Wolf32X - finally in beta!

[Chilly Willy]

Okay, after a LOT of work, here's beta 1 of Wolf32X. I completely reworked the "file" handling so that everything is in ROM, with no memory allocated other than static arrays used for things that change. No more memory corruption! This also slimmed things down a bit - Wolf32X now has 19 M Power!! That's 2.5 MB for those of us that laugh at the Mbit unit.

The other major addition is working digital sound - this is fully tested on a real 32X. The sound is great and doesn't slow the game at all. I'll probably take a break before working on FM audio.

As usual, all the source is included. That includes the new unpacker I wrote to fully process the data files. It should work on the Wolf3D full files, as well as Spear of Doom shareware and full files. If there's a call for it, I'll compile a version of the SOD shareware.

EDIT: Went ahead and compiled SOD Shareware. The second link has BOTH Wolf3D and SOD Shareware.
EDIT 2009-02-21: Minor update - fixed six button controller support. Thanks to snake for the help!
EDIT 2009-03-09: Major update! Added FM sound effects and Load/Save!
EDIT 2009-03-11: Added auto-map. Read the readme for details.
EDIT 2009-06-07: Added mouse support.

Wolf32X-b1.zip
w3d-sod-sw-b1.zip
w3d-sod-sw-b2.zip
w3d-sod-sw-b3.zip
w3d-sod-sw-b4.zip
w3d-sod-sw-b5.zip

[mick_aka]

Runs great at a smooth 60fps in Kega on my MacBook, great work again!

[TmEE]

its far from 60FPS on real HW though, 20 perhaps...

anyway it runs great

[Chilly Willy]

It gets faster on real hardware as you shrink the view size (START+B+LEFT), but I think it's probably fast enough for most folks on the default view size. Spear of Destiny is noticeably slower than Wolf3D on the 32X as it makes much great use of transparent sprites for drawing levels. At least, the first level is that way.

[lilmul123]

Oh, my.

Someone needs to figure out how to get this loaded through SegaCD.

[Tears of Ash]

That seems sound. Not everyone has a Genesis flashcart (which will play 32x games if small enough, if I'm not mistaken) but most people who own a 32x will probably have a Sega CD as well.

*shrug*

I'd just like an opportunity to try it out. That seems to be the best way.

[Joe Redifer]

Chilly Willy is powerful. He can do it. He just needs the time.

[Chilly Willy]

One thought I have on a 32X+CD version is to move all the drawing the the MD side. The stats from the cart version are CODE+DATA+BSS is about 300 KB. The 32X only has 256 KB of SDRAM. Right now, the code and game data are in the ROM. However, 64000 bytes of that BSS is a screen buffer for the game to draw into. If the drawing is moved to the MD side, that buffer does as well. So the CODE+DATA+BSS is about 240 KB. I can probably squeeze that in.

In the cart version, when you do something like draw a wall segment, the program calculates where the segment is and where to draw it on the display, then draws it. The data for the drawing comes from ROM. For the CD version, I could instead send the results of where the segment is and where to draw it to the MD side and let it do the drawing. It would pull the data from the CD RAM instead of ROM (which isn't available). At that point, the issue becomes whether or not the data is available in the CD RAM. You've only got about 740 KB of RAM available, not MBs like in the ROM. Granted, not ALL the data has to be available at one time, but even just the data for a single level can be BIG.

The biggest part of that data is a the sprites. There are 437 total sprites in the SW version of W3D, each of which are 4 KB. Unless a level is pretty simple, it could have a significant number of those sprites. There are also 104 wall textures which are also 4 KB each. Compressing them in any significant way would be out of the question - the 68000 isn't fast enough to decompress graphics on the fly. One thing that COULD be done is to simply cut the texture size in half vertically and horizontally. Then they only take 1 KB instead of four. That's a much more manageable value. It would also make the graphics more blocky looking. You could simply settle for loading the textures as needed, but remember that the SCD uses a VERY slow CD. Things would simply stop for maybe several seconds while data was fetched from the CD.

Anyway, I'm still looking into things. Just sharing some thoughts about the work required in making a 32X+CD version.

[matteus]

I seriously don't think 32x CD is possible without having a major cut in the quality department it's ashame but I guess at some point you have to accept that the hardware just wasn't built for the purpose...

But keep up the thinking chilly you've done a grand job thus far!

[lilmul123]

How were they able to make that Sonic Remix game run off a Sega CD? That was first created as a cartridge ROM.

[TmEE]

Sonic 1 and 2 have had a ton of research behind them.... 5+ years I think

[Bablefish]

I know of another way to play the game without the expense of a flash cart. How about a modded PSP? A friend just started to do them, and I was thinking of having mine done.

http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/psp/forthepsp.html

[lilmul123]

That's not the point. I could just as easily play it on my computer, but I don't want to!

It's hard to explain, but the experience of having the actual system play something that wasn't officially made for it is just awesome.

[Bablefish]

You might be surprised by this, I agree with you. But then there comes a point...you seen how much a Genesis Flash Cart costs? Sadly is comes down to money. Which I don't have that much to spare.

I give 3 BIG CHEERS to Chilly Willy for creating a brand new 32X game...so Okay it's a port. But it shows you what kind of fan he is. One with real smarts!!!

[Chilly Willy]

@lilmul123: They were able to get Sonic 1 & 2 running on the CD because they're SMALL. 1 is only 512 KB, and 2 is only 1 MB. A little minor tweaking, especially with the audio, and it's not a problem. Games like Wolf3D are completely different. As mentioned, we've got 437 sprites of 4 KB each that could potentially all show on a level. That's over 1.5 MB of data that has to be accessible at all times to keep the game running. Toss another 100 wall textures on top for another half meg of space. It's considerably more than the ENTIRE Sonic 1 & 2 put together.

@Bablefish: There isn't a 32X emulator for the PSP yet. PicoDrive is the best SEGA emu for the PSP, and it's Genesis/CD only. A 32X emulator would be cool, though.