Few words about Top Gear 2

turrican9 · 15 July 2020, 18:19

So I have been looking into this game lately and found a few things I wanna mention.

Been trying the ECS and AGA whdload and ADF versions of this game on the following systems: Amiga 1200 with ACA 1233 40MHz and 128MB fastmem, Amiga 500 Plus with ACA 500 + ACA 1221 overclocked to 28MHz with all 63MB fastmem unlocked and a Turbo Chameleon 64 V2 with minimig core.

First of all the ADFs I tried was the ECS version. I wanted to try this game on a low end Amiga. So I configured minimig with as low specs as possible. What I found was that my ADF version needed 1.5MB to run. at minimum 1MB had to be configured as chip mem. The other mem could be fast or slow RAM as long as I had at least 1.5MB the game would load up. CPU was set as a standard 68000.

The game was real slow when I configured with no fastmem. As soon as I configured some of the mem as fastmem (2MB is the minimum I can select) the game became much more smooth. So with a regular 68000 (A500 speed) the game benefits greatly from fastmem. If I tried slow mem + 1MB chip the game was really slow. I didn't even bother to try the AGA version on this setup.

Then I went to my A500 Plus, ACA 500 + ACA 1221 setup mentioned above. I would say the game was as smooth as on the TC64 V2 configured with fastmem. So I'm not sure this game benefits much from the CPU but fastmem looks to be the key.

Lastly I tried the AGA version on my above mentioned A1200 + ACA 1233 setup. The AGA version seems to be less smooth than the two above mentioned setups that ran the ECS version. In fact, the above mentioned setups with the ECS version ran quite a bit smoother. Much more playable. Especially in track 4 of the first level where it rains the AGA version was really sluggish. I can only imagine how slow it would be If I had no fastmem.

I then tried the SNES version using an emulator. I would say the Amiga ECS version is almost as smooth as the SNES version as long as one have fast RAM. SNES has both music and sound effects (Yes I know the CD32 version has both music and sound effects. But it's audio tracks running from the CD) at the same time. Sound effects on the SNES is better VS the Amiga version. But I think Amiga has better sounding music.

Also, I switched to NTSC and the ECS version became much faster and music more similar to the SNES version. NTSC seems to be the best way to play this game.

So AGA version VS ECS. Well, from what I've seen the only difference is that the AGA version has more colours in the sky and has a fuel bar. ECS version has the typical gradient sky and no fuel meter. You still get a notice on the screen when you are low on fuel. In my opinion the AGA version does not add anything that changes the experience or gameplay for me.

ECS Version:

AGA Version:

Conclusion: Top Gear 2 on Amiga is in my opinion one of the better driving games on Amiga as long as you fulfill the above mentioned things. Fast RAM, run the ECS version, use NTSC instead of PAL and use in-game music instead of sound effects. One cool thing is that the engine sound will change as you upgrade to better engines.

Lotus games are great but they don't have as many features as Top Gear 2. In lotus you simply drive with a time limit (At least in Lotus II and III). Not much else. In Top Gear 2 you can upgrade your car and go through a championship with 64 tracks. As long as you make it amongst the 10 best you qualify to the next track. The better position you get the more money to buy upgrades. The game is not very hard and the controls are good. And the nitro is cool.

I just wanted to share my experience and how I came to really like this game.

Edit: After some extensive SNES emulator play yesterday then switched to the Amiga I have concluded that the ECS version of Top Gear 2, ran in NTSC is at least as fast and smooth as the SNES version as long as you have some fast RAM. Maybe even smoother. I also tried to run with sound effects. Sound effects are not that bad. Basically Top Gear 2 is considered a great game on the SNES. The Amiga version is basically identical when you have the same smothness and speed.

manossg · 16 July 2020, 06:30

Thanks for the info, Top Gear 2 is a nice enough game. It has a lot of flaws, but I find it very relaxing to play (which is weird for a racing game).

Did you ever understand the differences in the various difficulty modes? I completed the game on all modes and I found no difference whatsoever. The manual didn't help either.

turrican9 · 16 July 2020, 10:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by manossg

Thanks for the info, Top Gear 2 is a nice enough game. It has a lot of flaws, but I find it very relaxing to play (which is weird for a racing game).

Did you ever understand the differences in the various difficulty modes? I completed the game on all modes and I found no difference whatsoever. The manual didn't help either.

You know I was actually wondering the same. I tried googling for this. Didn't find anything. I also tried to switch difficulty and didn't really feel much difference.

Maybe someone else can shed some light on this?

manossg · 16 July 2020, 11:18

My guess is that the game is partly unfinished. They wanted to implement difficulty levels as well as the fuel mechanic (which is also useless in the game, as you never run out of fuel), but they didn't have the time/compensation/will to do that. Is it the same on the console versions?

turrican9 · 16 July 2020, 11:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by manossg

My guess is that the game is partly unfinished. They wanted to implement difficulty levels as well as the fuel mechanic (which is also useless in the game, as you never run out of fuel), but they didn't have the time/compensation/will to do that. Is it the same on the console versions?

The fuel thing is identical on the SNES. Game looks identical. I assume the difficulty thing is the same aswell. As it is a straight port to Amiga. You can get low on fuel but I don't think any tracks is long enough for you to run completely out.

Personally I'm not a fan of having to fuel/pitstop. I know that in the first Top Gear, which is a SNES exclusive, you had to pitstop and fuel. The first Top Gear is inspired from the first Lotus game on Amiga. It even has the same music.

Predseda · 16 July 2020, 12:15

Play XJ220 instead.

manossg · 16 July 2020, 12:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by turrican9

The fuel thing is identical on the SNES. Game looks identical. I assume the difficulty thing is the same aswell. As it is a straight port to Amiga. You can get low on fuel but I don't think any tracks is long enough for you to run completely out.

You never run out on any of the tracks, on any difficulty level. So it's a useless feature.

Quote:

Originally Posted by turrican9

Personally I'm not a fan of having to fuel/pitstop. I know that in the first Top Gear, which is a SNES exclusive, you had to pitstop and fuel. The first Top Gear is inspired from the first Lotus game on Amiga. It even has the same music.

I don't mind refueling, if it's implemented well (and fairly). Not every 2 laps, like in Indy heat or having to refuel while the computer doesn't, like in Lotus.

turrican9 · 16 July 2020, 12:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Predseda

Play XJ220 instead.

XJ220 is an okay game. It does not have many features though. You repair your car after races. There is no money involved so it's a pretty pointless feature. There are no car upgrades. There is fuel in this game but I think it only matters on a couple of the tracks.

Other than that you just race against other cars with no time limit. And it's very hard to win. There is no turbo/nitro feature either.

In my opinion, as long as you have a good enough system to run Top Gear 2 smooth it's a better game VS XJ220. I even think Burning Rubber is a better game than XJ220. I think Burning Rubber is an underrated game. It has quite a few features. Just like Top Gear 2.

But XJ220 is definately one of those games I will play more. And of course, Crazy Cars III is a good game which I will invest more time in.

manossg · 16 July 2020, 13:16

Crazy Cars 3 is a top racer!

Predseda · 16 July 2020, 13:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by turrican9

XJ220 is an okay game. It does not have many features though. You repair your car after races. There is no money involved so it's a pretty pointless feature. There are no car upgrades. There is fuel in this game but I think it only matters on a couple of the tracks.

Other than that you just race against other cars with no time limit. And it's very hard to win. There is no turbo/nitro feature either.

In my opinion, as long as you have a good enough system to run Top Gear 2 smooth it's a better game VS XJ220. I even think Burning Rubber is a better game than XJ220. I think Burning Rubber is an underrated game. It has quite a few features. Just like Top Gear 2.

But XJ220 is definately one of those games I will play more. And of course, Crazy Cars III is a good game which I will invest more time in.

- No money involved?

You earn money for each race and you must spend it wisely for repairs and travelling!

- Fueling appears in later stages and you need to check the lenght and ammount of laps and memorize the track to not miss refueling point otherwise you can loose the race!

- You race against other cars and not against the time limit, race standings matter (because of money) and each racer has its driving style (no anonymous opponents)!

- And finally - there is no turbo add on, because XJ220 itself has a built in turbo charged engine.

Jaguar XJ220 doesnt look technically as nice as Lotus games, but has many ace features.

turrican9 · 16 July 2020, 13:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Predseda

- No money involved?

You earn money for each race and you must spend it wisely for repairs and travelling!

- Fueling appears in later stages and you need to check the lenght and ammount of laps and memorize the track to not miss refueling point otherwise you can loose the race!

- You race against other cars and not against the time limit, race standings matter (because of money) and each racer has its driving style (no anonymous opponents)!

- And finally - there is no turbo add on, because XJ220 itself has a built in turbo charged engine.

Jaguar XJ220 doesnt look technically as nice as Lotus games, but has many ace features.

Sorry, I must have forgotten about the money part. Looks quite interesting then

Havie · 16 July 2020, 22:54

Had to get Jaguar when I upgraded from 500 to 1200 as Lotus didn't work and GF and I liked having two player races!

I will revisit Top Gear 2 to see difference or not (definitely AGA shovel ware if no graphics upgrade). The speech bubbles always put more off though...

turrican9 · 16 July 2020, 23:25

Well, I finally finished the game. 64 tracks. LOL. I switched to PAL again because NTSC was causing crashes for me. I changed my mind with regards to PAL. It's still fast. And I've been using sound FX instead of the music.

Not even a highscore list in this game.

Retro-Nerd · 17 July 2020, 00:17

Then now play the SNES version and tell us which one is better.

17 July 2020, 00:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Havie

Had to get Jaguar when I upgraded from 500 to 1200 as Lotus didn't work and GF and I liked having two player races!

I will revisit Top Gear 2 to see difference or not (definitely AGA shovel ware if no graphics upgrade). The speech bubbles always put more off though...

Pretty sure all the Lotus games worked on a A1200 if you used Relokick.

could be remembering wrong but on the ECS version wernt the wheels on the car actually stationary, but on the AGA version they rotated to look as if they was moving?

turrican9 · 17 July 2020, 00:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Then now play the SNES version and tell us which one is better.

Already played the snes version as mentioned earlier in the thread. With a fast RAM Amiga and running the ECS version of Top Gear 2 it's very similar to the snes version with regards to speed, look, control and smoothness. The snes version has better engine and nitro sound and can run sound fx and music at the same time. That's about it

Retro-Nerd · 17 July 2020, 00:40

What about Top Gear 3000 which supports the DSP-4 special chip. Any good?

turrican9 · 17 July 2020, 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

What about Top Gear 3000 which supports the DSP-4 special chip. Any good?

That is a snes exclusive I think. Not tried it. But looking at a few youtube videos it looks okay

Quote:

Originally Posted by xubidoo

Pretty sure all the Lotus games worked on a A1200 if you used Relokick.

could be remembering wrong but on the ECS version wernt the wheels on the car actually stationary, but on the AGA version they rotated to look as if they was moving?

I think you are right about the wheels. Did not really notice that. Looked at a few youtube videos and it looks like snes version and AGA version has that feature.

turrican9 · 17 July 2020, 00:47

Another thing, Top Gear 2 is very easy. You just spend all 6 nitros early on in each race and get miles ahead of the other cars for an easy win. After 64 tracks it gets old. However, it's a nice driving game if you just wanna relax and play an easy racing game.

manossg · 17 July 2020, 00:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by turrican9

Another thing, Top Gear 2 is very easy. You just spend all 6 nitros early on in each race and get miles ahead of the other cars for an easy win. After 64 tracks it gets old. However, it's a nice driving game if you just wanna relax and play an easy racing game.

Lol, the challenge for me was lapping the 2nd driver and you could actually do it in a lot of tracks.

15 July 2020, 18:19	#1
turrican9 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Norway Age: 47 Posts: 893	Few words about Top Gear 2 So I have been looking into this game lately and found a few things I wanna mention. Been trying the ECS and AGA whdload and ADF versions of this game on the following systems: Amiga 1200 with ACA 1233 40MHz and 128MB fastmem, Amiga 500 Plus with ACA 500 + ACA 1221 overclocked to 28MHz with all 63MB fastmem unlocked and a Turbo Chameleon 64 V2 with minimig core. First of all the ADFs I tried was the ECS version. I wanted to try this game on a low end Amiga. So I configured minimig with as low specs as possible. What I found was that my ADF version needed 1.5MB to run. at minimum 1MB had to be configured as chip mem. The other mem could be fast or slow RAM as long as I had at least 1.5MB the game would load up. CPU was set as a standard 68000. The game was real slow when I configured with no fastmem. As soon as I configured some of the mem as fastmem (2MB is the minimum I can select) the game became much more smooth. So with a regular 68000 (A500 speed) the game benefits greatly from fastmem. If I tried slow mem + 1MB chip the game was really slow. I didn't even bother to try the AGA version on this setup. Then I went to my A500 Plus, ACA 500 + ACA 1221 setup mentioned above. I would say the game was as smooth as on the TC64 V2 configured with fastmem. So I'm not sure this game benefits much from the CPU but fastmem looks to be the key. Lastly I tried the AGA version on my above mentioned A1200 + ACA 1233 setup. The AGA version seems to be less smooth than the two above mentioned setups that ran the ECS version. In fact, the above mentioned setups with the ECS version ran quite a bit smoother. Much more playable. Especially in track 4 of the first level where it rains the AGA version was really sluggish. I can only imagine how slow it would be If I had no fastmem. I then tried the SNES version using an emulator. I would say the Amiga ECS version is almost as smooth as the SNES version as long as one have fast RAM. SNES has both music and sound effects (Yes I know the CD32 version has both music and sound effects. But it's audio tracks running from the CD) at the same time. Sound effects on the SNES is better VS the Amiga version. But I think Amiga has better sounding music. Also, I switched to NTSC and the ECS version became much faster and music more similar to the SNES version. NTSC seems to be the best way to play this game. So AGA version VS ECS. Well, from what I've seen the only difference is that the AGA version has more colours in the sky and has a fuel bar. ECS version has the typical gradient sky and no fuel meter. You still get a notice on the screen when you are low on fuel. In my opinion the AGA version does not add anything that changes the experience or gameplay for me. ECS Version: AGA Version: Conclusion: Top Gear 2 on Amiga is in my opinion one of the better driving games on Amiga as long as you fulfill the above mentioned things. Fast RAM, run the ECS version, use NTSC instead of PAL and use in-game music instead of sound effects. One cool thing is that the engine sound will change as you upgrade to better engines. Lotus games are great but they don't have as many features as Top Gear 2. In lotus you simply drive with a time limit (At least in Lotus II and III). Not much else. In Top Gear 2 you can upgrade your car and go through a championship with 64 tracks. As long as you make it amongst the 10 best you qualify to the next track. The better position you get the more money to buy upgrades. The game is not very hard and the controls are good. And the nitro is cool. I just wanted to share my experience and how I came to really like this game. Edit: After some extensive SNES emulator play yesterday then switched to the Amiga I have concluded that the ECS version of Top Gear 2, ran in NTSC is at least as fast and smooth as the SNES version as long as you have some fast RAM. Maybe even smoother. I also tried to run with sound effects. Sound effects are not that bad. Basically Top Gear 2 is considered a great game on the SNES. The Amiga version is basically identical when you have the same smothness and speed. Attached Thumbnails Last edited by turrican9; 16 July 2020 at 10:37.

16 July 2020, 23:25	#13
turrican9 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Norway Age: 47 Posts: 893	Well, I finally finished the game. 64 tracks. LOL. I switched to PAL again because NTSC was causing crashes for me. I changed my mind with regards to PAL. It's still fast. And I've been using sound FX instead of the music. Not even a highscore list in this game. Attached Thumbnails

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16 July 2020, 06:30	#2
manossg Registered User Join Date: Nov 2019 Location: Greece Posts: 992	Thanks for the info, Top Gear 2 is a nice enough game. It has a lot of flaws, but I find it very relaxing to play (which is weird for a racing game). Did you ever understand the differences in the various difficulty modes? I completed the game on all modes and I found no difference whatsoever. The manual didn't help either.

16 July 2020, 11:18	#4
manossg Registered User Join Date: Nov 2019 Location: Greece Posts: 992	My guess is that the game is partly unfinished. They wanted to implement difficulty levels as well as the fuel mechanic (which is also useless in the game, as you never run out of fuel), but they didn't have the time/compensation/will to do that. Is it the same on the console versions?

16 July 2020, 12:15	#6
Predseda Puttymoon inhabitant Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Tromaville Age: 46 Posts: 7,546	Play XJ220 instead.

16 July 2020, 13:16	#9
manossg Registered User Join Date: Nov 2019 Location: Greece Posts: 992	Crazy Cars 3 is a top racer!

16 July 2020, 22:54	#12
Havie Registered User Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: UK Posts: 1,895	Had to get Jaguar when I upgraded from 500 to 1200 as Lotus didn't work and GF and I liked having two player races! I will revisit Top Gear 2 to see difference or not (definitely AGA shovel ware if no graphics upgrade). The speech bubbles always put more off though...

17 July 2020, 00:17	#14
Retro-Nerd Missile Command Champion Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Germany Age: 52 Posts: 12,453	Then now play the SNES version and tell us which one is better.

17 July 2020, 00:40	#17
Retro-Nerd Missile Command Champion Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Germany Age: 52 Posts: 12,453	What about Top Gear 3000 which supports the DSP-4 special chip. Any good?

17 July 2020, 00:47	#19
turrican9 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Norway Age: 47 Posts: 893	Another thing, Top Gear 2 is very easy. You just spend all 6 nitros early on in each race and get miles ahead of the other cars for an easy win. After 64 tracks it gets old. However, it's a nice driving game if you just wanna relax and play an easy racing game.

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