Amstrad Prince of Persia Screenshots?

[STE86]

Hi,

anyone out there know of a good collection of Amstrad screenshots for PoP?

have seen the Mobygames set but i am really looking for the Amstrad Palace levels.

Alternatively would any kind person(s) care to "cap" me some with a "pure" graphics format like GIF or PNG (no compression).

only looking for the "unusual" architecture of the palace. like tapestries, arch windows, columns etc

Cheers

Steve

[STE86]

tracked down some amstrad level maps at full res so mission accomplished.

thanks for reading.

Steve

[MacDeath]

Links please !


Also :
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=1684

[Gryzor]

Hey! Can I inquire as to why you're asking? Remodeling your house maybe?

[Devilmarkus]

I never understood why the hero in this game is blonde...
Persia? Aren't they black haired? 

[arnoldemu]

I never understood why the hero in this game is blonde...
Persia? Aren't they black haired? 

I blame Hollywood

[Gryzor]

There is a tribe of Indians to the North who have blond hair and blue eyes... Kalash (?) I think they're called, but the story doesn't reveal much.

[STE86]

Links please !


Also :
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=1684

thanks for that link. sorry i can't post links to what i found because it was sent to me as a zip.

i am perfectly willing however to forward the maps to anyone here who can archive them for future use.

I was after them because i am evaluating the possibility of converting it to probably the one mainstream machine it never was done for in the first place. cramming it into 64k tho may not even be possible. certainly not in Bitmapped mode like the amstrad version. which i assume is 128k only?

the prince's hair varies wildly in colour from version to version IIRC from white on the apple thru brownish blonde on the pc to hollywood blonde with a quiff on the amstrad

Steve

[arnoldemu]

I'm guessing it's the Atari 8bit?
But I could be wrong.

It would be interesting to see it on this platform - I know nothing of it other than it's 6502 based.

EDIT: It seems you are talking about the c64 version?
EDIT2: I think the CPC version does run in 64k.

[sigh]

I ws thinking that it was the C64 version too where it would work brilliantly.

[STE86]

it may not work at all on a c64 particularly in 64k.

no chance at all in bitmapped mode i think. it would have to be character mode in order to keep the cpu and memory usage down. which itself causes a whole new set of problems, especially with the huge amount of frames for the protagonist which all have to me in RAM constantly and will almost certainly have to have some run length compression on them.

FYI the Atari 8 bit is sadly a victim of over hyping by its user fanbase. It is realistically a 4 colour machine with inadequate HW sprite capability. any version of PoP for it would actually, i think only be possible in a mono spectrum style.

I can see why the spectrum & amstrad versions were done but no c64, simply because these machines have the required CPU to graphics welly to do this game as a direct conversion under software from the original apple version.

Steve

[MacDeath]

I agree concerning Atari8bit...
its fanboyz are annoying !
"the best 8 bit ever"... but IMO the graphic modes are so strange and delicate to handle to be considered a decent machine...
it took perhaps 20years to discover how to really do colours on it...

And the majority of games are something like a 4 coloured mode0 with some bits of rasters.... erk...

This big colour palette would have been betterly used on an amstrad.

it may not work at all on a c64 particularly in 64k.

You simply wouldn't get something as "good" as on Amstrad...
But if you use multiloadings the 64k may not be that problematic.

And a heavy use of Hardwired sprites may be helpfull too...

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=4527
http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32129&sid=f278c5e7a463264798c70f27489e13d0
http://www.uvlist.net/game-158883-Prince+of+Persia

[STE86]

I don't know about the colour palette, the greys would be nice (always a pain in the arse for graphic designing on an amstrad "back in the day" )

but the only real "red" is even worse than the c64 one.

can anyone say definitively whether Amstrad PoP is 128 only or does it run in 64k?

Steve

[Ynot.zer0]

>Amstrad PoP is 128 only or does it run in 64k?
I have a copy of a French edition of Prince of Persia.  On the box it states "CPC / CPC+"  - it doesn't state anywhere 'which' CPC is the minimum.
I've take a photo of the instruction page inside the manual - that is no clearer as you can see.

If I were to "ass-u-me", I would say it was 128k, purely because it is supplied on disc and it references the CPC+, if I get a chance later I'll see if I can connect a Drive to a 464 and see if it runs...

[arnoldemu]

There is a tape version of the game. It seems it will run on 464, so seems to indicate it will run in 64k.
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=1684

There are some english instructions and it doesn't say anything about 128k here.

EDIT: Markus made a snapshot of the tape version. Intro and game loaded as 2 parts.
Game is definitely 64k, no "bank switching" i/o is done in the code.

[Bryce]

Although I do agree that Atari 8-Bit Fanboyz tend to get carried away with how good their machine is/was (as do C64, Speccy and many other 8-Bit Fanboyz) and the colours were quite complicated to manipulate, the Hardware however was really well thought through and had some really good features not seen on other 8-Bits: Built in HF, Composite and S-Video (a small hardware tweak was needed on some models for S-Video), really flexible Cartridge port and of course the joystick port which had a 5V supply and two analogue inputs.
Every machine has it's good and bad points, judging or comparing two machines using just one feature is rather lame, and starts ridiculous arguments that nobody wins.

Bryce.

[MacDeath]

as do C64, Speccy and many other 8-Bit Fanboyz

What is this I don't even...
Such behaviour is quite unseen on Amstrad Fandom.


The µPokey soundchip wasn't quite bad from what I've heard...
4channels...which may be good.
It was also used in some Atari Arcade (Toobin' perhaps ?)

Anyway being easy to use is quite a great quality for a computer system...
And graphically wise, Atari 8 bit was sort of... missed opportunity.

But... its design was quite old after all.

The funny part is that by a strange hasard Amstrad CPC is the actual Atari ST's 8bit equivalent, while Atari 8 bit is not...(sort of)

[Ynot.zer0]

As the old saying goes, if you 'assume' you make an 'ass out of you and me'.... and alas I did.


I can confirm that the Prince of Persia works perfectly okay on a CPC 464 with 64K of RAM.  As shown in the attached photos.  In fact it runs very well, shame I'm no good at playing the game!  I think I might get some practice in now though 

[andycadley]

it may not work at all on a c64 particularly in 64k.

no chance at all in bitmapped mode i think. it would have to be character mode in order to keep the cpu and memory usage down. which itself causes a whole new set of problems, especially with the huge amount of frames for the protagonist which all have to me in RAM constantly and will almost certainly have to have some run length compression on them.

Well the characters would presumably use the hardware sprites. The background should be easily doable using the non bitmap mode of the display.

[MiguelSky]

I can add the 64kb tape version of the game doesn't work in 472 english keys (rom BASIC 1.1). I had this great game. The game loads the intro and then the game as arnoldemu said but when you finish the first level, the game hangs when the player pulls the cornice to open the door to 2nd level. This 472 gave me troubles with a bunch of games !!

[sigh]

Well the characters would presumably use the hardware sprites. The background should be easily doable using the non bitmap mode of the display.

This is what I was thinking. The main sprite didn't seem to have that many colours so using 2 sprites on the C64 for the hair, skin colour, clothing and the extra, for toning would work very nicely. Or maybe even creating the sprite in a higher resolution.

[TFM]

This 472 gave me troubles with a bunch of games !!

Does it behave different compared to a 464?

[arnoldemu]

Does it behave different compared to a 464?

I looked at the code for Prince of Persia.
It seems to call the rom routines direct for loading off cassette, so perhaps this is the problem?


I also noticed:

1. it doesn't seem to use double buffering (it doesn't double buffer the entire screen anyway).
2. it seems to have code for mirroring tiles and perhaps the sprites too.
3. it reads the font from the rom.

It draws to a buffer, first the background tiles it seems, then it masks the man sprite over this, it then copies this to the main screen for display.
(using an LDI loop).


No idea if it sorts the sprites or anything, seems like it just draws it.

[Xyphoe]

I can add the 64kb tape version of the game doesn't work in 472 english keys (rom BASIC 1.1). I had this great game. The game loads the intro and then the game as arnoldemu said but when you finish the first level, the game hangs when the player pulls the cornice to open the door to 2nd level. This 472 gave me troubles with a bunch of games !!

Funnily enough I'm getting exactly the same problem via emulation for both UK/Spain releases (I want to use either as they're both in English)

Prince of Persia (UK) (1990) (UK retail version) [Original].dsk
Prince Of Persia (UK) (1990) (Spain retail version) [Original].dsk

Both disks from the CPC-Power site.

It does list for the French version above the two a poke -

"Ne pas avoir besoin de saisir le mot de passe a la fin du niveau 01"
ie "Do not need to enter the password at the end of level 01"

The pokes are -

poke &001B, le &00 en &C3
poke &001C, le &B1 en &00


Does that mean for the first poke change the value at &001B *FROM* &00 *TO* &C3??

The default value at &001B is indeed 00
But the default value at &001C isn't B1, but is in fact B9 ?

So what do I do?

Thanks!

[spybro]

There is a tribe of Indians to the North who have blond hair and blue eyes... Kalash (?) I think they're called, but the story doesn't reveal much.

Did you know that kalash are in many ways greeks?


Actually i never new that prince of persia's story was about them