Is there games that switchs from hardware sprite to software sprite dinamicaly?

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Por flyguille

Prophet (3031)

Imagen del flyguille

23-07-2010, 00:49

I was thinking, in games that facing the 5th or 9th sprite in the same line... I was WONDERING.....

if some developer or commercial game DOES, a sprite switching dinamicaly...

the concept is the follow.....

we all know that soft sprite is slow for a mid/big number of sprites.

But what are if, in the gameplay routine, use all hardware sprite (if msx2 can be 2 colors per sprites)

when the 5th sprite object is in the same line, it switchs from hardware to software and only for this extra object!!!....

so , how is the speed costs to render only 3 or 4 software sprites?, nothing...... maybe that extra spare cpu time available anyway normaly used for FPS control....

so, the result, the user will se 6, 7 multicolores sprites without flickering!....

anybody did already this?

With this, I not means about, bullet in SW and crafts in hardware.... but I means that any sprite done in hardware can be rendered in SW if it is in line with others overloading the VDP.

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Por flyguille

Prophet (3031)

Imagen del flyguille

23-07-2010, 00:53

for do the checks that detects when a sprite is overloading you can use a 212 buffer size one byte per Y scanline.

so, knowing the Y pos of every sprite, just count in a loop what Y scanlines will take that sprite

for x=0 to 16
buf(x+Ysprite)=buf(x+Ysprite)+1
if buf(x+Ysprite)>4 then
' overload.
' switch to soft
put sprite sp,(,219)
end if
next x

somthing like that.
somthing that simple.

>4 for msx1
>8 for msx2

or if you spend 2 sprites per object

you can to check only a object's list, not the sprite's list.

offcourse all the yeld depends of the requeriments of the SW sprite rendering & background engine.

Por flyguille

Prophet (3031)

Imagen del flyguille

23-07-2010, 01:02

what is the goal of something like this?

GAIN DESIGN FREEDOM of all the STAGES / MAP!.

without restrictions of WHAT KIND of OBJECT can be placed here or there.....or what kind of movements or behaviors can take the IA of enemies , because limitations like that usualy kills the art job!.

Por Yukio

Paragon (1540)

Imagen del Yukio

23-07-2010, 02:19

Interesting concept ... In my plans when there is more than 3 characters into the same line the other object would be waiting for free room . I could use your concept to improve some titles. Since it would be a simple matter.

Por flyguille

Prophet (3031)

Imagen del flyguille

23-07-2010, 04:49

it is FREEDOOM !!!

if you see all maps on MSX games, are designed to avoid that VDP limitation....! And that is a charateristic of a MSX game.

I says, STOP thinking like that!

BE FREE!.

Por Yukio

Paragon (1540)

Imagen del Yukio

23-07-2010, 05:44

Specially because a lot of my mini games does use "software" sprites. Sure, without double buffering their flicker a lot ... But, into the older mini-games devices there is this noticeable flicker too!It was a 'feature'.

Por Hrothgar

Champion (479)

Imagen del Hrothgar

23-07-2010, 08:53

Combining software and hardware sprites may be an excellent idea to overcome sprite limits. However I don't know if it's required to do it dynamically. For e.g. a Double Dragon type of game, you may do the main player(s) and 1 or 2 enemies (depending on the enemy size and number of human players) with hardware sprites by default, and additional enemies and weapons/objects as software sprites. Regardless of their positioning and number per scanline. Somehow I think that calculating all of that and switching from hardware to software sprites in real time may be more difficult than simply using a combination throughout the game.

One difficult thing though may be how to put a software sprite on top of a hardware sprite in those cases, so in case of a sprite collision some additional logic and switching between hardware and software sprites may be needed...

In a certain way this was already done though. Large end bosses in Space Manbow can really be seen as software sprites, although not dynamically switching.
Galaga does switch between fairly static software sprites and moving hardware sprites.

Por PingPong

Prophet (4093)

Imagen del PingPong

23-07-2010, 09:18

it is FREEDOOM !!!

if you see all maps on MSX games, are designed to avoid that VDP limitation....! And that is a charateristic of a MSX game.

I says, STOP thinking like that!

BE FREE!.

From the tests i've done in the past, i've seen that VDP can manage a screen 5 sprite cursor of 20x20 pixels taking about the entire vblank time (4,3ms). My test basically did a "save background"/"logical sprite copy"/"erase background" cycle.

So having two extra sprites updated at 25hz should be feasible.

Por Yukio

Paragon (1540)

Imagen del Yukio

23-07-2010, 13:57

Combining software and hardware sprites may be an excellent idea to overcome sprite limits. However I don't know if it's required to do it dynamically. For e.g. a Double Dragon type of game, you may do the main player(s) and 1 or 2 enemies (depending on the enemy size and number of human players) with hardware sprites by default, and additional enemies and weapons/objects as software sprites. Regardless of their positioning and number per scanline. Somehow I think that calculating all of that and switching from hardware to software sprites in real time may be more difficult than simply using a combination throughout the game.

Yes, it should work. For this type of game, I can use the sprites for the player and two enemies. The boss battle is over a "software sprite character" (bigger sized character with 8x8 block move) plus the normal minions ...

Por viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

Imagen del viejo_archivero

23-07-2010, 14:53

Nice idea, but with lots of problems within (that will lead to lots of extra CPU use for sprite management). Why not using flickering instead, as lots of 8bit machines did back then? Or, as Hrothgar suggested, use hw sprites for the character, and sw sprites for enemies and/or bullets (just follow the example of Gradius games ;D)

Por Yukio

Paragon (1540)

Imagen del Yukio

23-07-2010, 19:58

Nice idea, but with lots of problems within (that will lead to lots of extra CPU use for sprite management). Why not using flickering instead, as lots of 8bit machines did back then? Or, as Hrothgar suggested, use hw sprites for the character, and sw sprites for enemies and/or bullets (just follow the example of Gradius games ;D)

I do not know about the others, but some titles like fighting game would lock the screen anyway until someone could defeat the bosses. The same for space shooters, the screen is not scrolling and there is not a background when facing the bosses ...

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