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STUNT CAR RACER?


Irgendwer

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Thanks a lot for all the nice comments!

 

 

Here some more details:

 

  • "Why no 64k version? Just put the music and other stuff aside!"
    The game filled nearly entirely the 64k of the C64. A8 has less available RAM and due to heavy loop unrolling for better speed even the base game wouldn't run on 64k. So we used the remaining RAM for something nice...
  • "Why xBIOS? There is even no sound during load?"
    Thanks to the small memory footprint Fandal was able support high-score disk IO. A normal DOS would be too big.
  • "There was a discussion that SCR is only doable with color-RAM?"
    Mr. Crammond created very elaborated code and used many tricks (e.g. the color-RAM to have fast filling of the background). Thanks to the used char mode the A8 has also "mini-colour-RAM", the 7th bit. This is used to divide sky from earth.

 

Unfortunately Fandal stopped his Blog, so this time no in-deep explanations from him. I'll try to help out if anything is unclear, but thanks to the advanced profiling and debugging functions of Altirra, nothing stays uncovered I guess... ;)

Edited by Irgendwer
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Thank you, I've really dreamed of playing Stunt Car Racer on an 8-bit ATARI and now the dream has come true!

Great design (title picture, nice that it has music which was missing even on Amiga), and a very good speed for our machine!

 

The only aspect that would require slight improvement is engine sound, which unfortunately LACKS DYNAMIC a bit.

And on Amiga it was great addition to the gameplay, the increasing revs of the engine under acceleration were adding to the whole experience

Watched YT videos and on C64 the frequency change under acceleration is more evident, too.

 

The "boost" sound is great on A8, though.

 

All in all, great and thanks a lot!

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What's all this crap about how bad NTSC is compared to PAL?

 

The vast majority of software that's been written for the system relies on refresh speed and is thus faster on NTSC than PAL.

 

For games doing things between frames, there is 20% less time between frames.

For games doing things independent of frames (like this one), there is less time, as ATARI has to draw 60 frames per second instead of 50, and there is more DMA. OF course considering the graphics are the same in both versions, but that is usually the case.

Also all VBI and DLI code is called 20% more often, giving you less time for the rest.

 

Add different style of artifacting, and the fact that as I mentioned, you have to limit graphic to NTSC size, I'm surprised there even are games and demos which work on both. I value such achievement highly.

Edited by R0ger
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One of the very rare advantages of not being able to work... :)

 

Shame you can't use a 65C816 on it to smooth the already excellent frame rate (I like to tinker)

 

I played the Amiga version to death...An Amazing version for the beloved Atari......

Oh! Since you mentioned this, I turned on the Rapidus. It is very smooth on Rapidus. Much like The Eidolon and Rescue on Fractalus when using Rapidus. Although, after my first race was over, the game froze. Works great on the ol' 6502 as well.

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For games doing things between frames, there is 20% less time between frames.

For games doing things independent of frames (like this one), there is less time, as ATARI has to draw 60 frames per second instead of 50, and there is more DMA. OF course considering the graphics are the same in both versions, but that is usually the case.

Also all VBI and DLI code is called 20% more often, giving you less time for the rest.

 

Add different style of artifacting, and the fact that as I mentioned, you have to limit graphic to NTSC size, I'm surprised there even are games and demos which work on both. I value such achievement highly.

 

There are a multitude of cases where having more time in the VBlank does nothing to help PAL systems keep up with NTSC's +20% screen refresh speed advantage.

 

So, you favor what PAL systems have to offer; is it necessary to denigrate NTSC systems in order to express it?

 

----------------------------------------

 

Just to note here: I'm not interested in discussing this further in the "Stunt Car Racer" thread. I don't want to do anything to further detract from Fandal and Irgendwer's achievement and the appreciation they deserve in this thread. If anything more needs to be said in regard to the above, then I'd suggest we open up a new thread and carry on there.

 

Fandal and Irgendwer have done a great job creating a fun game, releasing it to the community for free, and have made it compatible with NTSC hardware (which I greatly appreciate). Thanks to both of you for your consistent and quality contributions to Atari community.

 

I played this quite a bit today and played the C64 version (which I'd formerly only seen videos of) for comparison. It's an impressive piece of Atari 8-bit software.

Edited by MrFish
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