Doom?

[RobC]

Yeah, I have a datacentre fitted already. Will be ordering a VideoNuLA on payday! Then doom on a beeb, yay!

Great - do contact me on here rather than buying one on eBay as it'll be cheaper...

[Muddyfunster]

Yeah, I have a datacentre fitted already. Will be ordering a VideoNuLA on payday! Then doom on a beeb, yay!

Great - do contact me on here rather than buying one on eBay as it'll be cheaper...

RobC, I'd love to know more about getting a VideoNuLA for my master but I can't PM you as I'm too new to the boards. I already have a Datacenter installed and would love to try this Doom port.

is there much soldering involved with the VideoNuLA?

[RobC]

is there much soldering involved with the VideoNuLA?

You usually have to desolder the original ULA on a Master but, if you don't fancy doing it yourself, I offer a free desoldering service. You just have to post the PCB to me and cover return postage. Alternatively, if you're anywhere near Newport, South Wales, you can just bring it to me and I'll fit the VideoNuLA while you wait.

Let me know if you're still interested and I'll PM you my e-mail address.

Cheers,

Rob

[Muddyfunster]

Rob, that sounds great, I'd really like to take advantage of your soldering offer as my skills with a soldering iron are right up with my knowledge of brain surgery.

I'm not close to Newport but I do go to Cardiff now and again visiting a client down that way. I'd rather bring you the machine than trust the board to a courier.

If you can pm me your email address maybe we can work out the logistics of when it's convenient for you (and how much the upgrade is etc.).

Thanks!

[Dethmunk]

I love a bit of Doom...... 8bit Doom that is...

[trixster]

Looks pretty good!

[jbnbeeb]

Linking to a guide I've written for running this on a Master/PiTubeDirect and SD card interface:

viewtopic.php?f=57&t=18105

[mr-macrisc]

Did you ever get sound working? Last demo video was still missing sound.

John

[RobC]

Did you ever get sound working? Last demo video was still missing sound.

Not yet. I did get one of Sprow's Ethernet cards for Christmas so hope to work on networking too soon.

[mr-macrisc]

Oooo networking

[mr-macrisc]

Talking if that I wonder if 1mhz Pi could service Ethernet requirements....

Only thinking as not so many people have Ethernet or don’t have a master so not even an option or econet already populated.

[RobC]

alking if that I wonder if 1mhz Pi could service Ethernet requirements....

Only thinking as not so many people have Ethernet or don’t have a master so not even an option or econet already populated.

Quite possibly. I'm going down the Sprow ethernet card route first because it has a well-defined sockets API and so shouldn't be too much work to get up and running. I'd love to do Econet as that's more common but don't have any experience of low-level coding for it at so it'll have to wait for now.

I think I've read that some people have accessed the Pi ethernet interface using bare metal so it could be doable.

[Yrrah2]

I guess I'm looking with the wrong side of my face, but where can I download doom for thee beeb/master?

[RobC]

What sort of hard drive do you have? I think I still have a dump from my DC on Dropbox or there's an SD card version on here somewhere.

[Yrrah2]

What sort of hard drive do you have? I think I still have a dump from my DC on Dropbox or there's an SD card version on here somewhere.

I have the DataCentre from retroclinic with flashcards as HD. So 4 internal HD at ADFS format.

[RobC]

Here's my 512MB HD image: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9g8pb0vbzyo6u ... 1.zip?dl=0

Doom is in $.PiCoPro.Doom.

[Yrrah2]

Here's my 512MB HD image: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9g8pb0vbzyo6u ... 1.zip?dl=0

Doom is in $.PiCoPro.Doom.

Thanks!
Got it running. Nice work!!
Didn't realise the first time that I had to load the ROM file into the SWR first
Can't remember is it was that dark on the first level. Or is that because of the limited amount of colours?
During the game I accidentally hitted a function key that made game crash. (or hang) I'll try to reproduce that again.
And was there a dither mode and a videonula version?

Again, Nice work!

[RobC]

Can't remember is it was that dark on the first level. Or is that because of the limited amount of colours?
During the game I accidentally hitted a function key that made game crash. (or hang) I'll try to reproduce that again.
And was there a dither mode and a videonula version?

The darkness is probably because you are using the 8 colour version?
Do doom -fourcol for the four colour dithered version or doom -nula for the VideoNuLA version. You can also do -palette with the four colour version to specify the four physical colours used e.g. -palette 0147 for black, red, blue and white.

It's not finished yet so I'm not surprised there are a few bugs!

[dudleysoft71]

I tried it with the ultimate doom wad with the Nula palette patched in. I worked briefly before hanging in the menu, not sure if it was something I pressed or if the wad doesn't work yet with the game.

Does the game support pwads? It would be easier to put the palette file in a pwad and then just load that and whichever wad file you want to use.

[Yrrah2]

The darkness is probably because you are using the 8 colour version?
Do doom -fourcol for the four colour dithered version or doom -nula for the VideoNuLA version. You can also do -palette with the four colour version to specify the four physical colours used e.g. -palette 0147 for black, red, blue and white.

It's not finished yet so I'm not surprised there are a few bugs!

Great! got the nula running! Much, much better!
Are you planning to implement the mouse too?
Funny that the dithered versions makes some fonts better readable (like the intro screen and scores etc.)

[RobC]

Does the game support pwads? It would be easier to put the palette file in a pwad and then just load that and whichever wad file you want to use.

I've only had it running with the included wad so far. I need to include support for other wads but haven't got round to it yet.

Are you planning to implement the mouse too?

Possibly though it's probably a way down the list at the moment.

[AJW]

alking if that I wonder if 1mhz Pi could service Ethernet requirements....

Only thinking as not so many people have Ethernet or don’t have a master so not even an option or econet already populated.

Quite possibly. I'm going down the Sprow ethernet card route first because it has a well-defined sockets API and so shouldn't be too much work to get up and running. I'd love to do Econet as that's more common but don't have any experience of low-level coding for it at so it'll have to wait for now.

I think I've read that some people have accessed the Pi ethernet interface using bare metal so it could be doable.

Econet was considered for Elite-A but deemed too slow.

[jms2]

I have just managed to get Doom running on my Master... it's incredible! And that's before adding the VideoNula...

[tricky]

Rob, what do you think about using sample playback for your Doom?
You could probably get away with 8khz at 4 bits/sample, but it might be cheaper to send the whole volume control byte.
The tricky bit will be interleaving the sound updates with the screen updates and as a further optimisation interleaving screen updates with sound updates.
If you only updated one changed, you could probably leave the sound chip enabled, except when you read the keyboard.
If you use three, you could still just updated one changed at 8k, but choose the one to get the volume closest to the required level.

[RobC]

Rob, what do you think about using sample playback for your Doom?
You could probably get away with 8khz at 4 bits/sample, but it might be cheaper to send the whole volume control byte.
The tricky bit will be interleaving the sound updates with the screen updates and as a further optimisation interleaving screen updates with sound updates.
If you only updated one changed, you could probably leave the sound chip enabled, except when you read the keyboard.
If you use three, you could still just updated one changed at 8k, but choose the one to get the volume closest to the required level.

I've considered different approaches for sound (but never got as far as completing any of them!): using the PC speaker sounds, using the speech chip, using samples and using the 1MHz->Pi adapter to produce the audio.

The PC sounds are rubbish (but cheap), samples are better but more expensive and the speech chip (which gives a really good approximation to some of the sounds) and 1MHz Pi require even more extra hardware.

The real issue is that work has been hectic for some months and so I've not had the time to progress any of it. Hopefully, I'll find some time soon!

[dominicbeesley]

I keep meaning to have a play with this. Is there a source repo for this somewhere. I'd like to have something to try out Tube DMA and this looks like a good candidate!

[Chuckie]

nice screen loader

[tricky]

Rob, what do you think about using sample playback for your Doom?
You could probably get away with 8khz at 4 bits/sample, but it might be cheaper to send the whole volume control byte.
The tricky bit will be interleaving the sound updates with the screen updates and as a further optimisation interleaving screen updates with sound updates.
If you only updated one changed, you could probably leave the sound chip enabled, except when you read the keyboard.
If you use three, you could still just updated one changed at 8k, but choose the one to get the volume closest to the required level.

I've considered different approaches for sound (but never got as far as completing any of them!): using the PC speaker sounds, using the speech chip, using samples and using the 1MHz->Pi adapter to produce the audio.

The PC sounds are rubbish (but cheap), samples are better but more expensive and the speech chip (which gives a really good approximation to some of the sounds) and 1MHz Pi require even more extra hardware.

The real issue is that work has been hectic for some months and so I've not had the time to progress any of it. Hopefully, I'll find some time soon!

Flying lead from the PI to the 1MHz audio in

[dudleysoft71]

Rob, what do you think about using sample playback for your Doom?
You could probably get away with 8khz at 4 bits/sample, but it might be cheaper to send the whole volume control byte.
The tricky bit will be interleaving the sound updates with the screen updates and as a further optimisation interleaving screen updates with sound updates.
If you only updated one changed, you could probably leave the sound chip enabled, except when you read the keyboard.
If you use three, you could still just updated one changed at 8k, but choose the one to get the volume closest to the required level.

I've considered different approaches for sound (but never got as far as completing any of them!): using the PC speaker sounds, using the speech chip, using samples and using the 1MHz->Pi adapter to produce the audio.

The PC sounds are rubbish (but cheap), samples are better but more expensive and the speech chip (which gives a really good approximation to some of the sounds) and 1MHz Pi require even more extra hardware.

The real issue is that work has been hectic for some months and so I've not had the time to progress any of it. Hopefully, I'll find some time soon!

Flying lead from the PI to the 1MHz audio in

How about a flying lead to the audio pin on the speech chip? Would that work?

[tricky]

The speech chip has an eight bit data bus and some address pins and is connected to the slow data bus, so it is best programmed from software on the beeb's 6502, or possibly via the OS (I don't know the OS route).

Putting analogue audio in via the PiCoPro is cheating even more than sending the samples back, but not too much to not have the option