Robin Hood Legend of Sherwood - Amiga Port by Apollo

[willemdrijver]

Apollo Team would like to share the first results from an internal project we started a few months ago.
This project is an experimental exercise to explore the possibilities and limitations of Apollo V4 Series.
We took upon ourselves the challenge to make a port of “Robin Hood - Legend of Sherwood” (RHLOS).

RHLOS is a great RPG Game from SpellBound released in 2002 and intended for Pentium PC’s (233Mhz/64Mb).

Current stage of the project is that we have succeeded in getting the Game somewhat up-and-running on V4.
The FPS is obviously not on the level that we would like it to be, but basic gameplay is already possible . . .

For Compiling we used the ApolloCrossDev setup for Linux which is another (beta) project from Apollo Team.
Graphics routines are changed from SDL based API’s to native Apollo Blit and Scroll routines, partly in ASM.
Sound routines are also rewritten and our now using Apollo Arne instead of the SDL routines.
There is still some work to be done on the mixer and effect routines, but we are confident to make that work also.

There is still a lot of work te be done to get RHLOS up to a level where it could be released in any form or shape.
But we share this first results with you with the intention to raise interests within the Amiga (development) community.
If you feel you have the skills and time to help us in this project, we are looking for you to join us !!! (please PM me on Discord @WillemDrijver).

[ Show youtube player ]

[Pyromania]

Cool, this sounds super exciting.

[riker77]

Originally Posted by willemdrijver

...is an experimental exercise to explore the possibilities and limitations of Apollo V4 Series.
..
Graphics routines are changed from SDL based API’s to native Apollo Blit and Scroll routines
...
Sound routines are also rewritten and our now using Apollo Arne
...

And what is Amiga about this port?

[derSammler]

If this is already using all the native Apollo APIs, I wish you good luck getting the fps anywhere near where it will actually be fun to play.

I guess if the source code is available, we will also see a proper SDL port to run on Emu68 sooner or later.

[Prosonic]

cool cant wait for this to get optimised

[Calabazam]

Is it also for V2?

[jPV]

The game was released commercially also for MorphOS back in the day, but I don't think there's any stock available anymore on any reseller. Would be interesting to know if this port is based on the MorphOS version (might be easier?) or some other port... and are the data and source files freeware nowadays?

In any case it's a really good looking and playing game... yet another game I'd want to play properly if I'd ever have time for casual gaming

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by riker77

And what is Amiga about this port?

I should have put money on there being a comment like this somewhere in the thread

[Estrayk]

Originally Posted by Calabazam

Is it also for V2?

I doubt it, what they want is to bring this game out to have some kind of incentive to sell v4. Although it would probably work perfectly well in v2.
We will see, I hope I am wrong

[grond]

Well done, Willem & Co! This is a complex piece of software and certainly not easy to port. It looks already playable but, of course, a bit sluggish. I hope you can speed it up some more.

[Rotzloeffel]

Originally Posted by grond

Well done, Willem & Co! This is a complex piece of software and certainly not easy to port. It looks already playable but, of course, a bit sluggish. I hope you can speed it up some more.

Here you go on my a1200 ppc running debian linux I dont need a vampire
This was also ported by gunnar... whats now new with it? Vampire? Come on

[grond]

Originally Posted by Rotzloeffel

Here you go on my a1200 ppc running debian linux I dont need a vampire
This was also ported by gunnar... whats now new with it? Vampire? Come on

I guess the novelty is that it runs on AmigaOS-68k and doesn't need a pretty much unobtainable PowerPC-CPU.

[Rotzloeffel]

Originally Posted by grond

I guess the novelty is that it runs on AmigaOS-68k and doesn't need a pretty much unobtainable PowerPC-CPU.

This will never run on pure 68k... it uses AMMX and special APIs of the Vampire. So it is not AMIGA, it is Vampire....

[Calabazam]

Originally Posted by Rotzloeffel

So it is not AMIGA, it is Vampire....

Why someone always comes up to say so?

The Vampire V2 in my A1200 juste behave as a 200 MHz 68060 CPU and has been a direct replacement of a 68060 50 MHz turbocard with only the removing of mmu.library.
There is no AMMX or any API at work here, i don't even know what they might do except some uninteresting asteroid game, just 4 time my previous CPU + RTG.
I had Blizzard PPC about 20 years ago and it gave me only noisy fan, heat, instability and only a few PPC datatypes and a few attempts to run Quake.

[grelbfarlk]

Seven or eight years ago they were talking about getting this running in the Apollo channel on hardware that was a year and not five years so years later. And now it's happening. Amazing! I'm sure this is running on a Wampyre V2 on an A600?

There must be an SDL Amiga source version available too?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Calabazam

There is no AMMX or any API at work here, i don't even know what they might do except some uninteresting asteroid game, just 4 time my previous CPU + RTG.

It's written right in the original post:

Originally Posted by willemdrijver

Graphics routines are changed from SDL based API’s to native Apollo Blit and Scroll routines, partly in ASM.
Sound routines are also rewritten and our now using Apollo Arne instead of the SDL routines.

So this port won't work on any Amiga except one fitted with a Vampire. I guess we just have to hope someone else does a port using established standards like RTG and AHI so those of us with PiStorms, OS4 machines and so on can benefit.

I'm assuming this port is based on open-sourcing of some description - does anyone know the details, what sort of licence is involved etc.? The MorphOS version was commercial - has that been open-sourced and is being used as a basis? That would make a good starting point for another port if so.

[Calabazam]

Ok i misunderstood, it is not just about the raw power of the card but about those so-called API, which so far have never done anything in my A1200.

[derSammler]

Probably because they fear a proper port that would also run on PiStorm/Emu68 would make people ask why they bought a Vampire at all. By not making it run on anything but the Vampire, they don't have to face that comparison. Or maybe there really isn't enough horsepower to do it without every possible optimization. Given the SysInfo results on the Apollo website, the V4 hardly delivers 50% of the performance the minimum CPU required for the PC/Mac version offers.

Or perhaps the whole port is not even legal, like with Diablo? (which, funny enough, runs fine on the PiStorm, despite it saying it's AMMX-optimized - so either that's a lie or Emu68 can handle those instructions)

Anyway, it's sad when such an effort to port a great game to the Amiga platform is handled like that. But hey, we have NovaCoder. Just wait for it.

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

I'm assuming this port is based on open-sourcing of some description - does anyone know the details, what sort of licence is involved etc.?

https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN...-00015-EN.html

[Calabazam]

Actually I had this game and enjoyed it at the time on my pentium-m laptop. It is not a rpg but a commando like game at the time of Robin Hood. Min requirements are said to be pentium 233 mmx but I am not sure it would be nice enough with that cpu. At the time, I had a tower with k6-3 cpu and Voodoo 3 which struggled with games like Commando.
The pentium-M cpu was on par or better than pentium 4.