Arcade / Console --> Amiga conversion discussions

[dlfrsilver]

yes, an A1200..... with fast ram and a hard drive.

[Shatterhand]

I take this thread was splitted from the Rygar thread. You guys remember all this discussion begun with Codetapper asking what cuts would you make to port Rygar to a Classic vanilla Amiga ?

I really don't see the point in having a perfect port of the game but needing lots of cpu+ram to make it work... I could just play it on emulator at this point.

IMO the real interesting challenge is to discuss how to make it work on 68k ECS chipset 1mb or 020 AGA chipset 2mb. What we had back at the time.

How would you make it work?

That's how Sandruzzo's Rygar was born.

You surely can't have a pixel perfect port, but I am pretty sure we could have a much better Ghouls 'n' Ghosts than what we had.

The Master System version for example... it takes some liberties with the game, but even if we ignore that, the base here is pretty good, the game was a lot fun to play... and I doubt the Amiga would have any trouble doing something like this, and probably without all the slowdowns:

[ Show youtube player ]

This game is incredibly playable, really fun to play, looks pretty good for a 8 bits console.... if this was the Amiga version of the game I would've played it a lot more than the oficial Amiga version we had.

[dlfrsilver]

The CPS game are 2 highs above what you can find on the Amiga 500.

It has a 1mb program, 256kb of samples, and 4-7mb of graphics.

Even in 16 colors, that's bigger than anything you can find on an amiga 500.

i would love to see a good port of SF2 on A1200 for instance, made with Anima's method.

[sandruzzo]

If someone get me some gfx I can put into rygar engine

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

If someone get me some gfx I can put into rygar engine

each sprite needs in fact an extraction of its metadata and its game logic from the inside of the arcade program.

[kovacm]

Originally Posted by zero

In 16 colours it might be possible on Amiga, yeah... Ideally with more RAM and a faster CPU as well. I think fast RAM will be necessary just to get enough CPU cycles to run the arcade logic code.

Butif you use 16colors than 68000 can run at full speed with chip ram only - right?

You will not gain any speed if you add fast ram?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by kovacm

Butif you use 16colors than 68000 can run at full speed with chip ram only - right?

You will not gain any speed if you had fast ram?

This game requires more ram than the usual chip ram available.

A wise choice would be to use an Amiga with something higher than a 68000.

[sandruzzo]

I don't think we can do worse than Amiga version. I belive that we can do a lot better!

[kovacm]

I just say that you will not gain any speed by adding fast ram if you use 4 bitplains...

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by kovacm

I just say that you will not gain any speed by adding fast ram if you use 4 bitplains...

Can you please development further your idea ?

Using the fast ram means the 68k CPU can be used at its maximum speed.

[kovacm]

I just say that you will not gain any speed by adding fast ram if you use 4 bitplains...

EDIT: sorry for double post!

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by kovacm

I just say that you will not gain any speed by adding fast ram if you use 4 bitplains...

You've already said that. Just explain your idea !

I will say the usual proverb : "who can do more can do less !".

The Amiga perfectly deals with 32 colors in 5BPL, you then use the fast ram to get the max speed out of the CPU. and that's it.

[sandruzzo]

Why don't do it on A500 with 512 fast ram?

[kovacm]

Ok.
This is not clear to me: if you use 16 colors on Amiga 500 then 68000 does not slow down (have maximal access to cheap ram) so fast ram will NOT speed anything?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by kovacm

Ok.
This is not clear to me: if you use 16 colors on Amiga 500 then 68000 does not slow down (have maximal access to cheap ram) so fast ram will NOT speed anything?

This is mostly true.

As long as the copper/blitter are idle, there is no real difference in speed for the 68000 between chipram and fastram. However, if you have an a500 with true fastram (meaning not one of those trapdoor expansions, they are 'slowram') then and only then, the CPU can still execute at full speed while the blitter/copper are active. As long as code is in fastmemory.

Any Amiga with a 68020+ is always faster when using fastram.

[sandruzzo]

What About Design Super Ghouls'n Ghost for a1200 +fastmem?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

What About Design Super Ghouls'n Ghost for a1200 +fastmem?

Super Ghouls'n'Ghosts ? that's way too much work. It makes uses of some effects that you would just make your hair disappear

This game use a lot of colors too....

[nobody]

I would redesign the game, make smaller play area (256x192 or so) and redraw smaller sprites (32x32 instead of 48x48), and make it sort of multiload-stop action to load new stuff eg in the middle of level 1. You can't just run like that a CPS1 game on an Amiga 500 or 1200, it's too much. Look at requirements on STE, 32 Mhz and 14 mb for 16 colors.

[kovacm]

Originally Posted by nobody

...can't just run like that a CPS1 game on an Amiga 500 or 1200, it's too much. Look at requirements on STE, 32 Mhz and 14 mb for 16 colors.

it is just test... there are also bunch of tests by douglas and anima... regarding many different emulations/ports to Atari...

just look at Cho Ren Sha for Falcon:

[ Show youtube player ]

it become:

[ Show youtube player ]


anyway, this is more in line what we can expect from 8MHz Atari STe:

[ Show youtube player ]
and please check other Anima youtube videos

btw arcade Ghouls 'n' Ghosts use 12MHz 68000...

[saimon69]

Powder engine had a trick for displaying a bunch of stuff in 16 colors and 25 fps (have feeling could be pushed to 50 but not sure) using flags that enable/disable the blitting of certain bitmaps/palettes so to have subpalettes of 2/4/8 colors and was working in a 500 1.2 with extra 512k fast; since the source is not completely license clear for public display, if someone want to give it a look to see if any of those tricks are usable can PM me.