Dune II / OpenDUNE for Falcon (and TT)

[nanard]

Plays great on my falcon (no music I assume as goes to midi?). But it's basically in a letterbox at the top of the screen - should this be the case?!

yes the music goes to midi.
What's your screen setup ? (VGA ?). The game tries to initialize a 320x200 (or 240) 256color screen.
You can try to change screen resolution before launching the game to see if things improves.

[Mr.JT]

Thanks. Yes VGA setup. Tried a few different resolution setups but didn't seem to make a difference... Hmm...!?

[nanard]

you're using version from https://github.com/OpenDUNE/OpenDUNE/releases/tag/0.8 right ?

I think I may have forgotten to set double line bit in VsetMode() call :
https://github.com/OpenDUNE/OpenDUNE/bl ... ari.c#L132

[Mr.JT]

Yes - 0.8... (But same occurred for pre 0.8 as I tried that one too)?

[nanard]

Yes - 0.8... (But same occurred for pre 0.8 as I tried that one too)?

please try with this version http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/OpenDUNE ... 160930.zip and tell me if it fixes the issue.

[Mr.JT]

It works! There's still a small unused portion (about a 1/5th) of the screen at the bottom, but nothing worth worrying about - this is so much better! Thanks. (Under Magic that section had some video distortion in it, but under clean TOS it's just black)

I noticed one other bug yesterday - after completing the first mission it froze, but that may have been due to Magic. I'll play through later in TOS and confirm for you.

Great work btw! Command and Conquer next?!?

[Mr.JT]

No issue with progressing past first level completion either under TOS. (Freezes on high score entry under Magic).

[nanard]

I have optimized screen refresh (which need a c2p...) and fixed some bugs. That should benefit to 16Mhz Falcon users
http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/opendune ... fx-TOS.zip

[Xerus]

This new version is really faster, good job

Thank you

[dhedberg]

Wow! I had totally missed out on this one. Will try it out tonight! Thanks for the port!

[I_am_I]

Indeed, gameplay is much smoother now.
Great job!
Thanks for your efforts.

[LaurentS]

Yes, thanks a lot for this new release.
Great game for our falcon.

Regards

[jvas]

Tried this on a TT, works fine so far.
I have this in the "error.log" file: "Useless GFX_SetPalette() call" (happens a lot)

How to overcome the copy protection after the first level?

[Xerus]

How to overcome the copy protection after the first level?

You can download the manual here: http://hol.abime.net/440/manual

[nemodhs]

Yup, runs noticeably smoother now. Thanks a lot for the release!

[nanard]

Tried this on a TT, works fine so far.
I have this in the "error.log" file: "Useless GFX_SetPalette() call" (happens a lot)

that's a warning message.
It looks like the original Dune II game had some minor bugs

[MM41]

Thanks Nanard for this new version , tried on TT and Falcon

[Estrayk]

I have optimized screen refresh (which need a c2p...) and fixed some bugs. That should benefit to 16Mhz Falcon users
http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/opendune ... fx-TOS.zip

Hello nanard, I've captured from my real Falcon 16Mhz. (VGA) So, you can see the real speed.
good work mate! It is much smoother now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On5hwfO_RyY

[nanard]

what a shame Atari didn't include a 256color chunky mode in the videl !

[dhedberg]

Yes. The 65k TC mode is a bit too heavy for the Falcon. 65k colors in low resolution is a bit overkill as well. Doesn't make much sense. Take basically any image and show it in 320x240 and you'll not have anywhere near 65k colors on screen. Gives you some freedom when pixeling but an 8-bit chunky mode would have been preferred if you ask me or why not both?

[mikro]

To me it always looked like some artificial addition -- they basically took the planar modes (more or less everything the TT could already do) and got this idea / hack / proof of concept running in high colour. Worked, cool, let's add it, no time for anything else. For instance you can still (somewhat) control the background with $ff9800 even in high colour. Also when you look at Videl's registers, typically $ff8266 (SPSHIFT), it's quite chaotic and half-baked.

Gladly we have the SuperVidel now. :)

[MacFalcon]

I like that port! Just installed it today

[Eero Tamminen]

Tried it with EmuTOS under Hatari TT & Falcon emulations. Works fine and I like the MIDI music!

(For those using Hatari on OSX or Windows instead of Linux, Latest Hatari version supports now MIDI output also on OSX & Windows.)

I had basic GEMDOS tracing enabled while starting the game ("--trace os_base"), and couldn't help noticing that the game:

• Opens & closes same files many times, although all relevant file content should fit into RAM (14+64MB)
• In the startup menu screen, does constantly this (the opened file was created by the game, and empty):
  

  Code: Select all

  GEMDOS 0x3D Fopen("SAVES\ONETIME.DAT", read-only) at PC=0xFA002A
-> FD 65 (read-only -> read-only)
GEMDOS 0x3E Fclose(65) at PC 0xFA002A

As a result, most of the cycles in the startup menu are used by File_Exists_Ex() and things that it calls (File_Open() etc).

When the actual game is running, gui/viewport.c code takes a surprising amount if cycles.

PS. I like that the binaries aren't stripped so that they can be profiled & debugged in Hatari.

[nanard]

about ONETIME.DAT, I will have a look, indeed I think it can be optimized
https://github.com/OpenDUNE/OpenDUNE/bl ... une.c#L690

Dune II was designed to run on low memory PCs (640k should be enough for everyone !) and there is no point in loading everything at start.
Loading happens before starting the level.

There is many data files which are packed in ".PAK" files. the current code opens and close the .PAK file fore each included file opens. I think that could be optimized as well

[nanard]

@Eero Tamminen
I have build a new version with fopen/fclose optimizations :
http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/opendune ... es-TOS.zip

about the viewport, the game redraw the minimap constantly. If you have any idea for optimizing...