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Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:46 pm
by pjw
Peter wrote:
pjw wrote:If you want to play games, get an Xbox or whatever floats your boat..
With that kind of reasoning, every software for the QL could be dismissed, not just games.
I disagree. Besides, you need to take my comment in context.
Peter wrote:I find a new arcade game after so many years a cool thing! Like any major piece of QL software, it seems not very likely to happen, because there are almost no developers. But this "get an Xbox" remark is only discouraging and pointless. Zarchos, please keep up your work, a good number of QLer will appreciate it!
Im all for a new arcade game or whatever, but if its only going to be for 20-30(?) Q68 units, I may not care that much either way. I could care a lot more if this would be something that could be used on a wider range of platforms! That is MY bias in this.

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 11:14 pm
by pjw
Zarchos wrote:Peace, and love. ;)
Peace and love, indeed ;)

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 7:06 am
by Zarchos
I am sorry but, to me, a standard QL won't have games like what can be found on the ST / Amiga.
I do not know what can be achieved will the accelerator cards (I own a few, but never coded to check speed), or the QL clones, but porting from the Q68 source could be worth the effort.
We will see. That of course could be interesting too.

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:57 pm
by pjw
Zarchos wrote:<> All this is interesting for hardware scrolling (saving a lot of time compared to moving an entire screen using the CPU).
Somewhere, on some thread I cant find, there was mention of an arcade game with a scrolling background. As you will have found out by now, there is no graphics hardware acceleration in QL land at the moment. Im a bit behind the curve, but I wanted to check out what was reasonable to expect in regard to scrolling, so I did the following test (you might like to try it on your Q68:)

Code: Select all

100 ch = FOPEN("con_")
110 sx% = SCR_XLIM(#ch)
120 sy% = SCR_YLIM(#ch)
130 WINDOW#ch; sx%,sy%, 0, 0
140 :
150 FOR i% = 1 TO sx%
160  PAN#ch; -1
170 END FOR i%
180 PAUSE#ch
190 CLOSE#ch
Transfer it however you can and SAVE it as ram1_Pan_bas (or somewhere more permanent). Then EX ram1_Pan_bas to see the effect. Try various screen sizes and colour modes. While this code is not optimised for your purposes, it should give a general idea of what to expect.

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:31 am
by Peter
I pull this here from the "TerribleFire accelerator" thread, because it's a software issue:
Derek_Stewart wrote:Super Sprite Generator maybe useful. The features are:
QL SUPER SPRITE GENERATOR (hence QLSSG) consists of:
* Extensions to SuperBASIC ie; keywords
* Sprite creation programs

Its main features are:
* Sprites can be drawn & changed easily.
* Sprite drawing is multitasked.
* Each sprite can have up to 16 different shapes.
* Up to 16 different sprites on the screen at a time.
* Up to 256 sprites can be available at any one time.
* Up to 256 different planes - collisions occur in one plane.
* Smooth, flicker-free movement in 3 dimensions.
* Full choice of graphic modes & screens.
* Easy control through keywords.
* Automatic collision & edge detection.
* Choice of in-situ or pre-drawn sprite reversal.
* Sprites can be inverted or frozen instantly.
* Sprites can be made either solid or transparent (ghostly).
* Sprite speed is individually variable.
Is this software avaliable somewhere? Is anyone on this list who knew Steve Sutton?

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:38 am
by Derek_Stewart
Peter wrote:I pull this here from the "TerribleFire accelerator" thread, because it's a software issue:

Is this software avaliable somewhere? Is anyone on this list who knew Steve Sutton?

HI Peter,

The Super Sprite Generator software by Steve Sutton, is aprt of the Digital Precision Software collection, which was sold commercially and maybe be still copyright.

Since Digital Precision does not trade any more, the copyright remains with the software author. I wish we could contact Steve Sutton, as I think all his software is excellent.

If anyone knows how to contact Steve, please let me know and I will contact him.

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 7:38 pm
by RWAP
Derek_Stewart wrote:
Peter wrote:I pull this here from the "TerribleFire accelerator" thread, because it's a software issue:

Is this software avaliable somewhere? Is anyone on this list who knew Steve Sutton?

HI Peter,

The Super Sprite Generator software by Steve Sutton, is aprt of the Digital Precision Software collection, which was sold commercially and maybe be still copyright.

Since Digital Precision does not trade any more, the copyright remains with the software author. I wish we could contact Steve Sutton, as I think all his software is excellent.

If anyone knows how to contact Steve, please let me know and I will contact him.
I had an old postal address for Steve, as I was in contact with him back in the day (he helped point me in the right direction for the faster scroll and pan routines I used in D-Day MKII).

Unfortunately, my last attempt to contact him was returned 'not known at this address'.

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2017 11:14 am
by Peter
As a rough indication of speed: When deliberately slowing down QL arcade games on the Q68 to make them playable, SLUG values seem end up at (very) roughly 100, which means 100 unused CPU cycles as waitstates. So if not too much game complexity is added and the resolution stays at 512x256 or 512x384, I'm really confident speed will be sufficient. As for me, personally, I don't need better effects than in the old games - just bringing things to highcolour and having a new one would already be fascinating!

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:34 pm
by Zarchos
Who would like to adapt this to the Q68 ?
It is less than 250 ARM instructions.
I had no time to practice coding in 68k assembly.
My source is fully commented, and I could of course answer all questions.

In about a fortnight I should be able to amend further the code to get the original parallax effects.
(In the meantime I should be able to read more about 68k ASM programming.)
It is nothing to do anyway, as it is all software and re use of existing code.

https://youtu.be/8jnG5TzHxYQ

Re: Q68 Powered Arcade Game

Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 9:40 am
by Derek_Stewart
Zarchos wrote:Who would like to adapt this to the Q68 ?
It is less than 250 ARM instructions.
I had no time to practice coding in 68k assembly.
My source is fully commented, and I could of course answer all questions.

In about a fortnight I should be able to amend further the code to get the original parallax effects.
(In the meantime I should be able to read more about 68k ASM programming.)
It is nothing to do anyway, as it is all software and re use of existing code.

https://youtu.be/8jnG5TzHxYQ
Hi,

If you send me the source code, I will have a look at it.

The only working ARM machine I have is a Raspberry PI 2B, 3, Zero, so maybe Risc OS should work OK.... I have a sleeping Archie 3020, will leaked capacitors that shorted the Power Supply.

I have a disassembly of the Atari ST Brataccas, which when time permitting, I will have a look at porting to the QL/Q68

I do not have a Q68 at present, due all the boards being sold, I am expentcting more PCBs on 22/1/17, so I will be a little busy after that