How come I don't remember anything good about Wec Le Mans? Maybe I should check it out again...

Only thing that I really remember about that game was article in local magazine titled "Wec Le Mans... ainakin mun koneesta" that did not give a very good impression of the game.

Quote:

[quote] Most of the zx spectrum games could be re made using this approach and of course moving only 768 bytes instead of 6144 can compensate for the slow vram access...

Unfortunately, the slowest ones usually have smooth scroll, which prevent from using this method. Of course some will thing MSX2 or 2+ could help by using hardware scroll... but this will not work also, since enemies and characters are shapes (and would be scrolled with the background).
About transfer of the entire buffer from RAM to VRAM or write byte by byte, there is no "rule" on what is better. Some games are slower on MSX because they are really intensive, even if you use the better of both methods. Altered Beast uses a mix of RAM buffer to VRAM output (when a full screen update is needed) and direct VRAM writes when small changes are needed (just like some MSX games, such as Knightmare) and is very slow on 3.57MHz. Of course Knightmare is much faster because it uses this update method on the nametable and Altered Beast use it on Pattern and Color Table (the difference between 768 bytes and 12288 bytes of transfer!).
Of course Altered Beast could be converted to work in a pattern style, but this would require a massive work and probably the game graphics would have to be simplified, since the game has much more than 256 patters (the number of patterns Knightmare uses). Also, pattern and color redefinition would be still needed, because there is no way of building such large (and many) characters using sprites.
So, the shapes approach must remains... and there is no room for placing all possible patterns for the character and enemies on the same 256 patters available at screen 2 (I am using the approach of repeated pattern tables... which would requires every pattern redefined to be redefined 3 times... the same going to color table!)... Also, using this approach, the characters would have always a black border, unless there was spare Z80 cycles to do the propper masking with the background while redefining the three pattern tables whenever the character moves...

All those things and the fact Altered Beast ported from spectrum can be played by 2 players at the same time (both on the same screen), with much more enemies on the screen at the same time _at the same speed_ we experience when playing with a single player (a mode that probably would not be available on a pattern-mode adaptation) really makes me wonder if this game could be really enhanced in a native version.
I believe it would be possible to do a "better looking" game, using MSX2+ in screen 4 or 5, with all characters using sprites ... but the game would be very limited, like the NES one. Even Sega Master System (Mark III), with a much better sprite and pattern mode than any existing MSX, has a very limited Altered Beast port, without one of the stages and is a "one player only" game.

Of course, VDU and GFX9k changes everything. But for plain MSX1, without memory or video expansion, maybe Altered Beast from Spectrum is almost as good as it can possibly gets.

And it would be really nice if someone show me I am wrong... with a new and better implementation of Altered Beast (for a plain MSX1-2-2+)

artrag and leandro, I meant missing loading screen pissed me off in WEC LE MANS... too many msx games were missing spectrum´s loading screen.... WEC was very playable indeed, but sadly it got soon too repetitive as you just raced SAME track until the end.

Title music was very good, but it had very strange thing in it, you could only listen beginning of it... if you wanted to listen it FULLY, you had to "redefine keys", then music played to the end.

Maybe Nyyrikki is referring to MikroBitti´s review of horrible commodore 64 conversion?

"Auto kiihtyy ku ketjuton mopo ja huippunopeudella ajettaessa maantie näyttää kulkevan takaperin... "

@Fudeba: i can only agree on what you say:

About your consideration on msx2+ vdp, or v9990 or vdu card: Of course counting on a ATI RADEON xxxx or NVIDIA series this game the game could be even better. But a msx with those hardware is not longer msx.

Of course, the main limit is not the vram throughput from ram to vram, but istead the color attribute set. on msx it's 6144 on speccy 768....
But imho, doing direct conversion is the best way to get the worst thing, not only on zx-msx scene. In the 99% of the situations you get a crappy game. Would be interesting to measure the framerate on both (zx/msx) versions.

Anyone have the way to do this?

Add to that list:

- Operation Wolf - You can only play the stages separately.

Quote:

Wec Le Mans was a great game on msx1. Smooth and fast even if with pure Spectrum GPX. I remember it was by far the best racing game on MSX for game play and physics (among those with view from back). I do not remember how good are the others.

Play Chase HQ at 6MHz in a Panasonic MSX2+/turboR (adapted to disk by Martos). Best MSX racing game ever! You can even play it in R800 mode (not recommendable though )

Chase HQ for ZX Spectrum (YouTube video). The MSX version is almost identical (some sounds are not present and the energy bar is not in colour). At 3.58MHz it is slightly slower but at 6MHz it runs smoother than the ZX version!

Quote:

Quote: ARTRAG, I have here a good disk conversion of WEC LE MANS which was done as far as I know by Martos near 3 years ago. It features the loading screen and in a simple MSX 2 works very good . The problem is that I haven't been able to run it from DOS-2 - BASIC 2.X I bought Wec Le Mans in the 1980s, and I don´t remember it has loading screen.... unless you mean simple screen 1 or screen 0 message: WEC LE MANS IS LOADING PLEASE WAIT (or something like that) and I think that text was in a box made of characters taken from MSX ROM. So your loading screen must be taken from spectrum original which didn´t exist on msx.... "very good" spectrum-->msx conversion indeed... like too many msx games....

Yes, Martos put the original Spectrum loading screen, instead of the pink background and text of the original MSX version.

PS: ARTRAG, hope you are enjoying the game . It resets the 1chipMSX, so I must to use my old 8245

Well, WEC Le Mans disk conversion hangs on 1chipMSX, because in the loader it uses poke -1,170, a poke which resets the 1chipMSX. But now with the correct POKE -1,(15-PEEK(-1)\16)*17 , works perfectly

Well, I have tested Time Scanner and Altered Beast in the 1chipMSX at 10 MHZ. Totally outstanding!!

Quote:

@Fudeba: i can only agree on what you say: But imho, doing direct conversion is the best way to get the worst thing, not only on zx-msx scene. In the 99% of the situations you get a crappy game. Would be interesting to measure the framerate on both (zx/msx) versions. Anyone have the way to do this?

Well, everything I can say is the Speccy game seems to run at 30FPS and on MSX @ 7MHz the game seems to run at the same 30FPS. The difference is sometimes in Speccy the game fell bellow 30FPS because of two many enemies on the screen... On MSX @ 7MHz this doesn't seem to happen.

On MSX @ 3.57ZMHz... well, this is a whole new history... I believe the game barely runs at 10 FPS... which is... lame.

Quote:

On MSX @ 3.57ZMHz... well, this is a whole new history... I believe the game barely runs at 10 FPS... which is... lame.

30fps? i think a bit too much for the z80. a z80 ldir command can transfer about 170kb/sec
It's a bit too much even for a 7mhz msx system...

I've debugged the vram I/O transfer and i've realized the same crappy thing: ram-vram ->I/O transfers are done with this code:

ld a, (HL)
out (0x98),a

nop
inc h

ld a,(HL)......

notice the inc h, this is used to accomodate the different vram layout on zx / msx.
This is another clause of the slow performances:

In order to re-use the zx speccy sw sprite routines, programmers have been forced to keep the zx vram layout.
they do the conversion during the ram-vram transfer, with a lot of overhead.

game speed could improve a lot if they adapted the zx speccy sw gfx routines to match the msx vram layout.
in this way the ram->vram could be done with a OTIR, a lot faster than the above.

as usual, to take advantage of a specific hw the sw should be adapted.

Quote:

Yes, Martos put the original Spectrum loading screen, instead of the pink background and text of the original MSX version.

PINK background? I had blue!

On the copy I have, it has pink background. Yes.

PS: According the Martos website, WEC LE MANS had several editions.

I still remember the day when I purchased AFTER THE WAR for the MSX. It was a game made by Dynamic (I suppose... BTW I remember that it was made in Spain ^___^). Boy, the Amiga version was fantastic and similar to FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, that was (and still is) a very popular Anime in Italy.

Unfortunately the MSX version sucked. A lot.

On the other side, I'm still playing THUNDERBIRDS (Grandslam, 1989) every now and then on my old Philips VG-8020... after 20 years I'm still trying to get through the bank safe in the third mission