OutRun Amiga Edition - A vastly superior version of a classic racer has arrived on the Amiga! (40th anniversary of OutRun Update)

In 1986 Sega released one of the greatest racers of our time, it just had to be Out Run. An Arcade racer designed by Yu Suzuki, that was not only a commercial success, but became one of the best selling games of its time. A game that featured incredible graphics, fantastic music and fast paced track racing. Thankfully other people remember this Arcade classic, as we've recently found out, that reassembler has finally released his vastly superior version of Outrun for the Commodore Amiga. A version of the game which he hopes has put right "one of the nastiest Amiga arcade ports".

And here's the latest "An optimized port of SEGA's 1986 arcade game OutRun, utilizing the original 68000 assembly code, to mid-spec Commodore Amiga computers. Whilst small compromises have been made to accommodate differences between the arcade hardware and the Amiga - this looks and plays almost identical to the original. This is not an emulator. Nor is it based on Cannonball, MAME,  or any existing project. It is a ground up rewrite in assembler, with a focus on performance.  This game may require the original graphics and audio data from the arcade ROMs. These are not included, and you must source them yourself". 

UPDATE : Saberman has just given me the heads up through Facebook, that reassembler had recently released a new version of the game for you to download and try on your Amiga in celebration of the 40th anniversary of OutRun. Here's the full details. "I would have loved to provide a more substantial release for the anniversary, but as you've probably noticed, I've been rather busy with Aonic , my port of Sonic the Hedgehog to the A1200. The demo is available here if you haven't tried it yet. As such, I've decided to release a small but meaningful update to OutRun: Amiga Edition. This version improves performance by up to 50% for those playing on real hardware. The performance improvements result from:

  • 1/ An optimization to the way C2P (Chunky to Planar) is used, so that certain areas of the screen that don't update aren't refreshed every frame.
  • 2/ An optimization to the way in which transparent pixels and shadows are handled for Sprites.
  • 3/ A rewrite of frame rendering, so that the engine no longer 'waits' for the next screen refresh.
  • The build is available from the project page. If you have v0.9.2 installed, you don't need to regenerate the game assets. 
  • There are no new features or other changes; I'll save those for a moment in the future when I have more time. So if you were happy with the previous build, it's not necessary to upgrade.

Links :1) Source  2) Download (Old Version, but has the Roms for the latest build)

86 comments:

  1. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Finally, been waiting for years for this. LETS GO

    ReplyDelete
  3. A1200 TerribleFire TF1230 Minimum Playable Spec
    A1200 Blizzard III w/ FPU ~25% faster than the TF1230
    CD32 TerribleFire TF030 On par with A1200/TF1230
    A4000 Default Commodore 040 Card Slow due to Fast RAM access
    A4000 Cyberstorm MK2 060 Full speed @ 25 fps
    A500 Mini n/a Full speed @ 30 fps
    A600GS n/a Full speed @ 30 fps
    A1200 PiStorm32 Lite Model 4 Full speed @ 30 fps
    A1200 Vampire 1200 V2 Full speed @ 30 fps

    ReplyDelete
  4. abolutely stunning. works (slow, but playable) on my Amiga 1200 with 020@43Mhz and 8Mb Fast RAM. Keep up the good work. improving code to increase speed on slower machines. PLEASE !

    ReplyDelete
  5. Can change the site name for AmigaRetronews? ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was asked last year to change it to C64RetroNews... I declined hah

      Delete
    2. The Amiga is the beast that keeps giving

      Delete
    3. The Scorpion engine seems to have made it easy to develop new Amiga titles, so suddenly there's a lot of those coming out. This is on a completely different level though...

      Delete
    4. Quote: I was asked last year to change it to C64RetroNews... I declined hah (It can't get more stupid). Don't forget, you do an awesome job here! There is only one RetroNews and that is Indie Retro News !!!

      Delete
  6. absolutely stunning ! it works (but slow) on my A1200 with 020@43Mhz with 8Mb fastram. improving speed wold be much appreciated (very much) . keep up the good work !

    ReplyDelete
  7. 030 50mhz wFPU + 8Mb & HD should have been the A1200 spec. Amazing port!

    ReplyDelete
  8. if only i could play this on my amiga back in the day....better late than nothing!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. It's simply OUTSTANDING the amount of work and endurance to release such a jewel. I can't congratulate enough this guy : you did an awesome job.

    ReplyDelete
  10. A good start - now enhance the code to use RTG screenmodes and AHI audio, and the code will truly fly! Also - TCP/IP support for online high scores, please.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Amiga ? won't run on my A600 I guess...

    ReplyDelete
  12. I have heard that this guy will adapt soon on the Amiga GTA 5, I hope this is true ...

    ReplyDelete
  13. this won't run on 68030/50mhz, so no decent outrun port for these machines. forget about this.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Will this run in winuae.Sorry but not all of us have Really.Amiga.yet.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Don’t suppose they fancy having a crack at doing the same for Space Harrier, do they…?

    ReplyDelete
  16. I wonder if there is a way to run this on a slower machine - at least on basic A1200 - at 25FPS.

    Or better yet, rebuilt from grounds up to run on OCS.

    In the latter case, from what I heard the undulating terrain and variable road width is the biggest problem for developers of Amiga racing game (though the Lotus series seem to manage to do it quite well) since blitter/copper can take care of the scaling part. Hopefully someone from the original Lotus team can find some spare time to do the Outrun remake passion project using the Lotus III engine!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It would have been better for slower machines to not use a c2p, as that is almost guaranteed to make a game run slower than 25 FPS on a 68030, as it takes over one frame to convert the screen with just copying chunky to planar data. Bitmap scaling in planar mode with lookup tables instead would probably make the game run at around 25 FPS, even on a 68030 based machine. Since copy speed is 7 MB/sec from fast ram to chip on AGA machines in lores screenmode, you can shift graphics with CPU meanwhile, when waiting for chip ram writes to complete. This step is not needed with chunky graphics, but better pay that off with shifts instead of the conversion with the c2p routine. In addition with planar, you can use blitter to clear previous frame in parallell with CPU writing to chip ram next frame, so you can get chip ram bus write to over 9 MB/sec, with CPU+blitter writing concurrently. Only a clear operation with blitter is possible with this speed. With a c2p routine, blitter is often left unused, and all work is done with CPU, which is also a waste.

      Delete
    2. As Dread/Grind have showcased already blitter driven C2P might be the way to go here.

      Delete
    3. A blitter driven c2p would be too slow for this type of game, also Dread/Grind doesn't have 1x1 pixel quality. Sure, you could speed up a c2p routine significantly by having e.g. 2x1 or 2x2 pixel quality and/or reducing colors to 16-32, but this would not have produced a faithful conversion of Outrun.

      Delete
  17. For All low end amiga users, there's a project by Agermose that plans to release a outrun version for amiga1200 (non accelerated) later this year. And possibly a more cutdown version for A500 (specs not know) after).

    But its what we in the 80/90's we would refer as a arcade conersion not a port.

    The

    Thi

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It seems unlikely there will be an OCS version https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1746811&postcount=559

      Delete
    2. I'd love to see an OCS version. Hypothetically speaking, it should be possible for a 1MB Amiga if the same engine as Lotus 2 was used. Of course, there'd be compromises - you'd lose a lot of the roadside objects and there'd probably only be one type of vehicle on the road. I'd definitely drop the "tunnel" sections that are made up of tons of bitmap objects for walls and ceiling - and replace them with simple polygon tunnels like in Lotus 2. A slight departure from the arcade version - but a much more realistic solution. Every port I've seen struggles with those sections - it's just not worth it.

      Also, you'd probably have to separate the different stages into separate loads - rather than the stages streaming continuously as you play. But as long as the track was the same and the frame rate was 25fps, AND they did a decent job of the music, I'd have no problem with those compromises.

      Delete
  18. 68030@50 + 8Mb fastram - is not a "mid-spec Commodore Amiga computer"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sure it is. I have a PPC 603 240mhz + 040 50mhz w BVision GFX A1200. The only quibble would be that 030 50mhz is actually more on the lower end of the range.

      Delete
    2. A real Amiga is an Amiga produced by Commodore. Commodore produced Amigas with up to 68040. So a '030 is pretty much a high spec Amiga. Pie Amigas, PPC Amigas, or other rarities are are something else.

      Delete
    3. You are absolutely right. Compared to the most recently released Amiga (the Amiga A1222 Plus), an Amiga powered by legacy Motorola MC680x0 CPUs and a few megs of RAM is a low-end system. The Amiga X1000, X5000, the AmigaOne and similar systems run in wide circles around early Amiga models like the A1200.

      Delete
    4. A1222 Plus and other machines mentioned are not COMMODORE Amigas.

      Delete
    5. Its not mid end. Its more low end. Amiga is a computer with expansion options. The fact Commodore themselves didnt release an '060 or decent '040 is moot. These days the bar of what is low/mid/high end has changed. And that's disregarding ppc, emu68, etc.
      Even a 25mhz '040 is more than twice as fast as the fastest 68030, and there's options up to about 8x a 25mhz '040, in "real" Amigas, without ppc.

      Delete
  19. Splash Wave! 🕺💃

    ReplyDelete
  20. What an amazing coversion!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Amazing work !!! amazing conversion !!! I actually decided to upgrade to an ACA1260 for this game ! also, just an FYI, I converted my Competition Pro Joystick from 1 button to 3, works great with Outrun ! now it has, Gas, Brake and Gear Shift !

    ReplyDelete
  22. The framerate is the same that the arcade? (30 FPS) Or it can be full?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Looks awesome. Kudos to all involved.

    ReplyDelete
  24. This must be the most amazing thing I've ever seen on this site, or on the Amiga for that matter. A small glimpse into what might have been, if only C= had decided to keep developing the Amiga, instead of milking it dry before doing a cosmetic upgrade...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not sure what you are getting at. At version 4.1, with 32 bit graphics and 16 bit audio, AmigaOS is inarguably the world's greatest operating system available today - and with a PowerPC architecture, the system eats games like these for breakfast.

      Delete
    2. It absolutely is not arguably the best operating system today, or *many* yesterdays.

      AmigaOS is severely lacking modern, necessary functionality. It’s a hobbyist platform.

      Delete
  25. Runs really well on my Amiga 1200+Caffeine(PiStorm). Using WHDLOAD+JOTD Slave

    Niiiiiiiiiice :D

    ReplyDelete
  26. Since when was a 030 based machine a "mid-spec" Amiga?
    I grew up during the 16-bit era. I had an A500+ & an A1200 as did a lot of people. A3000's & A4000's were few & far between, mostly used by TV graphics companies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Since about 1995.

      Delete
    2. I gave up on the Amiga when I notice it was way cheaper to buy a Powermac (and even more a wintel machine) than buy a crap accelerator to my A1200, which today I know would have made no difference since the Machine is stuck with the chipset capabilities which were slightly better than the original A1000 anyway (for 2D games, for example...)

      Delete
    3. You are right (the Amiga was severely outclassed at that point) but an '060 accelerator for the A1200 made an absolutely massive difference, and didn't cost anywhere near a new Power Mac or decent PC build.

      Delete
    4. Not today, but back then, yes. At least for me, since I had to import it from somewhere else and pay twice the price in taxes...

      also, it still would be limited to the obsolete AGA chipset...

      Don't take me wrong, huge Amiga fan, but I completely hate Commodore and what it did to the platform.

      Delete
  27. The Amiga was a popular mainstream system in the 80s and 90s. Because of that, it's a popular retro platform today. Pies, A1220, Amiga X1000 or whatever the hell they're called, were never mainstream computers with software written specifically for them. There's been so many bizzare attempts to release new "Amigas" and new OS'es throughout the last 30 years, that nobody knows what's up and down anymore. Let's refer to 'Amiga' as the retro computer it is - the mainstream machine people grew up with. Everything else seems a bit silly.

    ReplyDelete
  28. yes very good Cool

    ReplyDelete
  29. Just downloaded the original ROM and purchased the Reassembler port...

    But there's absolutely NO WAY I'm going to all that process just to see this game working...

    I'll wait for some new version with the roms already converted and stuff...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Try the latest files I've just added! I sent one to AmigaBill, works a treat. All packaged/whdload :)

      Delete
  30. why didnt they just make it like this back in the day intead of that crap they made

    ReplyDelete
  31. Game is amazing, only thing missing is music+sfx, would it be possible to use "cd audio" like the cd32 does and leave the chipset for fx only? Or use something like AHI, octamed? Not really sure what I'm talking about, but Octamed double the available channels at the cost of performance, but since we are already requiring a 68040 and, at least in my case, I'm running it on an emulator that can outperform a 040 several times...

    And, the Amiga Mini, even that it have a very weak hardware can also be several times faster than a 040.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anyone got an adf of this? i got the roms, run the python script etc, but thats where the instructions stop. got some files and thats it

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just download an .hdf game, anyone, just big enough, open both this game and the .hdf in the workbench and replace the files

      Delete
  33. i want and willing to pay

    ReplyDelete
  34. Too bad it's not for Amiga, but for the rich's expensive Amiga. I loved this game for C64. I would have been happier if you ported it, advanced it here and there as much as the A500 can still do. If only it was as good as Lotus 2, it wouldn't need anything else.

    ReplyDelete
  35. I'm not sure if it's runnable without roms, but if it isn't, the older WHDLOAD version is still available here - https://www.amigafrance.com/download/Aladin/WHDLG/OutRunArcadeAGA-WHDL.lha - thanks AMigaFrance

    ReplyDelete
  36. Superb !!! Astonishing !!!! Brilliant !!!
    68040 8mb fast.......winuae !

    ReplyDelete
  37. Perfect Work !! I was wait for this!! I will donate to continiue updates. For 060 users and ppc something more? Thank you !!

    ReplyDelete
  38. What program do people recommend to add the files to the lha?

    ReplyDelete
  39. This version is for high-end Amigas. There is another version of Out Run in the works, completely re-written to run on a standard Amiga 1200 (stock + some fast RAM). That version is by Agermose - and THAT's the version the Amiga deserves!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And THAT version hasn't been released yet, and has been in development for some time. So for now, we enjoy this :)

      Delete
  40. Honestly, I was hoping for a decent port of Outrun for classic OCS machines... Something with a Lotus 2-like engine...
    I hope someone will make OCS hardware ports of games like Black Tiger, Tiger's Road, Shinobi, Rolling Thunder, etc.. I'm pretty sure most of us don't ask for a perfect 1:1 port that would require an AGA machine pumped with an accelerator card, but simply the best work a good development team could have done in the 90s for a classic Amiga. The best examples I can think of are Tinyus (Gradius) and Devil's Temple (a modernized clone of Vigilante/Kung-fu Master).

    ReplyDelete
  41. Totally agree, Lotus 2 proves that a decent Out Run could be possible on OCS - not arcade perfect, but maybe good enough. The thing is... Lotus 2 was squeezing every bit out of the old Amiga. Though there are many decent new indie games out there, none of them seriously pushes the hardware to the limit. Sadly, not many games has done that since the late 90s...

    ReplyDelete
  42. +1 for the OCS Outrun version :p

    ReplyDelete
  43. +2 for AGA Version and +3 for High Score Saver.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Won't run on emulators because of the AGA I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Only the Amiga 500 is the real Amiga, so +1 for the OCS Outrun version

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 1000 is the real Amiga. It won't run this version of Outrun though.

      Delete
  46. wild wood for c64 what happened??? aaaaargh how sad!!!

    ReplyDelete
  47. "vastly superior" but nobody had a machine with those specs even in the early 90's let alone when the original Outrun was released ('88)

    ReplyDelete
  48. Well, it doesn't run on a decent speed on any of the Amigas Commodore ever produced. But I think its ok to see what seriously accelerated Amigas can do.

    ReplyDelete
  49. New version not working on Mister for some reason. Backgrounds visible only. The previous release worked, but ran a bit slowly from what I've seen.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Beautiful conversions like the pc engine and megadrive ones proves there is no need of an Amiga 1200 and an accelerator card to do justice to this immortal masterpiece! Just take a look even to games like "Out run Europa" or "Crazy Cars 3" on Amiga 500! C'mon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly. The Amiga 500 OCS is sufficient enough (Lotus series proves)

      Delete
    2. Not so, if you want a faithful conversion of arcade Outrun. Lotus uses prescaled sprites for cars and other road objects (like all other similar games on OCS). But Outrun arcade and this Amiga version of Outrun scales the objects in realtime, which is where the CPU power is needed. You get much smoother scaling this way, there is not enough memory to store this many objects as prescaled, I think.

      But of course one could do some brute force approach that would use 8-16 MB of FAST memory, and prescale everything, then it would run well on an A1200+FAST memory, and look close to Outrun Arcade, and not require 68030 or better. But this approach is probably used by Agermose Outrun version also coming soon, which runs on an A1200+FAST memory.

      Delete
    3. Of course, most people wouldn't expect an arcade perfect Out Run on the A500. At least not those who knows a bit about how computer hardware works. The Lotus engine could maybe offer a decent experience for the A500. Very excited to see how Agermose's A1200 version will turn out. It's said to run on stock hardware + just a tiny amount of fast RAM.

      Delete
    4. Beautiful conversions like the pc engine and megadrive

      Delete
  51. The game FASTER (ST conversion) will show how an OCS racing game performs

    ReplyDelete
  52. I think we needed a virtual Amiga platform, something like the Pico, but in that case, emulating an Amiga machine with the full capabilities the AAA chipset would have if Commodore had finish it...

    Lots of chipram and a really fast blitter, dual playfield with 256 colors each also an overlay playfield for the UI...

    Something like this

    And perhaps Retro Games Ltd could release such machine, or, perhaps it could be emulated via UAE...

    And also, a new Scorpion Engine using full capabilities of such virtual Amigas.


    Just dreaming, sorry if it offends the purists, not my intention...

    About Outrun, just downloaded the latest version and it runs amazingly on my Pimiga running on a cheap N100 mini pc

    ReplyDelete
  53. Just a thought, and I know this might be asking a bit here, but would it be possible to implement AHI to allow for an extra channel for SFX? Or would that be too much even for 060 machines?

    ReplyDelete
  54. It may look VASTLY better than the MegaDrive, and nearly identical to the arcade... but I have to admit, despite great music... the lack of sound effects and music destroys it for me :(

    ReplyDelete

**ENGLISH ONLY** Constructive criticism, play nice and enjoy IndieRetroNews! :)