Enterprise Forever
:UK => Games => Topic started by: John Fante on 2023.October.20. 11:12:05
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This winters project is to try to convert an MSX 1 game to EP :)
The graphics on MSX 1 is just a little bit nicer than on the Speccy.
I was thinking about giving this one a go:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2023/10/the-goblin-fabulous-zx-spectrum.html#more
Any advice on how a programming noob could attack this?
If MSX is not a good platform then maybe this:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2023/10/doom-on-zx-spectrum-128k-by-digital.html#more
Thank you in advance :-)
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It is easier to convert from a Spectrum game, Geco can explain it to you. The MSX video system is very different to the one of the Enterprise, and also the pagination system. More, the MSX has hardware sprites, and 16 colours even on high resolution.
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It very much depends on what level of noob-ness you are talking about. But if I take it literally, I'd say first thing is learning how to program and learn it well. Then learn everything about the source and the destination hardware. This later is necessary even in case you are an experienced programmer.
As gflorez wrote it is much easier to work with Spectrum games. (On a side note, some of them doesn't even need work as geco's software emulator can run a lot of such games.) However, MSX software is not impossible to port to Enterprise but needs a lot of work. Like software sprite engine, rework of graphic assets, or even rearrangement of level design, and so on. Recently, a guy converted some iconic games to Commodore Plus/4 from the C64 like Impossible Mission or Raid Over Moscow which were previously considered not feasible because of the sprites. But with creativity, perseverance and a lot of work he managed to overcome all hurdles. That's what you'll need to do, too.
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Thank you for the good advice!
Was not aware that MSX1 had hardware sprites etc. Not that it is a big deal but is there a comparison of the different 8 bit machines? Seen some for the Atari line but not a one for all systems produced in the 80'es? Just curious.
The bottom line: I will give ChibiAkumas great tutorials a go first and then see how far I get :-)
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Although it is quite off topic here, go to https://www.old-computers.com/museum/default.asp (https://www.old-computers.com/museum/default.asp) and click through the years from 1980 to '89. You'll find an immense list of releases. Obviously, those are not all 8 bit systems but the enormity suggests that tabulating such a comparison would give you an unwieldy result bordering on unusability. And there's no guarantee that the list is complete.
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MSX1 have more graphics modes than Speccy:
Mode Type screen resolution Colors per block Max colors at screen
0 Text, characters of 6 x 8 40 x 24 characters 2
1 Text, characters of 8 x 8 32 x 24 characters 2 per 8 characters 16
2 Graphic, blocks of 8 x 8 32 x 8 blocks x 3 2 for each 8 x 1 line of block 16
3 Graphic, bitmap 64 × 48 pixels 16
I think the game what you mentioned uses Mode 1 which is similar to the Speccy video mode, except video addressing, and as i see from the picture, it uses hw sprites, which has to be changed on EP to software sprites.