Posted By
Stuckalf
on 2011-10-11
04:36:51
|  Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
That would be a good game for a 256K/512K Plus/4, wouldn't it?
Although the Easyflash has 1 MB, I dunno whether it's been all filled with code or speed-code tables. Maybe 25K6 or 512K would be enough.
http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39788
Looks very nice, I wait longingly for Sunday.
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Posted By
siz
on 2011-10-11
10:31:25
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Yeah, it really looks good. The author writes in that forum that probably there never will be a disk based version because there are a lot of precalculated tables stored in ROM that cannot be loaded fast enough from disk so I don't think that a memory expanded plus/4 would be enough for that (or it would need a 1M RAM expansion with lots of preloading - like preloading 6 disk sides before starting the game  )
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Posted By
Krill
on 2011-10-14
01:50:17
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Word is that it needs 128K of code and data at run-time, with banking in order to address the whole 128K directly.
I also heard the complete game is somewhere near 512K.
So it's perfectly possible to load levels in the classical multiloader scheme, since actual data needed to load for each level are somewhere around the 64K area, the other 64K bank is filled with tables and other dynamically generated code and data.
These are educated guesses only at this time.
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Posted By
Stuckalf
on 2011-10-14
17:25:03
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Hm, 128K ? This is interesting because the CPC version runs on a normal 464 with 64K afaik.
And the CPC has no text mode - just a normal graphics mode which occupies 16K - no matter, what resolution you choose.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2011-10-15
02:21:01
 | Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
The CPC version sustained a big reduction during his production, loosing a lot of features the C64 one will have, in primis the animation of all the characters in the game. It's like Prince of Persia juice squeezed into 64K.
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Posted By
Stuckalf
on 2011-10-15
10:34:50
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Really? Well, I won't benefit from the C64 version THAT much. Without an Easyflash I'd be condemned to play the game on an emulator. That's not what I'm looking for.
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Posted By
Krill
on 2011-10-15
16:38:23
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Just get yourself an EasyFlash then. 
And yeah, the CPC version cuts down a lot on animation steps and some further graphics data.
This was no option for the creator of the C-64 port, so he went for 128K.
The situation is much better than i described in my previous post, btw. - Only a few kB per level need to be loaded, and the whole game is much smaller than 512 kB when compressed.
A possible Plus/4 port would have to implement all characters with soft sprites, though, and come up with something smart to minimize colour clash.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2011-10-16
03:43:00
 | Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
In the style of Saboteur comes to mind... To be honest this C64 Prince of Persia is a bit over the top and not really needed when the SNES is still one of the best versions ever made and many versions since available for newer consoles ect...
Even Sega had a MegaCD version and later a cart version with a couple of new levels.
If they spent more time fitting each level to work in 64K using the original machine as it came out of the box that would of been a better achievement.
but thats me... 
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Posted By
Luca
on 2011-10-16
07:29:32
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Just to remind: specimen don't miss
Prince Intro and Prince Of Persia.
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Posted By
Stuckalf
on 2011-10-17
01:45:32
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
"If they spent more time fitting each level to work in 64K using the original machine as it came out of the box that would of been a better achievement."
Thumbs up - that's what I think about it, too.
Anyway, anybody with an Easyflash may have fun with it. At least someone's still doin' something (a lot in this case) for this machine.
I guess I'll stick with the Amiga version which afaik even runs on the OCS chipset.
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Posted By
Krill
on 2011-10-18
02:23:32
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Yes, if the game ran on plain C-64, that'd be better in a way, but still it'd be very much like the CPC version: slow and with choppy animations.
Of course, it should have been possible to make a game which does just that if run without EasyFlash or similar, and show the full feature set if run with.
But this is just version 1. Maybe new versions will come out, mainly made by other people than MrSID himself, but with his sources and him maintaining the project.
Maybe some crackers will also have a go at the problem, but MrSID is an experienced programmer and likely has tried many tricks of the trade until he saw it really won't fit into 64K.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2011-10-18
17:39:49
 | Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Question: why a C=64 version should be choppy and slow?
I played a lot with Myth (and some time with PoP on PC and Amiga), and the only difference I see is that Prince of Persia has much less attractive background (eg. Greek or Egyptian level) and much less spites at the same time on screen than Myth. Maybe a little bigger sprites, and slightly smoother animation (what about Impossible mission2?), but nothing else.
Sorry for being so straight, but I never understood the hype on PoP. It is a nicely polished game, and welcomed the Plus/4 version very much. But there are many-many more complex and more polished games on 8bit with lot of creative ideas, than this. I would call it a simple platformer.
If anyone would create GODS on C=64 or Plus/4, I would be the first to nod. But THAT one is hard or near impossible, while PoP is a nice code, but nothing extraordinary.
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Posted By
MagerValp
on 2011-10-20
16:17:30
| Re: Prince of Persia - another 8Bit conversion (sadly only for the 64 + Easyflash)
Read the blog and find out: http://popc64.blogspot.com/
But the short version is that PoP is a much more complex game than it appears, and it uses a lot of animation data. MrSID of course tried to fit it into 64 kB, but couldn't without making serious compromises (e.g. dropping every other anim frame like the CPC version).
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