Which model of MSX do I need for the most traditional shooters??....

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By rolins

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24-10-2008, 23:08

Games like Space Manbow (and I think Aleste 2) will have smoother scrolling than on a regular MSX2.
'Smoother' is not exactly the right word here for Space Manbow. On MSX2+ you have border masking, but the scroll itself is as smooth on MSX2 as it is on MSX2+. MSX2 *can* scroll smoothly you know.. Tongue Never seen Aleste 2 on MSX2+ but face it, vertical scrolling on MSX2 is just like scrolling on MSX2+.

Throw a fish at me for being so ignorant. Tongue
I remember reading another thread or was it an article, it said that Space Manbow scrolls better on a MSX2+. Maybe I misread that. Exactly what is border masking? I never heard of this before.

By JohnHassink

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24-10-2008, 23:48

AFAIK, MSX2 vertical scrolling has a dedicated hardware implementation (VDP register 24).
Smooth horizontal scroll (register 8 I think) is harder to pull off.

By dave4shmups

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25-10-2008, 01:13

Ok, thanks so much for the info everyone! So, there are no models that come with both cartridge and disk slots? AFIK, Aleste came out on discs. And what was Compile's Diskstation? Also, where's the best place to get an NTSC MSX2-I hardly ever see them on Ebay.

By wolf_

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25-10-2008, 01:19

I remember reading another thread or was it an article, it said that Space Manbow scrolls better on a MSX2+.

yea, iirc there was something on the net like that. Scrolling is scrolling. Border masking is masking a border.. ^_^ Have you ever seen Space Manbow on MSX2? If yes, you may have noticed that the 'side-borders' scroll along and are reset after 8 pixels. MSX2+ has border masking which simply adds a border to the edges of the screen, hiding this boingboingboing effect (how's that for a description! ^_^) You can simply test the effect in emulators if you don't have Space Manbow and an MSX2 and MSX2+.

Because MSX2 can only scroll 16 pixels horizontally, for a full screen horizontal scroll you need to rebuild the screen during your scroll (1/16 part of the screen for each pixel, in a 1-pixel scroll). MSX2+ can scroll the whole screen, meaning you only need to build the new column entering the screen.

By wolf_

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25-10-2008, 01:23

dave: each MSX has two cartridge slots afaik. With -for instance- a Philips NMS8250/8255/8280 you should be able to play almost every game ever made. What you want next is an FM-PAC cartridge to be able to hear FM music from most Japanese games.

What you want to do is go here and have a read. It'll answer most, if not all, of your questions!

By rolins

Champion (418)

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25-10-2008, 02:27

I remember reading another thread or was it an article, it said that Space Manbow scrolls better on a MSX2+.

yea, iirc there was something on the net like that. Scrolling is scrolling. Border masking is masking a border.. ^_^ Have you ever seen Space Manbow on MSX2? If yes, you may have noticed that the 'side-borders' scroll along and are reset after 8 pixels. MSX2+ has border masking which simply adds a border to the edges of the screen, hiding this boingboingboing effect (how's that for a description! ^_^) You can simply test the effect in emulators if you don't have Space Manbow and an MSX2 and MSX2+.

Because MSX2 can only scroll 16 pixels horizontally, for a full screen horizontal scroll you need to rebuild the screen during your scroll (1/16 part of the screen for each pixel, in a 1-pixel scroll). MSX2+ can scroll the whole screen, meaning you only need to build the new column entering the screen.

Thanks, that makes sense now. I checked it on a emulator using MSX2 config and see wobbles you're talking about. I never knew those existed in Manbow because I moved from a msx1 to msx2+, never owned a msx2 before.

By JohnHassink

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25-10-2008, 02:46

@rolins:

Exactly what is border masking? I never heard of this before.

When scrolling horizontal, the "garbage" process of scrolling would show on the most left and right sides of the screen.
Ofcourse, the screen has to be "thrown back" in the opposite direction of the scroll, eventually. Smile
An example of a rather visible scrolling process can be seen when running Space Manbow on no "higher" configuration than MSX2:
The borders of the screen will "flap".

To literally cover this, a programmer can opt for making this parts plain black by covering them with so-called "hardware sprites".
Such HW sprites get top priority over any other display of VDP data (pixels) which makes them adequate for covering those butt-ugly processing parts. Smile

Doing so however is a huge waste of those HW sprites.
Because you'd probaby need them to display bullets and stuff and probably even your player character, which sucks when more than 8 of 'em sharing X coordinates causes flickering.
I'm guessing that's a reason why this technique wasn't used at all in Space Manbow.

The VDP in MSX2+ and TurboR's however, is updgraded in such a way to offer:

* A more direct way of accessing the vertical scroll buffer
* Implemented option for border masking without using sprites (both even accessible from MSX-BASIC by the way)

...And that's part of the secrets of Laydock Last Attack and Space Manbow's beautiful scroll on MSX2+. Big smile

By nikodr

Paladin (748)

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25-10-2008, 15:31

Regarding that area that would need hardware sprites to be hidden:Why didnt the programers simply hide that area,and make the resolution of the game smaller?Simply paint it black,or change the length of each line to be smaller?Isn't another way to hide that area from being seen?

(I know it may sound stupid)Smile

By wolf_

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25-10-2008, 15:39

Space Manbow is in screen 4. You can't just hide tiles there by drawing a rect over the edges, as the screen is made out of tiles, not bitmap pixels.

By JohnHassink

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25-10-2008, 21:14

Once you place a HW sprite, it will be there for ever and ever until you pull the plug out of your MSX. Smile

In other words: You don't need to address, specify or do anything to it.
Drawing black stuff over the borders at each interrupt may cost too much CPU time.

On top of that: HW sprites get priority over everything on screen.

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