Moving large non-sprite end bosses could be done by hardware-scrolling the center part of the screen, those large teeth could probably be done by sprites as long as you limit them to 2 per line. But indeed: it's a trade-off you have to make when using a scrolling screen 5. I'm just surprised the decision was almost universally block-scroll, even smoothscrolling screen 4 (which *does* make all those things you mention possible) was rare.

Is there really any contemporary game using screen 5 scroll? I was thinking about Psycho World but that seems Screen4 as well, as is Hydefos. (Emulators fool you probably by stating the screenmode of the underlying score bar.)

@Hrothgar: AFAIK this is the only game that has full screen 2pix scroll in screen5 and also do sw sprites+hw sprites. But is not so smooth....
the name is "chucataisen" somewhere on internet there should be a video..

found it: http://video.google.it/videoplay?docid=2893240188858336811&ei=o2jmSLq4IoLi2gK3n6CiCw&q=%22chuka%22+msx2&vt=lf&hl=it

What screenmodes do the radarsoft games use, like Grotten van Oberon, and the topografie series (sorry, don't know the english titles, if any)

The Topografie series seems to use Screen 4, as indicated by the emulator itself and also demonstrated by some slight colour clash in the maps. I'm not quite sure what the MSX1 version used. I only have it on tape and recall it was soooo ugly compared to the MSX2 version.

What I wonder more about the Topografie series is: when disabling sprites in BlueMSX all text disappears. Nonetheless there can be as many as 19,2 characters on one row. How do they manage to get over 19 characters on a scanline with only sprites? Doublesized (32px) sprites with dynamic assignment? (As in: dynamically putting 2,5 text characters in one single sprite and position it on screen?)

Seems to be a hell of a way to do smooth scrolling end texts, full-width, over a colourful background image and fading in and out by doing coloursplits. Apparently this way you can fill the entire screen with sprites containing arbitrary text.

Is there a place where to see some screen shot about "Grotten van Oberon" & "topografie"?

Screenshots of the Topografie games:
(MSX2
http://www.konamito.com/games/images/capturas/topografiewereld(1).gif
http://www.konamito.com/games/images/capturas/topografiewereld(2).gif
http://www.konamito.com/games/images/capturas/topografiewereld(3).gif
http://www.konamito.com/games/images/capturas/topografiewereld(4).gif
http://www.konamito.com/games/images/capturas/topografieeuropa(1).gif
http://www.konamito.com/games/images/capturas/topografieeuropa(3).gif

(Guess these are MSX1
http://www.konamito.com/games/images/capturas/topografienederland(1).gif
http://www.konamito.com/games/images/capturas/topografienederland(4).gif

Note the text above and below the playing field in the MSX2 screenshots: these are apparently sprites.
But you should really see a video. MSX2 version scrolls smoothly, 1 (obviously) blocky. I believe in the 80's this game was on Dutch television, would be great to see that on Youtube.

C64 screenshots of Grotten van Oberon (MSX looks just the same):
http://www.c64gg.com/Images/G/Grotten_Van_Oberon.ss.gif
http://www.commodore64.hu/t64z/degrotte.jpg

Quote:

It depends on what you need to build/change in your game screen. If all you do is move a static screen, then yes: screen 5 is an option, and it's been done like that in -for instance- Manbow 2. Now, look Nemesis 123SalaParo and for sake of experimenting list everything (backgrounds, large tile enemies) that's moving on screen. Just the scars of Salamander/level1 come into mind already.

Sure, if nemesis type games are all that matter
But many games don't have that much moving around on screen. Super Mario type games for example, and in some existing MSX2 games it might even have been possible (for example Metal Gear, Vampire Killer, Gryzor don't seem to have that much going on on screen?).
And you could use some larger sw sprites for non-scrolling areas, like end bosses.

Quote:

But many games don't have that much moving around on screen. Super Mario type games for example, and in some existing MSX2 games it might even have been possible (for example Metal Gear, Vampire Killer, Gryzor don't seem to have that much going on on screen?).

Question is whether games with little screen activity are like that because of the game design or because of the VDP limits. There're always ways to have large bitmap enemies on screen, but not without trade-offs, and the question is whether those trade-offs are tolerable and usable in a completely different context.

Quote:

Question is whether games with little screen activity are like that because of the game design or because of the VDP limits.

Regardless of that, after you've made the decision to make a game with little screen activity you can enhance it further by introducing smoothscroll. Vampire Killer (but also Contra) is a very good example of that. Especially when you have a simple scroll (1px per frame) you can do all that entirely within the VDP limits without slicing your game code too much.

The decision to make either a detailed screen 5 level or a less detailed screen 4 level with more in-tile movements can be totally separate from the decision to further enhance the game through smooth scrolling.

Yes, you're right of course.
But I do get the feeling sometimes that developers just didn't bother and went down the safe route by using flip-screen, which is understandable if you're a commercial developer. But at least something relatively simple like Super Mario or Alex Kidd seem perfectly feasible.

A horizontally scrolling Vampire Killer, Gryzor, Usas etc. on MSX2 (bitmap) has the problem of the ugly borders. In Space Manbow this was not really much of a problem due all the on-screen action (the screen always moves!) and you barely have time to watch the borders anyway or you'll die. But in a platform game you could be standing still at some location and just gradually move a bit now and then. In this case, the ugly borders are far more obvious and in-your-face than the Space Manbow borders, and thus i can imagine that Konami chose for a flip-screen.

Border masking with sprites could be an option, but that'll cost you 2 sprites on row, and for a scrolling bitmap game which will have to rely on sprites for player, bullet and enemy movements, 2 sprites out of 8 just for border masking is just too much.

Another advantage of flip-screen platformers is enemy management. You could define that a certain screen of the map has exactly 4 2-OR-sprite characters on screen, so you won't see any sprite flickering. If the neighboring screen also has 4 sprites then this screen also doesn't have sprite flickering. But what if you're halfway these 2 screens? You may incidentally end up with 8 sprites in your situation.

If /1 pixel scroll is too slow, just scroll /8 pixels.
Problem solved!

An animated usas or Vampire Killer i would love to see,my question is wether this would ever be possible on the Msx2 standar machines that these games were designed to run.

I believe screen 5 spriteless border masking was already taken into account into the calculation of 1px/frame 16 frames smoothscroll and fits within the VDP limits, while having one small block of VDP command output (current page border drawing + alternate page copying) per frame. Only masking entering/leaving sprites may be a point of attention, if you want to go that far in the first place.

As for number of sprites on screen, I think that you can manage the number onscreen at one time dynamically (so not purely based on screen position but also on currently visible sprites). Then again I think we're are way too afraid of slight sprite flicker once in a while. Look at NES: it has sprites flickering all over the place yet was hugely popular. I think some games are hurt more by forced limiting of sprites than occasional flicker.

Also: "2 sprites out of 8 just for border masking is just too much" - well you still have 6 left, and that's already 2 more than any MSX1 game such as Nemesis or Zanac