Random: Talented Hacker Bumps The Frame Rate Of SNES Race Drivin' From 4fps To 30

Four fps!? F*** me that even makes Vita ports look good.

People moan about 30fps these days. They should think themselves lucky they get double digits!

I’d love to see this on Stunt Race FX

I never had to use the break in this game before this hack.

@Slowdive It was more just a flippant comment. I would take a steady 30fps over an unsteady 60fps myself. We are spoiled by frame rates today compared to the past.

Never heard of it. Stunt Race FX on the SNES could do with a framerate boost though, haha.

apart from it being thq on the snes the butchers of any por race driving ran like a dying one legged dog on most systems

@matdub any specific reason to mention the Vita? (and please legit reasons, I have one and have played good AND bad performing games on it)

You could have mention so many other examples that are worse, N64, PS1, PSP, Sega Saturn, they all had some bad performing games too.

This is just such a specific example of yours that I had to react.

Downvote because no 60FPS...

...

.. I'm joking ofc.

"If it's not 60 I don' play it! Mimimimi!"

@sanderev you where 30 seconds faster than me.

The paltry FPS on the original Star Fox makes revisiting it a bit of a chore. If he can do his sorcery on THAT game... woo-boy... we'll have something worth checking out.

I remember having many hours of fun with Hard Drivin’ 2 on the Amiga. It had its own track editor, lot fun making your own tracks

What a world of difference that was. He should bump the fps in Doom and Stunt Race FX as well. A 60fps Stunt Race FX would run fantastic.

Props to the hacker for making this game actually run (or should I say, drive?)

Hard Drivin and Race Drivin were pretty impressive arcade cabinets in their day TBH. The SNES port was an abomination though. If my memory serves me right, it was such a complete hashup that the engine audio had little to do with what was happening in game? Ironically the Lynx port was far superior

@Sebazy Atari's Lynx had a much, much better dedicated graphics chip than the SNES (and probably CPU) if I remember correctly. The resolution was low, but the capabilities were very different and super impressive compared to the other 2D consoles - dozens of "sprites" that could all scale and rotate independently and with decent performance.

Battery life and lack of third party support was the problem I think? And price? The one I played, pretty extensively because I was impressed and fascinated, was a friend's. I remember really enjoying the Gauntlet game and Blue Lightning...

What was this article about again? lol. Oh yeah, let's see Star Fox. Hopefully they can keep the gameplay at a normal rate while increasing the frame rate. Star Fox won't be much fun at double or triple speed.

You know the Direct sucked, when this is exciting.

Nice work indeed

@RupeeClock Considering both co-processors draw power from the system, and power draw was enough of a concern that most enhancement chip games have error screens if they detect you have unneeded attachments plugged in (such as a multitap or mouse), no.
Nintendo even reduced the amount of power available in later console revisions as a means to shut out cheat devices or "game copiers".

Very impressive. Major props to Mr. Viela. I hope he succeeds in fixing Star Fox.

When I read 4, I was expecting it to be followed by K, not FPS.

I had never seen this game running, but boy is it ugly and runs like crap, not mentioning the "music" with 3 keys on a 5 second loop.

I wouldn‘t say it makes up for the little framerate, but the soundtrack kicks ass.

So the original version will be added to the Switch Online service in May?

@Yanina More like 900 frames faster, amirite? No? No...?

I’ll find my way out...

This was one of the games in the early 90's that I loved in the arcades, but didn't see much point in console ports. Not only was the performance terrible on home consoles, but there wasn't much to the game. In the arcades, it was exciting as the first 3D polygon racer I ever played and I pumped several dollars into it. But if I remember correctly, it only had two tracks. So even if the consoles could have run it properly, you'd be bored with it in a day. I'd put Pit Fighter into this group too.

At least this is in colour, I had Hard Drivin' on the Spectrum.

@greenwichlee This game was on Spectrum?! I can't imagine the horror. Full disclosure, as an American, I've never seen a Spectrum first hand, but I've seen screenshots online taken from Spectrum games. It left me wishing I was blind.

Looks like he can either get Star Fox [potentially] running at 30 fps but with a slight resolution drop, or 20 fps at the same resolution. So, me personally, I'd go with the original resolution at a solid 20 fps. I think dropping the resolution would kinda stop it being the same game, unless he can do this in a way that basically isn't really perceptible to the untrained eye, I guess.

@beazlen1 +1 to that! Stunt Race FX is a seriously underappreciated game, I'd LOVE to see it get this treatment.

@Enigk Nope, I avoided most 30fps (2D games) in the past starting with the horrible B.O.B. game after I bought it in early 1994 for the Genesis (it was 60fps on the SNES btw). Getting my Dreamcast in 1999 was the start of being a true frame rate snob when it came to console games. I gave passes to Nintendo with Zelda/Mario but would avoid just about anything else.

I also prefer unlocked frame rates because that usually allows for correction later on. I always play with unlocked FPS on my PC as it doesn't bother me if it stays above 60/120.

The funny thing is that if you want to talk about the SNES being underpowered for the game, there was a NES port in development, and there is actually a (I'm pretty sure incomplete) ROM of that canceled port on the Internet. @RupeeClock
Or I think that was its predecessor Hard Drivin'.

@Rayquaza2510 Because I LOVE my Vita. I must bought hundreds of games for that sucker. The port quality varied a lot. Jax and Daxter and RE revelations were particularly bad. Borderlands really pissed me off too. If they hadn't gone for native res it could have been made to run at 30fps. I suppose it was half-assed-ness of many of the ports that pissed me off. The many awesome ports on the Switch just show what can be done.

Nice, reminds me of the PC game Stunts by Distinctive Software. Amazing racer back then.

I remember hiring this game as a kid and being intrigued by its polygonal graphics. I had some fun with it, despite it clearly being a stinker of a port.