Better Outrun port for Amiga

[tekopaa]

Has there been any project to make or port Outrun for Amiga. The orginal port is one of worst games i played Sega Megadrive port is amazing Atari ST is bad too.

[s2325]

You may follow this thread http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=76353

[Hewitson]

I thought the Megadrive conversion sucked. Certainly much better than the Amiga version, but still rubbish.

[nobody]

Without being expert I think it could be done in 020 amigas. It's wrong to compare with A500 lotus which all people do, because in lotus scenery is almost empty instead to outrun that is full of objects plus having some really big sprites.
Didn't arcade outrun use same engine with space harrier? Space harrier is really good on Amiga 500, made by Elite, outrun was made by Probe. Scenery is almost empty in A500 space harrier too.

[TjLaZer]

At least the Amiga version is better than the ST version!

[john1979]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I thought the Megadrive conversion sucked. Certainly much better than the Amiga version, but still rubbish.

Why?

I played it loads and thought it was great. The music wasn't converted so well but the gameplay was good.

C64 version best for music
MD version best for gameplay
Amiga version best for beer coaster

[mc6809e]

Does anyone have a fast blitter bob scaling routine?

I'm thinking some hybrid approach where various pre-scaled bobs are stored with the blitter doing one final set of stretches to get the exact size right.

Probably too slow, though.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by john1979

Why?

I played it loads and thought it was great. The music wasn't converted so well but the gameplay was good.

It felt unfinished, same with Space Harrier II.

Compare them both to Super Hang On, Super Monaco GP, or Turbo Outrun. Those are very high quality conversions.

[gimbal]

Turbo Outrun a high quality conversion? On the Megadrive you mean?

[john1979]

MD turbo outrun is pretty dire.

[gimbal]

I would say the same about the Amiga version Still at the time I got it, it blew my socks off.

[Flash951]

For PC, someone has made a perfect port of the Arcade version, it's called Canonball and it's for free. It requires the original Arcade ROM though. Maybe it's possible to use this source code for a proper Amiga version too?

[dlfrsilver]

yes why not ? however, it would be better to ask to the cannonball author the ressourced ASM source code commented (which he did before converting the program in C).

[Nekoniaow]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

It felt unfinished, same with Space Harrier II.

Compare them both to Super Hang On, Super Monaco GP, or Turbo Outrun. Those are very high quality conversions.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

yes why not ? however, it would be better to ask to the cannonball author the ressourced ASM source code commented (which he did before converting the program in C).

The difficulty of OutRun does not lie in the "generic parts" which are the ones the Canonball author kept converted as-is while he did a lot of adaptation work on the hardware specific ones. The difficulty lies in moving as many bobs on screen as possible while keeping a descent framerate. Alas, using the Canonball C++ code does not help there.

Outrun is clearly a level or two above LotusIII. I have been thinking of re-making it for quite some time but that's frankly not the game I would start with, it's one of the hardest (with AfterBurner) to convert without butchering it.
Also if I started working on it, I would definitely ask for an official license.

Regarding Super Hang On I must disagree with hewitson, it's really bad. It's not even 20 fps, probably more like 15. The controls are lagging and imprecise, the graphics are bad and not faithful at all to the original and the sound is horrendous. The other riders keep jittering left and right constantly and do not drive in the smooth trajectories they have on the Arcade which shouldn't be that hard to code.
I bought the original recently on EBay because I wanted to have a clear conscience and because I wanted to analyze it but I found it even worse than what I remembered from the old days.

I must say that I agree with you (hewitson) that Space Harrier feels unfinished, it has a ok look (but frankly an A500 can do better) but the controls, O dear lord do they suck.

[Flash951]

The arcade version of OutRun is one of my favorite game. It requires a lot of hardware. To be close to the arcade it must be made for an expanded Amiga, RTG graphics board, 040 or 060 CPU,

[Nekoniaow]

Originally Posted by Flash951

The arcade version of OutRun is one of my favorite game. It requires a lot of hardware. To be close to the arcade it must be made for an expanded Amiga, RTG graphics board, 040 or 060 CPU,

A chip RAM only 1200 should be able to a very good job. Not perfect but very good.

I am not sure why you think a 040+ is necessary?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Nekoniaow

The difficulty of OutRun does not lie in the "generic parts" which are the ones the Canonball author kept converted as-is while he did a lot of adaptation work on the hardware specific ones. The difficulty lies in moving as many bobs on screen as possible while keeping a descent framerate. Alas, using the Canonball C++ code does not help there.

Because BEFORE writing the C code, he has ressourced the ASM program and commented it.

Before having any difficult to move as many bobs, there is a problem with the way the graphic system is working. there is a big work in this field to do, before wanting to get bobs moving on screen.

Outrun is clearly a level or two above LotusIII. I have been thinking of re-making it for quite some time but that's frankly not the game I would start with, it's one of the hardest (with AfterBurner) to convert without butchering it. Also if I started working on it, I would definitely ask for an official license.

Lotus III is excellent, but you'd need 64 colors on screen at least to get the grip with outrun original graphics.

There is a work to do on the original assets BEFORE starting to work on the conversion.

Regarding Super Hang On I must disagree with hewitson, it's really bad. It's not even 20 fps, probably more like 15. The controls are lagging and imprecise, the graphics are bad and not faithful at all to the original and the sound is horrendous. The other riders keep jittering left and right constantly and do not drive in the smooth trajectories they have on the Arcade which shouldn't be that hard to code.

super hang on is an atari ST port, what did you expect ?

I bought the original recently on EBay because I wanted to have a clear conscience and because I wanted to analyze it but I found it even worse than what I remembered from the old days.

I must say that I agree with you (hewitson) that Space Harrier feels unfinished, it has a ok look (but frankly an A500 can do better) but the controls, O dear lord do they suck.

space harrier is very good, circa 1989. Amiga programming went ahead than that, with new tricks.

[Flash951]

Because the original arcade version is running 2 x 68000@10MHz, 1xZ80 on a special designed computer that was expensive to produce, and 12 000 colors at once. Hardware supporting two roads. The same hardware was also used on Space Harrier and Super Hang-on by the way.

[dlfrsilver]

1x 68000 is dedicated to the road display (second 68000 slave)
1x 68000 is dedicated to the remaining (display driving, game logic, sprite logic) (first 68000, master)
1x z80 to drive the sound.

And 8192 color palette (read for a computer using a unified palette: 256 colors game).

[Nekoniaow]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Because BEFORE writing the C code, he has ressourced the ASM program and commented it.

I know that, I read his blog from start to finish (it's still ongoing btw) and that's precisly why I mentioned that the parts with the most work were hardware related.

The gameplay and road system are fairly generic and although he mentions that the road system code is way too convoluted and heavy handed for what it does that's very unlikely to require a lot of CPU power. What require power and attention is the sheer number and size of roadside objects to draw each frame.

Before having any difficult to move as many bobs, there is a problem with the way the graphic system is working. there is a big work in this field to do, before wanting to get bobs moving on screen.

I'm not sure of what you mean here. I'm not talking about a port and how it should proceed, I was just listing the performance issues that the Amiga version faces. These have to be solved beforehand: Outrun is 50 fps or nothing so all the constraints on assets derive from what can be physically achieved by the Amiga.

Lotus III is excellent, but you'd need 64 colors on screen at least to get the grip with outrun original graphics.

There is a work to do on the original assets BEFORE starting to work on the conversion.

Before working on the assets you need to know what you are able to draw: how many objects per frame, which size, which number of bit planes per object, which bitplane depth for the screen, etc.
That's done by prototyping using dummy bobs with patterns until you can manage the achieved frame rate. Only then you know what kind of butchering can be applied to the assets.

super hang on is an atari ST port, what did you expect ?

This is certainly the reason why it is as it is but I'm making a value judgement on the final result as a player, not a reflexion on how it became so. It is a bad port and a crappy game overall and as a player that's all I am interested in. Maybe they had good reasons for that but I play the game for its fun factor and quality in the end so that should be the measuring criterion.

I must say that despite this I finished the game in its day. Which is why it was also important to me to buy an original (even got an unopened one with its 1990 sticker ): I wanted to pay for the time I spent on it even though I didn't like it.

space harrier is very good, circa 1989. Amiga programming went ahead than that, with new tricks.

The graphics clearly were redrawn and not converted which significantly lowers the quality and that has nothing to do with the year, that's just sloppy work (likely justified by management constraints but then again as a player it's not my problem: I judge on the result, not on the effort). But most importantly what kills the game are the controls and that has nothing to do with technology, on the contrary it's revealing of the conditions it was shipped under and these likely had more influence on the result than the skills of the coders.

I am of the opinion that it could have been much better even at that time without any particular tricks.
With tricks, well, it could be simply amazing.