VladR Posted August 7, 2017 Share Posted August 7, 2017 Well... You don't want to not pack your data? Have a look at the voxel map of arsantica 3 that is 16k if I remember it right (64x64) Check planet5200 on 5200 that has procedual generated texture and map... doesn't need so much time. Have a look at arsantica 2... there i have packed huge unrolled code and texture for the texture shaded planet spread over banks... Loading times? Suck.... I need to check planet5200, haven't seen that, but all your other demos are obviously mighty impressive as a technological feat ! But, in an actual game environment, I'd rather not subject the player to these load times. Loading 7.5 KB of mage data per screen (when crossing to new one) should not be a big deal. And if you have a RAM extension, should be probably faster - I suspect about 1 second (though at the end, it's still just 8-bit transfer, but at least there's no disk spinning up and seeking with RAM extension). How much data can you generate in 1 second ? At 160x192x4, the CPU has what - about 22,000 cycles left, which is about 5,000 instructions per frame (@ 4 cycles per op on average), which is about 300,000 ops / second. For a picture that has 30,000 px, that's 10 ops per pixel. That's barely a straight data transfer, let alone some computation... I'm not going to compete in the arena of extracting miracles from 64 KB. But if Atari these days can access 256, 512 KB, 1 MB, then why not make use of it ? What else is the point of all that RAM ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freetz Posted August 7, 2017 Author Share Posted August 7, 2017 You can make use of it. Even within the boundaries of the contest. Make a "reduced" version that "only" uses 256kb of code and level data. The rest can be provided as additional level data via downloads. In the end it's 4x as much from 256kB to 1MB (which is the largest memory extension up until recently). True, that's not little, but also not sooo much more. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted August 7, 2017 Share Posted August 7, 2017 What I wanted to say is... you need to load data in ram banks from sio device which needs time.... see arsantica 2 for bad example imho. And yes... my fault... C64 rule is in demo scene 7k for each part which generates speed code and data... that's an acceptable loading time... not loading 48k 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted August 7, 2017 Share Posted August 7, 2017 (edited) Hey, this question about XRAM usage could be asked (and answered by several Atarians) in a separate topic... Edited August 7, 2017 by CharlieChaplin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted August 7, 2017 Share Posted August 7, 2017 You can make use of it. Even within the boundaries of the contest. Make a "reduced" version that "only" uses 256kb of code and level data. The rest can be provided as additional level data via downloads. In the end it's 4x as much from 256kB to 1MB (which is the largest memory extension up until recently). True, that's not little, but also not sooo much more. Yes, I think I figured out how to make it as effortless (from coding perspective), as possible. Just adjust he number of levels based on RAM available.This way there are no troublesome codepaths (that might cause issues for weird RAM configurations), just a main loop that does not care if this is level 1 or level 17. I may combine it with terrain dataset reduction as mentioned before. Thanks for the patience ! What I wanted to say is... you need to load data in ram banks from sio device which needs time.... see arsantica 2 for bad example imho. And yes... my fault... C64 rule is in demo scene 7k for each part which generates speed code and data... that's an acceptable loading time... not loading 48k Out of curiosity, what is the typical realistic transfer speed from the common RAM extensions ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popmilo Posted August 7, 2017 Share Posted August 7, 2017 260 KB severely limits number of bitmaps I can include. At 160x192x4, each one takes 7.5 KB (about 26 would fit). Just the 2D terrain map I was considering takes up 128 KB in itself. May I ask what sort of game needs such large diversity in bitmaps ? If it's point and click adventure with unique locations I can understand, but that one can simply load from disk all data as you go from screen to screen (load in advance rooms around current location so player doesn't have to wait for load times no matter where he goes). You say 2d terrain map. I don't see why would you need 100% unique bitmaps for terrain in full 4 color res ? For example, my Monk game had 128x128 tiled based world map and it was huge. And I had no compression or any serious tricks inside it... Just curious what sort of game you have in the oven 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted August 7, 2017 Share Posted August 7, 2017 Like Charlie said, this is getting off-topic from AABUC, so if any mod feels like it, please separate my spam into a separate thread, where we can discuss RAM extensions and Atari capabilities ad nauseum. May I ask what sort of game needs such large diversity in bitmaps ? You say 2d terrain map. I don't see why would you need 100% unique bitmaps for terrain in full 4 color res ? Well, need is a strong word I am however very partial to the organic and random look of the WorldMachine terrains. And it's not like there's 10 Atari games out there that do that kind of thing, so it's also an attempt to do something new and different. For example, my Monk game had 128x128 tiled based world map and it was huge. And I had no compression or any serious tricks inside it... Yes, with tiling, you can obviously save a lot of RAM. But you loose that feeling that you only get when each screen looks entirely different and new. And if possible, I'd like to try to preserve that Plus, each screen can have slightly different color scheme. Just curious what sort of game you have in the oven - space action game (Last Starfighter would probably be closest) - 3rd person sprite view of your spaceship (like in Stealth) - enemies would be most probably vector-based (depends on how fast it will actually run, worst case they would be standard PMGs) - no 6 DOF though, I'd go for a fixed "altitude" / YPOS (like in the recent Rebel Galaxy game on PS4/PC, which showed you absolutely do not need 6 DOF for a fun space action game) - land-based flying planet missions would reuse the space combat component (just with different ship bitmap) - land-based exploratory missions (think Mass Effect Mako missions (e.g. simple goals :find 3 minerals, shoot 5 enemies, ...), just 2D from top-down) would use the WorldMachine terrain 2D bitmaps - target framerate: 20 fps on NTSC (3 vbls) - I got A LOT of spaceships in my 3dsmax directory, just waiting to be rendered from multiple angles... - there's 7 million things that could be added to it, but at the core this is the smallest possible version - all prototyping is happening on PC in VisualStudio in C (thus, it can go pretty fast) in emulated resolution 160x192x4 Having more memory than 64 KB means: - player can choose from different spaceships (with different capabilities), as each has many rendered frames - you can have separate rendered screens like Hangar, docking screen, main menu, galaxy map, planet approach screen, planet exit screen, ..... At 7.5 KB, they simply cannot be inside the 64 KB build. They would have to be procedurally generated, hence fugly... - each star system can have a different look&feel (e.g. colors, camera angle, nebulas, ...) Yes, some of the things above can be easily procedurally generated. But once one gets entangled in that coding (been there, done that, many times), there's no way out, it's like getting lost in a recursion, since there is literally no end to a procedural world generation. Whereas if you need a static render, you just place objects quickly in 3dsmax, place lights, tweak output, and that's it. It's done. Worst case - one afternoon. But once the first scene is done, the other can be done in an hour. There's no risk as there is no complex code. Just update a pointer in Display List.... Why should we, as coders, still make our lives miserable in 2017, if there's a up to fricking one megabyte of RAM available for Atari 800 ? Focus on game, on art assets, not displaying 2 and half more colors at the cost of flicker/interlace/zero cycles available for actual game... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Hello Karolj C64 rule is in demo scene 7k for each part which generates speed code and data... that's an acceptable loading time... not loading 48k AFAIK the C64 was known for its slow data transfer speeds. Sincerely Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Hello Karolj AFAIK the C64 was known for its slow data transfer speeds. Sincerely Mathy Nah their fastsload trackloaders nowadays... Most demo parts in c64 demos are small codebase to get a nice pace for viewer and players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Like Charlie said, this is getting off-topic from AABUC, so if any mod feels like it, please separate my spam into a separate thread, where we can discuss RAM extensions and Atari capabilities ad nauseum. Well, need is a strong word I am however very partial to the organic and random look of the WorldMachine terrains. And it's not like there's 10 Atari games out there that do that kind of thing, so it's also an attempt to do something new and different. Yes, with tiling, you can obviously save a lot of RAM. But you loose that feeling that you only get when each screen looks entirely different and new. And if possible, I'd like to try to preserve that Plus, each screen can have slightly different color scheme. - space action game (Last Starfighter would probably be closest) - 3rd person sprite view of your spaceship (like in Stealth) - enemies would be most probably vector-based (depends on how fast it will actually run, worst case they would be standard PMGs) - no 6 DOF though, I'd go for a fixed "altitude" / YPOS (like in the recent Rebel Galaxy game on PS4/PC, which showed you absolutely do not need 6 DOF for a fun space action game) - land-based flying planet missions would reuse the space combat component (just with different ship bitmap) - land-based exploratory missions (think Mass Effect Mako missions (e.g. simple goals :find 3 minerals, shoot 5 enemies, ...), just 2D from top-down) would use the WorldMachine terrain 2D bitmaps - target framerate: 20 fps on NTSC (3 vbls) - I got A LOT of spaceships in my 3dsmax directory, just waiting to be rendered from multiple angles... - there's 7 million things that could be added to it, but at the core this is the smallest possible version - all prototyping is happening on PC in VisualStudio in C (thus, it can go pretty fast) in emulated resolution 160x192x4 Having more memory than 64 KB means: - player can choose from different spaceships (with different capabilities), as each has many rendered frames - you can have separate rendered screens like Hangar, docking screen, main menu, galaxy map, planet approach screen, planet exit screen, ..... At 7.5 KB, they simply cannot be inside the 64 KB build. They would have to be procedurally generated, hence fugly... - each star system can have a different look&feel (e.g. colors, camera angle, nebulas, ...) Yes, some of the things above can be easily procedurally generated. But once one gets entangled in that coding (been there, done that, many times), there's no way out, it's like getting lost in a recursion, since there is literally no end to a procedural world generation. Whereas if you need a static render, you just place objects quickly in 3dsmax, place lights, tweak output, and that's it. It's done. Worst case - one afternoon. But once the first scene is done, the other can be done in an hour. There's no risk as there is no complex code. Just update a pointer in Display List.... Why should we, as coders, still make our lives miserable in 2017, if there's a up to fricking one megabyte of RAM available for Atari 800 ? Focus on game, on art assets, not displaying 2 and half more colors at the cost of flicker/interlace/zero cycles available for actual game... Sounds ambitious.... And reading those asset list... my point was that you still need to get those data into RAM first... and filling 1 MB xram from a SIO device upfront is not fun either even with burst fast sio protocols. See when e.g. Flashing BIOS of devices. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Btw. Araantica 3 voxel heightmap and texture were generated with L3DT http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Ah one more thing... Compare Rescue on Fractalus instant gameplay (procedual generated) vs loading times of Eidolon and Koronis Rift... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanti77 Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 I like science fiction 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freetz Posted August 8, 2017 Author Share Posted August 8, 2017 Ok, I think the question if/how such a game could participate in next year's contest is settled by now , so I'd suggest you open up a new thread for this (certainly interesting) new game... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freetz Posted August 8, 2017 Author Share Posted August 8, 2017 (edited) Ok, due to the excellent support / collaboration with Andreas and Wolfgang, the diskimages are now available for download (ABBUC members only) at http://asc.abbuc.de - with just 8 days after the end of the contest, I hope this year no one will complain ... The username and password is generated from details of your last magazine's address sticker, details are explained on the same website - it is NOT your abbuc.de or atariage.com login! For English speakers: Click on "English version" on the menu bar. Enjoy! Edited August 8, 2017 by freetz 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted August 9, 2017 Share Posted August 9, 2017 This still doesn't work - still shows "not logged in" on top right. Also I want to renew my subscription can I paypal someone from abbuc please? Please can someone from abbuc help me with this? I have previously paypalled someone to renew my membership, can I do this again? I can only see a "new member" option which means filling out all my details again - is there a renew option somewhere? I need the login fixing so I can download the games too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freetz Posted August 9, 2017 Author Share Posted August 9, 2017 Your account is still listed as active in the database, so no need to hurry (although an updated list will be uploaded when voting begins). You can go ahead and download the games with your membership number as username and the password created based on your address as described on the website. Please keep in mind that the "street name" in some countries begins with the street number! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted August 9, 2017 Share Posted August 9, 2017 Your account is still listed as active in the database, so no need to hurry (although an updated list will be uploaded when voting begins). You can go ahead and download the games with your membership number as username and the password created based on your address as described on the website. Please keep in mind that the "street name" in some countries begins with the street number! Thank you for the clarification about the 'street name' is actually street number. Success after all. From USA member using the first character 2 instead of E. for part of password. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freetz Posted August 9, 2017 Author Share Posted August 9, 2017 Good to hear that it works, I've clarified this now on the English portal page as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwinmac Posted August 9, 2017 Share Posted August 9, 2017 Thanks for getting the ATR images uploaded so soon. I look forward to voting this year. As a US member, I had the same problem with my password as rdea6. Thank you for updating the download page. Bob C 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freetz Posted August 11, 2017 Author Share Posted August 11, 2017 Carsten (ABBUC's server admin) just informed me that after updating the abbuc.de server, the machine did not come up clean again and they need to wait for remote hands to get it fixed again. During that time (which might be over the weekend), neither abbuc.de nor asc.abbuc.de will be available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 Thank you for the clarification about the 'street name' is actually street number. Success after all. From USA member using the first character 2 instead of E. for part of password. For UK members the last two digits are the first number of the house and the first letter of the post code. I'm trying to wait for the disks before trying them and still want to renew my subscription by paypalling someone at abbuc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwinmac Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 (edited) @therealbountybob - When I joined ABBUC, I emailed wolfgang at ABBUC dot de. You need to confirm with him, but I believe that's the PayPal address as well. Bob C Edited August 12, 2017 by darwinmac 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorgh Posted August 15, 2017 Share Posted August 15, 2017 that's my all time record in NAG so far, usually I got 55000-56000. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwinmac Posted August 15, 2017 Share Posted August 15, 2017 @gorgh - Very nice. I was surprised you did not give your your game a more descriptive title. Since I enjoy puns, I was thinking of "Skateboarding with the stars". Bob C 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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