Vectrex Frogger

[joe34]

check out this cool video of vectrex frogger which a guy called Malban is working on (this game was released a while back but now he is reworking it, eg. adding music, improving animation, adding player's score, etc)

really impressed with how smooth it runs, it's heavily optimised as you can imagine:

here's his blog:

http://vide.malban.de/

 

[Spanky]

l33t haxor skillz

 

[Big Phil]

I think it's about time I invested in a Vectrex.

 

[Hurray Banana]

Looks like he's got a lot of vectors going on. Are there hard limits to that joe34 or is it just frame time stretches the more you draw?Hurray Banana2016-11-23 21:21:12

 

[joe34]

i'm not very clued up with the vectrex technical stuff but something with the vectrex which is interesting is, if you want to have a steady stable image displayed, each update round of the game being run should be kept below 30.000 cycles
many (perhaps all?) of the commercial vectrex games bitd didnt care about that so you often get a lot of flickering and wobbling vectors for many vectrex games out there

the programmer of frogger though has managed to do all that animation/game at around 30.000 cycles per update round which is a really impressive feat considering the amount of animation and vectors being displayed etc. there's some other vectrex programmers out there also who are very talented at at making the most out of the hardware limitations (the vectrex version of moon patrol looks really good on youtube, no idea when or if that will be finished though)..

below: here's another very cool looking game which is coming out soon called 'robot arena' .. tons of stuff going on with the screen but staying fast and smooth.. impressive stuff

http://youtu.be/ed2L9XeVYpA?t=8m37s

 

[cparsonsuk]

Yeah, he's been coding on the vectrex since WAY back and is really back on the scene now... I'm using his IDE he's made for Vectrex dev (http://vide.malban.de/) for my next Vectrex game.

He wrote at length when he first created frogger about how he managed to get it to run under 30K cycles... amazing he can now add in music and animations and make it run smoother!

His programming tutorial, again from WAY back, is what I started with when learning to code for the Vectrex...

http://www.playvectrex.com/designit/chrissalo/toc.htm

I have seen somewhere a list of the clock cycles each of the original games ran at... can't find it now... most kept not too much over 30K and with an overlay you can get away with that.

 

[Hurray Banana]

It is definitely a top effort

 

[Big Phil]

Amazing stuff! Think I'm deffo gonna invest in one.

 

[big10p]

Amazing stuff. Looks like he has a rogue vertex on the truck, though?

 

[joe34]

Amazing stuff. Looks like he has a rogue vertex on the truck, though?

i think it is supposed to be smoke

 

[big10p]

Amazing stuff. Looks like he has a rogue vertex on the truck, though?

i think it is supposed to be smoke

Ah, OK. Just looked a bit off to me.

 

[Hurray Banana]

I think I'm definitely gonna have to look into some equipment and software to start having a go at this crazy vector stuff.

 

[Nes4life]

Vectors are the new pixels mate. Baggers made the jump to the vectrex... come join us!

 

[Hurray Banana]

Vectors are the new pixels mate. Baggers made the jump to the vectrex... come join us!

I will when I've finished my time machine

 

[joe34]

Vectors are the new pixels mate. Baggers made the jump to the vectrex... come join us!

heard Baggers is working on vectrex bombjack yes

 

[joe34]

Vectors are the new pixels mate. Baggers made the jump to the vectrex... come join us!

I will when I've finished my time machine

hey HB incase it didnt show up, i did post that 6809 book to u ages ago, hopefully it arrived ok then

 

[Hurray Banana]

Vectors are the new pixels mate. Baggers made the jump to the vectrex... come join us!

I will when I've finished my time machine

hey HB incase it didnt show up, i did post that 6809 book to u ages ago, hopefully it arrived ok then

yeah got that thanks

 

[cparsonsuk]

I think I'm definitely gonna have to look into some equipment and software to start having a go at this crazy vector stuff.

Join us Eric!

Download VIDE for starters... can run your code in emulation really well.

Then down the line get a flash cart to try on real HW... there are 3 or 4 choices for that... VecFever looks like it will be the ultimate answer for this

 

[Hurray Banana]

I think I'm definitely gonna have to look into some equipment and software to start having a go at this crazy vector stuff.

Join us Eric!

Download VIDE for starters... can run your code in emulation really well.

Then down the line get a flash cart to try on real HW... there are 3 or 4 choices for that... VecFever looks like it will be the ultimate answer for this

You are all goading me into doing this and it's worked

I just want to finish off destroying boring old Pac-man tilemap hardware with a couple of projects then I'll start hitting you lot up for information on getting started.

 

[joe34]

I just want to finish off destroying boring old Pac-man tilemap hardware with a couple of projects then I'll start hitting you lot up for information on getting started.

ace

i'm also gonna give VIDE another go too once the next version is released (in a few days i think). i had a mess about with 6809 several months ago but wimped out, but will give it another go. (i've only used basic and C in the past so assembly just plain scared me when i tried it out)

there's helpful videos and docs regarding VIDE here:

http://vide.malban.de/help