STUNT CAR RACER?

[Ely]

 

The problem is that there are people who are much more interested in SCR's loading time than in actually playing this game.

Exactly this. It's Stunt Car Racer running on an Atari 8-Bit! A truely exceptional bit of work that I'd have not believed true if i hadn't actually played it. The slow loading time almost adds gravitas and excitement to it.

[emkay]

Exactly this. It's Stunt Car Racer running on an Atari 8-Bit! A truely exceptional bit of work that I'd have not believed true if i hadn't actually played it. The slow loading time almost adds gravitas and excitement to it.

Seems, we really had to split the "community" or "forums" to a fraction of people who want the "original" seeing pushed, and the other fraction is for people who want to put the most hardware extensions to it.

 

Something like "Atari 8-bit" and "Atari VBXE"

Stunt Car Racer is done to run comfortably on a stock Machine with stock peripherals. So the loader is a very fine development for the Atari machines.

Edited May 13, 2018 by emkay

[Ely]

I'm all for using the latest stuff to improve the experience but not at the expense of seemingly pressuring people to feel guilty about the choices that are made in the creation of something.

[flashjazzcat]

I wasn't aware that the NewDevice handler or indeed the OS itself were aftermarket addons, but XBIOS would appear to rely on this kind of narrative.

[Irgendwer]

...NewDevice handler or indeed the OS itself were aftermarket addons...

 

Problem is, that in a more or less straight port of a C64 title the OS doesn't help and blocks memory.

[juansolo]

Gotta give the slow hand clap to all those who've done such a great job in making the dude who ported this feel like shit and wish he'd never bothered. I'm sure that'll encourage him to do other projects or indeed others who might feel like releasing stuff to this community.

 

 

Fandal:

OK. I'm giving it up.

The game is crashing on several places now and I'm really not going to spend another week or month by fixing more and more problems just because SCR is not working with fast SIO.

I'm sorry.

I wish I never started this project.

[Mr Robot]

Gotta give the slow hand clap to all those who've done such a great job in making the dude who ported this feel like shit and wish he'd never bothered. I'm sure that'll encourage him to do other projects or indeed others who might feel like releasing stuff to this community.

 

 

 

I said it when I was first 'welcomed' to these forums; there are some pretty toxic people here. Sadly they are also some of the most vocal. Not everyone is able to filter them out.

[Rybags]

From the lack of gratitude you'd just about guess they're spoilt self-important millenials but they're not that young.

 

It's extremely rare for any game of significant size or complexity to work with the dozens of loading solutions around.

And if one doesn't - it's not like a 3 minute wait is outrageus. There's plenty of PC and console games around that inflict worse upon you, and that's coming from a modern HDD that is generally capable of 100 Meg+ per second read operations.

[+CyranoJ]

It's just a hand full of asshats. The overwhelming majority are supportive. It feels like there are more because the asshats seen to shout louder.

 

I hope the guys do more great ports and understand that 1% shouldn't ruin it for the other 99.

 

Much similar in the forum section I spend most of my time in, I am well aware of the toll it takes on people.

[Faicuai]

Problem is, that in a more or less straight port of a C64 title the OS doesn't help and blocks memory.

So the short answer (rescued from the flurry of drama-queen reactions here) is that following the straight-port original code's architecture is an almost absolute necesssity to allow SCR run on the Atari platform.

 

That is perfectly understandeable, which clearly suggests that ports like these in the future may NEVER be in a practical position to leverage the benefits or features of the Atari-host.

 

FINALLY, a clear and laudable answer!

[Wrathchild]

... following the straight-port original code's architecture is an almost absolute necesssity to allow SCR run on the Atari platform.

 

 

 

From my perspective this is not an entirely correct interpretation of what Irgendwer has said (even as far back as post #36)

 

There is an option to toggle the O/S out and in as needed (e.g. for Serial I/O) but this requires that the memory locations that it uses would have to be avoided as part of the game's memory use.

Hence with most games, retaining the operating system is not really a concern if >48K or RAM is needed.

An alternative to have the 'best of both worlds' is to swap out (copy) the memory areas the O/S uses, for example zero-page, stack and pages 2 & 3, and restore them before restoring the O/S.

 

As stated, the original C64 SCR uses the full memory and so it makes sense that an A8 version would also need all available memory.

It also uses most of zero-page and hence wouldn't "play-nicely" with the O/S.

 

The technique used for the port was to store everything (code/data) throughout the 64K base memory AND in the extended banks of the 130XE (or extended machine).

Different parts of the game, e.g. menus & the racing itself aren't needed in memory at the same time. Hence their code uses bank switching to make it available when needed.

In practice this is a 16K window of memory from the extended banks (so 4 in total) is made visible in the 2nd quarter of base memory, between $4000 and $7FFF.

The move to 128K of RAM from 64K also permitted the 'extras' such as the Title Screen, Music, Hi-Score QR codes and un-rolled drawing code to be added (and loaded up front to not require their reloading).

Therefore the skill of Fandal's work was to group these separate identified routines and data into the features and arrange them to facilitate the bank switching.

Along with that, the commonly used/shared areas were grouped and loaded to the non-banked areas in base memory.

On top of this, there is a smaller but critically important part of the work that needed to be done, which is in regard to inter-bank function calls.

The technique for that is to provide multiple jump vectors which select the right bank, call the routine and upon return restore the correct bank.

Although Fandal kindly released the sources to me a while back for the purpose of working on an AtariMax cartridge port, I spend a week of evenings playing with the sources and despite having re-organised the banking to the 8K banking window of the AtariMax, there is a good degree of the same type of work Fandal did for me to do, which is to identify and facilitate the inter-bank code calls. This I need to resume but having followed this thread (and knowing some of the Czech guys) can understand Fandal's dismay.

The upshot of my porting to cart is to provide a version that can run on 64K machines. With a lot more effort it may even be possible to not use the memory under the O/S and so have a version that runs in 48K but that isn't a current goal.

As the majority of users can already enjoy the work with the releases so far, SCR is not my highest priority A8 project at the moment but I will strive to progress it.

Hi-Score saving is of course highly desirable and so most likely this will be achieved by utilising one of the cartridges banks.

Mark

Edited May 14, 2018 by Wrathchild

[+mytek]

Just a heads up.

 

The SCR file pointed to in Charlie Chaplin's post is working fine for me loading from a CF card using the XEL-CF3 board in a 1088XEL (loads in 11 seconds) with FJC's XEL Loader.

 

I haven't had a chance to really put it through it's paces, but just the few things I tried thus far such as run practice runs and even a few races, all seems to be fine without any issues. However I don't think the score saving works, which I never really expected it would being loaded from a PBI device. Other than me being the absolute worse driver ever , SCR is fun, very challenging, and the graphics look awesome. What a great port of this game .

[Faicuai]

 

(...)

 

The technique used for the port was to store everything (code/data) throughout the 64K base memory AND in the extended banks of the 130XE (or extended machine).

Different parts of the game, e.g. menus & the racing itself aren't needed in memory at the same time. Hence their code uses bank switching to make it available when needed.

In practice this is a 16K window of memory from the extended banks (so 4 in total) is made visible in the 2nd quarter of base memory, between $4000 and $7FFF.

The move to 128K of RAM from 64K also permitted the 'extras' such as the Title Screen, Music, Hi-Score QR codes and un-rolled drawing code to be added (and loaded up front to not require their reloading).

(...) I spend a week of evenings playing with the sources and despite having re-organised the banking to the 8K banking window of the AtariMax, there is a good degree of the same type of work Fandal did for me to do, which is to identify and facilitate the inter-bank code calls. This I need to resume but having followed this thread (and knowing some of the Czech guys) can understand Fandal's dismay.

The upshot of my porting to cart is to provide a version that can run on 64K machines (...)

Mark

 

 

Gee... what a potential headache working with a bank-structured memory space... Even considering a cart-version sounds like an ambitious undertaking, by having to move from a 16K to 8K window... It may even be as much (or more) work as trying to get SCR fully working on solid-state storage solutions (like Ultimate/Incognito + SIDE).

 

Funny to see how, in spite of such challenges, folks still move forward with projects like these... But I guess tackling really difficult things (and having direct control over them) are common traits that bring many of us here...

 

May be time for a group-hug?

 

:-)

[+mytek]

May be time for a group-hug?

 

:-)

 

[Irgendwer]

The overwhelming majority are supportive.

...

I hope the guys do more great ports and understand that 1% shouldn't ruin it for the other 99.

 

I cannot speak for Fandal, but I will continue to create for sure - just to irritate the critics...

[snicklin]

Who cares about the load time, it is far better than cassette!

 

And even if the load time is a problem for you, 99% good is still far better than most games.

 

I for one love SCR.

[juansolo]

If people are bothered by loading times, retro computing is really the wrong hobby to be into!

[emkay]

If people are bothered by loading times, retro computing is really the wrong hobby to be into!

Quote of the day.

[flashjazzcat]

Not really, when the most software works with fast loaders and PBI devices. I guess the people who develop those are in the wrong hobby too. Next.

[Faicuai]

Not really, when the most software works with fast loaders and PBI devices. I guess the people who develop those are in the wrong hobby too. Next.

DING, DING! And we got a winner. here...

 

There is a reason why bright minds have put so many hours of work and creativity in designing HW and SW upgrades, like Ultimate / Incognito / SIDE / Alt BIOS / Nuxx Drive, etc... and there is also a reason why these have been widely adopted and very well received.

 

If we were to apply some of the sh_t-dumb thinking that has been posted here, we would then have to separate this forums into those who WANT to enjoy such upgrades and their benefits, and those who prefer to load their SW with failure-impending mechanical drives and tape-loaders.

 

It is part of the "I'm on this fantastic sh_t hole, so you should be, too" mentality from where such dumb concepts originate from.

[+mytek]

Unfortunately this is simply turning into an ugly name calling mess, instead of a constructive discussion. And what may have been lost in the process, is the fact that SCR now runs from a CF card with a load time of barely over 10 seconds instead of 3 minutes. I would of thought that was a significant improvement worth applauding, and should have sedated all the arguing over load times.

 

I think what has also been lost in this discussion is the fact that this topic was initiated to announce the release of an Atari 8-bit version of Stunt Car Racer, and freely given as a GIFT to everyone that visits this forum. No where did I see anything stated that the authors were looking for this to be a place to criticize what they worked obviously so hard to create. Personally I think a separate topic should have been started for the purpose of those kind of discussions.

 

Imagine if you will that a friend was giving away apple pies that they had spent many days to prepare and bake out of the goodness of their heart. Keep in mind that they are neither seeking fame or fortune for this gift that they have given you. You taste it, and say it's good, but then suggest to them it would have been better if they had used green apples instead of red ones.

[flashjazzcat]

"No more pies for you!" is the only reasonable reaction I can imagine to that suggestion.

[Faicuai]

Unfortunately this is simply turning into an ugly name calling mess, instead of a constructive discussion. .

NO individual person here has been called by ugly names, there is no constructive-vs-destructive stuff, and based on your contributions to this thread, you should avoid double-moral standards. And I will remind you of it, quickly.

 

ALL of us here have praised SCR-port, ad-nauseum... pages and pages of it (from every single one of us). But the notion implied here that those who expect or look forward to extract the best of their user experience is a sign of disrespect to SCR authors is PURE NON-SENSE.

 

As simple as that. End of the story.

[juansolo]

"No more pies for you!" is the only reasonable reaction I can imagine to that suggestion.

 

Denying a man pie is a cruel punishment indeed!

[Marius]

In before the lock....