Bagman remake : Amiga version available

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by ross

It's the first time that an ADF does not work at normal speed but turbo (should be the opposite in seldom cases).

Yup, never seen that before in all the many, many, many years of using WinUAE

It also doesn't work at 800% floppy drive emulation speed either; which is the first thing I tried before switching to 100% floppy drive emulation speed for better compatibility...

[ross]

Ok, found the problem

[jotd]

Fixed ADF. check my webpage. Ross found that I had disabled all DMA (including floppy) to git rid of the sprite artefacts... Now it works.

But I'm surprised as the speed is really slow from floppy and okay from HD, all using A1200 speed emulation.

I'm going to write a whdload install for that one now

[DamienD]

Thanks for the game jotd

A small suggestion / request if possible.

With the main title screen, it's all the way to the left leaving a large black area on the right:



Can this be centred?

I understand why with the in-game screen i.e. as the score panel is there:

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jotd

Fixed ADF. check my webpage. Ross found that I had disabled all DMA (including floppy) to git rid of the sprite artefacts... Now it works.

But I'm surprised as the speed is really slow from floppy and okay from HD, all using A1200 speed emulation.

Just tried the floppy disk version from your website jotd but get this upon boot:



Easy fix though, re-added the "Execute" protection bit to the file "bagman".

Corrected disk in The Zone!

Edit: ross's disk in The Zone! works though so removed the disk I just corrected / uploaded...

[jotd]

ah yes Damien it can be centered. The game is designed to run on Windows (windowed mode) and the score is above the play area. There's also a panoramic mode.

On nintendo DS, the screen is rotated by 90 degrees. Different layout for different platforms

In full screen, menu should be centered, that's for sure. Not an issue.

Thanks for the "executable" fix BTW. I'll use a deployment script from windows which uses cranker windows version + exe2adf to create floppies from files without manual intervention or even firing WinUAE.


Did you notice some sluggishness in the floppy version?

@Retro1234 a scroller game is a different beast. First Gods remake is done in Java, not C++/SDL. Magic Pockets engine has been ported from java to SDL/C++ so Gods could be ported too (I really should have ported Gods to SDL/C++ first!).

So Gods would have to be ported to C++/SDL first, then if I use blitter only for tiled scrolling, the speed will probably suck. I would have to use a 8-way scrolling technique. I'm not sure this can end with a playable version of the game in a reasonable time.

[ross]

Originally Posted by jotd

But I'm surprised as the speed is really slow from floppy and okay from HD, all using A1200 speed emulation.

Try the ADF on a stock A1200 with fastram added.
A huge difference

[jotd]

of course! code in chipmem sucks... Problem is: game is aiming 50Hz, double buffering. Using WaitTOF to synchronize.

But if the refresh takes more than 1/20th second, then the game now runs at half the speed in 25Hz. I would like to run at 25Hz if machine is slow (just update with a bigger 40ms timeslice each time would do), but I'd like that to be automatic...

What I could do is to check if machine has fast memory. If chip only, then switch to 25Hz... sucks but would work most of the time.

[ross]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Edit: ross's disk in The Zone! works though so removed the disk I just corrected / uploaded...

Uh, yep, I was so forgot to mention I've re-uploaded a working version

[Ami]

Thanks jotd! Can you release amiga source code as well?

[Retro1234]

Thanks for your reply, There is a 8 way scrolling example on Aminet in C
I don't really understand the difference enough between C and C++ SDL etc

I wonder how hard it would be to convert your code to Blitz or if that would just be impossible and a total re-write.

[VincentGR]

Sorry for the off topic post but I could never access the Zone from the forum, I do not have permission to access this page :-/

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by VincentGR

Sorry for the off topic post but I could never access the Zone from the forum, I do not have permission to access this page :-/

How do I get access to The Zone?

[VincentGR]

Silly Vince...
Thanks Damien.

[jotd]

the source code is on github: https://github.com/jotd666/bagman (not the latest version, I've made a few fixes like floppy DMA, and I still have to center the title screen)

Thanks for your reply, There is a 8 way scrolling example on Aminet in C
I don't really understand the difference enough between C and C++ SDL etc

I wonder how hard it would be to convert your code to Blitz or if that would just be impossible and a total re-write.

I'll check the 8 way scrolling, that's really interesting. But creating a scroller on amiga wasn't in my projects.

The difference between C and C++ isn't at the SDL level. It's more at the game mechanics level. Example: Guard & Player inherit from "HumanCharacter" class. Which inherit from "Character" class. Wagon and Elevator inherit from Character class.

This Character class inherits from a "Renderable" class that can be drawn to the screen. This object principle is deep anchored in the game.

Converting to blitz with C++ source isn't that difficult but needs a full rewrite and skip a lot of object stuff.

I have zoned a small update which adapts to machine speed somehow. It can do 25Hz or 50Hz depending on the available CPU, and it's dynamic. Of course, result is much better with a fast machine.

I have tested on my A1200/060 and there were slowdowns sometimes when all objects were moving on the screen (didn't test with A1200/020/nofast). With that update, it should be barely noticeable.

The speed issues are probably related to 1) not using asm and 2) using classic bitplanes for bobs instead of interleaved as some people recommended afterwards.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jotd

I have zoned a small update which adapts to machine speed somehow. It can do 25Hz or 50Hz depending on the available CPU, and it's dynamic. Of course, result is much better with a fast machine.

I have tested on my A1200/060 and there were slowdowns sometimes when all objects were moving on the screen (didn't test with A1200/020/nofast). With that update, it should be barely noticeable.

The speed issues are probably related to 1) not using asm and 2) using classic bitplanes for bobs instead of interleaved as some people recommended afterwards.

Thanks jotd

Tested by copying / running all files to .HDF.

Centering is now good, also the gameplay speed seems a little faster / smoother (but not sure if it's too fast as I never played the arcade version)

[jotd]

thanks for testing. The slowdowns should be gone, but on slow machines you'll get 25fps. Annoying when we think the game is from 1982... But the original machine may have a better sprite engine than the A500... I wanted to avoid AGA but AGA sprites would have made this super-smooth.

[ross]

Great job, now is smoother.

Thanks!

[mcgeezer]

Absolutely love it jotd...really well done!

I played it on an A1200 standard WinUAE config.

Only seen one little bug, when I died it left the player sprite in one of the buffers - looked like it didn't clean it properly (I should have taken a screen shot for you).

I really like the game and played it to level 2.

It reminded me of the goldies like Mr Do and Dig Dug.



Geezer

[jotd]

ah those double buffer half refreshes... if it happens again, post a screenshot. I think I know what could have happened. Dying at screen one can trigger the bug, probably not on other screens.

It's expected that it reminds you of old arcade game since... it's an arcade game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagman_(video_game). I just found out that the wiki page mentions that "a french programmer rewrote the game for modern platforms in 2010".