Porting SOTB to the Falcon

[Zarchos]

Hi all.

Currently working on a port to the Acorn Archimedes, I'd like to team with one or several Falcon coders to port SOTB to the Falcon too.
Using chunky hi res mode.
This way by sharing the code I have already developped for the Archie version, I believe it could be a win-win deal :
- I'd know more about 68030 and DSP programming
- the Falcon coders would discover or know more about ARM coding.

It could be the beginning of a series of ports for both machines, as I have some other projects after SOTB.
Some involve enhancing 3D games existing on the Archies. It could be the occasion to port them to the Falcon.
I am thinking in particular about Chocks Away, which to me is a superb game with fabulous gameplay.
My goal is to enhance the filling routines, have some more fancy graphics, increase the resolution to overscan 384 x 288, and create extra levels
with more baddies.

Please pm if interested.
Of course if you help me with the Falcon coding, I will include this machine in the list of target machines for future games development.

[joefish]

Surely it'd be a lot easier to do SotB in bitplane mode? The Amiga playfield graphics would port straight across.

[marss]

excellent move

[Zarchos]

Surely it'd be a lot easier to do SotB in bitplane mode? The Amiga playfield graphics would port straight across.

Probably but then forget the 16 bit mode on the Falcon as it is chunky only.
The Archie only uses chunky mode, and well I know how my version works and source is already heavily commented.
For a Falcon with 14 Mbytes of RAM the port should be straightforward (I could 1st adapt my code to the RISC PC in 16 bit colour mode, that would make the port to the Falcon even easier).

That's up to you.
It would be a pity the Archie, the RISC PC, and the Q68 (a very fast Sinclair QL compatable with hi res chunky modes and lots of memory among other exciting features. And really cheap to top it off) have a port, and not the Falcon ;-(

Come on ! Let's join forces and share our respective knowledge of our machines.
That would pave the way for future multiplatform productions.
I have always believed in the Acorn - Atari alliance to defeat the evil who-you-know (said platform I swear I will never ever produce anything for).
I must admit I admire the Falcon : to me it is a really powerful computer, and I'd really like to spend some time coding on it.
Getting to know it thanks to Atari coders sharing their knowledge with me would of course help a lot for the future.

[EvilFranky]

OK I get why as a technical demonstration this would be a cool thing to do.

But honestly, the game is utter dog crap! Why not save yourself the effort and maybe only port the main part of SOTB as a proof of concept and leave it at that?

You'll prove your point and save yourself any additional effort on porting an awful game.

[Zarchos]

OK I get why as a technical demonstration this would be a cool thing to do.

But honestly, the game is utter dog crap! Why not save yourself the effort and maybe only port the main part of SOTB as a proof of concept and leave it at that?

You'll prove your point and save yourself any additional effort on porting an awful game.

Porting and enhancing it to make it more than a tech demo : it is the goal
At least the eerie forest level, as it is the 'only-my-amoeba-with-its-gpu[laughters]-and-zillions-of-DMAs-I-am-not-even-able-to-tell-U-how-it-works-can-do-it[SIGHS]' bit that really always made me roll on the floor laughing, knowing what an Archie can really do.(And note I 1st try the 100% software solution, then there will be the solution using the raster manager, where I believe everything will run at least 30% faster)

With the power of a Falcon, it would be even funnier and easier to get a hi res version, I believe.

[EvilFranky]

Porting and enhancing it to make it more than a tech demo : it is the goal
At least the eerie forest level, as it is the 'only-my-amoeba-with-its-gpu[laughters]-and-zillions-of-DMAs-I-am-not-even-able-to-tell-U-how-it-works-can-do-it[SIGHS]' bit that really always made me roll on the floor laughing, knowing what an Archie can really do.(And note I 1st try the 100% software solution, then there will be the solution using the raster manager, where I believe everything will run at least 30% faster)

With the power of a Falcon, it would be even funnier and easier to get a hi res version, I believe.

Well good luck, if that's your goal

[mikro]

I'm no expert on SOTB but why exactly would you port a game for machine having 32 colours of 4096 and insist of using resolution of 65536 colours? Wouldn't be more logical to choose a project which would fully utilise Falcons's graphics and sound capabilities? Anyway, I'm with EvilFranky, apart from wasting Falcon's memory bus, the game is super boring and would fall asleep while porting it. ;-)

[Zarchos]

I'm no expert on SOTB but why exactly would you port a game for machine having 32 colours of 4096 and insist of using resolution of 65536 colours? Wouldn't be more logical to choose a project which would fully utilise Falcons's graphics and sound capabilities? Anyway, I'm with EvilFranky, apart from wasting Falcon's memory bus, the game is super boring and would fall asleep while porting it.

Among my good resolutions for 2018 there was this one :
'I shall not answer provocative and / or stupid questions by people who speak about topics they don't know anything about, and I shall superbly ignore them, as the trolls they are'.

[mikro]

Right, what do I know about coding, porting or the Falcon for that matter. I was genuinely interested, mate. But whatever, I hope you prove me all wrong with your project.

[Zarchos]

Right, what do I know about coding, porting or the Falcon for that matter. I was genuinely interested, mate. But whatever, I hope you prove me all wrong with your project.

Criticising without even knowing SOTB (your statement) on the Amiga or enhanced systems like the FM towns and wondering why hi res mode would bring something was pure provocation.
I can live without your knowledge of the Falcon guts, as I can even put aside developping on the Falcon, believe me.
Reading between the lines you were just patronising me, and flaming the topic.
A very bad idea.
I am not in a mood.

[mikro]

WTF man...

[Sturm]

Never miss a good chance to shut up. In case you didn't know, Mikro did the "Starstruck demo" Falcon port, amongst others. He could have been of great help, i'm sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nnW8JvtMko

With such aggressive manners, why do you even try to get some help from the community ?

[simonsunnyboy]

I love the idea of porting some Amiga stuff to Archie and Falcon but honestly SOTB is a crap game. Why not pick something really missing on the platforms?

Wing Commander?

[Zarchos]

Hey guys you know what ?
The Falcon is going to leave the desk to free some more room for the Archies and the Q68.

@Sturm : I was not trying to get some 'help' and whatever 'God' your Mikro can be, he is not among those I worship.
(I have watched the demo, well, having a 060 and a DSP to produce that, it doesn't impress me).
Don't expect me to 'shut up', then.
The Falcon means nothing to me : just another machine in my collection I got a month ago.
A superb machine I never ever used and it is going to stay like that.
Anyway I understand why STOB in hi res mode is not sthing you'd like to help produce : due to the slow bus of the Falcon it would never be 50 fps.
ROTFL.

[shoggoth]

Hey guys you know what ?
The Falcon is going to leave the desk to free some more room for the Archies and the Q68.

@Sturm : I was not trying to get some 'help' and whatever 'God' your Mikro can be, he is not among those I worship.
(I have watched the demo, well, having a 060 and a DSP to produce that, it doesn't impress me).
Don't expect me to 'shut up', then.
The Falcon means nothing to me : just another machine in my collection I got a month ago.
A superb machine I never ever used and it is going to stay like that.
Anyway I understand why STOB in hi res mode is not sthing you'd like to help produce : due to the slow bus of the Falcon it would never be 50 fps.
ROTFL.

That says a lot more about you than about the other posters. You need to grow up a bit, dude. Get some perspective. Take some time, contemplate, learn from it.

[christos]

Also, there are so many sotb demo screens for the ST we have outgrown it as a community. It is a very badly designed game tha cant be fixed by altering a few things here and there.
Also zarchos you really need to stop taking every criticism as a personal attack. That's just silly.

[Zippy]

There was a nice horizontal parallax scrolling game I had on my A3000 but I can't remember the name or find anything like it on youtube now. It didn't have as much parallax as SOTB but it was a nice example of what could be done. If I remember the name I'll post a link, I think I might even have the original disk somewhere... it was the only game I saw with disk protection on the Archimedes and the only game I hacked on it.

[Zippy]

I remembered that old game now... Enter the Realm! It's similar to SOTB:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_fVM6DJ-n8

[CiH]

Hey guys you know what ?
The Falcon is going to leave the desk to free some more room for the Archies and the Q68.

There's no stamina or artistry these days.

Back in the day, we would have been teased with constant updates, maybe the odd tantalising screenshot. Possibly even a pre-pre-preview version of whatever it was to download, before the "Screw you guys, I'm off home!" Ceremonial throwing of the toys out of the pram.

These days? The topic is barely a couple of days old, and we've climaxed with the denouemont already. No stamina, like I said!

Disclaimer - I am a bad person who is probably going to hell.

[Eero Tamminen]

I'm wondering how ambitious this project is. Are we talking about the 1989 or 2016 (Unreal Engine v4) version of the SOTB?

[mrbombermillzy]

Zarchos: If it was me doing something like this, I would do it for my own amusement/pleasure. Obviously some people here dont like SOTB, but dont let it get in the way. You are never going to have everyone like the game you pick to convert.

Just dont take it personally. Go for it! And for extra respect, write the sprite routines using the DSP!

Also, if youre going to write to different systems (which is what it looks like) then possibly code most of the non critical stuff in C. This could save you having to completely re-write code for each system.

Theres a basic C library that covers the Atari ST, TT, Falcon, Amiga OCS, AGA and DOS PC. I compiled some little moving character demo in about 2 hrs without much problem. You will probably have to extend the library a bit though as its missing a few essentials.

If you are interested, I can dig out the library...Ive actually forgotten the name of it now! lol

[joefish]

Yeah, I know nothing about playfields, so I'm just going to avoid this discussion by running away to the right...

[wongck]

If you are interested, I can dig out the library...Ive actually forgotten the name of it now! lol

most likely "Graphics Library for 'C' Beginners" or just GLCB.ZIP as found in most FTP sites.

[mrbombermillzy]

@wongck: yep. Thats it!