English Amiga Board - View Single Post - £200 for Stunt Car Racer at 50/60 frames per second

twinbee · 21 March 2016, 16:07

Preface and background

Stunt Car Racer has always been one of my favourite racing games of all time. The spectacular physics, sound and gameplay were legendary and still are. Even back then though (15-20 years ago), I was dying to see a smoother frame-rate. In fact, part of the reason I even bought a 68060 at the time was the hope that SCR would break the ~15fps frame rate it was fixed to. That hope didn't bear fruit unfortunately.

Around six years ago, I asked you guys about the possibility of a super-smooth version of Stunt Car racer and created a post on this very forum. From that thread and other threads around the forum, I was directed to various 'tweaked' versions such as the ones found from here. But such versions (e.g: Stunt Car Racer Turbo) failed to be just smoother, and instead simply sped up the game which spoils the experience.

It's not through lack of trying either, as djvernon (a user here) explained his attempt to convert SCR to 60fps when he converted the original 68k code to Windows with his 'remake' (Source code here). Ervin, another user also tried hard to no avail.

Of course, there have been quite a few remakes too ( [ Show youtube player ], [ Show youtube player ], [ Show youtube player ], [ Show youtube player ]), but although many of these WERE smoother, they lacked the incredible physics that made the original so great. We're talking about the subtle tilting of the car as the load under each wheel varies, and how the vehicle bounces when you make a medium to hard landing. These ARE noticeable and drastically affect the feel of the game, and they are mostly missing from the remakes.

But..... the dream still hasn't died. Let's throw money at the problem.

Challenge:

SCR@60FPS OR BUST

I'm offering £200 £400 for someone, anyone, who can tweak the original code to run at 50/60fps. £100 £200 of it will be to make the game run at full frame rate. The other £100 £200 will be much easier to implement - I want to be able to adjust the CPU car speed in percentage points for extra difficulty (I love a challenge and completed the original SCR on the Amiga). However, I'll only award the latter £100 £200 for that 'adjustable difficulty' addition if you can successfully make it run at 50/60fps first.

So points to bear in mind:

It has to be SMOOTHER (50/60fps) keeping the original game speed. To simply speed the game up (though affecting the FPS) is trivial to do, and not what I want.
It also must be stable and not crash, so I can complete the game.
No bugs. Well, if I see some errors, I'll play it by ear according to how serious these errors are.
It must almost certainly be a tweak of the original code, not a complete rewrite. It must run through an Amiga emulator.
The physics MUST be faithful to the original. I'll know if they aren't! No 'tweening' of graphical frames to fake the smoothness.
If you want to add other goodies too (such as increased resolution, integration of the TNT tracks, or a level above the Super League for even beefier cars) then feel free, but make them optional if you do.
You must use Paypal for me to pay (I'm not sure how easy bank transfers are across countries since I live in the UK).

If someone is successful, great, they get the prize. If someone ELSE is also successful afterwards, I'll pay AN ADDITIONAL half of the amount that I offered in this post (so £50/£100 £100/£200 instead of £100/£200 £200/£400) to that second person. In total, I could be giving away £300 £600.

I'll honour my word about payment. A little about myself - I own the site skytopia.com and I create software such as the Lifehacker-endorsed OpalCalc, SunsetScreen, SonicPhoto and others. I also created the 'Eclipse of Mars' music CD, and helped discover the Mandelbulb - a 3D representation of the 2D Mandelbrot if that rings a bell to any of you.

Potential users here to carry out the update include AmiGer (SCR TNT fame), djvernon (SCR 68k to Win32 fame), and Galahad/FLT (SCR Turbo fame), but I'm sure there are many others here capable of carrying out this mission, even if they have never even played the game before.

21 March 2016, 16:07	#1
twinbee Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: UK Posts: 38	£400 for Stunt Car Racer at 50/60 frames per second Preface and background Stunt Car Racer has always been one of my favourite racing games of all time. The spectacular physics, sound and gameplay were legendary and still are. Even back then though (15-20 years ago), I was dying to see a smoother frame-rate. In fact, part of the reason I even bought a 68060 at the time was the hope that SCR would break the ~15fps frame rate it was fixed to. That hope didn't bear fruit unfortunately. Around six years ago, I asked you guys about the possibility of a super-smooth version of Stunt Car racer and created a post on this very forum. From that thread and other threads around the forum, I was directed to various 'tweaked' versions such as the ones found from here. But such versions (e.g: Stunt Car Racer Turbo) failed to be just smoother, and instead simply sped up the game which spoils the experience. It's not through lack of trying either, as djvernon (a user here) explained his attempt to convert SCR to 60fps when he converted the original 68k code to Windows with his 'remake' (Source code here). Ervin, another user also tried hard to no avail. Of course, there have been quite a few remakes too ( [ Show youtube player ], [ Show youtube player ], [ Show youtube player ], [ Show youtube player ]), but although many of these WERE smoother, they lacked the incredible physics that made the original so great. We're talking about the subtle tilting of the car as the load under each wheel varies, and how the vehicle bounces when you make a medium to hard landing. These ARE noticeable and drastically affect the feel of the game, and they are mostly missing from the remakes. But..... the dream still hasn't died. Let's throw money at the problem. Challenge: SCR@60FPS OR BUST I'm offering £200 £400 for someone, anyone, who can tweak the original code to run at 50/60fps. £100 £200 of it will be to make the game run at full frame rate. The other £100 £200 will be much easier to implement - I want to be able to adjust the CPU car speed in percentage points for extra difficulty (I love a challenge and completed the original SCR on the Amiga). However, I'll only award the latter £100 £200 for that 'adjustable difficulty' addition if you can successfully make it run at 50/60fps first. So points to bear in mind: It has to be SMOOTHER (50/60fps) keeping the original game speed. To simply speed the game up (though affecting the FPS) is trivial to do, and not what I want. It also must be stable and not crash, so I can complete the game. No bugs. Well, if I see some errors, I'll play it by ear according to how serious these errors are. It must almost certainly be a tweak of the original code, not a complete rewrite. It must run through an Amiga emulator. The physics MUST be faithful to the original. I'll know if they aren't! No 'tweening' of graphical frames to fake the smoothness. If you want to add other goodies too (such as increased resolution, integration of the TNT tracks, or a level above the Super League for even beefier cars) then feel free, but make them optional if you do. You must use Paypal for me to pay (I'm not sure how easy bank transfers are across countries since I live in the UK). If someone is successful, great, they get the prize. If someone ELSE is also successful afterwards, I'll pay AN ADDITIONAL half of the amount that I offered in this post (so £50/£100 £100/£200 instead of £100/£200 £200/£400) to that second person. In total, I could be giving away £300 £600. I'll honour my word about payment. A little about myself - I own the site skytopia.com and I create software such as the Lifehacker-endorsed OpalCalc, SunsetScreen, SonicPhoto and others. I also created the 'Eclipse of Mars' music CD, and helped discover the Mandelbulb - a 3D representation of the 2D Mandelbrot if that rings a bell to any of you. Potential users here to carry out the update include AmiGer (SCR TNT fame), djvernon (SCR 68k to Win32 fame), and Galahad/FLT (SCR Turbo fame), but I'm sure there are many others here capable of carrying out this mission, even if they have never even played the game before. Last edited by twinbee; 23 March 2016 at 10:06. Reason: Added "no tweening of frames"