Multris, Multiloops, Muxeso, Rubacka vo kopec, Helicops and Cervi, but not sure which version. I can recommend all of them !

Yes, all RAM is used.

I'm quite sure none of these games use floating point routines from ROM. They typically use their own very specific format of numbers, or do not use floating point numbers at all (my engine for example). You need your math waaay faster than what ROM can do, on the other hand you don't need the precision of those routines.

Yes, this is the 'old' non-modular version. I've never actually seen one like this. Most people just leave them naked, and I've seen one boxed. I guess this could be done even with the new modular one .. or basically any board.

Well, krupkaj is regular member of our meetings, and this modular model is indeed the hot stuff. Still the problem with the case remains.

In my experience, based on profiling my software in Altirra, DMA takes about 40% of the time in 200 line modes, about 20% in 100 lines modes. Of course, it all depends. If you only do code in VBI, it will take none. If you only do code when the image is being generated, it will be more. Going for 100 lines is good idea IMHP, it does something C64 or Spectrum can't do. The CPU time itself wont improve much .. you will go from 60% to 80%. The main speedup comes from the fact you have to process half amount of data. That's the cool stuff. Also that might or might not be the reason my Rescue demo uses 100 lines mode But .. it won't help improving Hard drivin. Both C64 and Spectrum versions are in hires, 1bpp. You would have to convert the code to 2bpp, half res. That would require deep insight into somebody else's 3D engine. Just typing that makes mi chuckle. Good luck with that. Than you would have to make sure, the physics engine would handle it correctly. And after all this, you might just end up with shitty game. Faster than C64 version, but still shitty game.

Sadly this was designed as party game from the start. I was thinking about some single player content, but in the end I mostly run out of RAM. As I need to draw 8 players, I use pre-scrolled gfx data, which is pretty memory hungry. Anyway .. all the other projects I'm working on now are single player, so stay tuned

Might bring that idea up on our club meeting. I think we have some boards lying around .. maybe one of the boys can assemble one or two .. But then we like our circuits naked, we have no solution for the box, AFAIK .. will come back about the issue on Friday ..

Thanks again to Baktra for presenting FLOP and my Sails of Doom on Bytefest, it was very well done ! I started dedicated thread for the game itself: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/283993-sails-of-doom-new-multijoy-game Still the only way to get it is from the mag !

Finally I can announce my new multijoy game, Sails of Doom, is finished. It was released on FLOP62, discmag of Atariklub.cz. You can get it from the magazine here: http://flop.atariportal.cz/index.en.php You can discuss other magazine related stuff here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/283991-flop-62-new-issue-of-the-floppy-disk-magazine Here I want to show you the game itself, and answer any questions. Basically it's a multijoy game for 2-8 players. You control small ship, and shoot other players. There is detailed guide on FLOP62. The game does support NTSC. It is also playable in 2 players without multijoy, but it's quite watered-down experience. For the proper mayhem get 8 players. Here are some pictures:

Sure, PMG road is totally an option. Also lot of games rotate the colors faster then actual framerate, that's good point. For cars movement even 4 frames refresh could be fine, if the road palette was scrolled every frame. But that's the problem .. sooo many variants. It will need lot of testing.

Hills are just small complication .. not big deal. I see different problem (and haven't solved it yet). Elektra is imho bad game .. but it looks amazing. The effect of speed is top notch. I think driving game must go for high framerates. Ideally 1 frame, possibly 2. Sure there are slower games and they can be fun, but at least for the road, Atari with dlist and dlis can do better. But the problem is the cars. For super high speeds, they must be done in hardware sprites. But there is too few of them on Atari. Nobody wants 1 color cars. And if you join 2 sprites, you still only have 8 pixels. Some racing cars make it like 12 by using missiles for wheels, but it's still pretty bad. You can make the problem easier 1 step by not drawing player's car .. making it 1st person. That allows for some nice effects, like lowering the horizon during acceleration and rising it during breaking, it would go well with some nice dashboard, and would be appropriate for more 'sim' feel. This view calls for low flat view of the road, and it's likely the other cars will have to be side by side, not one above other vertically .. so you can't use 1 PMG for more cars. Another approach is Mario carts. The cars would be small. I like this idea because raster road has limitation in the road angle, let's say 45 degrees. With small car you can just turn the car after year reach the limit of road rotation. In this view drifting cars also look better (which is well utilizes in Mario carts). This view allows for higher camera, and sharing PMGs across cars seems possible. Also if you look on the old driving games, you almost never have free moving opponents. They are not really simulated, and they are not really racing .. they are just a prop. Sometimes you have several cars at equal spacing .. which ensures they will never overlap. Another idea I had was 'shadow racer' .. do you know Trackmania ? You race against other people, with no collisions .. and you basically see their run as transparent 'ghost' opponent. It's almost like you race at the same time .. but you don't. You can share runs over internet, keep the best runs somewhere, you can make contest on the retro party with many participants. In this mode you could either only draw one or two opponent car. Either you would select against who you are racing, or the game could draw only the person who is just ahead of you. You can also draw the opponents simplified .. transparent single color, or even just small color flag or color line on the road. It might be even useful so you don't see the exact driving line your opponent took.

Hires and xoring ? So you go the BBC way ? What's the progress ?

Now we're talking. Filled 3D is so 16bit. I'll take wires any time. Anyway, for driving game I would prefer the tradition raster road. I actually did small proof of concept for PC some time back, and I experimented with how to improve those primitive transformation so it looks better. At the minimum I want the positioning on the road matter, so you can take proper racing lines. Check it out, it's totally not loaded with malware. Hopefully. You control with arrows. PS. yes, it is indeed windows program, don't let the size fool you. Road.zip

Checking the game on C64 .. Looks like porting it in Stunt car racer fashion would be simple. Simpler that SCR, as clearly no attributes are used for 3D graphics. And again, I would expect it would be little faster compared to C64. But let me tell you, I would not play it.

I as a coder need demonstration of interest. People talking about different racing games, and how there is shortage of those on Atari, that makes me thing about it. On the other hand I'm not interested in remakes or ports. Idea that all old games have to be ported to all platforms seem silly to me. Also I don't consider many old racing games much good, but then I certainly only played fraction of them. What I want to say is I like the discussion about what games are good on what platforms, what people like on them, and that makes me thinking about my own racing game. But than that's the same for platform games (remember the Sam's Journey discussion), or basically any other genre

If anything, the video is a proof ZX actually CAN'T do it. Stunt car racer was good choice for remake, or rather, a port. First the game is good. Second it's ported from C64, which has the same CPU, so most of the code could remain intact. And third, it's vector based, and does not use many C64 specific tricks. Atari is in theory better suited for this kind of game. The conversion was far from painless, but in the end it is actually faster than original. I don't know about any other such game. It has to be fun on the original platform. The platform must be close enough, ideally 6502 based. And the game must not rely on the specific tricks on that platform. Imho if anything, Atari needs original driving game. Something designed for Atari from ground up, something with modern point of view.

Some joysticks also use remapping the second button to up. It's useful for platform games where up is used for jumping. And it might be also used for example in tetris, which does not use up for anything.

Yep, sadly there is only few usable frequencies.

Can you provide the binary ?

Look for the PRIOR address, not the value. It's hard to tell what value might be used, lot of prior combinations have same results, or the function is different, but the difference cannot be seen in the image. Prior is typically set to static value, so the code should be simple lda #x sta prior Prior has good description on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTIA_and_GTIA#PRIOR_.24D01B_Write

Recoil seems to work best .. browsing through 1307 fonts isn't so simple

We have the power of the common forum tools. What about starting new thread about the copyright issues, pricing and so on ?

Looks really good. I think the 'small' version even looks better.