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isufje
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Post by isufje » February 7th, 2014, 12:42 am

nocash wrote:Unfortunately it's running rather slow on my old PC, even in 320pixel mode it seems to require a lot of unneccessary rendering. For example, in the "CAUSE YOU OBVIOUSLY SUCK!!!" screen, it's clearing the background thrice.
Do u mean this screen?
Image

OK, i can explain.

You're right, there are three renders, the Solid Black BG. The Semi-Transparent Black BG (for the fade out) and the Huge Character Display. In Addition to this, there is a text Display (YOU OBVIOUSLY SUCK!!!) which runs through a overly bloated string to display-text function which scales every single letter by 2x. If i took out the text and replaced it with a single image containing the text this probably wouldn't slow down the GPU as much. But still, this is not the reason why...

After u lose to a Boss, the game stops all of the callback functions that were running during the Battle. This means all processing, CPU and GPU, are not longer done at the start of vertical blank, but rather at the end of the drawing. This unfortunately means there is less time to complete whatever process that needs to get done.

What u want me 2 do?? :shrug
I got lazy OK ^_~

I tested everything on real hardware a while ago and if i can remember correctly it DOES slow down on real hardware too at that point in time (don't quote me on that).
But i also tested the game play while fighting 1 boss at a time (MONO MODE) and there was no slow down at all. The only exception to that would be fighting SLASH WOMAN. That rotating stage does like a billion calculations every vblank so the slowdown is normal speed ^_^...

Question, does your no$psx slowdown during gameplay in 320x240 (while your fighting a boss)?? if so, that's not normal (unless you're fighting 2 bosses -MELEE MODE- )
nocash wrote:Ah, I was already wondering how you got it working at 640x480 pixels, looked like magic :-)
Thanks $_$

And thank you for analyzing my game with your no$psx. Now i feel special ^_^
nocash wrote:And I came across a problem with my BIOS clone (ie. in no$psx, it's working only with the original Sony BIOS). The problem is that you are using this BIOS patch/hack (located at at 80010B68h and 8001B85Ch in the ISO from 20 Dec 2013)
Sorry Man... All i can say is that i'm not a Hardware Engineer... I'm not even a Software Engineer. I'm a weekend programmer. This is my hobby. I only know how to use the tools that i got. If u got a no$psx patch i can use instead of the stupid *.DAT license files i got, by all means send em' my way ^_~

When i compile, this is what it looks like...

Makecti /sa infousa.dat _xa output.cti
Buildcd -ioutput.img output.cti
Stripiso 2352 output.img output.iso
Copy /b US_LICENSE.dat+output.iso output2.iso

Do u want the *.DAT files so u can hack em? Or look into what they're doing, at least, to prevent your no$psx from working??

& Thanks Again :)

nocash wrote:Oh, and in the menues: It would be nice if it would also accept the X-button, alternately to pressing the START-button!
You know what... i tried that, but i ended up not doing it because it didn't work right with the password feature and the weapon select menu... i'll have to look into the â–³-button

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Post by nocash » February 7th, 2014, 2:20 am

isufje wrote:Question, does your no$psx slowdown during gameplay in 320x240 (while your fighting a boss)?? if so, that's not normal (unless you're fighting 2 bosses -MELEE MODE- )
Yes/no. When I said that it's unfortunately slow on my old PC, I just meant that my PC is too slow to play the game smoothly, so I couldn't really enjoy playing it. But that's just my local problem, nothing wrong with the game (some commercial PSX titles are also running slow on my PC, depends on how much rendering load they are causing).

For the resolution, I would prefer 320-pix as default setting. 640-pix looks nicer in emulators, but if it isn't working on hardware then it isn't a 'real' thing. And in a few years, emulators might reproduce correct GPU rendering timings, and then it would stop working in emulators either.
isufje wrote:
nocash wrote:you are using this BIOS patch/hack (located at at 80010B68h and 8001B85Ch)
I only know how to use the tools that i got.
Okay, then I assume that you didn't make that patch, and it was somehow done by your libraries. If you are using original libraries then it might even be an official patch that is also used in commercial titles (although I've never seen one yet). Or did you use some homebrew/third-party libraries/code/devkit?
isufje wrote:Stripiso 2352 output.img output.iso
Copy /b US_LICENSE.dat+output.iso output2.iso
Sounds as if you are removing the first 2352-byte sector from the ISO, and then replace it by the Sony license string for US region? If yes, there's nothing special with it, all PSX games have it that way.
isufje wrote:
nocash wrote:Oh, and in the menues: It would be nice if it would also accept the X-button, alternately to pressing the START-button!
You know what... i tried that, but i ended up not doing it because it didn't work right with the password feature and the weapon select menu... i'll have to look into the â–³-button
Would be neat. Common would be X-button to confirm things (alternately to START), and Triangle-button to return to main menu (as what you are currently doing via X-button).

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Post by isufje » February 7th, 2014, 8:44 am

nocash wrote:Yes/no. When I said that it's unfortunately slow on my old PC, I just meant that my PC is too slow to play the game smoothly, so I couldn't really enjoy playing it. But that's just my local problem, nothing wrong with the game (some commercial PSX titles are also running slow on my PC, depends on how much rendering load they are causing).
That's good to hear... sort of... Get a NEW PC!!! ^_~

nocash wrote:For the resolution, I would prefer 320-pix as default setting. 640-pix looks nicer in emulators, but if it isn't working on hardware then it isn't a 'real' thing. And in a few years, emulators might reproduce correct GPU rendering timings, and then it would stop working in emulators either.
Maybe i should make u a no$version that's already patched to play on no$psx and runs at 320x240 only and disable MELEE MODE... NOT. You know i use to have a resolution selection menu at boot-up, but i did away with that in favor of 640x480 at default, and there is a reason.
1) it runs on emulator, as you've stated
2) it looks better, as you've obviously noticed too :)

The real reason is that i wanted to impress my sister with a tech demo of my game. Long story short, she never played my game so I bought her an Ouya for christmas. i heard ePSXe for Android was awesome for Ouya, and i wanted to finally let her test out my game in real life and i wanted to suprise her (can't do that with shitty res). I didn't want to complicate matters with a resolution selection screen so that went away along with 320x240 as default.

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
nocash wrote:might even be an official patch that is also used in commercial titles
Seriously bout it. If it doesn't run right, there's something a miss. Maybe Revenge of Strip Iso does something too it??


nocash wrote:Common would be X-button to confirm things (alternately to START), and Triangle-button to return to main menu (as what you are currently doing via X-button).
U know what, in japan the X-button is for cancel and the O-button is for confirm. In US, it's vise-versa. Sorry man, but i've be playing Japanese imports all my life and that's one thing that stuck with me. Blame the Japanese ^_~ j/k
Last edited by isufje on February 7th, 2014, 8:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by isufje » February 7th, 2014, 8:46 am

double post

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Post by nocash » February 7th, 2014, 10:20 am

X and O button are both fine. I was just afraid that you were planning to use Triangle for confirm.

When I said "BIOS patch/hack (located at at 80010B68h and 8001B85Ch in the ISO from 20 Dec 2013)", I meant that I've downloaded your ISO file, but didn't meant that the patch isn't anything specific to the ISO filesystem. The patch is in your executable, either it must come from your source code, or, as is seems now: from your librabries.

There is no need to patch the game for use in no$psx. It is already working (as long as you are using it with the original Sony BIOS) (with my BIOS clone it doesn't work currently due to your patch, but I'll support that in next update).

Your 2D graphics and 3D sprites and sound/music and menues are already quite impressive. The only drawback is that 640x480 doesn't work on real hardware (at least, your said, I didn't actually tested myself).
A homebrew "PSX game that doesn't work on a real PSX" is only half as impressive. I think a 320x240 pixel that works o real hardware would be more impressive (though it could keep 640x480 pixels as "extra" feature for use on emulators).
Or you could go 640x240. That would avoid flimmering caused by using interlace on real TVs. And, more important, it would require only half as much VRAM, so you could use 2 frame buffers (as it is now, with only 1 frame buffer... I would assume that you are probably getting real heavy flickering on real hardware?).

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Post by isufje » February 7th, 2014, 4:41 pm

nocash wrote:X and O button are both fine. I was just afraid that you were planning to use Triangle for confirm.
Don't worry, i'll leave it alone... for now :)
nocash wrote:The patch is in your executable, either it must come from your source code, or, as is seems now: from your librabries.
Ok, i'll look into that. See what's going on.

nocash wrote:There is no need to patch the game for use in no$psx. It is already working (as long as you are using it with the original Sony BIOS) (with my BIOS clone it doesn't work currently due to your patch, but I'll support that in next update).
That's good to hear :D
nocash wrote:Your 2D graphics and 3D sprites and sound/music and menues are already quite impressive.)
Thanks

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Post by isufje » February 7th, 2014, 10:51 pm

nocash wrote:I would assume that you are probably getting real heavy flickering on real hardware?).
Only in 640x480 resolution.
nocash wrote:A homebrew "PSX game that doesn't work on a real PSX" is only half as impressive. I think a 320x240 pixel that works o real hardware would be more impressive (though it could keep 640x480 pixels as "extra" feature for use on emulators).
Honestly, i'm doing it the other way around. i'm making this game for emulators with backwards compatibility with real hardware for now... Someday i'll make a 320x240 only dedicated honest to goodness REAL PSX GAME... but for right now this is what i got :crying

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Post by Shendo » February 8th, 2014, 12:39 pm

I see no reason for separate builds.
You should do what some commercial games already do: 640x480 for menus and 320x240 for gameplay.
That way you have a good looking menus and smooth gameplay on the real thing.

ePSXe for Android uses OpenGL anyway and sets the rendering resolution to native of a device it's running on.
If you leave higher res textures it will look identical regardless of the resolution given to the GPU.
That is not a factor on hardware based plugins at all.

Take a look at this images from Pete's OpenGL2 plugin. Can't tell the difference, right?
Image Image
Resolution here is 960x720. Just keep the textures detailed and it will look great.

Edit: And something for the kicks. Your game in 1920x1080 on PCSX-R with widescreen GTE hack.
Image Image
Image Image
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Post by nocash » February 9th, 2014, 6:17 am

Using 640x480 in menus would be possible. But for example, the rotating 3D figure in the CONFIG screen: One would need to draw that in a small offscreen rendering buffer, and then copy it to the display buffer. I am having the feeling that such techniques might exceed the scope of the project.

My own emu can't do it - but yes, some emulators can display polygons regardless of the GPU resolution.
That should be the best way to go: Use high-resolution textures and draw them at low 320x240 pixel GPU resolution.
Then you have something that works perfect on real hardware, and that can look even better than perfect on emulators.

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Post by isufje » February 9th, 2014, 3:10 pm

@Shendo

Thanks for the info. I already knew about ePSXe and the OpenGL plugin making lo-res look like high res. Unfortunately when i ran ePSXe on OUYA it's was too slow for OpenGL to run efficiently... lucky i had a hi-res option. Who knew i would be able to bybass OpenGL all together and still get the same results :shrug

...and about that widescreen hack. I don't think my game is compatible because it's not fully 3d. There are a lot of 2D elements that obviously get stretched to fit the widescreen while 3d polys do not... making it look just weird

Yo, but i really like those wide screen pics :3 Thanks for showing me what it looks like :) i've never seen it like that before :)

@no$
I'm gonna stick with 320x240 as a 'REAL HARDWARE' option. I feel that if anyone (purist) is hardcore enough to play it on real hardware, they're smart enough to bypass a flickering title screen and find out the solution in the Config menu.

I recently just tried some optimization to increase performance, but there's nothing (easy) i can do about the GPU shortcomings, less i overhaul everything... Keep in mind i'm running at 60FPS with little to no slowdown (on real hardware) while rendering two 500 polygon characters (fully textured and with gouraud lighting) while performing complex vertex animation on each of those 500 or so polygons with a 320x240 hand-drawn Background image and a bunch of other crappy special effects with transparencies to boot. I'm not trying to make an excuse, but come-on ^_~ j/k

The next game i make will be a FPS and it will run at 30FPS and it will run perfectly smooth on real Playstation hardware..., OK ^_^

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Post by isufje » February 18th, 2014, 11:04 am

I guess i'll use this as a work log :)

screenshot of what i'm working on :)

Image

I'm gonna start rigging her for animation right now with Milkshape (as usual)

note: Her base model is a modification of the model included in the TMD Viewer, just shorter. I'm gonna see if i can squish the skeleton and just recycle her animation. From what i can remember, this doesn't work, but i haven't done this in awhile... so who knows, i could be wrong :shrug

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Post by isufje » February 18th, 2014, 11:11 am

The Stage Layout is all set (somewhat). All i need now is to plaster her Polygons over those rectangles :)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfocrrgHRkI[/youtube]

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Post by isufje » February 25th, 2014, 3:07 am

Here's an Update. If anyone wants to try it on real hardware, let me know your results please :)
Thanks in advance :)

-Added Elec Woman
Download Game: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ada3n411al0nfoz/RBR_107a.iso
Source Code: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/zm0iu6y1mss0kvw/source_107a.rar

ImageImage
ImageImage

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI35QK0WQF4[/youtube]

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Post by Xavi92 » March 22nd, 2014, 1:07 am

Your work is absolutely splendid. :shock: Seriously, you've left me speechless!

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Post by isufje » March 22nd, 2014, 6:49 am

Thanks. That's good to hear :P

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Post by LameGuy64 » March 22nd, 2014, 11:34 am

Tried this on a real PlayStation, had to play it in normal 320x240 mode as it was visually unplayable in 640x480 mode like you've said.

Great game though! I'm honestly left wondering how you got the SEQ music system and MIME animation engine working... The only problem I had about this game is its difficulty (maybe because I just suck at it), slow load times, and the clustered as heck directory structure which made it a pain to include in a compilation disc due to the 30 file/dir per directory limit (yes, I released a PSXDEV compilation disc in epforums with your game in it in hopes that it'll help popularize the PlayStation homebrew scene).

(tip: if you want to support widescreen TVs, try using 384x240)
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Post by isufje » March 22nd, 2014, 12:29 pm

LameGuy64 wrote:I released a PSXDEV compilation disc in epforums with your game in it
Cool. Include it. Can't be mad at you for that ;)

As for widescreen support, I'll pass on that one. Heck, I don't even have PAL support and that's a hell of a lot easier FIX than full blown Widescreen support (Sorry PAL users :crying )

Sorry for the cluster muck of files on disc too, but to compress everything into one Mega-File would be too presumptuous of me at this time. (I can't tell you how many times i had to modify files over and over just to get them to a certain standard. I think i'm a modify freak :oops: )

Coincidentally, making a huge Mega-File would increase load times, but as i said... not at this time.

And the difficulty level... I'll look into it. I might include a GOD-MODE like Doom or Quake (I'd be lying if i said i didn't abuse IDDQD and IDKFA while playing Doom :roll: )

Getting SEQ/VAB/VH/VB to work was a no brainer. Well documented source was/is available. The Mime was another matter altogeter. I had to reverse engineer the one and only source code that had it implemented. I ended up modifying it, simplifying it, and packaging it into one easy to use function. If u want, feel free to use that function. It's call FrameFix and it's included in my source code. It's pretty self explainaroty, but if you need me to explain it, just ask/post here. I'll answer your questions anytime.

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Post by LameGuy64 » March 22nd, 2014, 4:10 pm

If you can't migrate into using pack files, you could just move all of your game files into its own directory named RBR in the root. That way, it'll be a lot easier to include into future compilations.
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Post by isufje » March 22nd, 2014, 8:43 pm

I need to keep separate directories for each boss. I'll just compress everything when i'm done.

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Post by Yagotzirck » March 23rd, 2014, 6:03 am

isufje wrote:Getting SEQ/VAB/VH/VB to work was a no brainer.
Mind explaining how to play a midi file properly? Every time I've tried I've got nothing but cacophonic noise with wrong/distorted instruments... I've been struggling to figure out how to import instruments from a sound bank to a VB and properly associate them to each SEQ channel for quite a long time before eventually giving up :?
Thanks in advance

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