Decent port of Street Fighter II possible?

[Master484]

I think the original Us Gold Street Fighter 2 World Warrior conversion got many things right.

It had the following:

- 32 color graphics, almost the same size as the arcade
- sound effects and music at the same time
- all moves for all characters + all character sounds
- all bonus levels, and the intro and end sequences from the arcade
- an okay enemy AI
- one button joystick controls that worked well (in my opinion)

And it ran on the OCS 512k + 512k machine.

So in a way it was a good conversion, because it had almost everything that people would want from a SF2 conversion. And it shows that the A500's small Chip RAM can handle this game in 32 colors.

The only real problem that it had was that it was so slow. And this is the only thing why today people think that it's a bad game.

Although of course many of the musics were also missing (to save disk space I assume), and also the background graphics could have been a lot better if copper effects were used.

But that's it really. The only thing that it needed was more speed, and then add the missing musics and some copper effects, clean the graphics a little bit, and it could have been an almost perfect SF2 port, as good as a SF2 port could get on the A500.

I wonder if the slowness was caused by the real time character X flipping? It could be, because how else could they manage to get all those frames into a 32 color game?

But other games like Mortal Kombat 2 show how fast a 32 color game like this can run. So the higher running speed could have been possible to achieve, if they had more time to optimize the code.

[sandruzzo]

Game like sf2 needs 50hz to be well playble. Try Elf Mani vs body blows and you'll see what I'm talking about. Ok Elf mania is not quiet good but 50hz make the difference

[Solo Kazuki]

Originally Posted by Master484

- all moves for all characters + all character sounds

No, characters have some normal (not special) moves (punch and kick) truncted, especially in 1 button mode. Moreover, lower heavy kick knock down enemy in arcade, made normal hit in Amiga version. And special moves are not graded (3 buttons = 3 power levels).

Originally Posted by Master484

- one button joystick controls that worked well (in my opinion)

In my opinion this made completely mess in normal moves (punch and kick). In 2 button mode you have more (!) punches and kicks, but all p&k are only available for computer player. Not to mention that you can't grade special moves (see above).

Originally Posted by Master484

Although of course many of the musics were also missing

Actually almost all musics. Every character have own music, in Amiga version there is only two musics for fights. Just compare with Super Street Fighter II soundtrack, where are all musics.

[zero]

Originally Posted by Master484

I think the original Us Gold Street Fighter 2 World Warrior conversion got many things right.

It had the following:

- 32 color graphics, almost the same size as the arcade
- sound effects and music at the same time
- all moves for all characters + all character sounds
- all bonus levels, and the intro and end sequences from the arcade
- an okay enemy AI
- one button joystick controls that worked well (in my opinion)

And it ran on the OCS 512k + 512k machine.

So in a way it was a good conversion, because it had almost everything that people would want from a SF2 conversion. And it shows that the A500's small Chip RAM can handle this game in 32 colors.

The only real problem that it had was that it was so slow. And this is the only thing why today people think that it's a bad game.

Although of course many of the musics were also missing (to save disk space I assume), and also the background graphics could have been a lot better if copper effects were used.

But that's it really. The only thing that it needed was more speed, and then add the missing musics and some copper effects, clean the graphics a little bit, and it could have been an almost perfect SF2 port, as good as a SF2 port could get on the A500.

I wonder if the slowness was caused by the real time character X flipping? It could be, because how else could they manage to get all those frames into a 32 color game?

But other games like Mortal Kombat 2 show how fast a 32 color game like this can run. So the higher running speed could have been possible to achieve, if they had more time to optimize the code.

I think they went with 32 colours so that they could have independent palettes for each character. Don't forget that when you have 2 players they can select the same character, so you need to have at least two palettes for each of them.

The simple way to do it is something like 16 shared colours and 8 colours for each character. US Gold coders were pretty simple ;-)

How about this. Use dual playfield. 8 colours + copper for the background. 8 shared colours for characters. Then overlay sprites to add additional colours for each character.

Because it's dual playfield it's faster to erase bobs, but lose some DMA slots to bitplane fetch. With sprites and copper you are easily up to 40+ colours on screen.

[Master484]

No, characters have some normal (not special) moves (punch and kick) truncted, especially in 1 button mode.

Yes some of the normal moves are missing from it. But at least all the special moves are in there, with the cool sound effects when you make them.

I think they went with 32 colours so that they could have independent palettes for each character. Don't forget that when you have 2 players they can select the same character, so you need to have at least two palettes for each of them.

Actually, I have analysed this game, and the palette setup is this: 16 colors are reserved for the background only, and the remaining 16 colors are only used for the characters. And in 2 player mode you can't choose the same characters (I think it was so in the arcade too). And every background has it's own 16 color palette, which varies from level to level, but the BOB palette always stays the same.

And in the Atari ST version they went for a shared 16 color palette for everything.

Here is a thread from 2016 where I made some GFX tests on this game.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=84957

How about this. Use dual playfield. 8 colours + copper for the background. 8 shared colours for characters. Then overlay sprites to add additional colours for each character.

This is an interesting idea, although it could be very challenging to make the backgrounds look good in 8 colors, even with the help of copper. Although I think it could be possible.

But overlaying sprites with the characters to get extra colors would then mean that every animation frame would also need sprites in addition to the actual bob graphics. It can be done, but this would increse Chip RAM usage quite a lot.

But I think that the OCS version of Street Fighter 2 New Challengers actually uses dual playfield: http://hol.abime.net/2216

Although I have looked at some gameplay videos, and I'm not 100% sure. Some levels look like 8+8 colors, but some seem to have more, although maybe those extra colors come from the copper.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Master484

Yes some of the normal moves are missing from it. But at least all the special moves are in there, with the cool sound effects when you make them.

Actually, I have analysed this game, and the palette setup is this: 16 colors are reserved for the background only, and the remaining 16 colors are only used for the characters. And in 2 player mode you can't choose the same characters (I think it was so in the arcade too). And every background has it's own 16 color palette, which varies from level to level, but the BOB palette always stays the same.

And in the Atari ST version they went for a shared 16 color palette for everything.

Here is a thread from 2016 where I made some GFX tests on this game.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=84957


This is an interesting idea, although it could be very challenging to make the backgrounds look good in 8 colors, even with the help of copper. Although I think it could be possible.

But overlaying sprites with the characters to get extra colors would then mean that every animation frame would also need sprites in addition to the actual bob graphics. It can be done, but this would increse Chip RAM usage quite a lot.

But I think that the OCS version of Street Fighter 2 New Challengers actually uses dual playfield: http://hol.abime.net/2216

Although I have looked at some gameplay videos, and I'm not 100% sure. Some levels look like 8+8 colors, but some seem to have more, although maybe those extra colors come from the copper.

Quiet simple to do a test to see if 8 colors will suffice:



https://ibb.co/w7nFKfm

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by zero

How about this. Use dual playfield. 8 colours + copper for the background. 8 shared colours for characters. Then overlay sprites to add additional colours for each character.

Would be a horror to create assets for an engine like this, I guess...
You'd need to build a gfx editor for this first off.

[sandruzzo]

If we go for regular 32 colors and keep the first 16 for background, we can do a lot of optimization to speed-up blitter operations:

- turn on-off 5th plane above and belove players
- do fast blitting into 5th plane
- do fast clear on 5th plane

[Master484]

If we go for regular 32 colors and keep the first 16 for background, we can do a lot of optimization to speed-up blitter operations

- turn on-off 5th plane above and belove players
- do fast blitting into 5th plane
- do fast clear on 5th plane

Yes, there are many benefits when the background and Bobs have their own 16 color palettes.

In Blitz Basic it's possible make 16 color blits to a 32 color screen. Normally this would cause strange color effects, but for the Blit command there is a flag called "ExcessOnOff", which I think prevents the blit from modifying certain bitplanes. I have tested it, and it seems to work; with it I could make 8 color blits to a 16 color screen without messing the colors, so 16 color blits to a 32 color screen should work OK too.

The main benefit of this is that all character graphics in memory can be in 16 colors, instead of 32 colors, which saves a lot of Chip RAM. And also they take less space in the floppy disks.

And one other big benefit is that the 16 background colors can be freely changed with the copper, without worrying about messing the BOB colors. This is one "missed opportunity" in the Us Gold version; it would have looked much better if they used copper for the backgrounds. A gradient for the sky and the ground + lots of extra colors for everything else, it would easily get at least 32 colors more.

---

And about sprites, I would use them mainly for the background animations. Four 16 color sprites can cover many BG anims, leaving only some for the blitter. And the energy bars and the timer I would put to a separate screen area (maybe 1 bitplane only, bars colored by copper and sprites for the timer).

[sandruzzo]

@Master484

Maybe with this tricks and a little less big bobs' we can hit 50hz and parallax scrolling. With copper we can easily have hundreds colors for background!

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Quiet simple to do a test to see if 8 colors will suffice:



https://ibb.co/w7nFKfm

Well, then do that test for us, Sandruzzo...
We all know that one can do a lot with the copper. Doesn't mean that it's feasible to do it.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Well, then do that test for us, Sandruzzo...
We all know that one can do a lot with the copper. Doesn't mean that it's feasible to do it.

If someone is willing to give me one SF2 BAckround with 2 static players' frame I'm willing to see if we can get 50hz with 32 colors mode

[britelite]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

If someone is willing to give me one SF2 BAckround with 2 static players' frame I'm willing to see if we can get 50hz with 32 colors mode

Sprites: https://www.spriters-resource.com/ar...2/sheet/60224/
Background: https://www.spriters-resource.com/ar...2/sheet/27200/

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by britelite

Sprites: https://www.spriters-resource.com/ar...2/sheet/60224/
Background: https://www.spriters-resource.com/ar...2/sheet/27200/

Thanks, but they aren't mapped well for Amiga. I'm not so good with gfx

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Thanks, but they aren't mapped well for Amiga. I'm not so good with gfx

All you have to do is cut the frames out for each sprite, it won't take you more than a few hours.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

All you have to do is cut the frames out for each sprite, it won't take you more than a few hours.

Yep, but colors mapping no

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Yep, but colors mapping no

And this is the reason why this isn't such a great idea like it sounds first off.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Steril707

And this is the reason why this isn't such a great idea like it sounds first off.

Talking about 32 colors mode(Like Amiga Version), not 8 colors mode

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Talking about 32 colors mode(Like Amiga Version), not 8 colors mode

So you just want them mixed down to 32 colours right?

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

So you just want them mixed down to 32 colours right?

Yes. One background, and 2 static frames, with colors mapped like this: first 16 colors for background, second 16 for static frames