The RISC OS classic 3D shoot em' up, Star Fighter 3000 has been updated to enable it to run on new ARMv7 powered machines. This lets gamers play it on the raft of new hardware platforms that RISC OS Open is pushing towards, such as the BeagleBoard, and it is hoped, the Pandora, Touch Book and other consumer friendly devices.
Star Fighter 3000 rates amongst the very best games ever produced for the RISC OS platform. It was originally created by Fednet and released in 1994. Since the turn of the millennium, Chris Bazley has maintained the game. Over the years he has done much to improve it. As well as releasing new versions to handle changes like RISC OS 4, 32-bit hardware and now the new compatibility with BeagleBoard class machines, he has worked on many improvements and fixes for the game itself.
One of the most significant changes has been to enable the game to run inside a desktop window. This is a very unusual feature amongst traditional RISC OS games, but it allows you to play a game while you keep an eye on your Parmesan chat window, as well as distracting you from any real work! The game's sound code has also been rewritten and now enables you to listen to MP3s in the background.
Star Fighter 3000 on Iyonix (left), and BeagleBoard (right)
This picture shows four copies of Star Fighter 3000 running simultaneously on both the Iyonix and the BeagleBoard. The Iyonix struggles to run the games at half the game's full frame rate, while the BeagleBoard, almost manages to run them all at the full 25fps.
Further changes have increased the redraw distance (reducing pop-up), overhauled the configuration system and fixed lots of bugs, amongst billions of other changes. For your astonishment, the full, vast, change log is linked to below. Other work by Chris has produced an array of utilities for editing the game's data files and from time to time he even finds time to work on creating a full desktop map and mission editor!
Upgrades are a free download for anyone who has ever purchased a commercial copy of the game, and are available from the official Star Fighter 3000 site, linked to below.
Links
- Star Fighter 3000 - Official site
- RISC OS Open - Official site
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