Giana Sisters STE - New Game!

[AtariZoll]

This is really amazing.
But Audio playback don't work with my Satandisk.
Sound hanging after approx 1 second and than constant loop....
What is the problem? is the Satandisk to slow?
i have HD Driver 7.8
Thanks in advance

Yes, Satandisk is too slow for this. Slower loading breaks game's timing. Used hard disk driver has no rule in this - sound loading is with direct disk access code.

[mwaawm]

After the amazing coversion of Giana Sisters I wonder if some similar care could be given to The Addams family on the Atari ST? his game always looked great but the bad flip scrolling always let it down.

[AtariZoll]

After the amazing coversion of Giana Sisters I wonder if some similar care could be given to The Addams family on the Atari ST? his game always looked great but the bad flip scrolling always let it down.

I looked Addams Family - good game indeed. But it's screen layout is not good for STE HW scrolling, because there is static part left. STE HW scrolling can fine scroll whole lines only. However, there are other ways: using blitter for purpose. Or even pure SW solution - using preshifted backgrounds at price of extra RAM usage, so good for ST too. But much depends from how whole screen buildup is solved in game.

[sarnau]

Well it actually scroll in 128 pixel steps so maybe it can be called a scroller I don't understand why it was done that way. Even a 16 pixel scroller would have been much better.

The answer is actually quite simple: time to market. As a developer you typically didn't have time to do everything you like to do. And because their sales time was typically counted in weeks, their were never updates. Looking back it is always easy to say: it could have done better.

[Zamuel_a]

After the amazing coversion of Giana Sisters I wonder if some similar care could be given to The Addams family on the Atari ST? his game always looked great but the bad flip scrolling always let it down.

I looked Addams Family - good game indeed. But it's screen layout is not good for STE HW scrolling, because there is static part left. STE HW scrolling can fine scroll whole lines only. However, there are other ways: using blitter for purpose. Or even pure SW solution - using preshifted backgrounds at price of extra RAM usage, so good for ST too. But much depends from how whole screen buildup is solved in game.

It's only the ST version that is split into a left part for status objects and a right part for the game screen. The Amiga version has all this information directly on the screen so that hardware scrolling is possible. I haven't played the game, just looked at static images so can't tell if there are other problems to, but if the Amiga can do it, then also the STE should be able to

EDIT
I saw some videos of the gameplay and I think the scroller looks rather good to be on an ST. You also got a static background (like a parallax) behind the scroller and that can't be included in a hardware scroller.

[AtariZoll]

It's only the ST version that is split into a left part for status objects and a right part for the game screen. The Amiga version has all this information directly on the screen so that hardware scrolling is possible. I haven't played the game, just looked at static images so can't tell if there are other problems to, but if the Amiga can do it, then also the STE should be able to
EDIT
I saw some videos of the gameplay and I think the scroller looks rather good to be on an ST. You also got a static background (like a parallax) behind the scroller and that can't be included in a hardware scroller.

I was thinking first about doing STE HW scroll, and just fast blitting left static part onto - what needs then shifting, so fastest would be with blitter. Then came idea to do all with blitter - so copy middle part with skew , using blitter - what would be new way . And there is vertical scroll in this game too, what would complicate HW scroll additionally. But much depends from how screen is built before blitting to video buffer.

[AtariZoll]

Well it actually scroll in 128 pixel steps so maybe it can be called a scroller I don't understand why it was done that way. Even a 16 pixel scroller would have been much better.

The answer is actually quite simple: time to market. As a developer you typically didn't have time to do everything you like to do. And because their sales time was typically counted in weeks, their were never updates. Looking back it is always easy to say: it could have done better.

Game updates were not common, of course. But development times were certainly much longer, sometimes couple years (as stays by Bug Bash, with nice SW hor. scroll) . Yes, it is easy to say: it could be done better, but unfortunately it is very true in case of many games. Sometimes just coders were not much experienced with CPU and HW, sometimes they did not care much about quality. Sometimes there was not time ...
Some examples: Black Tiger has 8 px step hor. scroll - on Amiga too For me it is enough to not play game at all - too jerky. And framerate is low - they used bytewise, slow copy for 8px shift instead some more advanced code .
Hardest is to do fine and by need fast hor. scroll on ST. Then need special routines for all scrolling steps, preshifting (on fly) and some extra RAM too.
For platformers it is not acceptable to have 1 px scroll all time - that's too slow movement.
Considering Giana and why they not used 16 px "scroll" - I'm sure because it is just too bad and annoying. Only game where I saw it is Jinks - from same house. And they could do it, by changing only 4 bytes in code - I can give you exact locations and what to put there .
Hor. "scrolling" is done in very similar way in Jinks, Giana Sisters and Hard 'n' Heavy . There is visible how coders used better and more advanced code in later ones.
Currently I doing update of Hard 'n' Heavy for STs with 1MB, with CPU based fine scroll. Did already for 4 MB machines. In case of 1MB there are some compromises like 2px wise scroll - because no RAM for all preshifts with 1px scroll. I do preshifts on fly, but hardest part is need to add lot of new code, since there is many draw in level buffer instead screen buffer - removing stars, rotating boxes (that slows), dropping platforms ... and all that must be done shifted instead drawing at 16 or 8 px bounds. So, I think that yes, it could be done better, and that's almost always true - sometimes just a bit better, sometime pretty much better.

[Zamuel_a]

I saw some videos of the gameplay and I think the scroller looks rather good to be on an ST. You also got a static background (like a parallax) behind the scroller and that can't be included in a hardware scroller.

[StanZ]

Thanks Zamuel_a! It's truely an awesome game now.
I like the ingame music with the STe sound fx a lot. It's amazing how '"just"' a smooth scrolling yet changed this game.
Thanks to AtariZoll for the hard drive version (incredible intro pic and audio) and trainer
Atari ST rulez!!

[AtariCrypt]

We need a new thread for games that are now being worked on (or already out) for STe improved games with the infos/download links.
Just so these awesome works are all in the one place..?

[dhedberg]

We need a new thread for games that are now being worked on (or already out) for STe improved games with the infos/download links.
Just so these awesome works are all in the one place..?

Indeed! It would also be great if these games would be available for download from somewhere, a dedicated page or similar. I think the only place you can find the enhanced version of Giana Sisters at the moment is in this thread.

[AtariCrypt]

I only thought this as I started to write a piece of STe - enhanced games.. which would obviously include the *amazing* work of Giana Sisters for example. Plus it would be so awesome to actually clearly see what else is being worked on rather than just bits n pieces of info in a forum thread.. But yeah, a dedicated thread for authors to post their progress and what's also already out would be fantastic.

[Marcer]

It's on my gamedvd ftp so open for all ppl who likes atari st/e/falcon games.. And... Portfolio!

[TheNameOfTheGame]

Updated v. works better on Mega STE - controls are now OK with joystick. Works without floppy drive attached too.
But first run is still problematic: still shaking and after that freeze, crash. After reset it works fine - so is playable somehow.


May be that problem is because some different crystal freq. in MSTE revision. I have machine made for Germany.

Was this ever fixed? I am seeing this same problem on my 4MB USA STE. But perhaps I have an old version?

[kryspus]

Hi everyone,
I have installed Stella emulator on my computer, but Stella doesn't support formats that have this ziped Giana sisters game. Inside zip file is file DATA and .bin with Stella doesn't support. Could you please help me to run this game.
Thank you very much.

[simonsunnyboy]

Hi everyone,
I have installed Stella emulator on my computer, but Stella doesn't support formats that have this ziped Giana sisters game. Inside zip file is file DATA and .bin with Stella doesn't support. Could you please help me to run this game.
Thank you very much.

Hello and welcome to the forum. Stella emulates the Atari 2600 console and not the Atari ST line of computers.
For this port to run, you will need either STEEM or Hatari and a suitable TOS image.