tschak909 Posted March 1, 2007 Share Posted March 1, 2007 I am curious to see if it could be possible to do either an 8 or a 16 color mode at 160x200. why? because I've worked out some details of the logic part of a Sierra AGI parser. This would allow the Atari 800 to play games like King's Quest, Space Quest 1 and 2, Leisure Suit Larry, et al. I'm still thinking out the details, but I am curious to see what could be possible.. I would most likely want to place emphasis on the background looking as nice as possible.. Am wondering if it could be possible to create a priority system where "colors" get allocated from largest areas of screen to the smallest, lower priority colors get multiplexed with players/missiles etc...... dunno, am thinking, but what do you guys think would be a good graphic technique to experiment with for this? (it is worth noting that 160x200 is the native resolution for AGI games, and that there WAS an AGI interpreter that Sierra did for the Apple II, so I know this is possible!) -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenfused Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 I am curious to see if it could be possible to do either an 8 or a 16 color mode at 160x200. why? because I've worked out some details of the logic part of a Sierra AGI parser. This would allow the Atari 800 to play games like King's Quest, Space Quest 1 and 2, Leisure Suit Larry, et al. I'm still thinking out the details, but I am curious to see what could be possible.. I would most likely want to place emphasis on the background looking as nice as possible.. Am wondering if it could be possible to create a priority system where "colors" get allocated from largest areas of screen to the smallest, lower priority colors get multiplexed with players/missiles etc...... dunno, am thinking, but what do you guys think would be a good graphic technique to experiment with for this? (it is worth noting that 160x200 is the native resolution for AGI games, and that there WAS an AGI interpreter that Sierra did for the Apple II, so I know this is possible!) -Thom 7800 could probably do that or close. course I think those games require a keyboard? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 7800 could probably do that or close. course I think those games require a keyboard? Good point, not sure how you'd get around that short of having an on-screen keyboard and that would be pretty awkward. Short of an on-screen keyboard, you'd have to provide an interface that allows people to select noun-verb actions (or whatever syntax the engine requires--been a while since I've played those old Sierra games). Still, would be damn cool to see them on the 5200 and/or 7800. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted March 2, 2007 Author Share Posted March 2, 2007 it probably could be done on the 7800.. i'm wondering what could be done to make a renderable image on the 800, short of using GTIA modes and essentially dividing the horizontal in half, ..... YUCK. but if ithat's my only option......... -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 G2F would probably be the nicest looking option, although your options might be more limited if you need to use the PMGs for player characters. Another consideration is the extra work involved if there are any animated scenes onscreen. APAC or HIP/TIP would be OKish but really the horizontal detail just isn't nearly as good as proper 160 pixel modes. GTIA modes have the added penalty in that PMGs don't work in all of them. Either way, it is a big sacrifice of CPU cycles although the Apple2 and C-64 are only 1 MHz machine, so the penalty to the Atari isn't as great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted March 2, 2007 Author Share Posted March 2, 2007 G2F would probably be the nicest looking option, although your options might be more limited if you need to use the PMGs for player characters. Another consideration is the extra work involved if there are any animated scenes onscreen. APAC or HIP/TIP would be OKish but really the horizontal detail just isn't nearly as good as proper 160 pixel modes. GTIA modes have the added penalty in that PMGs don't work in all of them. Either way, it is a big sacrifice of CPU cycles although the Apple2 and C-64 are only 1 MHz machine, so the penalty to the Atari isn't as great. I guess I should elaborate a bit more.... the visual parts of AGI are broken into: * PICTURE resources.. These are the backgrounds of the game, and thus never change. They are vector in nature, and are drawn procedurally step by step by the interpreter, these are broken into: LINE = a starting point, end point, pen color (0-15) PEN = relative lines, can only be small.. used for detail. STEP = also called HV lines, can only be at right angles, used for steps etc FILL = basically what it is, a flood fill of a given pen color. BRUSH = a repeated pattern (there IS a priority coloring and line system, which corresponds to the same colors as the viewable pens which determines whether a player is in front of or behind an object, maybe this can also help...) * VIEW resources... These are the animated portions of the game. They are typically small, and are overlaid onto the PICTURE resource using the priority colors as a guide... They are pixel based, and have a width, and a height. one of the 16 pen colours is set as a transparency and is thus masked out. VIEW resources are never as large as PICTURE resources, and usually are very small (the reference machine for AGI is an IBM PCjr running at 3MHz).... -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted March 2, 2007 Author Share Posted March 2, 2007 I have added an attachment of a shot of the Apple II AGI interpreter running the game of Kings Quest, see below. -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 You can increase the color count with DLIs and using Antic mode 4 with multiple character sets, similar to what Graf2Font uses. Player/Missile graphics may allow additional colors. Might be able to get up to 5 or 6 colors per line. The other alternative is just using APAC mode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 I have added an attachment of a shot of the Apple II AGI interpreter running the game of Kings Quest, see below. -Thom I wonder what the effective resolution of that image is? Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 7800 could probably do that or close. course I think those games require a keyboard? Good point, not sure how you'd get around that short of having an on-screen keyboard and that would be pretty awkward. Short of an on-screen keyboard, you'd have to provide an interface that allows people to select noun-verb actions (or whatever syntax the engine requires--been a while since I've played those old Sierra games). Still, would be damn cool to see them on the 5200 and/or 7800. ..Al Cool but frustrating without a keyboard, as you note. King's Quest on the Sega Master System was annoying, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.