NeoGeo Metal Slug conversion to Amiga 500 - madman task ;-)

[dlfrsilver]

Welcome Touko

[touko]

Thanks

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Master484

Ok thanks for the info, until now I have believed that Neo Geo has 900 sprites...this info I originally read from Wikipedia I think, but now Wikipedia too says it has only 380. Oh well.

It is incredibly difficult to get Wiki to agree to suggested changes that you know are correct with scans of media from the correct time period, which is why I gave up writing for the damned thing a decade ago now.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I think one obstacle was the 464, actually. The 6128 has a lot more RAM to dedicate to the quite heavy graphics and all the tricks needed to work around certain hardware limitations.

You need to have a very good look at the driving/flying levels of Batman the Movie on Amiga and ST side by side, one of many games constantly championed on the Amiga but use nothing more than the DACs in the conversion clearly (Xennon II is another 16 colour hyped Amiga game)

If you specifically mean horizontally scrolling games then yes I suppose very few CPC games could come close to Sly Spy, however the joke of a port of Golden Axe to C64 vs CPC is another example of better than expected/competition. Then again Sly Spy and Chase HQ are horrible on the Amiga (excluding 5 minutes of code changes to replace Yamaha YM2149 routines with DAC based routines in C source code there's not much improvement!). Done properly and fully utlizing the chipset the Amiga would have had an envy level similar to the mythical sharp x68000 (which has no blitter and so also has horrible chase hq release...except for the music).

Very very few games on either ST or Amiga come close to the host machine's capabilities sadly. How many into the screen racing games not written by Shaun Southern on Amiga don't make you embarrassed? Was there ever game that came close to the parallax polish of Salamander 1986 coin op on Amiga? Was there ever a decent 64 colour Amiga game? How many games use most of the Amiga chipset so well as Shadow of the Beast 1 overground level? (not even the following levels of Beast 1 that's what).

Once you have played arcade quality games like Enchanted and Wrath of the Demon on the ST you know pretty much all released ST games were badly coded too.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Trachu

Hello

If you havent seen this game take a look here:
[ Show youtube player ]

It is probably the most action filled arcade game ever created.

The amount of graphics in this game is massive and NeoGeo machine is much more powerful than Amiga, so that is why i called it madman task, but maybe its possible.

To start thinking about this I converted the graphics to unfied 16colour OCS palette and they look really good
<Link to Zone removed> Check out db16.zip in the Zone

I used 16 colours because i dont even dream that we can fit more into 512kB chip RAM.
The whole unpacked IFFs uses 40MBytes, but they are far from being optimised:
1. A lot of sprites are repeated so we could use only the once that matter
2. IFF optimisation so no black spaces
3. Reduction of enemies etc.
4. At worst case we could go for 8 colours provide 25% reduction in graphics size...
5. Use chip AHX music and sounds

Anyone mad enough to do this?

I think to make something beautiful you do need 32 colours per scanline ie copper used too, not just 32 colour bitmaps. Even 256 to 32 colours is sometimes impossible to make beautiful with today's tools.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

I think to make something beautiful you do need 32 colours per scanline ie copper used too, not just 32 colour bitmaps. Even 256 to 32 colours is sometimes impossible to make beautiful with today's tools.

The Amiga Copper can't update 32 colours per scanline during the horizontal blank. It's simply not fast enough, so that is not going to happen.

During the horizontal blank, it's limited to 15 (or with a bit of fiddling, 16) colours per scanline. However, this assumes the copper is not used for vertical scrolling, horizontal line scrolling, sprite reuse, etc and as such might not be a realistic number depending on the game you're trying to make.

You could argue that you can change more colours by starting partway through the scanline instead of only using the horizontal blank. This is indeed possible, but this either limits you to a static screen or becomes extremely difficult to do without colour clashing (unless you enforce certain colours to not be used on certain horizontal parts of the screen, which kind of defeats the purpose).

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by roondar

The Amiga Copper can't update 32 colours per scanline during the horizontal blank. It's simply not fast enough, so that is not going to happen.

During the horizontal blank, it's limited to 15 (or with a bit of fiddling, 16) colours per scanline. However, this assumes the copper is not used for vertical scrolling, horizontal line scrolling, sprite reuse, etc and as such might not be a realistic number depending on the game you're trying to make.

You could argue that you can change more colours by starting partway through the scanline instead of only using the horizontal blank. This is indeed possible, but this either limits you to a static screen or becomes extremely difficult to do without colour clashing (unless you enforce certain colours to not be used on certain horizontal parts of the screen, which kind of defeats the purpose).

Maybe we can "only" change 8 pixel per line which will give us a lots of colors on screen, and use other for bobs... We can use dual playfield for that, so we can speed up a lot bobs', and having sprites as plyers with 16 colors..

[roondar]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Maybe we can "only" change 8 pixel per line which will give us a lots of colors on screen, and use other for bobs... We can use dual playfield for that, so we can speed up a lot bobs', and having sprites as plyers with 16 colors..

Oh, I'm all for using the copper to lots of colour reloading, I was merely pointing out that the idea posted by ImmortalA1000 was technically not possible.

The idea of a game using 8 colours/scanline copper reloads sounds rather interesting. I believe the OCS version of the game Universe did something like this to achieve a psuedo-256 colour mode (with the actual number of colours being dependent on the screen shown).

[sandruzzo]

It's up to use to use the right and better display mode: or dualplayfiels or 32 colors mode. whatever will be, with copper we can add a lot of colors

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Was there ever game that came close to the parallax polish of Salamander 1986 coin op on Amiga? Was there ever a decent 64 colour Amiga game? How many games use most of the Amiga chipset so well as Shadow of the Beast 1 overground level? (not even the following levels of Beast 1 that's what).

And there are reasons for that. And the main reason is the Blitter, which gets slower and slower with more colours (=bitplanes) used.

It's nice to have 32 colors, but if I had the choice, I'd rather go for a better framerate (50fps) and still have enough objects on screen.

I concur, though, that the Amiga could have done better if its chipset had been used more.
It's not the wonder machine for action games that some people want to make it, though.

[albino]

Ruff'n tumble engine would have been great for a metal slug conversion on amiga 500..

[Nishicorn]

Well, it wouldn't have to be identical. It could be a quirky Amiga manifestation of the same idea.

I think the gameplay could be done, basically - maybe not as many enemies at once, not as many sprites, certainly, but if you look at Turrican II, and fit the 'Metal Slug' idea into that framework, I am sure something 'fun to play' could still be produced - after all, the Amiga -is- quite capable in the right hands.

However, I would definitely rather see a proper AGA version that supports FAST ram and at least 68030 acceleration. Metal Slug has such -amazingly- beautiful pixel art that OCS/ECS can't do it justice IMHO. I would much rather see AGA representation of that pixel beauty.

Metal Slug games are pretty much amazing - they're funny, they're energetic, lots of great action, so much stuff happening on the screen - and most impressive of all, the exquisite, beautiful, enormous amount of the most wonderful hand-pixelled graphics, animation, sprites, backgrounds, characters - even the explosions are completely unique-looking and inspiring to the MAX.

Personally, I prefer 'original games' over conversions and ports that might be 'almost as good' as the original, unless you can add enough original 'Amiga touch' to make it stand alone and be a worthwhile version that deserves to exist (many C64 arcade and Amiga ports are like this - they become their own thing that celebrates what the C64 can do).

[Nishicorn]

(Amiga)
It's not the wonder machine for action games that some people want to make it, though.

Care to clarify this statement?

You see, Turrican II, Speedball II, Lotus games, Golden Axe, Midnight Resistance, Chaos Engine, Stardust, Banshee, Hybris, Battle Squadron, Shadow of the Beast, Alien Breed, Superfrog, Shadow Fighter, Kid Chaos and a big amount of other games disagree with that statement.

[zero]

Originally Posted by Nishicorn

Care to clarify this statement?

You see, Turrican II, Speedball II, Lotus games, Golden Axe, Midnight Resistance, Chaos Engine, Stardust, Banshee, Hybris, Battle Squadron, Shadow of the Beast, Alien Breed, Superfrog, Shadow Fighter, Kid Chaos and a big amount of other games disagree with that statement.

I tend to agree, but look at that list for a moment. All the really stand-out ones in terms of graphics are Amiga originals, or at least were heavily re-worked for the Amiga.

That was the big issue the Amiga had - the hardware needed the game to be designed around it somewhat. If you started out with the Amiga hardware in mind it would look great, but if you were doing a port and have to work with an existing design it tends to suffer a bit.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by zero

That was the big issue the Amiga had - the hardware needed the game to be designed around it somewhat. If you started out with the Amiga hardware in mind it would look great, but if you were doing a port and have to work with an existing design it tends to suffer a bit.

Basically this.
Amiga can be great, but it's usually not capable enough for really great arcade conversions for anything released after 1985.

[BippyM]

I think one of the biggest issues with the Amiga and its users is down to the fact Amiga users want conversions to be 'identical'. Users of other machines accept the limitations of their machines and accept that identical conversions of most arcade games are simply not possible.. Amiga users on the other hand demand arcade perfect ports, which in many cases simply cannot be done!

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by BippyM

I think one of the biggest issues with the Amiga and its users is down to the fact Amiga users want conversions to be 'identical'. Users of other machines accept the limitations of their machines and accept that identical conversions of most arcade games are simply not possible.. Amiga users on the other hand demand arcade perfect ports, which in many cases simply cannot be done!

You've got the point! Maybe we over estimate Amiga power, or under estimate programmes' ability...

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by BippyM

I think one of the biggest issues with the Amiga and its users is down to the fact Amiga users want conversions to be 'identical'. Users of other machines accept the limitations of their machines and accept that identical conversions of most arcade games are simply not possible.. Amiga users on the other hand demand arcade perfect ports, which in many cases simply cannot be done!

Agreed, and it's frustrating when you get into a conversation with the said Amiga users about it. Programmers of the Amiga will usually state technical fact with a sound logical approach whereby 'some' users will argue based on myth and misguided perception.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Agreed, and it's frustrating when you get into a conversation with the said Amiga users about it. Programmers of the Amiga will usually state technical fact with a sound logical approach whereby 'some' users will argue based on myth and misguided perception.

This is exactly the issue. The peopple who know the hardware and its limitations are the experts here, and I think a lot of users these days have nostalgia driving their belief system. Just because a game they remember "seemed" technically impressive 25 years ago, doesn't mean it actually was technically impressive, and instead of going back to these titles and seeing the limitations they'd rather argue.

If these misguided people think it is possible, then let them show us!

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Nishicorn

Care to clarify this statement?

You see, Turrican II, Speedball II, Lotus games, Golden Axe, Midnight Resistance, Chaos Engine, Stardust, Banshee, Hybris, Battle Squadron, Shadow of the Beast, Alien Breed, Superfrog, Shadow Fighter, Kid Chaos and a big amount of other games disagree with that statement.

An absolute joke compared to the libraries of the SNES and Megadrive. As is the hardware capabilities.

Speedball II - 25fps
Golden Axe - A poor conversion compared to the Megadrive.
Chaos Engine - More 25fps ST shovelware.
Stardust - Simply too difficult to be called enjoyable.
Hybris/Battle Squadron - Two of the very best shmups on the Amiga, sadly they suck compared to MANY Megadrive shooters.
Shadow of the Beast - Impressive graphics/sound, basically unplayable game. Rubbish.
Superfrog - Yeah, compare to Sonic 3 and see what a pile of shit this game is.
Shadow Fighter - Can hardly be compared to almost arcade perfect ports of SSF2T and Ultimate MK3, can it?

We all love the Amiga but let's not make it out to be something it wasn't. It simply wasn't a great machine for games. The consoles absolutely ANNIHILATED it in the games department.