Boulder Dash Forum

benjamind2011 wrote:I have no idea where to start...I know there is a windows binary, but I want to do some minor changes, and can't even find out what IDE/Compiler the windows port was created with. That would help.

benjamind2011 wrote:I'm not sure if this is a bug or something missed out, but I was led to believe that you could use custom graphics for a theme and if the graphics were certain colours (c64-gfx) they would be drawn using the cave colours.

benjamind2011 wrote:speed up the timer so that it redraws 100 times per second (currently it redraws 50 times per second). I'm not sure if this would make it smoother, but it might. I wanted to make some minor change to the scrolling code in SDash version to see if I could make it scroll smoother

benjamind2011 wrote:replace the flash color to FFFFFF (white) instead of the light yellow that it is currently set to

benjamind2011 wrote:1/ speed up the timer so that it redraws 100 times per second (currently it redraws 50 times per second). I'm not sure if this would make it smoother, but it might. I wanted to make some minor change to the scrolling code in SDash version to see if I could make it scroll smoother - even on my 100Hz CRT monitor it still doesn't scroll as smoothly as I'd like. Very minor problems, that doesn't affect the gameplay but would make it smoother on the eye.

const
  cUpdateRate = 1/8; //8 FPS update rate for game, similar to boulder dash (~6 to 8 FPS)

type
  TTheProbe = class
  private
    FUpdateTime: Single;
  public
  {...}
  end;

procedure TTheProbe.UpdateFrame(aFrameTime: Single);
begin
  FUpdateTime := FUpdateTime + aFrameTime;
  
  if FUpdateTime >= cUpdateRate then
  begin
    FUpdateTime := FUpdateTime - cUpdateRate;
    ScanLevel;
  end;

  RenderFrame;
end;

procedure TTheProbe.RenderFrame;
var
  OfsX,OfsY: Single; // position offset of level object for soothscrolling (0,0) if not moving...
  x,y,layer: Integer;
  Obj      : TEngineObject;
begin
{...}

  for layer := cLowestLayer to cMaxLayer - 1 do
    for y := 0 to FLevelHeight - 1
      for x := 0 to FLevelWidth - 1 do
      begin
        Obj := GetObjectAt(layer,x,y);

        OfsX := 0;
        OfsY := 0;

        // make object scroll offsets interpolate between old position (maximum offset)
        // and current position (no offset) depending on the update time ratio
        //
        if      Obj.MovingLeft  then OfsX := +cTileWidth  - cTileWidth  * FUpdateTime / cUpdateRate
        else if Obj.MovingRight then OfsX := -cTileWidth  + cTileWidth  * FUpdateTime / cUpdateRate
        else if Obj.MovingUp    then OfsY := +cTileHeight - cTileHeight * FUpdateTime / cUpdateRate
        else if Obj.MovingDown  then OfsY := -cTileHeight + cTileHeight * FUpdateTime / cUpdateRate;

        // render object at tile position with any offsets due to scrolling
        RenderObject(Obj,x,y,OfsX,OfsY);
      end;
{...}
end;

benjamind2011 wrote:I'm pretty sure there is a way to get nice super-smooth scrolling in GDash but I think it would take a bit more fine-tuning of the scrolling code.

subotai wrote:As far as I know, the scrolling speed should always remain the same (independent from the game speed).

I think that a constant scrolling speed could also improve the performance.

As already said, SDash and Gdash rock however It's a pity that its development is discontinued.

benjamind2011 wrote:I see this as the best argument. Scrolling speed should be constant, it was on the C64, and I think it was on the Atari too.

cirix wrote: i think both of the above would be annoying.