Checkered Flag controls

[+CyranoJ]

Yes, yes, another thread about how bad they are.

 

Only this time with a difference.

 

00006BE0: C5 E6

00006BE1: F8 43

00006BE2: 43 4E

00006BE3: 2E 71

00006BE4: E4 4E

00006BE5: 42 71

00006BE6: D2 4E

00006BE7: 42 71

00006BE8: B6 4E

00006BE9: 41 71

00006BEA: 6C 4E

00006BEB: 02 71

00006BFA: C5 E6

00006BFB: F8 43

00006BFC: 43 4E

00006BFD: 2E 71

00006BFE: E4 4E

00006BFF: 42 71

00006C00: D2 4E

00006C01: 42 71

00006C02: B6 4E

00006C03: 41 71

00006C04: 6F 4E

00006C05: E8 71

 

The numbers above are:

 

Offset from start of ROM, original byte in ROM, what to change it to.

 

Once changed the left/right steering in game will turn at a constant rate. No more insane acceleration turns. The game is still crap, but at least you can now control it slightly better.

 

I'd say "enjoy" but with this game thats clearly too much to hope for

[Paolo]

Great! Now, by toying with those numbers, you could also have a response more suited to one's needs. Too bad I'll not have the chance to burn a cartridge with the mod, and I can't see a JagCF yet :-(

I somehow like the game (just a little, mind you )

[+remowilliams]

Wow, I actually made it around an entire turn!

 

 

Here's an .IPS file that will apply the patch as shown above. Just run an IPS utility (such as Lunar IPS) select the .IPS file, then select the Checkered Flag image to be patched. Voila!

 

Checkered Flag (1994)(Atari).IPS.zip

[+Sauron]

Yeah, it's still crap, but slightly more playable now. Thanks!

 

Now to try to figure out how to graft that game onto the ST's No Second Prize Engine....

[avanteproject]

Do people find Checkered Flag's controls THAT bad? I've had no problems with them!

[+CyranoJ]

Thanks for making it easy Remo

 

Just remember, if you are making a cart out of this patch, you also need to strip the first 8k off it and add the universal cart header, or it will fail the checksum test and redscreen.

[kool kitty89]

It's better, but there's still no compensation for speed. (ie changes in turning based on how fast you're going) I still had a problem with oversteering at times.

 

I'm not sure, but playing it back to back with Virtua Racing Deluxe 32x and SVP for the Genesis, the road seem less cramped than in Checkered Flag.

 

The framerate is definitely still a big issue, even in Project Tempest (it's choppy, but I think there's more slowdown on real hardware). I actually noticed more aliasing issues in Virtua Racing Deluxe on the 32x (some z-fighting and clipping stuff) and more obvious limits of 256 color shading and dithering in place of alpha blending (plus lower detail models in general -much more so in the SVP game obviously -and the fact its clipped to 320x192 or 256x192 on the Genesis), but the framerate is far more important for its playability. (granted, those games were programmed by some of Sega's top development teams and based on a well designed -if simple- arcade game, so that's obviously a factor too)

 

It seems like Rebellion should have been more willing to cut detail and maybe suffer some visible on-screen clipping issues (possibly drop to a somewhat smaller window rather than full-screen) to maintain a sold framerate (at least a solid 15 FPS if not topping at 20-30 FPS). Some of the models actually could have looked better than they do now with fewer polygons (the in-game car models look a bit odd compared to VR on the Genesis even). Cutting detail to the environment would detract somewhat, but the framerate would be worth it, plus you'd still have the nice highcolor (CRY?) shading effects and any translucency used as well. (hell, one good way to help offset lower polygon counts would be to design the game around a smooth gouraud shaded look and take advantage of the blitter's very fast g-shading capabilities both for general smoothing of lower polygon count models and for smoother lighting effects).

For NTSC users, dropping to 288x192 wouldn't have been bad at all for the time. (especially if they modified the score/throttle/track map display to take up less space on-screen or move it to a totally separate boarder outside of the game window) For PAL, 192 lines would leave a much larger boarder though. (like most Master System games, Virtua Racing, etc)

I'm not sure about the flexibility of the dot clock options for the Jag, but if they're fairly flexible, maybe it would be desirable to actually drop the horizonatal screen resolution rather than clipping, or at least with less of a boarder. (dropping to a 5.37 MHz dot clock would mean the same pixel size as the SNES and some genesis games -Virtua Racing uses that- but something a bit higher like 6 MHz would be even more convenient for NTSC as it's very close to square pixels -I think 6.25 MHz is perfectly square for NTSC; 6 MHz is exactly what the Neo Geo uses and gives just under 288 pixels visable on most normally calibrated NTSC TVs)

 

 

What they did made the game look good in screenshots, but not much else. (though gouraud-shaded optimized models would probably have looked better in screenshots too, even if the on-screen poly count was dialed back a fair bit)

Edited March 22, 2011 by kool kitty89

[Austin]

Do people find Checkered Flag's controls THAT bad? I've had no problems with them!

 

Then you, my friend, are a saint.

[+CyranoJ]

It's.....

 

tl;dr

[+CyranoJ]

Great! Now, by toying with those numbers, you could also have a response more suited to one's needs. Too bad I'll not have the chance to burn a cartridge with the mod, and I can't see a JagCF yet :-(

I somehow like the game (just a little, mind you )

 

 

Well, I tried forcing it to full left/right but that was even worse than the original controls (Yeah, I know....)

 

The problem is you don't actually control the car, you control the camera - so its a given that you are never going ot have a great driving experience like that.

 

Also, no point in adding rotary support, the frame rate is so low the controls will feel disconnected (yeah.. I know...)

 

It's possible to adjust the turn rate tho - let me know if you think it should be more or less than I currently have it set to and I'll see what can be done. I picked something in the middle range which seemed to give the best (of the admittedly still quite bad) results.

[kool kitty89]

Well, I tried forcing it to full left/right but that was even worse than the original controls (Yeah, I know....)

Yeah, I can see that, it would be turning too hard all the time. (probably part of what makes the accelerated turning worse is just how hard you can turn at the peak rates)

 

The problem is you don't actually control the car, you control the camera - so its a given that you are never going ot have a great driving experience like that.

Huh, weird, at first glance it seems to be relatively similar to Virtua Racing, but then there's something "off" that's hard to figure out jut by looking. (that would definitely explain some of the problems)

That might explain the lack of turning mechanics corresponding to speed.

 

Also, no point in adding rotary support, the frame rate is so low the controls will feel disconnected (yeah.. I know...)

What about the "button tapper" for pseudo-analog control? (it seems like allowing fixed rate turning combined with the button tapper would make things better in general . . . or if the game had supported the internal analog controls -specifically added to avoid the cost of external DACs, but obviously unused -I wonder if Atari ever planned to release a racing wheel, let alone an analog gamepad or joystick)

 

It's possible to adjust the turn rate tho - let me know if you think it should be more or less than I currently have it set to and I'll see what can be done. I picked something in the middle range which seemed to give the best (of the admittedly still quite bad) results.

I don't think it would be good to turn any faster, maybe a tad slower. (but that would require more breaking) Playing it back to back with Virtua Racing, it definitely seems to oversteer at your current settings. (by comparison I pretty much never have problems oversteering in VR to the point of running into walls -though it does force a spin-out if you turn too hard at too high of a speed, so that's different-) Tapping the break or throttle is a lot easier to manage than tapping the steering wheel IMO.

[CD-i]

Thanks CJ and remo. I tested it on my skunk and it works fine. It's a lot more playable now. Now perfect but not nearly as awful as the original one

[+Stephen]

It's.....

 

tl;dr

That's as small as they get

[GrizzLee]

Thanks for making it easy Remo

 

Just remember, if you are making a cart out of this patch, you also need to strip the first 8k off it and add the universal cart header, or it will fail the checksum test and redscreen.

 

Anyone care to make me a cart?

 

I am trying to love this game... Really I am :-)

 

-Grizz

Edited March 23, 2011 by GrizzLee

[Gaztee]

Thanks for doing this CJ nice to see that someone finally managed to try & sort out the handling. I actually tried VR on the 32x for the first time today & I can now see what they were 'TRYING' to do with CF! If I ever get my PC sorted out I will try this in my Skunk! Once again thanks!

[ovalbugmann]

Awesome CJ! This is the first real fix made available for the weird steering in CF. Thank you Remo for tidy little script to run on a CF rom. Makes this easy to change the values and then run with skunk.

[doctorclu]

Wow, I actually made it around an entire turn!

 

 

Here's an .IPS file that will apply the patch as shown above. Just run an IPS utility (such as Lunar IPS) select the .IPS file, then select the Checkered Flag image to be patched. Voila!

 

Checkered Flag (1994)(Atari).IPS.zip

 

This is great! First I'd heard of the IPS style patch, but it worked great on a IPC program I found on the Mac.

 

While not the smoothest running game, I actually had fun playing it. It was nice to be able to go at great speeds and not wreck every two seconds. Can't wait to try my Rocker Controller on this game now (the Rocker controller is what I built to give games like Breakout a rotary like controller, but it really a two way switch on a dial...)

Edited March 25, 2011 by doctorclu

[+CyranoJ]

Given that IPS patches are 100% legal, and that Jaguar carts are pretty easy to patch up anyway - are there any requests for patches to other games?

[+Sauron]

Given that IPS patches are 100% legal, and that Jaguar carts are pretty easy to patch up anyway - are there any requests for patches to other games?

 

Framerate fix for Checkered Flag.

Mouse controls for Cannon Fodder and Syndicate.

Rotary support & "fun" patch for Breakout 2000.

"Fun" patch for I-War

 

.And the list goes on....

[+CyranoJ]

pfft you'll be asking for a game to be added to Kasumi Ninja next

Edited March 25, 2011 by CyranoJ

[Fadest]

Improved (and playable) gameplay in Bubsy ?

Check in Super Burnout if network mode is on cartdrige, and activate it ?

[CD-i]

I'd love to have a save feature in worms, but I'm not sure if just the save battery in the worms cart is missing?

 

Fix framerate issues in Flashback

[Zerosquare]

Check in Super Burnout if network mode is on cartdrige, and activate it ?

Unfortunately, one of the developers said the network code was buggy, and that it was removed from the final version.

[+Sauron]

Unfortunately, one of the developers said the network code was buggy, and that it was removed from the final version.

 

In that case...add in network code to Super Burnout.

[Gaztee]

Unfortunately, one of the developers said the network code was buggy, and that it was removed from the final version.

 

In that case...add in network code to Super Burnout.

Does that mean the network code is in the Burnout Beta?? ;o)

Rotary support for B2K would be great. In the thread here Mario actually says where & how to implement the code (I think!)The only person who was interested in doing it was Gorf & he wanted to put it all on the GPU (or something!)