Announcing: OutRun Enhanced Edition, with High Score Saving & Improved Freeplay Mode

[MikeyDee]

Well, I burned some new ROMs (after removing the "spurrius sound fix") and tested them out today. They work great.

My board is revision A and it works fine. I don't use freeplay so I didn't test that, but the high score save, MPH, and the radio dial music all work perfectly.

Interesting, if you start a game but don't move the steering wheel, you still get the traditional opening music, but as soon as you move the wheel, you get a sample of the 3 radio selections.

Thanks for doing this work and for making it available!

 

[DarrenF]

Interesting, if you start a game but don't move the steering wheel, you still get the traditional opening music, but as soon as you move the wheel, you get a sample of the 3 radio selections.

Hmmm. What are you referring to when you say "the traditional opening music"? On my PCB with original ROMs (and in MAME), when I insert a coin and it shows the screen for music selection, all I hear is what sounds like waves crashing--no music. Did yours have opening music on that screen before the new ROMs?

I suppose the exact behavior of the new patched ROMs may vary slightly depending on your steering wheel calibration. In general I'd recommend that anyone check its centered reading per the manual, and adjust if necessary. Esp. if your Ferrari "pulls" to one side or the other.

 

[MikeyDee]

Hmmm. What are you referring to when you say "the traditional opening music"? On my PCB with original ROMs (and in MAME), when I insert a coin and it shows the screen for music selection, all I hear is what sounds like waves crashing--no music. Did yours have opening music on that screen before the new ROMs?

I suppose the exact behavior of the new patched ROMs may vary slightly depending on your steering wheel calibration. In general I'd recommend that anyone check its centered reading per the manual, and adjust if necessary. Esp. if your Ferrari "pulls" to one side or the other.

The "traditional opening music" I was referring to was the crashing wave sound. (In other words, the same game sounds that would play using the original ROMs)

My steering wheel doesn't always center exactly when released. There is slight play in it. So, sometimes when I start a game, it goes immediately to the radio preview. (I assume that my steering wheel is not centered exactly when the start button is pushed). It doesn't pull to the side during play. It steers perfectly.


You're game improvements are awesome. The original game should have had the music preview.

Thanks!

 

[DarrenF]

The original game should have had the music preview.

Agree wholeheartedly. In fact, when I got my OutRun, I thought there was a problem with it, because it didn't play music there. I would have swore that I remembered it that way from BITD. But I fired up MAME and sure enough, nothing but waves. Anyhow... it's fixed now. In celebration of OutRun's 25th birthday (the easter egg says programmed sept '86).

I'm hoping the freeplay mod will allow some people go get rid of their credit buttons (and/or prevent people from installing them in the future).

Darren

 

[LyonsArcade]

A friend (Chris White) and I have created a modification (aka ROM hack) for OutRun (Sega, 1986) to provide:

- high score saving (using existing hardware, no add'l NVRAM req'd)
- improved freeplay mode (with attract)
- enhanced music selection screen (plays music)
- selectable "km/h" / "MPH" speed display
- various bugfixes

It is released and available to all for free. Download and read all the details at my webpage:

http://www.finck.net/outrun/

and on my friend's blog:

http://reassembler.blogspot.com/2011/08/outrun-enhanced-edition.html

It requires patching the ROMS and programming (4) 27C512 EPROMs (all of the game code for the primary CPU).

No add'l hardware modification is required. High-score retention with power off may only be ~1 week (same as original bookkeeping data). You may optionally upgrade your memory back-up capacitor to improve this storage time. (The original has a 0.1F cap; 0.5F and 1.0F are commonly available.)

Enjoy!
Darren

Nice stuff, keep up the good work!

 

[Pinwizkid]

That's just terrific! I'd be interested in the same free play enhancement for Power Drift & Super Hang On (both have the auto coin up nonsense!)

-BB

 

[DarrenF]

I'd be interested in the same free play enhancement for Power Drift & Super Hang On (both have the auto coin up nonsense!)

Thanks for the feedback. Your requests have been duely noted.

Power Drift: near nil chance that we chould help with this one. It's on different hardware; I don't own it; and I have no real interest in it.

Super Hang On: This runs on the very similar (same?) hardware as OutRun... and Chris has already looked at some of its code (but only a bit... not remotely like what he's done with commenting OutRun's code). It has a reasonable chance of happening. If some variables are stored in the same locations, and some of the code was re-used... it might be do-able without a great deal of effort. Currently, neither of us are actively looking at it, so it'd likely be months off, even if we took it up.

df

 

[ToplessZ]

For those of you that bought the eproms from me.. They are ready to ship...

 

[PrairieDillo]

I also got in my lot of super capacitors for making kits.

The code seems settled so i'll try to order chips for kits tonight. I'll build as many as match the number of Capacitors. This is just a service really to keep busy. I'm not trying to make money off of these guy's wonderful contribution to the scene.

 

[DarrenF]

Lookin' good, guys.

I can't wait for a few more people to install it so I can get some more feedback. I can only test it so much before I puke.

I'm also interested in people's ideas for add'l features/tweaks/bugfixes.

Oh, and if anyone ends up with an extra 1.5F cap, hook a fella up...

 

[TheShanMan]

I installed them tonight, played one game so I noticed the music selection feature (nice!), recorded the high score, powered off, powered on a while later and was happy to see it still there!

Has anyone done a cordless phone battery mod? I'd be curious about that. I'm also curious what the estimated retention is with one of these 1.5F caps. Otherwise I guess I'll be ordering a supercap soon, unless someone wants to hook me up with a cap (don't need the roms) cheaper than I can get it at GPE.

Thank you Darren!

 

[DarrenF]

Has anyone done a cordless phone mod? I'd be curious about that. I'm also curious what the estimated retention is with one of these 1.5F caps.

Cordless phone mod??

My rough, unsubstantiated, estimate of retention with a 1.5F cap would be on the order of a couple months. This is based on ~1 week with 0.1F... so in a perfect world that might be ~15 weeks... but I hedged my bet and fudged, thinking the scaling won't be perfectly linear.

 

[TheShanMan]

Left out the "battery" part - "cordless phone battery mod". I'll edit it now.

 

[GameyMcGame]

Cordless phone mod??

My rough, unsubstantiated, estimate of retention with a 1.5F cap would be on the order of a couple months. This is based on ~1 week with 0.1F... so in a perfect world that might be ~15 weeks... but I hedged my bet and fudged, thinking the scaling won't be perfectly linear.

So if the game is left on for an hour or two a month, I assume the save life is technically infinite?

 

[alexred]

Awesome inhancement

I have installed in my outrun upright. Music and High Score save are working. High score was the main reason I installed so I am thrilled. However, free play does not seem to be working for me. Regardless of if I have the dip switches set to free play or not, hitting start does nothing unless I coin up or hit the service switch. After I have a credit, pushing start does start the game. Interestingly, in test mode with input test, pushing start does not indicate. Maybe my game has the button wired incorrectly?

 

[DarrenF]

So if the game is left on for an hour or two a month, I assume the save life is technically infinite?

With an upgraded memory backup capacitor, yes that what I'd expect. And it shouldn't even take an hour or two. I'd expect a few minutes should be enough to charge up the cap. (tho I haven't done the calcs or tested that).

Currently, I still have the OEM 0.1F cap in mine. So long as I turn it on at least once a week, it's been holding scores fine. I'll be on vacation for over a week soon, so I'll be testing the limits of the original cap. I'll report back what I learn.

I have installed in my outrun upright. Music and High Score save are working. High score was the main reason I installed so I am thrilled. However, free play does not seem to be working for me. Regardless of if I have the dip switches set to free play or not, hitting start does nothing unless I coin up or hit the service switch. After I have a credit, pushing start does start the game. Interestingly, in test mode with input test, pushing start does not indicate. Maybe my game has the button wired incorrectly?

To select freeplay mode, put ALL 8 of the switches on the "A" switch bank in the "ON" position (it's kinda hard to see the SW A label on the PCB). Actually, I think it'll work with just 1-4 set on, but it will only properly register in diagnostic mode if all 8 are on. In any case, when it boots up it should say "FREEPLAY" in the lower left corner (instead of "CREDITS 0").

Did freeplay mode work before you swapped out the EPROMs? [Note that the updated ROMs didn't ADD freeplay mode--it already existed. We merely improved it such that it has attract mode while freeplay is selected.]

Not sure about your start button. That's odd that it works normally but doesn't register in test mode... I just double-checked on my OR, and start registers properly in input test mode; so it's doesn't appear to be a code-issue.

 

[DarrenF]

High-score retention with power off may only be ~1 week (same as original bookkeeping data). You may optionally upgrade your memory back-up capacitor to improve this storage time. (The original has a 0.1F cap; 0.5F and 1.0F are commonly available.)

FWIW, I was out of town (and thus my OutRun was off) for 11 straight days, and my original-equipment 0.1F cap held my high scores.

Darren

 

[sohchx]

ToplessZ, Is it you that is selling these ROM chip sets on Ebay? I saw them on there a few days ago.

 

[ToplessZ]

Yea, I'm just trying to sell off the last of my 27c512s. Only have a few sets left

 

[mattosborn]

ToplessZ, Is it you that is selling these ROM chip sets on Ebay? I saw them on there a few days ago.

$30 +$5 shipping for a set of four 27c512's? That seems a bit steep, considering this is not your work.
Occasionally someone will ask me to burn a chip I did not produce (e.g. Tim's Tron freeplay). For the smaller common EPROMs (<=2Mbit) I never charge more than $5 each. You're free to charge whatever you like of course, but I personally don't feel right profiting from the work of others.