Outrun Port using Lotus engine? Possible?

[Hewitson]

The Megadrive managed to do a pretty respectable version of Outrun with only 1 x 68000.

[roondar]

Very true, though I personally liked the PC-Engine one a bit better.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

The Megadrive managed to do a pretty respectable version of Outrun with only 1 x 68000.

This is so true :

[ Show youtube player ]

[gimbal]

I mean. The box office art already wins that fight.

[malko]

I don't remember if it was mentioned before and just saw it quickly on youtube :

[ Show youtube player ]

Edit: sorry, for Vampire accelerated. Was too great to be for A500

[Gordon]

Theres an old saying...

"A games maximum potential is not limited to the hardware but lays in the hands of the coder"

Prove it right McGeezer!

[vulture]

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

You know the A500 has a side port. Right? That's where the hard drive goes. That's also where a 14 MB cartridge could go. More if bank switching is implemented.

I do. A cartridge is still not something that was developed or used during A500's commercial life span. A hard disk was. I think using a cartridge would be like cheating. Do you feel differently? Fine.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

Don't know why HDD keeps being mentioned for the A500. It has a 68000 (24-Bit addressing = 16 MB at most). A tiny/expensive/slow mechanical hard drive is not worth it.



Can't see why a ROM cartridge is off the table.



If cartridges were good enough for AGES and Nintendon't, then it's good enough for the A500.



Case closed.





You know the A500 has a side port. Right? That's where the hard drive goes. That's also where a 14 MB cartridge could go. More if bank switching is implemented.

10 MiB was the most fast RAM an A500 could add. Using that much as ROM expansion would have blown the cost of the games up to the stratosphere. Adding a few megs of Fast RAM and either a hard drive or A570 CD-ROM would have worked wonders. The only reason most people didn't was that software catered to the least common denominator. Thanks Tiertex and US Gold.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

The only reason most people didn't was that software catered to the least common denominator. Thanks Tiertex and US Gold.

I for one was glad of that. I was a young kid, with very little money of my own. Even saving up enough to get the RAM expansion for the A1000 was months of paper rounds. I wouldn't have played any games at all if they'd all required 1MB of RAM and a HDD.

I didn't get an A1200 until after Commodore and those that came after collapsed.

[roondar]

On the topic of RAM expansions.
The one thing I've always found puzzling is the existence of slow RAM. If the trapdoor expansion had allowed for true fast RAM the Amiga could've done quite a bit better. That is, if developers had used the true concurrency between CPU and chipset that exists if true fast memory is used (no stolen cycles is a great thing).

People underestimate how much time is spend on game logic. Running this from fast memory and either blitting through interrupts or even better, using the Copper would've made the Amiga quite a bit more capable. Even for running games.

Maybe I'll do a test about the speed difference once. I'm pretty much convinced it's going to be more than the 10% or so people claim (but again, only if this is approached in a smart way, simply blitting all objects in sequence and waiting on the Blitter between blits is not the way to maximise performance in this scenario).

And yes, I feel this would also allow for a better port of Outrun

[rare_j]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I reckon an A1200/CD32 could produce quite a decent port of Outrun when I think about it.

I think we can be pretty sure it would be quite the crowd pleaser.
Also seems pretty fair to require some fast ram.

[bartread]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

The Megadrive managed to do a pretty respectable version of Outrun with only 1 x 68000.

This is very true, but the MegaDrive has better graphics hardware than the A500 (I know - sorry), and it wasn't done U.S. Gold, but rather by the mothership: Sega. I wish they'd done the Amiga version too!

[roondar]

Indeed, the NTSC version of Afterburner for the Amiga (which was at least directly 'built to order' by Sega, not sure - they may have actually done the code themselves) was a great deal better than the PAL version. Which may tell us a little bit about what we could've expected in this case.

I'd say absolutely no one sane questions which system has better graphics hardware for arcade games. That's the Mega Drive. The much nicer colour palette of the Amiga can't compete with that many objects being thrown about, nor can it touch the much nicer dual layer screen mode.

Now AGA gets a lot closer (and actually has some advantages over the MD in certain areas, notably a much, much wider palette and a greater number of colours supported for non-dual layer screen modes), but it's still not quite there in terms of numbers of objects it can throw about.

Anyway, we can only dream about what a Sega built version of Outrun for the Amiga would be like.

[d4rk3lf]

This looks like a good thread to post a link to the new CPC racing game.

[ Show youtube player ]

It's still wip, thou.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Very right, it'd already be a major improvement to have the current Amiga version at double the framerate

Well there's a thought.

The graphics aren't the best, but they sure are not the worst either.

Perhaps reducing the number of onscreen assets to increase framerate?

Then just replace all the sound FX with ones that dont make me want to shove a pencil through my own ear drums. The "skid" noise being the WORST.

[LongLifeA1200]

Originally Posted by vulture

I do. A cartridge is still not something that was developed or used during A500's commercial life span. A hard disk was. I think using a cartridge would be like cheating. Do you feel differently? Fine.

Please stop saying stupid things like this. Cartridges have been around for a long time. Floppy disks were cheaper. A500 was cartridge capable. Consoles used cartridges. Not "cheating". Kindly stop trolling.

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

10 MiB was the most fast RAM an A500 could add. Using that much as ROM expansion would have blown the cost of the games up to the stratosphere.

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

(comparable to the technology used in the day).

If SNES/Genesis players were happy to spend their parents' money on ~5MB cartridges then why can't we use the same tech to prove how capable the Amiga truly was.

Now I'm having to point to posts I made earlier in the thread?

Why do I have to keep having this SAME conversation.

Firstly, it's okay to use the same amount of ROM space as expected on consoles of the same time period.

Secondly, using the MAXIMUM amount (10Mb, as you say) of ROM space -today- wouldn't cost that much as it did back then - so why NOT encourage its use for new projects?

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

Please stop saying stupid things like this. Cartridges have been around for a long time. Floppy disks were cheaper. A500 was cartridge capable. Consoles used cartridges. Not "cheating". Kindly stop trolling.




Now I'm having to point to posts I made earlier in the thread?

Why do I have to keep having this SAME conversation.

Firstly, it's okay to use the same amount of ROM space as expected on consoles of the same time period.

Secondly, using the MAXIMUM amount (10Mb, as you say) of ROM space -today- wouldn't cost that much as it did back then - so why NOT encourage its use for new projects?

Dont think anyone is trolling. It's just a conversation

Using carts doesn't really achieve the objective of giving the A500 the Outrun it deserved.

The point would be to make a GOOD version of outrun (not arcade perfect) that runs on what most gamers had, which was an A500 with 512k of ram, or perhaps 1mb, and games for MOST were loaded from floppy.

unless I grew up in some weird alternative poverty stricken universe, and everyone else here had a machine modded to the nines at the age of 15?

[vulture]

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

Please stop saying stupid things like this. Cartridges have been around for a long time. Floppy disks were cheaper. A500 was cartridge capable. Consoles used cartridges. Not "cheating". Kindly stop trolling.

"Stupid things"? "trolling"?
Good talk....

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by 005AGIMA

unless I grew up in some weird alternative poverty stricken universe, and everyone else here had a machine modded to the nines at the age of 15?

Eh no. Although I was younger than 15, I had an A500 with a memory upgrade, a mouse and 3 joysticks (always need a spare) and I was happy.

I was also happy with the poorly performing racers by the way. Lotus 2 trumps them all but I got games such as Turbo Outrun, Moonshine Racers and Street Rod before I got games such as Super Monaco GP and Lotus 2 so to me it just seemed like a natural technological progression that the latter two were so much better.

It is only until recent years where I see all the comparisons with other systems that I realise these games could have been better. Makes me wonder if I would have liked Lotus 2 as much as I did when the other games would have been way better

[malko]

Originally Posted by longlifea1200

[...] using the maximum amount (10mb, as you say) of rom space -today- wouldn't cost that much as it did back then - so why not encourage its use for new projects?

+1