In Depth: Dragon's Lair for TI-99/4A - An Impossible FMV Port Made Possible
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 тра 2024
- A retrospective on Dragon's Lair and its incredible port to the TI-99/4A by Mike Brent (a.k.a., Tursi), followed by a full playthrough. This is a fast and accurate implementation of Dragon's Lair's arcade gameplay on 1981 hardware which honours the 80s tradition of just porting everything everywhere regardless of hardware limitations, yet somehow manages to transcend those limitations in a way that the Dragon's Lair ports of the 80s never could.
Skip to 5:19 if you'd just like to hear about the TI-99/4A port.
Or skip to 16:32 if you'd just like to watch a full playthrough.
Gameplay for TI-99/4A, IBM PC, and Sega CD were recorded from original hardware. Gameplay for Coleco ADAM, Commodore 64, Macintosh 68K, and Dragon's Lair's Arcade version were recorded via emulation.
00:00 - History & Review
16:34 - Full Playthrough
#ti994a #retrocomputing #texasinstruments #dragonslair - Наука та технологія
10 year old me would have freaked out if such a thing existed back in the day. This cart pushes more raw data through a TI in one gameplay then a normal TI would process in its lifetime. lol
How. On. Gods. Earth? This is an immense achievement. This is like Blasto turning into BZtank. Like how? Blown away. Great video too. Thanks for making me smile today!
Goodness! That's possible the best version of Dragon's Lair I've ever seen. I had a DVD version that was OK, and the PlayStation version. But THIS... the OPTIONS too... and it's on 1981 hardware . Genius!
I had the Amiga version, swapping 5 floppy disks back and forth tediously. However, at the time, it was amazing! An actual version running on a Ti? Astounding!
Here's a simple way to make a Dragon's Lair movie: Groundhog Day. A time loop where the hero is able to learn from his mistakes etc would suit the game perfectly
Exactly what I was going to comment
Edge of Tomorrow did the same thing
Would have loved to have this version as a kid. Would have been almost like the arcade.
If only TI had the confidence in their own machine back in the day. I remember these breakthroughs over the years. The Missing Link, Sound FX etc. It truly shows what our beloved machine is truly capable of.
Great TI-99 related videos! Keep them coming!
Thanks. Will do.
Kid, LaserDisc was very much a consumer product - was not popular because of the expense - but my parents had a laserdisc player along with a component TV (external tuner)... Pretty sure it was Pioneer. Had several movies on disc - was not a popular as a VCR which came later and was about half the price.
Correct. It was released as a consumer product in 1977, the MCA Discovision. It had a lot of production problems. Pioneer soon bought the rights and rebranded it as Laserdisc. They fixed the problems and it did better, especially in Japan.
"Space Ace" was another laser disc video game that came out about the same time.
You rescued Kimberly instead of Daphne.
Yes, both were animated by Don Bluth, a legendary animator who once worked for Disney.
And there's me thinking Spade Ace was a Sentai hero.
I have an original movie poster for it.
Somehow I missed this video - thanks for doing it, and thanks for playing through Home sequence, which I prefer for sure over the randomness of the arcade sequence. ;) You may be the only person besides me who has learned the timing to get through all the scenes without hints (and, I've long since forgotten ;) )
And thank you for making it. Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the sequence at this point, and have beaten the DOS (1989), Genesis and Arcade versions, so not too tough at this point. But I never would have gotten in to the game in the first place, without your TI-99 version.
As a former Ti-99/4A user and programmer, I wonder how you pushed full video frames through the memory mapped address bus interface that fast, given the available clock speed. Is there an alternative way to access the 9918A VRAM that I wasn't aware of? I presume the card had an optimized memory architecture instead of the old GROM mechanism.
Amazing job! My hat's off to you, sir!
@@johndododoe1411 I'm a bit late coming back to this, so you may have already found the answer. Or forgotten you asked. ;) But no, the cartridge is just bank-switched ROM data (only 128 bytes of GROM used to bootstrap the game). The game is pushing just half the pixels to the screen and gets just under 9fps, so that's 54k/second. There's no extra trickery, just a tight loop in scratchpad RAM for the extra performance. The real hit is actually the sound chip, hitting that so often to play samples costs measurable time.
I guess I should admit there's SOME trickery. ;) The screen is updated in four bands so that color and pattern changes happen close to each other in time and make them harder to spot (you can see it paint on scene changes). The data was also pre-processed to minimize color table changes - not for bandwidth, just so you are less likely to see a glitch. The frame converter would frequently flip the colors of a byte depending on how many pixels were set, so you might jump from colors 36 to colors 63, for instance. Detecting those cases and flipping them back (with corresponding invert on the pattern table) removed most of the visible flicker artifacts. Basically, we /just/ pull it off. There are slightly faster copy loops that could be done, and reducing the audio frequency could boost the framerate, but the faster loops will need hardware support in the cartridge.
This is just crazy, I wouldn't have thought this possible.
The TI-99 is my favourite micro of all time. Presently writing a Football Management game for it. Love your channel and the absolutely amazing videos!!! THANK YOU!
Football Management (and sports management) does seem like a genre of today which could really do well on the machine. Interested to see where that goes! And thanks for the kind words.
What an amazing technological achievement.
nice video; I like the casual and serios approach. Following!
I had an TI-99/4a as a kid, but did not have copy of Dragon's Lair until we got a 3D0 in the early nineties. It was the bomb, btw.
I remember my parents renting a sega Cd from blockbuster with this game one weekend. Took me all night Saturday into Sunday afternoon to beat it the first time. Beat it the second time in like five or ten minutes then never touched the game again. Was so disappointed to find out how short the game actually was once you memorized the patterns and the mirrors of each scene.
Astron Belt was the 1st laser disk game. I didn't know that. You learn something new everyday.
not missing much - background was some cosmic type bach grounds with a lame ass low rez game over layed.
Impressive port! (Good voice over here also)
Thanks for the video, but just to set the record straight, even if they weren't particularly popular, LaserDiscs were available to consumers in 1978. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserDisc_player
The TI994a was my childhood gaming system. I remember seeing Dragons Lair and Space Ace at Chuck E Cheese. It was watching a cartoon.
The most graphically impressive game I ever saw on the TI994a was the Imagic port of Microsurgeon with it’s multiple camera views and the zoom in view. It was unbelievable for a game at the time.
Did not know until years later that the Don Bluth arcade games ran on on laser cd technology. These games were an instant novelty for cd-rom going into the next decade.
Not a fan of of QTE’s at all. In fact I can’t stand them. But I do appreciate the animation of these games and seeing them ported to a 16 bit system that was way ahead of its time. Always wondered what the system was truly capable of.
There was a C64 version that used a laserdisc as well. It was basically the same as the arcade version.
What?!
Yes. Thank goodness someone else remembers it. Everyone else thinks I'm mad.
There was also a version for the Atari ST named Journey Into The Lair.
Have you seen the ZX81 version?
I am lucky to have a copy of this amazing software package. Didn't know it was going to be restricted to so few copies when I bought it, but I missed out on getting a Pitfall cartridge, and promised myself I would never miss out on a new 4A-release again!
Would love to see it running on a CRT. My LCD is just a bit too clear.
Yes, those of us who got it while it was available are certainly lucky. It's such a marvel and a great tech demo for the system, I hope it's possible to produce more some day. Digital Leisure seems to be pretty comfortable with selling Dragon's Lair licences.
Watch the video at 240p for a more CRT-like experience.
The practice mode is a nice feature.
That looks pretty sweet!
Very cool and nice playthrough! It's funny how when you finish it, there are no credits or anything, it just cycles back to the title sequence. A job well done must be its own reward, I suppose.
It's possible Dragon's Lair could be done on the Atari 8-bits. After all, I have the 64-bit Atari Jaguar game disc.
I've played Dragon's Lair on actual arcade hardware, and I recall the drawbridge scene was included.
I believe I've *played* the version of "Dragon's Lair" for the Atari 2600 / VCS...except it had been retitled, "Adventure" for some reason... (Just kidding!) :-P
Is that port using the voice synthesizer box?
No, it doesn't use the voice synth module. It generates its audio via the PSG.
This would have been a #1 seller back then.
so great to see the full game played thru, I remember this arcade game as a kid, and I never saw anyone get past the multi colored balls with the Indiana Jones boulder.
As usual, magic users go down with one hit, gimme a sword & my wits every time! 🤺
Incredible!
I notice that this TI4A gameplay includes cuts of Daphne clapping and cheering in the end fight with Singe which seems different from the HD Blu-ray version I have. Which one is arcade authentic?
While there are differences between the home FMV versions post-1993 and the arcade scene order, that is not one of them, as far as I know. I do not know why those would be absent from the Blu-ray version. They're present in the Sega CD, DOS, TI-99 and Digital Leisure DVD versions I have, and are reproduced in arcade play through Daphne's autodownload method.
I just played through the HD game again and can confirm you are correct. The Daphne intercuts are present, I guess I never noticed her in the heat of battle with Singe.
subbed good luck
I wish they would reconsider reproducing this cartridge. 😭
There's been movement on that in recent times. The licence lapsed, so it's mainly about reacquiring licensing, and someone being motivated to *both* build boards *and* get the licensing deal done again. But it looks like that might come together.
Dragon's lair,questo gioco e una leggenda,assolutamente mitico.ho sempre amato questo gioco,ho un amico che lo possiede su laser disc.gioco SUPERBO!.
There is any rom of this game? Or only can be played in original cartridge?
It's a gigantic one-of-a-kind custom cartridge, specifically designed for the game, so to date, the only way to play to play it is on one of the ~150 original carts which were made.
How big is its rom?
What upgrades does you machine have
As mentioned in the video, the only one really relevant to this cart is the F18A VDP upgrade. Other than that, ones not required by this cart are the 32K memory expansion (common requirement for other stuff), TIPI for disk support (hard to get by without disks), speech synth module (which I use a lot) and SAMS (bank-switched memory).
How many MB is the data on the cartridge?
About 80MB of TI audio and video data. Which is ridiculously obviously, for a TI-99 game. In a world where all original era TI disks are 90K SSSD disks.
The spiritual successor to Hunt the Wumpus.
Bonkers
Cool. Where to get this cart?!? :-O
Sadly, like many remarkable inventions from within the legacy computing community, its availability was short term. This is partly due to its having been officially licensed, and the licence itself having an inherent term. The cartridge being produced again would involve not just someone producing the specialised carts, but someone pursuing another licence. So it is unlikely.
@@PixelPedant Mmmm...well, sorry to hear that. But thanks for letting me know! I still have my old TI in a guest room with the "Burgertime" cartridge still in the slot, though D.L. would certainly be a lot more interesting to play, provided that with the dust and all the computer still even worked! :-P
For the first half of my childhood I though it was Dragon Slayer.
Do you find that your enjoyment is lessened any by the free to play nature of a home game? At an arcade back in the day, all the stakes were heightened by the financial punishment of the slightest mistake, as well as by risking the disappointment of the arcade crowds that gathered to watch this technological marvel of the time.
In the case of Dragon's Lair specifically, I'm very thankful for gameplay not being dependent on popping quarters! In arcade games with a kinder learning curve, I can definitely see the appeal of having limited resources and fighting for a 1CC.
Man, I don't know how the hell you're supposed to figure out how these events translate to a certain directional input.
Is there a ZX version
There is a Spectrum port which is part of the original lineage of 80s ports, and it seems to have been based on the Coleco ADAM version (which makes sense, both being Z80 systems). But no modern FMV port that I know of. It'd be hard. Attribute clash on the Spectrum is more limiting than on the TI-99/4A.
@@PixelPedant i just would like the way the colors would look i think, although i’d prefer Space Ace. I remember there was a really jumbled mess looking version of Space Harrier on a japanese computer called like Sharp Fz-1 that was sort of beautiful
Sorry- MZ-700 not fz1
There is a ZX version of Time Gal, made in 2006, it requires Pentagon+16col+Nemo IDE or ATM-Turbo 2. The quality of the video is like this, the sound is slightly better.
@@alonecoder600 Ah that's neat. I guess that answers that then. It looks better than I would have thought. Thanks for telling me.
@@alonecoder600 Hmm I wonder if it'd look cleaner if they had used the Sega CD port. I bet this is the laserdisc. Wolf Team spent some time cleaning up the graphics to fit the limited color of the Genesis then.
It was a cartoon on saturday morning in the 80s so it shouldnt be hard.
Imagine for one moment how prohibitively expensive the cartridges would have been if it released in, say, 1984 or 5... I would not be surprised if fans of the game would have still purchased it.
Coleco was actually interested in creating a laserdisc-based solution for home users of their hardware, during the Adam's run, so there's an alternate history where Colecovision and/or Adam users actually get the opportunity to buy a home version of the complete game in 84/85. But alas, it was not to be. Because the cost would have been staggering.
@@PixelPedant I can confirm. I used to call their 800 information line so often, they literally recognized my voice, and occasionally they actually gave me confidential scoops on unannounced upcoming projects. This was one of them. They were stuck on whether to bundle a laserdisc player, or try to find a way to make it compatible with existing players. What could have been....
Best option is phone ios, android or steam
Nes pal version is playable
I own the actual Gamecube version and Emulate it on the DOL-001 with the Action Replay and a Gecko with the latest version of Swiss with Memory card Emulation set to on. Definitely better than the Arcade version. Nintendo wins!!!
Dragon's Lair does sound like a boring name. However, the game came out after a moderate successful film Drangon Slayer from Disney.
Interesting history but get some energy drink before you make another video!
I liked the calm attitude.