Thanks for the feedback Phil.

Unfortunately, I wasted considerable time on adding a “simple” DLI, and it turned out to be anything but simple. The address of video data is set at the beginning and middle of a DLIST, and thus cannot be changed on the fly. To switch video mode after 8 lines requires re-ordering the data buffers, and adding 2 DLIs (for top and bottom row). But then, the pixel setting/getting algorithm must be customized, and so on… and I just run-out of memory.

It is not possible to change the road color on the fly because color are used to compute the car speed, with only 9 colors available almost eveyone is used for something (walls, marking…).

I delayed release of the game for 6 months trying to come up with a solution to the text color being unreadable, and I think that this is the best compromise I could come up with: reduced flicker, and still ability to set a static screen.

I tried the checkerboard pattern trick, and it actually looks worse… there are visible gaps beween pixels in that mode, which creates a vertical striping effect. So I will keep things as they are I am afraid.

I have played for about 45 mins on my 1084s commodore CRT today, and thought the road flicker was not that bad.
Sure, you cannot clearly see the car tires, but the game felt playable.

The only colours that do not flicker are pure red, pure blue, or pure green. None of these would work for a road. That leaves pure black, for which I could try to use a different colour of tires (some shade of grey)….

I am willing to give this a try, but it will make the game look very different than it does now.