Ed Fries

I'm on a business trip until Friday so I can't run any more tests until then.

Here's the latest. scrolltest_alt.MOV

Here's Alt2: Alt2.MOV

Here's the latest result. alt.MOV

Hi Eshu, Attached are videos of scrolltest5slow and newsynctest. On my CRT scrolltest5slow looks good but without stage 2 the scrolling speed is uneven. On newsynctest I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing so I'll leave it up to you to interpret. The dark bar across the screen is an artifact of the iphone video and doesn't actually appear on the screen. BTW on early versions of Rally I was INC and DECing VSYNC and it doesn't work on every atari model out there (apparently, 7800 for example). So you might end up having the same problem with your rolls of vsync. newsynctest.MOV scrolltest5slow.MOV

Hi Eshu, Here's a video of scrolltest4 on my crt. scroll4.MOV

I shot the attached video earlier today with "scrolltestslow.bin". I think it's the same as RevEng is reporting. Also note the vertical blue line. Later tonight I should be able to run another test once I'm back home. scroll2.MOV

This is a great project! That said, there are a few problems on my CRT (see attached video - harmony cart, light sixer). First there is a feint flashing vertical line on the left side of the screen. Second, the scrolling still looks pretty rough to me. It might be just because you are trying to do white on black which is probably the worst case, but also you are moving it so quickly that it's hard to tell if it's really any smoother than just regular playfield scrolling. Compare to the attached rally-x for example.What is the horizontal resolution of this method? Thanks and I hope you continue to perfect this. -EdF

oops, see below... scroll.mov Rally 140219.bin

Thanks Mike. This is not the final version. I've just been distracted by some other projects and haven't had a chance to put a new version out. A few weeks ago I rewrote a core routine and managed to save almost 100 bytes. I've been trying to decide what to spend them on. I started to implement intermediate rotations of the cars but It was looking like it was going to go over budget and it didn't really add much to the experience. Now I'm thinking of spending them on music while you play and perhaps a few smaller features.

I'm told you need at least an expo badge to get into the area where this will be held.

Is anyone going to be at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in a few weeks? I was asked to hold a get together for retro game programmers. The meeting is at 2pm on March 19th on the second floor of Moscone West. You can find more information here: http://themade.org/posts/533 Hope to see you there! -EdF

I like it! For the text on the back, I think you want boulder not bolder, but maybe it would be better to just stick to the text from the original arcade game. In that case it would simply say "Instructions:By dodging red cars and rocks. Clear 8 flags before fuel runs out." They were really good at being concise back then! -EdF

As far as I know, no one has created a label yet so go for it! The official name is "Rally-X" now and should include an 80's style "namco" trademark somewhere on the label.

Ah, okay. I thought I had to worry about scanline count, etc. I already have all the colors pulled out as constants so it should be easy to do.

Yes, I'll release full source when I am done.

Here's the latest version with a new name (!), the third map, and several bug fixes. It should work on a 7800. The screen shouldn't roll or jump (but it might... if it does, please let me know). I'm still hoping to squeeze in a few more flag patterns if I can somehow find the bytes. As for PAL,When I'm done I'm hoping that someone will offer to do the port. I haven't done one before. As usual, if you see any problems with this build, please let me know. I've been squeezing bytes out of the code and it's pretty easy to accidentally introduce bugs when doing that. -EdF Rally 140219.bin

As for the random black bars on the 7800, I have a fix for that already. It'll be in the next release. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback, this is really helpful. I'm running on a heavy sixer hooked up to a CRT and the colors seem okay but I need to try some other setups. What type of TV and Atari are you using? Colors are easy to change. I just need to find the right combination that works best for people. As long as I'm posting, I'll give a quick status update on the project. I found the 100 bytes I need to add map #3 and have a few left over to fix some bugs. I have a request into Namco through a friend to get their official blessing for this project. It's always risky to ask a question like this but it will be good if they say yes. I hope to have a new version out later this week. -EdF

In challenging mode your car flashes like crazy (like the special flag). You didn't notice that? There are only 2 flag patterns right now. The rocks are a bit more random than that but still can only appear in certain positions. I can easily add more rock positions but the flags are much harder (has to do with the fact that they show on the mini-map). Right now I'm working on shrinking the code to add the 3rd track so this won't change for a while. Tip: Your car goes the same speed as the enemy cars, but... if you hit a wall and autoturn, rather than turning BEFORE you hit the wall, your car will pause slightly and lose some ground to the enemy cars.

Hi guys, Here's the latest version. This is getting kind of close to being done. It fixes all the bugs I know of, adds random rocks for, err, Random, a challenging mode indicator for WildBill, plus better (and easier) fuel management and gets rid of the last scanline glitches for Thomas. I darkened the road a notch which, in my opinion, doesn't look quite as good in Stella but looks much better on my CRT with a light sixer. This build also gives a free life correctly at 20K points. How high can you score? I've been up around 50K a couple times using Stella and the keyboard but I think it's a bit harder on real hardware with a joystick. I did a bit of code compression work but have a lot more to do if I'm going to squeeze in the third track. I have a few ideas but finding more than 100 bytes is going to be a slog. Thanks for all your help and please keep up the suggestions and feedback. -EdF Rally 140109.bin

Here's a new version with quick fixes to these two bugs and also a (mostly) constant scanline count of 262 for Thomas. How did I miss that score reset bug? Too much eggnog I guess. I plan to redo fuel anyway (right now it's based on time, not distance, which is wrong and makes the faster levels easier rather than harder) so I'll look into your smoke issue then WildBill but I think it's pretty easy to run out on the arcade machine if you use even a little smoke. Thanks, please keep the bug reports coming. -EdF Rally 140101.bin

I finally have a new stable build to post. I had a nasty bug that took me a while to track down. This build has lots of changes and improvements including "challenging mode" on level 3 and each 4 after that. I moved the score to the top and made it visible on the title screen. I added a display of how many cars you have left. The red cars now collide with each other and with rocks. Most of the rest of the work has been behind the scenes with big changes to try to get my cpu usage within budget during vertical blank and overscan. Still on my to do list are randomizing somewhat the rock locations, free life at 20K, and fixes to several known bugs. Then I need to come up with more than 100 bytes if I want to add a third map. If I can do that, I probably won't add the intermediate car rotations. If not, I probably will. As always, your feedback is appreciated. -EdF (oh, and I'm on vacation so I couldn't test this on real hardware. Sorry in advance if there are problems.) Rally 131229.bin

I'm guessing that you are changing one or more of the HMxx registers too soon after the HMOVE.

My sprites are actually 10x8 (10 high) but I'm not using the top or bottom byte since the car needs to look the same going right and going up. Perhaps that could help during rotation though? I originally had the car(s) brighter but when they are too close in brightness to the background color (currently $2A) it was hard to see them on one of my displays (a projection screen) when running on actual hardware. Maybe I went too far though in taking them all the way down to $x2. I'll play around with it.