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Author Topic: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)  (Read 10503 times)

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Offline Matt_H

Re: Dot-matrix engine for AGA
« Reply #14 from previous page: July 13, 2020, 02:37:42 AM »
Really lovely demo--looks like a marvelous technical achievement and the messaging is on point. Congrats!

I think there still must be a game somewhere in that engine... even if you haven't found it yet. Give yourself a well-deserved break and maybe the idea will come to you when you least expect it.
 
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Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Dot-matrix engine for AGA
« Reply #15 on: July 13, 2020, 11:11:48 AM »
Really lovely demo--looks like a marvelous technical achievement and the messaging is on point. Congrats!

Thank you!

Quote
I think there still must be a game somewhere in that engine... even if you haven't found it yet. Give yourself a well-deserved break and maybe the idea will come to you when you least expect it.

Nope, it just isn't suitable. But I already have 2 other engines that are waiting to be made use of for games, and I'm already working on that ;)
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 
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Offline klx300r

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Re: Dot-matrix engine for AGA
« Reply #16 on: July 14, 2020, 04:21:40 PM »
@ saimo
big time congrats for a well deserved 1st place at the Solskogen 2020 demoparty ;D !!! ;D
____________________________________________________________________
c64-dual sids, A1000, A1200-060@50, A4000-CSMKIII
Indivision AGA & Catweasel MK4+= Amazing
! My Master Miggies-Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
--- www.mancave-ramblings.blogspot.ca ---
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Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Dot-matrix engine for AGA
« Reply #17 on: July 24, 2020, 02:12:48 PM »
I've been asked a few times to release the music separately, and finally I got around to do it! Here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/retream/the-cure

(The quality is higher than in the demo itself due to the limitations of the Amiga hardware - for details, check out the "About the music" post in the Community section of the demo page.)

And sorry for the delay :P
« Last Edit: July 24, 2020, 02:15:25 PM by saimo »
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #18 on: March 13, 2021, 02:37:17 PM »
I just found out that the demo earned me a nomination in the New Talent category of The Meteoriks 2021 (that's the demoscene equivalent of the Oscars) :)

Nominees presentation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lyaTR13RxmQ
Meteoriks 2021 website: https://2021.meteoriks.org/nominees
THE CURE webpage: https://retream.itch.io/the-cure
THE CURE video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgg90MCJKok
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 
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Offline Matt_H

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #19 on: March 13, 2021, 05:05:04 PM »
Congratulations! Much deserved. :)
 
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Offline klx300r

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Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #20 on: March 14, 2021, 10:21:16 PM »
congrats & hope you win Simone :) !
____________________________________________________________________
c64-dual sids, A1000, A1200-060@50, A4000-CSMKIII
Indivision AGA & Catweasel MK4+= Amazing
! My Master Miggies-Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
--- www.mancave-ramblings.blogspot.ca ---
  -AspireOS.com & Amikit- Amiga for your netbook-
***X1000- I BELIEVE *** :angel:
 
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Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #21 on: June 02, 2021, 12:53:24 PM »
Lately I realized I could make the startup and cleanup code of SkillGrid more robust, so I improved it further. I decided to apply the same improvements to my other productions, and today it was THE CURE's turn...

v1.1 (20210602)
* Made startup and cleanup code more robust.
* Fixed (unlikely) memory leak in cleanup code.
* Replaced "actual" with "current" in standings graphics.
* Fixed/improved README.

The new version is available for free download from https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE.
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline bubbob42

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #22 on: June 02, 2021, 01:22:53 PM »
Wow. Just wow. Probably the most meaningful demo I ever watched. A perfect example of technology emphasising the messages.
 
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Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #23 on: June 02, 2021, 06:03:58 PM »
Such words are much appreciated. Thanks for the lovely feedback!
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #24 on: August 04, 2021, 09:07:30 PM »
Just released a slightly revised version.

v1.2 (04.08.2021)
* Made startup and cleanup code more robust.
* Made a few tiny optimizations.

https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #25 on: August 19, 2021, 02:05:07 PM »
While working on the SkillGrid update, backporting to it all the improvements I recently made to my other projects, I realized that those improvements came with a couple of new bugs. THE CURE was affected by them, so here's a new bugfixed version.

https://www.retream.com/THE_CURE

v1.3 (19.08.2021)
* Fixed recently-introduced memory leak in startup code.
* Replaced unreliable CIA-access-based delay code at startup with machine-agnostic code.
* Made a couple of minor internal changes.
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #26 on: April 29, 2022, 09:05:35 PM »
This update was not planned, but, still, it happened - and makes the demo even better. In short: it improves the music, it improves the audio-to-video sychronization, it adds a few more palette effects and brings other little improvements (for the details, check out the changelog below).

Get THE CURE v1.4 from https://retream.itch.io/the-cure and enjoy!

v1.4 (29.04.2022)
* Improved music: improved S/N ratio by eliminating a peak (caused by the "str" of "street" in the spoken part) and re-normalizing the waveform; amplified initial part a little bit; reduced greatly the noise that affected the coda (due to the 8-bit quantization) by amplifying that part of the waveform to the maximum and balancing that with a real-time volume change; increased sampling frequency to 29073 Hz (side effects: channels 2 and 3 can no longer be used, so the output volume is lower; music decoding takes a little longer as there is more data to decode each frame; the CHIP bus time taken by audio DMA is almost halved, which makes the demo less demanding).
* Added switch-off of filter to ensure music sounds as it is supposed to.
* Fixed audio-to-video synchronization: fixed drifting caused by the difference between the actual and theoretical rates (~49.92 VS 50 Hz) of the video refresh (that, by the end of the demo, caused an asynchronism of ~0.5 s); fixed 60 ms asynchronism caused by the fact that the first three frames required for music setup/buffering were ignored; fixed a few timing marks in the script (an off-by-one mark which caused a peak of operations in the specified frame; a mark that caused the following effect to execute 4 frames too late; a few marks that were off by a frame).
* Fixed a bad routine pointer (caused by a wrong letter in a label in the source code; it is quite incredible that this did not produce disastrous results).
* Added some palette effects.
* Optimized music decoding by unpacking and undeltaing data at the same time (why it was not like this right from the beginning is a mistery).
* Made some other small optimizations.
* Made startup and cleanup code more robust by shielding some critical operations from NMIs and by dealing with audio playback performed with direct hardware access by other programs concurrently.
* Added version string.
* Improved/extended README.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2022, 10:17:55 AM by saimo »
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC
 

Offline saimoTopic starter

Re: Demo THE CURE (Was: Dot-matrix engine for AGA)
« Reply #27 on: January 02, 2024, 12:59:01 PM »
Just released a little update. This should cure (heh) the stuttering I've seen on some boards that are more than capable of running the demo at full speed.

https://retream.itch.io/the-cure

v1.5 (2.1.2024)
* Improved CPU data cache handling on 68040 and 68060.
* Ensured the system MMU setup does not affect performance.
* Ensured the 68060 susperscalar dispatch is enabled.
* Made some small optimizations.
* Made startup and cleanup code more robust.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2024, 01:03:31 PM by saimo »
RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC