JP3371000B2 - VRAM data storage method - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data reading method for a computer game device using an external storage device such as a CDROM or a laser disk.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a computer game device using a CDROM or the like, digital data such as graphic data is loaded from the CDROM into the VRAM of the computer when the screen is changed.

For example, in a general computer game device, due to memory restrictions, the background attribute table (BAT) is cleared, the sprite attribute table (SAT) is cleared, the background font (CG) is transferred, and the sprite font (S).
Since G) is transferred by a separate program,
The physical loading was divided into several times.

[0004]

According to the conventional method, since the data is finely divided and stored in the CDROM or the like, the data on the disc is accessed and the disc device is read many times each time. It took a long time to load it into memory.

The present invention intends to shorten the loading time by reducing the number of times of physical loading.

[0006]

The VRAM of the system which is an example of the computer game apparatus used in the present invention is shown in FIG.
It is structured like. BAT and CG are tables having information necessary to display the background, and SAT and SG are tables having information necessary to display the foreground.

This table contains more information than can be displayed on the screen. Therefore, if the screen is scrolled, the information portion of the VRAM that is currently off the screen is newly displayed on the screen. FIG. 2 conceptually shows this situation.

Smooth scrolling can be performed vertically and horizontally, and when scrolling, the VRAM moves in the designated direction and the background appears to change. However, FIG. 2 is a conceptual illustration, and the system actually displays images by table management. The data group in this VRAM constitutes one stage of the game.

When this one stage is completed, the process moves to the next stage. At that time, each table of the VRAM is rewritten.

Conventionally, after clearing the BAT and SAT tables, the CG including the background pattern and the SG including the foreground pattern are loaded. Due to memory limitations, these processes were performed by individual programs.

As described above, since processing such as loading data from the CDROM to the VRAM and clearing the table is individually performed, it takes a long processing time. The result was to give the user the impression that it was slow.

Therefore, in the present invention, in order to reduce the number of time-consuming data readings, the data registration to the CDROM is performed in a format adapted to the VRAM table.

That is, the data constituting one stage is collected in units of one block and registered in advance.
By doing this, the information necessary for one stage of the VRAM is divided into blocks and collected in advance,
Data can be read with one physical load.

Moreover, if BAT, SAT, CG, and SG are directly overwritten with the data on the VRAM, the VR is left as it is.
It can be used as AM data. Therefore, BAT, S
There is no need to clear the AT, and CG and SG are not separately read by individual programs.

Therefore, only one program in which the data reading process and the data writing process to the VRAM for each data type are described simultaneously is sufficient. In addition, the number of physical loads that take time is only one, so CDROM
Data reading time from will also be shortened.

[0016]

[Example] Let's consider a game in which you drive a mountain road by car and cross the sea on a yacht when you get out to sea. Mountains, roads, seas, and clouds are displayed in the background as one picture by the character.
Cars and yachts are in the foreground and are represented by sprites.

The former is based on BAT and CG, and the latter is based on SA.
It is managed by T and SG, respectively. The player can operate the sprite with a keyboard.
On the screen, these pictures on the VRAM are displayed as meaningful pictures (FIG. 4).

If you go through the mountain path without causing an accident, you will be able to get to the sea, but at this time the picture of the mountain will change to a picture of the sea. In FIG. 4, the screen of stage 1 is switched to the screen of stage 2.

The contents of the VRAM must be rewritten as the screen is switched. That is, the data for the stage 2 is read from the CDROM on the program. During this time, the screen disappears temporarily. The player feels that this period is very long. Even just 3 or 4 seconds. Therefore, the main purpose of the present invention is to shorten this time even by one second.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of the processing performed at this time. Each time the record is read, each table data on the VRAM is rewritten according to the record type. In FIG. 5, it seems that the CDROM is accessed many times, but in reality, one read command causes the I / O on the memory to be accessed.
Read to O buffer. This is because the data for one stage is collected in one physical block.

Therefore, the record reading in FIG.
Records are read from the / O buffer. Of course, the size of the I / O buffer needs to be secured in advance in the memory with a size larger than that of the block.

[0022]

According to the present invention, data is designed and stored in a CDROM or the like in the same format as the contents of VRAM,
Moreover, the physical loading to the memory can be performed only once since the data is collectively managed in one block.

For this reason, it is possible to reduce the number of time-consuming accesses to the CD. Since it is a CDROM, it does not require access time, but data exchange with the I / O device itself is a time-consuming process compared to data exchange in the memory.

As a result, it becomes possible to speed up the rewriting of the VRAM and shorten the processing time. Further, since the data to be read is registered in the same format as the VRAM, there is no processing for clearing the table, which leads to simplification of the program.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a VRAM of a computer game device.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a relationship between VRAM and a screen display of a computer game device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a data storage state in an external storage device according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a screen display in a computer game.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a case where the blocked data of the present invention is used,
It is a flowchart of a digital data load process.

FIG. 6 is a diagram conceptually showing a data flow between a CDROM, an I / O buffer, and a VRAM in the present invention.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-63-187467 (JP, A) JP-A-5-35847 (JP, A) Actual Kai-hei 3-100892 (JP, U) (58) Field (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06T 1/00 G09G 5/00 A63F 13/00

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A background attribute table (BAT) and a background font (CG), which are tables having information necessary for displaying a background,
A screen display that constitutes one stage of the game is performed by the data group in the VRAM that is composed of a sprite attribute table (SAT) and a sprite font (SG), which are tables having information necessary for displaying the foreground. In a method of storing data in an external storage device of a computer game device, a computer for reading data so that data registration of the data group in the VRAM in the external storage device can be directly written in the VRAM by one physical load. A method of storing VRAM data in an external storage device of a computer game device, which is performed in a format that matches the VRAM table of the game device. 2. The external storage device is a CDROM,
2. The VRAM data storage method according to claim 1, wherein the data that constitutes one stage is grouped in units of one physical block.