Tuesday, October 03, 2006

XeO3: C64....

Not a bad evenings work! I've managed to get the sprites converted over as well! Although at somepoint I guess I'd have to get them redrawn since they are only 16x16 but still, it looks great with the added colour! I'll probably release a C64 teaser in the near future as well, lets see if any C64 guys get interested :)


Anonymous said...

The C64 teaser ideas is great, because C64 scene just knew about the game, but on +4 only! Hope you release it quite soon!

Anonymous said...

aW3SOM3!1 :D
iAN CooG/HokutoForce

Anonymous said...

I have to admit that the additional colors (for the sprites) look great. Still, I'm glad that it's a project that started on plus/4 and hopefully get's finished on plus/4 first. Though, I don't mind a close runner-up ;)


Mike said...

Nah....Plus/4 first, C64 needs extra graphics (half the character set is now totally empty!) and larger sprites (from 16x16 to 24x21)- Only the music doens't need changed. :)

When it gets done properly, I guess there will be more sprite colours anyhow. I'm still secretly thinking of doing a bitmap scroller.....but Im not sure yet....8k is a lot of memory to waste on a bit map - and I'd STILL need tiles.

Anonymous said...

I thought about the music... doesn't it sound a bit different due to the different CPU clock? I guess most of the time it's ok but some sounds taken from C64 sound weird when played back on SIDcard. But I'm sure Luca will help out if some things are not ok :)

Yes, more colors in the sprites will look even better. But even the preview colors add that little sparkle some ppl seemed to miss in the plus/4 teaser. I still prefer proper software sprites instead :) I'm just not a fan of color clash and black boxes around sprites.

Last night I read lots of documents about the various ATARI 8bit graphic modes and I think a port is not impossible. Actually, with documented source code it should be very possible because that is what most C64 to Atari ports lack. Those projects (like the IK+ port) are ambitious but they take too much time disassembling, documenting and understanding the code.
The plus/4 with it's "limitations" seems to be an ideal "mother platform" for ports to the Atari 8bit machines and since they have those PLAYER/MISSILE thingies they can most likely add some features. I still have to do some reading, though.


Mike said...

I have a newer C64 here which has the newer SID in it. I'm not sure when they swapped SID models in the C64, but I guess all the emulators will work with either so music shouldn't be an issue. If someone plays on an old one, then it'll sound odd.... but the same would be true it we swapped it and someone played it on the new one!

Yes, its much easier porting from the Plus4 to other systems as the plus/4 has to jump through hoops to do things, and other machines don't.

I also need to get more sprites on screen, since the +4 can display 10 just now, and the C64 is stuck at 8. But with a good multiplexor, we should get up to 16-20 okay....1 reserved for the player though.

Although I know the code, it only took 2 days to get the main bits up and running, and I had to remember how to code the C64 again!!

Anonymous said...

Well, I thought it was impressively fast :) I mean the time it took you to port it to the C64.

I didn't mean the different SID chips but the different clock on C64 and plus/4. Bionic prototyped a plus/4 SIDcard that runs with original (C64) clock (and the new one that was mentioned in the forum takes care of that, too). He used to have a website with an example tune which showed the effect. It's only a problem in some tunes, though everything sounds different on plus/4. Luca will know about that and since he did some C64 tunes, too, I'm sure he will know what to do :)

So there's one player sprite and nine baddies on plus/4? That beats everyting I have seen so far :)

Mike said...

Once I remembered how to code C64 stuff, it wasn't hard. Most of the problems come with bit twiddling the Plus4 graphics into C64 ones. Due to the limited colours, you need to swap bits %01 and %11 on all the graphics. Bit faffy, but its okay now. The rest is fairly easy since 70% of the effort on a Plus4 is doing sprites!

Yeah, 10 software sprites altogether - some restrictions, but you usually dont notice.

No, the clock speeds dont really matter since tis tied to the VBlank, and the C64 has Hardware sprites which saves about a frame anyway. Its all good......

Anonymous said...

That's not what I meant either :) The different clock speed in combination with SID makes SID musics on plus/4 sound different from the very same SID music if played back on a C64 (even if the same SID chip is used).

That's why you can set TEDclock for the SID emulation in YAPE (to make it sound like Solder's SIDcard)... or set it to original clock (to make it sound like on C64)

It's not that important anyway :)

So what about SFX on C64? Built a TEDcard for the C64? Just kidding. But I like the idea of using SID and TED for music/sfx on plus/4 since I got a SIDcard :)

Mike said...

Well, you dont really notice the sound being different - at least I didn't.

TED sound effects and SID music work really well (volume problems aside), which does mean it has one up on the C64 which can't do Music+SFX at the same time (unless you do somesort of DIGI)

Anonymous said...

It's not obvious in all SIDmusics but sometimes (in case you know how it should sound originally) you can easily tell.

I thought about the option of digis in the C64 version, too, when you mentioned lots of extra time due hardware sprites instead of software ones. And just FX don't need such an acurate timing as digi musics do.

On plus/4 there aren't many games that use digis "in game". "Digital Ball" does... hence the name :) Actually, it's one of the games I played a lot and it's probably still the best Break-Out one on plus/4. But on C64 I've seen a couple of games using digis. Well... you will see what you can do, just keep us informed :)

Anonymous said...

I was going to add this the other day when you mentioned the MORPHEUS Diary.

It's not a diary but probably one of the best reads about "Games Programmers" (second to your BLOG of course ;) For that I should get a signed first edition copy of XeO3, shouldn't I? ;) ). It's been on the net for a couple of years and maybe you have read it already.


Mike said...

Digi's just steal too much CPU time from the game (on the plus4 at least...) I still dont know how much C64 time I'll have left, if I DO have some, then I can have a think and see how I want to spend it.