Hi

this is my very fist post here, long time reading, first time posting...

I am developing a Casio clone of the vintage OutRun and the final version 1.03 has just been released some days ago. No need to explain (I guess) what is OutRun, this is such a well know game that everyone may understand what I am talking about



I just want to say it is a free interpretation of the famous OutRun running on Megadrive, but rearranged to work on the Casio fx-CG10/20/50 (PRIZM - Graph90+E) calculators.

It run at ~20/25FPS without overcloking on CG50, but significantly lower on CG10/20. It has been reported to work fine after overclocking using FTune/Ptune.




Our OutRun let us drive at full speed on 10 circuits and 2 different game modes :

- "Arcade" with the aim of reaching the end of the circuit before the time counter reaches 0. Each Checkpoint validated increases the time in order to let you drive further. No need to say you will have to drive among the traffic jam. Crash will decrease your speed or stop your car, and hence will make the challenge tougher.

- "Time attack" with the aim of being in the "Hall of Fame", including the best 5 times to reach the end of the circuits. No traffic this time but perfect trajectories will be the key.


The 10 circuits are located in 5 different places which will make you travel in very different countries :


- European Plains : Flat European plains with the Alps in the background


- Atacama Desert : Atacama Desert in Chile in South America


- US Road 66 : Crossing the Colorado on the famous Road 66 in the US


- Winter in Finland : Northern Europe during winter, discovers ice and snow in Finland


- Kenyan Savanah : Right in front of the Kilimandjaro for a trip in Africa


2 types of circuits :
- simple linear circuits
(example: circuit #1 European Plains)
- multilap circuits
(example: circuit #9 Snow in Finland)

Many options can be adjusted

Via the "Game Options" submenu:


Via the "Visual Options" submenu



game controls are :

[SHIFT] : accelerate
[ALPHA] : break / drive backward
[<--] et [-->] turn left,right
[OPTN] : menu « Visual Options »
[EXIT] : pause the game and let you restart/quit the game


Outrun is compatible :
- fx-CG50 and Graph90+E : initial development architecture, so run just fine
- fx CG10/20 PRIZM : Ok but slow, need to overclock
- Emulateur fx-CG50 / Graph 90+E version 3.60 : work but very slow
- Emulateur fx-CG20 / PRIZM version 3.10 : same, works but very slow


For downloads, please go here (central place) : Outrun v1.03

Please leave a comment/note on the game, this will be really appreciated.

This is really cool! I saw the post on TI-Planet earlier and I was able to give it a try on my younger brother's Graph 90+E, and it's a lot of fun! I'm impressed how well it runs despite the 3D graphics, and it's certainly (In my opinion) one of the best games for the platform.

Hi Tiny_Hacker,
thanks for your very positive feedback, this is really appreciated.
Happy to read you were able to test it and that it runs smoothly.

This is VERY cool! I love the graphics and the good selection of circuits.

Thanks tr1p1ea. Hope you had the opportunity to run the game on your hardware.

I have thought about trying to make a version of OutRun for the CE for a while... Do you have any thoughts on how to heavily optimize a 3D engine like this?

Not considering sprite drawing with upscaling, which is a deep topic by itself (requires either a lot of memory or a lot of CPU resources, both lacking on the CE), the main challenge remains the numerous calculations at every frame for updating the road and the traffic.

I then use fixed point mathematics for all the 3D projections instead if using floats, this clearly speed up the process.

Drawing routines are based on the Gint/FxSDK developped by Lephenixnoir which is really powerful.

In order to have everything easy and manageable, I had to make a specific version of µSTL running on the CG-50 and to allow extra RAM to store all the sprites. It uses up to ~500Kb of RAM.

Hope it helps.

Hi,

The revision 1.05 of OutRun can be downloaded here https://www.planet-casio.com/Fr/programmes/programme4225-1-outrun-for-graph-90e-slyvtt-jeux-actionsport.html.

This revision corrects some problems with ghosting of keys when using SHIFT/ALPHA and the arrows, so some other combinations of key biddings have been integrated. Now, one can chose among the following keys as per his own preference :
[SHIFT] or [F1] or [X,O,T] : accelerate
[ALPHA] or [F2] or [FRAC] : break / drive backward
[<--] & [-->] or [F5] & [F6] : [turn left,right
[OPTN] : menu « Visual Options »
[EXIT] : pause the game and let you restart/quit the game

On CG50/Graph90+E (only), it is possible to overclock the calculator in-game thanks to an option in menu 'Game Options'.

Please note this is only for CG50/G90+E, not CG10 and CG20.
Note 1 : this is inactive by default (cause still very experimental, despite tested on my machine).
Note 2 : Do not lookk for that option on CG10/CG20, it is volontary not appearing in the menu. So please don't claim for that.

I also improved the navigation in some menus (it is easier to enter player name in 'Game Option' and you can quit the 'Credit Menu' by hitting [EXIT] (only [EXE] before)).

Please enjoy the game, and leave a comment or even a test in the download page. This would be really appreciated.
Please feel free to submit ideas on what you ould like to see in the game in the future.

Sly

I missed this the first time around - an incredibly impressive effort! The touchpoint that I have for this style of game is Lotus Turbo Challenge, no doubt inspired by games like this one's ancestor that I never played on their actual platforms back in the day. Nice work raising the bar on Prizm games!

Also a bit late, but really great job on this! I've always had a certain appreciation for these psuedo-3D racers, and it's neat to see one make its way to the calculator--the closest thing I've personally used is V-Rally on TI-Boy CE, which ran impressively slowly.

Did you need to do a lot of optimization work to get that 20-25 FPS? I know tr1p1ea has been working for a while now to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the CE for Mario Kart CE, but I suppose this is much more capable hardware.

Anyway, nice work on this and I look forward to any future updates (maybe some unlockable cars would be a good addition?).

Thanks Guys,

I have no short term plans for Outrun as I am running some other projects at the moment, but I still keep in a part of my brain some potential ideas for a v2.0.

Among other things, I guess i would switch to Azur engine by Lephe that I am currently heavily using on my Shmup project and sthat significantly improve the FPS when many sprites are to be drawn.

So maybe one day ...

(unlockable cars and additionnal bonuses are already on the list )