[ongoing] Catacomb 3D series and Keen Dreams

BSzili · 14 August 2016, 20:27

Since the previous thread on Catacomb 3D was not opened by me, I couldn't easily refer back to the first post, where all of the download links are. It was getting a bit hard to follow which version is where, so I decided to make my own.
I'm working on porting Reflection Keen, which is a merger of the Catacomb 3D and Keen Dreams engines. The requirements are decreasing with each new version, but I recommend a fast 020 and 2MB RAM (about 300KB chip) to run them. So far I've only been able to test it in WinUAE, so I'd be interested to hear how it runs on real hardware.
Two of the games have shareware versions, the rest can be purchased as part of the Catacombs Pack.
Warning: The Steam version of Keen Dreams is NOT compatible.

Data files:
Keen Dreams: ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/share/keendm.zip
Catacomb Abyss: https://www.classicdosgames.com/game...omb_Abyss.html
Catacombs Pack: https://www.gog.com/game/catacombs_pack

Amiga executables:
Keen Dreams: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...GdfcjF3RElYNzA
Catacomb 3D: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...2c3NGNycl9mZXc
Catacomb Abyss: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...3gxUm5LVmNSOVU
Catacomb Armageddon: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...mppV2lmTjA5LVE
Catacomb Apocalypse: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...WcwU0Y4UVlxRlE

CD32:
Keen Dreams (incl. 1.13 shareware data): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oM...fNHXHMNCn5HEdl
Catacomb 3D: https://www.aeros-os.org/rapidcartpr.../35/Catacomb3D

Source code:
https://github.com/BSzili/refkeen/tree/amiga

NeoHippie2016 · 14 August 2016, 22:04

Will the two other Catacomb games be ported to Amiga, to? (i mean Amiga Ports...

BSzili · 15 August 2016, 09:45

Catacomb II is a rewrite of the first game in C, so they are essentially the same game. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'll bother with them, they hurt my eyes with all that green and purple.

Cobe · 15 August 2016, 18:02

I tried Abyss and Keen on real stock A1200.

Link to abyss data gives me 403:forbidden but I found it on similar site.

Keen is fully playable.

Abyss still not quiet. I'll upload you video to see. And loading times are reeaaally long.

Would it be possible that you change the pallette?

Here's the video:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xyj9pis8lo...N0232.AVI?dl=0

BSzili · 15 August 2016, 19:06

Oops. I replaced the direct link to Catacomb Abyss with a link to its RGB Classic Games page. So scrolling is is smooth in Keen Dreams, no flickering in the status bar? As for the loading times, I'll try to reproduce it in WinUAE to see what's taking so long.

edit: Changing the palette has been brought up before, but since the game's graphics were designed for the default EGA colors, I'm not sure if it's a good idea.

Minuous · 16 August 2016, 13:19

Noticed two issues:

Registered version of Keen Dreams seems not to be supported.
Also only IBM-PC beeper emulation is supported.

BSzili · 16 August 2016, 14:21

The initial 1.0 registered version of Keen Dreams is not supported by Reflection Keen, 1.92 and 1.93 should work. I'm not aware of any limitations in the shareware version though. As far as I know, it contains all of the levels from the registered version. The only benefit of registering was tech support and updates from SoftDisk.
Doing real-time OPL emulation for the AdLib sound effects would be prohibitively slow. I thought about converting every sound effect at startup and adding hooks into the game to play them, but this is currently pretty low on my list.

BSzili · 18 August 2016, 07:51

There was an off-by-one mistake in the sprite scaler, which meant that the bottom row of pixels could get written to all sorts of interesting locations, possibly overwriting code. There was another mistake. Even if the bottom of the sprites was off-screen, screen pixel locations were still calculated for it. This is now fixed as well, so drawing partially visible sprites should be a tiny bit faster.

Cobe · 18 August 2016, 08:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by BSzili

Oops. I replaced the direct link to Catacomb Abyss with a link to its RGB Classic Games page. So scrolling is is smooth in Keen Dreams, no flickering in the status bar? As for the loading times, I'll try to reproduce it in WinUAE to see what's taking so long.

edit: Changing the palette has been brought up before, but since the game's graphics were designed for the default EGA colors, I'm not sure if it's a good idea.

Scrolling is as smooth as it can be on monitor through av->hdmi. I didn't try on crt. And the status bar didn't flicker.

Minuous · 19 August 2016, 07:49

By the way how would someone check which version of the game they have?

BSzili · 19 August 2016, 08:00

Keen Dreams is a bit tricky, because there were a few different ones. I don't think any of them says the version number anywhere, but this wiki page can be used to identify them using the file dates:
http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Keen_Dreams_Versions

Minuous · 19 August 2016, 16:20

OK, thanks.

s2325 · 21 August 2016, 19:18

[ Show youtube player ]

BSzili · 21 August 2016, 20:01

Nice video! Too bad they both have issues. Could you tell me what configuration they are running on? The status bar Catacomb Abyss is missing one bitplane. I think I saw this problem before, a listing of your DEVS:Monitors drawers would be helpful.

s2325 · 21 August 2016, 20:03

You may try in comments, I'm just subscriber and they don't know me.

BSzili · 21 August 2016, 20:13

Oh sorry, I assumed it was your video. I'll contact 'em there

Cobe · 21 August 2016, 20:59

Interesting. I didn't have those issues.

BSzili · 22 August 2016, 09:00

I found out what causes the issue: the VGAOnly monitor driver patch. I had to do quite a bit of googling to find out what it does. For one thing, it increases the horizontal frequency of DblPAL and DblNTSC monitor drivers from 27 kHz to 29. This shouldn't be a problem, since the game uses the default PAL/NTSC monitors. Then I also read, that it supposedly promotes PAL/NTSC modes to DblPal/DblNTSC. That sounds like it could cause problems, but I'm still none the wiser why.

Nobby_UK · 22 August 2016, 22:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobe

Interesting. I didn't have those issues.

Ditto:

Except I can't get Keen to jump !

and
CAT - Abyss is a little fast if anything.

A1200 (040/25 + 32 Meg Ram) to 26 in PAL TV

Solo Kazuki · 22 August 2016, 23:43

Let me guess... are you playing on single button joystick? Jump is on second button.

14 August 2016, 20:27	#1
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	[ongoing] Catacomb 3D series and Keen Dreams Since the previous thread on Catacomb 3D was not opened by me, I couldn't easily refer back to the first post, where all of the download links are. It was getting a bit hard to follow which version is where, so I decided to make my own. I'm working on porting Reflection Keen, which is a merger of the Catacomb 3D and Keen Dreams engines. The requirements are decreasing with each new version, but I recommend a fast 020 and 2MB RAM (about 300KB chip) to run them. So far I've only been able to test it in WinUAE, so I'd be interested to hear how it runs on real hardware. Two of the games have shareware versions, the rest can be purchased as part of the Catacombs Pack. Warning: The Steam version of Keen Dreams is NOT compatible. Data files: Keen Dreams: ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/share/keendm.zip Catacomb Abyss: https://www.classicdosgames.com/game...omb_Abyss.html Catacombs Pack: https://www.gog.com/game/catacombs_pack Amiga executables: Keen Dreams: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...GdfcjF3RElYNzA Catacomb 3D: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...2c3NGNycl9mZXc Catacomb Abyss: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...3gxUm5LVmNSOVU Catacomb Armageddon: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...mppV2lmTjA5LVE Catacomb Apocalypse: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...WcwU0Y4UVlxRlE CD32: Keen Dreams (incl. 1.13 shareware data): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oM...fNHXHMNCn5HEdl Catacomb 3D: https://www.aeros-os.org/rapidcartpr.../35/Catacomb3D Source code: https://github.com/BSzili/refkeen/tree/amiga Last edited by BSzili; 20 March 2018 at 13:24.

15 August 2016, 18:02	#4
Cobe Registered User Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Belgrade / Serbia Age: 41 Posts: 999	I tried Abyss and Keen on real stock A1200. Link to abyss data gives me 403:forbidden but I found it on similar site. Keen is fully playable. Abyss still not quiet. I'll upload you video to see. And loading times are reeaaally long. Would it be possible that you change the pallette? Here's the video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xyj9pis8lo...N0232.AVI?dl=0 Last edited by Cobe; 15 August 2016 at 19:04.

15 August 2016, 19:06	#5
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	Oops. I replaced the direct link to Catacomb Abyss with a link to its RGB Classic Games page. So scrolling is is smooth in Keen Dreams, no flickering in the status bar? As for the loading times, I'll try to reproduce it in WinUAE to see what's taking so long. edit: Changing the palette has been brought up before, but since the game's graphics were designed for the default EGA colors, I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Last edited by BSzili; 16 August 2016 at 14:25.

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14 August 2016, 22:04	#2
NeoHippie2016 Freak Join Date: Dec 2015 Location: Gladbeck Age: 47 Posts: 580	Will the two other Catacomb games be ported to Amiga, to? (i mean Amiga Ports...

15 August 2016, 09:45	#3
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	Catacomb II is a rewrite of the first game in C, so they are essentially the same game. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'll bother with them, they hurt my eyes with all that green and purple.

16 August 2016, 13:19	#6
Minuous Coder/webmaster/gamer Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Canberra/Australia Posts: 2,630	Noticed two issues: Registered version of Keen Dreams seems not to be supported. Also only IBM-PC beeper emulation is supported.

16 August 2016, 14:21	#7
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	The initial 1.0 registered version of Keen Dreams is not supported by Reflection Keen, 1.92 and 1.93 should work. I'm not aware of any limitations in the shareware version though. As far as I know, it contains all of the levels from the registered version. The only benefit of registering was tech support and updates from SoftDisk. Doing real-time OPL emulation for the AdLib sound effects would be prohibitively slow. I thought about converting every sound effect at startup and adding hooks into the game to play them, but this is currently pretty low on my list.

18 August 2016, 07:51	#8
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	There was an off-by-one mistake in the sprite scaler, which meant that the bottom row of pixels could get written to all sorts of interesting locations, possibly overwriting code. There was another mistake. Even if the bottom of the sprites was off-screen, screen pixel locations were still calculated for it. This is now fixed as well, so drawing partially visible sprites should be a tiny bit faster.

19 August 2016, 07:49	#10
Minuous Coder/webmaster/gamer Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Canberra/Australia Posts: 2,630	By the way how would someone check which version of the game they have?

19 August 2016, 08:00	#11
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	Keen Dreams is a bit tricky, because there were a few different ones. I don't think any of them says the version number anywhere, but this wiki page can be used to identify them using the file dates: http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Keen_Dreams_Versions

19 August 2016, 16:20	#12
Minuous Coder/webmaster/gamer Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Canberra/Australia Posts: 2,630	OK, thanks.

21 August 2016, 19:18	#13
s2325 Zone Friend Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Gargore Age: 43 Posts: 17,789	[ Show youtube player ]

21 August 2016, 20:01	#14
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	Nice video! Too bad they both have issues. Could you tell me what configuration they are running on? The status bar Catacomb Abyss is missing one bitplane. I think I saw this problem before, a listing of your DEVS:Monitors drawers would be helpful.

21 August 2016, 20:03	#15
s2325 Zone Friend Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Gargore Age: 43 Posts: 17,789	You may try in comments, I'm just subscriber and they don't know me.

21 August 2016, 20:13	#16
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	Oh sorry, I assumed it was your video. I'll contact 'em there

21 August 2016, 20:59	#17
Cobe Registered User Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Belgrade / Serbia Age: 41 Posts: 999	Interesting. I didn't have those issues.

22 August 2016, 09:00	#18
BSzili old chunk of coal Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Hungary Posts: 1,289	I found out what causes the issue: the VGAOnly monitor driver patch. I had to do quite a bit of googling to find out what it does. For one thing, it increases the horizontal frequency of DblPAL and DblNTSC monitor drivers from 27 kHz to 29. This shouldn't be a problem, since the game uses the default PAL/NTSC monitors. Then I also read, that it supposedly promotes PAL/NTSC modes to DblPal/DblNTSC. That sounds like it could cause problems, but I'm still none the wiser why.

22 August 2016, 23:43	#20
Solo Kazuki Registered User Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Poland Posts: 1,301	Let me guess... are you playing on single button joystick? Jump is on second button.

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