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Muddyfunster

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Posts posted by Muddyfunster

  1. Posted

    The logical flow of the code that you posted has some problems.

     

    The clear screen would only happen if lives was less than 1, you might want to clear the screen anyway, not just if the "if" condition is met, especially if this is a subroutine for gameover. You would also need a drawscreen in the gameover loop otherwise your message won't get plotted.

     

    You also have an if test after the "goto gameover_loop" so that if test will never be tested because of the goto just before it.

     

    I'd suggest testing for lives = 0 or lives <1 in your main loop and then if it's found to be true (ie the player has run out of lives) then jump to the game over loop. You only need to go to that piece of code if it is "game over" and not every frame, otherwise you are just adding processing overhead to the game. 

     

    This is Pseudo code to demonstrate: 

    Main_loop 
   clear the screen
   plot stuff
   draw the screen
   test stuff
   if lives = 0 then goto game_over
   goto Main_loop 


game_over
    clear the screen
    plotchars "game over!" 0 40 16
    do debounce checks
    if fire button pressed and debounce is ok then goto title_page else goto game_over

    Writing pseudo code can be a good way to figure out the logic of what you want to do before you actually try to code it. I do this a lot and it helps spot holes in your logic and also helps with the logical flow and structure of the code. I used to be pencil and paper for a few hours before I start to code, but now I use a spreadsheet :) 

     

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  2. Posted

    20 hours ago, Zonie said:

    Wow Great stuff. I really Like the Danger Zone game. Reminds me of the hours of fun with Atari 2600 combat with the fighter jets. Have you planned on getting a Concerto to test with?

    Thanks @Zonie.

     

    Yes I've tested Danger Zone with the concerto and the Dragonfly (I was lucky to get both but have since let my Concerto go). It runs great on real hardware and is currently having some final tweaks done to the collision offsets and then it's basically done.

     

     

    • Like 5

  6. Posted

     

    27 minutes ago, Shawn said:

     

    Ah ok, those sound files are just a waste of space on an SD card. A sound clip serves no purpose without a game unless you really want to listen to such a thing. The grand majority of 7800 users would not. Surely not a reason to buy extra hardware I think you will agree. The tracker is interesting sure, but not really something the average user would ever consider or use.

    Actually I wouldn't agree :)

     

    The music demos aren't "sound clips" like samples of a tune playing over, they are actual arranged tunes. Like SID tunes or the XM equivalent and they sound great. I think a lot of folks would want to try them if they had the XM variant. Plus you get to play games like Pacman XM in it's full sonic glory.

     

    Some folks (me included) like expanding older 8 bit hardware with modern updates. One man's trash is another man's treasure. I have a fully decked out BBC Master that I can run Doom and Elite Frontier on, why? it's fun seeing older hardware do stuff it's not supposed to do. I like that aspect of retro hardware.

     

    As someone who writes games, if the hardware isn't there, the software never will be. Lots of games support savekey or similar. That only happened because it was made available and people developed for it. Without the hardware being available, no one would develop for it. I'm not saying there will be a slew of XM or Dual pokey stuff overnight, far from it, but it's innovation and it should be applauded. I know we have talented devs and musicians in the community. If this stuff is available I think folks will tinker.

     

    If you want something that will play homebrews and original releases, a regular dragonfly will do most folks fine. They can still add stuff like the Pokey later if they want.

    • Like 3

  9. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

     

     

    I'm reading a minimum of 1.5A, therefore it seems that a Genesis/Megadrive, SMS, Jaguar PSU is not sufficient.

     

     

    345960730_Dragonflypreorder.thumb.PNG.fbd0972f89745beddf47b90bccad67b9.PNG

     

    Good spot, I was going from my earlier version docs. My PSU is 1.6A so it's fine.

     

     

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    @-^CrossBow^- pretty much as you explained it.

     

    Regarding 2.1mm centre positive PSU's, for those of us who are not that electrically minded, they seem to be readily available on amazon and places like that and are fairly inexpensive. I think it's recommended to have min 9v 1A, recommended 1.5A. The new PSU + socket I got with my 7800 was a straight plug in. So I plug that into the cart not the 7800. You then link the passback cable from the cart to the 7800 power socket so the cart passes power to the 7800.

     

     

  11. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Shawn said:

     

    The demos you speak of that use the Yamaha are they just sound demos or actual games? I'm in the dark and totally missed anything aside from the Pacman one.

    Music demos, trackers that type of thing. There might be more but those are two I tried yesterday. I thought an Amiga had snuck in the back of my 7800.

    • Like 2

  12. Posted

    37 minutes ago, 7800 said:

    I have a request for either rj1307 or anyone who receives their Dragonfly in either red or purple... if you could just post a few well lit pics of the shell so we can all get an idea of the actual colors.

     

    Thanks in advance.

     

    IMG_7543.jpg

    IMG_7542.jpg

     

    It's a nice deep red :)

    • Like 7

  13. Posted

    30 minutes ago, Tempest said:

    Yes that is exactly what I needed to know, thank you.  Do many 7800 homebrews support those extra sound chips?  Any free homebrews support them?

    Just to add to what @Shawn said : A few homebrews support POKEY and the list of them grows daily. Danger Zone supports Pokey, as will EXO, a lot of other Devs are supporting Pokey for new titles and demo's of the new games pop up all the time.

     

    I think only Pacman XM supports the Yamaha + a few demos. (they are very good!)

     

    Right now Concerto doesn't support ROMs bigger than 144kb but can theoretically do 256kb+16kb RAM and 512kb without RAM so 99% or so of homebrews are covered.

     

    Dragonfly supports up to 1024kb ROMS with RAM and has a developer mode allowing roms to be pushed to the cart from PC on the fly for testing without needing to unplug it from the console or swap the SD card (which is really nice for a dev when testing incremental changes on real hardware!)

     

    As many people have said, they are both fantastic pieces of kit.

    • Like 4

  14. Posted

    Well Dare Devil is now available in the store and I have to say, @Albert has done a great job bringing not just Dare Devil but a great line up of homebrews to the store this year. 

     

    I'd like to say a big "thankyou" to all the folks who tested Dare Devil and provided feedback and helped me to polish it and squish bugs. I'd also like to thank the folks that make the tools and addons that empower folks like me to make homebrew games and those who give up their time to help and answer questions - this often goes over looked so thanks to you guys too!.

     

    Thanks in no particular order :

     

    @batari - for the fantastic Batari Basic.

    @mksmith - for ADS & TIA Tracker support.

    @SpiceWare - for the SFX driver support.

    @Atariboy2600 - the fantastic box and label art.

    @RevEng - super title screen kernel.

    @RushJet1 - the perfect title tune

     

    + the many folks who tested and provided some feedback or help. 

     

    Thanks!

    • Like 9

  15. Posted

    1 hour ago, Turbo Laser Lynx said:

    Fantastic work on this cart RJ! 🥳 🎨 How lucky I was getting interested in Atari 7800 development just before the release of the Dragonfly! I have one question: I suppose the PokeyMax also supports simulating a single Pokey? I'm just thinking that perhaps single pokey would have the highest compatibility (with earlier carts and stuff), although I must say dual pokey and YM sounds pretty freakin' exciting! :love: Hopefully the Dragonfly will sell a lot so potential games and demos supporting those would reach out to a "maximum audience".

    I have the PokeyMax in mine and that works fine on stuff like Commando (single Pokey).

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1

  17. Posted

    2 minutes ago, Jinks said:

    Cart please is there a list?? This looks better than Pit Fighter!! I hope you have included driving controller, light gun and paddle support or I am telling my mom.

    I'll put you on the list then I'll put your list in a list of lists so you can list while you list :D

     

    • Like 1
    • Haha 2

  20. Posted

    23 minutes ago, RevEng said:

    I'd love to hear the details of this unexpected mirroring, and if it's been seen on more than one PAL console. It would be good to know what locations we should be avoiding, with other projects.

    It might be better for Fred to explain it as I'd probably get it backwards and inside out :) I don't pretend to know even 5% of that stuff.

     

    • Thanks 1

  21. Posted

    59 minutes ago, nysavant said:

    Well no, not really.  That just says certain PAL systems.  Hence who I asked for a little more clarification if possible. 

    Some PAL systems do this funky RAM mirroring thing (there's probably a technical description that's more accurate..). I have one of these and I've been acting as guinea pig for Freds test builds to fix this, sending him pictures and videos etc. 

     

    The version I'm running on right now on my PAL console is running fine. The issues are gone.

     

    The main remaining issue that I see is with 48kb roms with Pokey at location $450 - this isn't implemented yet, but I know that's coming soon (some homebrews like Danger Zone are affected).

     

    My Concerto runs great with the latest firmware.

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 1
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