Dune II / OpenDUNE for Falcon (and TT)

[nanard]

Hello,
I have been coding for OpenDune for a couple of years now. One of the first thing I've done was to make the code Big endian compatible.
That was to make it run on PPC Macs. Then I added support for Midi under OS X, SDL 2 support, various improvements, Scale2x and Hqx rescaling, etc.

Last week I thought it could be possible to make OpenDUNE run under TOS. It needs a 256 color display, so I focussed on Falcon, who can do 320x200x8bpp
I sucessfully compiled OpenDUNE existing code with Vincent Riviere cross mint, added an assembly Chunky To planar routine.
After seeing the "Westwood studios" logo, I quickly added mouse + keyboard support.
The "port" was quite fast, thanks to work done years ago to be Big-endian compatible !

I don't have a falcon, so I'm testing with Hatari. See the screen captures : http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/showpics.php

You can get the compiled version here : http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/OpenDUNE ... 160506.zip
or start from the source code : https://github.com/miniupnp/OpenDUNE/tree/atari

getting the original DOS Dune II v1.07 datafile is quite easy thanks to abandonware sites.

On an emulated Falcon 030 16mHz, the game is slow as hell. Not playable
I remember playing the original DOS game on a 386sx20, it had slowdowns, but was definitely playable. We here have the overhead of the chunky2planar conversion, but that shouldn't be that problematic.

Does anyone want to test the game on a fast machine ?
I can try to add TT support if someone wants/needs it. The 320x480x8bpp mode should be ok

[paul92706]

oh wow! this game bring's back lots of good memories!! thanks i would definitley like the TT supported version!

[Atari030]

I'll try it on a CT2. Yes please for the TT. NICE ONE!!!!

[Xerus]

Superb initiative!
I tested the game on my Falcon.
Under TOS (CT60 / 90MHz), the game is unplayable, too slow.
Under FreeMiNT (CT60 / 90MHz), the game is fast, perfectly playable

Without CT60, the game also seems playable at 16MHz (the framerate is acceptable during the intro) with FreeMiNT but I have a problem with the mouse, she is uncontrollable!
Maybe my config has a problem, it would take the opinion of another person.
In summary, the port goes wrong under TOS.

By the way, the sound is missing

Thank you for this port.

[nanard]

hum the fact that it works under FreeMint but not TOS shows there must be something about a systemcall.
Thank you for your feedback.

About The TT version, any help on how to setup the 256 color mode and how to se palette entry is appreciated

[nanard]

OK I found that the gettimeofday() call was a bad idea

[penguin]

I've wasted hours on Dune II on my PC, thanks for porting the game to the Atari! I will be reviewing it in a future issue of my magazine

[nanard]

OK here is the new version : http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/OpenDUNE ... 160507.zip
gettimeofday() is out of the way, so the game is (almost) playable on a Falcon 16Mhz with TOS. Should be really OK with a small CPU boost

I also added some code to make it run on TT : the set palette works, but I've no idea how to properly set video mode, so you better have to launch the game in TT Low resolution
is that possible to get 320x240 256color mode on TT ?
According to my tests in Hatari, the game is playable, but the aspect ratio is difficult to bear with 320x480 resolution

[nanard]

Still to be done :

• Proper TT video code : either setting a 320x200/320x240 mode, or doubling each line to accommodate 320x480
  Keyboard code : I use Crawcin() for now, It should get IKBD interrupt
  Sound : should not be that difficult to use DMA sound. Dune II only uses 1 channel
  Music : it must be possible to output MIDI music to the Atari Midi ports

Any help from any real Atari Coder is welcome
specific atari code is there : https://github.com/miniupnp/OpenDUNE/bl ... eo_atari.c

[fidzen]

Edit: It seems to work with the pak-files from the installation package.

Looks great! I really want to test it on my Falcon and I wonder if some nice
guy could post a link to the data files. I only find installation packages and
it's hard to install on Win 7 64-bit.

[nanard]

Dune II works great in Dosbox.
http://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_a ... &fic=liens

[Maeke]

Try using d-fend dos emulator in windows 7, you should be able to install the game. the latest fans updates of d-fend contein a updated version of dosbox.

[Playmobil]

Tried to ran opendune under Aranym+Emutos+XaAes.

Don't work... An error log file is created and he say :

Code: Select all

opendune.ini file not found.
Unsupported machine type.
don't know how to set palette on this machine.

Need to try with plain TOS.

Thanks nanard for your work !


EDIT : When crash, Aranym not responding, cause in the error log file, it's always don't know how to set palette, like an infinity loop. If it's help you !

[nanard]

@playmobil: well it's not an infinite loop, it is there are a lot of palette calls
Logo display at start is done with color cycling for fading

You need to have a 256 color mode (8 bitplanes) for the game to display
I don't know if Aranym does this.
If a falcon is detected, VsetMode() is called to set video mode.

I just added DMA sound : sounds weird on Hatari
http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/OpenDUNE ... _SOUND.zip

[Playmobil]

Ok ! My Aranym Setup is in TC, not in 256 colors... I need to change my FVDI settings and try again !

[Xerus]

The game runs fine with TOS now
However, the mouse doesn't work in 030 mode, so FreeMiNT is not responsible.
  
The sound is too fast, I suppose the replay frequency of sample is too high (relative to the original sound).

Continue the fight

[nanard]

OK, I found the sound bug. I swapped the Mono/stereo bit. bit 7 must be SET for MONO.
https://github.com/miniupnp/OpenDUNE/co ... b8e6cbc388

I have to find sample code for keyboard/mouse handling

[Atari030]

I get the same opendune.ini failure on my CT2, then a crash. TOS 7.04 or in stock Falcon mode running in 256 colours.

[nanard]

new build : http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/OpenDUNE ... 508dbg.zip
this is a debug build, with messages written to error.log and output.log.

- DMA sound is working better now
- I added proper IKBD handling for both Mouse and keyboard.

still to do :
- Proper TT video code : either setting a 320x200/320x240 mode, or doubling each line to accommodate 320x480
- Midi music : does anyone has a Midi synthetizer plugged to his Falcon or TT ?

@Atari030: which version have you tested ?

[mouse_master]

I'm on travel unfortunately, so I haven't been able to try this, but I have been following. I have a CT60 Falcon and can hook up to an MT32, unfortunately, I have an extremely busy next 2+ months. Besides the Falcon, someone probably should also try this on the Firebee.

I am not sure if this will help, but here is MIDI code from ScummVM for sending midi data

https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/blob ... stmidi.cpp

Not sure if this will assists you or not. If you have any questions, I can try to answer, but I wrote that small chunk of code a long while ago.

[MM41]

Nice work Nanard ,
I use a stock Falcon 14Mb TOS 4.02FR , the last opendune.tos freeze at the game selection (no mouse no keyboard).
I load the old version and i can try the game but it's impossible to play (the arrow move crazy).
My MT32 is wired if you want test midi sound

It's time to try on TT

[MM41]

It's the same probleme with TT TOS 3.05FR, freeze after 1 seconde when the arrow is moved.
I can ear the voice intro (no sound on my Falcon?) some words are repeated but it's clear
With the older version the sound is too speed and the arrow don't work correctly.

[nanard]

Hum I think I need someone to look at the IKBD code to debug it. As everything works fine with Hatari, I don't know what is wrong
I'm looking at midi code from ScummVM. looks pretty simple

[nanard]

with test midi output : http://nanard.free.fr/opendune/OpenDUNE ... I_test.zip
Tell me if you hear something

[Eero Tamminen]

- Midi music : does anyone has a Midi synthetizer plugged to his Falcon or TT ?

You can use Hatari to test MIDI if you're on Linux, see:
https://hg.tuxfamily.org/mercurialroot/ ... -linux.txt