METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RAPIDLY PROCESSING DATA RECORD SHOWING BODY ON PLAY FIELD DISPLAYED ON DISPLAY DEVICE TO DETERMINE BODY TO BE DISPLAYED AT PART OF PLAY FIELD

摘要

There is disclosed herein a system for rapid processing of the data records of many moving and nonmoving objects on a playfield only part of which is displayed and for determining collisions between objects. A search pipeline using a synchrounous state machine searching a linked list of the records organized by approximate position on the playfield implements the search function. A lookahead cycle in the state machine is provided to continue searching for the next object which is to be visible while the graphic data from a previously found object is being loaded into a line buffer. Slips point to the first objects on the list for the current scan line speed up the search process. The collision detect process is speeded up by only checking the nearest neighbors on the playfield in the path of movement and by organizing all the moving and nonmoving objects on the playfield in a two dimensional array mapped to the approximate position of display of the object on the playfield.