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Post by Peer on Feb 12, 2023 5:23:28 GMT -5
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Post by Chainsaw on Feb 12, 2023 7:15:07 GMT -5
For me as an absolute Hyperchase fan, this huge analysis is very interesting, also the alternative versions. I will try them out soon. And even if the games are coded in assembler, it's somehow awesome, how Hyperchase and the other original Vectrex games fit into 4K. Or the programing technics that are used, to "make it fit" into 4K. Hyperchase is not only a high speed racing game, the graphics and track are beautiful. For me reading this analysis was very exciting, thank you a lot :-)
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Post by Peer on Feb 12, 2023 9:42:05 GMT -5
For me as an absolute Hyperchase fan, this huge analysis is very interesting, also the alternative versions. I will try them out soon. And even if the games are coded in assembler, it's somehow awesome, how Hyperchase and the other original Vectrex games fit into 4K. Or the programing technics that are used, to "make it fit" into 4K. Hyperchase is not only a high speed racing game, the graphics and track are beautiful. For me reading this analysis was very exciting, thank you a lot :-) Yes, it is absolutely awesome what they did with only 4K. Today, compiling a mere "hello world" on Windows generates a binary of several megs 
Let me know when you try the 50Hz version...
Many Cheers, Peer
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Post by Malban on Feb 13, 2023 2:31:33 GMT -5
Great Analysis - thx for sharing!
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Post by Chainsaw on Feb 13, 2023 15:59:17 GMT -5
I tried now the 50Hz version. Oh yes... it is fast. The original is already fast, but the 50Hz version is much faster. If I suggest this version now for the next Vector War, people will hate me. (OK, it was a joke - No, I don't suggest it for next Vector War...) But I was surprised, how good it is looking on the real console. If I just played the original in the past, I never noticed the flickering of the screen. But playing the normal version and then immediately the 50Hz version is showing, how the flickering is reduced / nearly not visible anymore. It's awesome. Will try it again when I'm less tired to enjoy the higher speed and try to get a good time. (Maybe Hyper Hyper Chase or Ultra Hyper Chase would be a good name for it?)
Also the version with alternative graphics is great. OK, after playing the original for over 30 years, it is a bit strange to see new graphics or a new level design of Hyper Chase. But anyway I like it, even if you just tried "easy things".
Thanks for the god mode offer - I already own such a version :-) But I just used it two or three times to see, how far the game 2 route / track is going, it is much longer than the game 1 track. (Never got to the end in game 2 without cheating, even not when I choose game 2 / player 2 to double the quantity of lifes in game 2.)
And yeah, the fast upcoming cars (because they are slow, but player is driving fast) are annoying sometimes. Otherwise, they seldom appear only one time at once, so if one of these slow cars is spawned, it often spawns such a car several times again. Difficult to explain.
But yeah, thanks again for the analysis, and for the interesting alternative versions.
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Post by Peer on Feb 14, 2023 2:54:46 GMT -5
Yes, the racing Hyperchase at 50Hz looks absolutely great in my opinion. And personally, I would not hate you for suggesting this for the next Vector War, as I had already thought about this myself. That could be fun. Same with an up-speed Bedlam.
The good news, I think I now also have a working patch for the “ultra-fast-upcoming-cars”, which makes the 50Hz version even more interesting. Care to test it?
By the way, you are correct in that those cars seemingly spawn several times in a row. I am not yet 100% sure about the mechanics behind this, but I think that this, in general, is the case for all cars, but it is best noticed for those ultra-fast ones. I think that this is a consequence of objects not being truly removed from the object list, but only being flagged as inactive once they go out of view. Inactive slots are later filled up by new spawns. My guess is that in some corner cases the going-out-of-view is not correctly detected, because the value for the distance-from-horizon overflows or underflows, and thus the flagging-as-inactive is not correctly done, making the car appear again.
Many Cheers,
Peer
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Post by Chainsaw on Feb 15, 2023 12:39:45 GMT -5
That's absolute very interesting stuff about the car spawning and the object list. And sure, I would like to see / try the patched version. Do you want to post it here, or do you want to send it only by e-mail?
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Post by Peer on Feb 16, 2023 4:07:30 GMT -5
That's absolute very interesting stuff about the car spawning and the object list. And sure, I would like to see / try the patched version. Do you want to post it here, or do you want to send it only by e-mail? Sending it by email is simply quicker and easier for me, out of pure lazyness, as I do not have to upload anything to the server I will send you the patch for testing, and if you deem it working, then I will glady make it available for everyone.
Many Cheers, Peer
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Post by hcmffm on Feb 16, 2023 16:55:30 GMT -5
Thank you for another interesting analysis, Peer. For Vector War I don't mind slightly changed original versions. E.g. in most recent Vector War we had played a slightly modified version of Armor Attack because original version allowed for playing endlessly. Why not try a 50Hz Hyperchase? (Perhaps this horrible sensitive control should be fixed, too, or is it just me who has problems when playing with original Vectrex controller?)
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Post by VectorX on Feb 16, 2023 19:20:42 GMT -5
^Oh, God no. You breathe on the controller wrong and BAM! Your car hits a siderail.
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Post by Peer on Feb 17, 2023 3:23:16 GMT -5
^Oh, God no. You breathe on the controller wrong and BAM! Your car hits a siderail. Yes, the controls are challenging. Especially if you are using an original and worn-out controller. But I also think that this control is something which makes this game unique and clearly differentiates it from other racing video games of that time. I am not aware of any other contemporary consoles which had analog joysticks, or were there?
As far as the code is concerned, there is no trivial way to replace the analog steering by a digital one. The code does not store the x-position of the player's car in RAM. The analog joystick x-value IS the x-position of the car. Of course, such a patch could still be done...
Many Cheers, Peer
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Post by Chainsaw on Feb 17, 2023 4:00:09 GMT -5
In Hyperchase, I always press the stick of the controller "up" or "forward" (12 o'clock position) during the whole game. For me it is much easier then to steer careful to the left or to the right. If I stay in the center position with the stick, I also struggle with the sensitivity of the left/right steering. But this is not about the program code, it is just easier for me to do it this way. Maybe other use also this technic? But for me it is ok how it is.
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Post by Peer on Feb 17, 2023 4:16:19 GMT -5
In Hyperchase, I always press the stick of the controller "up" or "forward" (12 o'clock position) during the whole game. For me it is much easier then to steer careful to the left or to the right. If I stay in the center position with the stick, I also struggle with the sensitivity of the left/right steering. But this is not about the program code, it is just easier for me to do it this way. Maybe other use also this technic? But for me it is ok how it is. Yes, I am using exactly the same trick  Due to the round shape of the ring around the joystick it is much easier to control how far you want the joystick to go to the left or to the right, if you press it forward and let it always rest on that ring.
Note that the player's car also does some small amount of movement in y-direction on the screen while accelerating or breaking, triggered by buttons 3 and 4. The interesting thing is that the code in fact does not only evaluate and store the analog x-position of the joystick, but also the analog y-position, but the y-information is not used anywhere (see my analysis page). Maybe in an early version the accelerating and breaking was indeed done by vertical joystick movement?
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Due to the round shape of the ring around the joystick it is much easier to control how far you want the joystick to go to the left or to the right, if you press it forward and let it always rest on that ring.