What makes Bandits NTSC only?

[Pedro Lambrini]

I've always like the game Bandits. It's probably one of the few games that really doesn't look like a 'VIC' game. That is, it's not chunky and has smooth, flicker free scrolling. Even today it looks impressive and, better still, its game-play is impressive.

I've been wondering though. Why is it an NTSC only game. Does it use some kind of interlacing not compatible with PAL VICs? What stopped it being ported? Surely there would be some kind of work around?

Just curious.

[Boray]

Started it and took a quick look. It probably has to do with the raster beam. That they change the background color in one section to blue for example. I think that it probably is possible to hack it into a PAL version.

[Kweepa]

Nice looking game!
It takes a lot for it to slow down... (looking at the 10 minute video on youtube, it only seems to slow down when there are 20-ish enemies and 20-ish bullets on screen).

[eslapion]

For a loooong while, Bandits wouldn't play properly in WinVICE specifically because of this NTSC exclusive raster effect.

[tlr]

I've been wondering though. Why is it an NTSC only game. Does it use some kind of interlacing not compatible with PAL VICs? What stopped it being ported? Surely there would be some kind of work around?

There might be multiple issues but VIA timers are hard coded in the game for NTSC frame timing.

The VIA code seems quite elaborate though. There is some eoring between VIA1 and VIA2 timers for instance. I'm not sure if that is required for timing or if it some kind of pseudo random generator.

Just changing the NTSC frame timing to PAL timing doesn't make it work in a sane way (although slightly saner).

[groepaz]

its really just some kind of silly pseudo random thingy... besides that, kinda straightforward to fix click