Monolith Production's Blood for a Amiga - Page 4

BSzili · 07 August 2021, 08:04

Another update to the public test version. Not much has changed, but there's now CAMD MIDI support. To use it make sure to delete or move the the MIDI replacement WAV tracks (unholy, pestis, cblood1-10) from the game's drawer, and set MusicDevice to 0 in nblood.cfg.

Viceroy · 07 August 2021, 19:21

DamionD has asked me to ask you this please.
Thank you for you outstanding work on yet another cool port

I'm trying to get Midi working in the new version you've posted, and have done the following:

Deleted the MIDI replacement WAV tracks (cblood1-10, pestis, unholy) from the game's drawer.
Set "MusicDevice" to "0" in the "nblood.cfg" file.
Added "camd.library" to "DHO:Libs".

I also have AHI v4.18 installed / configured.

When starting the game I can see the following in the log, yet no music:

Any ideas please?

pipper · 07 August 2021, 19:29

Did you connect a midi device to your machine?

Viceroy · 07 August 2021, 19:36

No, just set "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" under "IO Ports" in WinUAE.

Guess maybe for this game I also need to setup / configure MUNT?

tomcat666 · 07 August 2021, 19:43

Just to let you know that Blood runs perfectly on piStorm, that is, of course, if you like to look at the slideshow of about 1 frame every 5 seconds

Was not expecting it to run at all really, because the game needs really good HW to run, so was still a surprise. Maybe when we get a raspberryPI 5 for piStorm we will get a few fps.

BSzili · 07 August 2021, 20:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viceroy

No, just set "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" under "IO Ports" in WinUAE.

Guess maybe for this game I also need to setup / configure MUNT?

There's a compatibility issue with Blood's MIDI and the MS Synth. I've ran into the same problem and had to use munt, which worked fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Just to let you know that Blood runs perfectly on piStorm, that is, of course, if you like to look at the slideshow of about 1 frame every 5 seconds

Was not expecting it to run at all really, because the game needs really good HW to run, so was still a surprise. Maybe when we get a raspberryPI 5 for piStorm we will get a few fps.

Haha, well at least it runs

I'm not sure how the piStorm compares to other accelerators, but Blood needs a Pentium-class processor to be playable.

BSzili · 11 August 2021, 08:10

I just found out that my latest change broke the reverb code. Be careful with the diving suit and reflect shots powerup until I figure this out.

BSzili · 12 August 2021, 18:52

It took a while to figure this out, but the reverb is working again. With Paula stereo it will be more subtle because the left and right samples are not interleaved in the buffer, but it's good enough for now. It's available at the usual place.

BSzili · 16 August 2021, 20:43

I made some progress on the performance side too, which was the worst on E1M6. The effect system in Blood kept updating dormant effect sprites too, with 0 velocity and no gravity. This included bullet holes, ejected shells and bullet casings, blood splats, etc. This is now fixed which gives a moderate speed boost if you filled the level with any of the above.
The other problem seems to be the proximity detonators, which keep doing visibility checks on nearby actors. I tried a different implementation of the "cansee" function from Eduke32 but it was slower, so I'm not sure what to do with this one for the time being.
Anyway, an updated version with slightly better performance is now available for download via the link above.

BSzili · 24 August 2021, 08:49

New version is out with more performance improvements. It's a bit hard to list everything that is changed, but among the improved things are:

armed proximity detonators
animation sequences
sound effects

For the last two I added two simple cache systems, so the game doesn't have to go for the slow RFF dictionary lookup every time they are started. This makes the game much smoother in general, not just in E1M6. This also makes E4M1 playable, where the thunder and lighting sound effects causes the game to stutter/pause.

utri007 · 06 September 2021, 15:44

Now Blood 68040 version works just fine with OS4 and it is fast 640x480 fps 20

[ Show youtube player ]

This will allow nice multiplayer games, without a nasty slowdowns.

BSzili · 10 September 2021, 07:24

Time for the release candidate, if no serious bugs surface it'll go to Aminet. Compared to the previous version it has experimental CD audio playback using cdplayer.library if you have a CD drive with the analog audio output available, weapon switch bugfixes, and I fixed some other problems that prevented it from running on OS4. This doesn't mean "official" OS4 support or a native executable, so you will still get some warnings and DSIs, but these should be harmless. When ignored the game runs fairly well without any major issues or crashes.
The download location is the same.

utri007 · 10 September 2021, 16:09

Thanks! Will SW and Power Slave also benefit these bug fixes?

This is quite speedy and playable.

utri007 · 10 September 2021, 16:38

Performance considerations.

Playing music even wav drops fps.
AHI has a quite big performce penalty 3-4fps.
Instead of PAL try NTSC, to get full screen 320x200 picture.
Zorro II graphics cards has about a 2 fps performance penalty.

BSzili · 10 September 2021, 18:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by utri007

Thanks! Will SW and Power Slave also benefit these bug fixes?

This is quite speedy and playable.

Most of the performance improvements are in the game code, but the changes to the low level audio code might help the other games a bit. They could also benefit from the new features I added along the way, e.g. better controller support, support for various music playback devices, etc. I plan to revisit the other ports later to see if there's anything else I can improve there. I already got an idea from poking around the Mac 68k Duke3D executable in a hex editor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by utri007

Performance considerations.

Playing music even wav drops fps.
AHI has a quite big performce penalty 3-4fps.
Instead of PAL try NTSC, to get full screen 320x200 picture.
Zorro II graphics cards has about a 2 fps performance penalty.

I should probably incorporate these into the readme.

QuikSanz · 10 September 2021, 22:43

@BSzilli,

Is Serious Sam something doable, Has old Pentium specs, but no idea what engine it uses.
Very fun.

Chris

BSzili · 11 September 2021, 07:30

Serious Sam uses the eponymous Serious engine. It requires 3D acceleration and a much faster processor, so it might be doable for WarpOS and NG, but definitely not for 68k, at least none of the existing hardware implementations.
On a different note the complete source code (i.e. not just the platform-specific parts) is now available. I already noticed a few mistakes I made and things I forgot to do. Some of these will have to wait for 1.1, but I'll probably fix a couple of these before I put it on Aminet. Anyway, here's the source code:
https://github.com/BSzili/NBlood-Amiga

QuikSanz · 11 September 2021, 19:30

Was thinking maybe if Vampire ever gets put into ASIC.

BSzili · 11 September 2021, 20:11

We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now my focus is 68k hardware people already have.

BSzili · 13 September 2021, 05:38

I made a small update to the release candidate. I forgot about precaching the multiplayer sounds and also replacing mulscale, dmulscale, divscale with fixed shift variants where possible. Now it's time to finish the readme before all this goes to Aminet.

07 August 2021, 19:21	#62
Viceroy Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Sunderland Posts: 946	DamionD has asked me to ask you this please. Thank you for you outstanding work on yet another cool port I'm trying to get Midi working in the new version you've posted, and have done the following: Deleted the MIDI replacement WAV tracks (cblood1-10, pestis, unholy) from the game's drawer. Set "MusicDevice" to "0" in the "nblood.cfg" file. Added "camd.library" to "DHO:Libs". I also have AHI v4.18 installed / configured. When starting the game I can see the following in the log, yet no music: Any ideas please? Last edited by Viceroy; 07 August 2021 at 19:30.

16 August 2021, 20:43	#69
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	I made some progress on the performance side too, which was the worst on E1M6. The effect system in Blood kept updating dormant effect sprites too, with 0 velocity and no gravity. This included bullet holes, ejected shells and bullet casings, blood splats, etc. This is now fixed which gives a moderate speed boost if you filled the level with any of the above. The other problem seems to be the proximity detonators, which keep doing visibility checks on nearby actors. I tried a different implementation of the "cansee" function from Eduke32 but it was slower, so I'm not sure what to do with this one for the time being. Anyway, an updated version with slightly better performance is now available for download via the link above. Last edited by BSzili; 16 August 2021 at 21:31.

24 August 2021, 08:49	#70
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	New version is out with more performance improvements. It's a bit hard to list everything that is changed, but among the improved things are: armed proximity detonators animation sequences sound effects For the last two I added two simple cache systems, so the game doesn't have to go for the slow RFF dictionary lookup every time they are started. This makes the game much smoother in general, not just in E1M6. This also makes E4M1 playable, where the thunder and lighting sound effects causes the game to stutter/pause.

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07 August 2021, 08:04	#61
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	Another update to the public test version. Not much has changed, but there's now CAMD MIDI support. To use it make sure to delete or move the the MIDI replacement WAV tracks (unholy, pestis, cblood1-10) from the game's drawer, and set MusicDevice to 0 in nblood.cfg.

07 August 2021, 19:29	#63
pipper Registered User Join Date: Jul 2017 Location: San Jose Posts: 652	Did you connect a midi device to your machine?

07 August 2021, 19:36	#64
Viceroy Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Sunderland Posts: 946	No, just set "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" under "IO Ports" in WinUAE. Guess maybe for this game I also need to setup / configure MUNT?

07 August 2021, 19:43	#65
tomcat666 Retro Freak Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Slovenia Age: 51 Posts: 1,647	Just to let you know that Blood runs perfectly on piStorm, that is, of course, if you like to look at the slideshow of about 1 frame every 5 seconds Was not expecting it to run at all really, because the game needs really good HW to run, so was still a surprise. Maybe when we get a raspberryPI 5 for piStorm we will get a few fps.

11 August 2021, 08:10	#67
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	I just found out that my latest change broke the reverb code. Be careful with the diving suit and reflect shots powerup until I figure this out.

12 August 2021, 18:52	#68
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	It took a while to figure this out, but the reverb is working again. With Paula stereo it will be more subtle because the left and right samples are not interleaved in the buffer, but it's good enough for now. It's available at the usual place.

06 September 2021, 15:44	#71
utri007 mä vaan Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Finland Posts: 1,653	Now Blood 68040 version works just fine with OS4 and it is fast 640x480 fps 20 [ Show youtube player ] This will allow nice multiplayer games, without a nasty slowdowns.

10 September 2021, 07:24	#72
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	Time for the release candidate, if no serious bugs surface it'll go to Aminet. Compared to the previous version it has experimental CD audio playback using cdplayer.library if you have a CD drive with the analog audio output available, weapon switch bugfixes, and I fixed some other problems that prevented it from running on OS4. This doesn't mean "official" OS4 support or a native executable, so you will still get some warnings and DSIs, but these should be harmless. When ignored the game runs fairly well without any major issues or crashes. The download location is the same.

10 September 2021, 16:09	#73
utri007 mä vaan Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Finland Posts: 1,653	Thanks! Will SW and Power Slave also benefit these bug fixes? This is quite speedy and playable.

10 September 2021, 16:38	#74
utri007 mä vaan Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Finland Posts: 1,653	Performance considerations. Playing music even wav drops fps. AHI has a quite big performce penalty 3-4fps. Instead of PAL try NTSC, to get full screen 320x200 picture. Zorro II graphics cards has about a 2 fps performance penalty.

10 September 2021, 22:43	#76
QuikSanz Registered User Join Date: May 2021 Location: Los Angeles / USA Posts: 135	@BSzilli, Is Serious Sam something doable, Has old Pentium specs, but no idea what engine it uses. Very fun. Chris

11 September 2021, 07:30	#77
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	Serious Sam uses the eponymous Serious engine. It requires 3D acceleration and a much faster processor, so it might be doable for WarpOS and NG, but definitely not for 68k, at least none of the existing hardware implementations. On a different note the complete source code (i.e. not just the platform-specific parts) is now available. I already noticed a few mistakes I made and things I forgot to do. Some of these will have to wait for 1.1, but I'll probably fix a couple of these before I put it on Aminet. Anyway, here's the source code: https://github.com/BSzili/NBlood-Amiga

11 September 2021, 19:30	#78
QuikSanz Registered User Join Date: May 2021 Location: Los Angeles / USA Posts: 135	Was thinking maybe if Vampire ever gets put into ASIC.

11 September 2021, 20:11	#79
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now my focus is 68k hardware people already have.

13 September 2021, 05:38	#80
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	I made a small update to the release candidate. I forgot about precaching the multiplayer sounds and also replacing mulscale, dmulscale, divscale with fixed shift variants where possible. Now it's time to finish the readme before all this goes to Aminet.

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