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Tech and Homebrew => Turbo/PCE Game/Tool Development => Topic started by: nodtveidt on November 14, 2012, 08:58:23 PM
Title: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 14, 2012, 08:58:23 PM
So I'm wondering how feasible it is to invest massive amounts of time in a game designed for the arcade card... do enough people have them to make it worthwhile?
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Bernie on November 14, 2012, 09:21:23 PM
Im sure its worth while. And for people that do not have them, is it possible to just make it bi-compatible like some of the PCE games?
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 14, 2012, 09:37:56 PM
I've run the calculations many times now and it seems impossible with the regular system RAM if everything is included that I want in it... it'd be like trying to squeeze Sapphire into regular system RAM... just not gonna happen unless tons of stuff is cut from the design.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Bernie on November 14, 2012, 09:40:55 PM
I've run the calculations many times now and it seems impossible with the regular system RAM if everything is included that I want in it... it'd be like trying to squeeze Sapphire into regular system RAM... just not gonna happen unless tons of stuff is cut from the design.
ahhh, ok. :) Not sure then. For those of us with Arcade Cards, it would be awesome. But, I suspect a lot of people arent going to want to buy a card AND the game. Suck, cause that may leave you with a lot of extra product. But then again, who knows.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 14, 2012, 09:54:43 PM
I'd really have to strip it down to make it work with the normal system RAM, and that would really suck. :( The big issue is graphics... it uses a lot of large sprites. If this was a hucard, it'd be at least 64mbit, if not larger, and would have to use banking a la SFII'. And yes, I'm talking about the monstrous RPG here... in case you were wondering. If I put all of those graphics in the ACD RAM banks, the game will work fine, well within spec.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Black Tiger on November 14, 2012, 11:54:32 PM
Arcade Cards are cheap and plentiful. There is no excuse for anyone not to have one. If a game is massive enough to require the Arcade Card, then people will line up to buy it. Plus, like half the sales of any game will be collectors who have no intention of ever unsealing the game anyway. Noobs are always complaining about how it's way too expensive to play PCE CD games at all. What's another <$50 on top of their $150 - $300 "investment"? It would be different if you were making a unique system card to go with a CD game (like Games Express) and the combo would retail for $200 or something.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: TheClash603 on November 14, 2012, 11:56:16 PM
Go for it! All homebrew games should be ACD, lets boost the library!
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Lost Monkey on November 15, 2012, 12:30:45 AM
I think the demographics of people wanting homebrew would have a lot of overlap with people owning an arcade card.
On the other hand, a good ACD homebrew game would possibly drive the price of the ACD through the roof, in which case it might not be a bad idea to develop homebrew ACD hardware.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Nando on November 15, 2012, 01:26:27 AM
It would be different if you were making a unique system card to go with a CD game (like Games Express) and the combo would retail for $200 or something.
Are there any Knock-off system cards around? That work for all games?
Pardon the ignorance here but would it be possible to create a compatible sys card with the Arcade specs? not taking into consideration costs or anything like that, just curious.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: BigusSchmuck on November 15, 2012, 01:51:56 AM
Well before we get too carried away with this, two questions: Do we have any idea on how many arcade cards were made? Is it possible to reproduce them if we needed to have more?
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 15, 2012, 01:55:41 AM
Just going to throw it out there that no, its not worth f*cking around.
For the amount of effort you would have to invest, you are limiting your target audience significantly...
assuming you get everything done and working.
I don't advise blowing time on it
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Black Tiger on November 15, 2012, 02:25:32 AM
Well before we get too carried away with this, two questions: Do we have any idea on how many arcade cards were made? Is it possible to reproduce them if we needed to have more?
I think that the more important questions are:
How many copies of any one Turbo/PCE game have been sold (or more to the point, how many single people bought copies since many by multiples)?
How many people who actually play homebrew games actually play them on real hardware exclusively?
If an ACD game is going to be sold for $30 - $40, then the cost of buying an Arcade Card if you need one only brings the overall cost near the rapidly selling retail price of Pier Solar. But if the hope is that as many as one thousand people will buy the game, I don't think that the supply of Arcade Cards will be an issue.
It would be different if you were making a unique system card to go with a CD game (like Games Express) and the combo would retail for $200 or something.
Are there any Knock-off system cards around? That work for all games?
Pardon the ignorance here but would it be possible to create a compatible sys card with the Arcade specs? not taking into consideration costs or anything like that, just curious.
They are unique and only work with one to a handful of games designed for them.
Some people have been working towards a "super" Arcade Card that would work on either region and do extra stuff, but it's still a ways off.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on November 15, 2012, 04:26:17 AM
If we could get a new system card ala the AbCards, I would think it wouldn't be a problem, wink wink, nudge nudge Arky!
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 15, 2012, 04:37:31 AM
If we could get a new system card ala the AbCards, I would think it wouldn't be a problem, wink wink, nudge nudge Arky!
get an Arcade CD game completed in a timely fashion is the problem. You could say "Oh i dont mind waiting" all you want, I personally wouldn't want to wait 5-10 years for one Arcade CD game when you can probably get 2 or 3 normal games done in in that timespan.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Keranu on November 15, 2012, 05:09:52 AM
How about Super Grafx Arcade CDs? :mrgreen:
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 15, 2012, 05:20:45 AM
That would be either
A) Never be completed
or B) be complete garbage that is on SGX ACD "just because"
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: runinruder on November 15, 2012, 05:42:29 AM
Are there really all that many people out there who not only don't own an Arcade Card at this point, but also would be unwilling to spend a mere twenty or so dollars on one or simply play the game on an emulator? Maybe there are a lot of people like that... but if there are, then they're a bunch of tools.
From a player's perspective, I think Rover proved with Mysterious Song that he really knows what he's doing when it comes to programming RPGs, and if he has a vision for something lengthy and magnificent, I'd like to see him follow through on it. I don't think he should compromise his vision or ditch the idea entirely just because a few people out there who don't own an Arcade Card are unwilling to take advantage of some very convenient solutions.
Someone mentioned the possibility that the project would take an extremely long time, but it's not like there aren't a few hundred other PC Engine games people can play in the meantime. Mysterious Song took like seven years. Everyone managed to survive, and everyone is happy to have the game. The amount of time it would take is more a concern for Rover than for the people waiting: if he feels this project would be just as or even more fulfilling than a couple of "normal" ones that could be completed during the same span, I don't see why he shouldn't go for it.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: vestcoat on November 15, 2012, 05:46:10 AM
Arcade Cards are cheap and plentiful. There is no excuse for anyone not to have one. If a game is massive enough to require the Arcade Card, then people will line up to buy it. Plus, like half the sales of any game will be collectors who have no intention of ever unsealing the game anyway. Noobs are always complaining about how it's way too expensive to play PCE CD games at all. What's another <$50 on top of their $150 - $300 "investment"?
+1
A few years ago, I would have said no, but some things have changed of late: 1) 150+ copies of Sapphire were recently given away and "new" copies are readily available. The Arcade Card has gone from the province of diehard fans to a must-have accessory for newcomers. No one has had any problem finding Arcade cards and prices have barely changed. 2) Region protection isn't a problem. Virtually everyone's system has needed repairs and many have opted for region mods in addition. The Chopsado has also changed the playing field. Sky-high prices for U.S. Duo's, U.S. 3.0 cards, and rare Turbochips have created an arena where all but the most casual gamers are PCE-capable, with region mods, Chopsados, Duo-R's, etc. And the casual gamers... well, they don't buy homebrew.
That said, Arkhan is right - it's probably too much work. I hate to say it, but it may be best to make a normal game and include a "bonus level" or something that uses the ACD.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Bernie on November 15, 2012, 05:47:36 AM
I seriously doubt this next project is going to take as long as MSR did. :)
Far as the ACD option, I say go for it. A lot of peeps do already have an Arcade Card, and I am sure others would pick one up to play this. Sure, there will be those that will not go for it, so there will be sales lost there. However, I'd rather see Rover give it his all, than reduce the game to fit into Super CD specs.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 15, 2012, 05:49:41 AM
its mostly uncharted territory, and we already had enough CD issues with one homebrew RPG.
Its also work/time investments on the artists who have to do all the doodlin' for it. Lots of effort.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: runinruder on November 15, 2012, 06:12:12 AM
its mostly uncharted territory, and we already had enough CD issues with one homebrew RPG.
Its also work/time investments on the artists who have to do all the doodlin' for it. Lots of effort.
Those might all be fine points, but they're not what's specifically being asked about here. Certainly, it's up to Rover and the people he'll be working with to decide if they're willing to take the risks and devote the time. If they are, I'd hate to see the issue asked about in this thread get in the way of them trying to achieve their goals.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 15, 2012, 06:19:38 AM
He asked two things, one of which was:
"So I'm wondering how feasible it is to invest massive amounts of time in a game designed for the arcade card..."
Even if the entire world had an arcade card, I personally don't think it's suitable to waste that much time on it.
Given things that have been said in chat before, I can only assume an ACD game would involve an RPG larger than Mysterious Song from Rover, or some sort of multidisc or hybrid game.
Taking into account the problems with Mysterious Song, the length of time the project took, and the now current list of projects from Rover, I don't think it's a good idea to add another project that will undoubtedly take a great amount of time and effort that will ultimately just take away from the current projects that people are already interested in.
Maybe 5 years from now, if all the other stuff is out/almost out, I'd say go for it. but right now? Hell no. Monolith or GTFO.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 15, 2012, 07:11:26 AM
This isn't something that's going to be done right now... but it is something that will be done. I already have a working prototype, based on a fusion of the MSR and Monolith game engines. Utilizing the ACD will limit the market, but it will allow me the opportunity to really make the game the way it's supposed to be made. This isn't about the money anyway, it's about making good games, so the marketability is more of an afterthought than anything else (I'm not Watermelon :P :lol:). Don't forget that a good portion of MSR's development time was finding people willing to do the work, and plus the learning curve of the system. We also had a lot of real-life issues to resolve along the way. None of that is an issue anymore... I know the system very well now and can produce working game engines very quickly by simply improving on what's already done (Monolith and JB are both based on VM's game engine, for example), I've got assets already in place, and I even have a local apprentice who will be lending a hand in making it. JB is at a standstill at the moment for technical reasons which I'm still ironing out, and Monolith's just waiting for me to fill in some details so Paul can finish the tile graphics work. Dragon Arm is also now an active project, as we have a dedicated character artist for it. That game engine will take less than a month to code since a lot of things from previous projects can, again, be reused... some of Monolith's code can be directly ported over, and writing finite state machines is something I've become quite experienced in.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: SamIAm on November 15, 2012, 07:13:26 AM
Further food for thought:
If a future translation project is made more feasible by depending on the ACD, should they go with it?
LoX2 looks like it will all fit, but that's because it uses dynamic loading. Emerald Dragon, Tengai Makyo II, and a few others, by contrast, load up almost everything in an entire sub-continent at once and run the whole thing from the system card, so there's very little room to spare for an English script.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 15, 2012, 07:20:48 AM
Don't forget that a good portion of MSR's development time was finding people willing to do the work, and plus the learning curve of the system. We also had a lot of real-life issues to resolve along the way. None of that is an issue anymore...
You just jinxed the whole thing, lol
I personally would rather see all the other stuff get squared away before another cock tease project gets shown and shoveled under the rug for awhile.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arjak on November 15, 2012, 08:51:40 AM
My advice is that you do NOT sacrifice from your vision of the game. Make it an ACD if that's what it will take to get it done right. I will gladly buy an Arcade Card if it means being able to play an awesome new RPG. :D
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 15, 2012, 09:01:06 AM
I personally would rather see all the other stuff get squared away before another cock tease project gets shown and shoveled under the rug for awhile.
...which is exactly why I'm only jawing about it right now rather than showing it off. :D Frozen Utopia has two active projects, and Eponasoft has one... taking on four projects at once isn't a smart idea. Three at once is my limit. :lol:
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Bonknuts on November 15, 2012, 09:49:26 AM
@ 'Ol Rover - Screw the naysayers and do it!!! If given enough exposure, I can imagine the majority of ACD owners would buy it just for being an ACD soft. If you need support for ACD, I can help. If you're using that old ACD lib I wrote, it doesn't support all features of the ACD. Probably not even half. I just wanted to see generic ACD support in HuC. Of course, you could probably just write your own too.
@ SamIam - The ACD has a the drawback that it lacks memory that you can execute code from. So you still need to find free areas in the original CD ram layout, etc. It would have been nice if they had added something like 8k of direct accessible ram, if only for us translators/hackers. I've been wanting a new system card with more direct code accessible ram for a while now, for translations. Tail Chao's hucard can do this. Its specific mapper can allow 512k of ram easily as well as the original system card 3.0 ram. It's a real card and mednafen started adding support for it. That would be extremely ideal for translation hacking. Though a card made from the ground up would work as well (no mapper needed, just a few discrete chips to handle memory layout. Also mirror the first 1k of the ram to open bus space of bank $ff. That would allow the hooks to be static/fixed in memory layout and code to map in new banks of hook code from there).
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 15, 2012, 09:52:31 AM
Oh and yes, btw... it will be multidisc. Like PS1 Final Fantasy 7, it's three CDs in size. I do believe that it will be the first multidisc PCE game ever. I have already implemented its disc swap code. It's broken into three large chapters; one per disc. Discs are only changed once a chapter ends, and they're never revisited, so there's no back-and-forth crap like some other old multidisc games. It will cost about $3800 to manufacture it.
Bonknuts, yeah, I'm going to use a version of your ACD lib for it, but I think it already has everything I really need... iirc, it does disc-to-ACD and ACD-to-VRAM, and that's all that's required.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: sirhcman on November 15, 2012, 11:55:45 AM
My advice is that you do NOT sacrifice from your vision of the game. Make it an ACD if that's what it will take to get it done right. I will gladly buy an Arcade Card if it means being able to play an awesome new RPG. :D
I feel the exact same as Arjak!
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: TheClash603 on November 15, 2012, 01:36:21 PM
Yeah, you definitely need to make an awesome ACD RPG!
...and by awesome ACD RPG, I definitely mean co-op beat-em-up.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Bardoly on November 15, 2012, 02:50:16 PM
Far as the ACD option, I say go for it. A lot of peeps do already have an Arcade Card, and I am sure others would pick one up to play this. Sure, there will be those that will not go for it, so there will be sales lost there. However, I'd rather see Rover give it his all, than reduce the game to fit into Super CD specs.
I completely agree with you Bernie. I don't have an Arcade Card yet, but it's already on my wish list, but if it weren't already, it for sure would be if Old Rover's proposal became reality.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on November 15, 2012, 03:52:05 PM
We could probably make things easier to conquer in regards to some of our projects, if we were able to go ACD on em'.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 15, 2012, 06:08:22 PM
Dragon Arm would be totally sick as an ACD game, and JB's current space problems would be annihilated as an ACD game.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: lord_cack on November 16, 2012, 09:10:18 AM
I know what this is saying, out here in the open, but JB would be awesome as an ACD. There are soooo many things I would love to be able to do with it that just seem to be, well not possible.
Also, if we are talking about it not being worth it because of the time invested, who is going to take that step and try and work this thing out? If no one takes the initiative then it will ALWAYS just be there, taunting us with its goodness :D
[EDIT]
Also, there are loads of other ideas I have that will most likely require that little extra to make it extraordinary :D :| :roll:
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 16, 2012, 10:03:44 AM
Using the ACD would cut out quite a bit of the stored data in JB, allowing us much more code room, thus allowing for more things to be done. It wouldn't reduce subsequent load times by a whole lot, as we'd just fill in that freed space with whatever code is missing right now. If MSR had used the ACD, the load times would have disappeared entirely, as both major programs could have been in executable memory at the same time, and everything, right down to the maps, could have been pulled from ACD RAM rather than hardcoded into each execoverlay. The ACD is there... we should use it. :)
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on November 16, 2012, 01:04:34 PM
In regards to extra time spent to make our games to take advantage of the ACD, we've already been doing that without trying! JB has so many dang frames of animation, that we'd probably have to cut alot just to make it a SCD. That's the problem we're up against right now, but if people are favorable to the ACD, then that should in theory, solve our problem, atleast with that particular game.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Edmond Dantes on November 16, 2012, 02:21:51 PM
Sorry I'm late (and also that I disappeared from these forums for like a year), but my two cents is...
The way I see it, another ACD game justifies owning an arcade card. So I'd love to see it.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: esteban on November 16, 2012, 03:47:34 PM
Question: ACD?
Answer: Yes. As long as someone sells me an Arcade Card, CHEAP.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: vestcoat on November 16, 2012, 08:35:37 PM
You don't have an ACD, Esteban? This needs to be remedied.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: SamIAm on November 16, 2012, 09:33:06 PM
PM Sent
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: esteban on November 17, 2012, 03:23:00 AM
You don't have an ACD, Esteban? This needs to be remedied.
I had one (or two?) years ago, but I must have lost them at some point (possibly during one of my moves...sadly, I can't find a few other items, either...)
You have no idea how much I've wanted to play through some games again--only to remember I don't have the damn system card.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: esteban on November 17, 2012, 06:20:04 AM
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: SignOfZeta on November 17, 2012, 01:32:07 PM
Anyone who buys PCE homebrew and doesn't have an AC is...an idiot, probably a mythical idiot. Don't let mythical idiots hold you back.
At the same time...if the ACD makes it easier for you to make the game you want to make (if having the extra memory helps) then by all means go ahead. It seems pretty quixotic though. That is, do you have even close to the kind of huge resources needed to fill an ACD? One of the reasons the ACD died a such a sad death was that nobody could utilize it well without losing money hand over fist. Like...not even Hudson could make it work so...good luck!
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: seieienbu on November 18, 2012, 05:42:21 AM
I've had an Arcade Card Pro for about 12 years, I got it off of ebay for $20 iirc. I didn't get a super system card until earlier this year. I did things kinda backwards, I guess. Just looked on ebay a minute ago and there's 1 reasonably priced arcade card with a few days left and a bunch for $100. That's way more expensive than I thought it'd go for.
I'd be interested in new ACD games. I think an RPG that made good use of all the additional space could be interesting to play. Also be cool if an ACD Supergrafx game existed, but as I don't have a supergrafx I don't care too terribly much about that idea other than as a curiosity.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Necromancer on November 19, 2012, 10:17:20 AM
Anyone who buys PCE homebrew and doesn't have an AC is...an idiot, probably a mythical idiot. Don't let mythical idiots hold you back.
At the same time...if the ACD makes it easier for you to make the game you want to make (if having the extra memory helps) then by all means go ahead. It seems pretty quixotic though. That is, do you have even close to the kind of huge resources needed to fill an ACD? One of the reasons the ACD died a such a sad death was that nobody could utilize it well without losing money hand over fist. Like...not even Hudson could make it work so...good luck!
My thoughts exactly - scary, eh? What kind of ijit would pony up $30-50 (or whatever) and yet balk at paying $20 for an Arcade Card and gaining access to its small but quality and mostly relatively cheap library?
And I don't give a hoot if going ACD just makes things easier and isn't absolutely necessary either; I've yet to see homebrew that rivals the likes of Dracula X or Xanadu (graphically speaking obviously, as I know jack shit about the underlying mechanics), but there's little reason to jump through hoops to shoehorn a bunch of goodies into a tiny little box when there's a great big box just waiting to be put to use. Just don't do it because you can or to be the first (also applicable to multi-disc).
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 19, 2012, 11:31:18 AM
When it comes to JB... we've done just about everything possible to fit it all into 256KB and we just keep coming up short every time. That's why stuff has had to be cut from the design temporarily. Masterpieces like Dracula X were made by much more experienced programmers who could really exploit the machine at the bare metal level. There's not a single programmer in the PCE scene with that level of experience, skill, and dedication all at once. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, as we simply find alternate ways to do things to accomplish the same overall end result. So if we can't make a game that can hang with Dracula X in 256KB, we'll use the ACD to make one that comes close. :)
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Bonknuts on November 19, 2012, 11:40:41 AM
What compression schemes have you tried? Both for tilemap and tile/sprite cell data.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 19, 2012, 12:58:07 PM
None yet... wouldn't make much difference to compress stuff in JB since most sprite frames are uploaded on-the-fly. I cut some space out by loading the tile graphics from a different program, which helped, but we still have the issue of the 50KB Plantie enemy that would consume almost a quarter of the system RAM, not to mention all the other enemies and utility graphics. The tilemap is about 10KB, so if push comes to shove, we might be able to save some space there using compression. But that'd still only give us about a bank of additional space.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: sirhcman on November 19, 2012, 01:42:57 PM
Sorry for the dopey question.. what is "JB"? is there a thread or link about this project?
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 19, 2012, 02:21:55 PM
Jungle Bros
http://www.frozenutopia.com/projects.html
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 19, 2012, 04:48:05 PM
You could always cut the sprite animations down some frames to save space. ;) There's a reason a lot of games have only a few frames.
So, when you load everything sprite wise on the fly, what exactly do you mean?
You're using CD audio, so I am assuming you aren't loading sprites from CD as you need them like you see in some games where the background is loaded on the fly and if you remove the disc, the background ceases to exist.
You could probably try compressing the graphics all down and only decompress/load up precisely what is needed. Given what I've seen of Jungle Bros so far, you might be able to do that to get away with some space savings since there isn't that much crap going on all at once. Do you have ADPCM RAM space available? Shove stuff there if you aren't using it.
You'd just have to be really-really organized and clever/careful about how you're doing all of it.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 20, 2012, 02:16:58 AM
I think cutting down on sprite frames is the only way it'd work in regular system RAM... but then we're limiting the game's appearance, and one of lord_cack's driving points of this game is to have a lot of animation.
Since there are so many frames of sprite animation, each new frame a sprite has is loaded in realtime into VRAM with a load_vram() call. Each enemy has its own unique area in VRAM where its frames get loaded into. There's too many frames to load everything into VRAM at once and just change the sprite's pattern pointer. Of course, that means that all the sprite frames have to be kept in system RAM, which eats up space pretty quickly. The ADPCM RAM is mostly used for sound effects already so that option is out. Also, I used ADPCM RAM to VRAM transfers for some of MSR's cutscenes and the speed is atrocious.
Unfortunately, the project already is pretty well organized; I literally spent weeks ahead of the demo show making sure things could fit properly and nothing was wasted. The current scheme for sprite frames is about as efficient as it gets, I've got VRAM mapped out to the byte, and this project is why I went into pceas's code and modified it to send the proc size list to stdout... that allowed me to go into JB's code and do function shuffling until everything fit neatly with minimal space waste since pceas doesn't do this automatically, nor does it allow procs to cross bank boundaries. At this point, the only thing that would really help is to start converting finalized functions to inline assembly... but since we're already short on memory and we still have things to add, downsizing the code would just give more space to fill the void with more graphics, so we'll soon be right back where we were before... a slightly more functional game. Might not be worth it to do things that way since we have the ACD to utilize, which removes 95% of these problems.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 20, 2012, 02:22:56 AM
Tons of animation frames from the get-go should have screamed "HuCard or Arcade CD", lol.
maybe see how stuff looks with some frames cut out before you make the jump to committing to a larger project and new format.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on November 20, 2012, 03:18:28 AM
Hucard would have been nicer, honestly. Of course, then we'd have to kick PD's butt into the realm of PSG. :lol: I honestly think that the game would fit on a hucard quite nicely when all is said and done. But regardless, it wouldn't take long to restructure it to utilize the ACD. All of the graphics data currently in the program would simply be moved to a data overlay, which would be transferred to the ACD RAM banks during the "we stole this from the Genesis" startup screen. There would be a few minor code changes in the FSMs to account for copying the data from ACD RAM instead of system RAM. The only real issue we'd run into is that it would be best to do this in one go rather than as a progressive conversion... that is to say, have ALL of the graphics and maps ready ahead of time so I can just do one big data overlay at once instead of adding to it incrementally and updating transfer points over and over again. That kind of hassle is one of the things that stalled MSR's translations. Lessons have been learned from that.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: cabbage on November 20, 2012, 05:01:48 AM
I don't understand why you think compression of sprites data would not help. Couldn't you load compressed graphics data into the sys ram, thus affording you more frames in the limited space you have, and decompress them "on the fly" as they are loaded into VRAM? There would be a bit of extra processing overhead, but also there are some pretty quick algorithms to be used on pce...
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 20, 2012, 05:07:01 AM
My guess about that is that too many are needed at once even in that scenario. At least that's what I assumed was meant.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: _joshuaTurbo on November 20, 2012, 08:27:33 AM
I didn't read this whole thread, but would it be possible to do a complete game as just SCD, then add a few "Levels" or "Sprites" or a cutscene or something for those that venture into the ACD realm?
Sorry if this is a duplicate question, I'm just an ass that clicks on the last page......
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on November 20, 2012, 09:53:50 AM
You could fiddle around with shit like that, sure.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Jammaniaclord on January 06, 2013, 03:00:47 PM
I would gladly pitch in if someone was stsrting a kickstarter.com budget to make an arcade card game. I have an arcade card, and have been dying to see some one make a new ACD game to utilize a format that died shortly after it was born. I say go for it!!
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: esteban on January 06, 2013, 05:33:20 PM
Jammaniaclord!
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Jammaniaclord on January 07, 2013, 10:59:14 AM
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Bardoly on January 07, 2013, 02:40:22 PM
I just had a weird thought.
Would there be a possible way that a game could be made that could utilize the additional RAM of an Arcade Card Pro combined with the internal RAM of a Duo? I mean, this would be a combined total RAM which would be higher than normal Arcade Card game requirements - higher than an Arcade Card Duo combined with a Duo.
I am not a programmer, so I have no clue if my above thought is feasible in any way.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: SignOfZeta on January 07, 2013, 02:49:30 PM
Sure, but again, few homebrew programmers (ie: none) can even max out the SCD format, few pros could max out the AC back in the day, so the idea of anyone needing *more* than an Arcade Card is kind if unrealistic.
Honestly, the AC is stupid huge for an 8 bit system. Way more than enough.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on January 08, 2013, 03:07:40 AM
Would there be a possible way that a game could be made that could utilize the additional RAM of an Arcade Card Pro combined with the internal RAM of a Duo? I mean, this would be a combined total RAM which would be higher than normal Arcade Card game requirements - higher than an Arcade Card Duo combined with a Duo.
I am not a programmer, so I have no clue if my above thought is feasible in any way.
When you use the ACD, you're already doing this. The ACD RAM is just a storage area; only the normal system RAM (the 256KB Duo RAM) can be used to run a program. So basically, you can use the system RAM for pretty much *just* running code, and use the ACD RAM for holding graphics and such.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Necromancer on January 08, 2013, 03:12:56 AM
He means using the 2mb Duo system ram and the extra 1.5mb ram of the AC Pro, for a total of 19.5mb instead of the AC's normal 18mb.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on January 08, 2013, 04:13:51 AM
OK I see what he's saying. The answer is no.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Vecanti on January 08, 2013, 11:14:55 AM
He means using the 2mb Duo system ram and the extra 1.5mb ram of the AC Pro, for a total of 19.5mb instead of the AC's normal 18mb.
Then you would have to make an Arcade Card Duo Pro that is 19.5mb for the suitcase systems, and then someone would would say, "What if I stick my Arcade Card Duo Pro in my Duo so I have 22.5mb!" Then you would have to make an Arcade Card Duo Pro Duo for the suitcases. And if someone stuck that in their Duo!?! --> Arcade Duo Card Duo Pro Duo!! 24.5mb!! This could go on a while. :D
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: TheClash603 on January 08, 2013, 03:45:51 PM
Sure, but again, few homebrew programmers (ie: none) can even max out the SCD format, few pros could max out the AC back in the day, so the idea of anyone needing *more* than an Arcade Card is kind if unrealistic.
Honestly, the AC is stupid huge for an 8 16 bit system. Way more than enough.
FIXED :D
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Black Tiger on January 08, 2013, 05:27:54 PM
Sure, but again, few homebrew programmers (ie: none) can even max out the SCD format, few pros could max out the AC back in the day, so the idea of anyone needing *more* than an Arcade Card is kind if unrealistic.
Honestly, the AC is stupid huge for an 8 bit system. Way more than enough.
How much less space does 8-bit use compared to 16-bit?
As has been explained before, homebrewers already exceeded the capacity of Super CD. Mysterious Song wouldn't need to load battles if it had more space. Another upcoming game hit a roadblock because the content for single stages couldn't fit within 2 megs.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Tatsujin on January 08, 2013, 11:31:13 PM
There's no such thing like too much of RAM.
Doesn't matter if 8 or 16bit, as long it outruns any other 16bitters.
Sapphire approved :idea:
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on January 09, 2013, 03:10:00 AM
How much less space does 8-bit use compared to 16-bit?
This is a loaded question.
Quote
As has been explained before, homebrewers already exceeded the capacity of Super CD. Mysterious Song wouldn't need to load battles if it had more space.
Neither would a lot of RPGs on the PCE SCD. It doesn't mean the capacity was exceeded. It just means it's working within the normal constraints of the system.
Quote
Another upcoming game hit a roadblock because the content for single stages couldn't fit within 2 megs.
This again doesn't always immediately justify the extra space use.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Black Tiger on January 09, 2013, 07:51:41 AM
Quote
Quote
How much less space does 8-bit use compared to 16-bit?
This is a loaded question.
Why? What do you think he meant?
Quote
Quote
As has been explained before, homebrewers already exceeded the capacity of Super CD. Mysterious Song wouldn't need to load battles if it had more space.
Neither would a lot of RPGs on the PCE SCD. It doesn't mean the capacity was exceeded. It just means it's working within the normal constraints of the system.
Exactly, there's no need to limit yourself to the constraints of the outdated formats. Just as there's no need to require Super CD/System 3 if the game you want to make comfortably fits within the constraints if CD2. Unless just to have a system card warning screen, in which case it seems totally worth it to me. Couldn't Insanity have been released as a CD2 game?
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Another upcoming game hit a roadblock because the content for single stages couldn't fit within 2 megs.
This again doesn't always immediately justify the extra space use.
That's why I'm talking about instances where what you want to include doesn't fit within the smaller official formats. If you make a HuCard game and polish it off and get it running as efficiently as you can and it comes in at around 6 megs, there's no reason today to cut it down to 3 megs.
The PC Engine CD officially supports up to 18 megs per load. I agree that there's no point in creating new larger formats, but the jump to ACD isn't a jump to 18 megs full of content at all times. It only means 2+ megs at times. If a programmer doesn't yet have the skills to be efficient enough to make the game they are building take up as little space as possible, then the ACD format is perfect, as long as operating it isn't so challenging that it negates its use. I appreciate the art of crafting games for tiny rom sizes, but games today aren't built around the cost of memory.
It took the "pros" an extra 8 megs to fit the SNES SSFII onto Genesis. I don't know why anyone would demand more from honebrewers.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: TheOldMan on January 09, 2013, 09:08:11 AM
Quote
How much less space does 8-bit use compared to 16-bit?
A byte is a byte is 8 bits. Question makes no sense, actually. Kinda like saying how much less space does 4 quarts take compared to a gallon. The CPU is still limited by the size of the address bus (and -not- the data bus size)
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Couldn't Insanity have been released as a CD2 game?
Actually, no. It comes in a bit over 128K, which is the limit on the CD 2 card for RAM.
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The PC Engine CD officially supports up to 18 megs per load.
First, that's 18M *bits*...or 2.25 M bytes. Second, part of that total is adcpm memory and VRAM. It's not like you can load 2.25 Mbytes of code.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: spenoza on January 09, 2013, 02:06:14 PM
Couldn't Insanity have been released as a CD2 game?
Actually, no. It comes in a bit over 128K, which is the limit on the CD 2 card for RAM.
I would imagine it is technically possible Insanity could have been optimized to fit within the CD2 RAM size, but that is mostly speculation. I'm sure a lot of homebrew programming and assets could be shrunk and optimized a good bit, but we lack the quality tools the pros had at the time and we lack the full-time jobs devoted to using those tools to get optimal results : )
Within the scope of the available tools, I think you guys are doing pretty well, all things considered.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: nodtveidt on January 10, 2013, 04:34:31 AM
The develo kit was found in the wild quite some time ago, so I'm pretty sure that the official tools are already available to us. The only thing the average developer doesn't have is the hardware, so the official tools don't do us much good, but that doesn't really matter... the huc/pceas toolchain is better than the official devkit in some ways anyway. What makes things a challenge is HuC's bloat due to a lack of optimization and way too much reliance on macros. Hand-optimizing the resulting code fixes those issues, but you need to already have extensive knowledge of assembly to do that, and at that point, you might as well just code it in assembly anyway.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on January 10, 2013, 04:48:50 AM
I have the develo kit, and the hardware, and it doesn't do much of anything except amuse me for about an hour.
The book however, is wildly useful. You can thank Develo for Squirrel.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: BigusSchmuck on January 10, 2013, 06:58:03 AM
I have the develo kit, and the hardware, and it doesn't do much of anything except amuse me for about an hour.
The book however, is wildly useful. You can thank Develo for Squirrel.
I wants the book, is there a pdf version of it somewhere out there?
yeah. I don't remember the link. If noone posts it, PM me, and I can email it or something. Its like 80mb IIRC.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: spenoza on January 10, 2013, 07:55:07 AM
So the official tools were all assembly? Figures. You'd think they'd at least make a nod to higher level programming languages.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on January 10, 2013, 07:56:55 AM
you could code in BASIC if you want.
Really though, with proper tools and real documentation, doing the entire game in all assembly wouldn't even be that bad.
Not to mention, doing things in C would've required an entire library (like HuC), and its still C, so it's fairly slow with 6502-based CPUs.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: TheOldMan on January 10, 2013, 08:22:08 AM
Quote
You'd think they'd at least make a nod to higher level programming languages
Which one? C (and all of it's derivatives) was still on the drawing board. Fortran - maybe. Cobol - maybe. Pascal ? And have the game bomb out all the time? None of those are suitable for games, though.
So yeah, your choices were Basic or assembler. And -lots- of games were written back then with a Basic shell calling (poked in) assembler routines....
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: spenoza on January 10, 2013, 09:03:23 AM
You'd think they'd at least make a nod to higher level programming languages
Which one? C (and all of it's derivatives) was still on the drawing board. Fortran - maybe. Cobol - maybe. Pascal ? And have the game bomb out all the time? None of those are suitable for games, though.
So yeah, your choices were Basic or assembler. And -lots- of games were written back then with a Basic shell calling (poked in) assembler routines....
I can understand why they would have chosen not to go with C. It wasn't standardized until the late 80s, but the language itself was documented and in use as early as the mid 70s. As for being on the drawing board, well, standardization does not take something off the drawing board, and just because something isn't internationally recognized as standardized doesn't mean it isn't fairly stable and developed. But that is neither here nor there.
Not all versions of Pascal were unstable. Pascal actually would have been a safe choice. It was a pretty good precursor to C in some ways.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: Arkhan on January 10, 2013, 09:06:59 AM
Until something's standardized, using it for a video game console's primary development language seems like a really bad idea.
also, Pascal is... pascal.
People use Pascal on the MSX to try making games. It goes poorly. You might as well just use BASIC.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: spenoza on January 10, 2013, 09:17:13 AM
No, I concede that point. My experience with Pascal was on the Apple II. I found it to be more powerful than BASIC by a good bit, but I didn't get very far with it. Most programming materials were for BASIC and most of the programs printed in the magazines were also BASIC, so that's where I spent a great deal more time. I'm not familiar with the memory footprint of compiled Pascal code (obviously depends on the compiler), but it did seem to perform well on the 6502 in the Apple II series.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: NightWolve on January 10, 2013, 10:38:59 AM
Oh and yes, btw... it will be multidisc. Like PS1 Final Fantasy 7, it's three CDs in size. I do believe that it will be the first multidisc PCE game ever. I have already implemented its disc swap code. It's broken into three large chapters; one per disc.
Wow, you already planned this far ahead that you know right now that you'll need 3 discs ?? How much is dedicated to redbook audio ?
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: ProfessorProfessorson on January 10, 2013, 01:05:57 PM
It took the "pros" an extra 8 megs to fit the SNES SSFII onto Genesis. I don't know why anyone would demand more from honebrewers.
Genesis Super SF II had more voice samples though if I remember right. The Snes port is missing some.
Lot of good it did them. They sounded like shit.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: arromdee on January 15, 2013, 09:48:07 AM
People keep saying you can get an arcade card for $20. I have an original TG-16 CD with a super system card, so if I get an Arcade Card I'd need the Pro. Where can a Pro be bought for $20?
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: turboswimbz on January 15, 2013, 09:52:38 AM
People keep saying you can get an arcade card for $20. I have an original TG-16 CD with a super system card, so if I get an Arcade Card I'd need the Pro. Where can a Pro be bought for $20?
Assuming you have everything needed to run the card in the US system: You won't unless you get a great deal. Arcade Card duo - loose is 20 and 30 complete - > pro is around 55-60 (EDIT:) COMPLETE. Both + shipping - which may have to come form Japan.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: vestcoat on January 15, 2013, 10:56:57 AM
People keep saying you can get an arcade card for $20. I have an original TG-16 CD with a super system card, so if I get an Arcade Card I'd need the Pro. Where can a Pro be bought for $20?
Assuming you have everything needed to run the card in the US system: You won't unless you get a great deal. Arcade Card duo - loose is 20 and 30 complete - > pro is around 55-60 loose. Both + shipping - which may have to come form Japan.
Arromdee - Yeah, any quotes for $20 Arcade cards you've seen are probably referring to the Duo, not the Pro.
That said, Swimbz estimates on a loose Pro are rather high: Hit Japan has a CIB Pro for $60 and they usually accept offers for 20% less. Also remember that this is a month-old BIN; wait a few months for the right auction and you can do better, especially loose.
Japangamestock used to have 'em loose for $20, but that was years ago. Still... they might be worth checking once in a while.
Title: Re: ACD games... feasible?
Post by: turboswimbz on January 15, 2013, 11:53:45 AM
People keep saying you can get an arcade card for $20. I have an original TG-16 CD with a super system card, so if I get an Arcade Card I'd need the Pro. Where can a Pro be bought for $20?
Assuming you have everything needed to run the card in the US system: You won't unless you get a great deal. Arcade Card duo - loose is 20 and 30 complete - > pro is around 55-60 loose. Both + shipping - which may have to come form Japan.
Arromdee - Yeah, any quotes for $20 Arcade cards you've seen are probably referring to the Duo, not the Pro.
That said, Swimbz estimates on a loose Pro are rather high: Hit Japan has a CIB Pro for $60 and they usually accept offers for 20% less. Also remember that this is a month-old BIN; wait a few months for the right auction and you can do better, especially loose.
Japangamestock used to have 'em loose for $20, but that was years ago. Still... they might be worth checking once in a while.
My bad: Hitjapan had one up that was a loosey at that price. I'm then assuming they'd take quite a bit less for a loos one then 40 to 45 ish? anyone get a pro recently?