This is the reason why we cannot have games in screen 8.
Updating the whole screen would cost about 19 frames.
At 60Hz this is about 3 frames per sec...!!
Moreover without double buffering the final effect is not only
slow but also sucks.
Even using double buffering, (this implies you use the VRAM
under the borders for storing tiles) the frame rate would be
3 frames/sec....

If you use MSX2+ HW scroll you do not really need to refresh all the screen but only the portion on the side that need refreshing after scrolling. Not sure I remember GNG so well but the scrolling wasn't even really fast and mostly going in one direction right ?

Well, with HW scroll all you need is to plot the part of the screen that is under the border.
But you need msx2+ or more, so this holds only in a 0,5% of the users....

In plain MSX 2, screen 8 could be probably used only in some vertical scrolling shooter or in
some very static game (puzzles, adventures, games without a scrolling,...)

Don't forget that sprites are difficult in sc8 because of the static palette.

But you don't need a 2+, you a machine with a v9958. Which is much more common.

Good examples of sc8 games are Breaker (vertical scrolling) and that MSX2 Livingstone game, which is an adventure with static screens.

And all those text-based adventure games with scanned pictures in screen 8 published by Telarium/Idealogic (PERRY MASON, WIZARD OF OZ, FAHRENHEIT nnn, etc [please excuse any typos]).

Hey Dungeons & Dragons is made on Screen 8! "Show do Milhão" too!

So games on scr8 *are* possible, but must have a lot of static stuff

There's another game I want to make on scr8, but that is a project for a veeeeeeery distant future hehehe
(and it's an action game hehehe)

One thing that can help more scr8 games is upgrading MSX2/2+/tR VRAM to 192kb... even if you cant set the extra 64k as a visible page, you can still store graphics, and copy To/From there...

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how many 8x8 blocks can be copied in screen 8 by the vdp in Vblank ?

As Edwin says, very few of them. Right now I'm wasting a full frame to show nearly 4 16x16 sprites (only 3 fit the frame), every sprite is displayed with 2 HMMM and 1 LMMM.

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Updating the whole screen would cost about 19 frames. At 60Hz this is about 3 frames per sec...!! Moreover without double buffering the final effect is not only slow but also sucks. Even using double buffering, (this implies you use the VRAM under the borders for storing tiles) the frame rate would be 3 frames/sec.... ... But you need msx2+ or more, so this holds only in a 0,5% of the users..

~ 6 frames/sec with Z80 @ 7MHz
> 10 frames/sec with R800

@with a V9990??


and all others users will use a blueMSX!!

@KdL: Unfortunately The RAM->VRAM transfer isn't limited by the Z80 speed. In fact, the R800 is slower than a 3.5MHz Z80 when transferring data to VRAM.

Is the V9990 a possible solution? (512KB VRAM = SCREEN 8 with 8 Pages)

in that case the solution applies at the 0.0001% of the MSX users

but.. MKID's demo is a great example of a platform game with VRAM at 64KB for page
and SCREEN10/11 is totally equal to SCREEN8 on this !!

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@KdL: Nice screen shots looks exactly like the arcade version. It would be nice to see some new MSX2+/TR games that uses the HW scrolling. I think a TR port could come very close to the original.

@dvik: I agree!

A screen 5 version could be feasible with smooth scrolling with artrag TOTAL PARODY engine, i've also tested that could work. however i' ve no time to begin a similar project....

or VSCREEN engine, using sc.4...