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Why did ZZKJ waste so much CPU time on stuff like parallax scrolling backgrounds in Super Hang-On?


oky2000

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So I was looking at Super Hang-on for the ST and I noticed not only is the poor CPU being asked to do software scrolling but also parallax fully overlaid horizontal software scrolling and taking away a notable amount of CPU time that should have been 100% dedicated to his so-so 2.5D scaling bitmap routines.

 

I would have preferred double the framerate and just a plain raster palette switched static skyline of the background colour. I would understand if he had achieved what Ocean did with Batman's driving section, but he didn't. Go figure.

 

 

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That's a bit harsh :), for the time this was the best port out there, and the framerate was pretty respectible for a early(ish) ST racer. I think the overiding goal for developers back then was to make the game look like the arcade more than worrying about frame rates, and this 60fps frame rate obsession stuff is a recent thing. The only sprite scaling ST 'racer' I can think of from that period that is faster in terms of FPS is Overlander, and that is not a racer, and a third of the screen is used by the stats bar (although a third of the screen in Super Hang On is blue sky so go figure), and it has no parallax. I also think, personally, that parallax is quite important in conveying the movement round corners, and would suffer from being a plain raster.

It's fairly obvious from the bikes that the original arcade assets were not being used, so I think it is a good effort personally. Bikes aside, it doesn't play or look much worse than the PAL Megadrive version.

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The parallax effect occurs only on a few lines, I suspect that only those few lines are asked and the rest is probably displayed "normally" without being masked.

Not having this parallax effect would absolutely not double the framerate. And parallax or not, this kind of game needs a moving background to give the player a decent immersion.

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I didn't say there was anything wrong with the game, it's a design decision and a game that doesn't hit 15 frames per second most of the time but does have dual parallax layer scrolling mountain range in the background along with horizontal and vertical CPU scrolling is a weird way to waste CPU time.

 

Perhaps it was at the insistence of Activision. 

 

Batman the Movie has the same sort of background shenanigans going on but the frame rate of 1989/90 Batman is far superior and the roadside objects 3-4x the size in pixel pushing values for software blitting so that's fine.

 

 

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On 2/1/2023 at 6:34 AM, Zogging Hell said:

 

It's fairly obvious from the bikes that the original arcade assets were not being used, so I think it is a good effort personally. Bikes aside, it doesn't play or look much worse than the PAL Megadrive version.

I don't know how true this was for most of the games back then, but I seem to recall that when someone got the rights to a coin-op conversation they went and purchased a machine and it was as low tech as recording all the games on videotape, and scanning in frames to get rough estimations of the sprites, or maybe it just to have a still frame to work off of on a CRT to make all the assets. Also considering that these things outputted RGB I assume the taping was literally a cam corder pointed at the crt.

 

Point I am making is things were much harder back then no tools and definitely no assets from the original arcade developer.

Edited by 7bits
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10 hours ago, 7bits said:

I don't know how true this was for most of the games back then, but I seem to recall that when someone got the rights to a coin-op conversation they went and purchased a machine and it was as low tech as recording all the games on videotape, and scanning in frames to get rough estimations of the sprites, or maybe it just to have a still frame to work off of on a CRT to make all the assets. Also considering that these things outputted RGB I assume the taping was literally a cam corder pointed at the crt.

 

Point I am making is things were much harder back then no tools and definitely no assets from the original arcade developer.

Yeah you have to give some of the software teams full props for effort with no original assets, I suspect some of them didn't even buy the machine and were sent down the local arcade with a bag of coins... :)

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I've definitely heard of developers in those days having to find an arcade with the game they were converting and manually play the game to learn the enemy patterns, level layouts etc - getting a physical machine in the office to learn from, let alone actual arcade assets, was often a luxury. Teams converting games to the Megadrive never seemed to have to put up with that.

 

Playing it now, ST Super Hang On does feel a bit slow compared to Overlander (which, because of the post-apocalyptic setting, has very dark backdrops and minimal scenery) and Buggy Boy (which I know the OP doesn't like either, but it benefits from having no hills in the scenery, though there are jumps), but did people pick up on it and complain about it in 1988? Its also easy to forget that (at least in PAL lands) the Megadrive version on the Mega Games 1 cart that we're probably comparing the 68000 version to is a faster enhancement of the first release.

Edited by Megalomaniac
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2 hours ago, Megalomaniac said:

Its also easy to forget that (at least in PAL lands) the Megadrive version on the Mega Games 1 cart that we're probably comparing the 68000 version to is a faster enhancement of the first release.

That's the faster version!?!?!? Blimey, it's not exactly super frame rates on the Mega Games version. So is the original NTSC only, or PAL as well, and still 'slow' at 60hz?

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On 2/5/2023 at 10:29 AM, Megalomaniac said:

... did people pick up on it and complain about it in 1988? Its also easy to forget that (at least in PAL lands) the Megadrive version on the Mega Games 1 cart that we're probably comparing the 68000 version to is a faster enhancement of the first release.

I played it new and quite enjoyed it, it was a repeat title for me.

 

I remember outrun being kinda klunky and not as good.

 

I was mostly into dungeon master and 3d stuff such as freescape titles and mercenary. Ports were for quick plays when bored.

 

In 1988 or so when I got my Atari ST coming from the Atari 800 it seemed way better even if the sound chip had less channels. 

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On 2/2/2023 at 10:09 PM, oky2000 said:

I didn't say there was anything wrong with the game, it's a design decision and a game that doesn't hit 15 frames per second most of the time but does have dual parallax layer scrolling mountain range in the background along with horizontal and vertical CPU scrolling is a weird way to waste CPU time.

 

Perhaps it was at the insistence of Activision. 

 

Batman the Movie has the same sort of background shenanigans going on but the frame rate of 1989/90 Batman is far superior and the roadside objects 3-4x the size in pixel pushing values for software blitting so that's fine.

 

 

Zareh Johannes has pointed out Activision ignored his warnings that putting so many cars on-screen for the ST and Amiga conversions of Powerdrift, would cause slowdown and confusion, they didn't care, they just wanted it to look as close to the arcade version as possible.. 

 

So maybe he was under similar pressure for the Super Hang-On conversion? 

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