Compileable version of Alien Breed 3D II - The Killing Grounds

[Predseda]

Please, move your mouse pointer off screen next time.

[amipal]

Originally Posted by Predseda

Prase, move your mouse pointer off screen next time.

Wish I could, but it's stuck there on 3.2.

[Karlos]

Speaking of the cursor, we need to change the screen attributes. Accidentally clicking back to workbench mid firefight is not a good USP

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Karlos

Speaking of the cursor, we need to change the screen attributes. Accidentally clicking back to workbench mid firefight is not a good USP

post #851

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by amipal

I should probably post a couple of videos I've put together... just a brief overview of the brilliant work you chaps are doing on improving AB3D2!


68060:

[ Show youtube player ]


68030:
[ Show youtube player ]

I'm curious what the 25MHz 040 that I played on originally will make of it.

[pipper]

Cool videos! To be honest, I never did a 1:1 comparison. I was not aware we are that much ahead of the original speed wise. Good job Karlos for removing all those pesky divs!

Also, technically we’re now doing more work than the original, producing 32 columns more content and still faster

I’m puzzled, though, why the mouse pointer is showing up on screen. The game should hide it - and if it showed, it should move not stay in the middle of the screen…

[abu_the_monkey]

the mouse cursor being visible 'issue' seems to be specific to kickstart 3.2
edit: I don't own a copy of 3.2 roms so can't test it

[Karlos]

@pipper I think you probably got rid of more when you changed the floor perspective calculation. There are still plenty of them left, they just aren't as simple to get rid of because they aren't dividing by an immediate. For those, I'm considering whether or not making use of an FPU (if present) could help since you could invert the divisor and then use it as a multiplier in code where we divide by the same value multiple times in succession.

[ZyBeR]

Do you guys want bugs to be reported or are we in a too early stage for that?

The game locks up if I load a save, play, escape and try to play again. Same if I try to load again before playing the 2nd time.

[abu_the_monkey]

yes you can post bug reports, however please check the issues section on pippers repo for open issues first as this one is already open there

edit: your report is slightly different to issue #35 but I can not reproduce the load/save or double load issues you are experiencing (in winuae) or am I not reading your post correct?

edit again: no, I think its the same issue. if you quit a game using the esc key the next time you start a level if freezes? if so, same as issue #35

[ZyBeR]

Yeap, it's the same issue. I didn't check there first, now I know and will do so if I find something else too report.

[abu_the_monkey]

@ZyBeR
cool beans
the more people looking/testing the more bugs can be spotted and potentially remedied.

[Karlos]

If anyone knows Mr Clitheroe, or would be cool to get him involved. Though even as I write this, I get a sense of deja vu...

[amipal]

Originally Posted by Karlos

I'm curious what the 25MHz 040 that I played on originally will make of it.

I did a comparison a couple of years ago when I swapped my 25Mhz 68040 board for a 50Mhz 68060 - big difference for AB3DII. Not sure if I'll ever get around to popping that board back in the machine though for comparisons with the newer code.
AB3DII is at 10:25 (for some reason, the YouTube viewer here starts it from the beginning):
[ Show youtube player ]

[abu_the_monkey]

nice video(s)

if the other comparisons are anything to go by I guess the 040 (with the new builds) should now be somewhere near where the 060 was (with the original) in performance

[Karlos]

@amipal

Is there any chance you could check out my mod using the latest build? I'm curious to understand how big a performance hit it might take with the extra textures and geometry. I don't remember or being that bad, but it didn't have FPS counting built in when I started it either.

[abu_the_monkey]

@Karlos
I haven't had time to test it out on real hardware with any of the new builds, but, under winuae in cycle exact modes the extra geometry, textures, etc give just shy of a 10-15% drop in fps.

comparison screenshots attached.
your mod always paused on the lower end of the scale and the standard level on the higher , either way, there was probably only 0.25 fps difference to what I could capture.

a comparison on the real thing would be much better.
@amipal yes please if you can

[Karlos]

That's not as bad as I feared then. When I was originally working on it in 96/97 I had no quantitative way to measure I was just happy to see some variation from the big tritile panels and brown speakers walls, lol. It was all so monotonous to look at.

[Karlos]

Just merged a quick PR when I realised I'd left a divs behind in some hitscanning code that I'd then replaced with an approximation, thus effectivity dividing twice. This may have caused some shotgun blasts to miss at close range.

[amipal]

Originally Posted by Karlos

@amipal

Is there any chance you could check out my mod using the latest build? I'm curious to understand how big a performance hit it might take with the extra textures and geometry. I don't remember or being that bad, but it didn't have FPS counting built in when I started it either.

I'll see what I can do...