Tapper - Amiga OCS

[Old_Bob]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Ooh, don't keep us in suspense - what was the issue? Good stuff sorting it anyway. As an aside, you should bring it along to show off at the next Scottish Amiga users meetup, which should be happening in Glasgow in April or May...

Schoolboy error on my part. I wasn't checking if the blitter was free before writing to its registers for the next drawing step. It worked fine with a 7mhz 68000 and also with my emulated 28mhz A1200 config, but the 030 was getting there just a bit too quickly. Can somebody else test on 040 & 060? It would be nice to for sure that it works on these chips too.

The meetup thingy sounds like it might be interesting. I'll pencil it in, for the moment.

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Same here, love a bit of Tapper too - very close to my heart.

Me too. It's one of my favourite games in MAME. Slightly annoying that we didn't get a 16 bit port back in the days of yore, especially considering the lacklustre standard of the various 8 bit conversions. I was stuck with the mediocre Speccy version, which is only marginally better than no Tapper, at all.

Thanks to you all for your comments. Right, it's nose-to-the-grindstone time. I predict a late night, tonight.

B

[CFou!]

Great i like this classic arcade game.
PS: je pourrais faire un whdload's patch for final version ??

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Old_Bob

Schoolboy error on my part. I wasn't checking if the blitter was free before writing to its registers for the next drawing step. It worked fine with a 7mhz 68000 and also with my emulated 28mhz A1200 config, but the 030 was getting there just a bit too quickly.

Ah, good that it was an easy fix!

Can somebody else test on 040 & 060? It would be nice to for sure that it works on these chips too.

Both of my 060 machines are out of action at the moment but I want to try and get at least one up and running this weekend, and I can test it if I do.

The meetup thingy sounds like it might be interesting. I'll pencil it in, for the moment.

Cool, there'll be a post about it on here somewhere once the date's nailed down.

Slightly annoying that we didn't get a 16 bit port back in the days of yore, especially considering the lacklustre standard of the various 8 bit conversions. I was stuck with the mediocre Speccy version, which is only marginally better than no Tapper, at all.

I remember the Atari 8-bit version being pretty good... But looking at the screenshots now, it's pretty rough looking compared to the arcade version (though still a bit better than the Speccy version ).

[saimon69]

If i wanted to be REALLY picky i would have said to use the interlaced mode and black cutout to give characters that cartoony effect, but it might affect performance am afraid, this looks already good

[adrdesign]

Great! Love these arcade ports

[theq]

Couldn’t find it in The Zone
Will test it on my ‘060

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by theq

Couldn’t find it in The Zone

It's definitely there i.e:

Tapper_Test_01b.adf

Tapper for OCS - Hopefully fixes graphics corruption bug present in the earlier version.

[drHirudo]

This is awesome. I am a big fan of Tapper. I've played the Arcade, IBM PC, Apple II and ZX Spectrum versions. The Amiga version is very close to the original, graphically wise.

There are some bugs, for example beers travelling from one stage to another and possibility to send customers forth with beers, but as an early preview it plays fine.

I've created a video with music and sound effects from the arcade for better feel of the game atmosphere:

[ Show youtube player ]

Some of the bugs are seen in the video.

For comparison here are the other versions that I've played so far (in order of my rate, ZX Spectrum being the worse):

Arcade:
[ Show youtube player ]

Apple II:
[ Show youtube player ]

IBM-PC:
[ Show youtube player ]

Sinclair ZX Spectrum:
[ Show youtube player ]

[str0m]

They have this at the Arcade Club in Leeds (UK) as a cocktail cabinet

[Old_Bob]

Originally Posted by saimon69

If i wanted to be REALLY picky i would have said to use the interlaced mode and black cutout to give characters that cartoony effect, but it might affect performance am afraid, this looks already good

Yes, I think it's asking a bit much for a 7mhz 68000 and OCS to maintain 50fps running the engine in 640x512.

Originally Posted by drHirudo

There are some bugs, for example beers travelling from one stage to another and possibility to send customers forth with beers, but as an early preview it plays fine.

I'm aware of this one and It's been annoying me for a while. I'm going to rewrite that part today and hopefully fix it for good.

B

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Old_Bob

Yes, I think it's asking a bit much for a 7mhz 68000 and OCS to maintain 50fps running the engine in 640x512.

Actually interlaced is 320x512 (480 for NTSC) doubling the horizontal lines only (with rectangular pixels)

[Old_Bob]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Actually interlaced is 320x512 (480 for NTSC) doubling the horizontal lines only (with rectangular pixels)

Ah, I see. 640x512 would be a better match. The screen could be sized to match the 512x480 of the coin-op and it would save me a pile of work in DPaint redrawing all the sprites. Although, either mode has absolutely no chance of being fast enough.

Maybe on AGA, with a beefy CPU and Fast RAM it might be a workable option. Possibly not at 50fps, though.

B

[el_pasi]

Hi, just tested Tapper with 040. To be more precise I have Amiga 1200 + Blizzard PPC 603e+/68040 + BVision, which is not very compatible setup Didn't see any glitches, so seems to work with 040 too.

[DamienD]

Just gave this a whirl, very cool indeed Old_Bob

I guess music / SFX are the next steps?

[Old_Bob]

Originally Posted by el_pasi

Hi, just tested Tapper with 040. To be more precise I have Amiga 1200 + Blizzard PPC 603e+/68040 + BVision, which is not very compatible setup Didn't see any glitches, so seems to work with 040 too.

This is good news. Thanks, dude.

It should, hopefully, work without any issues on 060 as well. With that, I can consider the engine complete and get stuck in to building the rest of the game.

Originally Posted by DamienD

Just gave this a whirl, very cool indeed Old_Bob

I guess music / SFX are the next steps?

I'll be leaving the sound to last, I think. When I know just how much Chip RAM is remaining. I've still got the other game levels and bonus round to add, plus a little bit of game logic to write. On top of that, a mountain of DPaint work redrawing all the graphics. I managed a decent day's worth of work today. I should have another version ready for testing in a day or two.

B

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Old_Bob

I'll be leaving the sound to last, I think. When I know just how much Chip RAM is remaining. I've still got the other game levels and bonus round to add, plus a little bit of game logic to write. On top of that, a mountain of DPaint work redrawing all the graphics. I managed a decent day's worth of work today. I should have another version ready for testing in a day or two.

B

Again, very cool as it is currently and really looking forward to further improvements when you have the time (no rush though)

...once totally finished, I'll add to this thread: Ports / Conversions --> Amiga

[theq]

Originally Posted by DamienD

It's definitely there i.e:

Tapper_Test_01b.adf

Tapper for OCS - Hopefully fixes graphics corruption bug present in the earlier version.

Meh, I was looking on the FTP...

It works great on my A4000 with A3660@50 MHz (except there is no sound?)

[Old_Bob]

Originally Posted by theq

Meh, I was looking on the FTP...

It works great on my A4000 with A3660@50 MHz (except there is no sound?)

Excellent, dude. Thanks.

I guess that's all the CPU bases covered. Talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, though. I think the whole frame loop should possibly fit inside your CPU's instruction cache. It might be able to run the game a hundred times over if only the blitter could keep up.

B

[Old_Bob]

After a bit of a delay, I've finally got a new version ready for testing.

Quite a big update, this. All the rounds are now in but there's still no sound, as yet. Still got a fair bit of work in Dpaint to do as well as a few bits of game code to write but I think it's coming along quite nicely.

The ADF is in The Zone.

B

[nikosidis]

Hi Old_Bob
That is impressive!! Looking fantastic and plays very well on my A1200.
Do you have anyone to do the music, sfx? If not I could always look into it.