[WIP] Moon Patrol conversion

[tomcat666]

When running on ECS I get gfx corruption with WHDLoad. If I run the mpatrol exe directly without WHDLoad it is perfect :

[ Show youtube player ]

[jotd]

once again AGA has been wrongly detected. Damn...

[vulture]

@jotd

your method sounds pretty efficient

[jotd]

Find beta AGA version in the zone. Again big thanks to ross for his help.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by jotd

Find beta AGA version in the zone. Again big thanks to ross for his help.

Hi jotd.

Tried a lot settings on WinUAE and I either get black screen after starting the whdload or HALT10 ... Same on real A1200 with pistorm32... black screen. WHDLoad Quit button also not working so can't do a dump.

If started without whdload with just mpatrol_aga it is working though. Occasionally I get a guru when starting (8000 000B Task: 82D8A10) but usually it starts up (normally after you quit with ESC and start it again). Moon base perfect. Occasionally screen flicker for a frame, but VERY rarely, only seen it a few times. There are some horizontal lines visible when it is scrolling vertically sometimes (mostly visible on the slope levels).
Very nice to see the moon city background on level 2 The sector letters on bottom visibile now too. After you finish level 1 the ":" chars stay printed on the game area (as before). Great conversion, plays like butter!

A little video of me (badly) playing first few levels :

[ Show youtube player ]

[DanyPPC]

I have to launch the game directly from the executable.
Slave has problems (black screen).

But now the game is near perfect, very very good jotd

[zzbylu]

Awesome! AGA version:
[ Show youtube player ]

[Don_Adan]

On video some glitches visible, perhaps from etap text.
And "You have broken a record" text dont fit on the screen.

[jotd]

yes, there are still bugs and they're mostly known. But the "moon city" sections are so great

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by jotd

yes, there are still bugs and they're mostly known. But the "moon city" sections are so great

Really minor issues, perfectly playable and enjoyable already now The most "visible" are the lines on the slopes.

Thank you for this jotd! Looking forward to MM2 (imagine first computer with MM2 port )

[jotd]

yes, the lines will be fixed next thing! I think I'll up the city slightly to avoid priority conflicts. It will be a compromise to avoid changing bitplane priorities, which would have an impact on rocks, wheels... The game is really a nightmare to set right because of the 2 background layers which bring nothing to the game, but need to be there!

MM2 is delayed until someone (Steve) can update MAME tilesave edition. Then we'll see if it's doable.

[jotd]

new update, floppy contains a boot selector which will run cut-down OCS (finally!), standard ECS or enhanced AGA version depending on your machine.

A lot of graphical glitches & other bugs have been fixed.

BTW I'm infuriated by the comments of some bozos on indieretronews, they "counted the colors" and there are 8 colors on screen so a C64 could do a perfect port, and why isn't that dual playfield ECS perfect 50fps, blah blah. Yeah, right. Then count again, and at different stages of the game. Because during the black fade out of Turrican AGA or Banshee, there is only 1 color: black.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by jotd

new update, floppy contains a boot selector which will run cut-down OCS (finally!), standard ECS or enhanced AGA version depending on your machine.

A lot of graphical glitches & other bugs have been fixed.

BTW I'm infuriated by the comments of some bozos on indieretronews, they "counted the colors" and there are 8 colors on screen so a C64 could do a perfect port, and why isn't that dual playfield ECS perfect 50fps, blah blah. Yeah, right. Then count again, and at different stages of the game. Because during the black fade out of Turrican AGA or Banshee, there is only 1 color: black.

Take this comment as an example: "Definitely not..even a C64 can probably do arcade perfect Moon Patrol. I think its either because of the Scorpion Engine contstraints or the Coder is just basically starting out and has not learned how to fully squeeze out the power of a 512kb or 1mb OCS Amiga's capabilities. I mean certainly the 512kb RAM game Sword Of Sodan is way higher spec requirements than Moon Patrol."
Are they actually ignorant or what??

[VincentGR]

Many people will say something, and most of them are picky, but they have nothing to offer themselves.
Even if you gave gold for free, someone will come and tell that you gave turds.

Don't even bother.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by jotd

new update, floppy contains a boot selector which will run cut-down OCS (finally!), standard ECS or enhanced AGA version depending on your machine.

A lot of graphical glitches & other bugs have been fixed.

BTW I'm infuriated by the comments of some bozos on indieretronews, they "counted the colors" and there are 8 colors on screen so a C64 could do a perfect port, and why isn't that dual playfield ECS perfect 50fps, blah blah. Yeah, right. Then count again, and at different stages of the game. Because during the black fade out of Turrican AGA or Banshee, there is only 1 color: black.

Ignore those ungrateful idiots.

On paper, the game looks ridiculously simple, moon buggy, a few aliens and missile sprites, however and as you know, it is a really complex game especially technically with the 2 parallax layers along with everything else.

Try and ignore those idiots, you're doing a fantastic job with the conversion, keep up the great work mate.
People don't understand the complexity

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by jotd

new update, floppy contains a boot selector which will run cut-down OCS (finally!), standard ECS or enhanced AGA version depending on your machine.

A lot of graphical glitches & other bugs have been fixed.

BTW I'm infuriated by the comments of some bozos on indieretronews, they "counted the colors" and there are 8 colors on screen so a C64 could do a perfect port, and why isn't that dual playfield ECS perfect 50fps, blah blah. Yeah, right. Then count again, and at different stages of the game. Because during the black fade out of Turrican AGA or Banshee, there is only 1 color: black.

AND once again you met the average amigan audience -_-

[Seiya]

mpatrol ecs whdload on winuae (i tried various configuration, but this is the result).

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by jotd

new update
A lot of graphical glitches & other bugs have been fixed.

Great update. AGA Whdload working perfectly now. Most glitches have been fixed... no more lines when going up/down slope. Plays even better now.

As Seiya noted the ECS version has the graphics problem, even without whdload. The OCS version, however, works fine.

[Evillord68]

Jotd you made a great job with your Arcade Ports.
Thanks a lot.

[kremiso]

prob the game i have played the most this last month, and it isnt final, just to say

typical game should be judged for the gameplay, very arcade close here

keep it up

crazy idea - replacing the buggy sprite with the Aarbron one...
look at that, Shadow of the beast on the moon