Talk:Dangerous Dave Tileset Format

Can anyone confirm the order of the graphic planes in this file? The article says IBGR but my code is reading them as IRGB. Is my code wrong or is the article wrong?? -- Malvineous 10:08, 22 December 2010 (GMT)

I'm pretty sure my code is correct, so I have updated the article to say IRGB and removed the comment about it being the opposite order to usual. -- Malvineous 02:04, 23 December 2010 (GMT)

As someone who also has code to extract EGA graphics I can confirm IRGB. Possibly the comment was because of games using RGBI order? (It would not quite be correct, but there you go.)

Also how familiar are you with CGA data? It's similar to EGA and I assume you can get the uncompressed CGA from the executable and your only problem is the RLE compression? VGA is indeed 8bpp standard VGA. I can work on this more after christmas, but it seems you'll have done everything by then.

Also, why is my name something about endian?-Endian? What are you on about? 04:19, 23 December 2010 (GMT)

Ah right, having the 'I' plane at the other end would explain that comment. I haven't yet looked at CGA data so I don't know whether it's planar like EGA or not. I suspect so, as the reason behind planar data in the first place was so the hardware could read from different memory chips in parallel as a single chip wasn't fast enough to deliver the data. Since CGA was even earlier I guess it has the same problem. You are correct though, the only thing standing in the way of CGA (and VGA) is the RLE compression. If you have time after Christmas, check the article page and it'll be pretty clear whether I've figured it out or not :-) So far I'm able to export game maps as .png files, but using EGA graphics only.

Also I've often wondered why your name is something about endian, I thought you changed your signature in your preference page on purpose... -- Malvineous 05:30, 23 December 2010 (GMT)

Ok, well I finally learned how to use the DOSBox debugger so I could tweak the graphics file and see how my changes were decompressed. I've now documented the algorithm, so the CGA and VGA graphics can be edited. -- Malvineous 07:33, 23 December 2010 (GMT)