The Amiga news is coming in thick and fast, as now we welcome the release of 'Outrun AGA', an ambitious fan-made reimagining of Sega’s legendary arcade racer built to replace the notoriously poor official Amiga port from back in the day. Developed by retrodnagames, this project is coded entirely from the ground up in old-school assembly language. Steering clear of modern shortcuts, the developer proudly avoided any form of generative AI during creation to hopefully ensure an authentic arcade experience. Built to squeeze every ounce of power from original, 1993-era Commodore hardware, the racing title is purely blitter-driven, requiring a PAL-based AGA Amiga equipped with a standard 68020 CPU and 4MB of fast RAM. Because of its specialized reliance on native Amiga custom chips, faster modern processor upgrades won't alter the game's execution speed.
- AGA PAL Amiga with 4Mb fast RAM. Runs full speed on 68020. This is intended to run on close to original 1993 C= hardware. Since the game is blitter driven, faster CPU's will not make it run faster.
This is... beautiful.
ReplyDeleteJust tried this out, runs like a dream :) Never thought I'd say this but the sheer amount of retro gaming hitting us these days feels a bit crazy! It must be a mission just keeping up with the news updates. Thanks for the hard work keeping us informed.
ReplyDeleteThanks bud, I'm on bit of a caffeine boost at the moment. Making the most of feeling better while I still can :) - Hope you're doing good too!
DeleteThat's very good, but I wonder if it’s possible to scale something down so that it fits into 2MB of chip RAM. Or perhaps include some loading time between levels for those who don't have that extra 4MB. And, given that the developer mentioned it relies more on the blitter than the CPU, I wonder if it could be adapted for the Amiga 500 too, running in 16 colors and perhaps with fewer objects along the roadside... That would be an incredible achievement!
ReplyDeleteThe amiga really needs fast ram so the Blitter can get out of the way of the CPU. Every amiga should have come with fast ram. Its a much more powerful system with it.
DeleteWhy? Why don't just be happy we have all this amazing stuff being made, Why there's always someone asking it to use LESS HARDWARE?
Deleteless memory, slower processor, single button joystick.
I only see this kind of obsession on Amiga, absolutely NO ONE asking a new ms-dos game to be made to run on a pc at with CGA and no sound card.
@Luis Carlos Zardo: I’ll give you my honest take. As for me, and I guess for many people browsing these sites, playing a game nowadays that was coded for a late-80s home computer triggers two types of feelings: 1) 80% is the nostalgia factor for that era, and 2) 20% is pure amazement at how a coder could squeeze the original hardware of those little machines to its absolute limits.
DeleteMaking an Amiga game today that requires accelerator boards and amounts of RAM that nobody could afford back then—or that didn't even exist—just leaves me cold. Personally, it doesn't trigger my nostalgia or my sense of amazement. I mean, if you make a Sonic port that only runs smoothly on an Amiga with a 68040 at 40MHz, I’m not impressed at all. But if you make a port that runs decently, even with obvious compromises, on a stock Amiga 500 + 512KB of slow RAM (the configuration 90% of kids had back then), that absolutely hypes me up.
And I don't think your comparison to MS-DOS works... The PC was designed from the ground up as a business machine with a highly modular architecture. You could choose your CPU, RAM, video card, and sound card based on your needs and budget. In contrast, the Amiga 500 was built around custom chips soldered onto the motherboard... You couldn't just swap them out. The most you could do was expand the RAM, add an HDD, or use a CPU accelerator. But let's be real: most people buying an A500 back then were teenagers using it as a gaming console. They weren't dropping tons of cash on crazy expensive accelerator boards. At most, they threw in 512KB of slow RAM because it was the budget-friendly choice.
P.S.: As for the Amiga 1200, unlike the Amiga 500, it was such a commercial flop that most of its userbase back then probably sold it off (to move on to PC or consoles) way before even considering a RAM upgrade. But realistically, if it had actually been a success, a 4MB Fast RAM expansion would have easily been the most common choice.
I think you've confused what impresses you personally with what impresses everyone, or what makes a technically interesting project. Pushing the platform beyond its original specifications is arguably just as interesting as optimizing for the original hardware. They're different challenges, not mutually exclusive ones.
DeleteAdditionally, my friends and and I moved from expanded A500s to A1200s, then bought '030 cards and larger hard drives as soon as we could afford them.
Finally the amiga gets justice! Its encredible seeing an almost arcade-perfect outrun running on stock hardware + fast ram. Even more amazing that the entire game was handcoded from scratch. This is easily one of the best racers for the amiga ever. My deepest respect to agermose and anyone invoved.
ReplyDeleteI've been using Oktalizer 6 channel sound in my recent ports. the sound tends to break up if the emulator isn't quite powerful enough. thats probably what you are seeing here
ReplyDeleteSimply incredible
ReplyDeleteWho had thought this would be possible on Amiga 1200 with some fast RAM. One of the most impressive ports ever! Thanks
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