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The DOS version had a CGA port, which runs extremely slow. Seems to be about 5-8 fps on a 4.77MHz machine, probably 8-12 fps on an 8MHz machine. The technical d
by wbhart 8y ago
The DOS version had a CGA port, which runs extremely slow. Seems to be about 5-8 fps on a 4.77MHz machine, probably 8-12 fps on an 8MHz machine. The technical document doesn't seem to say how the sprites were done on the Apple II (I could be wrong, but I don't think the Apple II had sprite hardware either). It looks to be about 12 fps on the Apple II and a whole lot more colourful. It's amazing how smooth that looks. But I wonder if they used a sprite compiler or not. There's not a huge number of sprites on the screen, so it could potentially have been very, very smooth.
- wbhart 8y agoLooking at the description of the C64 port, it looks like each frame of the character in the DOS and Apple II versions were just drawn over the scene and the pixels affected just redrawn when he moves (including blocks that obscure his view). So, no sprite compiler.
- rzzzt 8y agoWith the cheat mode enabled, you can see this in-game by pressing Shift + B. Static parts of the level go dark, only the animated characters and their surroundings are rendered.
- wenc 8y agoI played PoP on an IBM XT 8088 4.77 MHz with a monochrome monitor and it was ok. It was one of the faster modern games available at the time. The XT could run a surprising number of modern games in the late 80s e.g. Police Quest, Budokan, Monkey Island, etc.