Turrican 2 MS-DOS AGA conversion

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by jotd

that's because it's way easier to add a parallax layer than redesigning all the graphics and possibly all memory layout and data format because of the extra bitplanes.

If you remove parallax crap (which can make a game unplayable ex Zool), a few games really got an AGA conversion actually

I am aware of this, like anybody who isn't completely dumb...

Also, I didn't especially talk about conversions to AGA.

What I mean is, I don't see many games that were or are using the palette in a way that shows the finer gradients that can be achieved with the extra bits used in the AGA colour spectrum.

This conversion does it, though.
And it looks gorgeous.

[gimbal]

If only the player sprite's head didn't look like a toaster, it would have been a fine conversion (the original DOS version I mean)

The movement animation bothers me a little, there is a noticeable hiccup in the frames like they're not correctly aligned - it makes it look like the dude is walking with a limp. I wonder if something can be done to smooth that out.

[Muzza]

Originally Posted by pink^abyss

And you store entities that go out of view into the other 2-4 bins, right?

Once they go a certain distance off screen, they are deleted.
This appears to be what happens in the original game, apart from for Diamonds and Extra Lives, which re-spawn at their original positions (I've yet to implement that though).

[skan]

Originally Posted by steril707

is it? Why?

Because:

Originally Posted by muzza

it requires fast ram to run at 50hz on an a1200.

[mc68060]

Wow, this is totally fantastic! Back in the 90s I didn't really like the DOS version but today it looks really fresh! I hope you'll finish this project. This is what Factor 5 should have done for their Turrican Anthology instead of just bundling the old games.

Wildest dream: Create a CD32 version and use the tracks from the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology instead of the TFMX modules. That would be INSANE!!!

[malko]

Originally Posted by gimbal

If only the player sprite's head didn't look like a toaster, it would have been a fine conversion (the original DOS version I mean) [...]

You got it terribly right and with the best word to describe it. Turrican PC player's sprite looks like a toaster .
Anyway, @Muzza : thanks for you work . Looks really good so far !

[Gzegzolka]

It would be cool to have Turrican on cd32 with audio tracks, just look at AmigaRemix site, how many remixes are based on Turrican, and many of them are great
As for pc player sprite - I do not mind it, for me best one was from Turrican 3.

[jotd]

I don't think we can steal Chris Hulbeck remix CDs to create a CD32 version. But that would be a cool project that I could undertake for the standard version.

[mc68060]

Originally Posted by Gzegzolka

It would be cool to have Turrican on cd32 with audio tracks, just look at AmigaRemix site, how many remixes are based on Turrican, and many of them are great

You don't have to look at AmigaRemix. Chris Huelsbeck has remade the complete soundtrack of Turrican I-III for the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology. Every little piece is included, including the loader music and so on! It's 100% complete and 100% high fidelity CD audio goodness, very faithful to the original!

The Turrican Soundtrack Anthology just screams for inclusion in a CD32 version of Turrican! But it's probably tough to do it for the original games because you can't play CD audio while loading data etc. So the whole game would have to be prebuffered in RAM or something but then it probably won't run on standard CD32s due to lack of memory.

[Nobby_UK]

040 from workbench works without music
Boot from disk = fine

But why not Multi-button ?

[jotd]

mem issue probably

will whdload it

[BigD]

No joy with my 68060; stuck on grey screen. It works great on a 030 though! It needs to have CD32 joypad support IMHO with blue mapped to jump, yellow for energy bar attack and green for roll attack transformation. Great work though ;-)

[Muzza]

Originally Posted by BigD

No joy with my 68060; stuck on grey screen. It works great on a 030 though!

Can you share some more details about 060 machine setup please?

[José]

@Muzza
Don't know how tough it would be as I've never learned asm decently (only some C..) but couldn't you replace those background colors with copper lists ? I'm saying this because you seem to be using the whole unmodified data from the msdos version. With a copper list the background color changes could be even better/smoother while at the same time saving some a bitplane or two.
That's assuming the background on the msdos version is using the 256 color palete, which I have no idea but I think it is isn't it ?
Just an idea...

[Muzza]

Originally Posted by José

@Muzza
Don't know how tough it would be as I've never learned asm decently (only some C..) but couldn't you replace those background colors with copper lists ? I'm saying this because you seem to be using the whole unmodified data from the msdos version. With a copper list the background color changes could be even better/smoother while at the same time saving some a bitplane or two.
That's assuming the background on the msdos version is using the 256 color palete, which I have no idea but I think it is isn't it ?
Just an idea...

The sky is a copper gradient. If you look carefully it moves independently from the foreground tiles like parallax.
The foreground tiles use about 90 colours. When you add the enemy sprites, it gets up to just under 128 colours, but I think the bosses push it over 128 colours.
I'm not including the colours for the player or the 'power line' effect as these use Hardware sprites.
I could probably trim it to 7 bitplanes (+an extra 32 colours for HW Sprites) without losing anything noticeable - at least on the first level.

[Retro1234]

Exl did an excellent T2 level viewer
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=51266

[BigD]

Originally Posted by Muzza

Can you share some more details about 060 machine setup please?

An 060 Cyberstorm Mk1 with 120mb of fast ram on AGA/RTG machine. Loading from an actual floppy disk copied from the ADF file. The disk works on my 030 machine.

[Muzza]

Originally Posted by BigD

An 060 Cyberstorm Mk1 with 120mb of fast ram on AGA/RTG machine. Loading from an actual floppy disk copied from the ADF file. The disk works on my 030 machine.

Thanks. Do you get problems with many other games on this system, or just this one?


I set up a WinUAE config to 060, with a Cyberstorm Mk1 expansion ROM. The game ran on it, although the music occasionally sounded off for some reason.
If anyone knows of any common gotchas with 060s, or expansions like this one for system takeover games, I'd appreciate any ideas.

[jotd]

Muzza this is a lot cause. Even TinyAbyss games (which have a very good startup/end wrapper) end up crashing on some configurations

There are so many differences that can exist (DTack, MMU zero page move, caches, graphical boards, network cards...)

Don't change anything, leave whdload do the work (once I adapted your first version, that is). I never play non-whdload games anyway

[pink^abyss]

Originally Posted by jotd

Muzza this is a lot cause. Even TinyAbyss games (which have a very good startup/end wrapper) end up crashing on some configurations

There are so many differences that can exist (DTack, MMU zero page move, caches, graphical boards, network cards...)

Don't change anything, leave whdload do the work (once I adapted your first version, that is). I never play non-whdload games anyway

Thanks for your kind comments jotd Can you shed some light on the causes my Tiny games crash on some configs? I wanna learn what i do wrong!
I also noticed on the 'Amiga Bill' show my bob zoomer for "Wrong Way Driver" didn't work as intended on his machien. Cache issues? Can i disable caches easily on startup?