Galactic Dan (1992) - Acorn Archimedes (ARM3 35Mhz) - Cache enabled vs. disabled performance test
2REAL HARDWARE CAPTURE. Here is a demonstration of how the game Galactic Dan (by Ian Holmes) runs on an ARM3 processor with cache both enabled (rabbit icon) and disabled (turtle icon). Disabling the cache makes the ARM3 run roughly at the same speed as an ARM2 8Mhz CPU, but not exactly the same. Still, it runs well enough that ARM2 optimized demos and games with smooth scrolling in them still run smoothly.
ABOUT 'GALACTIC DAN':
Like Ixion, this game is pretty forward-thinking in its design and game mechanics relative to other first-person shooter (FPS) games of this time; it combines shooting with platforming (with elevation in 3D space before Doom made it popular) and light puzzle solving and hostage rescue in one game.
The objective in each level/mission is to collect a number of hostages (the cyan snowman-looking figures) specified in the briefing and HUD by walking into them and then escape through the exit door before the timer reaches zero. If an enemy or the player shoots the hostage they will die, resulting in lost points and a harder game as you now lose one hostage that could have been rescued. There are two other weapons (aside from your standard blaster with infinite ammo) that can be collect throughout some missions to aid you in defeating hostiles, which come in various forms and varying mobility.
In the graphical department, it also features the use of pre-rendered CGI sprites (before Donkey Kong Country made it popular) and a really long draw-distance to add to the sense of scale the environment has.
The footage has been captured from the analog RGB output of the Archimedes, digitized and scaled using the OSSC (Open Source Scan Converter) and captured using a Datapath VisionRGB-E1s PCI-Express capture card. The capture was then resized (upscaled) further to 2700x2160 pixels in VirtualDub2. Final compression was performed using HandBrake.
Specifications on the Acorn Archimedes computer:
- original Archimedes 440/1 motherboard (manufactured around mid-1989)
- ARM3 35Mhz processor (manufactured week 51 1989) on an upgrade board
- 4MBs of RAM
- The sound output has not been modified to remove the low-pass filter
0:00 - Cache Enabled
2:05 - Cache Disabled ("ARM2 Mode")
#acornarchimedes #riscos #arm3 #ossc #visionrgb