MagicEngine

tg_drifter · Regular Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

...One more super rare game for all you crazy collectors interested to look out for! The Special hucard version of Dracula X!
I heard that there are less than 10 copies in existense, so the price on this one would be INSANE! Hmm... maybe if I win the lottery!!!

jammaniaclord · Posted: Wed May 05, 2004 10:30 pm Post subject:

If this WAS credible,i think we might have heard this a long time ago-lthough it isn't impossible.If there are any sites with info,please post them here.Thanks.
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tg_drifter · Regular Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

The hucard version is mentioned in these pages:

http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/maxlords/reviews/deden.html
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28355&start=0

This version was apparently printed in limited numbers for promotional purposes like many other PCE games...
As you can see there are still doubts of its existence, so it's sort of a myth now.
If I do find more info, I'll gladly post it here!

retroborg · Visitor Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 6

Technically I don't think a HuCard Dracula X would be possible, since the PC-E console only had 8K RAM, where as the CD-ROM2 Add-On had 32K of RAM.

Rockman · Regular Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 155

Some hucards have do have ram on them. The system cards, arcade cards, and Street Fighter II CE all have extra ram.

They managed to get Bonk 3 on both a Hucard and Super CD.

The CD-ROM add-on only has 2k of battery-backed ram the system 2.0 card had the volitile ram on it. I think it may have had extra ADPCM ram on it too, but I'm not sure.

tg_drifter · Regular Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

The fact that there's only 8K RAM (for most hucards) doesn't mean squat. There have been some very impressive games made using only this tiny amount of memory for data transfer. For example, many awesome shoot'em ups such as Air Zonk (the hucard version was graphically way more impressive than the CD sequel) and Coryoon which tossed an unbelievable number of sprites on the screen along with great animation and parallax scrolling...
And does anyone remember how awesome Samurai Ghost was? I believe many of you will agree that it was technically at least as good as Dracula-X in many aspects.
I believe Dracula-X could have easily been done using the standard 8K RAM - cartridge games don't need the amount of RAM that CD games require because game data could be loaded in a jippy at any given moment. For CD games it is necessary to have more RAM to fill with data because loading all the time from a CD using 8K each time would be really painful...

Specineff · Elder Joined: 29 Aug 2002 Posts: 258 Location: Arizona

But look at the CDRom2 system games and compare them to Super CD games. If they look so great it's because of the revised OS, and the added ram. Only Spriggan looks like a SCD game being a regular CDRom2 disc, but that's because Compile are teh Godz of coding.

I don't think the effects, graphics and huge branching levels, with the special effects and in general, the whole Drac X minus CD music would fit in a Hucard. It just doesn't seem feasible.
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tg_drifter · Regular Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

Spriggan is not the only game that looks lika a SCD game. Shubibinman 3, Rayxamber 2, the Valis series... Not to mention the "hybrid" CD/SCDs as well - like Macross 2036 and Terraforming...
Extra memory does of course help but if coders come up with good compression algorithms, they could fit a LOT of stuff into very little memory and decompress the data as the game is on the roll. For example, Beyond Shadowgate - the amount of data they placed is unbelievable, just about every single object on the screen is unique (there are no tiles) and does not repeat (for example you will find that no two trees are alike) which of course means that a lot of memory is needed to hold everything.
However, the programmers of Icom somehow compressed everything into the 256K of the Duo along with many frames of animation for the sprites, and in the end they made a game that looks much better than most Arcade Card games which use 2.25MB of memory (2MB of the ACD + 256K of the Duo)...
Anyway, as for Dracula X, I think that if they cut the cinemas, it could fit on a 20Mbit hucard with very little loss. Keep in mind that the special effects (scaling, rotation, warping etc) are done real-time and don't require a lot of storage space for the relevant code and that most of the graphics in the game are made of tiles (objects repeating many times to create a bigger picture)...

tg_drifter · Regular Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

Spriggan is not the only game that looks lika a SCD game. Shubibinman 3, Rayxamber 2, the Valis series... Not to mention the "hybrid" CD/SCDs as well - like Macross 2036 and Terraforming...
Extra memory does of course help but if coders come up with good compression algorithms, they could fit a LOT of stuff into very little memory and decompress the data as the game is on the roll. For example, Beyond Shadowgate - the amount of data they placed is unbelievable, just about every single object on the screen is unique (there are no tiles) and does not repeat (for example you will find that no two trees are alike) which of course means that a lot of memory is needed to hold everything.
However, the programmers of Icom somehow compressed everything into the 256K of the Duo along with many frames of animation for the sprites, and in the end they made a game that looks much better than most Arcade Card games which use 2.25MB of memory (2MB of the ACD + 256K of the Duo)...
Anyway, as for Dracula X, I think that if they cut the cinemas, it could fit on a 20Mbit hucard with very little loss. Keep in mind that the special effects (scaling, rotation, warping etc) are done real-time and don't require a lot of storage space for the relevant code and that most of the graphics in the game are made of tiles (objects repeating many times to create a bigger picture)...

Black_Tiger · Member Joined: 25 Aug 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Canada

Wow man.

I can't beleive that after slapping together a fake eBay auction spoofing all the crooked "super-ultra-mega-rare" sellers...

-that people not only (ever)believed it to be real, but are still talking about it today.

I think that Max joined the club after that post, came across it when it was old news and didn't really look into it, assuming it was the real deal.

That was before I really learned how to use Photoshop, but it turned out pretty good none the less.

I just found most of the pics on an old CD, but only have shrunken screenshots of Simon Belmont-

http://members.shaw.ca/satan666.net/dxhu1.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/satan666.net/dxhu2.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/satan666.net/dxhu2.gif

http://members.shaw.ca/satan666.net/dxhu3.gif

I censored the HuCard pics just in case anyone would try to use them to 'sell' a copy to an unsuspecting collector.

There are a few crooks online who like to prey on Turbo/PCE fans.

Jabberwok · Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 3:52 am Post subject:

Hehehe, what I like most is pic #4, the NES 8bit Castlevania II simon's quest on top of the DraculaX background...

Oh, and pic #1 "almost" look real...
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tg_drifter · Regular Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

Talk about fraud!! The first pic could pass for real, but the others, man oh man....... :^o

P.S. It's true, there are many crooks on e-bay. Take for example, Beckam's ball from his missed penalty shot at Euro 2004 - even though it was already sold, you would still see a dozen of sellers on e-bay selling it afterwards... Mad

Be careful people, and always check out the sellers' feedback...

Rockman · Regular Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 155

This what I came up with after staring at Black_Tiger's pic 1 for an unreasonable amount of time:

Pic 1 is very convincing at first glance, but there's not enough room on that cartridge for the entire Dracula X game.

The roms chips are surface mounted to the bottom of black area by the connector. The black area in pic 1 is the same as on Keith Courage and Crater Maze, which are both 256 killobytes in size. Bonk III has a larger black area and is 1 megabyte in size.

If Dracula X requires extra RAM then the black area would have to be even larger. The black area on an Arcade Card DUO covers nearly the entire card and Street Fighter II (2.5 megabytes) has a bulge to accomodate the extra chips.

In short, there just isn't enough room on the card in Pic 1 to have Dracula X on it so it.

tg_drifter · Regular Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

Rockman wrote:

Ozzy_98 · Member Joined: 27 Apr 2002 Posts: 61 Location: Ohio, USA

HAHA

If anyone was in the old TG-16\PCE group on yahoo they should remember thoese pics, and satan666.

And yes, it is fake
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