Smooth-scrolling games on 68k/PPC Macs: Do they exist? \ VOGONS

Smooth-scrolling games on 68k/PPC Macs: Do they exist?

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First post, by vanfanel

Posted on 2025-05-30, 13:56

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Hi there,

Sometime ago, I was experimenting with 68K/PPC Macintosh emulation on MAME and QEMU (QEMU emulates a Quadra 800 PPC Mac).

I wanted to see how well games work, since I consider games to be a good test for computer emulation accuracy, but I didn't find any games with smooth, constant animation/scrolling/movement on the M68K/PPC Macintosh models I emulated.

For example, on DOS we have the likes of Superfrog, Jazz Jackrabbit, Supaplex, Pinball Dreams/Fantasies/Illusions, the animated scrolling credits in the original Lemmings tittle screen, etc... which allows me to determine if an emulator is properly synchronized to physical display refresh rate.

So, are there any games on 68K/PPC Macs that can be used to test that?
(Credits scroll in Lemmings 1 Mac is jerky even on real hardware...)

Reply 1 of 15, by vanfanel

Posted on 2025-05-30, 14:04

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I'd like to add that, out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT about this matter, and the answer was more or less that Mac OS 7,8 or 9 didn't provide any direct framebuffer access or VSYNC control, with everything going thru QuickDraw, so it would be impossible to have smooth-scrolling games on classic Macs.

But I'd like to be proven wrong.

Reply 2 of 15, by wierd_w

Posted on 2025-05-30, 14:09

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Farazel's wand?

https://youtu.be/QLuFzb9PDto?feature=shared

Reply 3 of 15, by BinaryDemon

Posted on 2025-05-30, 14:15

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No first hand experience but

REMOVED

Has a side scroller category and reports:

Found 75 software entries in Games from category: Side Scrolling running on the Motorola 68K architecture

Found 31 software entries in Games from category: Side Scrolling running on the 68K + PPC (FAT) architecture

Found 56 software entries in Games from category: Side Scrolling running on the IBM PowerPC architecture

//Removed link to so called "abandonware" site. (DosFreak)

//Sorry not a Mac guy, didn’t realize it was abandonware (Binarydemon).

Last edited by BinaryDemon on 2025-06-01, 16:14. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 4 of 15, by Babasha

Posted on 2025-05-30, 16:04

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Jazz Jack Rabbit 2

Need help? Begin with photo and model of your hardware 😉

Reply 5 of 15, by Cyberdyne

Posted on 2025-05-30, 16:23

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What was Macintosh Wolfenstein 3D minimum requirements? Smooth scrolling plus 3D.

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.
PS. If I upload RAR, it is a 16-bit DOS RAR Version 2.50.

Reply 6 of 15, by keropi

Posted on 2025-05-30, 16:33

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Cyberdyne wrote on 2025-05-30, 16:23:

What was Macintosh Wolfenstein 3D minimum requirements? Smooth scrolling plus 3D.

way worse reqs than dos pc... a 040 doesn't really cut it

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Reply 7 of 15, by dr.zeissler

Posted on 2025-05-31, 09:53

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Wolf3D runs quite good on the first PowerMac 6100/66 with 256k cache at 640x400.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 8 of 15, by vanfanel

Posted on 2025-06-01, 10:35

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wierd_w wrote on 2025-05-30, 14:09:

Farazel's wand?

https://youtu.be/QLuFzb9PDto?feature=shared

This seems more or less what I wanted to find. That game seems to do 1-pixel scrolling synchronized to the screen, there's some juddering but that could be due to youtube framerates.

@Babasha: good catch but I believe that uses OpenGL... At least it does on Linux, where I have that game.

And Wolf3D is... well, 3D- Not really suitable for screen movement observation, 2D games are better for that.

Reply 9 of 15, by vanfanel

Posted on 2025-06-01, 11:32

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Oh. Ferazel's Wand doesn't even start on QEMU-PPC (Mac OS 9, PowerPC).
It seems it's a known problem:
https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.p … =5117&start=150

So I'll have to look for something that runs on 68K...

Reply 10 of 15, by vanfanel

Posted on 2025-06-01, 13:49

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After looking at the results in Macintosh Repository, I have found this one, called Star Fight:
https://www.macintoshrepository.org/41411-star-fight-final

...which is a 2d sidescrolling shot'em up in the vein of Nemesis/Gradius.
It works on Mac OS 8.1 on QEMU, and even if it IS a 60FPS game, scrolling doesn't seem to be synchronized to the screen refresh rate.
Hence my question: Is there a single game in Mac OS 7/8/9 that does synchronized scrolling?

Reply 11 of 15, by filipetolhuizen

Posted on 2025-06-02, 02:27

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Look for Tubular Worlds, a 2D side scrolling shooter. Works really well on emulators.

Reply 12 of 15, by dr.zeissler

Posted on 2025-06-02, 05:36

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Is far from being smooth/stutterfree on 68040 oder even PPC66Mhz (6100/66)

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 13 of 15, by vanfanel

Posted on 2025-06-02, 13:41

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dr.zeissler wrote on 2025-06-02, 05:36:

Is far from being smooth/stutterfree on 68040 oder even PPC66Mhz (6100/66)

Do you mean Tubular Worlds?

Then.. do you know any game that is smooth on PPC66Mhz??

Reply 14 of 15, by dr.zeissler

Posted on 2025-06-02, 20:35

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no I don't know any smooth scroller on early Mac 68k/ppc.
normally thy should sync 67hz on Mac so very uncommon to tweak an engine to this.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 15 of 15, by kataetheweirdo

Posted on 2025-06-09, 04:36

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Ferazel's Wand was patched up in Sheepshaver all the way back in 2012, though Kanjitalk755's fork is probably the best hope for the game to run.

I also ran the demo under DingusPPC using the Power Mac 6100 emulation and it seems a little fast, but playable.

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