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classic battle atari 8bit vs commodore 64


phuzaxeman

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Something I had noticed about Commodore 64 Games, they may look good, but they seem to move choppy and limit number of onscreen moving objects compared to the Atari 8-bit counterpart. Is the game running in machine language or Basic? Obviously, it can be seen it has a slower CPU and needs to do more operations trying to animate stuff on the screen. Then again, it could some programmers did not know how to do some stuff. Possibly used a compiled language instead of direct assembly. I know I can make a game similar to my Secretum Labyrinth run just as smooth on the Commodore 64 as the Atari 8-bit version through optimized assembly language.

Maybe you're referring to older titles, like dropzone that's always used as example ?

 

Only successful game that I know, that was coded partly in basic is Pirates. Other than that my guess everything was written in asm. There were simply no good tools or cheap devkits for anything more serious at that time.

 

Newer stuff on c64 is smooth as butter (on real crt, not in youtube videos) and has dozens of moving objects, bullets, enemies etc...

For example Armalyte:

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I so wanted Deadlock to be finished on C64

 

 

 

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/deadlock/

Wow, that would make be get a C64 sooner than planned...referring to Mclaneinc's other thread about modern software that would make you go buy the hardware...that would do it for me. (unless someone announced and showed a WIP of something similar coming for the A8)

Edited by Gunstar
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never saw anything but a graphix slide show and some tunes... lost interest.

This is true, it could have just been screen-shot mock-ups and no actual game or any animation, etc,...once I realized it was just pictures and music I quickly fast-forward the video just to see a few screen shots, certainly not worth the time to listen to the entire 3+ minutes...

Edited by Gunstar
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Hmm, I don't see why a PC can't do fine smooth scrolling. Or are you talking about the limitations of "normal" PC Operating Systems not being real-time?

The first VGA cards were really slow. Plenty of colors, but slow. Even in the early to mid-90s, the PC just couldn't seem to scroll smoothly horizontally or vertically... especially vertically.

 

As for the C64 vs A8 debate. I've seen great things on both machines. Regardless, I'm still astounded by how amazing Space Harrier looks and plays on a stock Atari 800XL hooked up to a 1084 monitor. Absolutely remarkable. Sound is great on both machines. However, I tend to favor the SID chip (it's got crazy bass)

 

Something to keep in mind with the Atari 8-bit machines is that it's just the same technology (with very minor tweaks) re-packaged again and again. In reality, they're all pretty much the same as the 800 from 1979. And that's a mighty significant technological lead for a computing platform of that era (as opposed to today where it seems like little has changed in the last 10 years).

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Maybe you're referring to older titles, like dropzone that's always used as example ?

 

Only successful game that I know, that was coded partly in basic is Pirates. Other than that my guess everything was written in asm. There were simply no good tools or cheap devkits for anything more serious at that time.

 

Newer stuff on c64 is smooth as butter (on real crt, not in youtube videos) and has dozens of moving objects, bullets, enemies etc...

For example Armalyte:

 

Like a tour-de-force in C64, sounding and looking very arcade... except that the colors are simply horrible (the palette)... and sound has this peculiar "muffling" on mid-range frequencies... I can hear decent low-freq. (bass) and at times some bright notes / sounds... but this middle sounds a bit flat (at least to me).

 

Still, very, very good display of C64's GFX capabilities. Reminds me of Atari Blast, Myrax force, Guardian, etc.

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never saw anything but a graphix slide show and some tunes... lost interest. Was probably going to be armalyte on foot.

This is true, it could have just been screen-shot mock-ups and no actual game or any animation, etc,...once I realized it was just pictures and music I quickly fast-forward the video just to see a few screen shots, certainly not worth the time to listen to the entire 3+ minutes...

Did you notice download for playable preview in that gtw entry page ?

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/deadlock/

 

Imho could've been good game with excellent gfx.

Gfx is great, scrolling is awesome for something with so many colors on screen at once, there are weapon pickups, ladders, locked doors etc...

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Oh my god, I downloaded it and confirmed, it's complete waste of time... it's crap! It has no hope of being good, they should have just made armalyte part 2,

going to read the readme now, maybe I missed something

Edited by _The Doctor__
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Rob- "put out of our misery more like" =)

 

Please be aware that this is not a "fun" "game". At the time we thought we could take just about any genre and improve upon the leading example. We made several mistakes compared to Armalyte. Firstly there weren't a lot of good platform based puzzle and shoot'em up games around that we could draw inspiration from, or there were none that we had played for countless hours and could complete on a single 10p (thank you Salamander). The basic essence or mechanic of a good game was lacking, instead we had something that looked very cool. It didn't have the fine control and maneuverability to make the platform element good, plus it didn't have the immediate appeal of having lots of moving things on screen that you could wipe out or scrape past at a pinch.

 

in fact they even say what I said, better off doing armalyte ii... lol

 

 

 

every time I get all the hype and get told how this shows blah blah better... I run into this sort of thing. It ain't buttery smooth wonderful or anything... it's crap... or I need this or that modification or upgrade or whatever.... or it won't work on ntsc without modification and add on. So another BS proof of besting. Terrible as usual... this just gets really silly and it's unreal they keep this sort of thing going......

Edited by _The Doctor__
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In the POKEY vs. SID argument, I can honestly say that any music from the same games on both systems I prefer the POKEY version of them hands down. This is probably because I am acclimated and used to the sound of POKEY music (and sound effects) for the most part, though there are songs that I just like the POKEY version better even if I heard them both (Atari & C64) for the first time. But, if it's something that doesn't have an Atari version, I really do appreciate the SID chip. It's sort of like favorite old songs of your favorite bands, and some new-generation band does a remake, sometimes technically superior, sometimes not or pretty much even, but you will always prefer the original version, and maybe even resent a new version. But I can appreciate music from an old band I never heard before, or original music from a new band. And that's were I find I can appreciate the SID.

Edited by Gunstar
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The first VGA cards were really slow. Plenty of colors, but slow. Even in the early to mid-90s, the PC just couldn't seem to scroll smoothly horizontally or vertically... especially vertically.

 

As for the C64 vs A8 debate. I've seen great things on both machines. Regardless, I'm still astounded by how amazing Space Harrier looks and plays on a stock Atari 800XL hooked up to a 1084 monitor. Absolutely remarkable. Sound is great on both machines. However, I tend to favor the SID chip (it's got crazy bass)

 

Something to keep in mind with the Atari 8-bit machines is that it's just the same technology (with very minor tweaks) re-packaged again and again. In reality, they're all pretty much the same as the 800 from 1979. And that's a mighty significant technological lead for a computing platform of that era (as opposed to today where it seems like little has changed in the last 10 years).

Wasnt it Carmack and Romero who found a way to scroll smooth on PC with their Super Mario demo and later commercially with Commander Keen?

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... how is this even possible on a stock c64 ?

My guess it's Hsp. Used in Mayhem in monsterland. Makes possible to scroll entire bitmap screen almost for free.

 

...every time I get all the hype and get told how this shows blah blah better... I run into this sort of thing. It ain't buttery smooth wonderful or anything... it's crap...

Well, you shouldn't expect much from just a tech demo :)

 

Sure gameplay is crap, focus was on gfx. If they had a year more, have played metroid, Turrican and castlevania more, it could've been great.

 

It's just one of those late entries in c64's late life similar to some stuff Polish coders did in 90s on Atari.

 

Imho we should get inspiration and lessons from these failed attempts and make new games that will have good gfx but also good gameplay. Doesn't matter what platform those attempts were made on.

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Wasnt it Carmack and Romero who found a way to scroll smooth on PC with their Super Mario demo and later commercially with Commander Keen?

 

Correct, John Carmack came up with the algorithm known as "Adaptive tile refresh". The idea behind it was that you only redraw tiles that needed updating/redrawing instead of the whole screen.

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@Popmilo:I was going to say the same thing as you.

 

I missed out on a lot of late era Polish coded games that pop up a lot on some of the YT channels i subscribe to and in so many cases the person covering them praises the graphics,but hammers the gameplay, asking if the game even had any playtesting?.

 

Both machines are guilty of having software where the focus was put pushing the system visually and actual gameplay coming way behind.

 

You can put the same argument to numerous other formats as well.

Return To Genesis on the ST,Shadow Of The Beast on the Amiga, Extreme on the ZX Spectrum...

 

Actually Extreme is a great example:

 

 

If you read the comments section on the video,the coder himself admits it was more of a tech demo than a game and used an existing engine, he just wanted to push the Spectrum hardware that little bit further.

Edited by Lost Dragon
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My guess it's Hsp. Used in Mayhem in monsterland. Makes possible to scroll entire bitmap screen almost for free.

 

 

I was never a fan of platformers on home computers, they seem to lack the action I enjoyed in arcades and various consoles. Always something missing..

 

However, Sam's Journey seems to live up to the hype of it being a "console style platformer" so I'm looking forward to getting a copy of the game once my Ultimate-II+ arrives.

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Seems like Commodore did not provide programmers a whole lot of documentation on programming the Commodore 64 back in the 1980s. Where to buy the books. Could Commodore and 3rd part vendors get good programmers to write software for the machine. Detailed memory maps, 6502 programming samples. Details of what chips do. The reason why better games came out later was probably the advent of the Internet where people can communicate and access documentation online. I am doing stuff on the Atari 8-bit that I thought has impossible for that system when I was programming for it back in the 1980s and 1990s. I always looked at games at the frame of mind of just using 4 players and 4 missiles, and an Antic 4 screen. I did not figure out how to multiplex and create 8 or more sprites with a VBI and DLI routines until I looked at what people were doing on this forum and various web pages.

Edited by peteym5
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I was never a fan of platformers on home computers, they seem to lack the action I enjoyed in arcades and various consoles. Always something missing..

 

However, Sam's Journey seems to live up to the hype of it being a "console style platformer" so I'm looking forward to getting a copy of the game once my Ultimate-II+ arrives.

I always think of platformers as home computer or console games and can hardly recall any arcade platformers from my youth at the arcades. Of course I suppose that's what Donkey Kong and DK Jr. are technically, something like Jungle Hunt or Rygar definitely a scrolling arcade platformer, but I guess I've become conditioned to think of Super Mario Brothers style when I think "platformer" any more and games like Donkey Kong and DK Jr. I just think of as "arcade style" games in general. I guess due to single screen levels. They don't have to be scrolling platformers like Super Mario Bros., but multiple screens you move onto in one level, in my mind, is a requirement to be a "platformer" otherwise I classify it as "arcade" or "arcade style." But there does have to be the "next level" also for it to be a platformer in my mind, if it's just one big sprawling level or "world" that you can freely move back and forth in, then it crosses a line from platformer into adventure game in my mind as well.

Edited by Gunstar
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Seems like Commodore did not provide programmers a whole lot of documentation on programming the Commodore 64 back in the 1980s.

 

Are you sure ? They were very open about the platform from the beginning and provided software houses with "shitloads" of documentation and whatever they needed. The general public had access to the Programming reference manual which also had schematics in the backand and a description of what all the chips did.

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