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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Seeking Games Programmers
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| robert.rozee Guru  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2437 |
smooth animation. even with the maximite, there will still be potential for 'tearing' in an animated object if the screen is updated mid-frame. for instance: try displaying a narrow vertical bar on the screen that is a good portion of the total screen height. animate this bar in the horizontal direction, and you'll see tearing that will move up or down the bar dependant on the relationship between scan rate and animation rate. note, the tear will only be one pixel wide. there are two solutions to this: 1. double-buffering (as peter is doing in his MZ port) combined with NOT switching between buffers at times when redrawing an object is incomplete; 2. completing any drawing operations quickly during a period when you know the screen is not being used (ie, either during the VBI, or when the area of the frame buffer being redrawn is not also being scanned by the video circuitry). the big advantage of allowing the user to work within an interrupt triggered off the VBI is that you don't need two frame buffers, hence halving your RAM requirements. since most games only animate small objects, moving them around only within a synchronized ISR is pratical. you can also have a go at creating fake colour effects by rapidly switching the colour of an object on alternate frames. all the above assumes that creating an interrupt run off the VBI is even practical - it may well not be. if not practical, a 'claytons' alternative may be to simply provide a flag (MM.VBI) that is set true at the start of the VBI and false at the end of it. this would allow the main loop of a game to sit waiting for the VBI to start. a scan line counter (MM.SCAN) may also be useful :-) cheers, rob :-) |
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Geoffg Guru Joined: 06/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3285 |
Thanks for the input everyone. There are a lot of trade-offs here that need to be worked through. Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
Still the 'mod' format for sound ? |
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9593 |
Probably I would think. WAV playback too.  I seem to remember that MOD can play in the background. Pete may have made that true of WAV now I think - I need to have another look at my MMX docs, but I am pretty sure WAV plays in the background. If that is indeed the case, then MOD may be dropped in favour of the WAV format. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9593 |
This post is very valid, and food for thought. Hmmmmmmmmm..............  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| amitor Newbie  Joined: 15/01/2018 Location: United StatesPosts: 4 |
As much as I would like to see the "perfect" retro 80s computer, I get that the market is too small to invest too much time and money, unless it's your passion. It's funny in a way that microcontrollers are now serving second duty like that, since there isn't a lot of shared customers or interests. However, besides the graphic primitives that are being worked on and sound great (my MMX is on the way, so no first-hand experience yet) 8 colors is the most limiting factor. I hope that in time, we can have a solution that has shading. Doesn't need anything crazy, but simple 256 or if you want to get fancy, 4096 colors, would be of huge benefit. Even something as basic as a Commodore 64, while only having 16 basic colors, was able to do up to 121 colors with clever programming. 8 colors is very limiting in the long run (I promise no ZX Spectrum jokes here!) Anyway, I'm just very excited that something like MMX exists at all, and can't wait to dive straight in. I've spent far too many years fighting for few bytes and cycles in 6502 assembly, so now to have much higher speed in something like BASIC opens up a world of possibilities. |
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| LouisG Senior Member  Joined: 19/03/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 129 |
Instead of retro 80s computers to emulate, may I suggest looking in the direction of emulating small PLCs, which is very relevant today and which has a huge range of applications and users. MMX appears to be an excellent platform for this. Only recently Allen Bradley started expounding the virtues of combining PLCs with MMIs. Good morning A-B. - |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2437 |
the micromite, in its most basic forms (28-pin SDIP, E-28, etc) comes pretty close to the functionality of a PLC, except substituting mmbasic for ladder-logic. i do suspect that most micromites running out in the real world are performing tasks that a PLC would otherwise be doing. cheers, rob :-) |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
It would be neat (for me anyways) to have something like this so as to be able create the notes in a more algorhythmic fashion. |
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djuqa Guru Joined: 23/11/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 447 |
what you are competing with C64 reborn with 64 builtin games $149 http://bit.ly/2rYrIV8 VK4MU MicroController Units |
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MicroBlocks Guru Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
For every person that likes to develop a game there are a hundred thousand who just want to play the game. A game developer starts to have the mood to write something when there are hundreds of thousands potential users. Windows Phone was a good example of that dilemma. We all know how that went, despite millions being spend. Maybe remind ourselves that in the 80's those computers where just a few that were available and pretty high prices too. Games would cost 10$ or much more. Now we have games on internet in the browser, steam, rpi, etc... all mostly for free. On the PC there are game engines with built in physics and 3d capabilities which can be downloaded for free. (Unity for example) Why would anyone want a "computer" based on a single chip? Maybe because he wants to build a controller to switch on his coffee machine at a certain time. Make a weather station, an alarm clock, a house automation system, etc, etc... Try that with a C64, or TRS-80 or any other retro computer. Try it with an Atmel, or PIC chip and you need to learn a C like language, study how the internals work, or just hook up a xxxMite and type a few lines of understandable code and be done with it. The ability to have a screen with a GUI is phenomenal! None of the other embedded systems is offering that. Should the attention not be on the strength what it offers (Serial, I2C, SPI, CAN, RS485 etc..) and make it even better instead of trying to get the weakest part (VGA) a tiny bit less weak? Microblocks. Build with logic. |
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| djuqa Guru Joined: 23/11/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 447 |
Exactly more focus on the MAKER/Hackaday style projects, leave games/games computers for the many emulation/retro developers already saturating the market. VK4MU MicroController Units |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9593 |
[Quote=djuqa]what you are competing with C64 reborn with 64 builtin games $149 http://bit.ly/2rYrIV8[/Quote] Now that's interesting! How about the Atari Flashback 8 with 120 built-in games for $80?  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| djuqa Guru Joined: 23/11/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 447 |
exactly no way can compete with those prices with that many games VK4MU MicroController Units |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9593 |
To be fair, I don't expect that Geoff was wanting to make the new beast a retro games machine, more just to get some games written to show off what is possible with the new beast. At least, that's the feeling I get. A few games by way of demonstration more then trying to sell it off as a games machine you can write games on, if you catch my drift. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
I'd like to build an old 80's style machine one day, but so far I have just been using the 28 pinners only, as programmable easy to use 'modules' like my current project- got a garage door opener, but you still have to get out of the car to open the gates first- kinda defeats the purpose of the door opener.... so 28 pinner is currently being programmed and built up (just a veroboard pcb at this stage and probably going to stay that way) to drive the garage door opener, plus 2 actuators to open and close the gates- opening isnt an issue, but closing them has to be done in the right 'order', plus with 2 cars, only one remote is to open the garage, the other is to just open the gates... bitch with electronics only- I started this a couple of years ago with steering diodes etc etc), now its a single MM with a relay board and everything else is done in easy to understand BASIC (I looked at a PI, but at the time I wasnt interested in learning how to program it, I know basic and its easy to use- even if I still insist on using line numbers :-P eta I actually started playing with home automation back in the 80's- with a Vic20- it could drive 5v out of the user port (4 channels) with peeks and pokes |
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panky Guru Joined: 02/10/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1114 |
I'm not big on games myself but I think the ideas behind the graphics are a great advancement to the 'mite environment. In particular, the terrific work done by Peter with Sprites and Blit recently opens up a great new opportunity for animated graphics as a user interface for all the great microcontroller type projects that shedders have put up - a simple idea - with Boppa's gate and garage door project, why not have an animated display showing the doors opening? For weather stations, watering systems, and so on, animated graphics could really enhance the user experience. The nice thing is that for any gamers, the features are there - for others the features are there for other types of projects. By all means keep the retro games in mind but I think more importantly, the animated graphic possibilities for new projects should be front and centre. For this, I feel the graphics on the various LCD displays are more important than VGA. I love this stuff - great work Geoff and Peter and others - please, PLEASE, keep it coming. Doug. ... almost all of the Maximites, the MicromMites, the MM Extremes, the ArmMites, the PicoMite and loving it! |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
> with a Vic20- it could drive 5v out of the user port > (4 channels) with peeks and pokes Also those 4 channels could each deliver frequencies throughout the audio band with crude ( 8 bit 'words' ) PWM .......  |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
Yeah but why would you want to do that, when it had a polyphonic sound chip anyway |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
Not the Vic-20 |
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