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Hi,
do you think that something like the pc game Wolfeinstein 3D on the SMS hardware could have been done with some heavy optimization and a lighter engine? Or was just technically impossible?
I think the engine only should be opensource nowdays maybe some coder could try (not me I would not even know how to code something so complex).
Thank
Bye

It's known as a raycaster and it can be done at low resolution, small size and without textures. There is a Game Gear game, Face Ball 3000, which does this. It's a long way from Wolf 3D.

386DX wrote

Hi,
do you think that the pc game Wolfeinstein 3D on the SMS hardware could have been done with some heavy optimization and a lighter engine? Or was just technically impossible?
I think the engine only should be opensource nowdays maybe some coder could try. :)
Thank
Bye

There's always a way, right? I'm not intimately familiar with SMS specs, but I've seen raycasters done on pretty weak systems to varying degrees of success. Like Mood for C64 is a really old one:

Or, The Dark for ZX Spectrum:

Both of these are rendering at a very low resolution though.

I'm not sure or not if it could have done this, which is probably closer to what you're envisioning:

The Dark seems to be something different, not scaling or raycasting. Notice that the game doesn't have rotating walls but just overlapping blocks that are updated and possibly even replaced by larger ones as you get closer, or smaller ones when you walk away. Doesn't look like scaling at all.

Also, I guess the Spectrum hardware is a bit different. I have never seen sprite flickering but what I see is a lot of "jelly effect" when scrolling. Do the ZX Spectrum update the image in vertical lines instead of using sprites?

The fact that they are 8 bit computers (and teh Spectrum has the same processor as the SMS and with the same speed) doesn't mean they have the same capabilities.

Spectrum has a 1bpp memory mapped screen, no hardware sprites or scaling, so it's all CPU work. It looks like it's a super low res raycaster with approximately 8x8 blocks resolution, with textures in them to sort of hide the blockiness.

Raycasters draw in vertical lines, the jelly is probably the screen being updated across multiple frames.

Wisdom Tree attempted to make Super Noah's Ark 3D (Wolf 3D) for the NES with an extra chip, but cancelled it due to the cost of adding the extra chip. I'm sure Wolf3D could've worked on the SMS even if it meant including a chip in the cartridge.

Also, if you are a hardware guy, you can always "cheat" and add an ARM CPU to the cartridge:
Wolf 3D for GB

BTW, a long time ago, I tried implementing a raycaster for the GameBoy; not much came out of it, but taking a look at the source can give you some ideas.

haroldoop wrote

Also, if you are a hardware guy, you can always "cheat" and add an ARM CPU to the cartridge:
Wolf 3D for GB

I was going to mention such a thing. You could probably get away with treating the VDP as a 64*48 framebuffer just with tilemap updates, and have that work smoothly with external assistance.

Of course, that does remove some of the charm of doing it unassisted.

haroldoop wrote

Also, if you are a hardware guy, you can always "cheat" and add an ARM CPU to the cartridge:
[Wolf 3D for GB[/url]

That's impressive! I didn't think that it could have been done on a console not meant to have an external on cartridge cpu like the SuperFX of the Snes.

haroldoop wrote

BTW, a long time ago, I tried implementing a raycaster for the GameBoy; not much came out of it, but taking a look at the source can give you some ideas.

It was just an idea, I could not write code that complex but I was just imagining a similar tech demo on the Master System, not enough skills.

Given that it's possible to use a subset of the screen as a bitmap, it is theoretically possible to do that. But I wonder what the speed would be.
Maybe keeping a very very small window... ?

Tales of Popolon (MSX) is a homebrew MSX cartridge game that uses raycasting. AFAIK, its performance is close to what one should expect from a pure software SMS raycaster.

There is also a NES Raycaster.

I think yes its possible.

Other thing is the framerate as i think you will have to paint all columns tiles every change (anf i mean columns, not rows, so will be even slower).

More interesting should be a 3d mode 7 like effect using sverx technique

eruiz00 wrote

More interesting should be a 3d mode 7 like effect using sverx technique

it's a few days I'm thinking about this. still, I'm not sure how to do that, as I'm not interested in monochromatic mode 7...

I have to say i have a sinple example which does a simplistic outrun like road with curves. Velocity is made redefining tiles. It was for a racing game which were posponed due to te platformer one i am working (was an error as i am learning a platformer is a hard thing to do, not also for perfomance troubles, also for gameplay concerns hard to clarify, and the racing one could be made yet).

Raycasters are column rendered but the VDP is very row oriented, plus with flat shading the column data is only really changing in a subset of the cells. Thus it might be better to render the scene to memory and then reduce it to deltas, to be emitted row-wise. There's still the possibility to have the delta be huge, and things like enemies have to be deal with too, but I suspect it would be playable, but probably fairly low frame rate (with small arenas and orthogonal, grid walls like Wolf 3D).

Yeah! I could have not explain better :) i think you can have four shading colorr (one for wall face direction) so could make visible the different walls. If a wall has not texture, you only have a full shaded tile for the wall middle tiles and some tiles for up and down sides ( for different angles based on perspective) of walls (although compute what to use is complicate) everything based on a 8 pixels width column raycast.... maybe could ask to john carmack :)

eruiz00 wrote

based on a 8 pixels wide column raycast

yes, rendering the tile column into RAM and pushing it to VRAM tiles making them planar (as in RAM they would probably be stored in a "one byte per each pixel" way). This way it can have 16 colors too, and look great.

Question here:

You speak about 1 byte per tile... but this is not possible on vram, isnt it?

I only meant that when you render, you won't be putting the pixel directly to VRAM as SMS video memory is planar.
Thus you'll likely render to RAM where you'll keep each pixel in a single byte and then convert to planar from here, 8 pixels a time to push 4 bytes to VRAM.
In another topic here on this forum I was asking the fastest way to convert to planar, and Psidum suggested some very good method. Unfortunately it's still quite slow - each bit must be handled (moved) which is a killer as there are 4 bits for each pixel.

Author	Message
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Wolf3D on SMS was possible? Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 11:53 am Last edited by 386DX on Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:06 pm; edited 2 times in total
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Hi, do you think that something like the pc game Wolfeinstein 3D on the SMS hardware could have been done with some heavy optimization and a lighter engine? Or was just technically impossible? I think the engine only should be opensource nowdays maybe some coder could try (not me I would not even know how to code something so complex). Thank Bye

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14732 Location: London	Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:01 pm
	It's known as a raycaster and it can be done at low resolution, small size and without textures. There is a Game Gear game, Face Ball 3000, which does this. It's a long way from Wolf 3D.

LouisG Joined: 08 Jun 2017 Posts: 5 Location: San Francisco	Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:17 pm
	386DX wrote Hi, do you think that the pc game Wolfeinstein 3D on the SMS hardware could have been done with some heavy optimization and a lighter engine? Or was just technically impossible? I think the engine only should be opensource nowdays maybe some coder could try. :) Thank Bye There's always a way, right? I'm not intimately familiar with SMS specs, but I've seen raycasters done on pretty weak systems to varying degrees of success. Like Mood for C64 is a really old one: Or, The Dark for ZX Spectrum: Both of these are rendering at a very low resolution though. I'm not sure or not if it could have done this, which is probably closer to what you're envisioning:

TinchoDJ Joined: 12 Jan 2005 Posts: 187 Location: Reconquista, Santa Fe, Argentina	Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:53 pm
	The Dark seems to be something different, not scaling or raycasting. Notice that the game doesn't have rotating walls but just overlapping blocks that are updated and possibly even replaced by larger ones as you get closer, or smaller ones when you walk away. Doesn't look like scaling at all. Also, I guess the Spectrum hardware is a bit different. I have never seen sprite flickering but what I see is a lot of "jelly effect" when scrolling. Do the ZX Spectrum update the image in vertical lines instead of using sprites? The fact that they are 8 bit computers (and teh Spectrum has the same processor as the SMS and with the same speed) doesn't mean they have the same capabilities.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14732 Location: London	Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:15 pm
	Spectrum has a 1bpp memory mapped screen, no hardware sprites or scaling, so it's all CPU work. It looks like it's a super low res raycaster with approximately 8x8 blocks resolution, with textures in them to sort of hide the blockiness. Raycasters draw in vertical lines, the jelly is probably the screen being updated across multiple frames.

Game Gear Joined: 10 May 2016 Posts: 130 Location: Canada	Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:55 pm
	Wisdom Tree attempted to make Super Noah's Ark 3D (Wolf 3D) for the NES with an extra chip, but cancelled it due to the cost of adding the extra chip. I'm sure Wolf3D could've worked on the SMS even if it meant including a chip in the cartridge.

haroldoop Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 874 Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 12:13 am
	Also, if you are a hardware guy, you can always "cheat" and add an ARM CPU to the cartridge: Wolf 3D for GB

haroldoop Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 874 Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 12:25 am
	BTW, a long time ago, I tried implementing a raycaster for the GameBoy; not much came out of it, but taking a look at the source can give you some ideas.

Flygon Joined: 30 Jun 2016 Posts: 196 Location: Melbourne, Australia	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 1:47 am
	haroldoop wrote Also, if you are a hardware guy, you can always "cheat" and add an ARM CPU to the cartridge: Wolf 3D for GB I was going to mention such a thing. You could probably get away with treating the VDP as a 64*48 framebuffer just with tilemap updates, and have that work smoothly with external assistance. Of course, that does remove some of the charm of doing it unassisted.

386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 1:32 pm
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	haroldoop wrote Also, if you are a hardware guy, you can always "cheat" and add an ARM CPU to the cartridge: [Wolf 3D for GB[/url] That's impressive! I didn't think that it could have been done on a console not meant to have an external on cartridge cpu like the SuperFX of the Snes.

386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 1:37 pm Last edited by 386DX on Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:06 pm; edited 1 time in total
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	haroldoop wrote BTW, a long time ago, I tried implementing a raycaster for the GameBoy; not much came out of it, but taking a look at the source can give you some ideas. It was just an idea, I could not write code that complex but I was just imagining a similar tech demo on the Master System, not enough skills.

sverx Joined: 05 Sep 2013 Posts: 3811 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 1:46 pm
	Given that it's possible to use a subset of the screen as a bitmap, it is theoretically possible to do that. But I wonder what the speed would be. Maybe keeping a very very small window... ?

haroldoop Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 874 Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 3:52 pm
	Tales of Popolon (MSX) is a homebrew MSX cartridge game that uses raycasting. AFAIK, its performance is close to what one should expect from a pure software SMS raycaster. There is also a NES Raycaster.

eruiz00 Joined: 28 Jan 2017 Posts: 556 Location: Málaga, Spain	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 4:40 pm
	I think yes its possible. Other thing is the framerate as i think you will have to paint all columns tiles every change (anf i mean columns, not rows, so will be even slower). More interesting should be a 3d mode 7 like effect using sverx technique

sverx Joined: 05 Sep 2013 Posts: 3811 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 5:18 pm
	eruiz00 wrote More interesting should be a 3d mode 7 like effect using sverx technique it's a few days I'm thinking about this. still, I'm not sure how to do that, as I'm not interested in monochromatic mode 7...

eruiz00 Joined: 28 Jan 2017 Posts: 556 Location: Málaga, Spain	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 5:48 pm
	I have to say i have a sinple example which does a simplistic outrun like road with curves. Velocity is made redefining tiles. It was for a racing game which were posponed due to te platformer one i am working (was an error as i am learning a platformer is a hard thing to do, not also for perfomance troubles, also for gameplay concerns hard to clarify, and the racing one could be made yet).

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14732 Location: London	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 7:57 pm
	Raycasters are column rendered but the VDP is very row oriented, plus with flat shading the column data is only really changing in a subset of the cells. Thus it might be better to render the scene to memory and then reduce it to deltas, to be emitted row-wise. There's still the possibility to have the delta be huge, and things like enemies have to be deal with too, but I suspect it would be playable, but probably fairly low frame rate (with small arenas and orthogonal, grid walls like Wolf 3D).

eruiz00 Joined: 28 Jan 2017 Posts: 556 Location: Málaga, Spain	Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:36 pm
	Yeah! I could have not explain better :) i think you can have four shading colorr (one for wall face direction) so could make visible the different walls. If a wall has not texture, you only have a full shaded tile for the wall middle tiles and some tiles for up and down sides ( for different angles based on perspective) of walls (although compute what to use is complicate) everything based on a 8 pixels width column raycast.... maybe could ask to john carmack :)

sverx Joined: 05 Sep 2013 Posts: 3811 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:02 am
	eruiz00 wrote based on a 8 pixels wide column raycast yes, rendering the tile column into RAM and pushing it to VRAM tiles making them planar (as in RAM they would probably be stored in a "one byte per each pixel" way). This way it can have 16 colors too, and look great.

eruiz00 Joined: 28 Jan 2017 Posts: 556 Location: Málaga, Spain	Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 12:42 pm
	Question here: You speak about 1 byte per tile... but this is not possible on vram, isnt it?

sverx Joined: 05 Sep 2013 Posts: 3811 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 1:14 pm
	I only meant that when you render, you won't be putting the pixel directly to VRAM as SMS video memory is planar. Thus you'll likely render to RAM where you'll keep each pixel in a single byte and then convert to planar from here, 8 pixels a time to push 4 bytes to VRAM. In another topic here on this forum I was asking the fastest way to convert to planar, and Psidum suggested some very good method. Unfortunately it's still quite slow - each bit must be handled (moved) which is a killer as there are 4 bits for each pixel.

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