Rolling Thunder
 

Might get wrong for it but in the zone is Rolling Thunder unfucked featuring the replacement of some heavy lifting CPU routines with those from our beloved blitter, several other routines changed along with some other Amiga centric fun to make the game run more than 7 frames a second.

Big thanks to CodeTapper for telling me the infamous story of how Tiertex left what is likely 80% of the finished source code on the original disk (idiots).

Big thanks to Asman for doing a stellar job of actually disassembling and commenting on the game and allowing me to peek at his work, amazing stuff.

I'll probably do a Youtube video featuring the changes - loads more improvements could be made, if the masses want it.

Geezer - Over and out and back to Devil's Temple.

Oh before I forget... you'll need an A500 with 0.5 slow ram.

http://109.228.4.199/clean.jpg

I wonder how many Tiertex games could be improved like that. Recognizing their fake blits and replace the routines by real blits.

Probably easier said than done, but with memory watches watching screen CPU writes it the routines could be found easily.

Going to test that. Great job & great find!

I think the only way anyone will see any difference is to have a side by side video.

Either way, a rewrite is the only way this game sees justice, I can't imagine there is anything to learn from Tiertex or worth saving.

Rewriting the game for an A500 with one eye on the arcade is a very tall order, the hardware between them is chalk and cheese, even a stock A1200 will struggle, possible maybe at 25fps.

What is apparent is that the game isn't a port from the Atari ST, but of the ZX Spectrum. They really did cash in on this one.

Thanks mcgeezer :)

Interesting read - thanks again @McGeezer.

Thanks! I only played Rolling Thunder on the C64, but thanks for improving the Amiga version it looked way too slow.

interesting i will check it out

Nice job, mate! :)

"bogroll.exe" :laughing

Thanks, it is more playable now; one thing I still miss from the coin-op though is the different coloured enemies (eg. the ones that need 2 bullets are blue and gold in the coin-op).

I also noticed some corruption of the score area on my system, see screenshot, which only affects the currently active player.

I tested the game on WinUAE but also on my A1200 (standard 2MB) and 030 Blizzard.
In all cases I don't hear any sound (tested F1/F2 keys).
On A1200/030 is too fast, but also on base A1200.

Awesome!!!

Thanks mc.

Very cool stuff, thanks guys!

I remember, reading somewhere in this forum, where people seriously discussed how Tiertex managed to make game that slow. :)
Something like.. you actually need to put an effort to make it that slow. :D

Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzQUCklhVFM

Same here, tried loads of emulator settings from basic A500 upwards, all totally silent. It moves like greased lightning, but there ain't no thunder.

And here's me thinking I was doing you all a favour by removing the sound hahahah....

If I have time I'll look at the sound routines to see if I can fix them and re-release with a few other changes.

I can see at least a 30% improvement, care for a proper mod track?

Sure, bash it over... don't spend too much time on it, you can't polish a turd.