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Thank you!

Thank you! I'm more of a graphics programmer than a game designer so your words are reassuring!

Thanks @gryz0r! Tune is by legendary ST scene musician Dma-sc.

Not sure whether to be flattered or offended 😁

Thanks! It's taking some effort to get this level of performance out of the old STE but I'm quite happy with it so far!

Almost makes up for Ocean not releasing the official port of WEC back in the day, huh? :)

Thank you!

Although what you see here is obviously heavily inspired by WEC, the primary goal is to create a racing game for the crusty STE hardware that runs at a silky smooth 50fps. Any features (the obvious one being hills) that would prevent the game running at 50fps won't be considered for inclusion.

Somebody who understands the technical challenges I'm up against! Thank you! 🎉

Wrong.

Thank you!

Put it like this - I've just implemented a puny speedometer using a few multiples and divides and it's absolutely crippled the framerate. 😬 I can't begin to imagine how many further multiplies and divides would be required to get convincing hills to display like Lotus does, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do it with this level of detail at 50fps. 😞 Literally the only thing I can think of is that ALL of the calculations would be done offline and the road routine would be played back like a movie. It would be very heavy on memory though, and that's just the beginning of the problems I can think of!

@@gridleaderretro I didn't mean that implementing it would be easy, I was just asking because I didn't know how limit you were with framerate. I see you're on the limit, I just want to express my gratitude for the current state of development. Few things at 50fps we see in STe. congratulations!.

@@estrayk Yeah, it's a constant battle to keep things running at 50fps as I add new features. I added this simple speedo indicator yesterday and it's now dropping frames all over the place :) Indeed, part of my motivation for developing this is that there are so few 50fps games out there for the ST/STE and I was wondering why! Now I know ;)

No plans for any major new features (e.g. hills) for 2/4 meg machines. I might do a 4 meg version after the initial release with object/car sprites that move and scale more smoothly - that wouldn't be too much hassle.

And a null-modem mode ?

@@gauthiermorand7930 I'm sorry, but I really wouldn't have a clue where to begin!

@@gridleaderretro I'll ask some help on the french Yaronet board. Maybe...

Hello @PMitchell1011Real :)

Thanks! The game should be compatible with STE and MSTE on initial release. Subsequent releases may be compatible with Falcon once any Microwire compatibility issues are sorted out. No plans for TT compatibility as it doesn't have a Blitter chip and there aren't enough TT users to justify writing a "Blitter emulator". I do intend to publish the source code upon initial release so that others can make any changes they need.

What makes you so sure that the driving section of Batman the Movie ran at 25fps? :)

@gridleaderretro I didn't know for sure! Was that 50fps then on the Amiga? Even more amazing! On the standard Atari ST version too?

@@bigd5090 No - quite the opposite! Looking at a video, I think the driving sections of Batman the Movie are running at somewhere between 12-15 fps. The Amiga version looks to be a little smoother than the ST, but still nowhere near 25fps.

No developer log at the moment. Might do a few "the making of" videos once I get it released though!

Not sure I'm deserving of that title, but I'll try to keep doing cool stuff!

@@gridleaderretro There's always been the lesser interest in the ST, so it's exciting to see something like this.

No doubt the framerate of Lotus 2 could be increased - the real questions are "by how much?" and "how long would somebody have to spend on it?" 😀 Shaun Southern did a great job of optimising Lotus 2 for the ST - I suspect he reached a point of diminishing returns and left it there. I suspect the potential gains are in single figure percentage increase of framerate, even with use of the Blitter.

@@gridleaderretro That new homebrew based on WEC Le Mans arcade for the STE is as fast and smooth as Lotus II on the Amiga so an STE port I suspect could be identical. The STFM however like you say is probably highly optimised, I know for a fact there is no chipset bandwidth left spare on the Amiga version hence to run Lotus III with zero frame drops you have to run it on an Amiga 1200 or better model as the RECS system needed some DMA/chipset bandwidth etc and something had to give. Lotus II is the fastest and smoothest STFM 2.5D routine I know of personally.

@@retrotronics1845 That new homebrew based on WEC Le Mans arcade for the STE (my very own project in case you're not aware!) is much smoother than Lotus 2 on the Amiga. Lotus 2 on an OCS/ECS Amiga runs at around 20-25fps I believe, whereas the STE WEC game runs (mostly) at 50fps. But the STE WEC game is doing much less work than Lotus 2 (appearances can be deceptive I know). I personally don't think that Lotus 2 on the STE could be as smooth as the Amiga version without some superhuman effort, although it could come close (as we've done with the STE version of Lotus 1). The Amiga version makes heavy use of the Copper, and even with the extra chips in the STE, all those colour changes have to be done in software with the 68k carrying the burden. It might be possible to get some extra performance out of the STE by upping the memory requirement to 4 meg and making use of memory-intensive techniques such as compiled Blitter sprites (as used by the WEC game). You might also want to check out Crazy Cars 3 for the ST, which to me comes very close to Lotus 2 in terms of accomplishment.

@@gridleaderretro Oh! I didn't know. I must congratulate you on such amazing work for the STE, I saw it on a thread on Amiga forum a couple of weeks ago. Your video is as impressive as the new MegaDrive 2.5D homebrew racing game or better even. PS I have two Mega STEs with 16mhz 68000 if you would like to support the limits ;) Rare machine but I needed a 16mhz ST/STE to play Gauntlet 1 smoother!

Yes ... although one of the reasons this is able to run so fast is that the width of the road is fixed and never changes during gameplay (just like Lotus). Additionally, this engine has no hills, which also helps with performance. An authentic Outrun conversion would feature both a variable width road and plenty of hills. I suspect the best that the ST(E) could do would be something along the lines of the PC Engine version, if you've seen that.

Thank you! Please see more recent videos for the latest progress.

Thanks! For such a low-budget effect, I'm pretty pleased with it!

"inspired by" rather than "meant to be" :)

Thank you! I'll try not to keep you waiting for too long :)

Thank you! The effect you've observed is a quirk of the way the road is rendered. You may notice that it happens in Lotus as well! If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me :)

Possibly! Although it wouldn't be high on my list of priorities. Note that this game isn't intended to be a direct conversion of the WEC arcade game ... it's more "inspired by". I'm taking the gameplay in my own direction :)

Thanks Sophie!

Not in this game - I'm not convinced it's possible at a 50fps framerate. The STE is already pretty stressed with what you see here :)

@@gridleaderretro Even with more RAM ? My MegaSTE is 4Mo, like most of STE nowadays.

@@gauthiermorand7930 It could possibly be done with a huge amount of precalculation and lots of additional memory. But for this game, I'm targeting 1meg STE to make it available to everybody.

I really want to do that but I'm struggling a bit with technical constraints. It might be possible if it was to sit very low in the sky, near the mountains.

Thank you! 👍

Interesting idea, thanks. I agree it would look nice, but it would also add some complexity to the code and I'm already struggling a bit to maintain 50fps without dropping too many frames!

I can't wait to see it running on your machines :)

@@gridleaderretro 😄 👍🏻 at the moment on my desk the ST machine is a Mega STE.

I sold my 14 inch Sony Trinitron for next to nothing several years ago :(

The magic of that 4096 colour palette :)

Thanks as always!

Hi there, and thanks for the feedback. Despite the more than superficial similarities, this isn't intended to be a direct conversion of WEC Le Mans for the Atari STE. It's loosely based upon that game, but is also heavily inspired by my own preferences - firstly, the desire to create the first 50fps 3D racer for the ST, and secondly to create a very stripped-back and frenetic mid-80s style arcade experience. A couple of people have mentioned how much they loved the soundtrack from the CPC version, but our intention is to have an orginal soundtrack from the legendary ST scene musician Dma-sc.

@@gridleaderretro ok i understand your choice , your game is very awesome , think about all purpose , to make an "unofficial" wec le mans version and had extra , make your game like you want i respect that , maybe in the final version had many tribute things ... anyway , i can't wait the final version !!!! i love this demo !

What's wrong with chiptune music? :) There are a number of reasons: 1) We're using the DMA hardware for engine noise and sound effects (which you might just about be able to hear behind the chiptune) courtesy of a software mixer; 2) This enables us to have a simultaneous YM soundtrack and sound effects; 3) If we did want to play a MOD file, the STE (unlike the Amiga) lacks hardware sound mixing, so we'd need to mix four channels in software which would use 20-30% of CPU time and result in a lower framerate or less stuff on screen; 4) Anyway, if I wanted to hear a MOD file, I'd play an Amiga game or a mid-90s PC game. This is an ST game, and we're paying homage to the rich history of YM music on the ST. (Okay, I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek here, but only partially - some of us actually like chiptunes!)

@@gridleaderretro Don't give in to these comments. YM can produce very solid chip music, plus it evokes more of an arcade feel of cabinets in the 80s. DMA stereo for engine and brake sound is then the perfect complement. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you in the project. If it ends up looking like an arcade version of Wec Le Mans, it will be an absolutely brilliant achievement for STE!

@@petrk2603 Don't fear, the YM music is staying right where it is! Just so that you know, the appearance and feature set of the finished game won't be dramatically different from what you see here. I'd love to have a go at a fully fledged arcade conversion but I don't have the time and the STE wouldn't necessarily be able to do it justice!

​@@gridleaderretro A long time ago I programmed some stuff in Amos on Amiga, most of which I didn't finish. I'd like to continue or jump straight into something more efficient, like C or Blitz Basic, but I fully understand your point. There's not a lot of time to waste, and maybe the enthusiasm of younger years isn't quite the same. I occasionally put on newer STE stuff like Metal Slug - something that would have sounded utterly unbelievable to make on STE before, while is clear that programmers must have put a lot of energy into it. I'll keep my fingers crossed either way, just please don't give up (like a lot of other promising projects on other platforms). Good luck!

@@petrk2603 I'm hoping to release this WEC game in December. Keep your eyes peeled!

Ah thank you!

Thank you! Cheers!

That's the kind of reaction that makes all my work worthwhile :)

Thank you!

Thanks!

STe... the normal ST does not have the blitter chip.

Thanks!

This game will be a free download, but I'll gladly accept envelopes (or suitcases) full of cash :)

I was a pretty lame developer back in 1989 though :)

Thank you! Very pleased with it myself too!

See the previous video (29th August I think) for the car flipping animation. Null modem option would be great but I expect to be pretty sick of this project once I've managed to release it! I'll almost certainly release the (not very pretty) source code following release for anybody who wants to build upon it though.

Indeed.

I was there programming on the ST back in 1989, but my prods (mostly STOS) were pretty lame to say the least. Hoping to retrieve the floppies for everybody's amusement some day. :)

@@easyerthanyouthink Okay, I'll no doubt regret feeding the troll, but here goes. :) What a bitter tirade. Make sure you notify the designers and programmers of Crazy Cars 3, Jaguar XJ220, Cisco Heat, Chase HQ, Outrun, Prime Mover etc that their efforts are worthless due to "plagiarism and or copying ideas" from Pole Position and its predecessors. Also worth having a chat with Polyphony about Gran Turismo 7 too. They'll surely want to know.

@@easyerthanyouthink I see you quietly backtracking from your your original statement of "because all his code is plagerised of poleposition and lotus etc etc.". I'm all good with reasonable discussion and debate, but this is anything but (and is a long way from "stating fact" as you put it). All the best with your future endeavours.

Thank you! 😊