Rocks'n'Diamonds

At least on my computer, if you're doing tape playback that gives visual feedback, the game slows down to normal speed while soft scrolling. Now, I've lived with this for a while, and at first I thought my computer just couldn't take it that fast with soft scrolling, but then I remember I had upgraded my motherboard, so I checked my processer speed, it's at 1300 something. Now, is soft scrolling really that intensive, is my video card at fault, or is it something in the soft scrolling code that slows down the game?

First of all, upgrading your CPU normally does not give you faster graphics performance. ;-P

Then, a lot of "modern" graphics cards have great 3D performance, but only poor 2D performance (enough to move Windows around on the desktop with their content, but not much more).

Although there might indeed be other problems which I don't know, I think it's mainly the graphic card here...

What experience have others made?

Hmm... when I got a new computer, the whole game became much faster. And the scroll too.
Yeah... I have nothing in mind, that could now really help...

I think the soft scrolling in general slows down the game, but turning it off makes me feel natious (or however it's called).

Ah well.

Is there some way to use the warp forward function when you AREN'T quickloading? In case I want to use a pause before end because I didn't expect to die?

> Is there some way to use the warp forward function when you AREN'T quickloading?
> In case I want to use a pause before end because I didn't expect to die?

When having a tape loaded (which is, say, currently stopped), you can simply press the "play" button several times to activate (in a round-robin style) "play" -> "fast forward" -> "fast forward and pause before end". If you press "play", and then press the leftmost button (which
changes from "eject" when stopped to "warp forward" when playing"), you get the same effect as when quickloading. If you are in "fast forward" mode and press "warp forward", you get the same "warp forward" mode in a "visual" way (as fast as your system permits). The same is true
for "pause before end".

I know this sounds rather confusing (and I'm in fact always confused about that by myself!), but playing around a bit with the possible combinations should give you an impression what may happen... :-)

Ah, I see. I got the whole visual warp fast foward trick, but I didn't expect that clicking the button during normal speed would result in something FASTER than clicking it at a faster speed.

EDIT: Wait, though... the whole thing I wanted was a non-visual pause before end, so I could revive from an unexpected death faster.

> Ah, I see. I got the whole visual warp fast foward trick, but I didn't expect that clicking the
> button during normal speed would result in something FASTER than clicking it at a faster
> speed.

Yes... As I said, I admit that it's a bit confusing.

Any suggestions for a better (more logical) handling that does not require additional buttons are appreciated. :-)

> EDIT: Wait, though... the whole thing I wanted was a non-visual pause before end, so I could
> revive from an unexpected death faster.

It's possible; do the following:
- (tape is stopped)
- press "play" (tape goes to normal play mode)
- press "warp" (tape goes to non-visual warp forward mode)
- press "play" (tape goes to non-visual "fast forward" mode)
- press "play" (tape goes to non-visual "pause before end" mode)

Yes, I know, it's indeed confusing... :-o

The main problem is that I want to have the tape recorder to provide three main modes:

Normal and double speed playing modes:
- normal play
- "fast" play (double speed, visual)
- "fast" play with "pause before end" (double speed, visual)

Visual maximum speed modes (as fast as the computer/graphics can draw the replay)
- "fast" play (maximum speed, visual)
- "fast" play with "pause before end" (maximum speed, visual)

Non-visual maximum speed modes (as fast as possible, because no graphics are drawn)
- "fast" play (maximum speed, non-visual)
- "fast" play with "pause before end" (maximum speed, non-visual)

Now, the task is to map these functions in a logical way to the "play" and the "warp" buttons, pressing them in a certain order while replaying... :-/

Perhaps simply having the first click on "warp" to go to visual-max mode on whatever's playing, and then the second click going to non-visual-max?

> Perhaps simply having the first click on "warp" to go to visual-max mode on whatever's
> playing, and then the second click going to non-visual-max?

Hmmm, sounds very simple... Have I simply overseen that nearly trivial possibility? Seems so. :-o

That's the good thing of somebody else having a fresh look at a problem you have spent too much time staring at by yourself... :-)