As a (lazy) ARM coder I have developed what I believe is a good 'generated code sprites' generator.
I would like to know which solutions you chose on the ST and later machine with faster CPUs, and the Falcon (with its chunky modes).
My technique and ideas for the Archies are described here :
http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewto ... s+plotting and the links provided in the thread.
Please note the Archimedes uses chunky modes, linear, so what happens is that the memory controler on the Archimedes reads sequentially, under DMA, the memory space defined as memory screen, sends this data to the VIDC (video controler) which outputs them.
My routines use mode 13, it is the 320 x 256, 8 bits per pixel screen mode on the Acorn Archimedes.
Thanks for your comments, it will be highly appreciated.
I think I have re invented the wheel and it has all been done already on the ST ; but if, who knows, that wasn't the case, I would be more than happy to give even more details to some programmers out there to port the technique to the ST.
Please note : this thread isn't intended to start a 'My machine is much better than yours'.
Contrary to the other well known other 68000 machine at the time, I do praise the ST for being the 1st available, ultracheap, and gifted with many games and great apps, and easy to use.
You might need to know the following on the Archie :
- There are no memory to memory transfer instructions in the ARM2 (early generation of Archies) instructions set : it is always memory to register or register to memory
- The ARM2 can only deal with :
+ 32 bit words or series of consecutive 32 bit words (1 register (1 time 4 bytes) ; n registers (n times 4 bytes) )
with the LDR / STR and LDM / STM (load / store register and load / store multiple registers)
or
+ one byte
with LDRB / STRB (load / store one byte).
As I said earlier maybe my technique can be of interest, most probably for the Falcon becuse it uses chunky modes.
Before giving you more infos I'd like to know if there is some interest, and as I do not see the interest of reposting everything here, I give you some links to listen to, or read, to know more.
https://youtu.be/2gr2YhaXYsk Steve Harrison presenting his raster manager and then me trying to explain my sprites routines
Then you have the link I gave at the beginning to the stardot forum ... sorry for the not so good English.
http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewto ... s+plotting
Links validated.