XWAU becomes XWAD!

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XWAU becomes XWAD!

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DTM
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Post by DTM » Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:47 pm

Important announcement: the XWAU Team has decided to join the "80s Videogame the best" project!!!
In the spirit of this initiative, the team will abandon the current way of managing upgrades for XWA. It will be challenging, but we will make it!

We are already working on the next official patch, which will radically transform X-Wing Alliance. Thanks to an elaborate graphics system created by JeremyFr and Blue Max, the improvements to the game will blow you away: 3D graphics will be converted to 2D. It will be possible to choose between two points of view: from behind in "After Burner" style or from above, in "Asteroids" style.
A new game mode will be inaugurated, called "Help Pac-Man": you can finally destroy the ghosts who have allied with the empire and save Princess Ms. Pac-Man. We will be able to run any modern graphics card in the only game resolution worth developing, which is 640 x 480. To put more emphasis on the project, which we strongly believe in, the site will be renamed to "X-Wing Alliance Downgrade" (XWAD). We hope you welcome this news with the same enthusiasm with which we embark on this extraordinary undertaking!

We await your comments (only the positive ones, we don't read the others :p )

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Haakan
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Post by Haakan » Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:55 pm

It took me 30 seconds to realize how glorious this will be! :P
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Post by Bernie » Thu Apr 01, 2021 2:49 pm

:D :D :D
Nice

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darklord
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Post by darklord » Thu Apr 01, 2021 3:05 pm

Finally someone else realizes this game is too new! XD

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Post by Michal » Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:11 pm

:-D
My current project X-Wing Game Series Twitter
My old project X-Wing Series Site, still online

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the_stag
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Post by the_stag » Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:21 pm

It is about time. I've been waiting to play XWA the way it was originally meant to be played since it was released. The Atari cabinet was the only true way any Star Wars space sim should have even been played. I for one look forward to this with open arms. Anyone who disagrees with the new direction of this project should find the door.
:D :D :D

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:13 pm

This was a bit of a technical challenge, but fortunately, DirectX still provides the D3D11_FILTER_TYPE_POINT filter type (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ilter_type) to magnify textures which creates that nice pixelated look. So the core of the trick here is to render everything to a small render target. Say 320x240 or 160x120, even, and then when stretching the render target to cover the whole screen, we just use D3D11_FILTER_TYPE_POINT to prevent any bilinear filtering. That's how we get those big nice pixels.

Of course, all shading had to be removed, but that's very easy to do (a couple of lines have to be removed in two shaders). External inertia also had to go (because it hadn't been invented yet back in the 80s). Fortunately, I added a setting to disable this feature since the beginning.

To top it off, since the main draw calls are now executed on a 160x120 render target, it's very easy to achieve a constant framerate of 200+ fps. I think this is a very reasonable tradeoff.

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DTM
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Post by DTM » Thu Apr 01, 2021 9:44 pm

LordCasco.jpg
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Mako
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Post by Mako » Thu Apr 01, 2021 9:54 pm

Can't wait! I always wanted that from behind the x-wing look to this game. I look forward to the many crash and burns I'll have.
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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:12 am

Just a little preview of XWAD:

8bit-1.jpg
8bit-2.jpg
8bit-3.jpg
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DTM
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Post by DTM » Fri Apr 02, 2021 1:26 pm

It was supposed to be April Fool's ... but it's becoming a spectacular idea !!!!

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Sat Apr 03, 2021 5:18 am

Yeah, I knew this was a joke, but you got me thinking how something like this could be done, DTM. BTW, we could also do a more 90s look, like the original X-Wing:

90s-1.jpg
90s-2.jpg

... and I just couldn't resist the chance to play a prank of my own ;)
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darklord
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Post by darklord » Sat Apr 03, 2021 12:48 pm

I havnt done in forever but i would turn off 3d accelleration in game and would loose all texture mapping XD

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