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Dread - Doom clone coming up for ST/STE


Jacques

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14 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

That's actually more and more hard to create, or better say invent. It was hard already in 80-es of prev. Century, and now, when there are so many games already released ...

I’d argue it’s easier to design new games now with modern context aware editors, cross-assemblers, and emulation. 
 

The process of code-test-improve has been streamlined significantly.

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I think he means new as in new and revolutionary and different. Not new as in just done recently.

 

Look at any typical shooter that comes out in any given year. When was the last time that you saw one that was really different from any of the others in any measurable way? When was the last time you saw any game that seemed really new, and not just a copy of some other game with a little different graphics?

 

I think that's what @ParanoidLittleMan is referring to when he says new. That's how I took his comments anyway. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

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14 hours ago, bfollowell said:

I think he means new as in new and revolutionary and different. Not new as in just done recently.

 

Look at any typical shooter that comes out in any given year. When was the last time that you saw one that was really different from any of the others in any measurable way? When was the last time you saw any game that seemed really new, and not just a copy of some other game with a little different graphics?

 

I think that's what @ParanoidLittleMan is referring to when he says new. That's how I took his comments anyway. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Of course that I meant not game design, coding, and even not graphic when talked about new idea. Gameplay is where is really hard to invent something new, what will be addictive.  This with Doom and follower Quake is rather some evolution by me - Castle Wolfenstein was probably first FPS by ID SW, and followers were basically same gameplay - walking in rooms, shoot everything ...

By me Tomb Raider was much more original, and probably biggest success on market. But, if we think little - it was pretty much Prince Of Persia in 3D ?

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8 hours ago, Airshack said:

I’d argue it’s easier to design new games now with modern context aware editors, cross-assemblers, and emulation. 
 

The process of code-test-improve has been streamlined significantly.

The quote about:

 

 

"That's actually more and more hard to create, or better say invent. It was hard already in 80-es of prev. Century, and now, when there are so many games already released ..." 

 

 

Came from:ParanoidLittleMan, not myself ?

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6 hours ago, bfollowell said:

I think he means new as in new and revolutionary and different. Not new as in just done recently.

 

Look at any typical shooter that comes out in any given year. When was the last time that you saw one that was really different from any of the others in any measurable way? When was the last time you saw any game that seemed really new, and not just a copy of some other game with a little different graphics?

 

I think that's what @ParanoidLittleMan is referring to when he says new. That's how I took his comments anyway. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I can remember people trying to mimic Andrew Braybrook'Uridium on the likes of the BBC and Atari 8-bit machines and whilst technically great efforts, the playability just wasn't there. 

 

 

People still doing modern takes on the title to this day. 

 

 

 
 
 
People can take a popular formula and put their own take on it. 
 
I was never quite the same  fan of Exhumed on Playstation/Saturn that my friend was, but i appalled them for doing something different than the generic space marine setting. 
 
I hated Tomb Raider, but couldn't get enough of Soul Reaver. 
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I contacted the author of the port,

the user KK from the scene group Altair

 

He explained me, that all the graphics are runtime converted from chunky mode to planar... that is not the best for an Atari ST/E or Amiga...

as well, I suggest to use the 4 MB RAM of a STE in order to place all sprites in a pre-scaled manner, as well pre-scale as many textures as possible, in order to save a lot of CPU power.

 

The chunky to planar conversion is currently the worst part, talking about performance

 

Texture drawing is based in 2 pixels width with larger height such 8 pixels, 12, 16, 20, 24, 32...  as well, pre-load and pre-scaling can bring a performance boost, as well working directly in planar mode instead of chunky

 

 

Due to Dread´s code draws 2 pixels width textures, is better to create a composition of at least 16 pixels, and perform the blitter operation in master mode to draw this texture composition. In order to minimize the number of blitting operations per frame.

 

 

Edited by masteries
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On 8/28/2021 at 1:02 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

By me Tomb Raider was much more original, and probably biggest success on market. But, if we think little - it was pretty much Prince Of Persia in

Ha, this is what I said when Tomb Raider first released. 

 

As far as 'oh man, just another Doom clone?'  One of the reasons so many of these come out for the ST / Amiga is because back when they started hitting the PC, there were many many many 'journalists' who insisted that all other platforms died because of not being able to run Doom.  I've seen way too many to count that specifically said that about the Amiga, and then so many attempts to show 'hey, we can run such games as well!' that were pretty much ignored by the press because "But it can't run DOOM!" so when the source code was released, every platform eventually got it.  Hell, it's been ported to a printer.

 

So yeah, it actually is a technical marvel to see a Doom style game on the ST, especially one that looks SO good.  Sure, would I prefer someone spend the time to create Alternate Reality: The Dungeon on 16 bit systems, and then maybe just finish the rest of the games in that series?  Well yes, yes I would.  But I'll take Dread!  This game looks amazing!

 

Will get it for both ST and Amiga, if they're doing a commercial release.

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2 hours ago, calimero said:

^

so it looks like that 16MHz causing crashes... Same is on Falcon.

 

On Mega STe: does it work with 16MHz and cache on?

 

---

 

KK explain how Dread works on Atari: https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1505462&postcount=1064

 

It did for me, but I didn't play it too long, but yes, my mega ste was in 16mhz with cache on.  I did play the game a couple of times and even let it set at the main menu listening to the music while I was on another computer

 

 

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Same here. It ran fine on my Mega STe, 16mhz, cache on, no problems. It

even started fine from the desktop with ACC's and AUTO folder programs

loaded. This was from an internal Ultrasatan.

 

I also tried to run it on my Pak 68/3 equipped STacy running at 40mhz and

TOS v3.06. It also started fine from the desktop there, with ACC's and AUTO

folder programs loaded. It showed some sprite clipping? for want of a better

description? When facing an enemy and firing, the bottom half of the enemy

model would "flicker" and disappear then immediately reappear when the gun

animation/sound ended. Finally, about about 5-6 minutes of game play, it did

crash with 6 cherry bombs.

 

Fortunately, the Pak 68/3 board has a full compatibility mode where you can

turn the STacy off, flip a switch and boot back up into TOS v1.4 and an 8mhz

68000. From there Dread ran absolutely fine. Very smooth game.

 

It seems that just a few more "tweaks" might make it run great on all Atari

hardware.

 

Great job guys!  :)

 

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49.0, Normal, no cheats.

 

Route I've been using -

Collect the armour to the left

Walk to first room, shoot the guy

Turn right, shoot the next guy, but that's the last one I bother to kill.

Run forwards, get the key, run back to the first room, turn right, then left, then keep forwards to the end.

 

Definitely room for improvement with my movement - this clunky Atari mouse wasnt built with this game in mind - and it's possible to clip walls in useful places too

 

Surely somebody can beat me??

 

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

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On 8/29/2021 at 5:18 AM, masteries said:

I contacted the author of the port,

the user KK from the scene group Altair

 

He explained me, that all the graphics are runtime converted from chunky mode to planar... that is not the best for an Atari ST/E or Amiga...

as well, I suggest to use the 4 MB RAM of a STE in order to place all sprites in a pre-scaled manner, as well pre-scale as many textures as possible, in order to save a lot of CPU power.

 

The chunky to planar conversion is currently the worst part, talking about performance

 

Texture drawing is based in 2 pixels width with larger height such 8 pixels, 12, 16, 20, 24, 32...  as well, pre-load and pre-scaling can bring a performance boost, as well working directly in planar mode instead of chunky

 

 

Due to Dread´s code draws 2 pixels width textures, is better to create a composition of at least 16 pixels, and perform the blitter operation in master mode to draw this texture composition. In order to minimize the number of blitting operations per frame.

 

 

 

If he used all 4MB on an STe, wouldn't that cause issues with running the game off of an UltraSatan unless the STe had a FastRAM upgrade and the game was patched to use that RAM resource? Wait, FastRAM might require a 68020 or better. RAM upgrades are obviously easier on the Amiga [groan].

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