ATTE

From DoomWiki.org

The opening level of ATTE.

ATTE, also known as Atte, is a fan made game by Aleksander Trojanowski, that heavily features assets from Doom with original level design and a custom engine, based on QuickBASIC.

History[edit]

ATTE significantly expanded upon the author's previous title, IDKFA (video game), in terms of graphical quality and general polish. Similarly to other games from the author, various assets from Doom are ripped and used, such as enemies, sprites, weapons and textures. ATTE provided the corner stone for the later entries in the series by introducing several new features that would also be used in its successors, ATTE2 and ATTE3. ATTE was released in August 2001.

Engine[edit]

The ATTE engine improved dramatically upon the previous IDKFA engine by now supporting orthogonal walls with different height, floor and ceiling, refining existing features and adding support for texture mapping and dynamic textures. Like the other engines by the author, the ATTE engine is a true 3D polygonal engine. It makes use of several libraries in assembly language, namely DirectQB and Dash, which are used as modules in QuickBASIC to provide a 320x200 VGA screen with 256 colors. They are also used to help speed up rendering as well as providing sound functionality.

Improvements over the previous IDKFA engine include:

  • Orthogonal walls with different height, floor and ceiling
  • Texture mapping
  • Dynamic textures
  • Scrolling skies
  • Light sourcing
  • Non–interactive and interactive sprites handling
  • MIDI and WAV handling

Limitations[edit]

Because of its underlying QuickBASIC codebase and inclusion of several routines in assembly, the game carries a significant performance deficit requiring a rather fast computer to function properly in DOS, far beyond what usual titles on this platform require. The following requirements are taken from the ATTE readme:

470KB Conventional Memory
1.5MB EMS Memory
3.5MB XMS Memory
35MB Hard Disk Space for compiled levels, temp files and more
Pentium 166 MHZ
VGA Video Adapter

Recommended:

470KB Conventional Memory
1.5MB EMS Memory
1.5MB additional EMS memory (for SFX)
3.5 MB XMS Memory
35MB Hard Disk Space for compiled levels, temp files and more
Pentium 233 MHZ
VGA Video Adapter
Music Card compatible with SB16

However, because of its reliance on 32bit libraries and the additional advanced graphical features from the engine mean that the game can be difficult to run properly on emulators like DOSBox and may require VDMSound for proper audio playback. For optimal experience, a genuine DOS computer is required.

Compiling[edit]

The game as released requires compilation of its assets before it can be played, adding significantly to the disk space. This compilation may take several minutes even on a modern machine with the DOSBox emulator. As such, a compiled package is provided at the links below.

External links[edit]