News:

Printed Amstrad Addict magazine announced, check it out here!

Main Menu

hardware scrolling in games

Started by arnoldemu, 18:53, 12 November 12

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

arnoldemu

I want to start a discussion on scrolling in Amstrad games.

This is more directed to the use of hardware scrolling, but software scrolling examples are also welcome.

So I've seen a number of different approaches used on the Amstrad with scrolling.

1. player remains in the same position ("scroll position" for want of a better description) on the screen at the whole time, except perhaps at the edges of the map where they are allowed to walk up to the screen edge. when they return to the "scroll position", the screen starts to scroll again and the player remains static.

Examples:

Robocop 2 (software scrolling)

2. Player moves near the edge, or to the edge of the screen. The whole screen scrolls, so that they are now on the opposite edge. e.g. player moves towards right edge, whole screen scrolls and they are now on the left edge.

Examples: Ghouls and Ghosts. Stryker and the Crypts of Trojan. Prehistorik 2.

3. player moves to left/right of their "scroll position", they remain here, and the screen scrolls. When they stop they return to their "scroll position".


I am going to put my head on the line, and say that, although "Prehistorik 2" is a very good technical achievement, it has great graphics and great sound, it's scrolling is not that great and is an example of 2. Why is it bad? Jump up and then down again. As you jump up, the screen scrolls so you are now on the bottom, as you fall it scrolls again, and you are back on the top. it can be really "jarring". If it had a scroll like (1) it would be so much smoother and nicer.

So what I am hoping is that others would help me here..

Are there other "types" of scroll you have seen, please give me examples of games that fit into each type so I can document it in the wiki and perhaps we may be able to work out *why* they chose that method.

if you want a really bad example look at "Galivan". The screen area is tiny, and the scroll is really really horrible. ;)

I can think of why some scrolls may be done this way and it's down to when the screen wraps in memory:
where the byte to the right of c7ff is c000 at the point the scroll wraps, it's not an easy calculation no more, not a simple inc, but more leading to slower drawing of sprites if you don't manage it in a clever way.

I know games can avoid this. Vertical scrollers can do this by having the problem appear on the left of the screen when it happens. They can do this by keeping the width so that 1024/width is a whole/integer number.

But on some games that scroll horizontally, the sprites continue to move during the scroll, so in this case they could cross this bad position and it can occur.

On some I noticed that the sprites stop during scroll, on others it was more difficult to tell.

The eventual aim of this discussion is to have a good list of each of the types of scrolling, examples of each, and perhaps a reason why they did it. I hope to provide some examples if I have time to write them, at this time I have other commitments.

Thank you for reading.



My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

AMSDOS

I think Ghost and Goblins is a 2.


Games like Wizard Willy, Turbo The Tortoise, Yogi's Great Escape, Scooby & Scrappy Doo, Wonderboy, I think are a 3 cause they all have a character working from Left to Right through Levels. I'm unsure if Mission Jupiter would be a 3 cause the scrolling is forced, though the player can move Left/Right Up & Down, guess it's kind of like Shockway Rider when you step onto the Platforms and the character in that game can move around the screen.


Were you going to talk about games like Ikari Warriors, 1942, 1943, Sonic Boom, Light Force? The scrolling (if it can be called that) in them games is pretty much the same I guess apart from Ikari Warriors which doesn't Force the Scroll.
* Using the old Amstrad Languages :D   * with the Firmware :P
* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

Home Computing Weekly Programs
Popular Computing Weekly Programs
Your Computer Programs
Updated Other Program Links on Profile Page (Update April 16/15 phew!)
Programs for Turbo Pascal 3

arnoldemu

Quote from: CP/M User on 10:32, 13 November 12
I think Ghost and Goblins is a 2.


Games like Wizard Willy, Turbo The Tortoise, Yogi's Great Escape, Scooby & Scrappy Doo, Wonderboy, I think are a 3 cause they all have a character working from Left to Right through Levels. I'm unsure if Mission Jupiter would be a 3 cause the scrolling is forced, though the player can move Left/Right Up & Down, guess it's kind of like Shockway Rider when you step onto the Platforms and the character in that game can move around the screen.


Were you going to talk about games like Ikari Warriors, 1942, 1943, Sonic Boom, Light Force? The scrolling (if it can be called that) in them games is pretty much the same I guess apart from Ikari Warriors which doesn't Force the Scroll.
Yes I am talking of all.

I will add 4. which is games where the scrolling is continuous. the player moves freely around the screen but the scroll is continuous.

Examples here:

Edge Grinder, Axys


Here we have examples of games with great scrolling. So why didn't all have great scrolling?
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

AMSDOS

Quote from: arnoldemu on 10:43, 13 November 12Here we have examples of games with great scrolling. So why didn't all have great scrolling?


I'm unsure I can answer a question like that, a programmer during the CPCs Commercial days might say it was time constraints where deadlines had to be met.  ??? 


The Discussion about New Zealand Story in the other thread could simply be an Emulator Vs. Real Machine there where the Emulator isn't quite simulating the right effect or something. I've played Rainbow Islands on both Real Machine & Emulator and the Scrolling in that game isn't smooth either, though I only think their like that cause there's a time limit factor involved in both of those games and making it appear quicker kind of gives it an bit of a kick, otherwise you'd get water or some nasty creature out to get you. "Edd the Duck" by comparison to "Rainbow Islands" has smoother scrolling, though has no limited time factor, merely a game full of nasties you have to avoid while collecting stars.
* Using the old Amstrad Languages :D   * with the Firmware :P
* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

Home Computing Weekly Programs
Popular Computing Weekly Programs
Your Computer Programs
Updated Other Program Links on Profile Page (Update April 16/15 phew!)
Programs for Turbo Pascal 3

arnoldemu

Quote from: CP/M User on 11:28, 13 November 12

I'm unsure I can answer a question like that, a programmer during the CPCs Commercial days might say it was time constraints where deadlines had to be met.  ??? 


The Discussion about New Zealand Story in the other thread could simply be an Emulator Vs. Real Machine there where the Emulator isn't quite simulating the right effect or something. I've played Rainbow Islands on both Real Machine & Emulator and the Scrolling in that game isn't smooth either, though I only think their like that cause there's a time limit factor involved in both of those games and making it appear quicker kind of gives it an bit of a kick, otherwise you'd get water or some nasty creature out to get you. "Edd the Duck" by comparison to "Rainbow Islands" has smoother scrolling, though has no limited time factor, merely a game full of nasties you have to avoid while collecting stars.
It's ok I didn't expect an answer from you :)

I was just wondering.

Perhaps I need to try and make each type of scroll and then I can answer it.
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

MacDeath

What happened to the post concerning the "cheap Z80 machine with a "joyous" rainbow on it and awful graphics on its monitor that used to have an ununderstandable success in UK thx to his price proportional to its capabilities in graphics" ?


I clicked on "like this post" and the post disappeared...
Is this some inquisition extermination team intervention or is it me, who put into oblivion what i "Like" on this forum ? :laugh:




er... I should really do a long post concerning scrollings in games here... but cxan't find proper motivation, lot of work these days and I'm tired... next time.

Axelay

Quote from: arnoldemu on 18:53, 12 November 12
I want to start a discussion on scrolling in Amstrad games.

This is more directed to the use of hardware scrolling, but software scrolling examples are also welcome.


It seems like for starters then we're basically looking at 'push scrolling', or scrolling under the control of the player?  My thoughts on this are that really, there's only two types in hardware on the CPC, those that are 'true' push scrolling that keep pace with the player, as you've described as type 1, and those that are some sort of compromise, which I think of as 'surge scrolling' (after first reading that in a magazine years ago), but seems to have as many descriptions as people who've described it.  Which would be your type 2.

If I have understood what you mean for type 3, to me that is just a variation of type 1 where the scrolling has a delayed reaction to the players movement, but sort of 'rubber bands' to the player?  Or it has a delayed reaction to the player but generally keeps up with them?  I cant think of anything on the CPC that does that though.

I think another variation on type 1 would be one where the player is kept within a box in the centre of the screen.  The player gets to the edge of that box and it push scrolls at the pace of the player, but doesnt make any effort to centre to player when they stop moving.  I havent thought of a platform game that does that, but Bio Spheres does it in the vertical direction, although it seems like straight type 1 horizontally.

And speaking of type 1, some original CPC examples I can think of would be 5th Axis and Action Force.

For type 2, my belief is this probably comes about as a result of the course scroll step being too fast for a lot of platform games (and even R3 for some), so they've implemented the scrolling in brief 'surges' of scrolling that move faster than the player.  I was thinking about this a little while back, and it seemed to me that the things to consider were how close to the edge of the screen is the player allowed, how far does the screen scroll when they do, and does the action freeze when it's scrolling.

Games like Ghouls & Ghosts or Prehistorik 2 seem to more or less have a box in the centre of the screen that's a 3rd or so of the whole width/height, and they scroll by almost as much as a that box width, which as you've mentioned has a jarring effect if the player suddenly changes direction after triggering a scroll.  Though I'd disagree that Prehistorik 2 would have been smoother as a type 1.  (semantics perhaps?)  It's scrolling at 50fps right now, but as far as I can tell, it updates the sprites at 12.5fps, including the player.  A lower frame rate scroll that updated only when the player does would not look smoother to me, even if the scrolling was more intuitive.  It only uses one screen so I'm assuming the sprites update at that rate because it's using the border refresh to avoid flicker, and if that is the case, I'd be surprised if the player would be able to be updated at the 50fps of the scroll as it is currently.

Stryker is an interesting one.  It scrolls the whole screen when the player gets to the edge, letting the player continue, but enemies freeze, and no new enemies spawn, while the scrolling is active.  The player continues to fall if they fall off the bottom of the screen, but if they leave a screen vertically via a ladder, then the player also freezes!  I personally thought they should have stuck with flip screen for this.  Being able to walk half way through a screen without enemies & items spawning just seems strange.

Another that scrolls the whole screen is Titus the Fox.  The action freezes while it scrolls, its almost a flip screen game with a tranistion effect.

Final variation I can think of right now is Monty Python.  That has the game at 17fps I think, but freezes and scrolls 1/4 of the screen width at 50fps.  The screen size is reduced, the level sections are short and it only scrolls horizontally, not vertically (as far as I've ever got) so it looks like it avoids the screen address reset.


Bloody hell, what a nasty wall of text.  :D

Bryce

MacDeath would be proud of that post :D

Bryce.

arnoldemu

Quote from: Axelay on 15:49, 13 November 12
If I have understood what you mean for type 3, to me that is just a variation of type 1 where the scrolling has a delayed reaction to the players movement, but sort of 'rubber bands' to the player?  Or it has a delayed reaction to the player but generally keeps up with them?  I cant think of anything on the CPC that does that though.
Type 3 is just like in Edge Grinder.

Scroll moves always - it's on rails. Player is either fixed, or moves around freely.

BTW, Thankyou for your post, the games and your assessment. I really appreciate it.

It is interesting how people have chosen to implement the scrolling. Yes, it could be down to the speed of the scroll. it is something i'll investigate.

to me, it's not always about it being super smooth here, I am more "why aren't all the scrolls like 1"?

a scroll which is triggered by moving to the side and it scrolls the whole screen, to me, suits a game where you can't go backwards. movement is in one direction, here then you don't get the problem of it scrolling it all back again if you reverse direction.



My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

ivarf

 
Quote from: MacDeath on 15:29, 13 November 12
What happened to the post concerning the "cheap Z80 machine with a "joyous" rainbow on it and awful graphics on its monitor that used to have an ununderstandable success in UK thx to his price proportional to its capabilities in graphics" ?


I clicked on "like this post" and the post disappeared...
Is this some inquisition extermination team intervention or is it me, who put into oblivion what i "Like" on this forum ? :laugh:
It was my post. I made some small changes and got "edited" at the bottom. I lost the text when copying it for a new post. My error, not the system or a moderator. I had to leave the computer and had no time to write it again. Thanks for the like :)

AMSDOS


Unsure it's relevant, though kinda related so it's in the spoiier.

Spoiler: ShowHide
The other month I was trying to think of some other ways of using the Scroll Routine I came up with through LDIR and I started thinking that perhaps the problem is I'm scrolling an area I don't need to scroll so it doesn't shift things out of place, though I could add something to make it look as if an object is moving past the character onscreen. Just wondered if that was an approach games use?
* Using the old Amstrad Languages :D   * with the Firmware :P
* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

Home Computing Weekly Programs
Popular Computing Weekly Programs
Your Computer Programs
Updated Other Program Links on Profile Page (Update April 16/15 phew!)
Programs for Turbo Pascal 3

arnoldemu

Quote from: CP/M User on 08:55, 14 November 12
Unsure it's relevant, though kinda related so it's in the spoiier.

some games do that by moving stars giving the appearance of scrolling.

I think others may move things in the background, but not the entire screen to simulate?
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

Bryce

What about 2 layer scrolling, where the background scrolls at two different speeds to give a 3D depth effect? What catagory would that come under?

Bryce.

arnoldemu

Quote from: Bryce on 10:45, 14 November 12
What about 2 layer scrolling, where the background scrolls at two different speeds to give a 3D depth effect? What catagory would that come under?

Bryce.
I would call it parallax scrolling.

it would be another category (4).

A few games do this all are software scrolling:

Wizard Willy
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.

My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

sigh

Is hardware scrolling utilized in racing games? Which category would that fall into?

Axelay

Quote from: arnoldemu on 18:47, 13 November 12
BTW, Thankyou for your post, the games and your assessment. I really appreciate it.


You're welcome. 


Quote from: arnoldemu on 18:47, 13 November 12
It is interesting how people have chosen to implement the scrolling. Yes, it could be down to the speed of the scroll. it is something i'll investigate.

to me, it's not always about it being super smooth here, I am more "why aren't all the scrolls like 1"?


Thinking about the why some more, a number of games with hardware scrolls only used a single screen with no buffer, so another possible reason might be just to avoid doing too much at once, by not having to update sprites, the background tiles and even the score lines if no screen split is employed, all at once on the visible screen.  To avoid or minimize the sort of visual 'glitching' games like Roland on the Ropes displayed.  Maybe?  Or perhaps it was just simpler to do?  :)

But I'm inclined to think some of it might be down to the later prevalence of spectrum ports meaning that using hardware scrolling never really seemed to get past the 'experimental' stage.



Quote from: CP/M User on 08:55, 14 November 12
Unsure it's relevant, though kinda related so it's in the spoiier.

I think it's a fair bet that many software scrolling game you see with large amounts of blank background (or just stars) are probably only scrolling the required strips of background or moving 'objects' around rather than scrolling as such.  Commando for example, makes it seem pretty clear it has more to do the more scenery that's present by the way the frame rate takes such a hit when encountering the large runway.  Another is Nemesis, which dramatically slows down when it introduces its' cavern walls during a level.


Quote from: sigh on 15:20, 14 November 12
Is hardware scrolling utilized in racing games? Which category would that fall into?
Do you mean top down or side on 2D racing games?  Or are you thinking of the parallax backgrounds in 3D games?

sigh

Quote from: Axelay on 12:33, 15 November 12
Do you mean top down or side on 2D racing games?  Or are you thinking of the parallax backgrounds in 3D games?

The racing games such as Outrun, Chase HQ etc. Supercycle has amazing smoothness with the 3d scroll effect. I was wondering if this is hardware base?




AMSDOS

There was a simple little game which was a Type-In in Amstrad Action which I think had some Hardware Scrolling in it (using the "OUT" command?). The game I think was called "Apple Days?" or "Apple Dayze?" and the idea was Apples would randomibly fall out of the tree and you'd have to catch them in your basket. The scrolling came into play with part of the screen being obscured and as you moved your basket, the screen would move - left or right and you'd have to reach the apple in time. Was a nice game (originally played it in my 464), though I don't think it worked when I got a 6128.  :(  Haven't tried it on the Emulators.
* Using the old Amstrad Languages :D   * with the Firmware :P
* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

Home Computing Weekly Programs
Popular Computing Weekly Programs
Your Computer Programs
Updated Other Program Links on Profile Page (Update April 16/15 phew!)
Programs for Turbo Pascal 3

arnoldemu

Quote from: sigh on 18:53, 15 November 12
The racing games such as Outrun, Chase HQ etc. Supercycle has amazing smoothness with the 3d scroll effect. I was wondering if this is hardware base?
all of the racing games are done with software.
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

MacDeath

#19
Ok let's go.

There are many types of scrolling, and also many ways to generate it I guess.

=Simple Horizontal
=Simple Vertical
=Simple Diagonal (when simultaneous H+V only).
=multi directionnal scrolling : features both horizontal and vertical, sometimes enable a proper diagonal, sometimes it alternate between horizontal and vertical.

(those two are not really relevant but good to precise the difference)
=Forward scrolling : A scrolling may only goes to one direction so you can't "go back" once you advanced to a point, as often used for railroad shooters, but not only, Kharnov doesn't allow to go back per example.
=Forward and Backward scrolling : you can go back to previous screen (not possible on most railroaded shooters)

=Automatic scrolling : railroad shooters such as R-Type or Army moves 1st part.
=player/event activated scrollings : you activate the scrolling because you move the player character.

=continuous scrolling :  the player character is always at the center of the screen unless you reach the border of the level map or for some special events such as bosses.
=Flip screen : there is no scrolling, when you reach the border a new screen is generated at once. As in Gryzor.
=Flip screen scrolling : when you reach the border (or a part of the screen activating the scrolling), a scrolling is activated, scrolling the sprites too, for a whole screen or just a limited (half) distance.

=Pixel scrolling : a pixel scrolling. hard to achieve horizontally for the CPC.
=Byte scrolling : implement 1byte (=8bits), which is like 2 Mode0 pixels, 4 mode1 pixels or 8 (a whole character) mode2 pixels
=Character scrolling : implement a whole "character" at each incrementation of the scrolling.

=Paralax : multiple plans running at different scrolling rates.

=Smooth scrolling : smooth scrolling is both a pixel scrolling and a non flip-screen scrolling, often continuous scrolling too.
usually seen on C64 and consoles, rarely on CPC.
It is to notice that the Player character/sprite may activate it not just when it moves to one direction, but use a flipscreen method : the scrolling may activates only when you try to move past a point like 1/3 or 1/4 from a border (or whatever fraction). continuous means most of time that the activation point is at the 1/2 point/zone of the screen

are their any other ways ?

Examples :

=AMC : character-based multi-directionnal paralax player activated continuous scrolling.
A good example about the qualities of a square-character based engine

=Ghost and goblin : multi-directional 1byte (is it?) player activated flipscreen scrolling.

The scrolling seems to activate when you reach a point at approximately 1/3 screen of the border (for the horizontal one) and brings you back to the 1/3 point from the opposite border (unless you move while it scrolls, which brings you at the middle of the screen once the flip screen scrolling ends. It seems the game can't do real diagonal scrolling.

=Pacmania : multidirectionnal "Cavalier perspective"  player activated "smooth?" continuous scrolling.

The Cavalier perspective means the vertical scrolling is actually a diagonal scrolling.
PacMan is always at the center of the playfield.



I've heard the hardware horizontal scrolling from the CPC is 1byte only... so in Mode0 to make a smooth 1pixel scrolling you need to double buffer it and have the tileset doubled, so each tiles would feature a version with the "normal" tile and athe same tile with 1pixel shift.

To have a 1 pixel horizontal scrolling in mode1 you may need to have 4 version of the tiles I guess, and so on.

Vertical scrolling is said to be easier to generate on the Amstrad CPC... it can be done to the pixel more easily.



RaceGames (like Wec le Man) have some strange way to mix the scrollings.


Mostly the only part really scrolling is the far background (the mountains on the horizon line) who scroll horizontally (and a bit vertically sometimes.
For the road and other elements, those are mostly sprites I guess.
I the Race game features some relief effect, I guess it is quite subtle.
the "vertical" scrolling from the road could be done via Raster affects I guess.

Bryce

Yaaaeehh! MacDeath is back! It wasn't the same without your endlessly long posts. Although you stayed on-topic for the entire post?? Maybe it takes a few days before you are back to your normal self :)

Bryce.

arnoldemu

Quote from: Bryce on 14:00, 16 November 12
Yaaaeehh! MacDeath is back! It wasn't the same without your endlessly long posts. Although you stayed on-topic for the entire post?? Maybe it takes a few days before you are back to your normal self :)

Bryce.
it's exactly what I was after...

concerning comparisons, when I compare the same game on the c64, it often has much better scrolling. Yes it has pixel by pixel scroll in hardware, but the scrolling often has more care about it, somebody has bothered to make it right. When we look at the cpc, in some games, the scrolling is not good. Like they tried and gave up. It is often worse in hardware scrolling games, because of the limits that are imposed, but still I am sure, that they could have done something better.

The issues in hardware scrolling are:
1. speed of scroll - always a problem horizontally, can be made perfect in vertical.

2. the "problem" zone, where we can't do a simple increment to get the next byte to the right. e.g. c000+1->c000, c7ff+1->c800 but this is not the byte to the right when hardware scrolling, it is c000 because of the wrap around.

But then when you look at what they did in games that use hardware scrolling, you can see there are different ways to overcome the problems and to work with it. Some are done great, some are a mess.

Then, you can also look at some games that use software scroll, like galivan, and they made a complete mess here. really, it's like they just hit the keyboard until a game appeared.

the display is tiny, I think they double buffer the screen within the same 16k, 2 screens in 16k I think. But then when they do the scroll it's really bad.

Compare: Speccy port vs well programmed game
Compare: bad lazy scrolling vs nice programmed scrolling.

it's like a speccy port rant, but for amstrad scrolling.

What do I want to get out of this eventually?

Some examples of what is good, how to make it work correctly, various methods that can be used.
To try and correct some wrongs ;)
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

MacDeath

#22
That's because I'm awaiting a call for a job's answer... i'm a bit stressed. ;D

Also other aspects :

=Hardware Scrolling
=Software Scrolling

This differentiation is mostly depending to the machine and the way the coder do his program I guess.
Sometimes it may be better to use a software scrolling because no hardware scrolling is available, or because it enables different stuff.

Hardware scrollings are limited to what is implemented in the Hardware.
Software scrollings are limited to what the CPU can handle.


I think a main issue with the CPC is that they too often missed the point...

Ghost and goblin is a kool exemple of what the CPC could do quite well.

On the other Hand, Green Beret is a bad example...

The flip screen scrolling activate when you reach the point at 1/4 screen (approximately) from the border and brings you to the point at 1/4 of the opposite border.
But the games actually freeze during the scrolling sequence and the scrolling is slowpoke.
this completely screw the game in my opinion (no THAT a bad game though)

Ghost N Ghost on the other hand enables the player to continue to play (move, shoot and kill zombies and daemons) while the scrollings is activated.

Flip screen scrolling was often used on PC games and Atari ST. I is not a bad technique, just it gets bitched by Commodorks and consolefags because "muh hardware smooth scrolling".

Titus the fox is a good example of the way those 2 sort of scrollings can be used on different systems.

PC Ms-Dos : flip screen scrolling

Titus The Fox

Amiga : smoother continuous (almost) scrolling

Amiga Longplay [470] Titus The Fox: To Marrakech And Back


=464 Vs 6128 :
To benefit from 128k is good in that you can do much more tricks to buffer properly.


Also it is known that to have a screen sized with an horizontal 128pix (Mode0) or 256pix (mode1) can also help a lot.


I always wondered if it could be possible to aim at an overscaned 256pix(mode0) or 512 (mode1) horizontal sized screen.
Of course a large part of the screen wouldn't be actually displayed, but we have the 2x 256 thing.
I guess this would clearly use like 32K of VRAM anyway and slows down many things, but this would theoretically leave a good chunk of buffer and it could be possible to have some stuff outside of the view actually managed.





displayed "overscan" is something like "lets talk in Mode1) 384x272...(101118 pixels)
Displayed fullscreen is said to be like 24K (but still 2x16K banks are used)


A 256x200 screen is 51200 pixels
a 320x200 screen is 64000pixels (=16K RAM)


512x200 = 102400 pixels
512x192 = 98304 pixels ("huge" gain just to remove 1 character line)


512x200 wouldn't be that bigger than a "normal" overscan (like... 26K ?), but perhaps having this 2x256 horizontal could be of some help ?
Or is it simply impossible ?




Still I can't believe no vertical shooter was ever made using a "256x256" sized screen (Vertical fullscreen).

Bryce

Then good luck with the Job. I hope you get it.

Bryce.

MacDeath

#24
QuoteThen good luck with the Job. I hope you get it.
yeay me too, but you are getting out of topic my friend... :laugh:

bac kto topic then, Another Example.

Rastan Saga.
Looks like it is a character based engine, isn't it ?
Sprites are big and seem to be masked.
But the game is quite sluggish.

Where did it go wrong then ?
Are sprites too big ? or is it the multidirectionnal Player centered continuous scrolling ? or the screen sized in "320x200" ?

Sad because the graphics are not bad.



Also it is to notice that if Gryzor could benefit from a scrolling comparable to Ghost and Goblin, the C64 community (and speccies as well) would be butthurt to the extreme... but hey, 64K only.


Satan is a good exemple about how good a multidirectionnal scrolling can be well handled on CPC.
Thank you España !
Also graphics are excellent, but as usual the screen is somewhat small.

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod