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 : Just as I was about to go to bed as it’s near midnight, Saberman gave 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. This update not only has a number of changes and performance improvements, but it was released along side an announcement that OutRun Amiga Edition had hit an impressive 4,000 downloads since its release.
Successfully tested on the following hardware (and many more):
Changelog :
1/ A separate 68040+ CPU build
- This provides specific optimisations for 040 and above CPUs. It may run faster than the 030 build on these systems, but if you have problems stick to the 030 build. It is difficult to say how much faster as this depends on a number of factors: CPU speed, RAM speed (chip and fast), what the game engine happens to be doing at that moment in time etc.
2/ Support for the CD32 Akiko Custom Chip
- You can read about this chip here, but in short it assists with chunky to planar conversion of the graphics. Unfortunately, due to the hardware architecture of the CD32, the increase in performance isn’t as awesome as it could be. But… for those of you with a typical 030 accelerator, the game will now be faster on the CD32.
3/ One Button Joysticks!
- Now, I’ll be honest – I’m not a fan of playing the game with a one-button joystick. But I caused a bit of controversy by not supporting them before. So, in the interests of Amiga diplomacy between us amigos, you can now dust off your trusty old ’80s joystick. I’d still recommend a 2/3-button pad or the keyboard, but hey who am I to tell you how to enjoy your life?
4/ Configuration
- There is a config.txt file, which you can edit to set default settings. These can still be overridden in the frontend menu.
5/ Performance Improvements
- I spent a ridiculous amount of time squeezing extra performance out of the engine for those of us (like me) using an 030 processor. After many days of optimisation, the gains are marginal at best. That said, certain parts of the game do run a little faster now. Please don’t expect miracles on these minimum-spec systems, the real bottleneck is the sheer amount of data being processed per frame rather than a glaring flaw in the code.
6/ Other Minor Fixes
- Several smaller fixes have been made, including resolving a crash that could occur on some setups during the Stage 5 Autobahn route.
Links :1) Source 2) Download *HDF (HDF, AGA) 3) Download *HDF (HDF, AGA 040+ required) by Retroplay 4) OutRun*lha (AGA or AGA 040+)
