CannonBall - Enhanced Outrun Engine Released

[derSammler]

I'm trying to get this to run on my PiStorm Amiga 500, but all I get is a garbled screen and a GURU. Any ideas? A500 with 1 MB Chip, PiStorm (Pi3A+, Emu68 rc1), OS 3.1.4.

btw, after fully reading this thread, the version on Aminet seems outdated..? Where can the most current build be found?

[pcotter]

Here
https://github.com/HenrykRichter/Cannonball-C

[derSammler]

Thanks, I'll give that one a try.

[Angus]

Originally Posted by derSammler

Thanks, I'll give that one a try.

Good evening, Mr Bond....... How did it go. I think I'll give it a try too.

[derSammler]

Works fine with the version from the link above and the correct ROMs.

[Angus]

With the version on Aminet I got nowhere, but with the Github version I made some progress. At one point I got a nice fullscreen display, I messed about a bit with Newmode but couldn't get it back. As it loads it complains about a file but then loads the game anyway. It looks awesome, and it reports 58 fps but I didn't work out how to take control of the car, - and despite activating it in settings I wasn't able to hear any sound. I guess that starts during gameplay.

I noticed some earlier versions, perhaps I'll see if Ihave any more luck with them tomorrow.

[derSammler]

I would recommend looking at the readme file.

There is no sound support (yet). Music only. You play with the joystick (port 2) or keyboard. All keys are listed in the readme.

Whatever rom set you have, you most likely need to rename "epr-10381b.132" to "epr-10381a.132". Older sets have the wrong name for that file, as it was not realized that it did not differ from rev. a of the game.

[Angus]

Readme file? I got the Cannonball-C-master.zip file from the Github link. All I could see was License text in the docs folder, and not much more on the Aminet version - no instructions as such. :-/

Is this a separate file you dowload from Github? I find that site to be very confusing to navigate. Makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land.

The game also complains about Tile maps(?) which aren't included, so I imported the res folder from the Aminet version which seems to have helped.

I created a screenmode that the program wants 320x224 that was causing me problems until I saw that P96mode had defaulted into Doublscan mode (again!). Looks good now. With some more experimenting I was able to start a game, but still no .mods playing. I examined the .mods and found DOpus would not copy the first one into ram: because (I think) it's name has too many characters?

Research continues.

[derSammler]

The .lha of each version has the readme file included:

Short:        Amiga port of CannonBall - The Enhanced Outrun Engine
Uploader:     Henryk Richter <henryk.richter@gmx.net> 
Author:       Chris White, Lantus360, Henryk Richter
Type:         game/race
Version:      1.4
Architecture: m68k-amigaos >= 3.1.0
Distribution: Aminet

This is another port of the Cannonball Engine to 68k Amigas.
The conversion to C was done by djcc over at the Reassembler 
forums (http://reassembler.game-host.org/). Lantus360 
(Modern Vintage Gamer) did the initial Amiga port of the 
SDL codebase.

This fork by Henryk Richter is dedicated to a native 
AmigaOS/68k version and does no longer use SDL.

Several optimizations have been incorporated to improve 
runtime performance. This port re-enables the background 
graphics that were missing in the previous port (and runs 
faster, still). Nevertheless, a very fast 68k Amiga is 
required for somewhat decent experience.

The ingame music of this port is in Protracker format for 
low music runtime overhead. The tunes were contributed by 
Sal "KJmann" Esquivel.


Requirements
============

- A very very fast Classic Amiga (MC68060 + Zorro-III RTG)
- Picasso96 RTG.


Installation
============

- Install anywhere on your Amiga. 
- You need Outrun Revision B ROM files (not included for 
  copyright reasons). They go in the ROMS subfolder.
- Click the CannonBall icon, wait for it to load and enjoy :)


Upgrade Notes
=============

Should you intend to update an existing installation of this
Cannonball port (<=1.3), then please don`t forget to copy the
contents of the "data" subdirectory (=new mods with different
names) over to the existing location.


Controls
========

Keyboard

5 - Insert Coin
1 - Start Game
Z - Accelerate
X - Brake
Space - Change Gears
Cursor Left/Right - Move Car

or Plug Joystick in Port 2

Button 1 - Accelerate
Button 2 - Brake
Up - Change Gears
Left - Move Car Left
Right - Move Car Right

ESC - Quit to Workbench (without further confirmation questions)

F1  - Pause
F3  - Freeze Timer
F5  - Go to main menu
F9  - Toggle graphics detail levels (2-0-1-2-...)


Known Issues
============

    - not all config options are working
    - music is only available in game. The original
      sounds have been replaced with .mod files.
    - no sound FX supported
    - MIDI code is still present but disabled at the moment


History
=======

1.4 - new music by Sal "KJMann" Esquivel who contributed all
      four Outrun tunes as new arrangements. Thanks, man.
    - fixed music selection screen: now the previews should
      work.
    - small change in Protracker player to re-initialize
      the tempo correctly
1.3 - fixed a bug in Hires road rendering that led to a crash
    - mod music is now on by default (unless disabled by an 
      existing config file)
    - explicit clear screen on video mode changes
1.2 - added support for BGR16PC format in addition to RGB16,
      RGB16PC
    - custom replacement for p96BestModeIDTagList() to fix 
      screen selection problems on some systems
      (P96 V2.0/2.1, at least)
    - reduced screen copy overhead for slightly faster 
      rendering
1.01- first public (binary) release


Source Code
===========

    https://github.com/HenrykRichter/Cannonball-C

Use Cannonball14.lha and update with the slighly newer "Cannonball" file from /master/release.

[utri007]

It is really slow with my 68060 / 80mhz.

I refuse believe that this is max performance for this game with Amiga.

Just watched several Outrun versions, and started to wonder. Why computer Amiga/Atari/Commodore versions did not have any kind of "side view" of cars? Those versions has only a few frame animation of back of cars. Not anyway near a 3D view like SNES and Genesis versions had.

[derSammler]

This is a port, not a native Amiga game. Yes, you could make it run much faster by pre-scaling the sprites, using the Blitter/Copper etc. But that's not how it works. It does everything in software that the GPU of the Outrun arcade board did in hardware. And mind you, the GPU used for that game was a beast! (see https://segaretro.org/Sega_OutRun_hardware)

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by utri007

It is really slow with my 68060 / 80mhz.

I refuse believe that this is max performance for this game with Amiga.

The game does far more than you might think from looking at it, and although this isn't emulation per se, it's still very very demanding. The 68060 really won't cut it.

PiStorm does though, and I expect a Vampire would do a pretty decent job.

[Angus]

Originally Posted by Dunny

. The 68060 really won't cut it.

.

I accept that, but I feel sure that it would be possible to produce a broadly similar game (concentrating on the things the Amiga is good at) that would run the player's arse off on 030/040 AGA and hit all the cool stops along the way.

I don't think it's ever been tried, has it?

I don't know if Wing Commander CD32 patched version would offer any sort of benchmark?

P.S. I don't know what I'm talking about.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Angus

I accept that, but I feel sure that it would be possible to produce a broadly similar game (concentrating on the things the Amiga is good at) that would run the player's arse off on 030/040 AGA and hit all the cool stops along the way.

I don't think it's ever been tried, has it?

I don't know if Wing Commander CD32 patched version would offer any sort of benchmark?

P.S. I don't know what I'm talking about.

You don't really need to. A lot of people look at stuff like Jaguar or the Lotus games and go "We can do Outrun easily!" and they're right but it won't be Outrun. It will at best be an approximation.

Outrun arcade can shift a crapload of pixels around. It can scale sprites and rotate them to enormous sizes and never misses a frame of animation because of the hardware it has on board - two 68k CPUs and the sprite hardware - which translates to an enormous amount of work for one CPU to handle on its own.

So sure, we can do an Outrun clone - and have done. But what we're doing here is the literal arcade version. And that's much harder than merely imitating it.

[derSammler]

Originally Posted by Angus

I accept that, but I feel sure that it would be possible to produce a broadly similar game (concentrating on the things the Amiga is good at) that would run the player's arse off on 030/040 AGA and hit all the cool stops along the way.

I don't think it's ever been tried, has it?

It has been tried. Amiga Racer:

https://www.vesalia.de/e_amigaracer.htm

Never made for 68k, however, because the needed processing power simply is not there. Biggest issue is that the Amiga can not do smooth sprite scaling in hardware.

[Angus]

Originally Posted by derSammler

Use Cannonball14.lha and update with the slighly newer "Cannonball" file from /master/release.

Right, got that. Thanks. It's looking great, although I noticed sometimes it's reporting 58 fps, sometimes 30. I'll figure that out.

Still no music, I'll look at the config file to see if it is disabled. It would completely awesome with engine sounds.

[derSammler]

That's odd, music does not even use AHI or something, so that should just work.

You have all four mod files in the data folder and with the correct file names? (they changed in 1.4)

[reassembler]

I'm the original author of CannonBall. It's super impressive you spent time porting and optimizing it for Amiga hardware.

That being said, the original goals for the project were portability and enhancements. For example, 60fps and additional game modes. I didn't set out with retro hardware as a target - with no offense to the Amiga, which I of course love and is capable of many great things. It was only really 10 years post OutRun, when the Sega Saturn was released, that console hardware was comparable to what Sega were releasing in the arcade 10 years before. So yes, this is a tough project!

The vanilla CannonBall codebase is faster than emulating OutRun in MAME, because it's not reliant on 2 x 68k and Z80 processor emulation. Instead, the code was fully reverse engineered and ported to C++. That being said, the OutRun graphics hardware was light years ahead of most consoles of the era and is still emulated at a pixel buffer level to ensure portability.

I did some rough Maths in my head to contemplate a ground-up port to the Amiga of the original 68k assembly and a complete replacement of the original graphics routines. But it would be a mammoth project, and would certainly still require at least an 030 at 50Mhz to achieve anything half respectable! Just the OutRun sprite scaling and rendering hardware in isolation is a technical tour de force, and somewhat intimidating in terms of specs. It's no wonder even Sega struggled with their Genesis/MegaDrive port - which plays nothing like the original!

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by reassembler

I'm the original author of CannonBall. It's super impressive you spent time porting and optimizing it for Amiga hardware

Thank you for the great work you have done. Here is one of the last builds I got of Cannonball for 68k running on A1200 with pistorm32 2.2Ghz... with ALL details ON and in 16:9 mode. Of course running in 60Hz. Unfortunetly no sound fx, but it is sporting a quite good module for background music. A joy to play too.

[ Show youtube player ]

[gimbal]

Man the sprite scaling on the cars is legit.