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avatar_Gryzor

Rick Dangerous 128+!!!!

Started by Gryzor, 07:59, 12 November 09

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Cholo

Quote from: fano on 06:37, 08 January 10
Sadly R-Type is an awfull straight speccy port  :'(

The original speccy code seems untouched and instead of having a spectrum hardware , we have some code to emulate this hardware.This is not an image , speccy hardware behaviour is really emulated  :o
For example , when rendering an objet , the 1bit graphics are previously copied into pixel buffer (like spectrum) but CPC have to convert it to 2bits and to copy to screen buffer (that speccy hardware does)

This is a miracle it is not slower  :(
Counter part , it shows the power of the CPC as it emulates Speccy to run this game  :P
That is impressive. I always sought that when making a speccy port, they would convert everything (gfx, sprites, audio) first to amstrad standards and then had to rewrite the "game script" to amstrad codes/format. Indeed isnt odd that the game runs that slow then having to do all the converting on the spot.

Feels a bit like a wasted opportunity. Today it dosnt really matter as we have many speccy emulators, but what if there had been some official "speccy emulator"-devkit back in the day? I know we didnt really like the speccy ports back then, but it would have made the whole scene different. There are so many spec games that never saw a amstrad release (port or not) .. had there been a "kit" of some sort they could have made the whole business larger for both spec and amstrad.

I know i know .. it really wouldnt have worked back then. Today we are all about open source and everyone knows everything because of the net. But back then it was all about being protective of everything.

fano

I think they were more working using cross devellopement.A team can work on a spectrum version that is the bigger market for UK and they used someone ( Keith A GOODYER here , he made a great job anyway ) to adapt the game to CPC as the processor target is the same so major part of the code had not to be rewritten.

There is another awfull thing i noticed about R-Type  , there is a big hole in the middle of the memory from #4000 to #5800 (yes, 6K on 64K machine , it's huge).This memory seems unused , maybe that is used on Speccy but here , it seems not.I'll ask about memory mapping for this zone at world of spectrum.

Counter part, a pure CPC version would need more work (and less money for software makers) and some things would be stripped in a 64K version (not sure if you count the '6K hole').
"NOP" is the perfect program : short , fast and (known) bug free

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MacDeath

#77
Strange.

Because Video Ram on the Speccy is...6Ko...

they emulated it and yet even didn't used it's video ram ?

palmface.jpg


Another detail : the drone/shield module : it doesn't respond well on CPC while work a bit better on Speccy.
It is that the faster process allows a better management or is it simply that it wasn't well implemented ?

Yet it may be a good new. 6Ko free mayu be well used.

er....It may have been the intro page ?
Amstrad's one was clearly ported from the Speccy yet use Mode0.
so of course it do not emulate Speccy.
But on speccy such screen may be of 6Ko size...
So they removed it, put a big Mode0 screen and put it elsewhere because 16Ko don't fit in 6Ko...sort of.

On the other hand, they really could have ported a bit more from c64 for this.

arnoldemu

Quote from: fano on 20:02, 10 January 10
I think they were more working using cross devellopement.A team can work on a spectrum version that is the bigger market for UK and they used someone ( Keith A GOODYER here , he made a great job anyway ) to adapt the game to CPC as the processor target is the same so major part of the code had not to be rewritten.

There is another awfull thing i noticed about R-Type  , there is a big hole in the middle of the memory from #4000 to #5800 (yes, 6K on 64K machine , it's huge).This memory seems unused , maybe that is used on Speccy but here , it seems not.I'll ask about memory mapping for this zone at world of spectrum.

Counter part, a pure CPC version would need more work (and less money for software makers) and some things would be stripped in a 64K version (not sure if you count the '6K hole').
#4000-#5800 is the location of speccy screen ram.
#5800... is the speccy colour attribute block
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

fano

Quote from: arnoldemu on 10:54, 11 January 10
#4000-#5800 is the location of speccy screen ram.
#5800... is the speccy colour attribute block
Thx Kevin ! were missing elements for my theory  ;)
"NOP" is the perfect program : short , fast and (known) bug free

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ervin

Hi all.

I'm having a lot of trouble getting Rick Dangerous 128+ to run.
I'm able to load Executioner's fabulous version of Frogger for the plus machines, and Robocop 2 runs fine. But Rick+ gives me this:



Can anyone help?

fano

Hello !

Very simple, check 'Plus PPI' emulation.
The program uses the PPI bug to check if the machine is a +
"NOP" is the perfect program : short , fast and (known) bug free

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ervin

Fantastic! It works!
Thanks for your help.

Now I can finally check out your excellent work.

Gryzor

Quote from: ervin on 05:39, 12 January 10
Fantastic! It works!
Thanks for your help.

Now I can finally check out your excellent work.


...and it is indeed. I guarantee you'll have much fun :)

fano

Just a question for people who played it on a real Plus or on Winape.Random crashes have been reported , Did you experiment that (typically the game stays freezed) ? please precise target in this case (CPC+ or Winape) and if you've been able to reproduce them.
"NOP" is the perfect program : short , fast and (known) bug free

Follow Easter Egg products on Facebook !

TFM

Quote from: fano on 09:33, 22 April 10
Just a question for people who played it on a real Plus or on Winape.Random crashes have been reported , Did you experiment that (typically the game stays freezed) ? please precise target in this case (CPC+ or Winape) and if you've been able to reproduce them.

Had NO crash up to now with WinApe, but must play more often ;-)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

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