Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Other Calculators => Topic started by: AssemblyBandit on August 10, 2013, 04:42:58 am
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I was watching the vid on the DJ's Tunnel game for the HP Prime. That's gangster. There is still time TI, school hasn't started yet, bump up the processor in the +C. Even just 20Mhz would be appreciated. Better yet, switch to an ARM processor. They're fast and cheap....
I'm going to make a tunnel game in assembly on the +C to compare to the Prime. Then I'm going to cry myself to sleep...
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The full-screen fill rate of the 84+CSE being terrible (even though some methods for mitigating the damage when using a tilemap engine were found), you'll indeed cry yourself to sleep...
The 84+CSE is indeed a blunder from a technical point of view, but it makes perfect sense from a business point of view - due to the color screen, it looks like a worthwhile update to the TI-Z80 series at low development cost, and people are buying it.
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IIRC 20Mhz is about the max clock speed for a z80. The TI-84 +CSE is at 15. They'd have to change the processor to get more speed, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. <_< They'd also have to rework the calc if they changed processors, and that means more money, and more time spent.
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Indeed. That said I like the CSE how it is (although more RAM would be nice) because it makes it old school and pushing old school hardware to its limits is entertaining. :P
And yes the HP Prime rules lol. I wish I had more time because developing for both xLIB CSE and the Prime simultaneously would be epic.
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The HP Prime is more of a competitor to the TI-Nspire CX, they have pretty much the same specs, but why the Prime seems faster? More RAM?
The OS is less bloated? The LCD is better? With a touch screen?
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largely more of a competitor to the Nspire CX CAS than the Prizm, I'd say.
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but why the Prime seems faster?
Primarily because the processor is much faster :)
More RAM?
Nope, only half of the CX.
The OS is less bloated?
Quite possibly :D
The LCD is better?
If the Prime's OS uses the 2D accelerator that the S3C2416 chip has, according to its features list, then yes, indirectly (because the processor can tell the 2D accelerator to do stuff, instead of drawing everything on its own). But there's no indication on whether the 2D accelerator is used by the OS (it would be foolish not to !).
With a touch screen?
Shouldn't be too different from the Nspire's touchpad.
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With a touch screen?
Shouldn't be too different from the Nspire's touchpad.
I'm no expert in this, but the Nspire's touchpad is capacitive but only mono-touch ?
The Prime's screen touch layer is capacitive and multi-touch.
Edit : wait, ok, not talking about that :P
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I mean, reading the Prime's touchscreen is IMO not much faster, or slower, than reading the Nspire's touchpad.
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The HP Prime is more of a competitor to the TI-Nspire CX, they have pretty much the same specs, but why the Prime seems faster? More RAM?
The OS is less bloated? The LCD is better? With a touch screen?
faster CPU and 2D acceleration.
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I think both the 400 MHz processor and the 2D accelerator makes the tunnel game so fast. Maybe the calc is actually not that fast with big time-munching operations that do not involve display.
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IIRC 20Mhz is about the max clock speed for a z80. The TI-84 +CSE is at 15.
Actually, according to Michael_V (who was before your time), TI's engineers believed the top speed of the TI-83+SE ASIC was about 25 MHz. You may have heard some community members throwing around 20 and 25 MHz numbers. Those numbers come from Michael_V, who had contacts in TI's engineering division. Since the TI-83+SE was basically a beta of the TI-84+/C/SE ASICs, that most likely applies to those, too.
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This is pushing it to the limit. And I can't push it anymore :'(
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Games at this speed look very playable for me :)
Edit : and yes, you should release (with the source :P) so people can see how you achieved "reaching the limits" :P)
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I'm not aware we have confirmed that the Prime uses 2D acceleration, yet.
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That looks quite fast ASMBandit. ;) Do you use 160*240 mode ?
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Wow that looked cool AssemblyBandit! You should release it but maybe not in APP form since 16 KB for a tunnel would be a bit much.
Also I think the HP Prime is downclocked to 266 MHz by default.
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Also I think the HP Prime is downclocked to 266 MHz by default.
That's just speculation but it'd be logical that it's true.
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That is because it drains your batteries slower when it is clocked lower.
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That is because it drains your batteries slower when it is clocked lower.
Yeah that ^. I didn't know how to phrase it. :P
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@AssemblyBandit: would that make the game any faster to scroll several pixels at a time, as the Prime version does ? Because in my opinion, you can't really compare the speed of two games if they don't produce the same output.
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fasten
Fasten = attacher in French. Just sayin'./me hides
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fasten
Fasten = attacher in French. Just sayin'./me hides
The worst is that I knew it ("please fasten your seatbelts" they say). Thanks for reporting, I am editing right now.
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Thanks everyone!
adriweb: It's far from perfect! I need to speed up the ships vertical speed which will slow down the horizontal speed. The speeds aren't balanced right now so you can't make it over/under every slope. The random line drawing needs work as well, sometimes it will start off and you won't have any room for the ship!
Streetwalker: That's using 320x240 mode, I'm going to try it out in the 160 mode to see what it's like.
DJ Omnimaga: I might put it out as a program, I'm not sure yet. Right now its just a demo, no scores or title and that explosion will be an animation.
Hayleia: That's an excellent idea, I will switch it up and see what it's like. This is my first tunnel game and I thought the space was to enable the ship to fit through better. My line drawing routine is really basic and it will squeeze the line so small that the ship won't fit through eventually. I was hoping for a faster speed that would cause the player to mess up. In its present state, it won't happen though.
This is just for fun and a test. What I had in mind was a runner game where you ran through a jungle dodging obstacles, Jungle Dash is what I call it. There's snakes, alligators, quicksand, basically like that game for Atari. Judging by this though, I won't be able to pull it off, not with the speed and animation I hoped for. My head has been killing me this weekend so I haven't gotten anything accomplished. I'll add in the suggestions and make another video. I'll make a project page for Jungle Dash if all goes well.
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@AssemblyBandit: would that make the game any faster to scroll several pixels at a time, as the Prime version does ? Because in my opinion, you can't really compare the speed of two games if they don't produce the same output.
Actually, from what I hear, the HP Prime refresh rate is 52 Hz, meaning that even if the game is running a bit over 60 FPS, it will skip frames or cause some tearing (like computer games that have v-sync disabled). I wonder if that can result in less speed decrease if the screen is unable to draw every frame? Also the HP 39gII had a refresh rate of 10-15 Hz IIRC.
My Tunnel game, however, doesn't skip frames by itself. If any occurs, it's just the calc hardware doing it. The code attempts to draw every frame. Of course on the CSE, artificially skipping frames might be a good move to speed things up, though, but on the HP Prime it wouldn't make much difference.
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Is there v-sync available for basic programs on the prime or would you have to write assembly code to achieve that?
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I don't think it is. However, for people who use sprites on tilemaps or even parallax scrolling, if you want to prevent extreme flickering, you can use some sort of double-buffering technique: Instead of drawing the background (if you use parallax scrolling), the tilemap and then the sprites to the screen every frame, just draw them on an extra GROB/buffer then copy that buffer to the screen.
That way, if somehow you have to redraw the HUD every frame or something else, then the stuff won't flicker like mad due to the map being refreshed. This will probably be a bit slower, but at least it will look good.
Just doing this might actually solve some of the tearing issues that we have seen in the Tunnel game video.