Metal Slug (Mission 1) port for Atari STE

[masteries]

This is the definitive Metal Slug (Mission 1) port for Atari STE


Features:

-Complementary Dithering colour, aprox. 70 colors on screen; requires more than 40 frames per second.
As emulator, Steem in the recommended one, and active the Vsync

-652 KB of digital sampled audio, 3 voices mixed at 12.5 KHz
Music is also based on sampled audio loops at same frequency

-Around 3 MB of graphics data

-50 frames per second gameplay, few slowdowns

-Hardware requirements: Atari STE @ 8 MHz CPU (standard speed) + 4 MB RAM (the maximum amount for STE machine without tricks, all this memory serves as chip RAM) + a hard disk device (recommended, diskette loading is possible but painful)


[ Show youtube player ]


Download:


https://www.gp32spain.com/foros/atta...0&d=1626102535



Also, if you are interested on a high performance low cost hard disk device for your Atari ST/E,
you can acquire one of my manufactured units from this same EAB forum:


https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=105726


Enjoy it!

As a note: less memory or more compiled sprites could be used for other things, if original NeoGeo tiles where correctly aligned (NeoGeo developers are never aware of ROM usage, or tile reuse)

[roondar]

Cool stuff! Very nice result and clever way of creating more perceived colours
I was wondering: is the video from a real STE or is it a capture from an emulator?

[TEG]

Impressive ! (for an STE of course)

[masteries]

Originally Posted by roondar

Cool stuff! Very nice result and clever way of creating more perceived colours
I was wondering: is the video from a real STE or is it a capture from an emulator?

Real STE, using RGB output connected to an OSSC scan converter to TVs HDMI input.

[roondar]

Thanks for the info, it all looks extremely nice.

[redblade]

Excellent work, great 68k mastery

[Tigerskunk]

Great great work..
Especially after all these discussions we had here about converting MS to the Amiga...

And you just did it on the STE without much talking...

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Great great work..
Especially after all these discussions we had here about converting MS to the Amiga...

And you just did it on the STE without much talking...

Not only that, but he did it in the way I've been advocating ports: not trying to necessarily get 1:1, but doing what fits in the strengths of the machine and allowing for compromises to make it work. Great stuff!

I'd say there's a real lesson for us Amiga users/coders here: making some compromises does not mean a failed port. And perhaps, if you really want to make a port or get a port done, just start working on it instead of discussing it forever - because there's always people like me, who are not interested in porting games at all, but will gladly talk with anyone about Amiga tips & tricks and methods for doing some of the more interesting stuff you see in those games.

This can be a lot of fun (I think so anyway), but it surely gets less done

[Retro1234]

I agree it looks quite good but really you can't do a faithful conversion of Metal Slug.

It has some pretty big Sprites, could the Amiga do this?

It can be a cool kind of pirate knockoff etc and I like stuff like that so I'm not knocking it.

[jotd]

if ST-E can do it, can't the Amiga do it? even A1200. Because the video is extremely impressive.

[roondar]

STE's Blitter when properly used (i.e. with optimised code) is about the same speed as the Amiga one, so I'd say the object throughput can be similar. The colour changing idea with one palette per frame should be doable as well.

The main issue I see is actually memory. The Atari STE code uses 4 MB of 'Chip RAM', an A500 normally only has 512KB (though A500+/A600 can have up to 2MB). Even if we give the A500 the same amount of memory, that would still mean shuffling resources from Fast RAM into Chip RAM. This may or may not be feasible.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

I agree it looks quite good but really you can't do a faithful conversion of Metal Slug.

Not a 1:1 port, but this is a fitting tribute, and that's coming from a huge MS fanatic. It looks like a sort of Metal Slug Remix, the gameplay seems a bit different, more frantic. Great job overall.



Anybody knows how to put the files on a HDD image? I'd like to try it in an emulator or on MiSTer.

[Tigerskunk]

Yep, plays to the target machine's strengths and looks fun and playable.
Great job, indeed.

Now we Amiga coders need to beat that.. lol...

[LongLifeA1200]

Once again, the Atari ST community in the lead.

I was going to write about the challenges on the Stock A500, but if I do that, then Atari ST might do it first.

[jotd]

probably doable on A1200 with some fastmem. Audio doesn't need any cpu (on the STE it does) and there's a blitter.

The chipmem issue can be solved by fast to chip copies. I doubt that the game needs 4MB at once.

[alexh]

Looks very cool and I bet it looks even better on a CRT where the inter-field colour change will not flicker as much but look like a different colour.

We'll done and also Kudos to DML who created the A.G.T. (Atari Game Tools) that masteries has put to good use in this tribute.

[gingerbeardman]

Yes, props to DML for Atari Game Tools which is the real star here.

[saimon69]

Well, if we split some big enemy sprites in Metro Siege style should be possible to have animation without animation for most sprites - that should save some RAM - for landscapes gotta be creative to reduce repetitions,maybe a tile of subtiles like hybris and Battle squadron did

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by gingerbeardman

Yes, props to DML for Atari Game Tools which is the real star here.

Yeah, just shit on the people who spend probably a lot of time creating this thing, game tools or not.

[manicx]

Originally Posted by alexh

Looks very cool and I bet it looks even better on a CRT where the inter-field colour change will not flicker as much but look like a different colour.

We'll done and also Kudos to DML who created the A.G.T. (Atari Game Tools) that masteries has put to good use in this tribute.

Yes it does. Tried this on my STE connected to a Microvitec 1438 and it looks amazing.