The gold standard of optimization: A look under the hood of RollerCoaster Tycoon

Post by TsiCClawOfLight » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

Validark wrote: post #166

xeonmc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://xkcd.com/2501/

How many programmers don't know binary?

Post by markus_zhang » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 7:55 PM UTC

sroerick wrote: post #169

markus_zhang wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back then a lot of people started with assembly because that was the only way to make games quick enough. Throughout the years they accumulated tons of experience and routines and tools. Not saying that it was not a huge feat, but it’s definitely a lot harder to start from scratch nowadays, even for the same platform.

One thing I really don't understand would be the ergonomics of game dev. I mean, I guess it's just an isometric drawing library, and routines for each object (though this obviously isn't OOP game Dev). But like, for example, he talks about simulating the physics of the roller coasters. I get that, and I think I could figure that out in assembly. But, in my head, connecting the dots from simulating the physics to draw…

Post by gargalatas » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 11:18 PM UTC

hermitcrab wrote: post #149

its-summertime wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > What language was RollerCoaster Tycoon programmed in? > It's 99% written in x86 assembler/machine code (yes, really!), with a small amount of C code used to interface to MS Windows and DirectX. https://www.chrissawyergames.com/faq3.htm

Wow. It reminds me of those guys who run a marathon carrying a fridge. Impressive, but ...

Post by astrange » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #118

CursedSilicon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that when a Redditor discovered the source code for the original StarCraft "gold master" on a CD, they sent it back to Blizzard in exchange for some fucking blizzard merch [1] EA a while back released the source code to (most) of the old Command & Conquer games [2] though interestingly left out Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2, StarCraft's closest competitors at the time. Would've been nice for historical pr…

This entire reddit thread aged really poorly now that Blizzard is a shell of its former self. If anything, the attitude in that thread is what paved Blizzard's decline: complete disrespect for its origin. The StarCraft source code is something that must be kept behind closed walls, under tight control by Blizzard, even though the original people working on the game at Blizzard have already left and there is nothing t…

Post by fweimer » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 8:28 PM UTC

orthoxerox wrote: post #117

fweimer wrote: post #4

What language is this article talking where compilers don't optimize multiplication and division by powers of two? Even for division of signed integers, current compilers emit inline code that handles positive and negative values separately, still avoiding the division instruction (unless when optimizing for size, of course).

Well, Sawyer started writing Transport Tycoon in 1992, when free or affordable C compilers were not as widely available. Turbo C was never known for optimizations. GCC 1.40 was good enough for Linus, but I guess Chris was already a good assembly programmer.

       0: 55                    push   %bp
       1: 8b ec                 mov    %sp,%bp
       3: 8b 46 04              mov    0x4(%bp),%ax
       6: c1 e0 02              shl    $0x2,%ax
       9: eb 00                 jmp    0xb
       b: 5d                    pop    %bp
       c: c3                    ret

    int
    main (int argc, char **argv)
    {
       return argc * 4;
    }