New ST project - Pole Position arcade conversion

[bullis1]

I'm glad you stuck with the realtime scaling. The result is very impressive.

This new batch of feedback you're receiving may give you the drive to improve your port further. If not, thanks for releasing what you have. It's an amazing piece of work already.

[chicane]

Thanks everybody for your kind words and feedback.

I've managed to spend a bit of time working on this in the last week or two, with the following features/changes made in this time:

• Many of the sampled sound effects have been ripped from the arcade game and are being played back by the STE in stereo due to the wonders of DMA audio (much easier to code than I imagined!);
• You can now hear the engines of CPU cars as you drive past them (or they drive past you!);
• The graphics for the starting line have now been completed, with the supporting left/right beams and the checkered pattern on the ground now present;
• The blimp/airship that moves from right to left has been implemented at the start and end of qualifying;
• The bad flickering on the horizon has now been resolved for the most part (at the expense of the sky gradient).

I'm going to spend some further time in the coming days and weeks adding the remaining sound effects and fixing some annoying bugs, after which I'll put out another disk image for people to play with.

[dma]

Woaaah, can't wait!

[AtariCrypt]

Oh yes, this is one awesome update!! I cannot wait
Steve

[Marakatti]

Excellent news! Can't wait either. So happy you found time to work on

[chicane]

Here's an updated disk image for you folks to play with:

polepos_ste_1meg_oct_preview.st.zip

You should be able to see the following new things in this version:

• Sampled sound effects ripped from the arcade game;
• Sound effect for overtaking/being overtaken by opponent cars;
• Completed graphics for the start/finish line;
• Blimp/airship flying across screen at the beginning and end of qualifying;
• Caption on start/finish line moving between START/NAMCO/GOAL as per the arcade machine;
• Horizon flickering effect fixed for the most part;
• General bugfixes and some other stuff I've probably forgotten.

I know there are still some annoying bugs but I'm now confident that this is getting close to being ready for a final release. Please let me know if you think otherwise!

[Marakatti]

Whohou! Big Thank You, will check it as soon as my workshift ends

[dma]

Great new version! All these additions take it very close to the arcade.
(the drifting noise volume level should maybe be a little lower)

I agree that this game cries for analogue controls, mouse handling would be very cool.

[Dal]

Really nice work! I've not tried this since an early release so very surprised at the progress - it feels and sounds just like I remember the arcade.

I came up against a bug where the engine noise doesn't seem to be cut off at the end of a game so you get the engine drone constantly until you start a new game. Other than that, I've not found anything obvious.

[AtariCrypt]

Oh boy I cannot wait to play this!!! Thank you!!!

[Eero Tamminen]

I came up against a bug where the engine noise doesn't seem to be cut off at the end of a game so you get the engine drone constantly until you start a new game.

I bumped into that too.

Also, title screen music has way too low volume compared to engine noise, at least in Hatari.

Otherwise, this moves and looks great!

[Eero Tamminen]

• The bad flickering on the horizon has now been resolved for the most part (at the expense of the sky gradient).

I'm missing the sky gradient. Do you think it can come back later (without flickering), or is it gone for good?

[hairpinbend]

I also miss the sky gradient.

[chicane]

I'm missing the sky gradient. Do you think it can come back later (without flickering), or is it gone for good?

I also miss the sky gradient.

I think I've stumbled upon a way to get the sky gradient back in without reintroducing the severe flicker:

gradients.png

Hopefully it works on real hardware as well as Hatari More news to come...

[chicane]

For those of you without the capability or will to run the disk image, I've uploaded a new gameplay video to Youtube showing the latest build:

[FedePede04]

Looking Awesome, can't wait to try the final release

[Greyfox™]

Simply wonderful stuff. Congrats on such amazing work and dedication to this great project, Atari would of loved you back in the day

[Zamuel_a]

I see that the sky gradient "jump" one pixel. I guess you create it with a Timer B interrupt that sometimes trigger on the wrong line. One way to get around that problem is to trigger the interrupt one line before and when it trigger, check if you are on that line or on the next one because something occurred so the interrupt triggered to late.
I had to do that for my Giana Sisters game. You can see how I did it here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26360&hilit=r+type&start=125#p251399

[CiH]

This is pretty much there Incredible work!

[calimero]

Wow! it is super smooth!! is it 50fps?

[jvas]

Sometimes the splash of water is drawn above the car. Very good conversion anyway. Thanks!

[Estrayk]

Awesome chicane!

[keops]

Great stuff!

[Marakatti]

I wonder what playing device is used on the video? It looks more like an analog steering to me as the car keeps it's direction very steadily without skidding. Maybe my USB Comp Pro is just too sensitive for STeem, but i never managed to get it playing so smooth with it.

[chicane]

Thanks everybody for your feedback!

I wonder what playing device is used on the video? It looks more like an analog steering to me as the car keeps it's direction very steadily without skidding. Maybe my USB Comp Pro is just too sensitive for STeem, but i never managed to get it playing so smooth with it.

Believe it or not, this is just me playing with the arrow keys on my laptop keyboard. I must have driven around that track thousands of times - I can almost do it with my eyes closed

Kudos on the use of a Competition Pro by the way - that was my joystick of choice back in the day

Sometimes the splash of water is drawn above the car.

This has also been annoying me for some time. I'll fix it in due course.

Wow! it is super smooth!! is it 50fps?

Not quite! I think the frame rate averages around 22.5 frames per second, with a big hit on frame rate when the start line is near, or when large numbers of cars are on screen. I could probably raise to 25 with some more optimisation work as the vast majority of the game logic and the code to draw the HUD is still in C, but at this point in time I just want to get the game feature complete and bug free!

I see that the sky gradient "jump" one pixel. I guess you create it with a Timer B interrupt that sometimes trigger on the wrong line. One way to get around that problem is to trigger the interrupt one line before and when it trigger, check if you are on that line or on the next one because something occurred so the interrupt triggered to late.
I had to do that for my Giana Sisters game. You can see how I did it here:

Thanks for the advice! The gradients are indeed generated by Timer B. I've had lots of problems with the blitter destabilising these rasters. I'll look at your code in more detail if I can find time.