Sonic X-treme STI Engines, Saturn, PC, Win95-PC+NV1, +V37 Level Editor

Andrew75 · Mar 7, 2015

Engine Ver. 037 Release 2:
Jolly was hard at work it seems.... Sooooo....
•Fixed palette management
•Initial implementation of scrolling backgrounds (no quadratic distortion)
•Fixed foreground objects transparency issues. (For when Sonic moves behind objects like rocks)
•Gamepad Support Added
•Windowed mode EXE added
Mega
Anonfiles
Hugefiles
Mediafire

Enjoy guys !

Also if anyone could report back their key configs for gamepads like ps4 , USB Saturn, ect. That would be great !

Blades · Mar 7, 2015

Awesome.

Does this mean we have the resources for a playable version of this?

http://youtu.be/wzvS_beXtXk

Spehiroth · Mar 7, 2015

Blades said:

Awesome.

Does this mean we have the resources for a playable version of this?

http://youtu.be/wzvS_beXtXk
Click to expand...

That build of the engine featured in those videos is a much, much later PC build, the same one pitched to SEGA's PC division. Only Chris Senn and Ofer Alon were working on it at this point, as the rest of the team went with POV and their older engine from Ofer (the engine we have). Sadly there is no way to get this build, unless Ofer still has it and is willing to share. What we have is an early build much like the E3 trailer.

The assets in Jolly's archive are very interesting nonetheless, as many of the levels found in it have never been seen outside of the E3 trailer and magazine previews. We're also getting the POV engine, which nobody outside of STI has ever seen before.

Andrew75 · Mar 8, 2015

News feed!
Version 040 engine is being worked on,Its slow but steady!
The initial release will be a bare bones and as close to how JollyRoger had found it as possible. The engine state is worse off than the 037 was. The code is in shambles!
Sonic was not even controllable from my understanding. ( that's been amended for this release)
Anyhow Once the initial 040 drops , I believe the plan is to continue work on it to spiff it up quite a bit to to make something very special for everyone to enjoy.
I'll elaborate further regarding the state of 040 in the near future when I have more time.
Between the 10th threw the 15th, I'll be extremely busy, so I cant keep up with this for a little while.

Vangar · Mar 18, 2015

The initial release can be considered 'real' while the updated revisions are more like 'fan enhancements' ?

Andrew75 · Mar 19, 2015

Vangar said:

The initial release can be considered 'real' while the updated revisions are more like 'fan enhancements' ?
Click to expand...

You could say that. ( There'll be descriptions about what's enhanced per release)

Andrew75 · Mar 24, 2015

Sorry for the lack of updates guys !
I've been very busy with Work, AXSX, and been secretly working on getting more levels ready for release for Version 037 of the engine, Most of them are now playable in the way that they can be run around in without Ring collisions getting in the way, or Sonic bouncing a mile high upon landing on the ground.
I haven't heard anything from JollyRoger lately, although I'm sure he's been busy working on the Saturn build 040.

Andrew75 · Mar 25, 2015

Had a PM come in from Jolly today, so I'll post what he has said here.

The message from JollyRoger reads:

I am still working on the Saturn, tracking down probably the single worst crash bug, which is due to bad timing and the way the Saturn uses display lists and framebuffers.
In order to speed up the frame rate, the code avoids proper synchronization with the framebuffer, and causes a deadlock due to a data race condition, which freezes the system.

Using proper synchronization slows down the code a lot, to around 10 FPS, so I am looking to see if there is a workaround that I can use to avoid the race condition, while still allowing the code to run slightly behind the VDP1.

This is going to take some time, but after this things should get better.

Jolly
Click to expand...

Spinksy · Mar 25, 2015

Still amazing to see how much effort that man is putting into all of this!

Keep up the good work Jolly, and all else remotely involved.

Andrew75 · Apr 6, 2015

== V40 Engine for PC And SEGA SATURN ==

K guys !
2 new simultaneous releases for Engine v040! The First Release is for the PC. And YES SEGA SATURN TOO!!!! (Again lets thank JollyRoger for his hard work)
Both releases Support Fisheye ! YES I said it Fisheye and SEGA SATURN together! Did I say Fisheye with good FPS! ? !
The PC release generally looks better with more frames of animation for Sonic, enemies and the rings. The PC ver Also sports higher res with better color than the Saturn version which looks a bit washed out, but that is to be expected. Improvements for both 040 versions are planned including frame rate improvements and more frames of animation for sprites like rings for the Saturn build among too many other improvement to list.

Here is the video for 040 running on Sega Saturn!
http://youtu.be/ATcm_1oneb0

The video shows the engine essentially unmodified from the way it was found.
As you can see, this is a very early build of the Saturn version. The v40 engine is very different from v37: many features had been removed or simplified to streamline portions of the code and data structures to increase the performance, so that it could run on Saturn at an acceptable speed.
The engine was clearly in the middle of heavy refactoring and basic functionality such as player control and collisions were disabled. The code for those features had not been ported to use the new data structures and functions, and was completely commented out, so it had to be partially rewritten/ported.
The engine was also prone to constantly crashing due to several bugs, so the code has been altered further, but only to make it more stable, no other changes were made to its appearance or functionality.
The level displayed is a test level that was used to debug the engine, and it is the only level that was found with this particular version of the engine. The engine only loads and displays one animation frame every eight, this explains the mostly non-existent animation.

Please keep in mind that there are visual differences between Saturn and PC build of v040 so try them both if you can.
PC Engine Ver. 040 Release 001:
Mega
Mediafire

SEGA SATURN Engine Ver. 040 Release 001:
Mega
Mediafire

I used ImgBurn for burning the iso.
If attempting the swap trick or installing a Mod chip , please be careful not to bust your Saturn, all parties involved with this release are not to be held accountable.

TheKazeblade · Apr 6, 2015

Fantastic! This is such a great treat when just less than a year ago this would have been considered lost to time.

Andrew75 · Apr 7, 2015

Wow, just wow, I'm blown away at the lack of interest in Sonic X-treme with fisheye for Sega Saturn.
For shame! Because this even has better than 2 FPS on actual hardware, which many people had assumed for years. although that may have been true for one build perhaps that we did not see.

Flygon · Apr 7, 2015

Don't get me wrong, I'm interested as hell! I've just been in a bit of a quiet awe throughout this whole thing.

I, and a lot of others, prefer to just lurk.

Lanzer · Apr 7, 2015

I just think that the news isn't quite out yet. if the Retro staff can tweet about it and post it on the main site that would help.

Andrew75 · Apr 7, 2015

Lanzer said:

I just think that the news isn't quite out yet. if the Retro staff can tweet about it and post it on the main site that would help.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it would.
So who's had the chance to play 040 here? any feedback for bugs or anything?

Aerosol · Apr 7, 2015

This is a pretty historic event. Thanks to Jolly, we've got a piece of history on our hands. I haven't had a chance to try it yet but I will soon.

Ayu Tsukimiya · Apr 7, 2015

I'm actually at a loss for words over this. The only thing I can really say at this point is "holy shit this is amazing." :v:

McAleeCh · Apr 7, 2015

Not had the chance to look at this yet as I've been insanely busy over the Easter weekend - I suspect some of the lack of activity may stem from similar circumstances. Looks amazing, though, and as others have said - who would have even thought this would be available to us at all, even a year ago? Will definitely grab it when I'm back from work this eve! = )

Skeledroid · Apr 7, 2015

holy damn YES, we are getting closer and closer :D

Blue Blood · Apr 7, 2015

Andrew75 said:

Wow, just wow, I'm blown away at the lack of interest in Sonic X-treme with fisheye for Sega Saturn.
For shame! Because this even has better than 2 FPS on actual hardware, which many people had assumed for years. although that may have been true for one build perhaps that we did not see.
Click to expand...

I can only be so interested in Xtreme when we've pretty much seen it all. I mean yes, it's incredible that this is now out there, but there's nothing new that can really be learnt from it. Its a very rough, very incomplete build of a game that never looked too great. Its just like the screenshots.

Keep up the good work, cause like I say this is still really cool to set finally coming to life. But I dunno, like beta Windy Valley this is all coming to late to really grab me.

Sonic X-treme STI Engines, Saturn, PC, Win95-PC+NV1, +V37 Level Editor

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