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Post by kokovec on Apr 7, 2014 12:44:22 GMT -5
The 3D engine is still on my radar but I've been preoccupied with life and work.
I'm experimenting with NVRAM at present which treats the entire EEPROM space as SRAM. When you turn off the Vectrex it keeps a snapshot of the entire 32K space on the chip. When you turn it back on it loads that snapshot back into RAM.
Since the Vectrex sees that EEPROM space as RAM is can read/write to any address. So you can use a part of it for the program and the rest as RAM.
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Post by mikiex on Apr 7, 2014 12:49:16 GMT -5
Jims battlezone is a software 3d engine with clipping, the frame rate is quite low but fine for a game like battlezone that doesnt move too quickly. Which one is that? is there a demo or video? Its ok I found it here... www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfhu5A7X57A |
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Post by binarystar on Apr 8, 2014 9:31:07 GMT -5
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Post by VectorX on Apr 8, 2014 11:46:40 GMT -5
(laughs) "Old"? At less than a year of release?  |
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Post by mikiex on Apr 8, 2014 12:07:05 GMT -5
Also no rotation? which is often what ends up consuming time (even when using LUTs). |
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Post by kokovec on Apr 8, 2014 19:51:23 GMT -5
Wasn't Elite originally programmed for computers with static raster displays?
Without having to worry about refreshing the display those cycles could be used for number crunching.
Either way they would have had to use tables for rotation. I doubt they used matrix maths.
When I was young (such a long time ago) I remember coding some 3D wireframes on the C64 in machine language and that was not easy. I wouldn't want to try that again today. I'll stick to quaternions. No gimbal-lock.
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Post by binarystar on Apr 8, 2014 23:53:11 GMT -5
Also no rotation? which is often what ends up consuming time (even when using LUTs). Yeah, It does rotation IIRC. I'll get Jim to post here if you have any other questions. |
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Post by mikiex on Apr 9, 2014 13:58:31 GMT -5
Wasn't Elite originally programmed for computers with static raster displays? Without having to worry about refreshing the display those cycles could be used for number crunching. Either way they would have had to use tables for rotation. I doubt they used matrix maths. When I was young (such a long time ago) I remember coding some 3D wireframes on the C64 in machine language and that was not easy. I wouldn't want to try that again today. I'll stick to quaternions. No gimbal-lock. These are my thoughts too, look at something such as 3d starstrike on the spectrum or stargilder, better than elite I think. Some routines I've seen still use a matrix - but yes you can use tables for fast multiplies,divides and sin/cos , there are good examples on c64 and calculators etc. I'm probably going to have a go soon - I think something important would be to utilise the wasted cycles when the vectrex draws lines. Starting is the problem... |
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Post by Der Luchs on Apr 14, 2014 15:42:09 GMT -5
I would like to play a Game in the style of "Genghis Khan II - Clan of the gray wolf" or something like that. This would be cool  |
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Post by mikiex on Apr 24, 2014 15:18:54 GMT -5
Empire Strikes Back 2600....
Now I knew there was a bonus game on Thrust... but having tried that out I was a bit disappointed, its obviously not finished compared to the quality of Thrust. Then again the original 2600 game could be expanded a lot, adding special weapons.
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Post by VectorX on Apr 24, 2014 16:22:37 GMT -5
I was a bit disappointed, its obviously not finished compared to the quality of Thrust. The cart weighs in at 32K, so Ville didn't add anything else onto it then. A lot of homebrewers quit there (such as George/FURY) because it'd take a bit of bankswitching to get any additional stuff over that amount. |
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Post by binarystar on Apr 24, 2014 16:30:45 GMT -5
Bankswitching is a cynch. I'm planning to put up an example project on my website soonish to show how to do it.
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Post by VectorX on Apr 24, 2014 17:27:32 GMT -5
Bankswitching is a cynch. For some reason several homebrewers would rather not use it, although in Ville's case I think that was the largest file size emulators could handle back then. |
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Post by binarystar on Apr 24, 2014 18:21:05 GMT -5
Yeah, that's most likely the reason. Its not like 64k chips cost any more than 32k ones.
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Post by mikiex on Apr 25, 2014 2:43:57 GMT -5
I was a bit disappointed, its obviously not finished compared to the quality of Thrust. The cart weighs in at 32K, so Ville didn't add anything else onto it then. A lot of homebrewers quit there (such as George/FURY) because it'd take a bit of bankswitching to get any additional stuff over that amount. But he could of continued it on it's own cart had he wanted to complete it, but he's lost interest rather than some technical reason. |
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