Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

[QuantumLeapGR]

That is super cool! Excellent work

[QLObi]

Great job, Tobias ! Works even fine at a native QL (with enought ram).
Thanks for that enrichment of my adventure portfolio !
See you in Mahlerts.

Detlef

[tofro]

Great job, Tobias ! Works even fine at a native QL (with enought ram).
Thanks for that enrichment of my adventure portfolio !
See you in Mahlerts.

Detlef

Detlef,
Thanks for the feedback! Can you specify on what platform it runs for you? Does interlaced mode work there? How's the speed on a native QL? Playable?

Thanks,
Tobias

[pjw]

I tried The Pawn first on my standard QPC2 installation, but as it took up most of the 1920x1080 screen, I abandoned. Works a treat in Q-emulator with JS ROM. To my mind at QL speed it was rather too slow for someone like me, who repeatedly has to re-view the text. At GoldCard speed it was perfect. As already stated, Im not a player, so I didnt get very far, but for those who are Im sure it must be a real treat!

[tofro]

Works a treat in Q-emulator with JS ROM.

Per,
as I don't have a full version of Q-Emulator (mainly to force myself pulling out the old box every now and then): Does interlaced mode ("-i") work there? I'd be surprised if it did.

Tobias

[pjw]

Tobias,
The first time I tried The Pawn in Q-Emulator (V3.2.2, unlocked), everything appeared to just work -
sort of. I used the default settings: JS ROM, 512x256, tk2 ROM, QL speed, but 640K memory. The
illustrations, however, were very small, bunched up towards the left.

This time, although I thought I did exactly the same, I had some trouble. I tried lots of things: Wman,
SMSQ/E, mode 8, -t, -q, -i, .. The main problem was no illustrations at all, not even the miniature
ones.

Finally something happened: When I upped the memory to 896K (JS, TK2, GC speed) all worked fine;
even better than the first time: The illustrations were full sized!

So to your question: The -i option didnt improve the illustration, but made that in some instances,
moving the mouse caused the illustration to flash alternating representations. Sometimes one
image, sometimes another. When both showed at the same time it didnt look right. The flashing
stopped once the program passed the image and moved on to the text.

Q-Emulator is the most QL compatible emulator out there, but here something obviously differs.

[tofro]

Q-Emulator is the most QL compatible emulator out there, but here something obviously differs.

Thanks. The interlaced code relies on a (mostly) accurate and non-interrupted 50Hz vertical refresh frequency to display a proper picture.
When the program runs at all (on QPC2, interlaced mode simply locks up the machine), that at least means the interrupt circuitry of the 8301 is at least mimicked (I really didn't expect that). While this is running, actually all interrupts are masked out. The mouse disturbing the picture display means it's somehow implemented natively and doesn't respect masked-out interrupts.

Thanks for testing,
Tobias

[daniel_baum]

Hello,

Running this version on my Q68, I get squashed graphics on the left of the screen. Anyone have a fix for this?

D.

[daniel_baum]

I thought I should add that it seems to work well on Minerva on the Q68! Graphics look very dithered, and are the correct size.

D.

[tofro]

Hello,

Running this version on my Q68, I get squashed graphics on the left of the screen. Anyone have a fix for this?

D.

What DISP_MODE are you using?