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Forums > C64 Coding > Holy Grails
2018-03-18 10:10
Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2804
Holy Grails

I've been wondering about them, with some having been finally discovered, others not yet, and some probably going to remain in the realm of the impossible forever.

I'm speaking of things like:
- 320x200x16 graphics without restrictions
- Crash-free all-direction hardware scrolling
- Digi replay of 8-bit samples at one register write per sample and without requiring cycle accuracy

on standard vanilla hardware, of course.

Some examples of discovered grails are:
- Cube rotating at 50 fps about 3 axes
- The 9th sprite (with some restrictions)
- On-the-fly standard GCR block read+decode+checksumming

As for definition, they all satisfy some measure of being perfect or optimal or being possible after all, with no further improvements required, possible or necessary. But i'm not so sure if that definition holds water with regard to some of the examples i listed. :D

The question is, what other Holy Grails are there, already discovered or still elusive?
What are your pet grails you've been chasing after for decades or have found eventually? :)
 
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2018-03-25 09:43
Copyfault

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 466
Quote: its a bit cheating. using c128 2mhz mode, vicII will read what cpu has read in every 2nd cycle so code is just lda #gfxbyte lda #gfxbyte..

Now this truly qualifies for a holy grail: doing that awesome code2gfx-mode on c64 vanilla platform:)

Another one would be

- finding a use for the D016-Resetbit (D016.Bit5)
2018-03-25 09:58
oziphantom

Registered: Oct 2014
Posts: 478
Quoting Oswald
its a bit cheating. using c128 2mhz mode, vicII will read what cpu has read in every 2nd cycle so code is just lda #gfxbyte lda #gfxbyte..


Yeah the trick is working out if you are on a Phi 1 or 2 cycle ;) I think the Oblivion demo already does it though..
2018-03-25 14:26
chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11088
Quote:
finding a use for the D016-Resetbit (D016.Bit5)

that doesnt have any effect, except on the VIC used in very early MAX machines iirc
2018-03-25 16:00
Copyfault

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 466
Groepaz: maybe there's that specific cycle where *teh* magic happens when clearing and resetting the reset bit - probability is for sure close to 0, but nobody did ever test through all vic-relevant cycles I guess ;)
2018-03-25 16:44
chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11088
find it out :)
2018-03-25 17:40
Iapetus/Algarbi/Wood

Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 71
For me the grail would be a "fast" 3d game using an engine similar to that one of Andropolis.
2018-03-25 21:00
Ninja

Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 404
My personal holy grail was surely 6 sprites over FLI. Once I designed the timing and understood it was technically possible, it was "just" finding the magic opcodes to match all these conditions imposed by the method. But I knew this was a super-rare chance to steal a VIC-based record from Crossbow. That was a dream since I learned from his effects in the early 90s. And I knew that 6 would be the ultimate upper limit, so it would be eternally my record!

Ah, great times of sitting in a train to my girlfriend with just pencil & paper trying to solve what HCL rightfully named FLI-sudoku later. That took me a while but it was all worth it.

Feels great to have found a holy grail :D
2018-03-25 21:37
Mixer

Registered: Apr 2008
Posts: 418
One holy grail would be a tool, perhaps a compiler, that can interleave assembler code. Basically what interrupt does, but in a source code pre processor that can count cycles and generate interleaved source.
2018-03-25 22:00
Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2804
Quoting Mixer
One holy grail would be a tool, perhaps a compiler, that can interleave assembler code. Basically what interrupt does, but in a source code pre processor that can count cycles and generate interleaved source.
I seem to remember Jackasser talking about something like that. Pretty sure he's used it in some productions of his. And also pretty sure he wasn't the only one. :)
2018-03-25 22:25
Ninja

Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 404
Quote: Quoting Mixer
One holy grail would be a tool, perhaps a compiler, that can interleave assembler code. Basically what interrupt does, but in a source code pre processor that can count cycles and generate interleaved source.
I seem to remember Jackasser talking about something like that. Pretty sure he's used it in some productions of his. And also pretty sure he wasn't the only one. :)


S:T Lars Meeting III - Invite

Source included. Not a generic compiler, though, but still...
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