Atomic AGD Pack55

[oss003]

Hi guys,

if you want some new games to play this weekend ...... here is AGD Pack 55 ......

AGD Pack 55:

• Title:Donkey Kong Reloaded
• Original Release Year:2013
• Original Publisher:Gabriele Amore (Italy)
• Authors:Gabriele Amore (Italy), Dave Hughes (UK)
• Message Language:English
• Machine Type:ZX-Spectrum 48K
• Genre:Arcade Game: PLatform
• Maximum Players:1

• Title:Flype
• Original Release Year:2015
• Original Publisher:Repixel8
• Authors:Repixel8
• Message English
• Machine Type:ZX-Spectrum 48K
• Genre:Arcade Game: Platform
• Maximum Players:1

• Title:Gherkin's Christmas Carnage
• Original Release Year:2020
• Original Publisher:DomReardon
• Authors:DomReardon
• Message Language:English
• Machine Type:ZX-Spectrum 48/128K
• Genre:Arcade Game: Shoot-em-up
• Maximum Players:1

Tape, disk and AtoMMC versions are included, please read the TXT file for usage.

Greetings
Kees

dkreload-1.png (7.98 KiB) Viewed 3124 times

dkreload-2.png (6.09 KiB) Viewed 3124 times

flype-1.png (8.62 KiB) Viewed 3124 times

flype-2.png (3.63 KiB) Viewed 3124 times

gherkin-1.png (1.98 KiB) Viewed 3124 times

gherkin-2.png (6.03 KiB) Viewed 3124 times

[oss003]

And an update of the AGD overview page: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=16275

[roland]

I feel an update of the software archive coming up, including an update of the screen dump carousel

[hoglet]

I feel an update of the software archive coming up, including an update of the screen dump carousel

Happy to do this shortly.

In the last release we moved from 10 to 11 bit titles ids in the MENU program, so that allows for another 1,000 titles. But I have a slight worry we are close to running out of memory space for the title indexes for Chapter G (all titles). If we hit that limit, I might have to drop the AGD games from Chapter G. Or maybe drop Chapter G entirely. I'll check the availale space this morining.

Kees, are there more in the pipeline? Should I wait a bit longer?

Dave

[oss003]

Kees, are there more in the pipeline? Should I wait a bit longer?

Well, I now have anoher 27 games ready for publishing but there are still 36 waiting for conversion if possible.

Which memory area's does the menu use?
Is the menu using #9800-#9FFF?

A option would be to have a seperate AGD games menu.
You can add an option in the standard menu to load and execute the AGD menu.
And in the AGD menu, you can heave an option to load and execute the standard menu.

Greetings
Kees

[hoglet]

Which memory area's does the menu use?
Is the menu using #9800-#9FFF?

It's complicated!

Chapters's A-F are designed to be small enough to fit in a 6K + 6K Atom.

Chapter G is designed to run only on a 32K + 6K Atom.

They obviously have different memory layouts.

Looking at the Chapter C (currently 201 AGD titles), in V11.01 we have :

Code: Select all

2800-3132 - MENU (code)
3200-32FF - row buffer (data, runtime)
3300-3A19 - spare
3A20-3A69 - MENU1 (data)
3A6A-3BFF - SORT0..3 (data)
8200-9270 - MENU2 (data)
9271-97FF - spare

The limiting factor here is the MENU2 region (which stores the title table)

I estimate we have space for about another 70 titles, after that we would have to split the AGD chapter.

Looking at Chapter G (everything, currently 983 titles), in V11.01 we have

Code: Select all

0400-27FF - spare
2800-3132 - MENU (code)
3200-32FF - row buffer (data, runtime)
3300-774D - MENU2 (data)
774E-7FFF - spare
8200-8776 - spare 
8777-904D - MENU1 (data)
904E-97FF - SORT0..3 (data)

The limiting factor here is the MENU2 region (which stores the title table)

I estimate we have space for about another 125 titles, after that we would have to re-think things.

Well, I now have anoher 27 games ready for publishing but there are still 36 waiting for conversion if possible.

Are the 27 titles ready for AGD 56-62 packs in the next few weeks? If so, I'll hold off.

Let's add all those up...
- 15 titles in AGD packs 52..55
- 27 more titles ready to go
- 36 titles beyond that
= 78 titles

That might take us to the point where we need to split the AGD Chapter to fit in a 6K+6K Atom.

Longer term, it's generally the title table (MENU2) that is the largest single table, and it needs to be in contiguous memory. The same MENU program needs to run on a normal and expanded Atom. It might make sense to load the MENU program to 8200, then you have the whole 32K for data. That would really help with Chapter G, but then it reduces the space for Chapters A..F (0x1600 bytes down to 0x1400 bytes). Chapter A title table is currently the largest, at 0x1202 bytes. You see how it's a bit of a juggling act. Luckily it's mostly automated!

Dave

[roland]

Can’t you use a random access file for the titles? It will be slower for searching a game but space is no longer an issue that way.

[oss003]

Is a text compressing/decompressing routine an option .... there is a BBC adventure game in development using a text compress routine.
You can optimize the compress routine by analysing the data with a script file.

Or using control-codes in the text string as tokens .... eg for 'the' or 'and' ...

Greetings
Kees

[hoglet]

Can’t you use a random access file for the titles? It will be slower for searching a game but space is no longer an issue that way.

I think it would be so much slower than what we have currently.

And it also required a recent(ish) version of AtoMMC - I don't know how many people have old versions.

It's also effectively starting again.

Is a text compressing/decompressing routine an option .... there is a BBC adventure game in development using a text compress routine.
You can optimize the compress routine by analysing the data with a script file.

Or using control-codes in the text string as tokens .... eg for 'the' or 'and' ...

This I suppose is an option, but I don't actually think we are in a bad place with what we have.

Each small chapter (A-F) has space for ~350(ish) titles, so if we need more titles we just need to split the chapter.

The large chapter (G) with everything is only for a 32K Atom, and we don't yet use any of the memory below #2800.

To use the memory on a 32KB Atom more efficiently we just need to compile a second version of the MENU program that loads high up (e.g. #7600). Then we have the rest of the 32K block for the title table. So we would have:
- *MENUL loads to #2800 for the 6K+6K Atom
- *MENUH loads to #7600 for the 32K+6K Atom
- *MENU is now just a boot loader that does a quick memory test to decide which version to load.

That would give us space for about 400 more titles.

Dave

[oss003]

Sounds ok for me.

Also a seperate AGD menu sounds ok for me because the AGD games only run on a 32KB Atom with RAM expansion at #9800-#9FFF.

Greetings
Kees