Test Drive II - how do I increase the frame rate?

[CCCP alert]

Assuming I don't want to play the ST or DOS version, how do I increase the speed of the Amiga version?

I have tried 020,030,040 and OCS/AGA along with NTSC/PAL combinations and nothing changes, the game is frame locked?

Is there a version that can be sped up? I like the game but it would be nice if I could make it run faster than A500/2000 speed.

[Reynolds]

I did the same test a while ago. No joy.

[ Show youtube player ]

[CCCP alert]

Originally Posted by Reynolds

I did the same test a while ago. No joy.

[ Show youtube player ]

Annoying isn't it?

[jotd]

I'll have to check again but I think game heavily uses the blitter which means faster CPU isn't going to help.

Too bad as it's a fine game. Maybe try whdload version, it could be slightly faster.

[kremiso]

interesting, really a shame
what about the first one, it was better in the same matter?

[CCCP alert]

I tried it on 2mb and 4mb A1200 config too and it runs identical to A500 spec so there must be some frame limiting aspect to the code, it's not just a case of blitter being maxed out I think.

I did play it a lot back then, doesn't really matter if we can't speed it up as the nostalgic hit from playing it on my 1084 again is enough

[Reynolds]

Originally Posted by kremiso

interesting, really a shame
what about the first one, it was better in the same matter?

TD 1 runs way better on extra HW, much better framerate, much smoother gameplay. Sadly TD2 did not follow it's procedure.

[Reynolds]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

Annoying isn't it?

Yes, very much. Especially since we have no good driving sim on Amiga, but arcade racers. One thing annoys me even more, the cyclic stop of the movement within the action. It really seems to have some fps limitation and some awful code.

[Megalomaniac]

We've got good racing sims on the Amiga, if not 'driving' sims.

To be fair, even 68020 accelerators were pretty new in 1989, and a long way off being used in an off-the-shelf Amiga. Most games from that time period don't even work with them, let alone taking advantage of them.

[jotd]

A good test would be to run on WinUAE with fastest possible + immediate blitter.

[Rotareneg]

It's amusing that Test Drive 3 went wrong in the opposite direction, with terribly slow (5-6 FPS) being the "correct" speed on a slow-ish 386, with the game running uncontrollably fast on a 486.

[Reynolds]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

We've got good racing sims on the Amiga, if not 'driving' sims.

To be fair, even 68020 accelerators were pretty new in 1989, and a long way off being used in an off-the-shelf Amiga. Most games from that time period don't even work with them, let alone taking advantage of them.

Yepp, that's why I wrote driving instead of racing. The top on my list is Lotus 2 (and the other installments of course) while driving simulation has only one iconic title for me in terms of performance, which is Street Rod. In that you can feel the speed on higher CPUs, so albeit both released around the same time, something definitely went wrong at DSI while they developed the game.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by jotd

A good test would be to run on WinUAE with fastest possible + immediate blitter.

With this the game runs pretty much at the same frame rate as always only the clouds in the back run accross the screen now. The actual gameplay is the same sluggish. So it is some code that is slowing it down somewhere ?

[kremiso]

iirc Race Drivin' was better if runned on better hardware
a lot

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

With this the game runs pretty much at the same frame rate as always only the clouds in the back run accross the screen now. The actual gameplay is the same sluggish. So it is some code that is slowing it down somewhere ?

Could be limited some fixed division of the refresh rate or some other fixed interrupt.

[Reynolds]

IMHO the best would be to write a new engine from scratch. I can imagine it is wired to the std A1000/A500/2000 specs completely.

[daver]

td2 runs abit faster and smoother from floppy then whdload but with graphic glitces.
to get the whdload version faster use ntcs and branchcache, storebuffer, superscalar option on a 060.

[Aardvark]

Originally Posted by Reynolds

IMHO the best would be to write a new engine from scratch. I can imagine it is wired to the std A1000/A500/2000 specs completely.

We already have superior 68k version on Amiga, thanks to Jim Drew!
[ Show youtube player ]

PC-Task also handles the DOS version well
[ Show youtube player ]

[VladR]

Why is it B&W ? Is that a Macintosh thing ? Looks like there's 4 shades, which would imply 2 BPLs.

Sorry, never encountered Mac in the wild, never heard of anyone owning one, only read about them in mags...

[pipper]

Maybe @paraj can pull off something like he did for TFX - assembling the whole frame in fastmem and then only copy the final frame over to chipmem. That approach can be vastly better than doing many individual blits to render a frame.