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Lotus 1 Enhanced for STE - release this weekend


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31 minutes ago, TPAU65 said:

Thank you so much for this great version of the game! Really appreciate your amount of work you put in there!

And also thanks to Peter for considering making a hard disk version of it! ?

Thanks!

Yeah, that suits me, I'll develop the games by 1990's standards and other people can drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I've not owned real ST hardware since 1993 :)

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Hard disk adapt. with HAGA system is under work - actually it works already, but need more time for Desktop exit implementation because used packing. Not sure that some cheat is welcome in this ?

And those who have my driver with Virtual Floppy feature may already to play this from Flash card/hard drive. Need to activate both High RAM  and A: as active when driver counts down after reset. It is because AUTO run and game's RAM usage. Min RAM for is 2 MB.

And it can work with even 1 MB and from mass storage - with my iTOS Virtual Floppy - then no RAM 'spent' for driver, since it is in TOS ROM .

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Thanks Peter - I don't have a great understanding of what you're working on but I know it'll be greatly appreciated by the community! If you let me know when you're done with this, I'll put a message out on Twitter to let people know.

 

Will your hard disk adaptation patch the game to work on F030 too?

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Virtual Floppy is something I working on for some 3 years, or more if counting Floppy Image Runner, what is it too. The reason is more and more troubles with floppy drives and disks - because of age mostly. And this release is ideal for VF - regular floppy format, file access via TOS.

Hard disk adaptation has some general Falcon and TT support, but sometimes it needs changes in code. Most common problem is stackframe - if game code is for usual 6 byte stackframe only, it will fail, because on 68030 it is 8 bytes (traps, interrupts ...) . There might be other things. Anyway, for start it will be 68000 compatible, and will see how works with Falcon, TT - if not that will need more time .

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4 minutes ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

 

Hard disk adaptation has some general Falcon and TT support, but sometimes it needs changes in code. Most common problem is stackframe - if game code is for usual 6 byte stackframe only, it will fail, because on 68030 it is 8 bytes (traps, interrupts ...) . There might be other things. Anyway, for start it will be 68000 compatible, and will see how works with Falcon, TT - if not that will need more time .

Thanks!

Now that I think about it, our Lotus STE code writes to the Microwire registers, so the game wouldn't work on the Falcon even with the stackframe fixes I believe you applied to your original Lotus 1 hard disk adaptation.

We'll add some code in for the next version that detects the Falcon and avoids writing to the Microwire if it is a Falcon - then we can pass it back to you for fixing of the stackframe :)

The game will never be TT compatible due to our heavy reliance on the Blitter.

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9 hours ago, chicane said:

Thanks!

Now that I think about it, our Lotus STE code writes to the Microwire registers, so the game wouldn't work on the Falcon even with the stackframe fixes I believe you applied to your original Lotus 1 hard disk adaptation.

We'll add some code in for the next version that detects the Falcon and avoids writing to the Microwire if it is a Falcon - then we can pass it back to you for fixing of the stackframe :)

The game will never be TT compatible due to our heavy reliance on the Blitter.

I did not say that org. Lotus needed stackframe fix - really can not remember this for all games, but it is easy to check in my S files.

Yeah, microwire code needs to be disabled in case of  Falcon, and TT has no blitter - that's chance to do all it with CPU, what is much faster ?

Of course after deserved very long rest (what might be up to many years ? ) .

Myself actually did it with http://atari.8bitchip.info/TestMe/HNH/HnH.html

All this reminded me on one James Bond movie title ?

 

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14 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

I did not say that org. Lotus needed stackframe fix - really can not remember this for all games, but it is easy to check in my S files.

Yeah, microwire code needs to be disabled in case of  Falcon, and TT has no blitter - that's chance to do all it with CPU, what is much faster ?

Of course after deserved very long rest (what might be up to many years ? ) .

Myself actually did it with http://atari.8bitchip.info/TestMe/HNH/HnH.html

All this reminded me on one James Bond movie title ?

 

Thanks Peter.

Not sure I'm ready to put in a TT software emulation of the Blitter for the 3 TT owners that might play it, but you never know! As you say, next up is a long rest to recover from Lotus STE!

I like the Blitter game adaptations you've written. Have you ever considered publishing the source code for us all to learn from?

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What I did  for TT with Hard'n Heavy is not actually blitter emulation, but doing required background and object draw using only CPU. There is lot of shift OP involved, and that's slow with 68000, as we know, especially if shift is more bits (steps) - in that 68030 is much faster. And blitter too, + it can do multiple OPs at once in some cases. This was experiment by me too, to see how faster it can be with 68030. Pretty good, and it is enough fast even with slower Falcon.  Possible that in case of Lotus, if there is not so much shift it will be not that good ?

Not sure that I'm so good with blitter coding as some others. At least there is mentioning of some tricky, dirty blitter coding way, what is faster than regular. I used regular blitter coding based on what is in ProfiBuch, some online articles. I can publish sources in near future - will need some time to make them better followable.

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2 hours ago, oky2000 said:

I tried to find a video of it running on a Mega STE in 16mhz out of curiosity, no luck, but I guess it would make no difference if it is now all pushed through the blitter? I used to play it in 16mhz mode on STEem so was curious how this would run on MSTE.

 

It's better to run it at 16MHz if you can. It'll look the same, but you should see a steady 25fps rather than the 15-25fps range you'd get when running at 8MHz.

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Yeah, better at 16 MHz, but not all time 25 fps - probably depends from complexity of current scene - with less cars on screen it is better.

I can do frame by frame walk thru video with SM Player - then it is best visible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHU4yrlHn_Y

And here is hard disk adapt: LOTUSSTE.ZIP

Can make state saves - just pause game before doing it to prevent graph glitches (blitter state is not saved).

P.S. that walk thru works with YouTube too - pause with space, then . for 1 frame ahead (or , for 1 frame back).

Edited by ParanoidLittleMan
more info
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Atari Legend has produced a great YouTube vid detailing the history of Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, starting with Lotus on the Amiga and ending with this STE enhanced version.

 

It's well worth a watch - please do check it out and tell anybody else you think may be interested!

 

 

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