<font color="#bbddFF">Yet another voxelscape! Peter Teichmann's one is rather good, though. 24 bit colour, and the detail is really high - the landscape fades out to a horizon a very long distance away.<br>
Comanche's maximum resolution is only 320x256, so one would expect it's quick - but the sheer complexity of the graphics here slow it to less than 10fps on a StrongArm machine! Lower resolutions run pretty smoothly though.<br>
Comanche requires landscape data to work - Peter Teichmann suggests <A HREF="http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~teich-p/download/cdata.zip">this one.</A><br>
Nice - but I have the nagging feeling that any game based around this would require a RiscPCII...
<font color="#bbddFF">It's here at last, after spending literally ages annoyingly sitting on every screenshot Paul Wheatley puts in his page in Acorn User magazine, we've actually found out what it is!<br>
Delirium is a screensaver, and a pretty good example of the genre: it actually includes some decent effects! Wow, rarity! :-)<br>
The authors have very usefully written a plug-in protocol for Delirium, so it's possible for anyone to add an extra effect to the screensaver. The ones supplied are pretty good though - more than one taken from the demo, <A HREF="reviews.html#icon">Icon</A>.<br>
For downloads, screenshots and the latest on this, see the <A HREF="http://www.various-artists.demon.co.uk/delirium/" target="_top">Delirium web site</A>.<br>
<font color="#bbddFF">This is Jan Vlietinck's proof that Quake can run at high resolution, high speed, on an Acorn machine.<br>
FQuake simply plots some Quake scenery - level 2 of ID's original shareware episode, to be precise. It does so as fast as possible. FQuake runs in 640x480 resolution, and averages over 18 frames/second on my 240MHz StrongArm RiscPC. This doesn't sound like very much nowadays, with the stunning speeds GL-Quake can achieve on PC's with 3Dfx cards, but FQuake is over a year old and plots graphics far faster than ArcQuake can achieve even in 320x256 resolution.<br>
There was a rumour that this was to be developed into a full game, but unfortunately this seems to have fallen through - it's a shame, but we've still got the demo.
<td><font color="#ddbb00" size="+2"><b>Iron Dignity - the demo</b></font><br>
<font color="#bbddFF">Iron Dignity is a game in development - but I'm talking about the preview demo here, the one that came third at the Siliconvention '97 demo party.<br>
The preview can run in any resolution, any number of colours, but going below 24bit colour is not recommended - it looks a mess! This demo includes a prototype landscape plotter, some 3D objects, and visual effects. (Oh, and a pretty good soundtrack as well). I'm told that this demo is rather un-optimal but it runs quite fast in 480x352 resolution, particularly if the AutoVCache module is loaded. If the final game is anything as good as this, it'll be a real hit!<br>
One point though: it really does require 2Mb of VRAM to run properly... And remember to set triple-buffering on instead of the default double-buffering, there is a noticeable speed improvement.
<font color="#bbddFF"><i>Now downloadable from Argo FTP!</i><br>
This was originally distributed on a Clan disc before being included on the StrongArm CD-Rom. (The link is to the downloadable Clan disc). It doesn't seem to be very well known, which I've always found rather surprising.<br>
Landscape is similar to Comanche - it's a high detail landscape plotter, running in 24bit colour and fairly low resolution. However, this one is texture mapped - making it much more spectacular - and the landscape data isn't fetched from a file, but is calculated mathematically: this is a fractal landscape. Not only is the area to explore huge - and I mean <I>huge</I> - but it is both faster and more graphically impressive than Comanche.<br>
It does look more than a little odd though, because the inaccuracy of the fractal algorithm means the landscape is always wobbling up and down a bit, like jelly... but this doesn't spoil the effect. Wow. Have a look at the screenshot and you'll be convinced!<br>
