Shmup console, give me your specs EDIT: *PICS*

[mice]

will this be a 0-255 range value?

Yes, 8 bits for R, G, B and A. (...or, hoperfully anyway. I would hate to have to cut down on the number of colors available)

also, will there be support for blending modes, like additive? making bullets additive etc? offcourse that might seem a bit overkill on 320x240 anyhow, but for explosions it is really effective. i'm not sure how this is done normally, if there is hardware accelleration for it or not, so maby i'm just out riding a bike.

Additive, modulative and subtractive will be in there. Any more types you would like to see?
But this will be set on the the whole object (tile or sprite) not on a per-pixel basis...but you knew that.

...i'm just out riding a bike

(this isn't really a english expression, is it?)

btw. pngs can store a full alpha value, not just a transparency color

Thanks, didn't know that.

[mrMagenta]

cool! those three blending modes are definetly the most useful, can't really think of any other except overlay (like in photoshop), don't know the programmers term for this. ie. an overlayed color of: 128 128 128 on a colored background wouldn't do anything, while 0 0 0 would darken it and 255 255 255 would lighten it. could be used for stuff like dustclouds blowing over terrain, or separating shading and color on sprites so that they can be manipulated separately, for instance if you want a light to move across a ship, having the light and shadow move accordingly, yet do something with else with the color. but then again, that could also be done with a combination the three basic blendmodes.

(this isn't really a english expression, is it?)

hehe, i'm not sure.. I think they have it in England too.

[AntiPasta]

Sorry for bumping a somewhat old topic. I thought the PSX' GPU was a very comfortable piece of HW to work with on the register level, you might want to take a look at it here

[louisg]

Hey, new shmup hardware! Just to add my two cents in: I'd much rather code a 2d shmup with dedicated hw than with Windows/MacOS/XFree, etc

So, if you are still brainstorming this, how are the specs coming along? And have you done this sort of hardware work before?

Sounds fun!

[kidneythief]

My dream game-media is this:

a combination of a compact disc, and a cart-based game (IE with a pcb)

in this sense you could have the best of both worlds, it would be kind of like the sega saturn's use of the proprietary ram carts (IE king of fighters 95) except it would be built into a cartridge shaped unit.

This way, all game-related data such as frequently accessed textures and the like could be stored on the RAM portion of the cartridge, and all the other stuff like redbook audio (or even DVD audio o_O) and FMV's and the like would be stored on the disc portion.

It is slightly complex, I was thinking of getting it patented actually... But I'm really not up to writing a patent application by myself, can't pay for a lawyer neither

[mice]

Been a while since I checked the forums. Been busy creating this thing...

I thought the PSX' GPU was a very comfortable piece of HW to work with on the register level, you might want to take a look at it

Thanks. All pointers to what has been done before is highly welcome.

Hey, new shmup hardware! Just to add my two cents in: I'd much rather code a 2d shmup with dedicated hw than with Windows/MacOS/XFree, etc

DITO that, times eternity.
You automatically knows that it will work for everyone with that piece of hw. OSes and drivers are a thing of evil...

So, if you are still brainstorming this, how are the specs coming along? And have you done this sort of hardware work before?

I've actually started to program this beast.
Specs as of now (and implemented):

VIDEO:
- 512 colors (yeah, I know...but it's a working base)
- 320x240 screen. Will probably change it to 256x224, since my favourite game of all time had that resolution...
- 128 sprites. Sizes from 4px to 512px in 2^S steps (in any combination, like 64x8 for instance). Glitching when too many of them lines up. It will be fixed by making the sprite-data coded in a smarter way and it will also make 384 of them possible. That would be enough, wouldn't it? Is there any shmup with more bullets on screen than 350?
- No alpha-blending yet. Unsure if it will be any, but hopefully.
- Tiles. 32x32. Might be changed to 16x16. What do you think?
- Palette. Four 256col ones. Might increase it to 8. Do we need more?
CPU:
- Just started it. Will be a 24-bit version of the 6502/10 clocked at 25Mhz (hopefully 50, depends on what kind of RAM It'll be using)
SOUND:
- What's that I hear? Have no experience with sound-hw, so I'll save that for last.
RAM:
- 1MB. Come on, who needs more?
ROM/STORAGE;
- Still looking into this. CompactFlash is the leader at the moment.

Any suggstions and comments on the above are welcome!
The proto-board I'm running on have 200k gates. I've used up about 170k just on the video-part of the console. Fingers crossed it'll all fit in the end.

The 200k IC retails at about $20 a piece in smaller numbers. Add about $30 for the rest of the components. This adds up to about $50. Fingers crossed, that's what the developer board will cost you.

Ofcourse you won't need one to develop for it, since I'll be making an emulator for it all as well, but that'll take a while.

a combination of a compact disc, and a cart-based game (IE with a pcb)

It a bit over the top for this project but as you said (and as the subject of the thread says ), it's your dream media.
Cool idea though!

Cheers!
((mice

[kidneythief]

haha yeah, it's not something that would be easy to manufacture from ones garage or something ^^; Still I'm surprised some other company hasn't picked it up yet, probably because all game consoles these days seem to have to double as DVD players too, and my design would be difficult in that respect.

--Hows this for an idea:

Hacking together a portable (and miniaturized) MSX computer, with controls stripped down to console-like controls.

This would be good for shmups because A) theres already a huge library of MSX shooters/action games

and B) there are MSX development kits that are fairly attainable.
--------------------------------
The only thing is, not everybody can burn their own roms :X so a new storage system would be preferable.
And yeah, there would be some hacking involved to get it to display on, lets say a PSOne screen. I'm certainly not up to it any time soon XD

[Shatterhand]

Back in 2002, I was in an MSX fair, and some guys were reproducing the MSX in a FPGA chip. They had the VDP fully working at that tine,

I havent been around the MSX scene for a long time, so I dunno where this project went.

[kidneythief]

never owned one my self but a projectl ike that would be an okay excuse to get one. :X

[ED-057]

CPU:
- Just started it. Will be a 24-bit version of the 6502/10 clocked at 25Mhz (hopefully 50, depends on what kind of RAM It'll be using)

That sounds interesting. Is it 24-bit registers/24-bit addressing/8-bit data bus perhaps? I'm a big fan of the 6502. The 65816 is even better, of course, although I don't really like how you have to change a bit in the status register to change operand sizes.

SOUND:
- What's that I hear? Have no experience with sound-hw, so I'll save that for last.

What did your 256x224 favorite game of all time use?

I recently read that there was a design for an MSX on a chip but the producer didn't get the minimum number of orders they wanted to produce it. Check www.msx.org for details.

MSX is probably the king of 8-bit computers for games and demos. And FM synthesizer music.

[mice]

That sounds interesting. Is it 24-bit registers/24-bit addressing/8-bit data bus perhaps? I'm a big fan of the 6502. The 65816 is even better, of course, although I don't really like how you have to change a bit in the status register to change operand sizes.

24bit regs, 24bit adressing, 32bit data-bus.
Using the "first" byte of the 32bit data as op-code.
Could be a complete waste of space if you just want to make byte operations. But it is an easy way of doing it. And the video registers will all be 24bit anyway, so it's a perfect match.

What did your 256x224 favorite game of all time use?

How come I didn't think of that!?
The game is using two YM2203 at 1.5Mhz. Have to look up what that means exactly, though. But a version of that might do it. Or?

MSX is probably the king of 8-bit computers for games and demos. And FM synthesizer music.

What sound chip is used in the MSX then? I'm sure I can find it if I search, but I feel a bit lazy today...

I recently read that there was a design for an MSX on a chip but the producer didn't get the minimum number of orders they wanted to produce it. Check www.msx.org for details.

Back in 2002, I was in an MSX fair, and some guys were reproducing the MSX in a FPGA chip. They had the VDP fully working at that tine,

How the heck did they get a complete machine into that Cyclone chip?! The proto board I'm using is 4 times larger (in almost every aspect, except for the physical size) and I have trouble fitting a video-card into it.

B) there are MSX development kits that are fairly attainable.

Will check those devkits out. Maybe some kind of "cross-over" could be possible?

My CPU (dubbed it MT65x) is now doing most of the 6502 op codes.
I'm in the process of doing a MUL operation as well. But how many of you need a DIV? Just checking, since the MUL (18bits of it) is actually supported in the FPGA, but division isn't. I'm sure I could do a DIV within one cpu-cycle(25mhz one), but a lot of gates will be wasted on it.

[Shatterhand]

From what I've just read now, the project I SAW was never completed, while the one that was available for selling was made by Ascii themselves (The guys who created the MSX standard)

Anyway, I dont think an MSX would be the ideal hardware for a shmup system. I mean, EVERYONE complains about how Gradius on MSX doesnt have smooth scroll, and this was made by the guys who could squeeze the most of the system (Konami). The ASCII MSX-in-a-chip, and the one the brazilian guys were developing were all MSX-1 based. Not one single shmup has scroll smooth enough to please most people here on an MSX 1.
(Zanac was a close contender...)
Smooth vertical scroll was easily done on a MSX-2, but horizontal scroll still is hard. Space Manbow is one of the very few games that has smooth horizontal (And also DIAGONAL!) scroll, but its well known that this game is full of programming tricks, and its usually considered to be the commercial game that pushes the machines closer to its limits.

So, as much as I love the MSX, and as much as I love lots of msx shmups (Inlcuding some that people usually say "It sux because the scroll sux"), I have to say that an MSX would not be the best solution here.

[kidneythief]

true enough, but you could do a lot worse. Like the original gameboy or something

[ED-057]

24bit regs, 24bit adressing, 32bit data-bus.
Using the "first" byte of the 32bit data as op-code.
Could be a complete waste of space if you just want to make byte operations. But it is an easy way of doing it. And the video registers will all be 24bit anyway, so it's a perfect match.

Cool, sounds kind of RISCy...

How come I didn't think of that!?
The game is using two YM2203 at 1.5Mhz. Have to look up what that means exactly, though. But a version of that might do it. Or?

hmmm... 1943 arcade?

What sound chip is used in the MSX then? I'm sure I can find it if I search, but I feel a bit lazy today...

All MSX have a 3-channel PSG (AY-8910 is it?). Then available as add-ons (or built-into some computers) were MSX-MUSIC aka YM2413 aka OPLL, MSX-AUDIO aka Y8950 which is a combination of OPL1 and an ADPCM, and Moonsound aka OPL4 which is a combination of OPL3 and a wavetable synthesizer. The more FM chips the merrier I guess

OPLL and OPL1 are 9-channel synthesizers and OPL3 is basically two of them pasted together. I think a YM2203 is a combination of a 3-channel PSG and 3-channel FM synthesizer.

My CPU (dubbed it MT65x) is now doing most of the 6502 op codes.
I'm in the process of doing a MUL operation as well. But how many of you need a DIV? Just checking, since the MUL (18bits of it) is actually supported in the FPGA, but division isn't. I'm sure I could do a DIV within one cpu-cycle(25mhz one), but a lot of gates will be wasted on it.

I'm tempted to say that real men can get by dividing only by 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. but then again fast division might be useful when calculating vectors for aimed bullets or something. It's your call

[mice]

hmmm... 1943 arcade?

Close. You got Okamoto and Capcom right.

I'm tempted to say that real men can get by dividing only by 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. but then again fast division might be useful when calculating vectors for aimed bullets or something. It's your call

Maybe I should create some vector-calculating op-codes?
Like:

Code: Select all

LDX #enemy_pos
LDY #main_pos
VEXY

And voila, you've got the vector in the acc. And maybe some ROXY op-code to get the rotation in (256/turn) degrees from a vector, as well?
That might be very useful, actually.

Now it's a question of fitting it all in. And as it stands now, I haven't got much gates left.
I've got to do a storage-driver and the sound and I actually have no idea of how to get both of them in there.

Either I'll be aiming at a fpga with more gates or I'll have to place any of the parts outside of the fpga. And getting a real Yamaha chip might actually be a good idea. Have to find a cheap one though.

Sometime next week I'll have a screen-shot to show you. Got the tiles and sprites working pretty well now. So I'm in the process of creating a small tech-demo (mostly for me to see how much it can handle).

[mrMagenta]

I can't follow on all the technicalities but this is exiting stuff! Looking forward to see the tech demo. I get some nice visions on how this could be packaged, with its retro-aimed specs and all. It could be made quite fashionable really, even whith it beeing niched and all. I hope you solve the sound nicely.. any chip that can give off some charismatic bleeps can elevate the gaming experiece a lot (like NES and C-64).

I have really no clue about how this usually works, but will there be a front end for using the sound chip as a synthesizer, that is.. a simple PC composition and sfx creation tool that consists of a couple of oscillators with selectable waveforms, attack, decay, cut-off frequency (etc) with a minimalistic sequencer? or perhaps just a midi2mice converter appplication, that converts specified midichannels in a midi-file to the mice synth format, that way any software synth (there are lots of free ones) with assignable channels could be used as a stand in while composing music and creating SFX on the PC, mimicking how it will be on the chip. Any way.. lo-fi synthesis = awesome!

Or will the sound only work with sound samples?

Hursomhelst, Bra koder mannen!

[mice]

I get some nice visions on how this could be packaged, with its retro-aimed specs and all. It could be made quite fashionable really, even whith it beeing niched and all.

You're more than welcome to share your vision. Draw some designs and post them!

or perhaps just a midi2mice converter appplication

Like the name of that...
But honestly, I really haven't got a clue, yet.

I've hit the ceiling when it comes to utilisation of the fpga I'm using. Stupid of me not to calculate on this before getting it. Until the new one arrives, I'm going to take it a bit slow, and take the time to do other stuff, like getting married...

Here're two pics of the current state of things:





- 8 colors (really like the cellular camera, creates millions of colors...
- 256x224 screen
- 32 and 64 sprites resp. (although 128 is currently possible)
- tiled background (just one layer)
- MT65x doing the hard work.

Anyone got a good idea of a tech-demo? Looking at spinning balls isn't very fun.

Later!
((mice

[mrMagenta]

cool! this is wah.. how do you do it!
now give us some videos.

for a tech demo what would be better than showing off some shmup-themed examples; scrolling backrounds in vert and horz with a nice mixture of tiles, can you do parallaxing layers? (oops just read one layer) how about multisprite enemies with rotating parts, some bulletpatterns with and without accelleration, different speeds and directions, aiming bullets?. did you have blending? explosions are typical show-off stuff. collissions (stuff bouncing around), spaced out bitmapfont-score counters..

i'd love to do some pictures for you, but i'm a bit short on time right now. i'll get to it once I get sick of doing homework and work and games.

big grats on getting getting married.

[AntiPasta]

wow! Looks like you've made a lot of progress!

Personally I'm not a fan of the 6502 though, that's why I'm going to waste your time with some crazy suggestion: FPGA stands for FIELD PROGRAMMABLE gate array, right? That means that techinically, you should be able to change the "CPU core" on the fly, allowing individual games to reload the fusemap. There's an open source Z80 implementation in VHDL, for instance.
But like I said, that's a pretty crazy suggestion. I urge you to consider a real 32-bit RISC (doesnt have to be pipelined) ISA though

[mice]

That means that techinically, you should be able to change the "CPU core" on the fly, allowing individual games to reload the fusemap.

Yes, and not just that, the videocard could be cystomized as well.
You could chose to have "Z80, Frambuffer" or "68000, 384 Sprites, 1 Tile layer 32x32" or "RISC1, 0 Sprites, 4 Tile Layers 16x16"...and so on and on.

But like I said, that's a pretty crazy suggestion.

Quite doable, but someone have to create it all...

But I guess I have to decide on one configuration to start with, anyway.

for a tech demo what would be better than showing off some shmup-themed examples; scrolling backrounds in vert and horz with a nice mixture of tiles,

Yeah, and with a lot of explosions like you mentioned.
Maybe I should try to recreate some scenes from other games, with the graphics highly inspired from those games.
Like:
- Ikaruga: Chapter 2-2
- Thundercross: Level 1 (god, I just love that green bkg and the rocks!)
- Guwange: Second boss fight.

Or you got any better ideas?

Just started programming on the emulator.
Think I'll do it in Java. Is that ok with everyone?

Another pic (now in 512 color-mode):


Later!
((mice

[AntiPasta]

You could try recreating the Amiga techdemos, if you can find them. They were supposedly very impressive for when they came out.

[mrMagenta]

or check out this place for inspiration on demos:
www.scene.org

well, the new stuff doesn't really apply cause it's all 3d nowadays, but perhaps they have some oldies from the amiga era tucked away there someplace and they often have oldschol categories at larger parties.

[ED-057]

google for 'amiga demos' and you will find that there is an abundance of readily available examples

But I think that any demo can be broken down into some basic ingredients:
music/sound fx
rotation/scaling/3D fx
raster fx
fmv
scrolling text
vectorized female silhouettes that dance

[mice]

Well, an emulator in Java wasn't such a good idea, after all. It isn't showing the 60fps as the hw is (unless you got a really powerful computer). I'll start reworking one in C/C++ instead.
It's working ok though, so here's a link to it.

http://www.akatora.se/shmupstick/SSemul.zip

The file-choser starts in My Documents for some reason, which is a pain.
So unzipping it there would be a good idea. For those of you who haven't started a java-app before, just double-click on the JAR file.

vectorized female silhouettes that dance

Jaw-dropping stuff when it came out. Wasn't it?

I'm off demo-searching. Thanks for all of the info.

[AntiPasta]

If you need some X86 assembly optimization on the emulator, drop me a line, I wouldn't mind giving you a hand (but I'll want a discount on the actual hw if it comes out )

[mrMagenta]

yeah, spaceballs state of the art, and nine finger-demos are still jaw dropping.

had a look at the emu. how come test1 is all blue? different colorspace? anyway, it looks lively with all the accellerations and stuff. makes it more interesting to watch.. so if you'd develop that with some environmental variation on the scrolling tiles, some shooting/explosions, and some larger enemies you'd get a nice demo, and you could also make a simple demo-game out of it eventually so beginners can use it as a base to start developing.

[mice]

Been a while, so for all of you interested, here's an update.
So, is this project dead? Hell no!

There're a couple of interesting things happening, finally.

Tech points:
- Optimising of the CPU to suit different, special, needs is the present priority.
- C/C++ compilator is almost done (who'd thought?!)
- Emulator (made in C++) has been started (and it already runs a billion times faster then the java one)
- A small test-sound-thing has been implemented. Sounds awful. Will need to get some expertise in here to create it.

Specs now:
- 65xx kind-of processor, but a 32 bit one running at 12.5Mhz (will pipeline it in the end, hopefully, to get 25Mhz).
- Still 512 colors. I'm actually getting used to it. Gets a "special" kind of look, no matter what kind of graphics you draw. But 32k colors is the aim.
- 32x32pix tiles. Have had a lot of complaints about this and that I should make it at least 16x16 in size. Pros and cons when it comes to the HW spec about it, but as a game-design point, I get it.
- 2 Layers of bkg-tiles.
- 128 sprites. (will this be enough? Being a shmupstick and all?)
- Sprite sizes from 8x8 to 256x256 (increasing in 2^ style). In any combination, for instance 64x8 or 16x256.
- Additative and subtractive blending (for both bkg-layer 1 and sprites). You should see some of the transparent explosions going on now... =)
- 8 levels of priority, goes for the bkg as well as for the sprites.

Business points:
- I actually presented this ShmupStick idea to some VCs. And ofcourse they didn't get it. Doh!
- I rewrote the presentation to become the "ILCK". (Inexpensive little console for kids... And attached a keyboard and stuff to it. Ofcourse they didn't like that either. Seeing that something similiar were actually already available.
- Rewrote the presentation again, this time removing the keyboard and aiming at game-hungry kids with little money to spare. One VC actually got interested until I showed him that there were one available in the market already, and that we would get a bit higher pricetag...doh! Me stupid. But there's no way I can compete with chinese factories...
- So, I rewrote it again. This time aiming at girls. Maybe I got over the top a bit and made it too pink and purple...because none actually wanted to see me do the presentation.
- So, status quo. (or que...actually...

I'm currently rewriting the presentation again. But this time I won't go to any VCs, I'll contact a gamepad/joystick manufacturer instead. And the one I got in mind isn't going to be able to refuse the offer I'm making. So, this WILL be the ShmupStick after all.

What I need from you now is, what kind of games should be available for the release? And shmups are the only alternative here.
I need you to come up with ideas for settings (environments) and examples of characters to fit it. No gameplay specifics, just some settings.
These are a few in progress as we speak:
- Butterfly in forest. Vertical.
- Spaceship standard. Horizontal.
- Man walking, futuristic town. Vertical.

So, next update will come when I've landed the deal. And by that time demoes of the above mentioned games will be available as well as the developer kit.

Later!
((mice

[oNyx]

[...]
The file-choser starts in My Documents for some reason, which is a pain.
[...]

It starts there because it doesnt know any better. If you want it to start somewhere else, you have to tell it.

JFileChooser fc=new JFileChooser(new File("."));

That one for example starts in the current working directory and of course you can throw any directory you want at it.

[...]
128 sprites. (will this be enough? Being a shmupstick and all?)
[...]

For anything bullet hell ish it wouldnt be enough. There are games with up to 2000 enemy bullets on screen. Even my tiny game reaches ~1400. Here is a screenie with 1007... doesnt look like that much, ne? (Bullets are thrown out as soon as they are off screen.)

[Shatterhand]

You can flick sprites so you can have a bigger number of sprites on screen, and this will also have the nice addition of making everyone go back to 1982...

seriously, 128 sprites is great for old scholl stuff, MSX had only 32 sprites if I am not mistaken, and still made some excellent shmups.

But for modern, manic stuff.... unless we can use something that's NOT a sprite for bullets.

[mice]

If you set a 256x256 sprite in the upper left corner, you've got a bitmap to play around with. So, I guess you could actually have as many bullets as you like.