#CPCRetroDev 2015: Complete Results and Games

[ronaldo]

Thank you, @Prodatron. I wan't aware of the exact way in which Z80 is managed by the CPC. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm on the way .

I had a look into cpctech and found this link with similar infomation about intruction cycle rounding to microseconds, in english.

I'll have to do an indepth review of all the functions implemented for CPCtelera, but this will help me to optimize them better and give better explanation in the documentation .

Thank you, @Prodatron .

[ervin]

This thread might be very useful as well.
Craving for speed ? A visual cheat sheet to help optimizing your code to death.

[ronaldo]

Yes, it is . The Z80_CPC_Timings_cheat_sheet  made by @cpcitor is much clearer and well structured than most websites (Thanks, @cpcitor )

[Prodatron]

Thank you, @Prodatron. I wan't aware of the exact way in which Z80 is managed by the CPC. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm on the way .

You are welcome, Ronaldo!

[ronaldo]

Ok, then. I have recalculated times for the memset functions included in latest version of CPCtelera, and this are the results:

Code: [Select]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|MACRO                | TIME(us) | TIME (VSYNCs) | CODE SIZE (bytes) | INTERRUPTS |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|cpct_clearScreen     |  98331   |    4.924      |       20          |     -      |
|cpct_clearScreen_f8  |  41036   |    2.086      |       45          |  Disabled  |
|cpct_clearScreen_f64 |  33843   |    1.721      |       71          |  Disabled  |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timings have been checked with WinAPE and results are the same .

[ronaldo]

Time is running, deadline's approaching and #CPCRetroDev 2015 awards ceremony is waiting for you to show the best Amstrad CPC games to the world, and win up to 900€ 

This year, we will have the honour of counting on very experienced members as jury, comming from famous podcasts, magazines and game development enterprises. All of the members have had close contact with Amstrads and other 8-bit machines since their childhood 

You still have more than 2 months to develop your games and participate. Join us and show Amstrad's real potential to the world! 

[TFM]

Hi!


I did take a look at the rules... they say a 464 without expansions. So this means the game has to load from tape, since a drive is an expansion. Right?
On the other hand it must also run on emulators _with_ DOS. Now that's confusing! Can you clarify?

[MacDeath]

I guess some MP3 could be used as well to load, lol, this would show those student that old tech can be compatible with newer technologies to great effects (aka faster loading).


Curious to see this year's results.

[ronaldo]

I did take a look at the rules... they say a 464 without expansions. So this means the game has to load from tape, since a drive is an expansion. Right?
On the other hand it must also run on emulators _with_ DOS. Now that's confusing! Can you clarify?

I'll try to clarify the point. What rules say exactly is this:

Games submitted must work on a  real  Amstrad  CPC   464, without expansions. Games must also work on at least one of these emulators:

• WinAPE 2.0. Alpha 18, profile CPC 464 with PARADOS
• JavaCPC 2.9 with system CPC 464 (AMSDOS)

This is telling you that your game must work on the real machine and, at least, one emulator. The details from emulators are about configuration: they are telling you to test your game with a concrete configuration for the emulator, as different configurations may show different behaviours. They are not telling you that the game must run _with_ DOS.

So, your game doesn't have to relate to a specific DOS, necessarily.

[TFM]

Ok, so does it need to be a tape game? Or is a disc version accepted?

[ronaldo]

It does need to be a tape game (a CDT file) because all games submitted to the contest will be included in the tape we will produce, like the tape produced with #CPCRetroDev 2014 games.

You can also submit a DSK along with the CDT if you like, mainly for convenience when evaluating the game on emulators. However, the CDT is the valid one, as it must work on real hardware (otherwise, it couldn't be included in the tape production).

[TFM]

Thanks for clarifying this. Now even I got it. 


@Devilmarkus : Do you still have that tape loader you made for Cyber Chicken?

[ronaldo]

Here you are a post and the full video of the #CPCRetroDev 2014 Awards Ceremony.

Will you be there this year?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBkHIC9bb_g[/youtube]

[ervin]

Fantastic!!!
Thanks for uploading that ronaldo!

I'm hoping to see my game in this year's presentation!
Fingers crossed!
 

[MacDeath]

As I already told : auto-translation is quite... erratic and strange.

Spoken spanish seems to be quite some hard language for computers to understand and translate. 
Could somewhat understands bits via auto-translation in French and in english and natural Latin as a french.

Would be cool if someone could get to put a proper subbed translation in english.
Anyway can't wait for this years edition results.

Great to see those young students trying hard on such old system from another age.

Today you can barely address something with only 64k...

[EgoTrip]

Anybody who enters is guaranteed to not finish in last place, as I have submitted my entry. I know its got a snowball's chance in hell of winning but I don't care. I just want my game on the tape.

[Optimus]

Anybody who enters is guaranteed to not finish in last place, as I have submitted my entry. I know its got a snowball's chance in hell of winning but I don't care. I just want my game on the tape.

Hmm,. maybe then I should finish and submit mine, which I know I won't be able to complete properly in time and so it will be bad, so that you have a chance for the 2nd last place


p.s. I am not even sure yet about how to test with a tape or how to make CDT file. I managed to squish some 128k project to work on 64ks but DSK so far.

[ervin]

Anybody who enters is guaranteed to not finish in last place, as I have submitted my entry. I know its got a snowball's chance in hell of winning but I don't care. I just want my game on the tape.

Excellent - really looking forward to seeing your entry!
What was it developed in?

[ervin]

Hmm,. maybe then I should finish and submit mine, which I know I won't be able to complete properly in time and so it will be bad, so that you have a chance for the 2nd last place


p.s. I am not even sure yet about how to test with a tape or how to make CDT file. I managed to squish some 128k project to work on 64ks but DSK so far.

CPCTelera creates a CDT for you at compilation, and I think it uses an external tool for that.
Not sure what the tool is, but it might be helpful.

[ronaldo]

@ervin, @Optimus: CPCtelera uses 2CDT by @arnoldemu with some minimal changes. Having one or several binary files, it's quite easy to create a working CDT. Even having the DSK, you may extract files with iDSK and then insert them into CDT with 2CDT .

[Singaja]

WinAPE also does the job of extracting from DSK files.

[Optimus]

@ervin, @Optimus: CPCtelera uses 2CDT by @arnoldemu with some minimal changes. Having one or several binary files, it's quite easy to create a working CDT. Even having the DSK, you may extract files with iDSK and then insert them into CDT with 2CDT .

Then it might be easy. I can extract with ManageDSK and learn to use the 2CDT tool.
I am developing on SDCC and Pasmo for z80, among other tools.


p.s. I have an engine for the game fairly ready, but no enemy rendering/AI or gameplay yet. I'd wish I have something for the compo, but If I don't make it, at least this compo motivated me to work on some old project, and maybe finish it later next year.

[ronaldo]

This last weekend I gave a mini workshop to introduce people to CPCtelera, on jdjuanje's youtube channel
jdjuanje's youtube channel. It is in spanish, but it may be useful for some of you, so here you are .
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUGjnsrWE4k[/youtube]
I start programming at 1:45h. First part is an introduction to the CPC and to the tools CPCtelera has. The idea was to show how to start coding a simple Manic Miner. It finally went up to drawing and moving a character and having a simple menu.

[EgoTrip]

Any chance of an English version? And maybe a web version instead of a video?

[ronaldo]

I'm afraid there is no chance, @EgoTrip, unless someone is willing to invest part of his time in translating / subtitling the video. I'd love to do it, but my task list is already larger than my available time. Sorry, man.