Homebrew Homebrew game [HELP] Convert DsHeretic from slot2 (.ds.gba) to slot1 (.nds)

[Indy13]

Thanks for the source code update, but personally I have only an old WindowsXP PC and I have no way to compile the .NDS file, so I have to wait for someone kindly to upload it here.

Hi @Nikokaro
The new .nds file is already compiled, you can find it here : https://github.com/elhobbs/cheretic/blob/master/cheretic.nds

In the meantime I've found, for those who are interested, an incredible, massive collection (not all SP maps, I think) of 1600 Heretic levels dating back to 1996, which in theory should be all more or less compatible with the DOS version (so also with this port) of Heretic:
https://archive.org/details/cdrom-maximum-death-heretic

Thanks mate !

P.S. Regarding the mapping of buttons, I only note that using R/L shoulder buttons to strafe is a must (as for DS Doom svn or DualHexen) and the best and most effective solution, and I recommend to set them like this

The problem is that to use the inventory of weapons and objects, you have to use a lot more keys than on Doom and very quickly combinations like select + X or Y complicate the gameplay (see photo n ° 1) and that would have the consequence of breaking the rhythm of the game, by making select + L or R (see photo n ° 2) the position of the fingers is already more practical and the combination can be linked more quickly, it is for this reason that the 'ideal would be to switch the attack key to B and use the Y key + the right or left directional arrow to move sideways (see photo n ° 3), B and Y are very close to each other , you can easily strafe while continuing to shoot, in fact you don't even have to think of the left hand because pressing the right and left arrows is already a gesture acquired like an automatism, moreover using Y and B to strafe and shoot , we do not interfere with the use of the X and A keys to use an object and to open the doors and push buttons, personally I think it is the most optimal combination which allows both to keep a comfortable playing experience and to be able to play quickly in the heat of the action in order to allow to stay in the dynamics of the game.

Otherwise there is also the solution to use X + the directional arrows to strafe and Y to use the items, this would allow not to reprogram the A and B buttons, and in this way the attack button (A) remains close button for strafe (X), I even think that it would be more ergonomic for people with large hands, the variant would be as follows:

select + L = weapons
select + R = items
Y = use items
X + left directional arrow = left strafe
X + right directional arrow = right strafe
A = attack
B = action (doors, buttons)
touchscreen = map

One last thing that can be interesting with this configuration is that by using a combination of two keys to strafe (keypad + X), we release another button to which we can assign a new function such as the function to use an item.

Of course this is only a simple suggestion but I think that this configuration would allow to preserve the dynamics of the game.

 

[Nikokaro]

@elhobbs, on a quick look I noticed with pleasure that you have reinserted the hud (now the image on the display fit well the screen and is much more pleasant to see) and set the shoulder buttons to strafe left/right: very good!

As for the gameplay, in the most excited and crowded moments the graphics slows down and is jerky a little, rarely a lot, and the music is crackling and echoing (really horrible).
Maybe removing the BGM could be an idea, to free up some ram memory; the sound effects are more than enough to create the right atmosphere.

Finally adding the map (needed to navigate the most convoluted levels and to find secret passages) to the bottom screen and weapon/item selection (on the sides of the latter) via touchscreen would be a nice finishing touch.

Edit: Unfortunately, on closer inspection, I found, and this is the most serious thing, several crashes with "Z_malloc: failed on allocation of...bytes", something that didn't happen before.
It's a real shame because it was turning out to be a real gem set beautifully in the good old DS.

 

[Indy13]

Unfortunately, on closer inspection, I found, and this is the most serious thing, several crashes with "Z_malloc: failed on allocation of...bytes", something that didn't happen before.

I confirm, I had the same problem from two thirds of the second level, I did two tests, the first test consisted of playing as much as possible at one time. For the second test, after completing the first level I made a savegame then I turned off my DS, I turned the console back on and I loaded my game by starting directly from the second level and I had the same memory problem again.

 

[Jayro]

Is DOSbox not a thing on the DS? Couldn't you run Heretic, Hexen, Doom, Doom II, etc through DOSbox?

 

[banjo2]

Is DOSbox not a thing on the DS? Couldn't you run Heretic, Hexen, Doom, Doom II, etc through DOSbox?

I don't think you could:

 

[Nikokaro]

Is DOSbox not a thing on the DS? Couldn't you run Heretic, Hexen, Doom, Doom II, etc through DOSbox?

Hi
Some time ago, if I remember correctly, there was an attempt to bring DOSbox on DS, but the project failed miserably, and is now dead and buried for a long time (R.I.P.).

Perhaps you meant to say DSx86?
With this you can barely play some 2d platformers and point and click games from the eighties and it's super slow; think about whether it can ever run a 3d FPS with all the resources it requires, and then the difficulty and hassle of setting all the required buttons.

It amazes me that a developer is asking this question (said jokingly)...

 

[VatoLoco]

Just for fun i tried to run heretic through dsx86 and ds2x86.
The game wont launch on dsx86, and on ds2x86 it runs, but its not very enjoyable because its choppy and a bit slow.

 

[Nikokaro]

Brief report: I have found during about two hours of play, four crashes in different points of different episodes, during which the console text reported, as already pointed out:
"Z_malloc: failed on allocation of...bytes", where the amount indicated has always been around 65,000 bytes (65Kb): a truly insignificant amount.
These always happen, as you can easily guess, in the presence of an excessive number of enemy sprites and/or sound effects at the same time.
Sometimes the crash can be avoided if you lure enemies one by one, moving them away from the group.
Some weapons, the ones that produce more sound effects, crash the game more often than others.

It also happened that it crashed in front of a large open space, without the presence of enemies, but with their grunts/sneers in the background; or near lava torrents, preceded by strong and continuous slowdowns.

Other times, as soon as the level is loaded the textures are entirely white, and then return to normal if you move a little; or, more rarely, are colored, how to say, like a very old 4bit (CGA) game, and then return to normal when moving.

Sometimes, also, the music becomes out of tune, crackling and more rarely an annoying, uninterrupted hiss that eventually ends in a crash.

So I think that with a small change in the source code, such as the exclusion of background music or the network game (which is always loaded at the beginning, completely unnecessarily), you could free enough RAM to avoid these crashes: this is a simple assumption of someone who is technically ignorant in the field but still has a certain amount of practical experience on the subject.

If they could be avoided in other ways, without sacrificing these features, it would be even better. The final word is up to the one who really have the ability and the necessary skills to solve this issue, and don't pretend to have them, as I do.

I am writing these notes in the faint hope that the author will put his hand to this project at least one more time, if and when time and will allow him to do so, thus doing far more than he needed to and was required of him.

Thank you again and always, and forgive me for my incorrect, but hopefully quite understandable, english.

 

[elhobbs]

added a new version to the repository
fixes:
* reverted texture loading code to use the previous method. apparently the last commit I made years ago was to add a new texture loading method - in an attempt to avoid black/white lines. I reverted this code as it was really just for me to test.
* fixed sprite loading that caused an abort. this was caused by a cached object being evicted from the cache while it was still in use.
* fixed music memory leak. mus files were never allowed to be dropped from the cache. this resulted in z_malloc failure errors.
* reduced sfx from 16 to 8 in an attempt to reduce sound issues. did not seem to make a difference.
* added X+key combinations - you will need to delete heretic.cfg for this to take effect

new key mapping
A attack
B use
Y use artifact
L strafe left
R strafe right
Select escape
Start enter
X+left cycle weapon backwards
X+right cycle weapon forwards
X+up next artifact
X+down previous artifact
X+L toggle map

 

[Nikokaro]

added a new version to the repository

I am very grateful for this new update.

As for me I am having a lot of fun with this port and its user megawads, at least until the game crashes miserably for the reasons I already outlined above. I am very confident that now everything will be better with this new version.

Would it be possible in the future to have the map in the lower screen instead of that unsightly console text? I hope I'm not being too pretentious.

 

[elhobbs]

I am very grateful for this new update.

As for me I am having a lot of fun with this port and its user megawads, at least until the game crashes miserably for the reasons I already outlined above. I am very confident that now everything will be better with this new version.

Would it be possible in the future to have the map in the lower screen instead of that unsightly console text? I hope I'm not being too pretentious.

I started remapping the video memory banks so that I could use the bottom screen for the menu and map. A side effect was that I hid the console text. Which on one hand is good but on the other hand it does not show useful error messages. Unfortunately it is a lot of work to move everything properly. Currently I am cropping the screen for the menu, hud, and the map. Which means the console is spending time rendering content that cannot be seen in addition to you not being able to see it. One solution is to scale the output but it does not look good.

 

[Indy13]

Thanks for this update @elhobbs and what a great update!

In addition to everything else, the reassignment of controls is just great, the game is very pleasant to use and very intuitive, it's really cool, once again thank you !

Do you think that it would be possible later to create a virtual keyboard like for DSDoom in order to be able to rename the saved game files?

 

[smallissue]

Never played games like Heretic, Hexen, or Doom but I want to try this so much..

 

[Nikokaro]

the console is spending time rendering content that cannot be seen

I hope this doesn't worsen the overall performance and increase slowdowns, jerky graphics and sound glitches; rather it would be better to exclude and deactivate the lower screen altogether if it would help.

 

[Nikokaro]

Do you think that it would be possible later to create a virtual keyboard like for DSDoom in order to be able to rename the saved game files?

Good idea. Alternatively you could automatically save with the name of the map, without having to type anything.

 

[Indy13]

I just did a little longer test and here is what I noted:

Level 1 is 100% terminable without technical problems

Level 2 is 100% terminable, technically there are some sound glitches problems here and there but nothing very serious, on the gameplay side at times we suffer a little from the disappearance of the "run function", the same for the " fly function ", if you can take off without any problem you have to wait for the magic to run out to land it is much more complicated to manage on a whole level.

From level 3 even if the level is 100% terminable, purely technical problems appear, the music stops to become an uninterrupted whistle, it is no longer possible to use the key combinations, so we no longer have the ability to change weapons, access inventory, use an item, and view the map. Only the functions of the L, R, A, B, Start and Select buttons can be used

You can play at level 4 but the problems mentioned above encountered during level 3 are still present


Note: level 100% complete including secret areas

 

[Nikokaro]

I just did a little longer test...

As for me, at a first quick test, this new version in terms of performance, speed and sound quality has improved considerably but ... sadly those annoying black, flickering horizontal lines are back, more fierce and merciless than before: I did not miss them and I would have gladly done without.

 

[Indy13]

Alternatively you could automatically save with the name of the map, without having to type anything.

I had thought of the virtual keyboard mainly for saving mods but you're right, it also works very well without a virtual keyboard, I think that you just have to not save the same level twice or not use the wrong box in the backup system

those annoying black, flickering horizontal lines are back, more fierce and merciless than before: I did not miss them and I would have gladly done without.

Indeed, you do well to specify it I forgot to do it I also encountered this problem

As for me, at a first quick test, this new version in terms of performance, speed and sound quality has improved considerably but ...

Same for me, the first quick test was the discovery and the euphoria at the sight of all these improvements!




I also forgot to mention that I had made a save of my game at the very beginning of level 3, so I retested level 3 from that save after turning my DS off and on again and there I didn't could only play a few seconds, everything works fine but after a few seconds, the music stops to make an uninterrupted whistle again and the screen and the controls freeze, maybe it came of my backup which was already corrupted, I don't know, I will try later to redo level 2 as well as a backup at the very beginning level 3 before the bug appears to see if there is a difference or at least if it is possible to work around this problem by going through the backup system

 

[Nikokaro]

I had thought of the virtual keyboard mainly for saving mods..

AFAIK custom wad/megawads or single user maps contain proper (different for each level) custom names within them.

..after a few seconds, the music stops to make an uninterrupted whistle again and the screen and the controls freeze.

So far I have not encountered this issue. But I haven't tested it for a long time.

 

[Indy13]

AFAIK custom wad/megawads or single user maps contain proper (different for each level) custom names within them.

I didn't know that, thanks for the tip

So far I have not encountered this issue. But I haven't tested it for a long time.

I think it must be my save file that is corrupted because the save that I made at the start of level 3, I did it once the bug was triggered. I will redo the full level 2 and I will redo a new save at the start of level 3 before the bug occurs to see if there is a difference.