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Offline VenkmanTopic starter

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A question of speed
« on: November 23, 2003, 07:32:13 PM »
I've been trying to play Frontier Elite 2 on my A1200 thinking that it would run pretty smoothly. To my horror I have found that it runs exactly the same as my old A500 - ie slow and jerky  :-(. Anyone have any idea of why this is? And can it be rectified?
Video game developer, former ZX81, C64 and Amiga bedroom coder, amateur astronomer, musician, graphic designer, Linux user and geek!
 

Offline mikeymike

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Re: A question of speed
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2003, 08:07:03 PM »
I think it's down to software design, so without the sourcecode, not possible to be rectified.

IIRC it ran at an odd speed on my A1200/040/40, I don't think everything was in sync (like sound events happening before they're supposed to).

I was REALLY disappointed with F1 Grand Prix running just as jerkily on my A1200, but it seems to be that the guys who wrote it think that slow frame rates are a sign of realism or something... GP3 on the PC is frame limited to 25fps... impressive looking it is not.  I did some debugging on it and found that Direct3D is using hardware acceleration, but it looks so awful, there's no difference to running in software.

I've had a quick look at the screenshots of GP4 and it looks just the same, so I'm not touching that with a bargepole.
 

Offline Spyros

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Re: A question of speed
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2003, 08:14:19 PM »
I think there was also an AGA version of Frontier. The OCS version run allright on my 040 as far as I can remember. You could also try the whdload installer.

As far as the F1GP is concerned, there was a patch that enabled it to run at higher framerates on better processors and it was a great improvement (I think it was on Aminet)
 

Offline Ilwrath

Re: A question of speed
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2003, 08:40:24 PM »
Quote

I was REALLY disappointed with F1 Grand Prix running just as jerkily on my A1200, but it seems to be that the guys who wrote it think that slow frame rates are a sign of realism or something...


Well, it was to get the most out of limited hardware.  If you don't have to compute real-time vs. frames drawn, you can use those cycles to make a better game for the lowest common denominator.

I don't think there were any patches to help Elite 2.  :-(

For F1GP, though... As stated, there is a framerate patch.  There are also analog control patches, so you can properly use an Amiga analog joystick if you have one.  There are also patches to disable that stupid "steering assist" feature that automatically rams you into the pit wall if you are passing on the inside of last corner on several of the tracks.  Even updated roster and car patches.  With all the data available for that game, it can be quite a boost.  It can breathe some new life into an otherwise dated game.
 

Offline Karlos

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Re: A question of speed
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2003, 08:57:51 PM »
The old Elite 2 (OCS) seems to run OK on my 1200/040...
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Offline Matt_H

Re: A question of speed
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2003, 09:01:25 PM »
Frontier is a strange program. The original game runs at the same speed on my 1200/060 and my CD32/020.

WHDLoad-ified on the 1200, it's easily 3 times as fast. I can't explain it.
 

Offline Spyros

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Re: A question of speed
« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2003, 09:53:08 PM »
@Mat_H

That's thanks to the people who make the installs.

Here is part of the install's features taken from the ReadMe file.

Features:

- Uses WHDLoad+KickDOS+new 3.1 kicker
- Quit key: numerical '*' or QUITKEY
- Save/load games from HD
- Program/Stack in fastmem/all caches set for optimal speed

etc
 

Offline amigamad

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Re: A question of speed
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2003, 09:54:32 PM »
I have this game but have never played it. :-?
I once had an amigaone xe but sold it .

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Offline whabang

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Re: A question of speed
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2003, 09:57:24 AM »
I have found that Frontier will run slow as hell when it runs on chipmem. If I ever removed the SIMM from my accelerator, it would run as smoothly as quake on a 68020, while it would fly with two megs of fastmem. :-?
Beating the dead horse since 2002.