Games that work well/benefit from Accelerated ST?

[Xebec]

Is there a list of ST(E) games that work perfectly and benefit from an accelerated ST?

 

Ex: Frontier Elite works correctly and has smoother framerates on an accelerated ST, but another game has timing issues and just runs faster..

[exxosuk]

Only things which break that I am aware of are games which use rasters. There was 2 games on the STE which broke, but I can't remember which ones now.

 

3D games generally run faster because the CPU can do math divisions a lot faster. Other games in general maybe around 25% booster on 32MHz booster. It depends what instructions are used in the game. Games which use ROM or do some long divisions will run a lot faster. GEM apps will see a huge boost in speed as access to ROM is at 32mhz not 8mhz.

 

Overall, only demos are going to break because they all need timing accurate system to work. The exception is there are the odd game. I doubt anyone has compiled any lists though.

[zzip]

Is there a list of ST(E) games that work perfectly and benefit from an accelerated ST?

 

Ex: Frontier Elite works correctly and has smoother framerates on an accelerated ST, but another game has timing issues and just runs faster..

 

Civilization runs better accelarated

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Folks, you did not get what thread starter meant with "works correctly and has smoother framerates on an accelerated ST, but another game has timing issues and just runs faster.." .

Example for correct work is for instance Microprose F1 GP. For running faster: Castle Master .

People often can not see what is better framerate (smoother) and what is faster game speed - so all objects move faster, player moves faster, so is just too hard to play, Better framerate means not faster movements, but more frequent screen update with smaller movement steps.

 

I don't think that such list exists, but we could start with it ... However, there are some special cases: Flight Simulator II will not become too fast on faster computer, but screen will start to flicker because screen draw code is not ready for so fast updates (V-sync is missing). That can be fixed relative easy, as myself done it. But cases as Castle Master would need serious rewrites of code.

 

Then, case of OIDS: it is limited to 10 fps, regardless from computer speed because too much V-blank wait. That's shame, because it can 25 fps even on 8 MHz machine. I did some more intensive corrections in it : http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/oids.html

[leech]

Folks, you did not get what thread starter meant with "works correctly and has smoother framerates on an accelerated ST, but another game has timing issues and just runs faster.." .

Example for correct work is for instance Microprose F1 GP. For running faster: Castle Master .

People often can not see what is better framerate (smoother) and what is faster game speed - so all objects move faster, player moves faster, so is just too hard to play, Better framerate means not faster movements, but more frequent screen update with smaller movement steps.

 

I don't think that such list exists, but we could start with it ... However, there are some special cases: Flight Simulator II will not become too fast on faster computer, but screen will start to flicker because screen draw code is not ready for so fast updates (V-sync is missing). That can be fixed relative easy, as myself done it. But cases as Castle Master would need serious rewrites of code.

 

Then, case of OIDS: it is limited to 10 fps, regardless from computer speed because too much V-blank wait. That's shame, because it can 25 fps even on 8 MHz machine. I did some more intensive corrections in it : http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/oids.html

Everyone should try out the improved OIDS, it's phenomenal work.

 

This would be a cool list, in the case of OIDS, it used to be unplayable on a faster system (in my case I tried it on the TT before it was tweaked/patched to work correctly on it.)

 

I have been pretty amazed at the games that actually run better rather than scary fast. One that still runs too fast was 1943 (or was it 1942) that one was way too fast on the TT as well.

[walter_J64bit]

I would think for emulators like PC ditto and Xformer it would be a big help, one game come to mind would be Gauntlet!

[tdp]

Suspect Pit fighter might gain a couple of frames.

 

Oooh. And Street Fighter II.

Edited July 16, 2017 by tdp

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Folks, it is easy to check - all you need is some emulator like STEem, where can set CPU clock on higher than 8MHz .

Generally, 3D games are where can expect benefit. Sprite based ones have fixed movement steps usually, so higher CPU clock often results in higher speed of everything.

[exxosuk]

Just so people are aware, "16mhz" in steem is 200% "across the board" increase in speed. A "16mhz booster" cannot increase ST-RAM speed and is a bottleneck on real hardware. So while you may get 200% at 16mhz in steem, realistically you will only likely get 25% overall speed boost on real hardware. The exception is said above, 3D games as long divisions can run at near 200% speeds as they do not access RAM. Most instructions which do not access RAM will run faster. TOS will run at higher speeds due to 16MHz access to ROM. Though games do not generally only use OS calls. Most game CPU time is accessing RAM.

[pixelmischief]

Is there a list of ST(E) games that work perfectly and benefit from an accelerated ST?

 

Ex: Frontier Elite works correctly and has smoother framerates on an accelerated ST, but another game has timing issues and just runs faster..

 

I don't have a list, "per se". But I can tell you this: After playing games at 16mhz on my Mega STe, I couldn't possibly go back to playing them on my 8mhz 1040 STe. Everything is just so...smooth.

[Xebec]

Just so people are aware, "16mhz" in steem is 200% "across the board" increase in speed. A "16mhz booster" cannot increase ST-RAM speed and is a bottleneck on real hardware. So while you may get 200% at 16mhz in steem, realistically you will only likely get 25% overall speed boost on real hardware. The exception is said above, 3D games as long divisions can run at near 200% speeds as they do not access RAM. Most instructions which do not access RAM will run faster. TOS will run at higher speeds due to 16MHz access to ROM. Though games do not generally only use OS calls. Most game CPU time is accessing RAM.

 

This is an excellent point exxos.. Now, how about the Mega STE with cache vs. some other 16 mhz accelerators that may not have cache? Is the 25% the Mega STE 16 mhz or non cached accelerator?

 

Also, aren't there a few instructions on the 68K that are so slow they get closer to a 2x speed boost as they don't need that extra ram access?

[zzip]

Just so people are aware, "16mhz" in steem is 200% "across the board" increase in speed. A "16mhz booster" cannot increase ST-RAM speed and is a bottleneck on real hardware. So while you may get 200% at 16mhz in steem, realistically you will only likely get 25% overall speed boost on real hardware. The exception is said above, 3D games as long divisions can run at near 200% speeds as they do not access RAM. Most instructions which do not access RAM will run faster. TOS will run at higher speeds due to 16MHz access to ROM. Though games do not generally only use OS calls. Most game CPU time is accessing RAM.

I believe the hatari emulator handles this correctly. When you set the speed to 16mhz or 32mhz, it doesn't increase the speed of everything, but GEM sure feels more responsive as do some games.

[exxosuk]

 

This is an excellent point exxos.. Now, how about the Mega STE with cache vs. some other 16 mhz accelerators that may not have cache? Is the 25% the Mega STE 16 mhz or non cached accelerator?

 

Also, aren't there a few instructions on the 68K that are so slow they get closer to a 2x speed boost as they don't need that extra ram access?

 

Caches give about 25% speed, at least it does on the falcon with caches. You would have to benchmark the MSTE vs a 32mhz STE to see what the difference is speed wise.

 

All instructions on the 68k will run double fast, but the problem is, ST-RAM holds up most instructions, so they don't run any faster. ST-RAM runs at stock speed, so does instructions running in ST-RAM. Instructions like int-div run faster because they can take 100+ internal cycles inside the CPU. So there more MHz the faster things goes.

 

Just look at the STE booster figures...

http://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/V1STE/ste32mhz.jpg

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I believe the hatari emulator handles this correctly. When you set the speed to 16mhz or 32mhz, it doesn't increase the speed of everything, but GEM sure feels more responsive as do some games.

 

 

Actually, no emulator which correctly emulates even Mega STE . It's cache is not simple to emulate, and there is really no need for some very accurate emulation.

Mega STE with it's 16 KB cache is pretty much efficient. Average speed gain is about 80% .

In emulators CPU and memory will run 4x faster if set speed to 32 MHz. Without slowdowns, wait for RAM access. What remains at same speed is video refresh, sound generation, MFP ... In Steem can set it all to faster too. But that's not what about this topic is.

 

 

 

Caches give about 25% speed, at least it does on the falcon with caches. You would have to benchmark the MSTE vs a 32mhz STE to see what the difference is speed wise.

In 68030 there is only 2x 512 bytes cache, but depending from running SW it can give more than 25% speed gain. Falcon could benefit more with 32-bit and faster RAM.

MSTE is already benchmarked several times. 16KB cache for Atari SW is pretty good. Use search folks, it's all online.

[Lynxpro]

I would think for emulators like PC ditto and Xformer it would be a big help, one game come to mind would be Gauntlet!

 

 

Definitely Gauntlet. There's a vid on YouTube of it running on a 16Mhz 68000. Looks almost as smooth as the arcade and that had a 68010.

 

I need to watch a video of ST Gauntlet II running on the Jaguar...after all, it had a faster 68000 in it than most STs.

[walter_J64bit]

 

 

Definitely Gauntlet. There's a vid on YouTube of it running on a 16Mhz 68000. Looks almost as smooth as the arcade and that had a 68010.

 

I need to watch a video of ST Gauntlet II running on the Jaguar...after all, it had a faster 68000 in it than most STs.

Got a link?

[tdp]

Got a link?

https://youtu.be/bBV80SWUQuA

 

It's the first game though, not the sequel - but the improvement is apparent.

Edited August 6, 2017 by tdp

[walter_J64bit]

That looks like Gauntlet is having some glitches with the 16 MHz accelerator or its the video capture device?

[rj1]

Zool, Baby Jo

[GadgetUK]

That gauntlet video - they increased the master clock I think, so a bunch of stuff is overclocked there. It doesnt run anywhere near that well on an ST where only the CPU runs at 16Mhz.

EDIT: Or maybe they are using one of those 16Mhz mods with cache and fast rom etc.

Edited August 10, 2017 by GadgetUK

[xflibble]

I remember playing Knights of the Sky on my Falcon, that seemed to be smoother and playable on the faster machine. Bards Tale was faster, which was a good thing. Flying through the streets was kind of funny.  With more RAM, you could also put files for Bards Tale onto a RAMdisk to speed things up.

 

I'd also like to see the kind of list described. I just tried Starglider 2 on an emulator with a faster CPU, seemed to work fine.

Edited January 24, 2020 by xflibble

[MrMaddog]

On 1/24/2020 at 6:53 AM, xflibble said:

I remember playing Knights of the Sky on my Falcon, that seemed to be smoother and playable on the faster machine. Bards Tale was faster, which was a good thing. Flying through the streets was kind of funny.  With more RAM, you could also put files for Bards Tale onto a RAMdisk to speed things up.

 

I once used a RAMdisk to speed the loading of games that had lots of files.  I used the one that came with the STOS compiler to automatically copy a selected directory to it's RAMdisk and running it from there.  The overall copy & load times were quicker than just loading off the floppy disk.

Edited January 28, 2020 by MrMaddog
Grammer edit

[+DarkLord]

8 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

I once used a RAMdisk to speed the loading of games that had lots of files.  I used the one that came with the STOS compiler to automatically copy a selected directory to it's RAMdisk and running it from there.  The overall copy & load times were quicker than just loading off the floppy disk.

 

Ultima 5 really benefits from this. I had a RAM disk in the AUTO folder that did

what you are talking about - level/scene changes were often nearly instant,

instead of waiting for the floppy disk to read it...