Ding!
February 4, 2017 7:34 AM Subscribe
This is a tour de force of hardware knowledge, but also an awesome example of presentation graphics done super-right. Thanks!
posted by andorphin at 9:50 AM on February 4, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by andorphin at 9:50 AM on February 4, 2017 [3 favorites]
Have you been sneakily looking at my browser history, curious nu? I ran into a link to this a few weeks ago at the same time I found The Ultimate Commodore Talk, a similar kind of thing but for the C64.
Well, I watched the Commodore talk, but it was an hour long and so I neglected to follow through to the Gameboy talk. Nice to be reminded of it!
posted by JHarris at 10:05 AM on February 4, 2017
Well, I watched the Commodore talk, but it was an hour long and so I neglected to follow through to the Gameboy talk. Nice to be reminded of it!
posted by JHarris at 10:05 AM on February 4, 2017
I watched this a few weeks ago... I won't pretend to have understood it all, but it was a fascinating deep dive into the hardware, and I enjoyed it nonetheless.
posted by ph00dz at 11:02 AM on February 4, 2017
posted by ph00dz at 11:02 AM on February 4, 2017
Ah, I remember now! I found both videos, and a lot of other cool stuff besides, on the guy's blog, pagetable.com!
posted by JHarris at 12:28 PM on February 4, 2017
posted by JHarris at 12:28 PM on February 4, 2017
an awesome example of presentation graphics done super-right.
Yes! The technical stuff is interesting, if mostly over my head, but I was definitely paying attention to his excellent slides.
posted by good in a vacuum at 12:46 PM on February 4, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yes! The technical stuff is interesting, if mostly over my head, but I was definitely paying attention to his excellent slides.
posted by good in a vacuum at 12:46 PM on February 4, 2017 [1 favorite]
I was just wondering what to do with my Saturday evening - this is perfect!
posted by Dysk at 1:42 PM on February 4, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 1:42 PM on February 4, 2017 [1 favorite]
Watched this a few weeks ago for nostalgia. I'm pretty sure my high school grades suffered for the attention I payed to this sort of stuff at the time. Most of it is already well documented online, and there's probably two or three techniques he didn't cover:
1. Subpixel Rendering / Scrolling. I've seen a tech demo ROM of subpixel scrolling text. Essentially every pixel in the LCD is comprised of 3 smaller filtered crystals: green, blue and red. So you can get smoother scrolling by using the same technique that ClearType and other font systems use. Nothing really clever programming wise, just backporting PC technology to the 8 bit world.
2. Rapid palette swapping. Bionic Commando used this in the intro at least to get around the 4 color palette limitations. In case this isn't obvious, consider the gradients achieved in the sky / clouds without dithering. Obviously this has no value on DMG =) The video touches upon what you need to understand to implement it. HBLANK is feasible, if you can keep the timings tight. But if you do that, you can only switch palette every line, so it takes up front planning. Hence the use on static screens only.
3. Voice Sampling. It's possible to do rudimentary voices with the sound chips. Bionic Commando and Crystalis both used it sparingly. Presumably because storage on ROM is limited.
posted by pwnguin at 5:28 PM on February 4, 2017
1. Subpixel Rendering / Scrolling. I've seen a tech demo ROM of subpixel scrolling text. Essentially every pixel in the LCD is comprised of 3 smaller filtered crystals: green, blue and red. So you can get smoother scrolling by using the same technique that ClearType and other font systems use. Nothing really clever programming wise, just backporting PC technology to the 8 bit world.
2. Rapid palette swapping. Bionic Commando used this in the intro at least to get around the 4 color palette limitations. In case this isn't obvious, consider the gradients achieved in the sky / clouds without dithering. Obviously this has no value on DMG =) The video touches upon what you need to understand to implement it. HBLANK is feasible, if you can keep the timings tight. But if you do that, you can only switch palette every line, so it takes up front planning. Hence the use on static screens only.
3. Voice Sampling. It's possible to do rudimentary voices with the sound chips. Bionic Commando and Crystalis both used it sparingly. Presumably because storage on ROM is limited.
posted by pwnguin at 5:28 PM on February 4, 2017
This is a fantastic example of why people should write articles instead of giving talks. I had to shut it off because if he sucked air through his teeth one more time I was going to puke or scream.
posted by darksasami at 10:18 PM on February 4, 2017
posted by darksasami at 10:18 PM on February 4, 2017
Have you been sneakily looking at my browser history, curious nu?
Nah, I yoinked this from fleacircus over on MFC. =)
posted by curious nu at 5:03 AM on February 5, 2017
Nah, I yoinked this from fleacircus over on MFC. =)
posted by curious nu at 5:03 AM on February 5, 2017
BTW, the speaker has a blog where he discusses a lot of this sort of stuff. I periodically check it out but usually late enough at night that a lot of it kind of passes through without sticking. Still, this talk has me pricing out Gameboys on EBay.
posted by suetanvil at 7:33 PM on February 5, 2017
posted by suetanvil at 7:33 PM on February 5, 2017
Also, I dug up the development resources at the end of the talk:
In case anyone's interested.
posted by suetanvil at 8:03 PM on February 5, 2017
posted by suetanvil at 8:03 PM on February 5, 2017
I also need to back away from eBay having watched this.
Although, if the Super Retro Boy ships and isn't destroyed by Nintendo's lawyers, I will gladly pay ALL MY MONIES to get one.
posted by bonaldi at 4:11 AM on February 6, 2017
Although, if the Super Retro Boy ships and isn't destroyed by Nintendo's lawyers, I will gladly pay ALL MY MONIES to get one.
posted by bonaldi at 4:11 AM on February 6, 2017
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posted by griphus at 9:49 AM on February 4, 2017 [1 favorite]