Why was Manic Miner never properly optimised?

[jetsetdanny]

On 4/26/2024 at 10:59 PM, DigitalDuck said:

Making something run more efficiently doesn't have to mean speeding it up - it can be used to make the game run at a smooth speed (syncing to display refresh and counting frames) instead of speeding up when there are less enemies and slowing down when there are more, or add other more complex elements to the game.

That makes perfect sense. I think people who have tweaked the code usually did it to make the game run *faster*, though - or at least that's what they usually referred to or seemed to be aiming at. Hence my observation (paired with the often-heard complaints or comments about the difficulty level of various games).

[Spider]

Would it help to know that usually I have ZXSpin set at either 105% or 115-120% ? As its (better) at slight speed increases compared to Specatulator.

With the increase in speed here I felt it was fine at 100% 🙂 I honestly don't think its too fast***

 

*** Running it without contention (rewrite needed) and it was a bit "fun" 😮 🙂 

[Spider]

Small update to my post with file, detailed in the description. I've not uploaded the txt notes on how as I'm not happy with the way I've written (and re-written) them yet.

[Spider]

On 4/26/2024 at 9:24 PM, jetsetdanny said:

One thing that has always puzzled me is why some people are so excited about speeding MM and JSW up (there have been various attempts to do it, some admittedly very successful)

I think the 'standard' MM and JSW run a bit too slow (honest thought) as with emulation I used to run them a bit faster. I do agree the third party edited ones are a lot harder and take into account (perhaps subconsciously) the erm "pace" ?

I've seen myself with my own attempt at it, how fast MM and JSW can run with just a simple modification to the main loop , aka no actual detailed optimisation of the code in itself and also the next gain -if- the 'game buffer' was moved out of contended memory (easy with some emulators)

I suppose when new on a real Speccy "back then" they seemed fast enough but these days we are spoiled a bit I suppose. 😕 I'm not sure. 🙂 

[MtM]

Very nice that Andy version 2, just playing it now thank you.

 

Would this version be editable with JSWED etc if you were going to use it as a base for a mod?

Edited Sunday at 09:18 PM by MtM

[Spider]

15 hours ago, MtM said:

editable

Yes 🙂 That was partly the idea too. But I want to leave certain places in the code empty (3 bytes) where someone can easily CALL their own routine upon certain conditions in the game.