Should I try to aim at making my game to Classics at all?

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Bugala
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Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:11 pm

Should I try to aim at making my game to Classics at all?

Post by Bugala »

This is question specifically made for Andreas.

I am making this Kings of Israel board game for Amiga using Hollywood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBh6p2Kwftk

As there just came up with my Help My Cat! game a problem I had completely forgot to having exist, which is to do with using Ogg Vorbis, which is very heavy for classic machines, I am now thinking of how to do with this Kings of Israel game.

What I am thinking is wether to use Musics that is stream (ie. mp3, wav) or get Mod musics to give Classic Amigas a better chance for this game to work.

However, as game is in HD resolution (although it autoscales it down as needed), I am wondering is this kind of game already anyway too heavy for a classic machine, that should I simply work on it by assumption that normal Classics have no chance for it to work anyway, or should I perhaps consider option of using Mods so that for example perhaps some 040 machine has a chance to actually work with this?

As I have no means of trying this out myself, I decided to ask this here in forums from you, since I believe this can be interesting to some other people too.


Basically this game is in many ways very light. There is no AI or other processor occupying stuff game routine wise.

Basically even graphics are on light side, since only one thing moves at a time, unless i make some background animations or similar.

However, it is in HD resolution, And it is using layers, and there are many big layers at same time on screen, although all but one lays still at a time. And I am also simlpy using MoveLayer commands instead of having them being drawn each screen or something when moving them around.

Do you have any idea what kind of classic machine is required to play a game like this? And how much difference does it make to use Wav/8SVX/AIFF than Mp3/ogg when thinking of classic machines.

I know (or rather suppose) that any Winuea, AOS4, Morphos machine will handle this just fine, regardless how i make it, but what about classics?
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airsoftsoftwair
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Re: Should I try to aim at making my game to Classics at all

Post by airsoftsoftwair »

Well, decoding Ogg Vorbis will eat almost all CPU power on a real 68k Amiga so you'd have to change this to something less CPU hungry like a Protracker module, or, if you want sampled sound, use uncompressed IFF 16SV or WAVE files but they'll need lots of hd space then. Concerning graphics, your game doesn't look like it's a classic killer. Graphics don't have to be updated 50 times per second in this game, there's not much movement... this could certainly run on a classic Amiga if implemented in a decent way so I'd give it a go.
Bugala
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Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:11 pm

Re: Should I try to aim at making my game to Classics at all

Post by Bugala »

Thanks. I will then aim at Mod solution when it comes to musics.

Or someone remember how much 1 minute of Wav takes? I suppose it takes bit too much space if thinking of having maybe 15 minutes of music in total.

But playing a big wav compared to smaller wav makes no difference to memory and CPU usage right? That wether wav is 1 minute or 1 hour long, the only difference is that 1 hour one takes more space from harddrive, right?
Bugala
Posts: 1178
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:11 pm

Re: Should I try to aim at making my game to Classics at all

Post by Bugala »

Actually, another question concerning this project too.

I am still far away from the point that i start looking into this, but i can anyway ask it in advance.

Those card pictures are in about 800x600 pixels or something currently. However, they are scaled down to about 200 x 160, and in zoom they are about 400 x 320.

However, even when zooming, I cant read the text on cards. I however dont think this should be a problem of having too small a scaling.

Hence, how should i fix that. Is there something I can put to that scaling which will make the graphics be scaled better (and text more readable) or do i perhaps need to make 400x320 copies of those pictures and use them directly to make them look good? or something else?
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