re: scrolling isometric rooms.
I took a dig into Spindizzy Worlds (Amiga). Not sure if its 25 or 50fps, but it runs OK (despite using a softscroll 😎)
The scroll fillup approach is very different, but in terms of overdraw I think it's pretty much the same as mine.
In any case, for any given 16px slice, you're going to need to look at at least ~3 screen widths worth of blocks just because of how they line up in 2D.
So I guess it just is what it is 🤷🏻♂️
My blocks are worse because they have variable z-height and don't line up nicely on 16px vertical boundaries in 2D.
So I end up having to look at 4 or 5 screen width worth of blocks, which is what I'm seeing from the test stats.
Sigh.
Anyway. I know the shape of my problem now, so I can settle myself and just get on with it :) But not tonight.
Spindizzy I think is using the same "baked mask" approach I am, except breaking the 32x32 bobs into 16x8 mask chunks. A quick test shows this could save a significant amount of memory due to more identical masks - it's a 512Kb game so I can see why that was done.
I might go for 16x16s myself. Might offer some drawing optimisations too.
TBH, if I've hit on the same solution as Paul Shirley (RIP), then I'm fairly sure I'm on the right track 😎
@mo I did enjoy it on CPC but never managed to finish it.
It never made it to Amiga, and I didn't really like Spindizzy Worlds. Maybe I'll do a port :D