Atari 5200 Pole Position Prototype with Possible Gameplay Differences?

[+swlovinist]

Here is an Atari 5200 Prototype of Pole Position.   When comparing to the original cart release, this one controlled differently with steering.   Dump attached.   Anyone else can confirm this or any other differences?  

Pole Position Cart 133-05.bin

[Lord Thag]

I've tried running this via emulator (altirra), I'm getting a corrupted boot screen followed by a crash. May be a bad dump? I've tried several different settings with the same results.

[Tempest]

Yep, Atari800 does the same thing.  Something isn't dumped right.

 

BTW, what do you mean it steers differently?  Just curious

[+swlovinist]

29 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Yep, Atari800 does the same thing.  Something isn't dumped right.

 

BTW, what do you mean it steers differently?  Just curious

Turning the car left and right acts differently in the game.   It is much more difficult to turn, especially right.   I used the same controller to test this version and the final release.  I will try to dump again and thank you for trying.  

[Lord Thag]

13 minutes ago, swlovinist said:

Turning the car left and right acts differently in the game.   It is much more difficult to turn, especially right.   I used the same controller to test this version and the final release.  I will try to dump again and thank you for trying.  

Text me when you do and I'll try it again on my laptop at home and post what I find.

[+swlovinist]

Try this dump.   Hope this is better.   I cleaned the contacts and try to dump again.  

Pole Position Cart 133-05 Fixed.bin

[Crimefighter]

Version 133 is supposedly the final isn't it?  Thus this one should be the final also...

[Tempest]

That works, but for the life of me I can't figure out the controls for the 5200 in Atari800 so it makes it hard to play (the car won't go straight and I can't figure out how to downshift).  However what little I could play I didn't see any differences whatsoever.  In fact I let the two version (this and the final) run side by side in a demo and didn't see any differences.  They steered (about as well as I could) the same as far as I can tell.

 

I can try this on my real 5200 later.

[Lord Thag]

36 minutes ago, swlovinist said:

Try this dump.   Hope this is better.   I cleaned the contacts and try to dump again.  

Pole Position Cart 133-05 Fixed.bin 32 kB · 3 downloads

It is. This one works fine, I just played it on my lunch break.

I don't think steering is different though, it's equally sluggish both directions. I think this proto is a beta version of the final product that runs slightly slower than the released cart. It's noticeably slower framerate, though it's subtle, than the released rom. Steering and speed are noticably slightly slower, and input in general is laggy (for example, it takes longer to register a game start keypress than the released version). I flip flopped between this and the released .bin and I defintely notice a difference, though it's the same release number, which is weird. Anyone else notice this or is it just something on my end?

Edited June 24, 2021 by Lord Thag
Forgot last sentence.

[Tempest]

Is it possible to get a 16K dump of this for easy binary comparison?  32K is an overdump.

[Tempest]

8 minutes ago, Lord Thag said:

It is. This one works fine, I just played it on my lunch break.

I don't think steering is different though, it's equally sluggish both directions. I think this proto is a beta version of the final product that runs slightly slower than the released cart. It's noticeably slower framerate, though it's subtle, than the released rom. Steering and speed are noticably slightly slower, and input in general is laggy (for example, it takes longer to register a game start keypress than the released version). I flip flopped between this and the released .bin and I defintely notice a difference, though it's the same release number, which is weird. Anyone else notice this or is it just something on my end?

It's possible I suppose, but I'm not seeing that on my end.  I'll have to try it on a real 5200 I guess.

[Lord Thag]

23 minutes ago, Tempest said:

It's possible I suppose, but I'm not seeing that on my end.  I'll have to try it on a real 5200 I guess.

I'm doing this on a POS spare work PC, so it could very well be an emulation issue. If your not seeing it, it may just be this junker I tested it on.

[+Cafeman]

2 hours ago, swlovinist said:

Turning the car left and right acts differently in the game.   It is much more difficult to turn, especially right.   I used the same controller to test this version and the final release.  I will try to dump again and thank you for trying.  

Assuming it is running on a 5200 using a CX52 controller, that implies the code reading the analog pot registers was being tweaked near the end of development.  

[+swlovinist]

On my end, it plays differently but I was playing on original hardware.    I will have to do a video to share then.   

[+swlovinist]

1 hour ago, Tempest said:

It's possible I suppose, but I'm not seeing that on my end.  I'll have to try it on a real 5200 I guess.

 

I tested this on a real 5200 using the same controller for both the released game and this one.   Thank you for the feedback.  

[+swlovinist]

Here is the video update showing the difference in control 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by swlovinist