Outrun AGA

[agermose]

Originally Posted by leon22

Any news on this great project?

Thx

The project will resume in 2022.

[apex]

2022 everything will be hopefully better.

[DanyPPC]

I saw a new OutRun topic, so has this project been abandoned ?

[acidbottle]

I think agermose is finishing off 1942 at the moment, pretty sure work will resume on this at some point .. though I have no official knowledge of that I admit!

[eXeler0]

In the other A500 outrun thread, the incentive is somewhat different, its about some sort of moral compensation for the suffering brought to all of us back in the day by the awful port. To prove that it could / should have been much better.

For the A1200 the situation is different. I see the devs seem to target fairly vanilla A1200 (maybe fast ram), but here's a question.
If the specs would be set higher, say 25MHz 020/030 with 4MB FastRAM, what would that bring to the table?
I guess more RAM would allow for storing much more prescaled graphics for objects and what not.. But what would the doubled CPU speed enable the devs to do differently in this type of engine?

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

I guess more RAM would allow for storing much more prescaled graphics for objects and what not.. But what would the doubled CPU speed enable the devs to do differently in this type of engine?

Yeah, just add more hardware until the game runs.
Worked for the PC, Amiga should follow.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

In the other A500 outrun thread, the incentive is somewhat different, its about some sort of moral compensation for the suffering brought to all of us back in the day by the awful port. To prove that it could / should have been much better.

For the A1200 the situation is different. I see the devs seem to target fairly vanilla A1200 (maybe fast ram), but here's a question.
If the specs would be set higher, say 25MHz 020/030 with 4MB FastRAM, what would that bring to the table?
I guess more RAM would allow for storing much more prescaled graphics for objects and what not.. But what would the doubled CPU speed enable the devs to do differently in this type of engine?

Defeats the object, just give up and do it for the 8 channel sound, 25mhz 020 speed ARM 2.5 based 256 colour Archimedes A3010 home computer instead.

I really wish Shaun Southern had not jumped to DOS PC after his last OCS/ECS game. I would have loved to see what he would do with AGA. AGA hasn't got a single game engine worth powering on an A1200 for. The regular Amigas have a holy trinity of game engines (Beast 1, Lotus II, Turrican III).

[lmimmfn]

Ok its not released yet but if and Amstrad CPC can do this - [ Show youtube player ]
There is no reason and Amiga(at least 1200) cannot do a near perfect outrun clone.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

Ok its not released yet but if and Amstrad CPC can do this - [ Show youtube player ]
There is no reason and Amiga(at least 1200) cannot do a near perfect outrun clone.

That's so damn impressive

[VincentGR]

Vespertino will be a killer game by the mighty Rhino indeed.
Outrun and many arcade titles are running on dual 68000 plus dual road support (probably blitters?)

On the other hand, Amiga has some smooth titles too.

Bump 'n' Burn, Prime Mover (ok camera is a bit lower) and the racing level on Borobodur: The Planet of Doom.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

Ok its not released yet but if and Amstrad CPC can do this - [ Show youtube player ]
There is no reason and Amiga(at least 1200) cannot do a near perfect outrun clone.

Let's not compare our efforts to some video on the internet of a game nobody except its devs have ever played or even seen, mates...

Plus, it's been almost three years now since the last time we have heard anything about it.

So, I am a bit sceptical (but hope to be wrong, off course ).

[DanyPPC]

Vespertino on Amstrad could be a really nice game as all BG productions.
But I think it could use predefinited and precalculated patterns. I don't think the Z80 can manage that graphics.

Some time ago a little Super Mario Bros engine was released to the public to show how the game could be made. That engine use predefinited patterns/characters to make smooth orizontal scrolling.

Every machine has its limits, it's up to the programmer's skill to overcome them.
I think that when Vespertino (if) will be released it will require an additional expansion memory to make the game run on simple 128k cpc machine.

[agermose]

Originally Posted by DanyPPC

I saw a new OutRun topic, so has this project been abandoned ?

No it has not.

[agermose]

Work has resumed on the project, while 1942 is being tested and music finalized, I have some spare time for Outrun.

Working on the sprite engine for a couple of weeks, and I now have a pretty good understanding of how the arcade works.
I have the sprite "engine" running, but only the ferrari is drawn at the moment.
Since there is no super-duper sprite scaler available the sprites frames in-between the fixed frames (5 per object) have to be pre-drawn.

The major challenge in the sprite engine is the colour palette. In the arcade each object has its own 16 colour palette. On A1200 a single 16 colour palette (incl transparent) will be used. Getting the ferrari, and the most common objects to look similar to the arcade is the main priority.
Some heavy work ahead to get to a single palette per stage.
Note: The road and horizon gfx have their own 16 colour palette. The sky "rainbow" will use the full 24 bit colour range of A1200.

[agermose]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Defeats the object, just give up and do it for the 8 channel sound, 25mhz 020 speed ARM 2.5 based 256 colour Archimedes A3010 home computer instead.

I really wish Shaun Southern had not jumped to DOS PC after his last OCS/ECS game. I would have loved to see what he would do with AGA. AGA hasn't got a single game engine worth powering on an A1200 for. The regular Amigas have a holy trinity of game engines (Beast 1, Lotus II, Turrican III).

Totally agree.
Sure an A4000 could do a perfect Outrun port, but that kinda defeats the purpose. The purpose here, being to create a great Outrun port on original A1200 hardware.

[agermose]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

I think agermose is finishing off 1942 at the moment, pretty sure work will resume on this at some point .. though I have no official knowledge of that I admit!

You would be correct :-)

[agermose]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

In the other A500 outrun thread, the incentive is somewhat different, its about some sort of moral compensation for the suffering brought to all of us back in the day by the awful port. To prove that it could / should have been much better.

For the A1200 the situation is different. I see the devs seem to target fairly vanilla A1200 (maybe fast ram), but here's a question.
If the specs would be set higher, say 25MHz 020/030 with 4MB FastRAM, what would that bring to the table?
I guess more RAM would allow for storing much more prescaled graphics for objects and what not.. But what would the doubled CPU speed enable the devs to do differently in this type of engine?

If I had the faster CPU and fast RAM, then perhaps I would have chosen a single playfield option, allowing a more colourful game. The bottleneck in the game is the scaled sprites, which would still have to be done with the blitter, but now in 6-8 bpls.
Real fast RAM would improve the game speed, because it would free up DMA for the blitter, on top of faster game code.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by agermose

Work has resumed on the project, while 1942 is being tested and music finalized, I have some spare time for Outrun.

Working on the sprite engine for a couple of weeks, and I now have a pretty good understanding of how the arcade works.
I have the sprite "engine" running, but only the ferrari is drawn at the moment.
Since there is no super-duper sprite scaler available the sprites frames in-between the fixed frames (5 per object) have to be pre-drawn.

The major challenge in the sprite engine is the colour palette. In the arcade each object has its own 16 colour palette. On A1200 a single 16 colour palette (incl transparent) will be used. Getting the ferrari, and the most common objects to look similar to the arcade is the main priority.
Some heavy work ahead to get to a single palette per stage.
Note: The road and horizon gfx have their own 16 colour palette. The sky "rainbow" will use the full 24 bit colour range of A1200.

This means - if am correct, AGA dual playfield and a separate 16 color palette for the Ferrari if is a composite sprite - that should be good

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by agermose

Totally agree.
Sure an A4000 could do a perfect Outrun port, but that kinda defeats the purpose. The purpose here, being to create a great Outrun port on original A1200 hardware.

Depends, people set up all sorts of "what if goals". I'm totally on with the idea of trying to get the best possible Outrun port of a stock A500. Same with DREAD for e.g. , it just wouldn't be nearly as interesting if it was targeting a 030 AGA..
But as for Outrun AGA..
My question was actually, what a faster CPU would bring to the table.. What previously impossible things would become possible? Why can't that question be asked without judgement? Just asking
(And.. We sort of know it took the power of the Sega Saturn to get a truly "perfect" (better even) port. )

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

if it was targeting a 030 AGA..
But as for Outrun AGA..

Okay, I'll bite...

Originally Posted by eXeler0

My question was actually, what a faster CPU would bring to the table..

Sorry, don't want to be rude here, but that's kind of a dumb question.
You can solve about any computational problem with throwing just enough power and RAM at it.

So, just use your fantasy and envision a crazy super detailed 3D engine game with amazing textures and an extensive sound mixer engine, only hindered by AGA capabilities. Means, it would need to run in 8 bitplane or HAM8 and 4 channel sound.

It would be looking great, but in the end it would not have much to do with the Amiga chipset and its capabilities except it actively hindering the game.
Almost anything would be happening in fast RAM being rendered by the CPU, and the rest of the Amiga hardware would be being a frame and sounds buffer, and that's it.

So basically trying to be kind of overcomplicated PC hardware.

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Why can't that question be asked without judgement? Just asking

Because you are kind of disrespecting and even doubting the devs decision to create the game for Vanilla A1200s with this question instead of cheering him for his determination to get something to run on pure Amiga goodness.

If you think this is a question worth debating, create a separate thread for it, imo.