why Sonic wasn't possible on stock Amiga?

[Amiga1992]

Mr. Nutz's Amiga version was unique, it was the best version all together. The console games were dull and horrible.

It is the only game I'd compare to Sonic any day.

[lifeschool]

Lets not forget that Tearaway Thomas was also a blazingly fast game even on an A500 - although there were no background effects, parallax or multi-layed gizmos to slow that game down. Wiz n' Liz was also blazingly fast on an A1200. But its not the speed that matters - or the (50/60fps) smoothness either! - but the quality of the overall package combined. Sonic has 200% more charm than either Tearaway, Superfrog or QuickSilva, and was smoother, faster and easier than Robocod AGA, Kid Chaos or Zool 2 AGA.

Would it not be any better to just code a Megadrive emulator for the Amiga? Mountains/Mohammed etc. I know this wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun to code - but the final result would also be F-Zero and Mario Cart?

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by s2325

Thank you. With A500 (1MB chip, 512KB slow) settings: [ Show youtube player ]

Haha what the hell WHEN IS THE GAME GOING TO START? 5 minutes of video and only 40 seconds of game...

I don't know why people are making so much fuss over how fast a game is, if you can write a scrolling routine scrolling quickly isn't any harder than scrolling slowly, within limits. If you can move things by 1 pixel per frame you can move things by 8 or 16 pixels per frame. Only once you go over 16 pixels per frame does your blitter workload start going up. I'm pretty sure Sonic doesn't ordinarily go over 16 pixels per frame and there's really not all that much going on.

[s2325]

Sorry, if game is fast gameplay is choppy when recording.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

Only once you go over 16 pixels per frame does your blitter workload start going up.

With scrolling, the blitter doesn't have to copy the whole screen. There's a method of scrolling the screen which is very easy on the blitter (and doesn't do any copying with cpu).

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by Thorham

With scrolling, the blitter doesn't have to copy the whole screen. There's a method of scrolling the screen which is very easy on the blitter (and doesn't do any copying with cpu).

You're teaching a grandma to suck eggs, here.

Although my own code uses CPU and blitter in parallel...

You only have to draw the area of the screen that's been revealed by the screen offset changing. You maintain a screen slightly wider than the visible area and redraw a strip down the edge when required. Obviously drawing a 32 pixel strip is more work than drawing a 16 pixel strip, but 16 pixels is pretty fast scrolling anyway.

[Cooljerk]

Originally Posted by hitchhikr

On Master System:

- Sonic Blast
- Sonic Chaos
- Sonic Spinball
- Sonic The Hedgehog
- Sonic The Hedgehog 2

On Game Gear:

- Sonic Blast
- Sonic Chaos
- Sonic Labyrinth
- Sonic Spinball
- Sonic The Hedgehog
- Sonic The Hedgehog - Triple Trouble
- Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Sonic 1 on the Master System (runs at full frame rate on the console):

[ Show youtube player ]

Sonic 2 (also runs at full framerate):

[ Show youtube player ]

Those are all completely different games from the Genesis sonic titles. Did you even look at the youtube videos you posted?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by seuden

Sonic 2 was ported to the Master System?

They're totally different games and afair so are the Sonic 1's.

[P-J]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

...but 16 pixels is pretty fast scrolling anyway.

To further add to that-- I worked out that Sonic on the Master System is at it's maximum pushing 8px/frame (at 256 wide) and that seems pretty bloody fast once it's happening in front of you.

[gibs]

somebody should do an AGA version that looks like that one !!!

[ Show youtube player ]

[Codetapper]

That MSX version would be very easy to convert to the Amiga as there's no parallax.

[Amiga1992]

MAybe we should do this:
[ Show youtube player ]
Or this:
[ Show youtube player ]

[discomeats]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

Haha what the hell WHEN IS THE GAME GOING TO START? 5 minutes of video and only 40 seconds of game...

Dear god, no kidding.

Just start the game already! I'm not going to live forever!

[khph_re]

Originally Posted by Codetapper

That MSX version would be very easy to convert to the Amiga as there's no parallax.

Can't this version run under one of the MSX emulators? I know I play master system sonic on my A1200 as well.

I think a native sonic could look very good on OCS, but I don't know who would have the time to do it.

[s2325]

I think MSX2 emulation is really slow on Amiga.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by khph_re

Can't this version run under one of the MSX emulators? .

Nope, because that game runs on Turbo R, which is not an MSX2, it's the MSX plus the R800 RISC processor.

The only emulated Sonic you can play very well is the Master System one, on an 030 system.

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

Haha what the hell WHEN IS THE GAME GOING TO START? 5 minutes of video and only 40 seconds of game...

I don't know why people are making so much fuss over how fast a game is, if you can write a scrolling routine scrolling quickly isn't any harder than scrolling slowly, within limits. If you can move things by 1 pixel per frame you can move things by 8 or 16 pixels per frame. Only once you go over 16 pixels per frame does your blitter workload start going up. I'm pretty sure Sonic doesn't ordinarily go over 16 pixels per frame and there's really not all that much going on.

How many pixels does the average game move at?

[P-J]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

How many pixels does the average game move at?

Difficult to say, but from memory your average shmup on a lo-res screen moves at around 3 or 4px/frame. I'd imagine something like Superfrog would push 8px/frame and like I said, the SMS version of Sonic is doing 8px/frame.

But of course it depends on the resolution too I guess

Load up an emulator that supports single frame skipping (or maybe a max speed in % setting) and you can take a look yourself. You might be surprised how slow it's moving, but the multiple layers of parallax give the impression of speed.

I seem to remember Chemical Plant Zone (Act 2) on Sonic 2 on the Megadrive was like that. The first part where you run down that huge ramp and through a ton of loops. The parallax scrolling gives you the impression of massive speed, and then of course Sonic disappearing off the screen makes your brain think the character's going even faster.

Cool stuff, is scrolling

[Merlin]

I always thought that Superfrog was fairly close to Sonic, in terms of speed, scrolling and 'feel', as well as the levels being similar in design. Am I wrong?

[_ThEcRoW]

Originally Posted by P-J

Apples and oranges really. The fact that they were both 16-bit is a red herring. The Megadrive was designed from the ground up to play games and shift lots of data round the screen quickly. The Amiga was designed for spreadsheets. Not saying the Amiga didn't have amazing games, but the MD hardware was designed with solely gaming in mind.

C64 vs Master System is another example.

Hummm, spreadsheets wasn't the thing Jay Miner tought when creating the Amiga...