Tetris Pro started as a simple Tetris clone in MCGA on a 386SX-16. It read a simple decompressed picture and had no background, no sound, no nothing really and was _VERY_ buggy. It was written in GFA and was quite fast. Then I got in SVGA support (directly to ET4000 and compatibles) and the backgrounds. Backgrounds were uncompressed and the program was quite (read: very, horribly, unacceptably) slow… Then I moved the pictures to the PCX format, making the program even slower and almost increased the size. Removed a lot of bugs though.
Time warp: Couple of months later I started looking into C++, so I thought, what the heck, it looks nice, why not program in it? So, it took me a week or so to fully convert Tetris Pro which than ran with a very vanilla interpretation of VESA. By moving to C++ I speeded up the code quite a lot. Removed a lot of bugs too. Still slow, so I learnt Assembler and sped up thing a lot more (thanks to Kees). I immensly sped up my VESA routines and screen updates, moved the files to the GIF format and added four levels making ten. I made the datadisk structure, moved the compression to a slightly altered ARJ file and made my VESA routines even more neat. Then it was time to move decompression into inline assembler, still slow, but a good preparation for the real stuff. When I finally got all the decompression stuff into inline assembler I was to face the biggest challenge of programmin: Moving it to Outline assembler. So, I did (in a month or two) and finally, I got this ARJ decompression thing working on one single segment. Still slow, because I just made it to work, not to be fast. So I went optimizing, and THAT was fun, I made the code nearly 5x as fast as the original. The quick 386+ LEA’s really helped me out! So, I approached Planhold BV for spon- soring. They didn’t react at first, but my persistence finally made them call me. And it seemed my Tetris didn’t even work there. The pro- blem was the granularity of a SpeedSTAR 24X, Pro, Stealth etc. This problem was also comen on ATI cards. So, I changed my VESA routines to work with different granularities too. No sound until this point, so I called in Carlo’s help to get me some really good music, and it worked! Now, most of the popular cards are supported, ever seen a PD game do this before? Note: The Gravis UltraSound is a special case. It’s consumation of system time is below a percent at ANY rate (it ALWAYS plays at 44 KHz, stereo, 16 bit). However, it is adviced that you upgrade your card to at least 512 Kb. All the other cards mix at approximately 6% at 22KHz and 11% or 10% at 44 KHz. DAC’s and PC-Honkers are slower, dunno the speed, depends on your computer’s components. This is all benchmarked at my 386 DX-40. I’ve got some ideas to make it even faster. You might see the GLX module player as a stand-alone program in the near future. It’s going to be the fastest player ever. The Renaissance claim to be faster, that’d be nice, some competition! No, really, GLX can be made faster, I’ve got some ideas to make it even faster. However, the Renaissance’s code only works at 22KHz. I think that’s a shame, sound starts getting good at 36KHz and finally sound very good when it reaches 44Khz. Bytheway, the GLX code I use in Tetris Pro will be different from the stand-alone player. The stand-alone player will have far better detection of cards and handling. When a card isn’t found I just play it anyway, why? Well, some emulated modes (by other downwards compatible cards) fail detection, but DO work, so choose the right card. Because Planhold wasn’t really very optimistic for sponsoring me, I contacted VOBIS A’dam II. They were quite enthusiastic from the beginning and friendly too, so I decided to let VOBIS sponsor me instead of Planhold BV.
Another thing that really makes Tetris Pro enjoyable for me is how it manages to stay interesting even after playing it multiple times. Many games feel repetitive after a while, but here, the experience still feels fresh because of the small details and different ways you can approach the gameplay. As you continue playing, you naturally start improving and understanding the mechanics better, which makes everything feel more rewarding. I also appreciate the balance the game maintains—it’s not too difficult, but it’s not too easy either. You can play it casually for a short break or spend longer sessions without getting bored. That flexibility is one of the biggest reasons why I keep coming back to Tetris Pro. Overall, it’s the kind of game that doesn’t just entertain you for a moment, but actually gives you a consistently enjoyable experience every time you play.
