On Mon, 21 Jun 1999, Amos Bannister wrote:
> A 256*256 grid fully populated would need 65536 cells to be encoded
> true, but mapping that much area is going to be very time-consuming, and
> not worth the effort.
This is how the Ultima IV map is encoded in the PC version. Each map
square requires one byte in the map file. The entire 256x256 map is
broken down into "pages" of 32x32 and these pages are stored in the map
file in sequential order, starting at the NW corner of the map, proceeding
in lines from W to E, from N to S.
There are more than 16 different types of map squares on the surface map
of Ultima IV so the designers couldn't use one nibble per map square, but
if you did have a less complex map that used 16 or fewer different tiles
then you could reduce the encoded space by half by using nibbles instead
of bytes for a total of 32K. That still seems a little too large for the
2600. Maybe some form of super compact bit packing scheme could get it
down to 16K, or you could reduce the size of the map. Anyone who's played
Ultima IV knows that the Britannia map really is quite expansive in play,
even though 256x256 doesn't sound that large.
Paul Hart
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