Omega-TI Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 As stated in another thread, over the past few years, the genius level programmers and hardware guys have been slowly eliminating all my 'wants' for the TI home computer. Now I'm down to my final four. What does a guy do when he has everything he's ever wanted for his favorite computer anyway? So, to get it over with, I've decided to just post them all in one shot. 1) QIX I've wanted the video game QIX for the TI for a long, long time. It's an awesome game, it's a popular game, and it's fun to play. 2) Omega Race This is one of my favorites from the arcade in years gone by. It's available on multiple platforms, just not on my TI. 3) A 'fully featured' DOS Jedimatt42 is currently working on a fantastic DOS for the TI called FORCE COMMAND. I cannot wait to see how it evolves. 4) A functioning 'printer' program for the TI A printer command that will work in conjunction with the TIPI. Damn, I miss being able to print DIRECTLY. That's it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Never say 'Final' because we all know that even if all of the wants were delivered tomorrow we would all want more! This addiction is never satisfied! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airshack Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Play Qix on your 5200. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted June 5, 2019 Author Share Posted June 5, 2019 Play Qix on your 5200. I do play Qix on my 5200, but my 5200 does not have a nice crisp F18A driven video output. RF cannot compare. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Qix is a fantastic game, and one that definitely needs more ports. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted June 5, 2019 Author Share Posted June 5, 2019 Qix is a fantastic game, and one that definitely needs more ports. Honestly, I'm amazed that Qix hasn't been ported to the TI yet. I can understand Omega Race not making the jump to the TI, but who would have figured a game as addicting and fun to play as Qix not making the jump. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0hMSYvL50M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 The graphics are not a good match for the 9918A. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 Qix is on my list. And yes, graphically there's has to be made a few shortcuts. Omega Race is not on my list (yet). It was the best game for me on the VIC-20 (while I had one). The graphics are not a good match for the 9918A. Maybe a more true version could be made with the F18A. I'm sticking with the 9918A though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 Qix would be a breeze for a 9938 with its graphics commands (line, fill). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 (edited) Qix would be a breeze for a 9938 with its graphics commands (line, fill). Gotta love Yamaha and that chip (should be backward compatible with the 9918A and looking mighty fine). Only problem is, with my path, the next level is the Amiga OCS (Original Chip Set) - even letting down the C64. Edited June 6, 2019 by sometimes99er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airshack Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 I do play Qix on my 5200, but my 5200 does not have a nice crisp F18A driven video output. RF cannot compare. When I finish the UAV mod on my 5200 I’ll let you know how it went. I’ll also need to do the power mod as I have the old style power/RF combo. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 Qix is on my list. And yes, graphically there's has to be made a few shortcuts. Omega Race is not on my list (yet). It was the best game for me on the VIC-20 (while I had one). Maybe a more true version could be made with the F18A. I'm sticking with the 9918A though. Maybe it would be acceptable that vertical lines had to be on 8 pixel boundaries? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 Qix would be a breeze for a 9938 with its graphics commands (line, fill). Someone has been working on a version for the MSX2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPQlfj4_kNo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted June 6, 2019 Author Share Posted June 6, 2019 Someone has been working on a version for the MSX2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPQlfj4_kNo The graphics detail looks perfectly acceptable to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 The graphics detail looks perfectly acceptable to me. Yes but that's for the v9938. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted June 7, 2019 Share Posted June 7, 2019 Maybe it would be acceptable that vertical lines had to be on 8 pixel boundaries? That's one way to go, though I think it may "feel" a bit awkward. I see 3 other possibilities, of which I have 2 on my list - and definitely being Qix based games. The one I'm not going to use, is a simulated "multicolor" variant, effectively having a 4 pixel resolution in both directions. The Qix - the stick lines - may be handled with sprites, Sparks may be handled in the background graphics (pulsating) etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted June 7, 2019 Author Share Posted June 7, 2019 The graphics are not a good match for the 9918A. What about the F18A? A lot of us have one of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted June 7, 2019 Author Share Posted June 7, 2019 Maybe a more true version could be made with the F18A. I'm sticking with the 9918A though. I'll be keeping my eyes open! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted June 20, 2019 Author Share Posted June 20, 2019 On 6/5/2019 at 10:01 PM, Asmusr said: The graphics are not a good match for the 9918A. Well now... the F18A MKII will be coming out eventually. It'll NEED a great signature game for it's debut. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted June 20, 2019 Share Posted June 20, 2019 Qix is one of my favorite coin-op games. It would be interesting to port to the MK2, but I have to focus on the hardware or things will never get done. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted June 21, 2019 Share Posted June 21, 2019 On 6/20/2019 at 5:58 AM, --- Ω --- said: Well now... the F18A MKII will be coming out eventually. It'll NEED a great signature game for it's debut. ? The current F18A MK1 would be able to do QIX just fine. It has a 4 color full bitmap mode for the background, a fast GPU to do the flood filling and lines, and the ability to create sprites with up to 7 colors. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted June 24, 2019 Share Posted June 24, 2019 On 6/6/2019 at 8:06 AM, Asmusr said: Maybe it would be acceptable that vertical lines had to be on 8 pixel boundaries? I used to love me some Qix.. I'd have to save that waiting for a character boundary would be awkward. When the sparks are closing in you want to move out of the way "now". The way I'd do it, draw your lines solid but use a sparse fill, like a hash pattern. That way the visible effect of color clash would be minimized. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted August 6, 2019 Share Posted August 6, 2019 On 6/24/2019 at 11:59 AM, Tursi said: I used to love me some Qix.. I'd have to save that waiting for a character boundary would be awkward. When the sparks are closing in you want to move out of the way "now". The way I'd do it, draw your lines solid but use a sparse fill, like a hash pattern. That way the visible effect of color clash would be minimized. From the research I have done it appears that the algorithm for determining which area to fill, is to flood fill on both side of the 'marker' (player), and then use the fill counts to determine which area to fill for real. It sounds a bit slow, but I have no better idea. For the flood fill, and in order to determine where you can move the marker, we need to know the color/type of each pixel in the playing area, which would be difficult to do directly from VDP RAM if we use dithered colors. But if we use the 32K we could keep a screen buffer in RAM with perhaps 4 bits per pixel (16 colors). We could do the flood fill in RAM and draw the dithered screen to VDP when we know what to fill. Not having to read and write from/to VDP RAM all the time might speed things up considerably. Another option is to maintain the screen buffer at half resolution, e.g. 96x96. Then we could store one pixel in one byte, which would speed things up further, and only use 9216 bytes. One pixel in the buffer would translate to a 4 pixels dither pattern on the screen. You would only be able to move on 2 pixel boundaries, but that's probably acceptable. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted August 7, 2019 Share Posted August 7, 2019 (edited) Well, for the collision buffer in RAM, you can do that in monochrome and only need 6k. You don't need to know the color so much, just whether or not its legal for the player to move there. It would be a bit awkward to manage the filling of old lines, but it could be done, and would be reasonably quick to parse. (Edit: I guess if you track the line as it's being drawn, you can add it to the fill buffer on its own once it's completed). The decision about where to fill comes from where the QIX is... you fill the region the QIX is not in. Off the top of my head I'm not sure how to determine that for arbitrary shapes, but it's got to be faster than filling the screen and counting the pixels. (Besides, a clever player can trap the QIX and get 98% of the screen in one fill ). (Edit2: Actually, this might be simple too. The final line is either horizontal or vertical, so you simply start your fill on the opposite side of that line to where the QIX is.) Edited August 7, 2019 by Tursi 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted August 7, 2019 Share Posted August 7, 2019 2 hours ago, Tursi said: The final line is either horizontal or vertical, so you simply start your fill on the opposite side of that line to where the QIX is.) That doesn't seem to work. For instance if the QIX is on the left side of the screen and you are at the middle bottom. You go a bit up, right, and down again. You now need to fill the rectangle to the left of you, but that's also where the QIX is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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