Jonathan Thomas

Big thanks to
@zeropagehomebrew.com
for this exquisite award certificate and trophy for FASTER on the Atari STE!

(Amiga OCS/ECS version of FASTER is still in the works - please bear with me...😃)

Jonathan Thomas

The STE version is already available if you want to grab a copy.

retroracing.itch.io

Ha! I know what you mean, it's sometimes a bit too fast for my ageing reflexes. My "justification" for this is that racing games in the 80's were hard and fast, but our younger reflexes could cope with that. 😆

I think it's going to be okay - I've come a long way since those earlier efforts and coming to understand how to get performance out of the Amiga. Still got a couple of tricks up my sleeve but hoping it should be as fast as the STE version for the most part.

Here's a very informal comparison between the existing #AtariSTE version of FASTER and the (WIP) #Amiga OCS/ECS version, because I know you guys love this kind of thing. 😄

Atari left, Amiga right.

This short gameplay segment (I can only show about 30 seconds in Bluesky) is taken from quite a yellow time of day in the 24 hour cycle. That may account for it - there's no deliberate yellowness injected into the Amiga version.

FASTER for #Amiga OCS/ECS: switched over to single pass (rather than 4 pass) rendering for car and scenery bobs, giving a noticeable increase in performance.

Further evidence for any existing doubters out there that this is definitely not a lazy port from the ST! 😄

Of course, it'll run at a solid 50FPS on the 1200. But then people will expect a load of additional bells and whistles. My interest here lies mainly in getting the most out of the base chipset.

Ah thank you!

Ha ha! I'm trying my very best not to, but the Copper just presents to many opportunities for eye candy! If it's any consolation, I have a strong suspicion that I won't be able to make the Amiga version run quite as smoothly as the STE version. 😆

Ah thank you! Just trying to avoid taking sides and just using the hardware in each machine to the best of my ability!

Still not 100% I'll be able to get the Amiga version running as smoothly as the STE version. 😉

FASTER for #Amiga OCS/ECS: currently adding in some features that had to be left out of the STE version because they were too CPU intensive. This depth-cueing effect on the ground/road surface is a good example.

I don't love everything about the Amiga, but I love the Copper! 😁

Thanks! I've discovered that you can get away with a lot of visual imperfections when you hold a reasonably solid 50fps framerate. 😀

FASTER for #Amiga OCS/ECS: currently adding in bobs for top status display. Time digits will be hardware sprites.

As with the STE version that came before it, each new feature requires a load of optimisation work in other areas to hold onto that all-important 50fps framerate!

Absolutely. I now have tooling to create hardware sprite data from a GIF, so you can expect to see them everywhere I can cram them in. 😆

Also, the Copper on the Amiga allows for a variety of low-cost (in performance terms) "special effects" such as copper gradients.

My gut feeling is that the final Amiga version will drop a few more frames than the STE version but will also be a little nicer to look at. 😀

It's complicated. The STE feels a little faster in terms of raw brute processing and drawing speed. But to counter this, the Amiga allows for a variety of performance-enhancing optimisations such as switching off bitplanes on certain lines, using hardware sprites instead of bobs etc.

(continued...)

FASTER for #Amiga OCS/ECS: Following much head scratching, the speedo in the bottom right has been switched from BoBs to hardware sprites, giving a nice performance boost and other cool benefits that I'll come to later.

I did say this would be no lazy STE->Amiga conversion. 😄

I thought for a moment you'd tried to build something that ambitious using the segmented real mode memory model. 😀

I used DJGPP back in the day to build a few 3D engines. Really liked it. But the Watcom compiler produced faster code!

Love it! The texture mapped road and the overall look is so authentic to the era! Is that an old version of Turbo/Borland C I see running at the start?

Real nice early 90s mode 13h vibes there!

Yeah, I've seen a few weird efforts in my time. I think the best overall road algorithm is that used by the Lotus series. Looks "correct" and seems reasonably efficient.

I'd live to take a look at any examples of road engines you've worked on if you have links.

Ah - you must be Lou of "Lou's Pseudo 3d Page" fame, right? 😀

I didn't consider any other approaches to be honest - I was just trying to come up with something that might plausibly allow for 50 frames per second on mid-late 80's hardware! I don't have it look different coming out of curves sadly.

Thanks! Yeah, I guess you might call it an additive curve. Basically, the mathematically cheapest and most efficient on CPU time algorithm I could come up with. 😆

Plenty of lookup tables and as little multiplication and division as I can possibly manage.

(in whispering voice...)

The STE is a better machine. 😆

But seriously, I still have a lot of work to do - there's still a lot of low-level code in C, and a lot of code that needs to be made more Amiga-friendly (e.g. rewriting the sprite routines to do 1-pass blits rather than 4-pass blits).

FASTER for #Amiga OCS/ECS: copper sky gradient is now in, enabling reduced bitplane count in parts of screen for better performance. Still frame drops when screen busy but hoping to sort with optimisation.

Next up: status display and speedo, using a mix of HW sprites and bobs.

FASTER for #Amiga OCS/ECS: still getting the right foundations in place to build upon.

Switched to interleaved bitplanes to allow single-pass bob drawing. Considering best use of Copper and HW sprites to maximise framerate.

Be assured: this is no lazy STE->Amiga conversion! 😄

History in the making. 😆

FASTER for #Commodore #Amiga - a new WIP 50fps racer being ported from the existing Atari STE version.

Game now playable with joystick. Lots of work left - HUD not implemented, no sound and tons of optimisation required to match the STE version. Very happy with progress though!