Is it possible to use TIP Mode in a real playing game?

[José Pereira]

Hi, just see CharlieChaplin1972 YouTube channel with lots and lots of TIP Mode Animations.

And this JAGUAR World Tour Racing gets my attention:

JAGUAR game World Tour Racing

Is it possible to do games using this Mode?

How the size of the Screen possible/Memory needed,...?

 

José Pereira.

[+AtariNerd]

There were a few that used them for part of their background images, like Cygnus X-1and Winter Events - I think that last one had missles that overlapped the background. None of those made extensive use of it in their main play area, though. The only one that I know of that uses the mode to display the entire game-field is NRV's first-person game engine, currently entitled "Project M'

 

My memory is spotty, but wasn't there an unfinished game demo that interleaved the players sprite on alternate scanlines to the background graphics? Can't recall the name, but the players sprite was a helicopter...

Edited April 8, 2011 by AtariNerd

[Rybags]

Using TIP would be feasible, the memory requirement for bitmap is increased by about 50% since the luma scanlines have a Gr. 9 and Gr. 10 component that alternates each frame.

 

One problem though is with PMGs - since the Gr. 10 lines use luma values 0, 2, 4.. A, C, E it means the PMG colours are forced to shades of grey.

 

That heli game - fairly sure it just used Gr. 9 only.

 

APAC might be a more workable solution. PMG colour registers don't need to be altered, and as has been proven in "Project M", you can run that mode in narrow screen mode using Timer IRQs rather than DLIs and free up some of the CPU time that's otherwise wasted.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

KAZ from atarionline.pl names a few A8 games that make use of GTIA gfx modes (including Gr.9, Gr. 10, etc.) here:

http://atarionline.pl/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1159&page=1#Item_0

simply scroll down, until you see the game pics of "Agonia", "Cygnus", "Winter Events" and others - and use google translate if you want to... -Andreas Koch.

Edited April 9, 2011 by CharlieChaplin

[José Pereira]

Using TIP would be feasible, the memory requirement for bitmap is increased by about 50% since the luma scanlines have a Gr. 9 and Gr. 10 component that alternates each frame.

 

One problem though is with PMGs - since the Gr. 10 lines use luma values 0, 2, 4.. A, C, E it means the PMG colours are forced to shades of grey.

 

That heli game - fairly sure it just used Gr. 9 only.

 

APAC might be a more workable solution. PMG colour registers don't need to be altered, and as has been proven in "Project M", you can run that mode in narrow screen mode using Timer IRQs rather than DLIs and free up some of the CPU time that's otherwise wasted.

 

 

Hi, my thoughts was if that Formula1 jaguar Game would be possible...

Get things probably in Narrow Mode.

I wasn't even thinking in PMs., that Film don't have PMs. and I think that a little large showing screen, like Narrow Mode and 192scanlines would be better IMHO.

If it will be TIP, APAC or any other, it's up to the coders.

 

By the way, it seems that colours/luminances seems a little bit more 'luminous', more lighter than in ProjectM, or it is the video capture...

The real reason is that from that video seems possible to get a real good looking and playing Formula1 Game in a very Modern Style.

(And also some video/presentation/intro of the cars passing...)

This video really make me thought in a Car racing Game.

 

 

If ProjectM seems amazing and you recognize all colours/Gfxs. on screen then a car racing game with lots of speed would be even more good looking even with all the scanlines interlace...

What's your opinion?

(and you Emkay that is always defend A8 for 3D, don't you agree with me?)

 

 

 

 

Greets.

José pereira.

[Rybags]

Three problems (among others) with modes such as TIP and APAC - the CPU time used, the modes don't work properly in NTSC, and the colours you see are desaturated because of the way the mode works (or should I say, the way the mode gets the TV to do the work).

[a8isa1]

Well,

 

KAZ from atarionline.pl names a few A8 games that make use of GTIA gfx modes (including Gr.9, Gr. 10, etc.) here:

http://atarionline.p...9&page=1#Item_0

simply scroll down, until you see the game pics of "Agonia", "Cygnus", "Winter Events" and others - and use google translate if you want to... -Andreas Koch.

Are there any links for descriptions, simple ones please , of TIP format (also HIP, APAC, etc, would be great)? I tried following some of the old threads but many links I found are now dead.

 

Also, I remember the TIP animation thread (very enjoyable those animations, BTW). Is TIP the format that takes an advantage of some quirk in PAL tuners?

 

I could be wrong but I thought TIP does not work correctly for NTSC. (If I've made a mistake then my apologies)

[edit]

Ugh! Looks like I have to apologize already. I didn't catch Rybags comment regarding NTSC.

 

Please disregard my 2nd question.

Edited April 10, 2011 by a8isa1

[Rybags]

APAC- 256 colour mode, you alternate lines of GTIA modes, hue on one, luma on the other.

Colour line should have COLBAK set to 00 or 02, which makes those lines almost invisible.

Luma lines have the colour mixed in thanks to PAL.

Optionally you can shift the entire display down one scanline each second frame which produces a more "filled" screen effect rather than the venetian look, but you get some flicker.

 

HIP - monochrome mode. You alternate GTIA paletted mode with luma mode per scanline.

Per frame, you swap the alternation sequence. Creates some flicker.

Since paletted mode is offset half a pixel, you get a "perceived 160" horizontal resolution.

Theoretically, 30 luma values can be "perceived" due to alternating values between frames.

 

TIP - 128/256 colour mode. You have GTIA hue mode on every second scanline. On the remainder, you alternate between paletted and luma modes, with the two swapping per frame.

So, perceived 160 resolution, although still only 80 pixel colour resolution. Some flicker.

 

Memory cost - straight APAC is under 8K. With the alternating option, you can either use the same data, or supply new luma or hue/luma data, so 12 or 16K

 

HIP - 16K. Although it can be kept to 8K if vertical resolution is sacrificed, ie use the same data on pairs of scanlines.

 

TIP - 12K. Hue data is constant, palette/luma data is doubled up every 2nd scanline.

Edited April 10, 2011 by Rybags

[MEtalGuy66]

It's important to point out that Project M uses APAC, not TIP..

 

And with APAC, your effective full-screen resoultion is only 80 x 96.

 

It is possible to use Interlaced APAC and get 80x192 (and I think this works better on NTSC machines because it does not rely so much on "color bleed").

 

RIP/HIP/TIP, (If I am remembering correctly) produces full screen resolutions of 160x192.

[+CharlieChaplin]

It's important to point out that Project M uses APAC, not TIP..

 

And with APAC, your effective full-screen resoultion is only 80 x 96.

 

It is possible to use Interlaced APAC and get 80x192 (and I think this works better on NTSC machines because it does not rely so much on "color bleed").

 

RIP/HIP/TIP, (If I am remembering correctly) produces full screen resolutions of 160x192.

 

 

Well,

 

the last info is not fully correct, HIP is -afaik- always restricted to 160x200 pixels (no lower, no bigger resolution due to restrictions in the HIP header), RIP can have anything from 160 x 1 pixels to 160 x 239 pixels (multi-rip also allows different Gr. modes to be compressed and displayed like RIP), TIP can have anything from 160 x 1 pixels to 160 x 119 pixels (only half the resolution of RIP)...

 

HIP v1 is 30 greyscales only, HIP v2 is one colour in 30 luminances (both use Gr. 9 + Gr. 10);

RIP is Gr. 9 + Gr. 10 in colour (16 greys x 9 colours, showing up to 144 "strange" colours) - often compressed;

multi-rip can be anything, standard Gr.8, gr.9, gr. 15, Gr. 9+11, Gr. 9+10 greyscale, Gr. 9+10 colour, ...

TIP uses Gr. 10 alternating with Gr. 9 and Gr. 11 for theoretically up to 256 colours;

hmm, why there is no RIP mode with Gr. 10 (using 8 greys !) and Gr. 11 (using 16 colours) to display 128 colours in 160x239 pixels - I do not know...

 

RIP and TIP can use over/underscan to generate resolution bigger than 160x192 (up to 160x239 in RIP) or bigger than 160x96 (up to 160x119 in TIP). APAC originally uses 80x96 pixels but it could use over/underscan for a bigger resolution too - just take a look at the Technicolor Dream pictures...

 

-Andreas Koch.

 

P.S.: TIP still has some restrictions here and there, some originally 256 colour-pics will display false colours in tip-mode, while they show appropriate colours in APAC mode...

Edited April 11, 2011 by CharlieChaplin

[+AtariNerd]

One day, I'm going to figure this whole Atari thing out. It might take me about twenty more years....

[+CharlieChaplin]

 

Hi, my thoughts was if that Formula1 jaguar Game would be possible...

Get things probably in Narrow Mode.

I wasn't even thinking in PMs., that Film don't have PMs. and I think that a little large showing screen, like Narrow Mode and 192scanlines would be better IMHO.

If it will be TIP, APAC or any other, it's up to the coders.

 

By the way, it seems that colours/luminances seems a little bit more 'luminous', more lighter than in ProjectM, or it is the video capture...

The real reason is that from that video seems possible to get a real good looking and playing Formula1 Game in a very Modern Style.

(And also some video/presentation/intro of the cars passing...)

This video really make me thought in a Car racing Game.

 

 

If ProjectM seems amazing and you recognize all colours/Gfxs. on screen then a car racing game with lots of speed would be even more good looking even with all the scanlines interlace...

What's your opinion?

(and you Emkay that is always defend A8 for 3D, don't you agree with me?)

 

Greets.

José pereira.

 

 

Well,

 

I have big doubts that the A8 could have a formular one racing game in this mode - especially with these gfx. Hmm, even the Atari Jaguar could not do it (or the coders were too lazy), just note that the tip-animation was taken from the full-motion-video of the game "World Tour Racing" and the in-game gfx of this game are much worse than the fmv on the Jaguar. Its nice to watch a video or animation with this resolution and so many colours on the A8, but I don`t think one could program a playable game in such a mode (TIP-mode, with realtime-movement, enjoyable controls and acceptable framerate) on the A8... and last not least, the short tip-animation requires 576k memory to run, how much memory would a full game require...?!?

 

-Andreas Koch.

wtr_tip_anim_576k.zip

[Rybags]

A racing game like Pole Position could be done - as it is, PP uses a DLI kernal that uses all the cycles of the track area anyway.

 

But there'd not be much advantage - it'd make rendering playfield objects much harder and the PMGs don't behave like you'd want in all the GTIA modes either.

 

The "resolution limitations" imposed by existing utilities are meaningless - if doing a game you'd be generating the graphics yourself, not using some utility that has limitations on static screens.

[MEtalGuy66]

Yeah that's interesting infor about hip/rip/tip... I was not aware of the vertical resolution constraints/possibilities of each individual scheme..

 

However, the point I was making was that APAC modes have a horizontal resolution of only 80, while HIP/RIP/TIP is 160.

 

If you ask me, where classic "live action" video games are concerned, a horizontal resolution of 80 is kind of "blocky".. People have done it in the past, on side-scrollers, where most of the details are defined with vertical resolution, and in the case of Project M, the realtime scaling 3d nature of the game makes up for the "courseness".

 

But all in all, I think that APAC is not nearly as well-suited, resolution-wise, to traditional live-action arcade style games..

[emkay]

TIP mode could get interesting for games after someone graciously has build a DMA storage device, Actually, I have no clue why it doesn't exist already. Or does it and I don't know?

 

Fullscreen TIP movies could be stored on that device then. Loading different movies depending on the player's interaction. And, well, due to the DMA ( ) , you easily can play a full digi track while playing.

 

Games like Dragon's Lair or Rebel Assault could get possible .

[José Pereira]

 

Hi, my thoughts was if that Formula1 jaguar Game would be possible...

Get things probably in Narrow Mode.

I wasn't even thinking in PMs., that Film don't have PMs. and I think that a little large showing screen, like Narrow Mode and 192scanlines would be better IMHO.

If it will be TIP, APAC or any other, it's up to the coders.

 

By the way, it seems that colours/luminances seems a little bit more 'luminous', more lighter than in ProjectM, or it is the video capture...

The real reason is that from that video seems possible to get a real good looking and playing Formula1 Game in a very Modern Style.

(And also some video/presentation/intro of the cars passing...)

This video really make me thought in a Car racing Game.

 

 

If ProjectM seems amazing and you recognize all colours/Gfxs. on screen then a car racing game with lots of speed would be even more good looking even with all the scanlines interlace...

What's your opinion?

(and you Emkay that is always defend A8 for 3D, don't you agree with me?)

 

Greets.

José pereira.

 

 

Well,

 

I have big doubts that the A8 could have a formular one racing game in this mode - especially with these gfx. Hmm, even the Atari Jaguar could not do it (or the coders were too lazy), just note that the tip-animation was taken from the full-motion-video of the game "World Tour Racing" and the in-game gfx of this game are much worse than the fmv on the Jaguar. Its nice to watch a video or animation with this resolution and so many colours on the A8, but I don`t think one could program a playable game in such a mode (TIP-mode, with realtime-movement, enjoyable controls and acceptable framerate) on the A8... and last not least, the short tip-animation requires 576k memory to run, how much memory would a full game require...?!?

 

-Andreas Koch.

 

 

Thanks for sending the File.

Yes, indeed all this '...I...' Modes are Interlace Modes with Flicker.

I try this at Atari800WinPlus Emulator and it flickers a lot if NTSC but very acceptable in PAL.

 

First it would need to be a screen of 160 pixels wide to get really good looking/showing Tracks/Grass/Cars...

Something like this, but with other redesigned Gfxs.:

 

But then I thought:

And what about a 32byte/64pixels (4:1) and I think you said about PAL scanline Artifactings at/about the ProjectM Thread

(NTSC would look what?) and APAC Mode like ProjectM?

Couldn't we get a Driving Game/speed if using the ProjectM Engine, or some way of optimzing/addapt it into a Racing/Driving game?

 

 

 

 

 

Just some thoughts because I continue to say:

"This makes me wonder of a really good looking racing game on A8"

(even if with some/minour flicker)

José Pereira.

Edited April 12, 2011 by José Pereira

[José Pereira]

Narrow Mode 32byte wide:

 

256x136pixels screen size.

Is this many different than the Narrow Mode screen of PojectM?

 

 

 

José Pereira.

[flashjazzcat]

Narrow Mode 32byte wide:

 

256x136pixels screen size.

Is this many different than the Narrow Mode screen of PojectM?

Yikes - Can't wait to play this game. Where can I download it? GP4's going in the bin...

[Rybags]

Narrow would actually be 128 perceived pixels across.

 

Gotta say, it'd be interesting to see a driving game in TIP just to see how it looks.

[José Pereira]

Narrow would actually be 128 perceived pixels across.

 

Gotta say, it'd be interesting to see a driving game in TIP just to see how it looks.

 

 

At least someone thinks the same as me...

 

There's the TLC Game, but it is a Top view and seems to work around Gr.9 with 1colour and 16luminances:

TLC (128).atr

 

 

 

José Pereira.

[flashjazzcat]

Walking around in corridors is one thing, but creating a sufficiently fast-moving outdoor 3D environment is something else. Some challenge, but it would be amazing to see.

[José Pereira]

Walking around in corridors is one thing, but creating a sufficiently fast-moving outdoor 3D environment is something else. Some challenge, but it would be amazing to see.

 

 

Was just showing one Game with some GTIA Gr. Mode alike...

But here the questions are:

-> FIRST: Could be a ProjectM 32bytes wide

-> SECOND: One of these 'H/T...P' Modes? Wich one(s) the best?

 

See... possible not the most craziest idea from me (or is it? ), but would make my Day to see this :cool !...

José Pereira.

[flashjazzcat]

See... possible not the most craziest idea from me (or is it? ), but would make my Day to see this :cool !...

LOL. There are even crazier projects going on.

[+AtariNerd]

Maybe a static sky and distant background, taking two-thirds of the screen, along with a set of textures - alternating differing brightness and color patterns that can be mixed to create a variety of terrain patterns and daylight/ weather conditions.along the sides of the road...

[MaPa]

There's the TLC Game, but it is a Top view and seems to work around Gr.9 with 1colour and 16luminances:

No, it's standard Antic mode E (gr. 15) with 4 colors (the background) interleaved with blank scanlines. In these scanlines is the car too, again mode E only "DLI" shading imho.

Edited April 12, 2011 by MaPa