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#21
I was doing some more coding the other day with Primal (my kernel) and had an interesting problem - that was, with my current memory routines how to deal with 4mb+ RAM to access all 256 16kb blocks plus internal memory with a single byte. I came up with a solution, I now have 3 heaps - An application heap, a system heap and a buffers heap. keeping the API currently almost as it was, I added a Heap selector which lets me change heaps then use the other APIs like bankselect etc... for 4mb+ systems, I gave 3mb+ to applications, and 512kb to system and buffers each. For 2mb+ systems, half that, until down to 128kb systems (that's 64kb extra ram - so 128kb total), they only have the 3 heaps are merged. This sharing of heaps as a fallback works extremely well on paper at least - meaning if there is an abundance of RAM, the system can guarantee it's own RAM and RAM for buffers, but if there is not much RAM, they fall back to a single heap where it's more a typical CPC program (shared space for program, jumpblock, buffers). The loader now defaults to working with unexpanded 464 or 664 and gives about 35kb available shared after the kernel is loaded no longer requiring an expanded memory driver. I'm not yet overwriting the firmware jumpblock - but in time I will to use all RAM up to #C000. But I also created a virtual memory variant for unexpanded machines which gives 1 x 64kb+ heap and 2 x 64kbMemory heaps - which will work fine on M4 or other Mass Storage - obviously not useable for Tapes or Floppy Discs. This Virtual Memory isn't best for expanded machines but of course will work... a more intelligent virtual memory version would be best, that is to use a LIFO model for swapping files into physical expansion RAM - maybe in future I will code this.
Actually I could create a 4th pseudo-heap which is like a reserved, do not use heap - so that if someone was e.g. using an AMSDOS RAM expansion, we can not corrupt it, but
Next. to recode my Malloc (SysHeapAlloc) and Free (SysHeapFree) to use a better system than the slow iterate through banks, then iterate through lists - it takes quite a bit of time (fractions of a second though) to find a free block after e.g. 500 filled blocks.
I'm going to reinvestigate my RAT (RAM Allocation Table idea) - I think that is likely best, it's definitely the fastest, but it does have byte-aligned blocks which are the minimum memory allocation size even if you want smaller.
It isn't runnable yet, some code can be stepped through.
Latest Coding Status here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14JQa3cTEd9fIz9lyoQRkzVc5xBz5FhEdr_DC41xPkJs/edit?usp=sharing
Actually I could create a 4th pseudo-heap which is like a reserved, do not use heap - so that if someone was e.g. using an AMSDOS RAM expansion, we can not corrupt it, but
Next. to recode my Malloc (SysHeapAlloc) and Free (SysHeapFree) to use a better system than the slow iterate through banks, then iterate through lists - it takes quite a bit of time (fractions of a second though) to find a free block after e.g. 500 filled blocks.
I'm going to reinvestigate my RAT (RAM Allocation Table idea) - I think that is likely best, it's definitely the fastest, but it does have byte-aligned blocks which are the minimum memory allocation size even if you want smaller.
It isn't runnable yet, some code can be stepped through.
Latest Coding Status here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14JQa3cTEd9fIz9lyoQRkzVc5xBz5FhEdr_DC41xPkJs/edit?usp=sharing
#22
Why is it so dark? It's almost impossible to see what on earth is actually going on.
#23
Quote from: VincentGR on Yesterday at 14:51They/Them obviouslyQuote from: Gryzor on Yesterday at 14:45Ohhh, I see. And the car, what about the car?Quote from: VincentGR on Yesterday at 14:42What's wrong with a pretty girl and a great car on a picture...Who told you she/he/it/@ is a girl, how dare you presume
#24
Quote from: Gryzor on Yesterday at 14:45Ohhh, I see. And the car, what about the car?Quote from: VincentGR on Yesterday at 14:42What's wrong with a pretty girl and a great car on a picture...Who told you she/he/it/@ is a girl, how dare you presume
#25
Quote from: VincentGR on Yesterday at 14:42What's wrong with a pretty girl and a great car on a picture...Who told you she/he/it/@ is a girl, how dare you presume
#26
What's wrong with a pretty girl and a great car on a picture...
#27
Hmmm reminds me of a certain other title... But looks really nice!
Indeed I think it would work on the CPC...
Indeed I think it would work on the CPC...
#28
Quote from: andycadley on Yesterday at 09:58And the Amiga and ST ports seem very weak too.Well the Atari version isn't spectacular, but looks nice and easier (?). The Amiga version looks much more impressive but it's like they tried to do a SotB clone instead and it ends up being really weird.
#29
Ouch! My bad... It's only zoomed it. I wasn't expecting AMC to have this "panoramic view" on the CPC.
It's still a bad idea because it makes the game looks worse (mode 0 is not good for this) and it doesn't really show the actual CPC display, which goes against the comparison of the video.
I find the music a bit too melancholic, an issue that affects quite a few action computer games from that era. It's not as bad as in Target: Renegade, where you want to cry instead of beating up thugs, but it's still not ideal for the style of game.
The Spectrum graphics are just fantastic. Spanish programmers really mastered this machine. They managed to make many of these games with a black background and a few basic colors carefully combined for the sprites better than games for superior machines.
I'm not into Contra games, so I haven't played this much. And yes, the lack of a jumping animation makes the game feel much "cheaper" than it deserves.
It's still a bad idea because it makes the game looks worse (mode 0 is not good for this) and it doesn't really show the actual CPC display, which goes against the comparison of the video.
I find the music a bit too melancholic, an issue that affects quite a few action computer games from that era. It's not as bad as in Target: Renegade, where you want to cry instead of beating up thugs, but it's still not ideal for the style of game.
The Spectrum graphics are just fantastic. Spanish programmers really mastered this machine. They managed to make many of these games with a black background and a few basic colors carefully combined for the sprites better than games for superior machines.
I'm not into Contra games, so I haven't played this much. And yes, the lack of a jumping animation makes the game feel much "cheaper" than it deserves.
#30
Xenomorph is a new game for Commodore Amiga made in Redpill. It was presented at PosadasParty2025 in the HomebrewGames category.
I wish I had this game on Amstrad
https://demozoo.org/productions/374194/
I wish I had this game on Amstrad
https://demozoo.org/productions/374194/