Commodore 128 with SuperCPU playing Test Drive

In this video I load and play Test Drive from an original floppy disk on a real Commodore 128 in 64 mode with a SuperCPU. Since this is loaded from an original floppy in a real floppy drive, load times are poor. This is one of the few games that get a complete new life with the SuperCPU. The video frame rate is greatly enhanced, while playability is improved.

[@jmbambi]

Wow, so that is how this absolutely frustrating game should've been like. I'm still having nightmares of those steep curves with the original framerate.

[@Rhythmicons]

The slogan of my childhood: Load "*",8,1

[@TheLoveMario]

Fun fact the ",1" at the end isn't needed at all

[@Rhythmicons]

muscle memory

[@Woot007]

+MarioKart7z well geeking out here it is needed in some cases like if you load a Machine Code program there dosent start in $0800 but all basic programs dosnt require ,1 :)

[@tinotrivino]

Rhythmicons and press play on tape

[@roboak7916]

,1 was actually needed if a program had special memory loading instructions. I remember a few games I had wouldn't run without this parameter.

[@00Skyfox]

I like how the driving animation is done by calculating speed and time between frames to get the distance traveled, rather than updating each frame based on absolute clock cycles that passed (ie. the very fast car animation during the title screens). I wonder what the supercpu would do for Flight Simulator II.

[@ssdivizion]

Those were times...Mid and late 80's...You can go to lunch,watch some tv on some old-school tv-box who weights 50 kg. and then you can back at your room full with high-tech spec gear like this C-128 ....hehe

[@NeilRoy]

I loved this game on my C64. Test Drive II was really nice for the C64 with the scenery disks and car disk extras you could get. When I got a PC one of the first games I got for it was Test Drive III, which was in 3D and quite nice. I remember showing someone who had an IBM at the time Test Drive on the C64 and they were quite surprised at the sound and music the C64 had compared to their beeps at the time.

[@Loenne555]

Impressive performance! Very smooth. Looks great!

[@be236]

Wow , Test Drive on Commodore 64... brings back some memories...

[@belovedconsole]

I love the sound of this, the "quiet" parts, that machinery in the intro! Sound awesome

[@ArcadeDude44]

Wow, what great memories...I had, played the Heck out of this one, back in the day!

[@artbell259]

Looking for other demos of SuperCPU in games, thanks for this, actually quite playable at this speed

[@spavatch]

Holy cow, this is Amiga-smooth... o_0

[@jesuszafra]

very nice to see your super CPU in action :D I used to play a lot this game, really amazing to see it here boosted.

[@Huddison]

Not sure you'll still be making these vids - but Stunt Car Racer would be incredible with your SuperCPU I bet!

[@jakubkrcma]

That would KICK ASS!!! And speaking of Geoff Crammond, can you imagine REVS! with the SuperCPU??? That would be MAGIC!

[@bsvenss2]

Stunt Car Racer was one of my absolute favorite games! So good!

[@assafshmueli]

I used to go to the toilet when the game was loading back then.

[@STriderFIN77]

what do you do nowdays?

[@raydeen2k]

@@STriderFIN77 Nowadays, thanks to IoT, the toilet comes to him.

[@STriderFIN77]

@@raydeen2k Yes, i can approves that :D

[@treksterjsc]

TMI

[@DestructiveBurn]

Holly shit! I have been looking for the name of this game for years and i finally got it off this video! I use to play this on my old IBM MS-DoS 3.1 computer. Thanks for the upload!

[@icbrkr]

Huge fan of the game and most of Accolade's stuff at the time. Amazing to see a good framerate off this game.

[@redrumloa]

When I posted my comment, I was correct. Winvice getting SuperCPU 64 support is a real shocker! I hope SuperCPu 128 support is added eventually!

[@dimethyltryptamin]

Runs very smooth. Impressive.

[@srichard7291]

Agreed

[@alonzovillarreal4666]

Loved this game on the 64!

[@Supersaiyan79]

Have you tried any 3D games like Hard Driving (which was so slow), Stunt car racer or some flight sims?

[@illegalquantity]

Super smooth gameplay! You should test the Revs on it :)

[@kevinbarton9052]

Very good, lad. I hope that Ben Heck could use this C64 SuperCPU part mod for the C64 laptop as something new.

[@jbserra]

Wow, I remember this game on my 888-xt turbo pc. Same game play, but it only had 4 colors. pink, blue, white and black from what I remember... Yes, we played it all day!

[@1xWertzui]

Cool, it even got higher framerate without messing up the gameplay/timers.

[@Mau1wurf1977]

That's awesome! You seem to know your stuff. Are there ways to improve disk access on a real C64? In particular for the Game Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken. Or are there adapters to load the game from a CF or SD card and things like that? I always wondered why the disk drive was so slow compared to the PC and Amiga.

[@Bandit-Darville]

I remember very well getting a maximum score of 40040 points on the first level of this game with the Countach. And that was on a PC with like 10 Mhz and 2 colours, green and black. Good old times :)

[@discoHR]

Hercules graphics FTW. :)

[@leninalopez2912]

Me too! My first computer. An i286 with 1 meg of RAM, 40 meg of hdd, and an ambar hercules monitor. Still have the monitor, but the machine is now a Am386SX with 4 meg of RAM, and fully populated ISA slots: dual Hercules/SVGA (they map to different memory areas), 14400 baud modem, 2 HDDs, 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 floppys.

[@rachaelknight8048]

yhese was the games in my childhood now look what kids have lol

[@redrumloa]

Yes, a real C128. To be specific it was a Commodore 128D modified into a tower case.

[@Ostsol]

Nice! I played a lot of this game on a Commodore PC40-III, an 80286 IBM compatible. CGA graphics and PC speaker!

[@Deathkicker666]

Now is test drive playable :D

[@martingraat103]

I had it on my MS-DOS computer

[@be236]

Cool.... I had Commodore 64s and 128s when I was a kid...

[@belovedconsole]

Do you have a video of running Test Drive 2? That was the one that I remember loving so much, more diverse than this one, a worthy successor and fairly well programmed.

[@redrumloa]

If you are still following, I'll do a video soon. I should have new recording hardware.

[@jakubkrcma]

Simply wonderful! ❤ Does Test Drive II have the same benefit?

[@redrumloa]

Not in my experience. I've never had luck trying Test Drive 2, including an original store bought copy. Others have claimed you can, but I've not found a working version.

[@zacskou]

You can see the vertical lines and the "noise" in the whole video (especially visible at the BASIC screen), no emulator do this; it is definetly a digitalized RF signal.

[@GeirEivindMork]

@doritostheking In the "Rise and fall" book the engineers say that they initially put a high speed line for the diskdrive in the c64, but it didn't get in. And the drive was utterly slowed down with the vic 20 compability.

[@zyrgle]

Amazing frame rate! I still ocassionally play this from an original floppy on my C=64, and it runs at about 4 fps... or maybe closer to a frame every 4 seconds!

[@doritostheking]

@xadam2dudex Yep. Those plugged into the cartridge slot and took over the serial/floppy port. Most common one was called the "Epyx FastLoad".

[@drkamilz]

Because of new SID, digitized sounds are less audible. So i confirm, this is real c128.

[@tarstarkusz]

What keeps it from going too fast? Does the game use the screen or RTC? We see this effect on early PC games that simply run as fast as the machine can run it and hence we need slow down software or cycle reductions in dosbox. While games made after the first 286 came out didn't run flat out, the C64 was always the C64 and nobody would ever have forseen a 20mhz cpu upgrade and would just run as fast as it can. So what prevents this?

[@redrumloa]

I'm no programmer, but most games accelerated do indeed simply run to fast. I assume for this games they used the same techniques as later FPS games, where they dynamically drop frames to compensate for CPU speed. Then with a faster CPU, it simply drops less frames.

[@AiOinc1]

There is no RTC. The game is updating the screen as fast as it can, and there is a lot behind doing so. On the other hand, control checks are done at the same speed. This keeps it running well, since the CPU and VIC-II are bottlenecking each other now. Makes sure everything is still in sync. The SID is operating independently of the CPU and the VIC-II, so it is not affected.

[@NearTheLimits]

The good old days.

[@sonsofthewestredwhiteblue5317]

Great soundtrack

[@zoxwolf2133]

Amazing

[@simonllawrence]

I feel the need!

[@dhirajpallin2572]

This is why we need self-driving cars

[@TripCannon]

Nice! Wonder how "Hard Drivin'" would do?

[@dave4shmups]

Nice video!!! Do all Commodore 128's have the SuperCPU installed??

[@redrumloa]

This is a 128 in 64 compatability mode. There were programs for the 128 mode, but very few games. Beyond Zork and Last V8 come to mind for games, but really very few. The 128 shinned in productivity software both native and CP/M mode.

[@janiikavalko4046]

but I think there were c128 version for test drive 2 which greatly improves frame rate

[@philipcooper8297]

Well, that's smooth...

[@C64Television]

Nice!

[@BalczoLev]

Aveva una colonna sonora fantastica

[@aaronjden]

you sir, are a legend

[@999shazam]

Good old BASIC! 😁👌

[@juanangelcarrero1009]

Un gran ordenador de la década de los 80 👍

[@sharptoothtrex4486]

The Super CPU is a tough one to find in any flea market and thrift store. This is as if finding a needle in the haystack as an example reference.

[@redrumloa]

That's because it came out in the late 90s, well after Commodore's bankruptcy and after the commercial market was getting close to it's lowest point. There's probably low 4 figure numbers sold of all models and even less than that still working and accounted for 😕

[@sharptoothtrex4486]

@@redrumloa You mean the year between 1995-99?

[@SilverSpoon_]

wew it's sluggish on your emulator, but I remember that game on the C128, it was a must!

[@lurkerrekrul]

It's a shame that almost none of the games which could benefit from a faster CPU had internal timing that would allow them to run properly at the faster speed. Most of them become unplayable.

[@redrumloa]

That's true. A lot of games won't even load with a SuperCPU. What's a shame is by the time the SuperCPU came out in ~96, the C64 was dead when it came to commercial software. If it would have come out in the 80s or even ~91, maybe it would have extended the platform as a viable game market longer. The modern expansion "Turbo Chameleon" does a better job with it's accelerator function when it comes to games.

[@jmfilm]

good old times.... no fucking blue screen smilleeee...And in some years we have the same sound - with electric cars :(

[@kekman3923]

JMFilm Jörg Meixner Windows lol

[@tomypower4898]

cool games

[@fubaralakbar6800]

The game that made me a Lotus fanboy :D

[@Trancelistic]

Played this in school on a ibm. It was even worse then the c64. Ah .. good old days

[@televiciousgoober138]

hell of a lot better than on the Leading Edge.

[@matthewferguson7084]

The best part of these games were the boxes!

[@sonninnos]

Crikey!

[@redrumloa]

Yes, I used to be for may years.

[@falkaseltza]

wow, its better than burnout ;)

[@heatrayzvideo3007]

good game

[@EllipticDawid25]

Nice 1

[@kookoon]

Had no idea there was such a thing back in the days. Made this game a lot better.

[@hashimotokobayashi2244]

I'd lose my shit if I had this back in the day 🤓

[@redrumloa]

No! It was a 3rd party hardware made by CMD (Creative Micro Devices) back in the 1990s.

[@danksmokaz]

wtf...this game looks fantastic killer frame rate.....whats the super cpu clock speed and 16mb whoa!!

[@zyrgle]

I was wondering if it can run Crysis...

[@codprocamp4690]

What's up with the shifter disappearing between shifts?

[@psycho0815]

thanks for that hint :-)

[@BnpCanKissMyBlackAss]

We had it bad in those days :-(

[@pcsocket462ecsviak7vza]

Atari with rapidus runs zx spectrum software what about super cpu?

[@delscoville]

Well running in "warp" mode in VIce on a circa 2012 system is so fast, it's unplayable lol. I only use an emulator with certain games that are too hard to read on my little 5" SX-64 screen.

[@ratix98]

oh god why its like test drive 3 all over again! so if im guessing its the same way with really old PC games as well. the game's limit is the superCPU limit IE running balls out. i bet if you played marble madness you'd get the same effect but it would render it unplayable D: it has its good points and drawbacks. racing games obviously gained the most. i love it

[@spavatch]

I think what you're looking for might be Accolade Comics: Steve Keen - Private Spy ;).

[@rvounik]

well, it wasnt really available 'back in the days'.. :) the supercpu was released in 1996.. I think?

[@Corsa15DT]

But the supercpu can't solve the problem of non functioning overlapping keys, still can't steer and accelerate at the same time

[@redrumloa]

Bzzt wrong, but thanks for playing! Google "SuperCPU 128" and check back in.

[@WanderlustZero]

Oddly it looks about equal with Test Drive 2: The Duel on the Megadrive :s

[@Turrican]

Yes, me too. I recognised your username.

[@doritostheking]

@Mau1wurf1977 The disk drive is so slow because the chip running the port it's plugged in to doesn't work. Rather than delay the machine a few months to design a new chip, commodore just wrote some code to do the same job instead. If the chip worked, it'd be about five times faster.

[@redrumloa]

20Mhz compared to1Mhz of a stock C64.

[@351oldskool]

wow

[@Corsa15DT]

Its playable now

[@stupossibleify]

I'm struggling to understand what it is about this game's programming that can allow the frame rate to increase, rather than just the speed of time progression

[@redrumloa]

You'd have to ask someone like a programmer in the C64 scene on how they think it was accomplished. This isn't the only game without any modification, that benefits but they are few and far between. I'd guess that gfx updating just use whatever CPU cycles are available, like later 3D PC gaming.

[@stefankrautz9048]

SuperCPU is a 65816 on 20 Mhz (instead 1 Mhz on the original) . Graphik and sound run so fast because its synced to cpu-sped. Every time the CPU has no machine code to execute. Every is on a extra module which needs extra power.

[@doritostheking]

@xadam2dudex Well, that's the thing... Commodore didn't want to spend the money. To fix the problem would have needed a new chip design. Commodore would never spend money when a product still sold. Atari did the exact same thing about 7 years later. Only enough retailers complained that they fixed the chips for newer versions. I guess Jack Tramiel never learned.

[@albdamned577]

I wish someone made a game like this but each level has more traffic and congestion, about level 18 or so you are just stuck in traffic😂.

[@TheLoveMario]

Too bad SuperCPU128 emulators don't exist yet D:

[@redrumloa]

Check my other videos for Hard Driving. The gfx is improved but the controls are still total garbage. There is a slightly modified version of Flight Simulator that works, but I was never into flight sims. IIRC there is a modified version of Elite 128 that works too.

[@crazyivan030983]

on a real c128?

[@youdud44]

Accolade..? Oh god, why couldn't they have been happy with Test Drive and NOT make Bubsy... T_T

[@Turrican]

Were you on A.org red?

[@redrumloa]

4 years late, but I left A.org about 5 years ago. I'm on Morphzone rarely and Lemon64 a little more.

[@joelparker1528]

i am looking for the title of a com64 game featuring a spy and a comic book dragnet or something

[@redrumloa]

It is vastly improved, but still unplayable. That is just a very poorly designed game :-( Check my other videos to see for yourself.

[@thelasthallow]

I have a 5 and a quarter inch floppuy drive in my windows 7 64 bit machine and when i did a speed test it did about 11KB/s