Atari STE 50fps racer - WIP 03 September 2024 (real hardware)

[@jezhollinshead2839]

I should coco! Lookls amazing 🤩 Can't wait to play 🕹

[@gridleaderretro]

I'll try not to keep you waiting for too long :)

[@TPau65]

This is getting better and better! Great job so far! 👌 I presume that you're already aware of, that in sharp corners parts of the road appear on the opposite side of the screen?

[@gridleaderretro]

Thank you! The effect you've observed is a quirk of the way the road is rendered. You may notice that it happens in Lotus as well! If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me :)

[@philsan69]

Can't wait to run it on my machines!

[@gridleaderretro]

I can't wait to see it running on your machines :)

[@philsan69]

@@gridleaderretro 😄 👍🏻 at the moment on my desk the ST machine is a Mega STE.

[@AtariCrypt]

1:40 loving what you’re doing with the backgrounds

[@gridleaderretro]

The magic of that 4096 colour palette :)

[@sarkycutt9611]

Looks amazing, will it be compatible with TT, MSTE and Falcons too?

[@gridleaderretro]

Thanks! The game should be compatible with STE and MSTE on initial release. Subsequent releases may be compatible with Falcon once any Microwire compatibility issues are sorted out. No plans for TT compatibility as it doesn't have a Blitter chip and there aren't enough TT users to justify writing a "Blitter emulator". I do intend to publish the source code upon initial release so that others can make any changes they need.

[@b0rg1010]

Epic. Very nice indeed! 👍👍

[@gridleaderretro]

Thank you! 👍

[@AtariCrypt]

Superb mate 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@gridleaderretro]

Thanks as always!

[@bagospanners]

Amazing work. I wonder if you could make the sky gradient look more intentional by doing the vertical stippling technique like Pico Racer does.

[@gridleaderretro]

Interesting idea, thanks. I agree it would look nice, but it would also add some complexity to the code and I'm already struggling a bit to maintain 50fps without dropping too many frames!

[@carlosbragatto]

Can you make the grooves on the tyres flicker like on the arcade/zx spectrum? If I recall correctly, both flicker on the straights, and the internal one during the curves will flicker while the other remains static

[@gridleaderretro]

Possibly! Although it wouldn't be high on my list of priorities. Note that this game isn't intended to be a direct conversion of the WEC arcade game ... it's more "inspired by". I'm taking the gameplay in my own direction :)

[@lucasjokiel]

This needs CRT! ;)

[@gridleaderretro]

I sold my 14 inch Sony Trinitron for next to nothing several years ago :(

[@gauthiermorand7930]

Will you implement road elevation ?

[@gridleaderretro]

Not in this game - I'm not convinced it's possible at a 50fps framerate. The STE is already pretty stressed with what you see here :)

[@gauthiermorand7930]

@@gridleaderretro Even with more RAM ? My MegaSTE is 4Mo, like most of STE nowadays.

[@gridleaderretro]

@@gauthiermorand7930 It could possibly be done with a huge amount of precalculation and lots of additional memory. But for this game, I'm targeting 1meg STE to make it available to everybody.

[@mikejohnson699]

How many on screen colors? The blitter makes a huge difference here too.

[@gridleaderretro]

Hi Mike. I believe there are about 31 colours on screen.

[@mikejohnson699]

@@gridleaderretro how was this accomplished?

[@gridleaderretro]

@@mikejohnson699 Do you mean anything in particular? A lot of different techniques went into making this run at 50fps :)

[@mikejohnson699]

@@gridleaderretro the extra colors

[@gridleaderretro]

@@mikejohnson699 It's just Timer B rasters - a pretty standard technique for getting extra colours on screen. Loads of games use it.