[Best Atari ST Public Domain/Shareware/Freeware games?]

this one maybe ?

btw video is from Steve's(Atari Crypt) YT channel 

[Outrun.]

Many thanks

[Why didn't/couldn't Atari Corp use the AMY in the ST?]

could have been so nice for the ST :'(

[Outrun.]

Wow! On MegaSTe it looks like almost like arcade

when you should try the new version

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zsodbzwgbmkhzm9/Outrun.zip?dl=0

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ytIq6FCJrs

[Why didn't/couldn't Atari Corp use the AMY in the ST?]

 

As a fan of Pokey's square sound I would not agree with this.

In opposite to YM It wasn't projected as soundchip, it sounds more metalic, has less bass, and due to low-resolution is out-of-tune in some octaves.

YM has two 8bit I/O ports: A - used for bi-diretional centroincs and B - something like PortB from XL.

 

 

i agree with you here, love the sound of the Pokey, but i also love the YM, problem was to few voices, for me a dual YM would have been a great options

[Outrun.]

It the same with the original ST farrari. The new one is about the same width as the old one, but it's a little higher. The problem is that all the objects are missing the full size sprite, so when you are closest to an object, it's only around 66% of the sprite original size. I don't know if they did this for saving spaces of power, maybe both.

[Outrun.]

fast update text copy from Atari-Forum

 

Been working on the object code the last couple of days, to make it ready for the arcade car.
not finish yet, but there have been some good progress (not all car sprite have been change yet).
so i thought that i would share with you guys

 

[Why didn't/couldn't Atari Corp use the AMY in the ST?]

problem was there was not many of shelf sound chip at that time, many of the sound chip mentions here first came later.

 

so personally i don't think there was anything wrong with the Ym2149 the Atari ST just had to few.

Gyruss (arcade game) had 5 ay-3-8910 so if the ST just have had 2 YM2149 when you could have had 4 channel for music and 2 for sound FX.

[Why didn't/couldn't Atari Corp use the AMY in the ST?]

Yet the spectrum didn't use that soundchip till about 3 years later. That's another thing people keep repeating. The ST didn't have a spectrum soundchip. It was the other way around.

Technically they're not the same sound chip either. The Spectrum used the AY variant. The off the shelf nonsense Amiga owners keep saying is getting tiresome too.

 

I know this is an old topic, but the YM2149 was build on license from General Instrument, so the Ym2149 was a copy of the AY-3-8910 the chip used in the Spectrum/Amstrad and also in a lot of arcade machines.

 

 

[Outrun.]

Everything goes 2x faster when Steem is set to 16 MHz - RAM, blitter. In Mega STE RAM speed remains same, CPU works faster mostly because cache, and RAM intensive operations are not much faster. Blitter works very tight with RAM, and to make it faster should use faster RAM too.

Thanks Peter that makes good sense, but i had still hope it would help more on the average FPS...

[Outrun.]

did you guys know

that with the PC game 'Quake'

if you push the " ~ " (tilde i believe it's called)

and type 'TIMEREFRESH"

 

the 'puter will give you the FPS (frames per second)

of your system?

 

i have about 2000 laptops and i do this all the time

 

i use to loved the PC, when it was using DOS, it was a great time, nearly as great as the Atari

i would not know about the "~" i have not played a old PC game for ages, last i think i played was Master of the Orion.

 

 

[Outrun.]

Many thanks.

funny if you set STeem to 16mhz it go up to over 30 fps, but here there are no different.

do you know if STeem also speed up the blitter?

 

but i definitely thought it would give a couple of fps more special in the beginning

[Outrun.]

good work Pete

thanks wally1

[Outrun.]

like CD-i said there are no native midi music in the game.

but i do have all the music as SMF midi files, so i don't think is impossible to add the score, maybe one have to convert them to some native format.that is more simple and light then SMF format.

 

btw Peter did you had the chance to test it on you mega STE?

[Outrun.]

Love the video with the midi music. Any chance to get these in the game using a Roland mt32?

 

many thx, ill probably stop working on this project soon, the road routine its simply to bad coded, i have analyzed how the road is made and printed, but i can't see how i can replaced with a more optimal one.

i will soon release my optimized code, so other can take over. but i do think the midi music part is a cool idea, so hope full other can add this.

 

/ Peter

[Outrun.]

Tested little with Steem Debugger. At 60 Hz . Great improvement. Framerate is about 12-15 fps, vs. some 6-8 with original code.

Will test later on Mega STE - at 50 and 60 Hz, and at 16 MHz CPU too, although that should not boost much, since blitter runs not faster then.

 

Permission to add this in HAGA hard disk adaptations ?

 

Thanks

if i set steem to 16mhz.it do a lot.

i don't think the blitter is the major factor here, the game engine is very bad made, it use a tons of mulu,muls, divu, divs, lsr8,lsl8 so its not optimized for game.

i have manage to reduce some of them, but the code still have a lot to slow it down, but i think it need to have some of the code replace with new routine to make it rune even faster

you have my full Permission to share it

 

and also a big thanks to you, i have replaces the random routines in the game with the one you posted here at Atariage

[Outrun.]

hi

i hope that it will work on a 60hz machine

[Outrun.]

i have Just uploaded a new video.

of the latest version vs the original version.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TBS3rHyCmc

[Outrun.]

here is a video that showing the modded version in action, its a little older version, that last version is about one frame faster in the beginning.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L3RPJu_vug

 

here is a video that show the original version against the modded version, in this version the modded version is even older.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL6CVxdZPN8

[Outrun.]

Hi

i have been / being playing around with Outrun, trying to optimizing the game, i have been posting about it on AF and on Facebook.

forgot to post it here so i better have to do it if some of you don't use AF or Facebook

 

the idea behind it. was/is to see how the US gold version of outrun could have run on the ST, if it had got some more love.

but in the middle of the process i started using the Blitter, so now plane ST i out of the pictures

 

 

original version with a frame counter

 

here is a picture of the modded version.

 

right now you would need a ST running about 15 mhz to run about the same as the optimized version, but there should probably still be some more speed gain in it.

 

 

download link for the modded version

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zsodbzwgbmkhzm9/Outrun.zip?dl=0

 

here is a link to the original version / and source code, i have add a frame counter to it

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4dkyffceuckuhvy/FrameST.zip?dl=0

[a couple of 68K ASM questions]

Hi Wally just PM you

send you some source code

hope you can use the

 

you own source code is merge with my startup file. call Hebrew...

you can escape the program pressing esc

you probably need to re index the code so it look good on the ST, i use a modern text program on my pc

i have tried to re label all the labels to try to give them the most logic sense.

all there are in these code can help you long down the road, if you understand them and what they do, so if you have any doubt or questions just ask

[a couple of 68K ASM questions]

the code you send the other day was it you whole source code?

did not coded anything today still to sick to code, i will try to paste something together later

[a couple of 68K ASM questions]

btw could you please try an change the extension of the prg file to .tos

[a couple of 68K ASM questions]

Hi Wally I now think that i know what you problem is, I will try putting something together for tomorrow.

 

but try check this website

http://www.atari-wiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

there are also a lot of info on the ST hardware sothware ect.

[a couple of 68K ASM questions]

in Seka you can't terminate a program like you do with other software.

it how you normal terminate a program

 
                  CLR.W     -(A7)  ;PTERM0
                  TRAP      #1
                  Rts 

But in Seka you have to rem these two lines, and only to let them be compiled them the last time (Or when the program is finish for release),

 

                  
;                  CLR.W     -(A7) ;PTERM0
;                  TRAP      #1
                  Rts

now you should be able to run and exit a program in seka with out it exiting to TOS.

 

but give me an idea what you goal would be with this program, so i know what i should make?