flicker free large sprites -- sample MPG

[Tsukasa]

512k ought to be enough to do ports of games that never made the jump from arcade to 2600. The ones that I would like to see the most are; Galaga, Bubble Bobble, Bomberman, lemmings.... the possibilities are endless.....

[Robert M]

512k ought to be enough to do ports of games that never made the jump from arcade to 2600. The ones that I would like to see the most are; Galaga, Bubble Bobble, Bomberman, lemmings.... the possibilities are endless.....

 

Its a nice demo, but I think you are misunderstanding it to say that it could be used to port games like Galaga, etc. You must remember that the sprite is limited to 48 pixels wide, and it is a single sprite. Overlaying multiple smaller sprites into that larger sprite would be very CPU intensive. More than the VCS has to offer.

 

I more practical use that I see for it is in an RPG for displaying the current monster or location with limited animation. Say 256 frames total divided between 64 monsters at 48 x 48 with 4 frames animation each.

 

Cheers!

[Atari-Jess]

The VCS needs two things, Puzzle games and RPGs.

 

*dreams*

[Andrew Davie]

Its a nice demo, but I think you are misunderstanding it to say that it could be used to port games like Galaga, etc.   You must remember that the sprite is limited to 48 pixels wide, and it is a single sprite.   Overlaying multiple smaller sprites into that larger sprite would be very CPU intensive.   More than the VCS has to offer.    

 

 

The technique works for full-screen bitmaps, too -- as with the sample binary I posted in the other thread. Given 32K RAM that Krokodile 3E mode offers and using this new totally flicker-free graphics capability (full screen bitmaps) there's a LOT of new games possible. I'm very very tempted to develop a Boulderdash-like game just to show the possibilities.

 

Don't forget, too, that with extra RAM... overlaying multiple sprites onto that larger sprite *IS* possible... double-buffer your bitmap sprite images, display one while you build the other over multiple frames. There's really a whole lot of new techniques awaiting exploration now the RAM and ROM limits are essentially removed.

 

The flicker-free sprite and background colour graphics modes are not really related to those barriers being broken -- but removal of the barriers does make the new technique much more attractive to use.

 

Cheers

A

[foxglove9]

Very very nice! Thanks Andrew Davie for the vid clip.

 

So does this mean we will see an arcade port of Dragon's Lair soon?

[Andrew Davie]

Very very nice! Thanks Andrew Davie for the vid clip.

 

So does this mean we will see an arcade port of Dragon's Lair soon?  

 

Yes, just as soon as I've finished "not-Boulderdash", which is my current top-secret project.

 

Cheers

A

[joesmooth]

Simply amazing!

 

Joe

[Bruce Tomlin]

... the *only* option at the moment is to download and run it on your Krokodile cart.

It does kinda suck that Chad doesn't plan on supporting your 512k 3F bankswitching technique on the CC2.

Was there any particular reason given? Or is Chad just getting tired of having to make new bankswitch files?

[deathtrappomegranate]

The mpegs linked in this thread are hugely impressive.

 

Thanks!

 

What next - a ZX81 flying an Airbus?

 

[Andrew Davie]

Some actual screenshots. Guess what I'm working on?

[Jacob Rose]

Wow, amazing. I'm still struggling with simple title screens! =)

 

I'm a bit confused about the whole Krocodile cart thing, though; is this demo using special features the Kroc cart has, or would it run on, say, a supercharger?

 

Also, can we see the source? =)

[Godzilla]

finally 2600 dragon's lair draws even closer! :-) Great work AD !!!! the technique would work with a supercharger but the small ram would limit what you could do. the krok breaks the ram barrier.

[Jacob Rose]

the technique would work with a supercharger but the small ram would limit what you could do. The krok breaks the ram barrier

 

Ah, okay. I got a hint that that was so, but I wasn't quite sure. I was reading the stella list archives and saw some discussion of adding RAM to cartridges from (I think) 2003; is the Kroc the first cartridge to do it? Will development on the Kroc lead to new cartridge designs that include more RAM?

[Jacob Rose]

the technique would work with a supercharger but the small ram would limit what you could do. The krok breaks the ram barrier

 

Ah, okay. I got a hint that that was so, but I wasn't quite sure. I was reading the stella list archives and saw some discussion of adding RAM to cartridges from (I think) 2003; is the Kroc the first cartridge to do it? Will development on the Kroc lead to new cartridge designs that include more RAM?

[SS]

Some actual screenshots.  Guess what I'm working on?

 

Damn! I really hope that Chad (or someone else) adds 512k support to the CC2 at some point.

[cschell]

Andrew,

 

Would this demo even run with 512K 3F? Does the upper 2K just point to the last bank?

 

Do you have and are you willing to share the 3E bankswitching details?

 

Chad

[cschell]

To everyone else,

 

You do realize that there is no ROM posted here. Even with a 512K 3F for the CC2 there is nothing to run.

 

I assume since this is in part a commercial for the Krokodile cart that no ROM would be forthcoming. (And note that I have no problem with that.)

 

Chad

[SS]

To everyone else,

 

You do realize that there is no ROM posted here.  Even with a 512K 3F for the CC2 there is nothing to run.

 

I assume since this is in part a commercial for the Krokodile cart that no ROM would be forthcoming.  (And note that I have no problem with that.)

 

Chad

 

I hear what you're saying and don't have a problem with a Krocodile Cart "exclusive". However, there are likely other really cool things to follow (ie - possible "Bolder Dash" clone) and I am hoping that these might be publicly released.

 

Andrew's 2600 porno demo would be interesting to see on real hardware as well.

[cschell]

The boulder dash clone is apparently 3E, the new 512K ROM + 32K RAM bankswitching method they designed. Not 512K 3F.

 

Chad

[Andrew Davie]

The boulder dash clone is apparently 3E, the new 512K ROM + 32K RAM bankswitching method they designed.  Not 512K 3F.

 

Chad

 

The current demos are 3F, but yes, future work will be using 3E mode. This is not an attempt to get people to buy KK -- in fact my current demos will run fine as 4K ROMs; it's just that I happen to have a prototype KK which makes this sort of demo and experimentation easy. In any case, I'm doing "not-Boulderdash" for me, not for public consumption -- so it's definitely NOT a selling-point for KK.

 

I don't particularly think 3E is the bees knees as far as usability goes. Though it's straightforward to switch banks, it is going to be very akward managing ROM and RAM switching as they occupy the same address space.

 

Cheers

A

[Kroko]

I assume since this is in part a commercial for the Krokodile cart that no ROM would be forthcoming. (And note that I have no problem with that.)

 

There are no secrets!

 

512K 3F switching is like "normal" 3F switching. The only difference is, that the fixed bank is always at the highest 2K of the 512K ROM. Apart from that, just switch in the selected bank. The download software has to make sure to copy the highest 2K of each 3F ROM to the last 2K of the 512K adress space of the cart.

 

3E is just an extension to 3F. If works exactly like 3F, the only difference is, that a write to 3E switches out the current ROM bank and switches in one of 32 RAM banks. RAM access works like with Commavid RAM. Read port is lower 1K and write port is upper 1K.

 

So you get 512K Rom and 32K aditional RAM

[cschell]

 

There are no secrets!

 

512K 3F switching is like "normal" 3F switching. The only difference is, that the fixed bank is always at the highest 2K of the 512K ROM. Apart from that, just switch in the selected bank. The download software has to make sure to copy the highest 2K of each 3F ROM to the last 2K of the 512K adress space of the cart.

 

3E is just an extension to 3F. If works exactly like 3F, the only difference is, that a write to 3E switches out the current ROM bank and switches in one of 32 RAM banks. RAM access works like with Commavid RAM. Read port is lower 1K and write port is upper 1K.

 

So you get 512K Rom and 32K aditional RAM

 

Fair enough.

 

I will post a 512K 3F later today (hopefully) in the 7800 forum, although it will be untested.

 

The CC2 will not be able to do 3E though. It could do 3E-. (480K ROM, 32K RAM). So authors who wanted things to run on both would have to restrain themselves to using only the first 480K of ROM.

 

Thanks for the info,

Chad

[Kroko]

It could do 3E-. (480K ROM, 32K RAM). So authors who wanted things to run on both would have to restrain themselves to using only the first 480K of ROM.

Please don't forget that 3E could be expanded in the future such that we have 256K of additional RAM available. The only reason why there are currently only 32 is the size of my RAM chip. but the concept is such that you can have 256 ROM banks and 256 RAM banks.

 

My suggestion is, we wait until "something" is available for 3E and then agree on how 3E should be expanded in the future. Can't think of any application that could really need 256K RAM

 

But before you make a 3E version for the CC2, we should ask people how much RAM they COULD want to use in the future to find the best compromise between ROM and RAM size.

[cschell]

I have no problem waiting.

 

The reason I listed 480K + 32K is because to my understanding that is the common size between the two carts.

 

KK = 512K FLASH RAM + 32K SRAM

CC2 = 512K SRAM (Plus 256K rather inflexible FLASH RAM)

 

Unfortunately I do not believe I could configure the CC2 FLASH RAM to work as the remaining 32K of ROM.

 

Chad

[Bruce Tomlin]

CC2 = 512K SRAM (Plus 256K rather inflexible FLASH RAM)

 

Unfortunately I do not believe I could configure the CC2 FLASH RAM to work as the remaining 32K of ROM.

That's the first thing I thought when I read the description of 3E.

 

Perhaps it would be useful if this could be defined as "512K address space, but a specific 32K is RAM". Or some other way so that if (as is likely) you don't use all the ROM, the 32K can be re-used by the CC2 as the 3E RAM space.

 

I know some of you guys (Andrew Davie, Paul Slocum, etc.) can go nuts with lots of 3F ROM available, but will you really use all 32K of RAM (meaning do you really need more than 32K?) and if you do use it, will you also use the entire 512K of ROM space?

 

480K ROM/32K RAM should be a reasonable compromise, if you can agree on which 32K of ROM goes away.