C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
- Thread starter RockinB
- Start date
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
I'd like to congratulate all those who sent in entries to the contest. I was really impressed with this years entries compared to what I've seen in the past. You've all made my job of juding rather difficult. Great work guys.
Some comments on the Atlas boot-loader. The soft-reset feature of the games on the C4 CD doesn't really help those who do the swap trick. When the Saturn resets I have to get up and reswap after each game. It would be better if Atlas left a small program resident in memory that the gamepaks would jump to when they exit. This little program could reload the bootloader without resetting the console so a reswap is not required.
The zooming instruction text moves a bit too fast to read easily and goes off the screen just a tad on my TV (relatively new 27" NTSC set). It was also a little confusing when a game woudl switch from being in the circle to being the one at the bottom. This will obviously be easier once the programs have pictures, but it would help if the pictures moved over there smoothly rather than just teleporting. Still a very cool bootloader.
A number of the entries had text that went off the edge of my set. I'm guessing this is probably a PAL vs. NTSC thing. I don't plan on letting this small detail have any impact on my judging, but it would be a good thing to good thing to be a bit more sensitive to in future efforts.
I'd like to congratulate all those who sent in entries to the contest. I was really impressed with this years entries compared to what I've seen in the past. You've all made my job of juding rather difficult. Great work guys.
Some comments on the Atlas boot-loader. The soft-reset feature of the games on the C4 CD doesn't really help those who do the swap trick. When the Saturn resets I have to get up and reswap after each game. It would be better if Atlas left a small program resident in memory that the gamepaks would jump to when they exit. This little program could reload the bootloader without resetting the console so a reswap is not required.
The zooming instruction text moves a bit too fast to read easily and goes off the screen just a tad on my TV (relatively new 27" NTSC set). It was also a little confusing when a game woudl switch from being in the circle to being the one at the bottom. This will obviously be easier once the programs have pictures, but it would help if the pictures moved over there smoothly rather than just teleporting. Still a very cool bootloader.
A number of the entries had text that went off the edge of my set. I'm guessing this is probably a PAL vs. NTSC thing. I don't plan on letting this small detail have any impact on my judging, but it would be a good thing to good thing to be a bit more sensitive to in future efforts.
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
Thanks for your words, Mask of Destiny!
That's right, I discovered that, too. It's because the Atlas app is booted the usual way with it's IP.BIN being at the start of the CD. All booting stuff is controled by the demo demo loader lib (FLD) which comes without sources. If there is a way to work around this would have to be examined.
<!--QuoteBegin-Mask of Destiny@Sat, 2005-12-10 @ 08:25 PM
The zooming instruction text moves a bit too fast to read easily and goes off the screen just a tad on my TV (relatively new 27" NTSC set).
...
A number of the entries had text that went off the edge of my set. I'm guessing this is probably a PAL vs. NTSC thing. I don't plan on letting this small detail have any impact on my judging, but it would be a good thing to good thing to be a bit more sensitive to in future efforts.
[/quote]
I was looking for someone like you with a NTSC setup. Speed is because of 50Hz -> 60Hz speed increase. Out of screen might be because of too high vertical resolution (the old Atlas should be NTSC friendly). Although, only 256px is said to be PAL only, 240/480 like used in new Atlas are not reported to display incorrect on NTSC screens. Well, seems like the only resolution compatible with NTSC is 224/448 and I'm absolutely not happy about that. I was expecting this and decided against 448 because I hate decreasing resolution again and entries might not be NTSC friendly either.
Thanks for clearing this up!
Thanks for your words, Mask of Destiny!
That's right, I discovered that, too. It's because the Atlas app is booted the usual way with it's IP.BIN being at the start of the CD. All booting stuff is controled by the demo demo loader lib (FLD) which comes without sources. If there is a way to work around this would have to be examined.
<!--QuoteBegin-Mask of Destiny@Sat, 2005-12-10 @ 08:25 PM
The zooming instruction text moves a bit too fast to read easily and goes off the screen just a tad on my TV (relatively new 27" NTSC set).
...
A number of the entries had text that went off the edge of my set. I'm guessing this is probably a PAL vs. NTSC thing. I don't plan on letting this small detail have any impact on my judging, but it would be a good thing to good thing to be a bit more sensitive to in future efforts.
[post=142401]Quoted post[/post]
[/quote]
I was looking for someone like you with a NTSC setup. Speed is because of 50Hz -> 60Hz speed increase. Out of screen might be because of too high vertical resolution (the old Atlas should be NTSC friendly). Although, only 256px is said to be PAL only, 240/480 like used in new Atlas are not reported to display incorrect on NTSC screens. Well, seems like the only resolution compatible with NTSC is 224/448 and I'm absolutely not happy about that. I was expecting this and decided against 448 because I hate decreasing resolution again and entries might not be NTSC friendly either.
Thanks for clearing this up!
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
Well the big problem with television is that it's an overscan device so the useable signal area goes beyond the physical edge of the screen. To make this more complicated, not all TVs display the same portion of the signal. Best thing to do would probably to stay at 240/480, but just move text slightly closer to the center of the screen. With Atlas it wasn't too bad on my TV. Maybe the top half of the first line of instruction text went off the screen when it was fully zoomed in, but that's about it. At least one of the entries had an entire line of text that was cut off on the bottom of the screen.
For the bootloader thing, here's what I would do. Write a small program in assembly (mostly to keep it small, C would work too I suppose) that reads the bootblock and runs the IP.BIN. Stick this program in a part of memory unlikely to be used by a game. Then have the individual games call a small function that sets the hardware back to some known state and jumps to the address of the little assembly loader program.
Well the big problem with television is that it's an overscan device so the useable signal area goes beyond the physical edge of the screen. To make this more complicated, not all TVs display the same portion of the signal. Best thing to do would probably to stay at 240/480, but just move text slightly closer to the center of the screen. With Atlas it wasn't too bad on my TV. Maybe the top half of the first line of instruction text went off the screen when it was fully zoomed in, but that's about it. At least one of the entries had an entire line of text that was cut off on the bottom of the screen.
For the bootloader thing, here's what I would do. Write a small program in assembly (mostly to keep it small, C would work too I suppose) that reads the bootblock and runs the IP.BIN. Stick this program in a part of memory unlikely to be used by a game. Then have the individual games call a small function that sets the hardware back to some known state and jumps to the address of the little assembly loader program.
Amon
Staff member
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
I noticed that problem with my entry. The text at the top of my game was cut off. It worked fine on emulators but on my ntsc it was cut off. So I moved it down and hopefully moved it down enough. Not sure. Didnt have time to burn it one last time and test it. So hopefully it was fine 🙂. Anyways I cant wait till judgement
I noticed that problem with my entry. The text at the top of my game was cut off. It worked fine on emulators but on my ntsc it was cut off. So I moved it down and hopefully moved it down enough. Not sure. Didnt have time to burn it one last time and test it. So hopefully it was fine 🙂. Anyways I cant wait till judgement
vbt
Staff member
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
I didn't test yet and and I'm not sure I've understood the problem
but with the FLD lib and Sys_exit, a game should return to the demo demo menu. Then a game is started without checking the IP.
Well I test the current behavior.
EDIT :
It seems there is an ip check but I did not notice this on real demo cd. I don't see the difference between sys_exit (0) and sys_exit (2), Rockin did you test the difference ? I may make a test.
I didn't test yet and and I'm not sure I've understood the problem
but with the FLD lib and Sys_exit, a game should return to the demo demo menu. Then a game is started without checking the IP.Well I test the current behavior.
EDIT :
Code:
+---------------+--------------------------------------------+
| Function Code | Description |
+---------------+--------------------------------------------+
| | Executes IP check and run during Demo-Demo |
| 0 | use. (Starts up the Demo-Demo based menu) |
| | For all other cases, activates the |
| | Multiplayer. |
+---------------+--------------------------------------------+
| 1 | Activates the Multiplayer unconditionally. |
+---------------+--------------------------------------------+
| 2 | Executes IP check and run unconditionally. |
| | (Starts up the demo-demo menu) |
+---------------+--------------------------------------------+
| Negative | Infinite loop |
| Value | |
+---------------+--------------------------------------------+
| Other | Same as Function code 0. |
+---------------+--------------------------------------------+It seems there is an ip check but I did not notice this on real demo cd. I don't see the difference between sys_exit (0) and sys_exit (2), Rockin did you test the difference ? I may make a test.
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
I had no problems with text placement on your entry. Of course, just because it works on my TV doesn't mean it will work fine on someone elses TV. I think Planet de Pon and Stephano Karate Maitre were the only ones that had problems in that area, but I would have to go back and check to be sure.
I had no problems with text placement on your entry. Of course, just because it works on my TV doesn't mean it will work fine on someone elses TV. I think Planet de Pon and Stephano Karate Maitre were the only ones that had problems in that area, but I would have to go back and check to be sure.
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
My friends, it's done! The final C4 results are determined and published, as well as the C4CD.
Here are the links:
C4 - 2005 results website
The C4CD: C4_2005_CD.rar
C4 - 2005 main website
The news I posted at a couple of places can be found here:
www.rockin-b.de
I'm so glad :banana the C4 got to such a good end. There are so many people I'd like to thank...the prize donaters, the contestants, the judges, everyone else who helped with translations, screenshots, testing. I owe you so much!
Congratulations everyone!
My friends, it's done! The final C4 results are determined and published, as well as the C4CD.
Here are the links:
C4 - 2005 results website
The C4CD: C4_2005_CD.rar
C4 - 2005 main website
The news I posted at a couple of places can be found here:
www.rockin-b.de
I'm so glad :banana the C4 got to such a good end. There are so many people I'd like to thank...the prize donaters, the contestants, the judges, everyone else who helped with translations, screenshots, testing. I owe you so much!
Congratulations everyone!
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
I'm new here and just learning to code C but I really gotta give you guys all props.
When I owned the saturn and it was label a dead system by many hardcore gamers I never thought people on the 'net would actually want to code for it or be able to.
Seeing all the progress in emulation of the saturn and seeing contest like this really inspire me to keep learning C and maybe do some of my own work, and/or help.
:cheers
Here's to ya!
I'm new here and just learning to code C but I really gotta give you guys all props.
When I owned the saturn and it was label a dead system by many hardcore gamers I never thought people on the 'net would actually want to code for it or be able to.
Seeing all the progress in emulation of the saturn and seeing contest like this really inspire me to keep learning C and maybe do some of my own work, and/or help.
:cheers
Here's to ya!
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
Rockin-b, the url of my store in the CD is wrong...
Now sure my advertisement will have no effect at al 🙁
Oh, well, tell the winner to mail me to pedidos@frikidonia.com to get the prize.
Rockin-b, the url of my store in the CD is wrong...
Now sure my advertisement will have no effect at al 🙁
Oh, well, tell the winner to mail me to pedidos@frikidonia.com to get the prize.
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
Ups, you're right, I'm sorry .
<!--QuoteBegin-madmalkav@Mon, 2005-12-12 @ 09:27 PM
Now sure my advertisement will have no effect at al 🙁
[/quote]
No, on the websites the URL is correct and the banner and link is not only placed on the C4 website like we agreed to, but also on a couple of other places where I posted the news.
The screen is just a credits screen, I'll fix the image now.
Thanks for pointing me to this.
Ups, you're right, I'm sorry
.<!--QuoteBegin-madmalkav@Mon, 2005-12-12 @ 09:27 PM
Now sure my advertisement will have no effect at al 🙁
[post=142457]Quoted post[/post]
[/quote]
No, on the websites the URL is correct and the banner and link is not only placed on the C4 website like we agreed to, but also on a couple of other places where I posted the news.
The screen is just a credits screen, I'll fix the image now.
Thanks for pointing me to this.
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
Hi
Good to see that people did program games this time, not only demos.
I downloaded the contest cd and there are a few bad things happening to my game : in the intro screen, the plasma effect won't show and the title, players and options screen are messed up, making it impossible to know what you do. Rockin'b, was it the same in the standalone version a gave to you ?
(I played the winner's tetris, and the score stays at 128 points, no matter what I do . Is this normal ?)
Is there a place for everybody to download the games sources ?
Hi
Good to see that people did program games this time, not only demos.
I downloaded the contest cd and there are a few bad things happening to my game : in the intro screen, the plasma effect won't show and the title, players and options screen are messed up, making it impossible to know what you do. Rockin'b, was it the same in the standalone version a gave to you ?
(I played the winner's tetris, and the score stays at 128 points, no matter what I do . Is this normal ?)
Is there a place for everybody to download the games sources ?
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
The only difference I found out was the plasma title screen, but I already told you about that and send you a preview version (did you check it out?) before even the judges got to see it. I also asked you if you would like to have a standalone version judged. Please note that neither you or I know whoose fault this is.
The judges CD has been modified with customization data to become the final C4CD. I have not yet tested this one (I'm away, sort of), but I will check and compare all 3 versions again.
Currently, the score system is WIP.
<!--QuoteBegin-vreuzon@Tue, 2005-12-13 @ 09:08 AM
Is there a place for everybody to download the games sources ?
[/quote]
Not yet. Personally, I got some of the sources, but it's not my decision to publish it.
All contestants who want to publish sources, please do so. :agree
Maybe some will apply further improvements and publish sources afterwards. I plan to publish a couple of sources, soon.
The only difference I found out was the plasma title screen, but I already told you about that and send you a preview version (did you check it out?) before even the judges got to see it. I also asked you if you would like to have a standalone version judged. Please note that neither you or I know whoose fault this is.
The judges CD has been modified with customization data to become the final C4CD. I have not yet tested this one (I'm away, sort of), but I will check and compare all 3 versions again.
Currently, the score system is WIP.
<!--QuoteBegin-vreuzon@Tue, 2005-12-13 @ 09:08 AM
Is there a place for everybody to download the games sources ?
[post=142477]Quoted post[/post]
[/quote]
Not yet. Personally, I got some of the sources, but it's not my decision to publish it.
All contestants who want to publish sources, please do so. :agree
Maybe some will apply further improvements and publish sources afterwards. I plan to publish a couple of sources, soon.
cafe-alpha
Established Member
C4 - 2005 & 2006 discussion
Hi everybody !
Thanks for all for the contest, everything wouldn't have been possible without help from segaXtreme (for docs, tools, and so on) !!
I'm happy for my game to be rewarded, and hope you will like it.
Please note that the game is still in (earlier) development, so that it can seem hard to play or incomplete ...
Well ... score is displayed, but not initialised/updated ^^
Sorry, I wanted to make scoring system the night before the deadline, but couldn't make something good in time.
I will make something better soon.
Hi everybody !
Thanks for all for the contest, everything wouldn't have been possible without help from segaXtreme (for docs, tools, and so on) !!
I'm happy for my game to be rewarded, and hope you will like it.
Please note that the game is still in (earlier) development, so that it can seem hard to play or incomplete ...
Well ... score is displayed, but not initialised/updated ^^
Sorry, I wanted to make scoring system the night before the deadline, but couldn't make something good in time.
I will make something better soon.
