Dungeon Master 2
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BinaryBandit
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- Joined: Sun Aug 20, 2000 5:00 pm
Dungeon Master 2
Nobody here talking about Dungeon Master 2.(legend of skullkeep) Is it because it uses a totaly new engine and DMUTE don't work with it? I loved that game on the PC. Hated the ending. Too many machines to turn off and on. Kind of ruined the medevil athmosphere in the game. Used to get cash from the giants axes. It was too easy to get cash by selling almost anything. Was one of my first games on the PC.
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Gambit37
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Re: Dungeon Master 2
I briefly played DM2 on a friends PC when it first came out but it didn't 'feel' right compared to the original - so I never got into it.
Now that I have my friends copy of it, I've been trying to play it, but cannot get the sound to work. It's pretty pointless playing it without sound, so I've given up on it for now.
Yes, it does use a different file format to DM and isn't supported by DMUTE (yet...?) <i>Edited by <A HREF=http://pub17.ezboard.com/ugambit37.show ... ambit37</A> at: 9/7/00 11:52:06 pm
</i>
Now that I have my friends copy of it, I've been trying to play it, but cannot get the sound to work. It's pretty pointless playing it without sound, so I've given up on it for now.
Yes, it does use a different file format to DM and isn't supported by DMUTE (yet...?) <i>Edited by <A HREF=http://pub17.ezboard.com/ugambit37.show ... ambit37</A> at: 9/7/00 11:52:06 pm
</i>
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BinaryBandit
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DM2
I was able to build a 486dx4-100 with 16 megs, sound blaster pro, ATI mach-32, 2x speed cd-rom and 1 gig HD from my spare parts. 
The only thing i had to buy was the 3.5" floppy drive. Now i'm able to play all the old dos games. That includes DM1 and DM2. Infact im playing DM2 right now. Amazing game. The `monsters' actualy doing things like chase you and run away when they hurt bad.
Who needs the P3-600 when we got a good 'ol 486Dx100.
So far i installed: Colonization, Civilization, Mortal Kombat 2 and 3, DM1, DM2, Aladdin, LionKing, One Must Die 2047, Brutal Paws of fury, Dark Forces and Hexxen.
Using dos only, i still got 800 megs free.
The only thing i had to buy was the 3.5" floppy drive. Now i'm able to play all the old dos games. That includes DM1 and DM2. Infact im playing DM2 right now. Amazing game. The `monsters' actualy doing things like chase you and run away when they hurt bad. Who needs the P3-600 when we got a good 'ol 486Dx100.
So far i installed: Colonization, Civilization, Mortal Kombat 2 and 3, DM1, DM2, Aladdin, LionKing, One Must Die 2047, Brutal Paws of fury, Dark Forces and Hexxen.
Using dos only, i still got 800 megs free.
DM II - recount of good times
Being new to the board, I got a sense that DM II doesn't cut it much with regulars here. They seem to prefer the unmultimedialized original and classic DM.
Somehow I usually buy first the sequels and only later on get to play the original games. Came to computing a bit late. My first game was Prince of Persia II, only later I played the original P of P. Same with DM.
Maybe one comes to like more the games one plays first from any given gaming area. The atmosphere of DM II can't be beat. As somebody wrote here about missing sound, I say don't play without sound, its half the experience in DM II, the sound of weather, the music...
I must add that I played these games on a Mac, especially the P of P II is graphically much better on that platform, on PC everything is just a bit too pixelated for true enjoyment. Maybe DM II is good on both platforms, don't know as yet.
I wonder if anybody is going to believe me when I claim to have entered the 'shop' in DM II, I got right behind the counter, only the shopkeeper wasn't there, nor any goods. It happened when I was running slow on account of low memory, things were bogging down and I was just replaying the section where you leave the carnivorous trees and go through the hall with the shifting floor tiles. When leaving the building and going to the blood fountains, I fought skeletons there and had a glitch there, couldn't move forward at all, but could still go backwards. I had just got rid of the skeletons (fortunately)and I ran backward into the shop there. Inside I got soon attacked by one of those spiky flyers and as I was manoeuvering around, confused as I could only go backwards, I backed by accident behind one of the turning tables somehow. I stared in amazement, the view from there was just as you would expect. But the only thing I could do there was pressing the button on the side that shoots the fireballs at misbehaving shoppers in front of the tables, only nobody was there to hit. At the time, I didn't have set up any means of taking a picture of the screen, so I have no proof of my exploit. I may be the only one ever to do such a thing.
I may try this winter to replicate the conditions and see if I could repeat the feat (the Mac is away at my parents house now), but I doubt I'll manage to do that again.
If you want to have a big laugh in DM II, go to the castle on the floor where the dragons shoot the arrows at you as you are trying to catch the flying chest I believe. Collect the arrows laying on the ground, you may have to carry them out beyond the door where the dragons won't go and lay them on the floor, I remember that I couldn't cary them all. The idea I had doing that was that it will rid me of the dragons so I can concentrate on figuring out the puzzle of the flying chest (or whatever) When I noticed that dragons ran out of the arrows (if you don't pick them up yourself, the dragons will and reuse them pricking your hide) I went on my business pondering the situation when all of a sudden, I received such a blow, I was staggering on my feet. I turned around puzzled what the hell was going on, and it was the dragon punching me like a boxer. They get upset when they can't find the arrows.
That time the dragon beat the s..t out of me as I could do nothing how hard I was laughing, really falling off my chair. The boxing dragons look soo ridiculous, that must be seen to be believed.
Come to think about it, it may have been only laughing spot I encountered in DM II.
Selling the Giant's axes with the red handle makes one such oodles of money, it almost spoils the game, one should always have to just gaze at some terribly tempting items one can't afford at all, that's the RPGs bread and butter. Would change that if I could in the game.
Wonder how many people made it their sport to kill the shop's guards, that's also fun, but only when you don't need the shop anymore.
And while I'm at it, I can't resist boasting how I was once able to 'do a room' in Prince of Persia II, the one where you jump on tottering pillars until you can jump finally on the horseback and get carried to the castle level. I was able to do almost the whole room without killing *any* of the flying heads first. I just ran at a gallop without looking left or right, the farthest I made it was the very last platform from which one jumps onto the horseback. If I didn't get killed before, I got killed on this last platform either when pulling up onto it, or after making a jump already on top of it, just prior to the very final jumping off onto the horse.
Since the P of P II was so popular at the time, I figure you may have played it also, if so, I wonder if my exploit was anything uncommon at all.
Van
Somehow I usually buy first the sequels and only later on get to play the original games. Came to computing a bit late. My first game was Prince of Persia II, only later I played the original P of P. Same with DM.
Maybe one comes to like more the games one plays first from any given gaming area. The atmosphere of DM II can't be beat. As somebody wrote here about missing sound, I say don't play without sound, its half the experience in DM II, the sound of weather, the music...
I must add that I played these games on a Mac, especially the P of P II is graphically much better on that platform, on PC everything is just a bit too pixelated for true enjoyment. Maybe DM II is good on both platforms, don't know as yet.
I wonder if anybody is going to believe me when I claim to have entered the 'shop' in DM II, I got right behind the counter, only the shopkeeper wasn't there, nor any goods. It happened when I was running slow on account of low memory, things were bogging down and I was just replaying the section where you leave the carnivorous trees and go through the hall with the shifting floor tiles. When leaving the building and going to the blood fountains, I fought skeletons there and had a glitch there, couldn't move forward at all, but could still go backwards. I had just got rid of the skeletons (fortunately)and I ran backward into the shop there. Inside I got soon attacked by one of those spiky flyers and as I was manoeuvering around, confused as I could only go backwards, I backed by accident behind one of the turning tables somehow. I stared in amazement, the view from there was just as you would expect. But the only thing I could do there was pressing the button on the side that shoots the fireballs at misbehaving shoppers in front of the tables, only nobody was there to hit. At the time, I didn't have set up any means of taking a picture of the screen, so I have no proof of my exploit. I may be the only one ever to do such a thing.
I may try this winter to replicate the conditions and see if I could repeat the feat (the Mac is away at my parents house now), but I doubt I'll manage to do that again.
If you want to have a big laugh in DM II, go to the castle on the floor where the dragons shoot the arrows at you as you are trying to catch the flying chest I believe. Collect the arrows laying on the ground, you may have to carry them out beyond the door where the dragons won't go and lay them on the floor, I remember that I couldn't cary them all. The idea I had doing that was that it will rid me of the dragons so I can concentrate on figuring out the puzzle of the flying chest (or whatever) When I noticed that dragons ran out of the arrows (if you don't pick them up yourself, the dragons will and reuse them pricking your hide) I went on my business pondering the situation when all of a sudden, I received such a blow, I was staggering on my feet. I turned around puzzled what the hell was going on, and it was the dragon punching me like a boxer. They get upset when they can't find the arrows.
That time the dragon beat the s..t out of me as I could do nothing how hard I was laughing, really falling off my chair. The boxing dragons look soo ridiculous, that must be seen to be believed.
Come to think about it, it may have been only laughing spot I encountered in DM II.
Selling the Giant's axes with the red handle makes one such oodles of money, it almost spoils the game, one should always have to just gaze at some terribly tempting items one can't afford at all, that's the RPGs bread and butter. Would change that if I could in the game.
Wonder how many people made it their sport to kill the shop's guards, that's also fun, but only when you don't need the shop anymore.
And while I'm at it, I can't resist boasting how I was once able to 'do a room' in Prince of Persia II, the one where you jump on tottering pillars until you can jump finally on the horseback and get carried to the castle level. I was able to do almost the whole room without killing *any* of the flying heads first. I just ran at a gallop without looking left or right, the farthest I made it was the very last platform from which one jumps onto the horseback. If I didn't get killed before, I got killed on this last platform either when pulling up onto it, or after making a jump already on top of it, just prior to the very final jumping off onto the horse.
Since the P of P II was so popular at the time, I figure you may have played it also, if so, I wonder if my exploit was anything uncommon at all.
Van
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Gambit37
- Should eat more pies
- Posts: 13766
- Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
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- Contact:
DM2 Thoughts
I've finally got DM2 to work on my PC with the sound (although I don't get any music... still need to tinker with that). I think I'm about 2/3 of the way through - I've got to the bit with the battering 'rams'.
I have to say that although it sometimes rekindles memories of playing DM1, it simply doesn't cut it with me. I think the problem lies in the fact that FTL changed the interface. In DM2 it's quite confusing to use, especially when you're used to the speed and simplicity of DM1. It's a lot harder priming and using spells as you can't do this nearly as quickly as in DM. I also don't like the fact that some of my favourite spells from DM aren't in DM2 - Window for one (OH EW RA). I like some of the new spells though - reflect is a great one to use, but doesn't last nearly long enough!
I think that the mood is pretty good, and things do build up quite nicely as you travel from the storm drenched forest to the dank dungeons of skullkeep. Scenery is varied enough to be interesting, and is a welcome change from the dull grey walls of the original.
Monsters are weird. Some are great, others are ridiculous, and the styles seem to change. Anyone know what the offical names of these creatures are at all - there appears to be no descriptions in the game itself. They are certainly more intelligent, and you do have to be quicker at planning and executing attacks.
Shops are a good idea, but for a long time early in the game, food can be difficult to come by. At least until you enter the keep. And the techshield teleport is a nice touch.
Documentation is sparse too. There's virtually no scrolls around, and use of minions and the minion map is a hit and miss affair.
On the whole a good game, but not a 'classic'. The original will always retain that title. <i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub17.ezboard.com/ugambit37.show ... ambit37</A> at: 12/1/00 11:34:20 am
</i>
I have to say that although it sometimes rekindles memories of playing DM1, it simply doesn't cut it with me. I think the problem lies in the fact that FTL changed the interface. In DM2 it's quite confusing to use, especially when you're used to the speed and simplicity of DM1. It's a lot harder priming and using spells as you can't do this nearly as quickly as in DM. I also don't like the fact that some of my favourite spells from DM aren't in DM2 - Window for one (OH EW RA). I like some of the new spells though - reflect is a great one to use, but doesn't last nearly long enough!
I think that the mood is pretty good, and things do build up quite nicely as you travel from the storm drenched forest to the dank dungeons of skullkeep. Scenery is varied enough to be interesting, and is a welcome change from the dull grey walls of the original.
Monsters are weird. Some are great, others are ridiculous, and the styles seem to change. Anyone know what the offical names of these creatures are at all - there appears to be no descriptions in the game itself. They are certainly more intelligent, and you do have to be quicker at planning and executing attacks.
Shops are a good idea, but for a long time early in the game, food can be difficult to come by. At least until you enter the keep. And the techshield teleport is a nice touch.
Documentation is sparse too. There's virtually no scrolls around, and use of minions and the minion map is a hit and miss affair.
On the whole a good game, but not a 'classic'. The original will always retain that title. <i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub17.ezboard.com/ugambit37.show ... ambit37</A> at: 12/1/00 11:34:20 am
</i>
The admin raises his head for a moment
I think the minion idea is stupid. It is possibly as far away from the original DM as possible - they are annoying and pretty hard to kill when there are loads and the fact that they open doors and go up and down stairs pisses me off 
.
I like the outdoor part, the rain really adds to the effect. I also like those giants with the axes, especially when they retrieve them adter they have thrown them and missed
.
I think the fact that when you cast a fireball, it lights up the coridoor is very realistic, good idea.
Otherwise, a good but not great follow-up to DM & CSB. <p><font face=arial>Ian
Pulp - Styling the pattern for life!</font></p>
.I like the outdoor part, the rain really adds to the effect. I also like those giants with the axes, especially when they retrieve them adter they have thrown them and missed
.I think the fact that when you cast a fireball, it lights up the coridoor is very realistic, good idea.
Otherwise, a good but not great follow-up to DM & CSB. <p><font face=arial>Ian
Pulp - Styling the pattern for life!</font></p>
Aloola...
How, Jayz Us!
I have been waiting for DMII so long, that when it came out on market, I couldn't help running like a bat out of hell... toward my local store.
Bought it.
Played it.
Burned it.
Spended a whole we playing hard, snekaing, fighting, looking for hidden thingies.. Have had a goooooood time!
Ok, I agree: the soul of DMI is not resurected, but DMII was really a goooood game!
I really enjoyed it!
Good gfx, good sounds, mysteries...
I DO liked the flmying minions : really hard to beat, sometimes, really annoying... but such a challenge!
Not so hard to ride them off..
So...
It was funny to see that in a demo version of DMII, the Character sheet was graphically improved : good icons instead of strange ugly greay things for the hands, mouth, eyes... but as weird as it may seems, in the final release, bye bye imporvment! Back to DMI cs... I was a little bit sad when I saw that.
Therefore, they changed the savefile format: in the demo, the save file was in the same format as DMI, and in final release, it went a piece of @#%$, reallllly hard to crack...
I hoped for so long that someone made some cheating tools, or even a level editor... but it seems to be a good dream.......
Does anything exists?
hu?
See ya!
A frenchy boy.
I have been waiting for DMII so long, that when it came out on market, I couldn't help running like a bat out of hell... toward my local store.
Bought it.
Played it.
Burned it.
Spended a whole we playing hard, snekaing, fighting, looking for hidden thingies.. Have had a goooooood time!
Ok, I agree: the soul of DMI is not resurected, but DMII was really a goooood game!
I really enjoyed it!
Good gfx, good sounds, mysteries...
I DO liked the flmying minions : really hard to beat, sometimes, really annoying... but such a challenge!
Not so hard to ride them off..
So...
It was funny to see that in a demo version of DMII, the Character sheet was graphically improved : good icons instead of strange ugly greay things for the hands, mouth, eyes... but as weird as it may seems, in the final release, bye bye imporvment! Back to DMI cs... I was a little bit sad when I saw that.
Therefore, they changed the savefile format: in the demo, the save file was in the same format as DMI, and in final release, it went a piece of @#%$, reallllly hard to crack...
I hoped for so long that someone made some cheating tools, or even a level editor... but it seems to be a good dream.......
Does anything exists?
hu?
See ya!
A frenchy boy.
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BinaryBandit
- Novice
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Sun Aug 20, 2000 5:00 pm
Dungeon Master 2
...And nobody mentioning the THIEF in the game. He has stolen alot of my best weapons early in the game.
...Then i found the Thieves Den. ...Both of them. Got all my stuff back and more.
...Then i found the Thieves Den. ...Both of them. Got all my stuff back and more.
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cowsmanaut
- Moo Master
- Posts: 4380
- Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2000 12:53 am
- Location: canada
DM 2 cheats
There is a character editor for DM2. I've found it on the web a few times and used it as well. It was planned to do much more but never came to be. You can change all the stats and names with it but that's really all I think.
Do a search and I'm sure you will find it. it's called DM2EDIT.ZIP
cheers
Do a search and I'm sure you will find it. it's called DM2EDIT.ZIP
cheers
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swordman108
- Neophyte
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2010 9:51 pm
Re: Dungeon Master 2
Is there not much going on with this game or something...??? I really liked it but it looks like the whole subject has died. The game was awsome I thought, but no one has seemed to edit it near as much as any of the other games. That is a bit weird I think.. Yah there are a few shortcomings as far as the originl is concerened (its short, the enemy attack minions suck donkey but, and the enemy graphics are a bit cartoony) buy I think that all it need is a better graphics.dat file and a few good user made dungeon.dat files and the thing would rock hard core. It bothers me that it seems that people have just seemed to let the game go to out-to-pasture.. What happened to make it so bad an un editable in the peoples mind? I meen this posting is 10 (thats TEN!!!) years after the last one in under the DM2 forum!!! That's kinda interesting to me... (and not in a good way)
Re: Dungeon Master 2
As sphynx replied in another thread, he is working on editing and improving the engine if you want to tie up with him
Opinion was divded on DM2, therefore less people have tried to break it than the original. There are threads on the subject around if you want to see the divided opinions.
RTC has a version of the dungeon and mechanics included in it though. The interface is still DM1, but the shop and money box mechanics have made it into the recreation.
Opinion was divded on DM2, therefore less people have tried to break it than the original. There are threads on the subject around if you want to see the divided opinions.
RTC has a version of the dungeon and mechanics included in it though. The interface is still DM1, but the shop and money box mechanics have made it into the recreation.
Re: Dungeon Master 2
As Beowoulf said, it is mainly because the expectations for DM2 were high but DM2 arrived too late, was not enough big or difficult, and contained some bad ideas which did not fit to the 'dungeon master feeling'. Hence people find it less valuable for replay and less edit tools have been made.
However, I think too we can somehow improve the original DM2 to make it more deep, more interesting, and discarding the annoying bits (though we can't change the DM2 engine).
Another direction would be to consider porting DM2 to another engine such as DSB which would allow tuning the internal mechanics.
I am exploring the possibilites.
However, I think too we can somehow improve the original DM2 to make it more deep, more interesting, and discarding the annoying bits (though we can't change the DM2 engine).
Another direction would be to consider porting DM2 to another engine such as DSB which would allow tuning the internal mechanics.
I am exploring the possibilites.
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swordman108
- Neophyte
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- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2010 9:51 pm
Re: Dungeon Master 2
Thanks boewuuf. I will give that a try. I don't want to "break" it per say thow. I think that the engine is good enough for what it is and has plenty of capabilities as far as a dungeon crawler goes I would just like to see the game get better dungeons and a desent make-over as far as the graphical "theme" goes however.
Re: Dungeon Master 2
There were certainly alot of novel monster AI that would be great to see explored further!
Re: Dungeon Master 2
We started a new project to analyze DM2 about a month ago. We are still in the beginning, exploring where we are, what we have and how to continue. The hardware-driver alone contains about 150 routines and the main program got around 120,000 lines of code.
Re: Dungeon Master 2
Building a dungeon on DM2 engine wouldn`t be a bad idea, but you`d have to enlarge the database (1024 actuators so far...). It`s not impossible, since Paul did this with CSBwin, but it`s still a serious technical problem in DM2 engine. You`d need to understand the code first, though (Bit is currently exploring it).
BTW. As far as I know, DM2ED was made by Kentaro. He also made ADGE (Atari DM/CSB graphics.dat editor) - a powerfull tool which you can edit graphics.dat file. Maybe ADGE could be ported so that it opens DM2 graphics.dat, too. Correct me if I`m wrong, but there`s not many differences between DM1 and DM2 graphics.dat file`s strucure (apart from they`re larger).
I agree that DM2 monsters are just ugly. Coparing to DM/CSB they`re not scary at all and ruins the whole climate. Minions are usefull and annoying. But you might import monsters from DM/CSB and other games (EOB etc. - there`s a monsters from DM-like games repository somewhere) to the file replacing these cartoony ones and modify their stats (that wouldn`t be too hard I guess). The DM2 monsters have also heavily expanded AI - that`s the main point to the first part. It might be fun to compare their AI to DM`s one.
If you want to take a look at AI of DM/CSB (currently well explored), here are the tables: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/1363
BTW. As far as I know, DM2ED was made by Kentaro. He also made ADGE (Atari DM/CSB graphics.dat editor) - a powerfull tool which you can edit graphics.dat file. Maybe ADGE could be ported so that it opens DM2 graphics.dat, too. Correct me if I`m wrong, but there`s not many differences between DM1 and DM2 graphics.dat file`s strucure (apart from they`re larger).
I agree that DM2 monsters are just ugly. Coparing to DM/CSB they`re not scary at all and ruins the whole climate. Minions are usefull and annoying. But you might import monsters from DM/CSB and other games (EOB etc. - there`s a monsters from DM-like games repository somewhere) to the file replacing these cartoony ones and modify their stats (that wouldn`t be too hard I guess). The DM2 monsters have also heavily expanded AI - that`s the main point to the first part. It might be fun to compare their AI to DM`s one.
If you want to take a look at AI of DM/CSB (currently well explored), here are the tables: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/1363
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Re: Dungeon Master 2
No, ADGE was made by Rain. Kentaro ported later a version of ADGE.
I correct you, DM2 graphics.dat is very different from the DM1 graphics.dat. DM2 structure is well more organized and even made easier custom graphics.
But you're still right the main problem is the limit of 1022 actuators. I can't really understand why the programers do not go over that limit. Stupid. This even limited the current dungeon for DM2 ....
I don't know how DM2 AI work. Maybe looking at SKWin might help understand them.
I correct you, DM2 graphics.dat is very different from the DM1 graphics.dat. DM2 structure is well more organized and even made easier custom graphics.
But you're still right the main problem is the limit of 1022 actuators. I can't really understand why the programers do not go over that limit. Stupid. This even limited the current dungeon for DM2 ....
I don't know how DM2 AI work. Maybe looking at SKWin might help understand them.
Re: Dungeon Master 2
oh, there actually is DM2 graphics.dat editor by Kentaro! My fault, sorry for a mess... :/ http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/721
edit: I just opened DM2 graphics.dat in DM2GED and there`s A LOT to investigate... and A LOT of features... Generally, an impreesive amount of stuff!
edit: I just opened DM2 graphics.dat in DM2GED and there`s A LOT to investigate... and A LOT of features... Generally, an impreesive amount of stuff!
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Paul Stevens
- CSBwin Guru
- Posts: 4322
- Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2001 6:00 pm
- Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Re: Dungeon Master 2
Try fitting Dungeon Master onto a single 1.4 MBytewhy the programers do not go over that limit. Stupid.
floppy and 512K bytes of memory (including the
CRT graphics buffer and (essentially) a 4 MHz processor.
Then you can say 'Stupid' with some authority.
Re: Dungeon Master 2
Paul, do not interpret wrongly my words. We are talking here about Dungeon Master 2, released 6 years after DM for its first version (Amiga version required an hard drive and PC version even had its release on CD). So I wonder why they did not change the engine to support more because I believe it was possible. Even with the current structure you know they are 3 unused databases (between miscs and missiles) : but they didn't take advantage of them. When I look at the DM2 dungeon.dat and see actuators at the limit against the global map, I am pretty sure they stopped themselves making it bigger and tried to fit the whole stuff with their actual engine. What would be our first reaction when building a dungeon and hitting the limit? The difference is that they had the engine in their hands.
Re: Dungeon Master 2
I thought DM/CSB were first released on Atari ST on 720 kB DD floppy and required buying additional 512 kB RAM (with standard Atari 0.5 Mb it gives 1 Meg in total)? Sorry if I`m wrong, but as far as I remember, the game was fully loaded to memory. The floppy disck was 100% full, so the game itself was ~720 k... Atari total memory was 1024 k... so there was ~300 k left.Try fitting Dungeon Master onto a single 1.4 MByte
floppy and 512K bytes of memory (including the
CRT graphics buffer and (essentially) a 4 MHz processor.
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Gambit37
- Should eat more pies
- Posts: 13766
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Re: Dungeon Master 2
From Doug Bell (who should know!): "It was shipped on a single 400K disk. Total uncompressed size was approximately 1,200,000 bytes."
Atari's had 512KB as standard. You're thinking of the Amiga needing an extra half meg to play DM (due to the OS requiring a larger memory overhead.)
Atari's had 512KB as standard. You're thinking of the Amiga needing an extra half meg to play DM (due to the OS requiring a larger memory overhead.)
Re: Dungeon Master 2
The pure running code (without memory for variables, graphics and sounds) of DM is not more than around 150 kb (this after inflating the program by the starter,prg, whereby that program, the intro and the compressed program datas had almost the same size). Then graphics.dat (272k) and dungeon.dat (33k).
Because of caching graphics and sound, it did fit into the old ST 520 with 512 Kb memory, which includes 32k memory for the screen. So, that all was shipped on a singlesided 720 kb-floppy. Graphics are lzw-compressed, so, if you would really unscramble and unpack all, it should be those 1.2 Mb.
Because of caching graphics and sound, it did fit into the old ST 520 with 512 Kb memory, which includes 32k memory for the screen. So, that all was shipped on a singlesided 720 kb-floppy. Graphics are lzw-compressed, so, if you would really unscramble and unpack all, it should be those 1.2 Mb.
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Paul Stevens
- CSBwin Guru
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Re: Dungeon Master 2
That is correct....I remember now that the
floppy was single-sided.
My Atari was 512KB and it ran Dungeon Master.
But the floppy drive started up when I moved
from one level to another, I believe. All-in-all
it was not too pleasant. Slow. And I needed to
swap floppies to save.
At any rate....DM2 probably had to use the original
engine to a large degree because it would have
cost a lot to rewrite the engine and get it tested
and such. So much of the engine depended on the
arrangement of bits in the databases (Because of
the necessity of fitting it into such a small, slow
machine). Rearranging the databases would have
required a lot of recoding of the rest of the engine.
And perhaps the people who knew how to modify
the engine were not available....I don't know.
My original CSB disks quit on me and I had to buy
another set. Then the machine itself quit and I
had to write CSBwin.
floppy was single-sided.
My Atari was 512KB and it ran Dungeon Master.
But the floppy drive started up when I moved
from one level to another, I believe. All-in-all
it was not too pleasant. Slow. And I needed to
swap floppies to save.
At any rate....DM2 probably had to use the original
engine to a large degree because it would have
cost a lot to rewrite the engine and get it tested
and such. So much of the engine depended on the
arrangement of bits in the databases (Because of
the necessity of fitting it into such a small, slow
machine). Rearranging the databases would have
required a lot of recoding of the rest of the engine.
And perhaps the people who knew how to modify
the engine were not available....I don't know.
My original CSB disks quit on me and I had to buy
another set. Then the machine itself quit and I
had to write CSBwin.
Re: Dungeon Master 2
Well, you're certainly right about the work it would have required to change all of this. It may not have been so easy to just transform one unused database into an actuator database. The fact is that I have the feeling DM2 suffered from the limits of its base engine. Maybe it was the price to get the game running on various systems. 'Stupid' was not a well chosen word anyway, sorry for that.At any rate....DM2 probably had to use the original engine to a large degree because it would have
cost a lot to rewrite the engine and get it tested and such. So much of the engine depended on the
arrangement of bits in the databases (Because of the necessity of fitting it into such a small, slow
machine). Rearranging the databases would have required a lot of recoding of the rest of the engine.
And perhaps the people who knew how to modify the engine were not available....I don't know.
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Sophia
- Concise and Honest
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Re: Dungeon Master 2
But for the greater memory the Amiga also got things that (to me) are essential to DM, like monster footstep sounds.Gambit37 wrote:Atari's had 512KB as standard. You're thinking of the Amiga needing an extra half meg to play DM (due to the OS requiring a larger memory overhead.)
Re: Dungeon Master 2
To confirm Paul's thoughts: one thing that slipped through my eyes when working with the DM2-code - they even use the same random number generating routine, There's a constant value in it that is pretty unique.
And I really hope that they use much of the old code, because this will make a lot easier. And we'll have a lot of things left to discuss why they changed the one thing and the other not. Finally it'll be interesting if they fixed the one or other known bug - maybe they even fixed things we did not spot so far,
The actuator's limit - maybe due to a 64k segment limit that has something to do with the interrupts which had to be written in real mode code - so 16bit only (so called 'locked' variables). We'll see (hopefully).
And I really hope that they use much of the old code, because this will make a lot easier. And we'll have a lot of things left to discuss why they changed the one thing and the other not. Finally it'll be interesting if they fixed the one or other known bug - maybe they even fixed things we did not spot so far,
The actuator's limit - maybe due to a 64k segment limit that has something to do with the interrupts which had to be written in real mode code - so 16bit only (so called 'locked' variables). We'll see (hopefully).