Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[emkay]

54 minutes ago, Rybags said:

Rick Dangerous is supposedly already in development, I'm just about sure there was an expected release almost a year ago.

PoP also .... erm... the other one

 

It's also revolutionary that a game conversion has been done in a "real time span" and plays 100% correct. 

 

So it might be nice to put games into the list that are really possible. 

Just the fact that Rick Dangerous uses the 32 bytes screen, offers a lot of CPU  for fine tuning to everything in colors and movement.

 

 

[Rybags]

My preference is for RD2 - though I imagine a successful game engine for the first would do most of the work for the second.

[nowy80]

I invite you to watch the Prince Of Persia material for 8 bit Atari. A short comparison of how it works with the Rapidus turbo card and without the card
With the Rapidus card:
- speed increase by about 20%,
-No slowdowns in the game with more objects on the screen
- completely different sounds in the game
- slight graphics errors
English version:
https://youtu.be/jab3h_q-77w

[xxl]

On 10/30/2021 at 8:35 PM, Atari_Force said:

What about a xex file version?

such a format is possible without any problem

[Wilheim]

2 hours ago, nowy80 said:

I invite you to watch the Prince Of Persia material for 8 bit Atari. A short comparison of how it works with the Rapidus turbo card and without the card
With the Rapidus card:
- speed increase by about 20%,
-No slowdowns in the game with more objects on the screen
- completely different sounds in the game
- slight graphics errors
English version:
https://youtu.be/jab3h_q-77w

Nice video! Looks like you’re using different sfx banks on each version. Have you checked them by pressing ESC at the beginning?

[nowy80]

I didn't use ESC before starting the game. I did not change the configuration for Rapidus or the Atarti stock. Recordings begin as soon as the first screen of the game appears.

[Wilheim]

3 hours ago, nowy80 said:

I didn't use ESC before starting the game. I did not change the configuration for Rapidus or the Atarti stock. Recordings begin as soon as the first screen of the game appears.

Then that would be a reason why they have different sounds. Maybe you could use the same banks on the benchmarking. I suggest using music and sfx bank 2 on both.

[Shauing]

Hello Rensoup! Nice port of Prince of Persia 1 into the Atari 800. I played it quite a bit to check how it plays, even did one speedrun of this port and I was quite amazed that the port is close to its original Apple II incarnation, from the feel of the movement and physics, to the skips and glitches.

I registered to this forum not only for this speedrun notification, but to notify on a couple of issues I encountered on this port.

The glaring one was on Level 8, where if getting out on this specific way of the two chompers on top row at the far right room on Level 8, the game freezes in this flashing screen:

 

Another one is that falling on guards on a specific way, like this on Level 11, makes you go through the floor and end up on the bottom row (in this case), but the game thinks the Prince landed on the middle row. You can get out of this if the guard hits you or if you already opened the exit door and go from there, but trying to climb down to the right side, crashes the game:

 

But otherwise, this port is really fun to play despite the loading times and slowdowns when lots of things are in the screen (but the latter is at least just like the Apple II Prince). Well, my speedrun is also here on my channel, but I won't link it here so I don't saturate this post with videos. Thank you for making such a good job on the port, despite very few flaws that can be encountered but they do not bring down the quality of this great conversion!

[rensoup]

19 hours ago, snicklin said:

@rensoup I suggest that you take a rest from the Atari and enjoy real life for a while.

 

Then come back with more energy and maybe if we are lucky, you might have another project for us on the go! 

What I need is a FAQ included in the zip archives... I never anticipated the thread to grow that much and it's usually impossible to find any info at this point.

[rensoup]

Perhaps I should just pretend to start working on Rick Dangerous and hope that the guys who've been on it rush it for release ?

 

(It's a nice game too)

[rensoup]

13 hours ago, nowy80 said:

I invite you to watch the Prince Of Persia material for 8 bit Atari. A short comparison of how it works with the Rapidus turbo card and without the card

I did make sure to avoid using extended opcodes in the game (but not in the intro) so that people with faster CPUs could still play it ( even though I consider them fully part of the A8 specs, but that's another debate! )

 

13 hours ago, nowy80 said:

- speed increase by about 20%,

I don't know how you came up with that number, it should be much faster...

 

Did you try changing the frame limiter in the menu ? It's currently stops at 2 (25/30 fps) but I might change it to 1 even though it becomes totally unplayable at 50hz (with a 7mhz 65c816)

 

Even at 2 it's difficult to play but it becomes a nice benchmark tool.

 

11 hours ago, Wilheim said:

- completely different sounds in the game

like mentioned, there are 2 soundbanks

 

11 hours ago, Wilheim said:

- slight graphics errors

the title screen is indeed messed up: I didn't use WSYNC because sometimes there may not be time for it at 1.79mhz.

 

Your video exposed bugs in the cutscene, it plays much too fast because there's no frame limiter.  Jaffar also walks too far and wraps around because the game waits for the music to finish but the music always plays at the right speed regardless of CPU clocking. 

 

So I fixed those... (even though there are potential knock on effects ?)

 

(Totally unrelated to this post: I also added a cheap smurf looking skin when drinking the L9 invert potion, plus reverse X directions!)

[rensoup]

Here's a test by @xxl

 

xex version using a RAM-DISK:

 

Quote

 

Just divide the .ATR into 16KB chunks give them headers to be loaded into successive RAM banks (thus "installing" the RAM-DISK with the recorded data from the .ATR) combine all the parts into one big .xex and finally add a block to run xB to make load from the RAM-DISK.

 

This means:

1. about 180KB game file will load "fast" but into RAM-DISK

2. the requirements will grow to 320 KB for Atari (4 banks for the game and 12 banks for the RAM-DISK)
 

what are the disadvantages of such solution:

- the memory bank numbers are permanently written in the xex file, which means that for practically every type of extension you would have to prepare an xex hahaha or make a configurator which is very tedious.

 

 

 

@mods: Is it possible to stop moderating xxl in this thread because I end up having to post his content...

[invisible kid]

I think they should let xxl post, and instead block the people interrogating rensoupp on design choices.

[ilmenit]

23 minutes ago, invisible kid said:

I think they should let xxl post, and instead block the people interrogating rensoupp on design choices.

I think they shouldn't. He can be contributing coder but without his rude comments towards people that have different opinion than him it's much better place now. Moderators did a good job.

[Fred_M]

People, let's be happy that such a great game was made for us, and absolutely without any commercial interests.

 

A game that is 100% for everyone does not excist. If people are unhappy then they should make their own game.

[rensoup]

On 11/1/2021 at 11:30 PM, Shauing said:

Hello Rensoup! Nice port of Prince of Persia 1 into the Atari 800. I played it quite a bit to check how it plays, even did one speedrun of this port and I was quite amazed that the port is close to its original Apple II incarnation, from the feel of the movement and physics, to the skips and glitches.

I registered to this forum not only for this speedrun notification, but to notify on a couple of issues I encountered on this port.

Hello, great skills!

 

(You actually figured out it to play it like this on your own ? )

 

On 11/1/2021 at 11:30 PM, Shauing said:

The glaring one was on Level 8, where if getting out on this specific way of the two chompers on top row at the far right room on Level 8, the game freezes in this flashing screen:

 Are there any specific conditions to reproduce/ avoid it ?

 

On 11/1/2021 at 11:30 PM, Shauing said:

Another one is that falling on guards on a specific way, like this on Level 11, makes you go through the floor and end up on the bottom row (in this case), but the game thinks the Prince landed on the middle row. You can get out of this if the guard hits you or if you already opened the exit door and go from there, but trying to climb down to the right side, crashes the game:

I'm guessing this is a game glitch which also happens on the A2 right ? (but crashes on the A8)

 

On 11/1/2021 at 11:30 PM, Shauing said:

But otherwise, this port is really fun to play despite the loading times and slowdowns when lots of things are in the screen (but the latter is at least just like the Apple II Prince)

That's not fair, the A2 version is a lot slower ?. Try it again and you'll see!

 

On 11/1/2021 at 11:30 PM, Shauing said:

Well, my speedrun is also here on my channel, but I won't link it here so I don't saturate this post with videos. Thank you for making such a good job on the port, despite very few flaws that can be encountered but they do not bring down the quality of this great conversion!

Thanks and please post your A8 speedrun here ?

[rensoup]

10 hours ago, ilmenit said:

I think they shouldn't. He can be contributing coder but without his rude comments towards people that have different opinion than him it's much better place now. Moderators did a good job.

Yes, he can be rude to people who are incompetent but somehow think their opinion is valuable. He posts rarely enough so it's easy to put him on ignore or stop reading the thread.

[Shauing]

30 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Hello, great skills!

 

(You actually figured out it to play it like this on your own ? )

I have played casually the SNES version for a few years, I even made a couple mods of it, but I only started speedrunning PoP1 on July of this year, and mainly just the DOS version. Before playing/speedrunning this port, I hadn't play PoP in almost two months.

30 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Are there any specific conditions to reproduce/ avoid it ?

Yes, by simply avoiding to do the two running jumps back to back like I did in the crash video. In my speedrun video I don't do the first running jump.

31 minutes ago, rensoup said:

I'm guessing this is a game glitch which also happens on the A2 right ? (but crashes on the A8)

Not sure if it happens exactly like that on the Apple II (have yet to test/speedrun that one, but I will soon), but the skips and glitches that I could do in this port so far can be reproduced in the same way on Apple II but not on DOS or SNES.

35 minutes ago, rensoup said:

That's not fair, the A2 version is a lot slower ?. Try it again and you'll see!

Oh yeah, Apple II is slower than the Atari 800 indeed, but the places where it slows down and the change between normal and lag speeds are basically the same in both versions. 

39 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Thanks and please post your A8 speedrun here ?

Here it is! My speedrun skills are rough after not speedrunning PoP1 for almost two months, but will try to get a deathless run at least!

[xxl]

38 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Yes, he can be rude to people who are incompetent but somehow think their opinion is valuable. He posts rarely enough so it's easy to put him on ignore or stop reading the thread.

I totally agree, ignorant people should add me to the ignore list by default, just like the moderator who banned me should apologize nicely for not being able to understand the post he banned me for ?

[+Stephen]

40 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Yes, he can be rude to people who are incompetent but somehow think their opinion is valuable. disagree with him or don't worship at his feet.

Fixed that for ya

[Albert]

4 minutes ago, xxl said:

I totally agree, ignorant people should add me to the ignore list by default, just like the moderator who banned me should apologize nicely for not being able to understand the post he banned me for ?

Thanks for reminding me I need to talk to the various people who offered to help moderate the Atari 8-bit forum a few months ago.  Now that I have some time to do so.  Also, you were not put on moderation preview because of a single post. 

 

 ..Al

[rensoup]

2 hours ago, Shauing said:

I have played casually the SNES version for a few years, I even made a couple mods of it, but I only started speedrunning PoP1 on July of this year, and mainly just the DOS version. Before playing/speedrunning this port, I hadn't play PoP in almost two months.

Nice speedrun, looks like a lot of the crazy shortcuts work

 

Seems the timer is totally inaccurate (I did mess with it) : You're very fast but you started level 3 with 59 minutes left! Any idea if it's that bad on the A2 ?
 

2 hours ago, Shauing said:

Yes, by simply avoiding to do the two running jumps back to back like I did in the crash video. In my speedrun video I don't do the first running jump.

I'll try to reproduce those glitches, thanks!

 

2 hours ago, Shauing said:

Oh yeah, Apple II is slower than the Atari 800 indeed, but the places where it slows down and the change between normal and lag speeds are basically the same in both versions.

Yes, I tried to keep the slowdowns reasonable though because it becomes quite unplayable with the other versions...
 

 

(For faster loading, you can use the cart version)
 

[Shauing]

12 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Nice speedrun, looks like a lot of the crazy shortcuts work

 

Seems the timer is totally inaccurate (I did mess with it) : You're very fast but you started level 3 with 59 minutes left! Any idea if it's that bad on the A2 ?
 

I'll try to reproduce those glitches, thanks!

 

Yes, I tried to keep the slowdowns reasonable though because it becomes quite unplayable with the other versions...
 

 

(For faster loading, you can use the cart version)
 

I'll probably do a run tonight, but I think the in-game time on the Apple II it is just as bad. Even DOS and SNES there are discrepancies between the in-game time and real time due to the loading between levels and laggy parts of each port plus the speedrunner's PC/console itself. But the difference between the timers is not as huge as the Atari and (most likely) the Apple II.

[Faicuai]

3 hours ago, rensoup said:

Yes, he can be rude to people who are incompetent but somehow think their opinion is valuable.

 

Absolutely, without mentioning the even more (incompetent) and buffoonish tirades lashed out at him, precisely by those who have contributed not even a Planck-length to this thread, nor its authors...

 

In short: we may not like how someone says something, but that does not bear any relevance (whatsoever) on the legitimacy or intrinsic value of what is being discussed. It is as if some people (even at this day and age) would still be struggling (emotionally?) with this fundamental notion... and that is precisely what brings infantile chaos and disruption to the flow of relevant ideas, on any thread.

 

Some basic moderation concepts and notions moving forward, based on what rests scattered throughout this thread (which I have witnessed post-by-post, since pretty early on).

 

 

 

 

 

[xxl]

11 hours ago, Shauing said:

 

 

After watching this speedrun I can see how great this port is. Good thing the author didn't kill the spirit of PoP by trying to "tweak" it so that effects like 26:54 are not possible. We can safely say that we have a real PoP on Atari. ?