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Hardware assisted Games (split/OT from: Path to Wizard of Wor)
Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:03 am
by beamrider
https://youtu.be/BA3HgAoJZNY
The Vic is now looking embarrassed
That sure looks accelerated though to me..
(mod: original thread is here)
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2018 11:25 am
by bills442
Goodness, that's impressive. That racing the beam style programming can do so much, if you can do it. When multiple sprites are on the same horizontal line ( I think 2600 only has 2 right? ), there is of course some flicker, but the nature of the game seems to make that not so common, so it really looks good.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 6:08 am
by hasseapa
His previous game Mappy looked even more impressive, but they are both made for a heavily upgraded Atari 2600.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:10 pm
by beamrider
I thought it was all contained within the cartridge "ROM" (?) -if so that would qualify it was working on a standard 2600 IMO.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 5:43 pm
by hasseapa
They use an enhanced version of the custom Display Processor Chip that was originally used in Pitfall II.
Here's an interview on Mappy
https://www.vintageisthenewold.com/83-a ... developer/
John: Any games before 2016 were written in 6502 assembler only. After that, I’ve been using DPC+ (or CDF, which is an enhanced version of DPC+). DPC+ is an extension of the original DPC chip that was developed by Activision and included in the Pitfall 2 game released in 1982. It basically allows you to update graphics faster and much easier, and also includes more ROM, RAM and better sound. The DPC is actually implemented using a 70mhz ARM processor, so in addition to its features, it also allows you to write game logic in C which is then executed by the ARM. All interaction with the TIA still needs to be done in 6502 assembler.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:45 am
by beamrider
Thanks, yeah as I expected.
Probably picking at straws here
but so long as it doesn't require you to open up the case and change the main board, I would say that your comment is a bit misleading. It's made for the standard 2600 - the "modding" is achieved by the game itself - a precedent set by other games back in the day e.g. pitfall as you say.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:49 am
by beamrider
I would like to see a similar technique achieved on the Vic, where the integral 6502 just draws a pre-rendered frame buffer provided by a CPU in a cartridge that has updated external memory and perhaps plays the sound effects.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 5:20 am
by Mayhem
beamrider wrote:Probably picking at straws here
but so long as it doesn't require you to open up the case and change the main board, I would say that your comment is a bit misleading. It's made for the standard 2600 - the "modding" is achieved by the game itself - a precedent set by other games back in the day e.g. pitfall as you say.
And pretty much almost the entire NES catalogue for example. Most of them had onboard chips, for bankswitching and more.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:34 am
by hasseapa
beamrider wrote:
Probably picking at straws here
but so long as it doesn't require you to open up the case and change the main board, I would say that your comment is a bit misleading. It's made for the standard 2600 - the "modding" is achieved by the game itself - a precedent set by other games back in the day e.g. pitfall as you say.
Sure, heavily
assisted would be a better choice of words.
beamrider wrote:
I would like to see a similar technique achieved on the Vic, where the integral 6502 just draws a pre-rendered frame buffer provided by a CPU in a cartridge that has updated external memory and perhaps plays the sound effects..
I would have loved to see a Pitfall II for Vic back in the days (we did not even get Pitfall) but nowadays "assisted" games do not really excite me.
Mayhem wrote:And pretty much almost the entire NES catalogue for example. Most of them had onboard chips, for bankswitching and more.
True
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:35 am
by beamrider
hasseapa wrote:
I would have loved to see a Pitfall II for Vic back in the days (we did not even get Pitfall) but nowadays "assisted" games do not really excite me.
I get that, it's kind of cheating when there's a modern RISC CPU running C code with the 6502 just spooling frames to the Vic chip. Still would be nice to see just one or two game using this approach.
Re: Path to Wizard of Wor
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 5:59 am
by hasseapa
beamrider wrote:Still would be nice to see just one or two game using this approach.
Absolutely, I would probably buy such a cartridge if the game turned out to be something really special. But I worry somewhat that it would become a new standard and devalue non-assisted games.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 11:11 am
by Ghislain
hasseapa wrote:beamrider wrote:Still would be nice to see just one or two game using this approach.
Absolutely, I would probably buy such a cartridge if the game turned out to be something really special. But I worry somewhat that it would become a new standard and devalue non-assisted games.
An interesting discussion, though. There’s even controversy regarding VIc-20 games that require 32K or even 35K expansion. I’m waiting for a 37K game myself
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:31 pm
by tokra
My limit would be what was reasonable available back in the day. So a game that needs a floppy and a 37K-expansion is ok, although it may have cost a small fortune to acquire this in 1981 (using the VIC-1020 and a 16K RAM, two 8K RAMs and two 3K RAMs). However an external RISC-processor on a cartridge that has many times the power of the VIC-20 itself I would consider cheating. The line may be blurry at times
Some people consider using a REU on the C64 cheating as it opens the possibility of DMA-transfer (1 byte per cycle) and you can get some nice effects with this. I would say this is just a sub-category of the machine.
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:27 pm
by Victragic
tokra wrote:My limit would be what was reasonable available back in the day.
I agree with this principle. No post-1984 technology and nothing that would have been impractically expensive for a single game cartridge.
However.. there's absolutely no reason why WoW couldn't be made as a 16k vic cart without any hardware 'assistance'. Just sayin'..
Re: Hardware assisted Games
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 5:23 pm
by bills442
I pretty much agree with everyone's points; although It does make me think. Someone here, or somewhere, made a wise point that anyone that even programs these old machines is doing so out of nostalgia or 'sport'. The sport comment I really loved. As a 'sport' I could see it being fascinating to abuse a 30+ year old machine as a 'terminal' or 'GPU' just to see what might be done with it, but from a nostalgia viewpoint, I have to pretty strongly side with the viewpoint of: it has to have been feasible back in the day