pseudografx Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 I cannot answer this, I just did comparison from a video capture. Fandal may know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 No worries. I presume on Atari you ran out of 128 chars fairly often and had to go for DLI to switch to another set ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xuel Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Very nice! Looks like the screen updates every 7 frames on PAL or around 7 fps? How does this compare to the C64 version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudografx Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Yes, that's how the C64 screen layout is emulated on the Atari. Games that use 32 chars per line are easier to port due to divisibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xuel Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Just measured the refresh rate on a video capture of the C64 version running on VICE and it looks like it's around 8-11 frames per update, so this Atari version looks to be quite a bit faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popmilo Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 AWESOME !!! Dream come true ! Thanks ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 WOW! One of my all time favorites on the ST. I look forward to the trying it on the 8-bit. Thanks so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yosh Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 I so glad that this got ported! This is Atari at it's bests - no sprites, just raw computing power! I'm speechless. This feels better that my birthday party... thanks!!!!! - popped in my head 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mariuszw Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Amazing port! Congratulations! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAM Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 That's seriously impressive, and plays exactly as I remember the Amiga version used to, and looks beautiful too! A LOT of love has clearly gone into this, well done, and thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted February 28, 2018 Author Share Posted February 28, 2018 (edited) 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 February 28, 2018 by Irgendwer 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Well done. First impression of this thread was that someone had just done a picture. The full game, such a short time after a few technical discussions is a pretty good feat. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 LOL. The A8 is that much better in that range, even "emulating" some C64 features and the game is still faster .... The game is really great adapted. Imagining how a real A8 version could be 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 This is unbelievably good - wow what a fantastic piece of work, just stunning in every way, huge congratulations to you all! Plays beautifully.... sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 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! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nysavant Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Lovely conversion and plays great, thank you so much Hard to believe this is actually on the A8. Think I'm going to look for a 130xe so I can play it on some real hardware! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R0ger Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 (edited) 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 February 28, 2018 by R0ger 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 (edited) Yes true to a point, but the NTSC clock is also faster so more cycles in the given period minus the 5 doubled frames... Edited March 1, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark loves Stella Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Nice job! Just played both the C64 and Atari to compare!I might make my own Commodore/Atari flippy disk just for the heck of it like back in the day! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Will take it with me to Revision Party next months. So I have something to do between the compos So source code is available? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 (edited) 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 March 1, 2018 by MrFish 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Looking at the other versions: Stunt Car Racer - Comparison Spectrum and CPC versions both look terrible and look like they play as bad. The C64 version is the only 8-bit one that looks good and playable; the Atari 8-bit version can be added to that short list... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudografx Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 MrFish, aren't we a bit touchy? I am pretty certain that R0ger meant it in a humorous way. Do we really have to put smileys in every conversation so that everyone understands our attitude? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 btw. how does the improved FPS and more CPU power affect physics? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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