What If the Atari ST Had Arcade Chips? Xenon 2 Megablast at 50 FPS #AtariST #retrogaming

In 1989 The Bitmap Brothers' Xenon 2 Megablast ran at 16.7 frames a second on the Atari ST. What if the ST had had arcade chips? Here it runs at an insane 50. Xenon 2 Megablast 50fps is an app for the SidecarTridge Multi-device. In the cartridge port of an Atari ST, STE, Mega ST or Mega STE, it plays the whole game from your own disks: the Raspberry Pi Pico in the cartridge runs the game and draws every frame, and the ST shows them, plays the sound and reads the joystick. In this video I show you: • The options: the frame rate, the sprites' speed, damage, lives, shots, and more, one function key each • Level 1 at 50 frames a second, with the ship, the shots and the enemies at the original's pace • The original at 17 frames a second and the new 50, side by side • ×3, where everything runs three times as fast • Crispin's Swop Shop • What you need, and how to set it up ✅ The whole game: all five levels and their bosses, the shop, David Whittaker's music and effects, two players ✅ High scores kept on the cartridge ✅ At 17 frames a second with the cheats off, the 1989 original, untouched 📺 Watch it in 1080p60 or 720p60: at 480p and below YouTube plays 30 frames a second. You need your own copy of the game: the two disks of the Image Works release, as Pasti .stx images (the Kixx re-release is a different disk and is refused). None of the game is in the app or its repository; the cartridge converts your copy, once, on the first start. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:11 The options 0:26 50 frames a second 1:10 17 vs 50, side by side 1:26 Crispin's Swop Shop 1:40 Set up 2:00 Links 🛒 Get the Multi-device: sidecartridge.com 📖 Documentation: https://docs.sidecartridge.com/sideca... 💻 Source code on GitHub: https://github.com/sidecartridge/md-x... 💾 The two disks, preserved as .stx images by Atarimania: https://www.atarimania.com/st/dumps/x... 🎵 Sound: the game's own, David Whittaker's music and effects, as the app plays them. Thanks to The Bitmap Brothers, The Assembly Line, Mark Coleman, David Whittaker and Image Works for the game, to Hatari, which every routine was checked against, and to Atarimania for preserving the disks. Xenon 2 Megablast belongs to its rights holders. #AtariST #RetroComputing #RetroGaming #Atari #SidecarTridge #VintageComputers #Xenon2 #BitmapBrothers #RaspberryPiPico