7800 vs.....

[CV Gus]

So unless smooth scrolling on the CV comes at such a prohibitive cost that there isn't ever any point in doing it

 

Most systems that have hardware support for smooth scrolling can smoothly scroll most or all types of screens that they can display statically. Almost any system can smooth-scroll some type of display. Even the original PET, which had no bitmap or hardware scrolling facilities, could have scrolled a 46x25 pseudo-bitmap (using blocks of 7x8 hardware pixels) on increments of one hardware pixel. The Colecovision can be made to produce displays that smoothly scroll horizontally or vertically, but the display content must be severely restricted. By contrast, the NES can probably scroll smoothly anything it can display in the first place.

 

 

Sheesh, a pity this was not posted earlier...I recently contacted someone who explained quite a bit about this sort of thing.

 

As posted earlier, the CV can normally show 2 colors (including the background color- you have to count it) on any 8-pixel line. In other words, in a given space, of 8X8 dots, 8 rows of 8, each row can have 2 colors. I noticed that this was the first thing he mentioned, BECAUSE IT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL WHEN EXPLAINING THIS.

 

It does not matter that the CV does not have built-in scrolling, as far as simply asking "can it do smooth scrolling?" goes. It also does not matter for arcade games like Defender.

 

However, to scroll the CV way, you have to "shift" dots and colors, a bit like what you learn on a C-64 and bit mapping- you are in effect changing custom characters. Remember the 8X8 space "window" on an unexpanded Vic-20? What was that but changing arranged characters with mathematical formulas?

 

In the case of Matt Patrol, while the scrolling is perfectly smooth, he pointed out that if you look closely- and I did- you'll see that the green hills do move in front of the blue mountains. Since the green hill undulates, it is not a case of sliding images below another, which is what I think they do (I'll have to check this, shoot, should've done it yesterday...) with 7800 Tower Toppler, and CV Nova Blast.

 

What he then said was that, since the CV can pretty much only show TWO colors per 8-pixel line in a given space, the only way to smooth scroll is to make sure that only 2 colors end up in such a line at any one time.

 

Of course, you COULD show more than 2 across the screen, but only if the extra colors are not near the edges of the hills. So, if you wanted to put white snowy edges on the left side of the blue mountains, you can't do it, since you'd end up with 3 colors on a line (white, blue, and black). However, if you had wanted to put white tips on the blue mountains, you could do that.

 

With vertical scrolling, it is a bit more generous. Just as you can "stack" one sprite on top of another for multi-colored characters without more flickering (Mr. Hot Dog from Burgertime and the red and green enemies from Space Panic), but not if you wanted to turn them 90 degrees, so it is with vertical scrolling. You have the same 2-color limitation for a given line/space, but it's easier to put more than 2 colors on a vertical line than a horizontal one in this case. Overhead scrolling could look more colorful than horizontal scrolling.

 

He actually mentioned what Supercat mentioned above.

 

So if you wanted to do those intermission screens from Tower Toppler on a CV, right off the bat you'd have to remember that you'd have that 2-color limitation. And 16 colors only. Here you'd need someone good at designing graphics to pull it off, but no way would you get anything up to the 7800 version.

 

It's not so much directly the lack of hardware-based scrolling in this case, or the lack of processing power, but that 2-color limitation. If the CV had a mode that worked like the C-64 multi-color mode, then you'd have a horizontal resolution of 128, but you could show up to 4 colors/line, even if one is the background, and 2 are "shared" with the other spaces (you cannot have black, red, blue, and green in one space while the next one has yellow, brown, purple, and white).

 

I appreciated that. He cleared up much, because he knew the answers, and how to explain it all. He also admitted to not knowing enough about the 7800 to say how it was better or worse overall, beyond moving things around in games like Asteroids, and certain kinds of scrolling (e.g. Tower Toppler). That part is up to you here, such as what about static displays?

[Gorf]

Get your facts straight before lecturing me what I don't know...

 

 

A bit of hypocrisy? You come shoot your mouth off about the Jaguar, and I bet dollars to donuts you NEVER

coded a single line of code, yet you dispute my 13 years of experience?

 

Wow......amazing! Good to see you getting a little taste of your own medicine.

Edited August 26, 2008 by Gorf

[DanBoris]

In the case of Matt Patrol, while the scrolling is perfectly smooth, he pointed out that if you look closely- and I did- you'll see that the green hills do move in front of the blue mountains. Since the green hill undulates, it is not a case of sliding images below another, which is what I think they do (I'll have to check this, shoot, should've done it yesterday...) with 7800 Tower Toppler, and CV Nova Blast.

 

Out of curiosity I dug into Matt Patrol to see how they did it. I build a special version of MESS with the sprites disabled to see what was sprites and what was character maps. I was surprised at how much was characters. Not surprisingly both sets of mountains and the ground are characters, but the moon buggy with the exception of the wheels is also character graphics. The rocks are characters as well as the holes with the exception of the detail around the edges which must be a sprite.

 

Dan

[Crazyace]

Makes sense - minimises the numer of sprites on a line - leaving the missiles ,bullets and aliens to be sprites. I didn't see any point where the two hills intersect though, Is that later in the game?

[Vigo]

Get your facts straight before lecturing me what I don't know...

 

 

A bit of hypocrisy? You come shoot your mouth off about the Jaguar, and I bet dollars to donuts you NEVER

coded a single line of code, yet you dispute my 13 years of experience?

 

13 years of Jaguar programming experience. Changes nothing about your utterly wrong conceptions about bitness & hardware architectures. I don't need to code the Jaguar to see from the technical documents that it is NOT a 64bit system, and IF you were declaring it 64bit because of its system & graphics bus, or perhaps the 2x32 bit RISC processors, then this would have immediate effect on the bitness rating of lots of other systems. What the Jaguar is actually capable of, which, and I repeatedly stressed this, has NOTHING to do with bitness, seems to be your field of expertise. And this is my one & only point, which you always LOVE to misrepresent.

 

Every argument I heard from you, to twist, bend or simply change common conceptions to keep this stupid "64 bit" term, either makes you seem quite unknowledgeable in pretty much anything BESIDES the Jaguar, or (what I personally think is more the truth) you just LOVE to be the "deity" of a Jaguar worshipping audience, and thus, you love to do ANYTHING to keep that up, even if it includes passionately repeating & acting the moronic official marketing politics of Atari in the face of heretic "unbelievers". This, and the way you usually behave when you are cornered in a technical discussion (change the topic, twist words, appeal to authority), puts A LOT of doubts in me about you, and especially this post, in this totally unrelated thread, pretty much acknowledges most of my suspicions. You are a truly born politician. Yet, and that's the beauty of it, it changes NOTHING about cold technical facts written on paper, and etched into silicon, no matter how many people you are able to bring up against me.

 

Wow......amazing! Good to see you getting a little taste of your own medicine.

 

The only thing I get again is a repeated taste of your ignorance & inability to read my posts properly. Besides, this is hardly the place to talk about Jaguar matters, isn't it?

Edited August 27, 2008 by Vigo

[DanBoris]

Makes sense - minimises the numer of sprites on a line - leaving the missiles ,bullets and aliens to be sprites. I didn't see any point where the two hills intersect though, Is that later in the game?

 

I looked at this to and never saw a point where the valleys of the upper hills went below the peaks of the lower. By not doing that is does simplify the scrolling.

[CV Gus]

Out of curiosity I dug into Matt Patrol to see how they did it. I build a special version of MESS with the sprites disabled to see what was sprites and what was character maps. I was surprised at how much was characters. Not surprisingly both sets of mountains and the ground are characters, but the moon buggy with the exception of the wheels is also character graphics. The rocks are characters as well as the holes with the exception of the detail around the edges which must be a sprite.

 

Dan

*********

 

I was told that the programmer used an intriguing trick for that game: The shots (horizontal) you fire, are not sprites- they are black, an unusual color. He said that he thinks that the programmer actually "LEAVES OUT" (actually, color chooses) dots to "expose the black background*," creating the illusion of shots. 2-color limitation again. It works (obviously), and it shows what a skilled programmer can do. The CV has sufficient "raw processing power" to handle considerable amounts of on-screen movement, so you can get away with this. Judging by that 2-color limit, the rims are likely sprites- otherwise, it would be green, yellow, and black on an 8-dot line.

 

*He tried to explain it in a way a C-64 programmer can visualize.

 

 

The green hills move "in front of" the blue mountains.

 

If it was like two brick walls, perfectly even, then colors would not be such a problem: the brick wall being where the green hills are could be red and white, while the one "above" (the blue mountains) could be green and purple. In fact, the top of the lower wall could be gray, and the top of the upper one could be yellow. This is because in this case never more than two colors would ever appear on a horizontal line, ever.

 

But with Matt Patrol, the hills are not nice and level- they are irregular in shape. Some parts of the green hills are low, while others are higher. Since they are "moving in front of" the blue mountains, you will have blue and green on a horizontal line. Since two colors is the limit here, you must keep the green hills from ever reaching above the blue mountains, otherwise you will end up with THREE colors (blue, green, and black) trying to occupy a single line.

 

http://www.oldgames.nu/Matt_Patrol_1984_At...rototype/28313/

 

It really is a pity that this game, along with Dig Dug and Joust, was not 100% completed and released back then. Oh, man, I'd've bought them in A MINUTE!

 

 

In Nova Blast, you'll notice that the stalagmites, cities and power stations, and mountains all scroll by on completely different levels. One never moves "in front of" another. Therefore, that 2-color problem with Matt Patrol does not exist here, and thus you have a more colorful mountain. Note the white tops, too.

 

With vertical scrolling, the CV COULD smoothly scroll what you could draw "static." When you draw a playfield on the CV, you are bound by that two-color limit. Each line of 8 dots in a space has two colors, tops. When you move up or down, what is happening? That line simply "moves" up or down; you are still in the same column. In other words, Bump `N Jump, with its colorful playfields, COULD smoothly scroll vertically, but NOT horizontally.

 

Thus, if you wanted to program a smoothly-scrolling Lifeforce on the CV, the horizontally-scrolling parts would be less colorful than the vertically-scrolling parts. But parts of it- the beginning part, the disintegrating playfield at the end of level one- could be closely matched by a CV.

 

Vigo, you could take a few lessons from this guy on how to explain things. He cleared all of this up with one reply.

 

Now- what about static images, overall memory (practical, in different situations), etc.?

Edited August 27, 2008 by CV Gus

[Gorf]

13 years of Jaguar programming experience. Changes nothing about your utterly wrong conceptions about bitness & hardware architectures.

 

The only one wrong here is your arrogance telling even the designers of the Jaguar they are wrong.

They say it was and it is a 64 bit system. You having not one thing to do with the Jaguar's design

only show what an arrogant know it all you are on every system. Even the Astrocade argument

you tried shows me yoor lack of understanding a system, other than specs you read.

 

I don't need to code the Jaguar to see from the technical documents that it is NOT a 64bit system

 

Which techincal docs would they be? Care to quote something from those docs to back up your lie?

Oh that's right, you can't.....at least not with the official documents. Bring it if you think you can.

And I twist shit? get over yourself.

 

 

and IF you were declaring it 64bit because of its system & graphics bus, or perhaps the 2x32 bit RISC processors,

then this would have immediate effect on the bitness rating of lots of other systems.

 

You understanding of bitness then is clearly outdated. Get a clue.

Jaguar is a multi processor system and it is designed around a 64 bit bus.

Not a 32 bit bus, not 16 or 8 bit one either. You still think the N64 is a true

64 bit system even though its external bus it 32 bits. Who's the moron now?

 

Ther is not'graphics bus.....its a system bus a 64 bit system bus ina 64 bit system.

 

The blitter and the OPL of the Jaguar process and does math at 64 bits.

They both have 64 bit ALU's to do the effects they do. Only an unteachable

jack ass believes otherwise. Go actually read those docs because it is clear

you never have...or you 've read them through Nintedon fan boy rose colored

glasses.

 

 

What the Jaguar is actually capable of, which, and I repeatedly stressed this, has NOTHING to do with bitness,

seems to be your field of expertise. And this is my one & only point, which you always LOVE to misrepresent.

 

I dont misrepresent it. You can not apply the single processor bitness to a system like the Jaguar...it shows your ignorance.

Marketing? So the developer manual is a market ploy? Moron? Maybe so but you come across as a bigger moron trying

to tell the very designers of the Jaguar they are wrong.... Moronic arrogance in fact. Not suprising based on most of your

posts here....always smarter than everyone on EVERY system.

 

Every argument I heard from you, to twist, bend or simply change common conceptions to keep this stupid "64 bit" term

 

Quotes please......

 

 

either makes you seem quite unknowledgeable in pretty much anything BESIDES the Jaguar, or (what I personally think

is more the truth) you just LOVE to be the "deity" of a Jaguar worshipping audience

 

Oh you mean like how you like to do with the NES? Like I said hypocrite. I have no interest in being the Jaguar deity.

I just want to make sure I correct inaccurate morons like your self who dont have any experience whatsoever on the

machine..or a friggin clue for that matter.

 

and thus, you love to do ANYTHING to keep that up, even if it includes passionately repeating & acting the moronic

official marketing politics of Atari in the face of heretic "unbelievers".

 

Only a idiot would make such a statement like this if they know me at all. I've been the biggest critic of Atari's

bullshit antics and if you actually read my other posts elsewhere you know this....oh I forget... you know it all.

Even more than the designers of the Jaguar.

 

This, and the way you usually behave when you are cornered in a technical discussion (change the topic, twist words, appeal to authority), puts

 

Again please.....show me an example of my 'twisting' anything about the Jaguar.

 

A LOT of doubts in me about you, and especially this post, in this totally unrelated thread, pretty much acknowledges most of my suspicions.

 

Arrogance has that effect so stop with the arrogance. I dont have any such suspisions about you

becasue this very post shows you haven't a clue. You accuse with out proof, talk down to every one

on every system yet Im the one who wants diety recognition?

 

You are a truly born politician. Yet, and that's the beauty of it, it changes NOTHING about cold technical

facts written on paper, and etched into silicon, no matter how many people you are able to bring up against me.

 

I still waiting for you to use the official developer docs to prove this. Oh yeah...you can't.

They'd only make you look like a bigger horses ass than you are showing yourself to be here.

 

The only thing I get again is a repeated taste of your ignorance & inability to read my posts properly.

 

Pot, kettle, black......your ignorance is blatant and obvious when it comes to the architecture of

the Jaguar. You always tell the lie that the docs say otherwise yet not once have you ever shown

this by using the official docs. Talk about inability....Im waiting......

 

Besides, this is hardly the place to talk about Jaguar matters, isn't it?

 

You seem to not have a problem with it...what are you doing now?

[Vigo]

13 years of Jaguar programming experience. Changes nothing about your utterly wrong conceptions about bitness & hardware architectures.

 

The only one wrong here is your arrogance telling even the designers of the Jaguar they are wrong.

They say it was and it is a 64 bit system.

 

method: appeal to authority.

 

OF COURSE will the engineers repeat the marketing campaign of Atari.

 

You having not one thing to do with the Jaguar's design

only show what an arrogant know it all you are on every system.

 

method: appeal to authority

 

My non-involvement in the design of the Jaguar is totally irrelevant. Or maybe it IS relevant to some degree, since engineers always tend to praise their children.

 

Even the Astrocade argument

you tried shows me yoor lack of understanding a system, other than specs you read.

 

I know what a bitmapped display is, but obviously, you don't know what a pain in the ass the player/missile objects of the VCS are, which have to be reloaded ON THE FLY using the 6507. You know the term "racing the beam"? Look it up before start whining about manipulating bitmapped displays with a lavish 4K of own video ram (and even the video hardware helps you in masking the data, a luxury many other bitmapped-only architectures dont have). I suppose you never coded on the VCS either. Shows much about "yoor" lack of understanding.

 

Which techincal docs would they be? Care to quote something from those docs to back up your lie?

 

I already quoted the basic system design of the Jaguar, and you continue to repeat it here. I guess that would make you a liar, too.

Edited August 28, 2008 by Vigo

[Vigo]

Oh that's right, you can't.....at least not with the official documents. Bring it if you think you can.

And I twist shit? get over yourself.

 

Again, your typical "I have seen what no one else has seen" argument, claiming the official docs to be incorrect. Yes, we know you managed to get code started out of main ram, whoopie-doo. Irrelevant to the whole bitness discussion.

 

You understanding of bitness then is clearly outdated. Get a clue.

Jaguar is a multi processor system and it is designed around a 64 bit bus.

Not a 32 bit bus, not 16 or 8 bit one either.

 

Yes, but the bus size DOES NOT define the bitness of a system. If that would be, practically all PC's from the first Pentium were 64 bit systems (since they have a 64bit memory bus). It's just too bad that AMD/Intel, with their Introduction of their 64bit architectures, never asked you about your twisted definition of bitness.

 

You still think the N64 is a true

64 bit system even though its external bus it 32 bits. Who's the moron now?

 

You, because you RIGHT NOW showed that you ignore the standard definition. The Falcon is also a 32bit system, despite having a 16bit memory bus, because it has a 32bit CPU. Same with the N64. Besides, these CPU's, in addition to their ALU, also have built-in cache memory of their native bus size. So Gorf, before you throw the stone and call me a moron, better consider the glass falling down on you.

 

Ther is not'graphics bus.....its a system bus a 64 bit system bus ina 64 bit system.

 

If you call it graphics bus or system bus is pretty irrelevant. No CPU in the Jaguar is 64 bit. Of course, you could twist now the definition even further by adding all bits of all components together (which would even make it an 80bit system), or declare the Blitter as a processor. Well, then I am apparently writing this document on a 256 bit PC,since that's the size how the blitter on my graphics card can move around data in video ram.

 

The blitter and the OPL of the Jaguar process and does math at 64 bits.

 

So do old and crummy PCI graphics cards with a 64bit memory bus.

 

They both have 64 bit ALU's

 

But they are NO general purpose CPU's, and thus fail the definition. With a definition like that, the PS2 console is a 2048bit machine, and the Dreamcast is a 128bit one.

 

to do the effects they do. Only an unteachable

jack ass believes otherwise.

 

You sound rather funny than insulting, because right now, with your behaviour, you exactly reveal yourself to me (and many other people) as what you are: a dimwit.

 

Go actually read those docs because it is clear

you never have...or you 've read them through Nintedon fan boy rose colored

glasses.

 

I pretty much have reduced you to a 15 year old fanboy brat. And it wasn't even hard.

 

I know that the Blitter and Object processor can process 64bit. But what apparently YOU don't know is: despite what the designers like to call them, they ARE NO general purpose CPU's. If that definition would apply, call everything a CPU and apply the bitness definition, then many other systems suddenly would have really huge bitness ratings.

 

Does it change the power of those systems? No. Bitness does not reveal the power of a system. The designers of the Jaguar were right to give it a 64bit bus to move and manipulate graphics, because that's (for a console) where it counts. But no, no, and again: no, the Jaguar does NOT fit the definition of a 64bit system. As much as the Saturn doesn't fit this definition.

 

I dont misrepresent it. You can not apply the single processor bitness to a system like the Jaguar...it shows your ignorance.

 

No, it exactly shows that the Jaguar seems really to be your only field of expertise. Even Sega did not dare to call the Saturn a 64bit system, despite also having 2x32bit RISC CPU's and 1x16bit 68k.

 

Marketing? So the developer manual is a market ploy? Moron? Maybe so but you come across as a bigger moron trying

to tell the very designers of the Jaguar they are wrong.... Moronic arrogance in fact. Not suprising based on most of your

posts here....always smarter than everyone on EVERY system.

 

And again: appeal to authority.

 

So the Jaguar designers apparently know much more about bitness than the rest of the industry?

 

Besides: I am not smarter than most people here. But then again, most people posting here are gamers, and gamers PLAY games, they don't necessarily know how the hardware works, which is completely okay, since everyone was once a novice. Other people, like malducci, supercat, exophase, pacmanplus, danboris etc. do also know a lot, and I always corrected myself if they pointed out a mistake I made. Not like a true deity, which is always right and makes no mistakes.

Edited August 28, 2008 by Vigo

[Vigo]

Quotes please......

 

You are, right now, providing plenty of material, more than I have expected.

 

Oh you mean like how you like to do with the NES? Like I said hypocrite. I have no interest in being the Jaguar deity

 

Yet you now do this:

 

I just want to make sure I correct inaccurate morons like your self who dont have any experience whatsoever on the

machine..or a friggin clue for that matter.

 

Your experience in programming the Jaguar makes this discussion even worse for you. Clearly no deity.

 

and thus, you love to do ANYTHING to keep that up, even if it includes passionately repeating & acting the moronic

official marketing politics of Atari in the face of heretic "unbelievers".

 

Only a idiot would make such a statement like this if they know me at all.

 

I guess we all know you a little bit better now...

 

I've been the biggest critic of Atari's

bullshit antics and if you actually read my other posts elsewhere you know this....oh I forget... you know it all.

Even more than the designers of the Jaguar.

 

Yet, you repeat and viciously defend the biggest marketing blunder this company made. Besides from being not correct, it really HURT the Jaguar badly, because people were expecting much more than Jaguar games delivered. They pretty much lost their whole credibility.

 

Again please.....show me an example of my 'twisting' anything about the Jaguar.

 

You declare components in the Jaguar as "processors" which are NO general purpose CPU's. You define the system bus as a measurement of the bitness of a system. You declare pretty much anything else not conforming to Atari's & your self-made definition of "bitness" as "outdated" (which is funny, considering that architectures coming long after the Jaguar, NEVER picked up on this kind of definition). That's clearly "twisting" in my eyes. And a pretty arrogant attempt at that, too.

 

The most funny thing about the discussion, which is so irritating about you as a developer, is: no matter if I am right, it doesn't change one bit what the Jaguar is capable of. You are doing all this shit simply for your audience, my politician.

 

Arrogance has that effect so stop with the arrogance. I dont have any such suspisions about you

becasue this very post shows you haven't a clue. You accuse with out proof, talk down to every one

on every system yet Im the one who wants diety recognition?

 

I am only unnerved by people like CV Gus (who clearly has hardly any knowledge on both the Colecovision and 7800, yet, tries to lecture other people) and clearly you. Especially YOU need a big spanking.

 

Even though I laugh at your childish insults, I recognise with how much arrogance you call people "idiots", "morons", "horse ass" and "liars", only a real true deity in all things would do that (and apparently get away with it). And I knew exactly this would happen after my post.

 

I still waiting for you to use the official developer docs to prove this. Oh yeah...you can't.

 

Shall I really post now the links of the official developer docs?

 

Anyone is free to examine them:

 

http://www.starcat-dev.de/download.php?id=...8ffdef237bafd2b

 

Don't take my or Gorf's words for it, read it for yourself.

 

Gorf WILL probably now start the usual babble that they are inaccurate and that he found the trick to start code from blablablabla...

 

They'd only make you look like a bigger horses ass than you are showing yourself to be here.

 

Wonderful. You do realise you are quite funny trying to be insulting? Give me animal names, Tiger!

 

Pot, kettle, black......your ignorance is blatant and obvious when it comes to the architecture of

the Jaguar. You always tell the lie that the docs say otherwise yet not once have you ever shown

this by using the official docs. Talk about inability....Im waiting......

 

I know that the Jaguar has a 64bit system main bus, and that the Blitter and Object processor can move and operate on 64bit of data at once. It is only you who doesn't know: it doesn't matter in this discussion. This discussion is purely about bitness rating. This discussion is NOT about how much performance the Jaguar has. Only someone with no experience would rate bitness = performance in all cases.

 

You seem to not have a problem with it...what are you doing now?

 

I'm now eating my lunch, that's what I do. And maybe check-in later and see the next level of your inane rantings. I know it only can get worse.

Edited August 28, 2008 by Vigo

[CV Gus]

I hate to say this, Vigo, but- since you brought me into it- I will reply.

 

The only reason I "unnerved" you is because I asked a question you were clearly either incapable of understanding, or of answering. But you are too arrogant a technonerd to admit it, so you wasted massive amounts of this thread's space dancing around it.

 

You kept going back and back to "the CV cannot do smooth scrolling." Big deal- anyone who even casually goes over a tech sheet would know that.

 

But since the CV HAS- as in PAST TENSE- done smooth scrolling, then obviously this, in itself, does not matter. The CV can do a smooth scroll.

 

My question- and you are too ignorant of CV abilities to answer it- was this: what are the limitations?

 

When I contacted that individual who DOES know the CV and asked him, notice how the first thing he explained was that two-color limit. That, and that alone, is the single biggest problem with certain kinds of scrolling displays. If you knew half as much as you like to think you do, you would've mentioned that right off. But, you didn't.

 

In effect, on the question of scrolling, the answer- and read this carefully, so from now on YOU know- is this:

 

1) The CV can do smooth scrolling, due to its ability to handle large amounts of movement and change.

 

2) The fact that it does not have built-in scrolling does matter in the amount of programming memory and effort (obviously), and possibly if massive amounts of other on-screen movement is required- not a problem in Matt Patrol, clearly- but any system has limitations, which is why I see slowdown in a number of NES games.

 

3) The key limitation to a CV scroll is the 2-color/space-line. If you look closely at the background in Matt Patrol, you will see that it is designed so never more than 2 colors are ever on such a space-line (8 dots wide).

 

4) Anything you can draw on a CV screen can likely be smoothly scrolled VERTICALLY, since whatever colors are used for a given line (in a space) never changes. So again, if programming a game like Lifeforce, other considerations aside, the vertically-scrolling levels could be more colorful than the horizontal ones.

 

 

When you posted that bit about 7800 Sirius, I noticed that you did not say whether or not that was THE BEST the 7800 could do (and if so, then WHY? Processing power? Colors? Slowdown?). The CV has Cosmic Avenger, but that was not the best it could do.

 

That person I contacted also admitted to not knowing enough about the 7800 to answer more than a few things about this post. Try it some time.

[Crazyace]

How much cpu time would it take to fine scroll vertically on the CV? I've no idea what the limit for data movement per frame is ( it was a bit of a killer having a limit on gameboy/gamegear - even on snes/megadrive )

[Gorf]

method: appeal to authority.

 

OF COURSE will the engineers repeat the marketing campaign of Atari.

 

Speculation on your part and only speculation and as hard a piece of evidence that you mouth is your ass.

 

STRIKE ONE!

 

You having not one thing to do with the Jaguar's design

only show what an arrogant know it all you are on every system.

 

method: appeal to authority

 

My non-involvement in the design of the Jaguar is totally irrelevant. Or maybe it IS relevant to some degree, since engineers always tend to praise their children.

 

No, its your non involment in the design of the Jaguar and your total lack of experience coding the Jaguar.

It's also you'r un ending arrogance and your desperate attempt to look smart.

BZZZZT! Try again Space cadet.

 

 

STRIKE TWO!

 

I know what a bitmapped display is, but obviously, you don't know what a pain in the ass the player/missile objects of the VCS are, which have to be reloaded ON THE FLY using the 6507. You know the term "racing the beam"? Look it up before start whining about manipulating bitmapped displays with a lavish 4K of own video ram (and even the video hardware helps you in masking the data, a luxury many other bitmapped-only architectures dont have). I suppose you never coded on the VCS either. Shows much about "yoor" lack of understanding.

 

Again you speaketh from your ass.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=121203

 

Not bad for a first attempt dont you think? In a high level language no less.

What's it like looking like a horses ass?

 

I know you never coded the Astrocade either yet shit house coder strikes again.

 

 

Swing and a miss STRIKE THREE and Vigo goes down on strikes.

(Go back to the minor leagues where you belong.

 

I already quoted the basic system design of the Jaguar, and you continue to repeat it here. I guess that would make you a liar, too.

 

Like I said...you would'nt come up with anything but your own idiot opinion which is like the East is from the West

in reality with the facts in the docs of the Jaguar. Documentation Vigo...not your opinion...

 

We are now on STRIKE ONE of out # two....

 

This is just too easy.

[Tempest]

Keep it civil guys...

 

Tempest

[ZylonBane]

These are the only people who can defeat Vigo:

 

[Gorf]

Again, your typical "I have seen what no one else has seen" argument, claiming the official docs to be incorrect.

Yes, we know you managed to get code started out of main ram, whoopie-doo. Irrelevant to the whole bitness

discussion.

 

More than you've ever done period on the Jaguar and goes nowhere to back you up what so ever...

Let's stick to the topic of bitness and lets not try to divert peoples attention to things that only further

make you look stupid.

 

STRIKE two of out # two.

 

Yes, but the bus size DOES NOT define the bitness of a system. If that would be, practically all PC's from the first Pentium were 64 bit systems (since they have a 64bit memory bus). It's just too bad that AMD/Intel, with their Introduction of their 64bit architectures, never asked you about your twisted definition of bitness.

 

 

Shows you dont understand the PC either....the main system bus is 32 bits. EVERYTHING

untill recently( afew years ago) was ona 32 bit bus.....before that on a 16 bit bus.

The PC is so far from the architecture of a Jaguar that only an idiot like a few that have

would be stupid enough to try to use that as a comparison.

 

STRIKE THREE! And Vigo goes down swining...AGAIN...Two outs. Now this is funny.

 

 

You, because you RIGHT NOW showed that you ignore the standard definition. The Falcon is also a 32bit system,

despite having a 16bit memory bus, because it has a 32bit CPU. Same with the N64. Besides, these CPU's, in addition

to their ALU, also have built-in cache memory of their native bus size. So Gorf, before you throw the stone and call me

a moron, better consider the glass falling down on you.

 

 

Like I did with others, I'll ask you to show me ANY 'standard' definition of bitness. Not opinions by companies

but a REAL IEEE type standard....oh, that's right...it does not exsist. dont feel bad as the only guy who tried to prove me

wrong , pathetically used some quote from some fighter pilot on WIKI as his 'standard'.

 

STRIKE ONE for OUT # three.

 

Ther is not'graphics bus.....its a system bus a 64 bit system bus ina 64 bit system.

 

If you call it graphics bus or system bus is pretty irrelevant. No CPU in the Jaguar is 64 bit. Of course, you could twist now the definition even further by adding all bits of all components together (which would even make it an 80bit system), or declare the Blitter as a processor. Well, then I am apparently writing this document on a 256 bit PC,since that's the size how the blitter on my graphics card can move around data in video ram.

 

And its connected through a 256 bit BUS?

 

STRIKE TWO for OUT # three.

 

So do old and crummy PCI graphics cards with a 64bit memory bus.

 

And applies only to that card bus and not the PC's system bus.

 

 

But they are NO general purpose CPU's, and thus fail the definition. With a definition like that, the PS2 console is a

2048bit machine, and the Dreamcast is a 128bit one.

 

STRIKE THREE and the side is retarded!...er retired......

 

You sound rather funny than insulting, because right now, with your behaviour, you exactly reveal yourself to me (and many other people)

as what you are: a dimwit.

 

YAAAAWWWWN! Im still waiting for facts, but so far all I get is insults. FACT PLEASE.....FACTS .

 

I pretty much have reduced you to a 15 year old fanboy brat. And it wasn't even hard.

 

Yup the above statements and all those other imagined 'knowledgable' statements sure prove that....

Gosh you make this too easy and too fun Vigo.

 

I know that the Blitter and Object processor can process 64bit. But what apparently YOU don't know is: despite what the designers like to call them, they ARE NO general purpose CPU's. If that definition would apply, call everything a CPU and apply the bitness definition, then many other systems suddenly would have really huge bitness ratings.

 

The entire Jaguar system is designed around a 64 bit bus UNLIKE PC's( untill recently of course)

and the very power of the Jaguar system does not lie in the 68k, or the two RISC's. It is very much

so the OPL and the blitter that are the heart and the POWER of the system. remove those two

and you have a 32 bit system that would choke on even the worst of the Jag games trying

to throw around all that color. You know Im right Vigo. You know that the supposed 'definition' or

'standard' does not exsist. Companies all have different methods or rating bitness and you know it.

 

 

Does it change the power of those systems? No. Bitness does not reveal the power of a system. The designers of the Jaguar were

right to give it a 64bit bus to move and manipulate graphics, because that's (for a console) where it counts. But no, no, and again:

no, the Jaguar does NOT fit the definition of a 64bit system. As much as the Saturn doesn't fit this definition.

 

Show me an IEEE or any such standard please. Your internet search will be a waste of time trying.

 

I dont misrepresent it. You can not apply the single processor bitness to a system like the Jaguar...it shows your ignorance.

 

No, it exactly shows that the Jaguar seems really to be your only field of expertise. Even Sega did not dare to call the Saturn a 64bit system, despite also having 2x32bit RISC CPU's and 1x16bit 68k.

 

And the 64 bit bus on a Saturn exsists where? Dude...it's the bottom of the ninth and you are about to be shut out.

 

And again: appeal to authority.

So the Jaguar designers apparently know much more about bitness than the rest of the industry?

 

Again, speculation at best on your part and no basis in fact whatsoever. You are now

STRIKE ONE, bottom of the ninth, no men on and you've yet to score a run.

 

Please show me the rest of the industry. Im STILL waiting.

 

Sheesh! You better call in a pinch hitter, someone with the knowledge to be able to hit my fastballs out of the park.

To quote an old famous video game character "Good luck! You'll need it!"

 

Besides: I am not smarter than most people here. But then again, most people posting here are gamers, and gamers PLAY games, they don't necessarily know how the hardware works, which is completely okay, since everyone was once a novice. Other people, like malducci, supercat, exophase, pacmanplus, danboris etc. do also know a lot, and I always corrected myself if they pointed out a mistake I made.

 

 

I bow at the alter of those you just mentioned....and believe it or not, I pay VERY close attention to what

you have to say about systems like the 7800 and the NES, that I and not ashamed to admit that I am

mostly clueless about. I know you know those systems pretty well and I unlike a diety would NOT ever

even think about questioning you on the subject other than to gain more knowledge.....try it sometime.

 

I met Dan at the old philly classic about a dozen years ago. He is a brilliant guy and so are you actually,

Just not when it comes to the Jaguar.

 

Dan saw my Astrocade emulator, the first, known in exsistance at the time....the same code I donated

to the MAME guys to do as they will with.....but I only understand the Jaguar? Oh, did I mention I wrote the

emulator from just my memory of the astrocade System from adecade before?

...(I could not find my Nutting manual at the time so I had no choice.)

 

Admitedly it was not finished but it botted and played a few of the games.

 

Shortsightedness is a sad thing especcially with a guy like you and his obviously knowlede

in the field of(some) hardware.

 

Pacman Plus is a gentleman and a talented guy.

I do not know supercat but I am very impressed by his knowledge.

Exophase is clearly not an idiot and I found what he had to say just

recently almost 100% on target. However, saying the MIPS is a better

chip than the J-RISC's is about a silly as saying the 6502 is better than

a Z80. All processors have thier pro and cons. If Exophase would take

a look, he would see that the J-RISC instruction set in quite powerful,

even if fustrating in some cases.

 

 

Not like a true deity, which is always right and makes no mistakes.

 

I make plenty of mistakes...like trying to bother wasting my time reasoning with you , on a subject you

have only proven to be completely clueless about. Im a knumbskull for the most part and knubskulls cant

be dieties either.

 

I love admitting to my mistakes because it cleanses the soul.....you should try it some time old boy.

 

Vigo , you are obviously a smart guy and I totally respect your knowledge of the 7800, NES and all

those other classic systems you clearly understand quite well. However, you really need to do more

research and actually try coding the Jaguar yourself. Once you do,and really dig in like I have the

past 13 years, I know you'll understand what I am saying when I say the Jaguar is a 64 bit SYSTEM,

despite the fact that no CPU in the Jaguar is 64 bits....they dont need to be. Oh, and BTW, there is no

'CPU' so to speak in the Jaguar, they can all do anything the other two can do, albiet slower on the 68k

(to the Jaguar's demise even)but do it nonetheless.

 

I will also gladly help you in anyway if you are interested. Im not here to beat you up dude, just you try

to teach you what I've learned.

 

Its not like I do not understand your point of view on the subject, becasue, believe me I do and I am not

shocked at to why you think the way you do about the Jaguar.

 

Typically a system like the PC or the single preocessor systems are called 32 bit still(until recently)because

the busses(up until recently) were 32 bits.

 

I dont beleive the forst pentiums were 64 bits were they? I thought that did not happen till Pen2 or Pen3.

I could be wrong about that....so much for your diety nonsense.

 

 

Oh......STRIKE three out three and the ball game is over. The Gorfian Empire wins again.

 

MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

 

[Gorf]

Keep it civil guys...

 

Tempest

 

 

In the spirit of not driving the mods crazy here...I wont even bother with his third post..

I figure if he cant offer any thing other than specualtion and opinion on his part,

a third post would not matter anyway.

 

I am done with this....Vigo is right abotu one thing.....this is a 7800 topic.

I started it.... I admit it and Im going to end it right here....right now.

 

My appologies.....

 

Gorf

[Gorf]

These are the only people who can defeat Vigo:

 

 

 

 

You might be a grouch at times ol' ZB but a funny and clever one at that!

 

[Vigo]

method: appeal to authority.

 

OF COURSE will the engineers repeat the marketing campaign of Atari.

 

Speculation on your part and only speculation and as hard a piece of evidence that you mouth is your ass.

 

STRIKE ONE!

 

I knew you would only pick the parts which would serve as the most convenient device to throw with verbal fecals. You are so predictable.

 

No, its your non involment in the design of the Jaguar and your total lack of experience coding the Jaguar.

It's also you'r un ending arrogance and your desperate attempt to look smart.

BZZZZT! Try again Space cadet.

 

STRIKE TWO!

 

If you think you can pull me down with that to your level, and distract from the points I make: no, you won't succeed. But go ahead. I refuted every single point in my previous post, so the only thing, which apparently is left for you to do, is to make an even bigger idiot out of yourself.

 

I know what a bitmapped display is, but obviously, you don't know what a pain in the ass the player/missile objects of the VCS are, which have to be reloaded ON THE FLY using the 6507. You know the term "racing the beam"? Look it up before start whining about manipulating bitmapped displays with a lavish 4K of own video ram (and even the video hardware helps you in masking the data, a luxury many other bitmapped-only architectures dont have). I suppose you never coded on the VCS either. Shows much about "yoor" lack of understanding.

 

Again you speaketh from your ass.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=121203

 

Not bad for a first attempt dont you think? In a high level language no less.

 

Which is even more embarassing for you. No wonder you have no concept of player-missile graphics on the VCS.

 

What's it like looking like a horses ass?

 

I don't know, it seems to be your field of expertise.

 

I know you never coded the Astrocade either yet shit house coder strikes again.

 

It is you, who envied the most primitive Player Missile graphics of the VCS over a fully bitmapped display, which needs no constant update from the CPU.

 

Swing and a miss STRIKE THREE and Vigo goes down on strikes.

(Go back to the minor leagues where you belong.

 

Sure Gorf... *calling the nurse*

 

Like I said...you would'nt come up with anything but your own idiot opinion which is like the East is from the West

in reality with the facts in the docs of the Jaguar. Documentation Vigo...not your opinion...

 

We are now on STRIKE ONE of out # two....

 

This is just too easy.

 

Wonderful, now let's rephrase what Gorf was able to come up with when his position is challenged:

 

- insults

- neglection of the original point

- severe signs of other psychological defects

 

Anyone who is calling ME arrogant has now the proof: people can be worse. MUCH worse.

 

Anything you would like to add to your humorous & colourful collage of inane rantings?

[Gorf]

YAWN........

[Vigo]

I skip the rest (although I already wrote an answer for that) and come directly to the main point:

 

I bow at the alter of those you just mentioned....and believe it or not, I pay VERY close attention to what

you have to say about systems like the 7800 and the NES, that I and not ashamed to admit that I am

mostly clueless about.

 

And yet, in another thread, you started to defame me as a NES lover, who spreads untruth of the 7800. Now how does that fit in now? Have you been lying in the past, or are you lying right now?

 

I know you know those systems pretty well and I unlike a diety would NOT ever

even think about questioning you on the subject other than to gain more knowledge.....try it sometime.

 

Sorry, but I don't believe you. You pretty much see me as an idiot, because you behave and talk to me like an idiot. If you would start to talk to me in a more civilized manner, maybe we would have a base to discuss things seriously. But not like this. There are way more things YOU should try for a change.

 

I met Dan at the old philly classic about a dozen years ago. He is a brilliant guy and so are you actually,

Just not when it comes to the Jaguar.

 

I don't need you to tell me how brilliant or unbrilliant I am. I know who I am and I know what I can and what I can not do.

 

You know what? Stick to what you can do best, and where you seem to be most inventive: throwing insults. You are starting to sweet talk me anyway only because you fear banning, after your complete blackout in your previous posts. I am not stupid.

 

Neither if we hate or love us doesn't change a single bit of truth. And I will leave it at that. If you are really serious about what you wrote in the following paragraphs, then reread your posts, and start to behave like a civilized human being for a change, which really seems to be quite a challenge for you.

 

I know that I came off as arrogant. But that was just after I have been VERY patient with CV Gus. But this is nothing compared to what you just came up with.

 

Is this is the way how you think to win an argument? Insult people until they stop bothering with you in disgust?

 

As you being an idiot, I can only laugh at your insults. But as you in taking you seriously, I can only say: screw off.

Edited August 28, 2008 by Vigo

[Gorf]

at any rate.....we were talking about the CV VS the 7800 VS the NES...scrolling capabilities or the lack thereof?

Edited August 28, 2008 by Gorf

[CV Gus]

Since, Vigo, we have established- indirectly because of that person I contacted- that you do not know as much as you would have us believe (just why didn't you mention the 2-color limit?), and Supercat's reply from the other thread would seem to reinforce this, can WE NOW GET BACK TO COMPARING THE CV TO THE 7800?

 

We've established- no thanks to you- that the CV can do smooth scrolling, but not up to the level of the 7800 in games like Tower Toppler, but definitely yes in games like Galaxian and Defender, probably Galaga, too. And since the 7800 has notoriously bad sound, the CV has it beat there, too.

 

Now, folks, what about Static Displays? Color and Resolution? On-screen movement in the varying areas? Memory, in applications?

 

Thanks!

[Gorf]

Since, Vigo, we have established- indirectly because of that person I contacted- that you do not know as much as you would have us believe (just why didn't you mention the 2-color limit?), and Supercat's reply from the other thread would seem to reinforce this, can WE NOW GET BACK TO COMPARING THE CV TO THE 7800?

 

We've established- no thanks to you- that the CV can do smooth scrolling, but not up to the level of the 7800 in games like Tower Toppler, but definitely yes in games like Galaxian and Defender, probably Galaga, too. And since the 7800 has notoriously bad sound, the CV has it beat there, too.

 

Now, folks, what about Static Displays? Color and Resolution? On-screen movement in the varying areas? Memory, in applications?

 

Thanks!

 

 

Let it go dude....you'd have a better time watching paint dry. just about every Jaguar coder

tells you the machine is a 64 bit machine but since Vigo says otherwise, we are all lying.

 

The 7800 is an excellent machine and so is the Colecovision. I'll take either anyday over the

flicker fest that is the NES. The SMS kicks all thier asses in my opinion (that's my opinion, not

a fact technically or otherwise) I based that on the sprites and the backgrounds I see between

the machines, even though I love the 7800 much more.

 

Game titles are important....the NES or the SMS has none in the way of Atari titles and

the classics us Atari fans die for (well at least none that I know of anyway).