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How hard would it be to port Outrun arcade version to the 32x?


Rick Dangerous

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The original arcade version that is? I just can't seem to get this thought out of my mind. I mean Space Harrier, Afterburner, Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat II, and NBA Jam TE were all near direct arcade ports to the 32x. I wonder if it would be relatively easy or if it would take a team hundreds of hours to make it happen.

 

Anyone with any technical knowledge or coding background have any insight on this?

 

Thanks, and going to keep dreaming in the meantime.

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I'm sure it's doable but it would be starting from scratch, since nobody outside of Sega has the Outrun source code. It's probably all written in Motorola 68k assembly language anyway (the Genesis has a single 68k but the code isn't directly usable on the SuperH processors in the 32x). It would probably rely on the Genesis to draw the background and HUD and use the 32X just for the cars and other sprites. That's basically how Afterburner and Space Harrier work, and like you said, the mushroom does a great job.

 

The games you mention are all high-quality versions on the 32x, for sure, but none of them were just direct "make a few changes, compile, and run" kind of ports.

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Interesting...so people were able to port the first level of Wolfenstein 3d because they had access to the source code?

 

Is it possible to strip the Outrun source code from an arcade cab board with a hex compiler or? I'm surprised with how many platforms this game was on that it's not more readily available.

 

I guess I will just have to remain happy with the near arcade perfect version that's on Sega Ages for Saturn... Still; bugs me to know Outrun would run flawlessly on 32x and yet it never happened. I picture it with a RED cart for some reason :)

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I'm confused, I was under the impression that the Saturn AGES releases were the most arcade accurate releases besides the recent releases on 3DS from M2? I only own Fantasy Zone for my Saturn from those AGES releases. It certainly looks, sounds, and plays just like the arcade does.

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I'm confused, I was under the impression that the Saturn AGES releases were the most arcade accurate releases besides the recent releases on 3DS from M2? I only own Fantasy Zone for my Saturn from those AGES releases. It certainly looks, sounds, and plays just like the arcade does.

outun on the Saturn is even better than the Arcade because if features the option to play at 60fps or 30fps. The Arcade version was 30fps only.
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The 32X had soooo much untapped potential, and OutRun could have totally been done on it with a solid team of programmers at the helm. I'm not a coding guy so I couldn't speculate as to how big the team would have had to be or how much it work it would have taked, but the hardware itself was definitely up to the task. Personally I'm still bummed out about all the 32X games that were in development but never got finished... a port of the Aliens vs Predator arcade game, the Alien Trilogy first-person shooter, Castlevania: The Bloodletting, Darkstalkers, Sonic 2: Special Edition and Sonic Mars, and Soulstar X to be specific. I can't think of a single system that had as many cancelled games that I would have loved to play as the 32X.

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I don't know about OutRun per se, but generally one can do a lot with disassembling the binary code, identifying and labeling jump points, memory usage etc. At least on other platforms there are tools that automatically do a lot of the ground work, for the developer to polish. If the source code is poorly documented and tightly tied to the arcade hardware anyway, a disassembly of the binary code might be just as much use as the origlnal source code would've been.

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Regarding canned 32X titles.

 

Soulstar canned in favour of the Jaguar CD version.

 

Very doubtful AVP was ever even started.

Capcom USA ' s Chris Kramer was asked about AVP and Dark Stalkers coming to the Sega 32X in 1994..His reply:

"There are going to be a couple Capcom games on the 32X. I'm not

at liberty to discuss either titles or availability, but I can

tell you that we won't have any titles out until the middle of next year at the earliest. Thanks for the interest."

 

Then after the 1995 E3 Press release by Capcom USA didn't feature the 32X, yet the aging Mega Drive

was..he was asked just what Capcom had planned for the 32X and why it hadn't been included on the list of formats Capcom were supporting.

 

He replied that as of that point in time, Capcom had NO firm plans for 32X they just remained a licensed developer.

 

As for Alien Trilogy, again very doubtful work got very far, it started at all.

GTW investigated it from it's original Mega CD annoucement onwards.

 

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2012/02/in-unreleased-game-space-no-one-can-hear-alien-trilogy-scream-a-games-that-werent-for-the-sega-32x/

 

Sadly despite a lot of hours being put into clearing up press claims over now lost games, people are still using them as fact on likes of misc Wikipedia entries.

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I thought the question was "is it feasible for the community to make it" and not "could the 32X handle it". The answer to the second question is an unequivocal "yes" because the Outrun hardware was nowhere near the 32X.

 

I think Capcom could have made some arcade-perfect ports for the 32X as well, but it was clear from the start that Japanese developers weren't really interested in the mushroom, since the Saturn would launch at the same time.

Edited by derFunkenstein
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I thought the question was "is it feasible for the community to make it" and not "could the 32X handle it". The answer to the second question is an unequivocal "yes" because the Outrun hardware was nowhere near the 32X.

Yes, and if we talked about that the thread would be pretty short. ;)

 

Short answer: Of course it's possible. The reality is, it's not going to happen.

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  • 1 year later...

I would love to see some home-brew ports of some old Sega arcade games for the 32X. Out Run would of course be cool... but Galaxy Force II, Power Drift, Super Monico GP, Some rare Japanese only arcade games, etc. Even the old side scrolling shooters like ESWAT and Shinobi. Games like Moonwalker and Alien Syndrome would be cool too.

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  • 3 months later...

The 32X could have had SO many good Sega Arcade conversions...

Problem was no wanted to play late 80's arcade games in 1995, while Sony had polygonal boobs bouncing all over.

Edited by Torr
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  • 3 years later...
On 7/30/2020 at 2:15 PM, Torr said:

The 32X could have had SO many good Sega Arcade conversions...

Problem was no wanted to play late 80's arcade games in 1995, while Sony had polygonal boobs bouncing all over.

I kinda agree, but the Playstation had a bunch of retro titles and 2D stuff. The Raiden Project and the Namco Museum Collection comes to mind. I think the 32X was just bad planning on Sega's part. The 32x was released right before the release of their Saturn console. I bet if the the 32x had more of a lifespan, they probably would have released a bunch more arcade ports. I'm willing to bet Outrun was planned for the 32x... but they decided to make it for the Saturn instead.

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I always wonder how those super scaler games would've fared if they had ported them to the Sega CD. The games that use the scaler on it are pretty great, and it's a shame they decided to cut costs by not including it on the original Genesis.

The world just wasn't ready yet.

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1 hour ago, Asaki said:

I always wonder how those super scaler games would've fared if they had ported them to the Sega CD.

 

I have wondered this as well.  However, based on the slower frame rates of the games that do use the Sega CD scaling (Batman Returns looks to be about 20fps max), I'm not sure the Sega CD could handle those super scaler games nearly as well as 32X did.  Leave it up to the hobbyists to someday try it. 

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On 1/12/2024 at 12:50 PM, Cafeman said:

However, based on the slower frame rates of the games that do use the Sega CD scaling (Batman Returns looks to be about 20fps max), I'm not sure the Sega CD could handle those super scaler games nearly as well as 32X did.

Hmm, maybe. I don't remember those games being that bad.
Most of the scaler games also did a Mode 7 style thing with the ground, and I wonder how big of a difference that makes.

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10 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Night Striker says hi 😅

Yeah, that was an odd one, but I had fun playing it.
Is that the one that has the alternate jazzy soundtrack, or was that the Saturn port? I liked that soundtrack.

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2 hours ago, Asaki said:

Yeah, that was an odd one, but I had fun playing it.
Is that the one that has the alternate jazzy soundtrack, or was that the Saturn port? I liked that soundtrack.

I don't know and I don't deny the game being fun, but damn it's a visual mess. 😅

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