This is a pretty cool game, if anyone is up to doing a CPC version:
Penguin Kun Wars NES - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6QY2K72NX4)
Penguin Wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Zoo)
As usual with those Japanese games, dig for the MSX version, for obvious reason it can be more easily ported...
Sadly too few MSX ports on the CPC...
PingPong ? Yie ar KungFu2 ?
MSX - Penguin Wars (1988) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2SdMht3rgw)
Why don't the video displays like it used to ?
Still waiting for am Amstrad version of Doom, a spectrum version was done so an Amstrad should be able to
Quote from: EgoTrip on 18:10, 06 April 14
This is a pretty cool game, if anyone is up to doing a CPC version:
Penguin Kun Wars NES - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6QY2K72NX4)
Penguin Wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Zoo)
A few years ago, i started a disassembly of the arcade and the msx 1 versions, but i stopped after reading in a spanish forum that somebody was making a CPC version of the second part of the game, an MSX 2 exclusive.
Quote from: SyX on 00:26, 07 April 14
A few years ago, i started a disassembly of the arcade and the msx 1 versions, but i stopped after reading in a spanish forum that somebody was making a CPC version of the second part of the game, an MSX 2 exclusive.
What did you learn? Would it be easy enough to convert to cpc?
And any news on the progress of the cpc version of the second part?
Quote from: arnoldemu on 09:30, 07 April 14
What did you learn? Would it be easy enough to convert to cpc?
Well, if i remember well is the typical msx 1 cartridge game:
1.- This games doesn't use a mapper chip, because that its 32 KBs of rom are mapped in the range $4000-$BFFF.
2.- Of course, they use bios calls for everything (read keyboard, playing music, ...); i don't remember now if even the vdp accesses were through the bios. The msx bios rom is mapped between $0000-$3FFF, and in the first $200 bytes there is jump table of JP $xxxx and of course, in $0038 the z80 interrupt handler. At contrary that in the CPC, where using the firmware is a choice when we don't need maximum speed; in the MSX the bios is the most recommendable way and the official manuals said explicitely that is the only way of being compatible with all the msx machines made for all the different manufacturers (for example, they can connect the keyboard through the PSG or no). The only hardware is accessed directly is the VDP (the msx video chip, 16 KBs of VRAM; screen resolution of 256x192 pixels using tiles of 8x8 pixels; 32 sprites of 16x16 modes, they have a zoom mode, only 4 sprites can be in the same row or the extra sprites start to disappear), but only when they need the extra speed.
3.- And as practically the 100% of japanese cartridge software only uses 8 KBs of RAM ($E000-$FFFF). The reason of this is for being compatible with the CASIO PV-7, the only MSX 1 machine with 8 KBs of RAM. Of course this machine was not supported in european tape games (usually low quality shitty speccy ports, it's not strange that there is another poor machine suffering of those :P), but all the japanese cartridge software runs perfect in it.
Those limitations of the base machine and that usually the japanese coders didn't make things too clever (even the copy protections are simply write of values over the cart address for corrupt it, in case it was loaded in RAM) help a lot to understand the code better. At the end, one of the most interesting problems is how arrange everything in the CPC RAM, we could run the msx code from the cartridge (for 8 or 16 kbs msx games a 464 could be enough) or try to extract only the useful code and encode the graphics in CPC native format for making a better CPC conversion.
I'll try to take another look and make a practical example of the first approach, with this game or Galaga or other of the smalls MSX games, i feel a mini msx bios (only calls used by the game in question) plus the vdp emulation of kv could give a nice result, only needs time :)
Quote from: arnoldemu on 09:30, 07 April 14And any news on the progress of the cpc version of the second part?
For being sincere i never read of it again, but as everybody having a big list of ideas to try, i put my project to the end of my todo list and started with other that not enter in collision with other people projects.
MSX is really a japanese machine : built like their consoles...
Hard sprites, tiles... and cartridges.
and as it is a standard with variable interpretations (= far different settings), you can't get cocky with hardware exploits and tricks that much with MSX1... As it was specified by MicroSoft, the "firmware/Bios" plays a vital part in it.
So yeah, MSX1 (and 2) can't have any smooth scrolling per exemple... because there is no hardware for that.
Still a nice machine but doesn't lead to inventive coding IMO... I guess japaneses were lost if they had to do stuffs in software and RAM.
Would have been cool if some European games company would have hired some japanese studios to develop on CPC, sending a few machines there... in the 80's.
Seems they could put on decent sounds from the AY.
Still wish the CPC had a cartridge port. :(
Also a big shame europeans never did anything beyound basic straight speccy ports on the machine.
Have some of you chekced the topic about NEC PC6000 ? ::)
Quote from: MacDeath
So yeah, MSX1 (and 2) can't have any smooth scrolling per exemple... because there is no hardware for that.
MSX2 has some registers to slide screen vertically or horizontally at 1 pixel, smooth scrolling is yet possible.
Check 1st answer thru Google: http://map.grauw.nl/articles/scrolling.php (http://map.grauw.nl/articles/scrolling.php)
MSX1, ok no HW native 1-pixel scrolling. Here come the cheaters! demo-trick or so.
(@MacDeath (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=221); we'll talk about similar tricks in front of the screen next time we meet)
Like this one, nice use of screen mode 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH6gtS_2iGM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH6gtS_2iGM)
Quote from: SyX
The only hardware is accessed directly is the VDP (...)
I'd like to add the PSG / AY (port #A1, easy to use: out register number, then out value).
Quote from: SyX
(...) 8 KBs of RAM (...)
Standard MSX says 8KB.
I know this is off-topic, but there's another "standard-like" for MSX1: 64KB of RAM.
In which case? whenever it's loaded from floppy -> it requires MSX-DOS -> MSX-DOS requires 64 KB.
Demos (which are my POI) fall in this case. Again: agreed, topic is game here, not demo.
EDIT: 64 RAM, not VRAM
@Syx: Thank you for the detailed answer. This is interesting.
@Overflow: Yes MSX2 has much better hardware, MSX2+ (Turbo??) has better still :)
The idea that these games are small and use a bios open the potential for some kind of conversion.
I may put one to the end of my todo list. There are other things that must come first of course.
Fact is that most/all japanese games on MSX1&2 couldn't feature smooth horizontal scrollings.
MSX2+ and TurboR on the other hand had those easily.
the MSX2+ can really be considered MSX3 and TurboR the MSX4.
But yeah, MSX2 could be upgraded into MSX2+ with a card.
I bet it is possible in Demo anyway of course to feature smooth scrollings with earlier MSX specs.
But Japaneses were often inventive/imaginative on gameplay and graphics, but not really adventurous with coding.
And as told they often had to use the minimum specs available for the cartridge games.
And if something wasn't implemented with specific hardware, they would simply not try to do it.
The example Overflow posted is quite simple, graphically wise... the tiles from the scrolling part of the screen are not very varied. I guess it helps.
Were the tiles stored inside the VRAM ?
Was the VRAM used for sprites as well ?
concerning the 64K VRAM :
MSX1 resolution is 256x192x1bpp
Attributes are 8x1x2 = 8pixels (X) x1pixel (Y) x 2 colours.
such heavier attributes (compared to speccy) leads to actually the same "weight" as Amstrad CPC...
Thomson computers per example used 16K for 320x200xattributes mode... yeah, same as CPC in Mode1.
being 256x192 instead of 320x200, a basic graphic background would be like 12K I guess.
I guess that to get smooth scrolling you had to multi-buffer so the 64K VRAM would be fastly used.
double buffering : 24k to easily get 4 pixels scrollings.
quadri-buffering : 48K to have 2 pixels smooth scrolling...
Or else simple tileset with pre-designed scrolling ?
Well I suppose there may be many way to get into this and I don't really know about the magic of those machines anyway.
I will read the article you linked, O(li)verflow... ;D
QuoteStandard MSX says 8KB.
I know this is off-topic, but there's another "standard-like" for MSX1: 64KB of VRAM.
yeah, so standard MSX was a 472 actually, just that having dedicated VRAM it was the sort of opposite to those CPC472 in that CPU wasn't all into the 64K stuff...
64K of VRAM barely really usable by CPUand 8K or Video-useless extra RAM... oh wait ? :D
Perhaps not so different after all.
Back to topic :
Penguin war.
The video I psoted from the MSX version seems to use the MSx2 specs.
funny the "public cheering" noises quite reminds me PingPong's one from Konami again.
I think there were some games with the same sort of gameplayon CPC already...
remember this game with a dwarf in armour kicking furry balls ?
Oh yeah, Grand mosnter SLAM...
wasn't it vapourwared on CPC ?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk9wQFy0rmI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk9wQFy0rmI#)
I think I can remember it being advertised as released on CPC but not sure.
Quote from: MacDeath on 14:38, 08 April 14
concerning the 64K VRAM
MSX1 resolution is 256x192x1bpp
Attributes are 8x1x2 = 8pixels (X) x1pixel (Y) x 2 colours.
:-[ Sorry for mistyping: msxdos requires 64kb ram, not vram. ???
Have also a look at screen mode 2:
- screen split into 3 parts, each has its own 256 chars (&1800 bytes used)
- each char may have on each line a different couple of 2 colors (&1800 bytes used)
Actually: exactly what you wrote as attributes. :)
TMS99x8 can address 16K Vram , it uses 16K on MSX.The mode II can look graphicaly great (look at some Konami games for example) event it is character based.Its only flaw on my point is its too limited palette.
Quote from: Overflow on 08:05, 08 April 14I'd like to add the PSG / AY (port #A1, easy to use: out register number, then out value).
Yes and for us that should be the native way, but a lot of japanese games use the bios call $0093 (WRTPSG) instead of making those OUTs, crazy? jejeje.
Even there is an spanish game, Temptations that the music player use the I/O port (i feel was ported from CPC code) and the in game sounds use the bios call, jejeje.
Quote from: Overflow on 08:05, 08 April 14
Standard MSX says 8KB.
The standard says the minimum ram was 16 KBs, you can take a look in the page 11 of the MSX Technical Data Book (http://www.tabalabs.com.br/msx/msx_tech_hb/msxtech_tabalabs.pdf) and that is the strange thing, that Casio PV-7 is out of the standard, but the japanese cartridge games are designed for working in even that under-msx :P
@SyX (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=324) & others
Interesting information (... on a forum dedicated to CPC? 8) )
I'm a MSX newbie since I've seen the nice screen from Teodoro (then converted to Amstrad).
Same cpu and psg, no NOP-cycles but have to take care of T-cycles, only 8 registers for the video chip...
so little power and so few possibilities that I found fun to buy one and try some demo fx on it! ;D
As Arnoldemod wrote, put on bottom of my todo-list -> go on with MSX coding
Not really that much out of topic, as the topic is about a game with a notorious MSX version that may be ported on CPC...
I like the philisophy of the "enterprise" scene were all is centered around the way to port CPC and speccy on their machines.
CPC suffered from bad cases of speccy ports. MSX too.
Now we can try to correct history errors with "proper" Speccyports (see R-Type128) and perhaps correct MSX ports form those great MSX japanese cartridges.
:laugh:
Despite many critics, the spanish can sometimes show us nice multi-platform games, like Zombi monsters or Teodoro...
But please do more 128K RAM games... ;D