Posted By
Lavina
on 2014-03-31
07:49:41
 |  Sprite Card
Why not building a sprite extension card just like a SID card?
Why SID card for better music and why not Sprite Card for better games??
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Posted By
Ati
on 2014-03-31
10:27:19
| Re: Sprite Card
+1 like.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2014-03-31
10:46:16
| Re: Sprite Card
I'm no hardware guy, but from what I understand, doing the audio is much simpler. It reads some memory registers from the RAM, but then it does something independently from the rest of the computer, and the audio output is also independent.
For sprites, you'd have to have a completely different TED though, I think. There's no way to "add" something else to the screen that is getting generated. It's not like you could have an "IF" to check "is there a sprite here?", etc. So, I'd say something like that is "impossible", or rather, cannot be done with a simple extension card.
Well, maybe someone more knowledgeable could either correct me or explain it better. 
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2014-03-31
11:41:21
| Re: Sprite Card
Well, I'm no hardware guy either, but it has a number of ways to do. The problem is that it's a real bitch to do and nobody will ever do so, AFAIK. So, Lavina and Ati you should start to learn electronics, VHDL, PCB design etc. and in five to ten years time your wish will be granted, provided you spend most of your time with this task.
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Posted By
Bionic
on 2014-03-31
12:16:39
| Re: Sprite Card
Maybe you could try to fit a c64 pcb into a Plus/4 case? That should have the same effect
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Posted By
siz
on 2014-03-31
14:05:42
| Re: Sprite Card
Probably you could do a Chameleon 64 like thing that catches all the bus signals and creates a VGA compatible picture of them (emulates the whole VIC).
Unfortunately our platform is not that widespread to have somebody to do it.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2014-03-31
20:27:31
 | Re: Sprite Card
Well, I think it could be something similar to Voodoo cards made.
They are connected with a loopthough VGA. If no 3D made: the original 2D card picture was visible on the monitor (=TED).
When 3D commands noticed, then took over the screen and made the 3D magic.
BTW, if anyone does it, maybe worth to add an S3 Virge chipset too (costs maybe 1USD/card now ) and realize the first 3D card for 8bit computers at the same time. I think VGA has a kind of sprite and 320x200 resolution
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Posted By
JamesD
on 2014-03-31
21:31:00
| Re: Sprite Card
A SID card just interfaces the chip to the Plus/4 buss and the CPU can directly write to the SID chip.
A sprite card is certainly possible but it would be much more complex.
The sprite hardware would need to replace the pixel output from the TED chip wherever part of a sprite has to be displayed. This is no easy task since the timing is handled internally with the TED but there are a few ways to do it.
There are registers the hardware could read to sync to the TED and the sprite hardware could keep a copy of all the TED registers to make sure it knows what timing to use. The complexity of this approach is pretty nasty and the upgrade would need it's own RAM.
The alternative would be to duplicate the entire TED chip in an FPGA and add the hardware there where the new hardware would have access to all the timers. From the add on perspective this is easier but it requires a lot of work up front to duplicate the TED.
There is an alternative that might be easier. A blitter could be added to the system with some custom modes for blitting C64 sized sprites as well as other memory operations. It would lock out the CPU while blitting but it would be much faster than using the CPU. Not as fast as sprites but with the faster clock speed it might be enough to port more C64 games. The important thing here is it's a relatively simple design compared to the sprite hardware. If an FPGA Plus/4 were implemented I think I'd want a blitter even if it did add sprites.
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Posted By
Spektro
on 2014-04-01
09:22:36
 | Re: Sprite Card
Would it be possible to create a dual TED card?
If you could make the second TED's video output to replace the background color of the first TED, then you would get two overlapping screens. It would make possible to use one huge sprite or parallax scrolling or new screen modes with more colors. In addition, mixing the audio signals of the two TEDs would give you 4 audio channels.
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2014-04-01
09:36:28
| Re: Sprite Card
Well, MMS and Spektro you are also welcome to give your ideas a try. As I said earlier, nobody will make such a thing. Its up to you guys.
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Posted By
George
on 2014-04-01
12:08:44
 | Re: Sprite Card
Its a good idea, but it would be more challenging to develop an easy to use programming library which implements sprites in software, so that people like me can easily programm simple shooters or platformgames. I didn't find anything which fitted my needs so far.
Even if you develop such hardware and games for it...it would be only for a very small amount of users, like this SUPER-CPU for the C64/128 (dont rember the name exactly).
Its more challenging to squeeze the most of the original hardware.....
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Posted By
MMS
on 2014-04-01
16:56:33
| Re: Sprite Card
Hi George
yeah, in fact you are right. But I could not resist to initiate a brainstorming session.
Did you remember the SymbOs topic? whoa, tons of weird ideas, yessss 
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Posted By
Spektro
on 2014-04-02
07:30:41
| Re: Sprite Card
@gerliczer
Unfortunately I don't have a mind of an engineer. Hardware is far beyond my understanding.
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Posted By
George
on 2014-04-02
08:33:23
| Re: Sprite Card
Hi MMS,
of course you are right. We are just discussing solutions. I miss a smooth hardware sprite-solution too.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2014-04-03
18:56:57
| Re: Sprite Card
Hi,
well, EGA cards on PC did miss a HW sprite too, but they managed to make gamers with software sprites like Money Island.
CPU raw power rules
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