[Prizm] Gravity Duck

PierrotLL · Posted: 03 Feb 2012 01:25:10 pm Post subject: [Prizm] Gravity Duck

Hi all, want some Prizm Game ? I publish here a first demo of Gravity Duck on Prizm.
I write this version in November 2011 and since I wait a way to overclock the Prizm. I never published it before because I hoped to publish directly the final version, but KermMartian with his great Tetrizm convinced me.

I still have to make the menu, and animations when the duck appear/disappear or explode.
The big problem is the speed, I have no Prizm so I work on emulator, and the game run with 50FPS, but on-calc, it's only 15FPS. That's why I need overclock.

Update 04/04/2012 - Beta 2
I've added the main menu and the pause menu, and also overclock (thanks to Ashbad).
Overclock is fixed on 94.3MHz, but if you have already a higher frequency, it will be retained.

Update 04/07/2012 - Final version
Finally, I tottaly completed Gravity Duck.
Just missing the "growing duck" animation and the fade in/out between levels, but there is not enough memory to load the animation.
More informations on the download page

Download Gravity Duck
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My fx-9860G & Prizm games
My fx-9860G graphic library, MonochromeLib

gbl08ma · Posted: 03 Feb 2012 01:32:32 pm Post subject:

Looks really nice! On my fx-CG 20, the FPS number shows 14 and sometimes 15. At this speed, it's easy to play Smile

Are you sure everything related to the graphics is optimized to the maximum? I'd rather have a game that works moderately fast at the standard CPU clock, than a game that works very fast with an overclocked CPU.

(Oh, and the game doesn't work after returning from Menu, but I guess that's because it is not finished...)
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PierrotLL · Posted: 03 Feb 2012 01:48:25 pm Post subject:

Yes, I think it's well optimized, but I have a lot of sprites to draw each frame, and a 320*216 background image (which is copied as long data for speed, using a color swatch to economize memory).
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My fx-9860G & Prizm games
My fx-9860G graphic library, MonochromeLib

flyingfisch · Posted: 03 Feb 2012 01:55:28 pm Post subject:

The graphics are GREAT! I didn't want a PRIZM up til today. Are you planning on becoming a casio salesman? XD
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KermMartian · Posted: 03 Feb 2012 02:11:39 pm Post subject:

Wait, how did you take that beautiful screenshot? Did you use the Prizm Manager emulator for that? I am sure we can help you figure out how to optimize the game.
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PierrotLL · Posted: 03 Feb 2012 02:15:39 pm Post subject:

@KermMartian : Yes, I use the Casio fx-CG Manager (I have no Prizm). If you find any idea to improve the speed, it will be awesome (sources are included)
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My fx-9860G & Prizm games
My fx-9860G graphic library, MonochromeLib

KermMartian · Posted: 03 Feb 2012 04:02:12 pm Post subject:

AHelper · Posted: 03 Feb 2012 04:04:13 pm Post subject:

about the background image, do not forget that the backup VRAM can be accessed to save your background and not waste space. I am not sure if swapping is done by copying or if memory mapping is done
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helder7 · Member Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 136

I was testing the demo on my calculator - fx-cg20

the graphics of the game is very good, just needs more speed only ;(

due to low speed, some levels of the game is not playable

I made a video of the impossible level, -> http://videobam.com/ZRApn
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Eiyeron · Member Joined: 12 Dec 2011 Posts: 158

I already finished the game 3 or 4 times, the game is really finishable...
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helder7 · Member Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 136

elfprince13 · Posted: 06 Feb 2012 02:40:59 pm Post subject:

Wow, that is a beautiful game =) Nice work!
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Ashbad · Posted: 06 Feb 2012 03:30:27 pm Post subject:

Very nice work Smile

I've already played to the impossible level, but up until there, I was rather impressed by how good it was (not to say I was uninpressed with the small occurance I can't pass that everyone is pointing out -- that's not your fault really)

helder7 · Member Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 136

pokemonrules9 · Newbie Joined: 09 Oct 2011 Posts: 3

PierrotLL · Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:01:28 am Post subject:

@AHelper: There is a way to copy the 0x88000000 VRAM to 0xA8000000 ? Have you any informations about utility of the cacheable VRAM?

@helder7: yes, I'm aware of this problem, it's exactly what ashbad said, the game use RTC_GetTicks for timing movements. In fact, I use exactly the same engine than in Gravity Duck for fx-9860, but on Prizm, due to low FPS, some object move each frame, so the duck can't move faster. If I delete background, the game is faster (but uglier) and more playable. Maybe I overvalued the Prizm, I hope we'll find some tricks to improve graphics management.

@pokemonrules9: A system error? When ? Can you reproduce it?

For this game, the RAM size was a real problem, I needed to use a palette method to put all sprites in RAM (I won't store them in ROM in the g3a, because a lot are just a symmetry or a rotation of another sprite. e.g I store the duck animation in only one orientation, and manipulate it to have it in 8 different orientations).

Another trick is to increase the allocable RAM. I saw in a few years ago on fx-9860 that you can allocate more memory after allocating a lot of small buffers (and freeing them), and it's similar on Prizm. To illustrate that, I made this little program which allocate/free buffers and increase their size while no error occurs. And with it, we easily see how to increase allocable RAM :
First I request 1 buffer, it can allocate 65528 bytes max (65524 for the buffer, 4 for the pointer array).
After, I request 8000 buffers, it can allocate 96000 bytes max (8 bytes each buffers, 32000 for the pointer array).
If I request 1 buffer again, it can allocate 131056 bytes max !
Strange, it isn't ? Razz

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My fx-9860G & Prizm games
My fx-9860G graphic library, MonochromeLib

Purobaz · Posted: 07 Feb 2012 12:01:28 pm Post subject:

pokemonrules9 · Newbie Joined: 09 Oct 2011 Posts: 3

PierrotLL · Posted: 08 Feb 2012 05:17:05 am Post subject:

I know what is a system error, to solve it I need to know when it appear, in which level, on doing what (dying, move somewhere, touch an object, finish the level ...) ?
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My fx-9860G & Prizm games
My fx-9860G graphic library, MonochromeLib

KermMartian · Posted: 08 Feb 2012 10:02:49 am Post subject:

PierrotLL, with that PC and your current executable, you should be able to figure out where in your executable the segfault happened. Actually, hmm, I wonder if there's a such thing as a cross-platform GDB for inspecting executables for "foreign" architectures.
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