Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.


Author Topic: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse. (Read 34032 times)

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #15 on: 2016.April.30. 20:56:29 »
What about Lemmings? I played it a lot on Amiga.

This CPC game was made without mouse control, but has a nice pointer that is moved with the joystick.





« Last Edit: 2016.May.02. 09:07:14 by gflorez »

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #16 on: 2016.May.02. 10:33:30 »
This Bloodwych RPG game let us to play two players at the same time on the screen.

It is controlled by moving a pointer over the screen, every player  owns one.





Teorethically two mice can be conected to the Enterprise, one of them Entermice mode as Ps/2, and the other on the joystick port 1 as Boxsoft. The two could be read easily at the same time with the same reading routine. The only problem can be the buttons, as some of them are shared by the two modes.
« Last Edit: 2016.May.02. 10:58:18 by gflorez »

Offline Zozosoft

  • Global Moderator
  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 14723
  • Country: hu
    • http://enterprise.iko.hu/
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #17 on: 2016.May.02. 10:50:42 »
What about Lemmings?
The Spectrum version already exist on Enterprise.

Offline endi

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 7298
  • Country: hu
  • grafikus, játékfejlesztõ, programozás, scifi, tudományok, vallás
    • Honlapom
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #18 on: 2016.May.02. 10:53:30 »
This Bloodwych RPG game let us to play two players at the same time on the screen.

It is controlled by moving a pointer over the screen, every player  owns one.



wow this looks cool, and I love the types of games
Vigyázat! Szektás vagyok! :)

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #19 on: 2016.May.02. 21:46:22 »
The Spectrum version already exist on Enterprise.

Yes, but the Spectrum version of Lemmings was very dull:
« Last Edit: 2016.May.02. 23:05:09 by gflorez »

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #20 on: 2016.May.02. 23:29:08 »
Pirates! was also a great sensation on CPC.


Offline Ep128

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 1849
  • Country: hu
    • Honlapom
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #21 on: 2016.May.02. 23:36:56 »

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #22 on: 2016.May.03. 00:59:58 »
What a marvellous and coloured game! It is like a great Enterprise demo in itself.

I've mid-understood that this game is not a conversion. It can be a perfect candidate.

Offline geco

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 7085
  • Country: hu
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #23 on: 2016.May.03. 08:32:48 »
If i remember well, there did not remain free time for the CPU in the game, because of MOD player, I read that placing cursor on the screen could be solved, but nothing else could be done, but yes, if mouse implementation is possible, then this is a perfect candidate.

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #24 on: 2016.May.03. 11:26:31 »
The joystick 1 reading routine can be mixed with the mouse routine as it is the same procedure done four times. The mouse has to be read in time, although the Neos chip inside MSX mice admits some delay stretching.

The procedure is:

-Put RTS low
-Delay
-Read a nibble formed with the four direction lines, higher four bits of X displacement since last lecture

-Put RTS high
-Delay
-Read a nibble, lower four bits of X displacement since last lecture

-Put RTS low
-Delay
-Read a nibble, higher four bits of Y displacement since last lecture

-Put RTS high
-Delay
-Read a nibble, lower four bits of Y displacement since last lecture

-Read mouse buttons, row 0, B6h port.

Observe that the RTS signal is what triggers the mouse reading. It must begin and end high.

This is the simple delay routine:

Code: [Select]
WAIT:        nop
nop
nop
dec b
jr nz, WAIT
ret

On the original Boxoft routine the delays where 8, 5, 5, 5 cycles between lectures, but experimenting with the values we have realized that 3, 2, 2, 2 cycles are safe enough for a Neos or a MSX mouse. EnterMice admits even lower delays, working the same on a 4Mhz or a 10Mhz Z80.

This as a minimum, but I've not tested the routine for maximum values. Then, super big delays can be  used to do other tasks, like reading the keyboard matrix, joystick 2 or play sound.

The beginning of lectures have to be synchronised with video frames. If an error occurs, the program only must wait till the next frame and the mouse(or EnterMice) will be ready again. 

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #25 on: 2016.May.04. 12:22:30 »
Returning to the Kempston mouse, The CPCs also used it, and here is a thoughtful explanation of its operation.  

I don't know if I misunderstood the Spectrum page, but the Kempston mouse on CPCs gives relative movements, like MSX-Neos does. The data is also read every frame from three Z80 ports like on the Spectrum.  

On the web-page it says that the necessary interface is copied 90% from the Spectrum one, only changing the Z80 ports where the data is read from.


Edit: the readings on CPCs or Spectrum are both absolute positions, but the position wraps around i.e. no mater where you are, if 0 is reached the following value is FFh. Or if FFh is reached the following value is 0.
« Last Edit: 2016.May.06. 13:48:21 by gflorez »

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #26 on: 2016.May.11. 22:40:26 »
I am still thinking about that Spectrum mouse games.

Some of them work on the EP128 emulator but other hang when executing.

Convert them again to EP is not the way.

The only plausible form I see to benefit our EPs from the hard work done on that games is to emulate them properly. We already have sofisticate Spectrum emulators for EP, SPemu and SPemu128, thanks to geco.

What if the Kempston mouse could be emulated inside SPemu?

I don't see great incompatibilities. The Kempston interface data is read on three fixed Z80 ports and on the EP side the EnterMice routine can be efficiently merged with the joystick parsing routine.

Also, converting EnterMice mouse data to Kempston mouse data is not straight like  from PS/2, but very easy and not time consuming.

Buttons can be passed the same, and the Spectrum coordinates simply adding successively the MSX increments , if the sum is greater than 255, it follows a zero, or if below zero it follows a 255.
« Last Edit: 2016.May.11. 23:21:27 by gflorez »

Offline geco

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 7085
  • Country: hu
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #27 on: 2016.May.12. 08:42:16 »
What if the Kempston mouse could be emulated inside SPemu?

How do you think the solution?
Kill all Kempston mouse code in the program, and substitute it with Entermice routine and convert it's output to Kempston mouse?
This could work.
Other question is that how many way (code) exist to read Kempston mouse, because I have to check "all" of them to change it.
I would like to ask your help about finding kempston mouse routines, or programs which are using kempston mouse.

Offline Zozosoft

  • Global Moderator
  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 14723
  • Country: hu
    • http://enterprise.iko.hu/
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #28 on: 2016.May.12. 09:01:12 »
Convert them again to EP is not the way.
Not need convert again. Needed to check what is modified in the Spectrum version, then do samething in the EP version, just use EnterMice routines.

Offline gflorez

  • EP addict
  • *
  • Posts: 3607
  • Country: es
    • Támogató Támogató
Re: List of games that would work better controlled by a mouse.
« Reply #29 on: 2016.May.12. 10:17:38 »
How do you think the solution?
Kill all Kempston mouse code in the program, and substitute it with Entermice routine and convert it's output to Kempston mouse?
This could work.
Other question is that how many way (code) exist to read Kempston mouse, because I have to check "all" of them to change it.
I would like to ask your help about finding kempston mouse routines, or programs which are using kempston mouse.

You can find all the programs and all the information on this page. I have tested some of them on the Spectrum side of EP128EMU, and usually they hang or reset the emulated machine. I have to test them on other Spectrum emulators to see.

Not need convert again. Needed to check what is modified in the Spectrum version, then do samething in the EP version, just use EnterMice routines.

Velesoft, the group that have converted almost all the programs, injects a tailored mouse driver on every one, so I think it is no easy work to see what has changed on every game and interpolate it to the EP conversion. We can end with a lot of versions, two on the Spectrum side and another two on the EP side.

It is more easy to redirect the EnterMice data to the emulated Z80 ports on geco's emulators. This can serve for all the modified Spectrum games. Then  one by one can be fixed  the minor errors found on the emulators.

Of course, this is only an opinion. Other way can be to convert only the most interesting games or applications.

Velesoft's mouse driver is not as simple as you can think, it weights about 5k added to every game. The basic EnterMice routine, on the other side, is tiny, only about 200 bytes of additional code.

----------------

Another aspect is, what we want to be emulated? The Kempston mouse protocol has evolved, like the MSX protocol, to allow more buttons and wheel. The information is passed on some unused bits on the buttons lecture byte, not needing the reading routine more time to acquire the extra information. Of course it needs to be processed later by the game/application.

On the EnterMice side, we need to send four additional nibbles to pass that extra information. This is double the time, so I think it is better to limit us to the basic two buttons+movement. The game will remain functional, only that the added options will need keyboard keys to be made.