GroovyBee Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Thanks for taking the time to write this up Mark, I'm sure it will be appreciated by many and help clear up some of the misconceptions. No worries. Its just a matter of searching for the info on AA for the XM late adopters or watching it "live" at the time (so to speak) for those that were in on the XM early. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 GroovyBee, Fantastic write up and thank you for taking the time and effort in putting that together. Hopefully, cooler and more reasonable heads will prevail going forward. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorfcadet Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Hi GB! I know you guys are in the fine tuning phases, so I was wondering, what XM software project are you most excited about? My dream game is a voice enhanced port of the vector Star Wars arcade game. Lol, but I'm still reading all of the programming content you pointed me to when I first started noodling around here. Someday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 I know you guys are in the fine tuning phases, so I was wondering, what XM software project are you most excited about? Hmmmm.... Thats a tough question. I like all my projects for different reasons. Making them XM mandatory has allowed algorithms to be sped up e.g. Apple Snaffle's falling rock/apple handling or to have even more graphics on screen e.g. Halloween. My dream game is a voice enhanced port of the vector Star Wars arcade game. Lol, but I'm still reading all of the programming content you pointed me to when I first started noodling around here. Someday. I'd like to do something in 3D on the 7800 too. MARIA should be much faster at drawing filled polygons than drawing a wire frame (within certain limits - mainly polygon line spans have to be 124 pixels or less in 2BPP to stick with 8 byte Display List (DL) headers). Its just a matter of coming up with a neat idea for a game and then working the details out. For voice you have three choices: 1) Use external hardware like the AtariVox. 2) If the game isn't pushing MARIA too much or using too many WSYNC related programmer tricks (like changing palette colours on the fly) you could also play audio samples direct from ROM. You might end up needing a large ROM size cartridge doing it like that (it depends on sample playback rate/quality and number of samples). 3) Use custom cart DMA like hardware to take the burden off the CPU and make use of the audio pin on the cart connector. All these methods have their pros and cons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorfcadet Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Thats why I ask you GB, you are a fount of knowledge! A demake of Tempest 2000 (Tempest 88? lolz) would be fun. Atari had a pretty respectable vector graphics arcade portfolio back in the day and it would be cool to see some pop up. Right now, I'm playing with photoshop on 78 friendly sprites for Crystal Castles and U.N. Squadron because I'm reallllllllllly bored. I know UN was snes era, but I like thinking how a game like that would port down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Thats why I ask you GB, you are a fount of knowledge! A demake of Tempest 2000 (Tempest 88? lolz) would be fun. Atari had a pretty respectable vector graphics arcade portfolio back in the day and it would be cool to see some pop up. In games like Tempest the polygons forming the web are constant so they can just be copied from ROM to RAM in a block once and a copy of the Display List (DL) header end indexes kept for updates. The trick then is faking the rest of it so it runs at a decent frame rate . Right now, I'm playing with photoshop on 78 friendly sprites for Crystal Castles and U.N. Squadron because I'm reallllllllllly bored. I know UN was snes era, but I like thinking how a game like that would port down. Feel free to post any screenshots that you want comments or sanity checks on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmervine Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 I am looking forward to Tempest for the 7800! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 (edited) I am looking forward to Tempest for the 7800! Its still on my todo list (which is very long ). Its much more feasible as a project now that the XM exists. Prior to that it would have needed Winter Games donor carts (for 16K RAM) or involved quite a bit of hack/slash/patch on other donor cart PCBs. EDIT: If the 5200 Tempest developers wanted to share source code it wouldn't take too long to XMify the 5200 version either I expect. Edited November 10, 2012 by GroovyBee 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorfcadet Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Thanks GB! I may post some mock ups Monday when I get back to my Mac! I left it charging at school, but I was tinkering with the jets and power ups for UN last week after progress reports... because at that point I needed to take a break! In my mind it would be a 3 level truncated version preserving the basic play mechanics and climaxing with the stealth bomber boss fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Thanks GB! I may post some mock ups Monday when I get back to my Mac! I left it charging at school, but I was tinkering with the jets and power ups for UN last week after progress reports... because at that point I needed to take a break! In my mind it would be a 3 level truncated version preserving the basic play mechanics and climaxing with the stealth bomber boss fight. No worries. I'm not a SNES bunny so I had a look at the UN Squadron game on youtube. The only thing you'll have issues with would be the parallax scrolling. From the videos I've just watched everything else shouldn't pose much of a problem in a 'demake'. I don't really see a technical reason as to why you'd need to have fewer levels than the original SNES version with a demake but then again I don't really know the game and its not going to be my project either . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorfcadet Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 (edited) I have the arcade cab in my game room, though I've been using the snes assets for reference. My cab has a blown monitor cap so everything is blue right now. The parallax would be a crutch definitly in a demake, but the appeal of UN is the enemy behavior and special weapons. No one should get too excited. We'll likely be colonizing Mars before I get anywhere close! Animating the fighter jet on a static screen will be a crowning acheivement for me! It'll be a pretty jet though! Edited November 10, 2012 by gorfcadet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 The parallax would be a crutch definitly in a demake, but the appeal of UN is the enemy behavior and special weapons. The 7800 can do parallax scrolling. When you overlap layers then it starts to get tricky because potentially tons of CPU cycles are lost (depending on how you create the layers) in screen construction and also to MARIA in actually generating the display. It'd be better to start out with a good analysis of sprite formations and attack patterns and then worry about the scrolling later. To me, the background scrolling in a game like that is just eye candy. If it doesn't feel like the original then the spirit of the demake is lost in my opinion. No one should get too excited. We'll likely be on the colonizing Mars before I get anywhere close! Animating the fighter jet on a static screen will be a crowning acheivement for me! It'll be a pretty jet though! Maybe you should start on a smaller/simpler project and work your way up to a magnum opus . If you start out small you can visualise the end of the project. Doing that allows you to get under way, get some experience under your belt and eventually get a project out the door. If you can't visualise the end of a project its always easy to put it off until tomorrow because its "just too big" to devote some hours towards it today. Which essentially means it'll always be a dream. After a few projects you can work your way up in project size and complexity to get where you want to be. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorfcadet Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Thanks GB! You should teach a class! I like doing pixel art because its relaxing to me. I actually got hooked doing flags in Animal Crossing working in the map and palet constraints. Reading programming docs takes me back to my childhood with the c64. Its the journey not end result after all. Always good to pick your brain sir! Still very much looking forward to the XM titles you're working on. Wasn't one of them a Gauntlet style game? Apple Snaffle Looks like a lot of fun too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Thanks GB! You should teach a class! I've thought about it. Its just that some other project always gets in the queue first. But never say never . Another sticking point is that the technical documentation on how MARIA works needs approaching in a different way. I like doing pixel art because its relaxing to me. I actually got hooked doing flags in Animal Crossing working in the map and palet constraints. Reading programming docs takes me back to my childhood with the c64. Its the journey not end result after all. Some constraints can be fun and some can be a royal pain in the arse . If you haven't programmed in a while then think of something you created back then and then try and bring it to the 7800 instead. Always good to pick your brain sir! Still very much looking forward to the XM titles you're working on. Wasn't one of them a Gauntlet style game? Apple Snaffle Looks like a lot of fun too! Dungeon! probably needs the most work out of all the announced XM games. If you are into emulation you can find a version of Apple Snaffle with some example levels to play. On my AA profile there are links to all my XM game development threads (Inty and Jaguar ones too) if it doesn't come up when you search. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinMos3 Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 In response to a few posts on page 4 and at the risk of getting a little off-topic... I just installed all of the Taco-Bell Atari arcade games on my PC the other day, (I think they came out about two years ago). I thought it was interesting that the Legacy Engineering logo came up when I loaded each of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennybingo Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 In response to a few posts on page 4 and at the risk of getting a little off-topic... I just installed all of the Taco-Bell Atari arcade games on my PC the other day, (I think they came out about two years ago). I thought it was interesting that the Legacy Engineering logo came up when I loaded each of them. If they paid Curt in tacos, then I can understand why this project has had so many delays...Taco Bell will cause unavoidable "bathroom related" delays for most anything. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 I just installed all of the Taco-Bell Atari arcade games on my PC the other day, (I think they came out about two years ago). I thought it was interesting that the Legacy Engineering logo came up when I loaded each of them. I had forgotten about this project. I did the installer for the Mac version. ..Al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinMos3 Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 I had forgotten about this project. I did the installer for the Mac version. That's just awesome. Makes me appreciate these things even more. I didn't realize until I was installing, that they were Mac compatible too. It made me wish I'd brought my G5 with me. I'm seriously going to have to bring down a bunch more goodies when I take leave for Christmas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApolloBoy Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 I have the arcade cab in my game room, though I've been using the snes assets for reference. My cab has a blown monitor cap so everything is blue right now. The parallax would be a crutch definitly in a demake, but the appeal of UN is the enemy behavior and special weapons. No one should get too excited. We'll likely be colonizing Mars before I get anywhere close! Animating the fighter jet on a static screen will be a crowning acheivement for me! It'll be a pretty jet though! I would pay *big* money to get UN Squadron on the 7800. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorfcadet Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 So would I! lol! I'm currently teaching myself assembly and watching and reading content about bbasic. I'm really a graphics person. I teach journalism most of the day and spend a lot of time with photoshop. The last programming class I had was C++ in high school so its coming back to me, but very slowly. I'll post some of my sprite work as soon as I am happy with it. My kids are finishing a magazine, yearbook, and broadcast deadline this week so things I do for fun have been put on the back burner. I repeat... do not get excited. I am as likely to create a teleportation device as I am to figure out 7800 coding in any reasonable time frame. A couple of years to teach myself in whatever spare time and a few more to program. Still, UN is one of the best under appreciated games ever! Very sad the home game was single player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApolloBoy Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Still, UN is one of the best under appreciated games ever! Very sad the home game was single player. There are some ports of the original arcade game but they're all garbage and don't do the game any justice. Hopefully a 7800 homebrew port will rectify that, especially if said port takes advantage of the YM2151 on the XM (which the original game also uses)! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HammR25 Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Yes I am as likely to create a teleportation device as I am to figure out 7800 coding in any reasonable time frame. Woohoo!!!!! I can't wait for the teleportation device!!!!11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorfcadet Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 My dream version would be a two player game with the upgradable snes fighters. I didn't know that was Yamaha chip... I'll have to dig out theinstructions and find it on the motherboard! It is killing me that I'll have to get an lcd monitor replacement for my cab, but at least it will work. Getting hard to find crt replacements. In college I played it until I could beat it on one credit. I'm hoping with XM we see some projects from the 7800's corresponding arcade generation: Galaga 88, Pac Land, Shinobi, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmervine Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 Curt posted a new update today... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 Here's the update, Nov 13th - Okay, just spoke with Mark on a bunch of things, last 2 1/2 weeks were completely lost due to Hurricane Sandy and then the Nor'easter that hit. Office power was down for a while, some minor damage to the roof and looks like I've got 2 leaks coming into the workshop downstairs, but fortunately its on the opposite side of the shop so all of the boxes of XM cases, cartridge parts and other things never were in trouble. The Legacyengineer.com server is down however, so I am working to try and get things fixed with that. So I'm trying to get things back on track again and need some comments back from Mark this coming weekend, so I'll get another update up early next week. The XM Status Page is here: http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/7800/expansion/ ..Al 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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