How does X2:Megablast parallax with all that colors?

[Toffee]

Originally Posted by DanScott

All my current projects are developed for 1meg.. that's 512kchip + 512k of any other ram (chip/slow/fast)... i believe this is a realistic "target"

I am actually developing in a 1meg chip environment, so all code will be running in chip while developing.. therefore I don't rely on the extra speed of fast/fake fast/slow etc..

Dan what are you working ON ?

[AndNN]

While sleeping on this discussion I'm actually warming up to the idea of doing an enhanced mode - basically offer the standard OCS limitations then give the user the chance to switch so fast memory can be used for code.

It makes me wonder why developers/publishers did not offer this at the time. And it would of been a way to get users to upgrade in a stealth way to fast memory. Going back to Stardust, or Alien Breed and such, it would of been awesome to have an EHB mode for users with fast memory. And at the time this really would not of had much impact on development done the right way.

My other thought on this is what happens if you want to go beyond 1meg... some game types will need more memory. For instance games like Wolfenstein... which is what I'm investigating on OCS. With fast memory it is possible to render 2x2 pixels at 64 colours running at 17fps. It's also actually possible to do 2x2 pixels at 16 colours on a standard OCS machine at 17fps but by doing that there is not much memory left for the actual game. So for something like this there's no choice but to use fast memory so in away the purest would never except that but on a technical point of view it would prove that it was possible to do that in 1985.

[sandruzzo]

What I've been learing with rygar is that we're willing to sacrifice screen size, we'll have a extra boost on dma cycles. Since we spare 64 pixel, we have: 64/16 = 4 slots, each slots have 8 transfers cycles, so we have 32 cycles per 200 lines = 6400 cicles, if I did correct!!

Not BAD! with thi strick we can have Wolfestein on OCS 1x1 at 16 colors with decent speed

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

What I've been learing with rygar is that we're willing to sacrifice screen size, we'll have a extra boost on dma cycles. Since we spare 64 pixel, we have: 64/16 = 4 slots, each slots have 8 transfers cycles, so we have 32 cycles per 200 lines = 6400 cicles, if I did correct!!

Do you switch the Bitplane DMA off and on somewhere in the rasterline, or how do you manage to accomplish this DMA cycle boost?

Originally Posted by DanScott

All my current projects are developed for 1meg.. that's 512kchip + 512k of any other ram (chip/slow/fast)... i believe this is a realistic "target"

I am actually developing in a 1meg chip environment, so all code will be running in chip while developing.. therefore I don't rely on the extra speed of fast/fake fast/slow etc..

As long as you don't use the other 512 k as DMA accessible, and it's running on a standard A500 config, all is good, I guess...

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Do you switch the Bitplane DMA off and on somewhere in the rasterline, or how do you manage to accomplish this DMA cycle boost?

Just closing view port to 256 pixel. I hope I did my calculation well

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Just closing view port to 256 pixel. I hope I did my calculation well

Ah, Diwstrt and Diwstop... Off course..

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Ah, Diwstrt and Diwstop... Off course..

Yes! With that in mind we can have a great conversions, allmost pixel perfect like our rygar, and we can do some good 3d game here!

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Ah, Diwstrt and Diwstop... Off course..

ddfstart & ddfstop

[sandruzzo]

Thinak about now many conversion they could have been done with this simple thing in mind..

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by DanScott

ddfstart & ddfstop

Damn, I shouldn't write stuff before my first coffee in the morning..

[Master484]

Just closing view port to 256 pixel.

I have examined the screen sizes used in various Amiga games, and it seems that many of them reduce either vertical or horizontal screen size to boost speed.

For example in Risky Woods the actual game area is only 287*176, and the static "game panel" area below that is 287*47.

And in Toki the game area is 224*176, and the panel area is 224*24.

And Midnight Resistance has a 288*160 game area + a 288*40 status panel.

So it would seem that reducing the screen area was a common practice back then, and it surely increases speed, so we should definitely use this trick.

---

Also according to the Wikipedia article of Rygar, it uses a 256*224 display. So just to achieve "arcade perfect" accuracy you should reduce the game area to this value, and maybe put a separate status panel to the remaining screen area.

Many arcade machines have a smaller display than the Amiga's 320*256. For example Black Tiger arcade is also 256*224. And also almost every Super Nintendo game uses 256*224, which should make any SNES to Amiga conversion a little bit easier too.

A 256*224 screen area is 30 % smaller than full 320*256, but still looks good. Even Toki looks OK with it's 224*176 screen, because the status panel below it creates an illusion of a bigger screen.

[Amigajay]

That's something i don't get, if using lower res screens gives games a boost, why didn't a lot of Amiga games that used a lower resolution get 'zoomed in' i.e displayed on the whole tv screen, if SNES games were on the most part only 256x224 they were displayed full screen (bar pal games!) Amiga games that didn't use overscan looked poor in comparison to console games despite being in a higher resolution in most cases?

I.e Flink on the CD32, the graphics are the same resolution, but because the Megadrive version gets displayed full screen its looks better despite the pixel art being the same.

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

if using lower res screens gives games a boost, why didn't a lot of Amiga games that used a lower resolution get 'zoomed in' i.e displayed on the whole tv screen

because you could not do that....

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Master484

I have examined the screen sizes used in various Amiga games, and it seems that many of them reduce either vertical or horizontal screen size to boost speed.

For example in Risky Woods the actual game area is only 287*176, and the static "game panel" area below that is 287*47.

And in Toki the game area is 224*176, and the panel area is 224*24.

And Midnight Resistance has a 288*160 game area + a 288*40 status panel.

So it would seem that reducing the screen area was a common practice back then, and it surely increases speed, so we should definitely use this trick.

---

Also according to the Wikipedia article of Rygar, it uses a 256*224 display. So just to achieve "arcade perfect" accuracy you should reduce the game area to this value, and maybe put a separate status panel to the remaining screen area.

Many arcade machines have a smaller display than the Amiga's 320*256. For example Black Tiger arcade is also 256*224. And also almost every Super Nintendo game uses 256*224, which should make any SNES to Amiga conversion a little bit easier too.

A 256*224 screen area is 30 % smaller than full 320*256, but still looks good. Even Toki looks OK with it's 224*176 screen, because the status panel below it creates an illusion of a bigger screen.

Thanks! Great Info here. In fact our rygar run nicelly!

[nobody]

out of topic but 16 colors could be enough for Black Tiger

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[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by nobody

out of topic but 16 colors could be enough for Black Tiger

-->

With HS Sprite we can have 32!

[nobody]

32 colors would be almost identical to arcade machine.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by nobody

32 colors would be almost identical to arcade machine.

Maybe we rygar engine, we can do miracles

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

With HS Sprite we can have 32!

The part you have choosen is one of the less colored of the whole game.

Some parts use 87 colors (and unique colors !)

[nobody]

this is the original picture, 69 colors and my conversion. I added some things like an enemy and an item to be even harder