Atari v Commodore

[atariksi]

Not even to mention Archon.

 

Most C64 guys even today haven't recoznized the rule of light balancing in the game, because the C64 has not enough colours to show it all correctly.

 

I just can't understand the argument that until you show that game is do-able on A8, C64 is better. There are some Apple II games/applications that don't exist for Atari nor C64, but that doesn't mean they are not do-able.

 

C64 was made with cheaper parts to outsell the Atari not to beat it technically.

[Fröhn]

I shouldn't have to work that hard or need an expert to direct me to a good responsive game, it kinda sums up the experience.

There's this old rule: "95% of everything is crap". Ofcourse if you randomly pick games you will get junk most of the time. Same happens when you randomly select A8 (or any other platform) games.

[_The Doctor__]

emkay and I do not always agree on things but I think he is winning me over at this point!

I am starting to understand his logic, and why we sometimes speak the way we do. I get the feeling he may have been quite active on both systems in the past.

I love what the Atari did for Tron, someone has got to get the tools supplied by Atari to the movie production crew. Time Warner guarded some things way too much and hurt themselves by withholding some important tools for fear they would give an edge that eventually would be forgotten or dealt out too late.

 

I truly believe that the Atari certainly has the edge and not just in game play...

I just ran a few things in visicalc and Fleet System 2 as well as fleet filer, it is done right now and the c64 is well ... still working on it.

 

I also 100% agree with emkay on the statement and list below if we follow the logic outlined by the debate.

 

lol what a load, and it took a team of you make a list... the skramble game he listed... I just played it on the c 128 in c64 mode... it was crap game play. switching to 128 it was even crappier why I don't know is there an issue with it?

Why don't you play some of the good games instead? He gave you a few examples:

 

"Turbocharge, Enforcer, Buggy Boy, Last Ninja, Ghosts & Goblins, Mayhem in Monsterland...these games are NOT possible on an A8 until anyone bothers to show me some linked videos to BETTER games technically I am sticking to that."

 

 

You guys make me crazy....

OFCOURSE the A8 can do those games. Possibly not at 50Hz. But who cares?

The whole C64 community doesn't care about 3D is slow as hell, or the movement is ridiculously blocky on the C64.

 

According to your facts about "the A8 cannot do this or that", the C64 cannot do :

 

-Space Harrier

-Rescue on Fractalus

-Koronis Rift

-The Eidolon

-Stunt Car Racer

-Amaurote

-Test Drive

-Turbo Charge

-Power Drift

 

and so on....

[atariksi]

I shouldn't have to work that hard or need an expert to direct me to a good responsive game, it kinda sums up the experience.

There's this old rule: "95% of everything is crap". Ofcourse if you randomly pick games you will get junk most of the time. Same happens when you randomly select A8 (or any other platform) games.

 

There's the observation that "70% of earth is water" which negates "95% of everything is crap".

[Gorf]

The facts are

 

In your opinion.

 

Pokey is INFERIOR to SID 1 extra channel with waveforms that all sound the same the C64 is 3 with 5 waveform types/3 special effects plus filters PLUS sample channel)

 

If SID is so much better than POKEY, why is it that a simple game like pacman

can't it get the sounds dead on? POKEY did. Defender? You have got to be joking.

the POKEY sounds are arcade perfect and far from close on the C64.

 

Defender is dead on with the Atari, especially the sound and the graphics. The C64

is laughable sound wise....not a good example of SID at all.

 

SID is NOT as flexible as the POKEY, just a lot easier to get it to do CERTAIN things.

Music is one only becasue it would take a lot of work on the coders of an A8 to add

all the ADSR and other SID features. We still have that option.

 

With the right software control, POKEY will outflex SID anyday.

 

 

PM is INFERIOR to Sprites (You can cover the entire screen with Sprites with very little effort, some coders uses sprites for parallax scrolling)

both have H/W

 

Really? show me an example of this. I bet I acn cover a screen bettter with the player than you could

ever hope to with 8 24x16 pixel sprites. 256 color choises verse 16 with the sprites.

 

scrolling but Uridium is FASTER AND SMOOTHER than any A8 scrolling game I have seen EVER.

 

 

This is the kool-Aid talking and tells me you have not seen much on the A8.

One game dont cut it even if this were the case.

 

DL vs Raster, it's the same thing, the C64 has scanline accurate timers so it is identical

 

 

This is beyond laughable. Scanline accurate timers the same thing as display lists? It's now clear you are talking out of your

ass and not from factual information. Show me all the graphic modes on one screen at once like an Atari 8 bit can with a

simple list.....Oh that's right....you can't. You have to write a complicated timer based interrupt scheme and still wont come

close.

 

 

CPU is faster on A8 but 6510 has better instruction set/ optimised version of 6502 A8 uses.

 

 

The 6510 varies from 6502 only in the implementation of 6 I/O ports at addresses 0000 and 0001.

Go do some research before you further make a fool of yourself.

 

Max resolution is the same on both for games (320x200x2 colours or 160x200x4 colour) EXCEPT we have 4 colours per 4x8 pixel block too and you have 16 luminance on XL/XE only in 160x200....I know which one ALL games coders use.

 

Clearly this shows me you dont know a thing about the power and flexibility of the display lists features of the A8.

 

Colour Palette easy win for A8..shame it makes no difference for anything except copper type vertical shading effects under the crappy PM graphics. Wow I can choose my 4 colours from 256 @ 160x200...I'm sure they will be radically different to the perfectly chosen range of 16 colours available on VIC-II huh?

 

I can have any of 256 colors for those 4 colors and not just a paltry choice of 16 colors.

I can also have with the display list many more than four colors on screen and also with simple

interrupt tricks. The C64 cant because it at max has only 16 colors....this was just plain ridiculous

and quite uninformed C64 fan boy on your part. Perfectly chosen range? I want to see violet and

purple and jade sahdes....oh that's right they are not perfect choices so C64 cant use them.

 

Sprites

 

The hardware in the 64 is 8 registers worth of sprites. To show more than 8 sprites on screen

you HAVE to reuse the sprites by quickly moving them. There will never be more than 8 sprites

on screen physically with the C=64. Its an illusion just like with the player missiles of the A8.

 

The difference is the players can have the full height of the screen for images.

 

There are advantages for either hardware here. I like the multi color mode of the C64.

[Fröhn]

For some odd reason, C64 people think it's better to just POKE a register and set a graphics mode rather than have a coprocessor let you set various graphics/text modes on a scanline basis and thus save CPU time and memory. They have less CPU time to begin with and they still prefer not having that option.

?

 

LDA #$40

STA $D01B

[Fröhn]

If SID is so much better than POKEY, why is it that a simple game like pacman

can't it get the sounds dead on? POKEY did.

Bad ports from AtariSoft are not the fault of the SID.

 

PM is INFERIOR to Sprites (You can cover the entire screen with Sprites with very little effort, some coders uses sprites for parallax scrolling)

both have H/W

Really? show me an example of this. I bet I acn cover a screen bettter with the player than you could

ever hope to with 8 24x16 pixel sprites. 256 color choises verse 16 with the sprites.

Sprites are 24x21 pixels, by simply updating the Y-position every 21 rasterlines you display the sprites again at different rasterlines. This way you can get up to 120 sprites. You can also split sprites horizontally to get even more.

 

The hardware in the 64 is 8 registers worth of sprites. To show more than 8 sprites on screen

you HAVE to reuse the sprites by quickly moving them. There will never be more than 8 sprites

on screen physically with the C=64. Its an illusion just like with the player missiles of the A8.

You misunderstood how it works. If you multiplex C64 sprites, there really are more than 8 on a frame. A frame is not display "at once" but build up from rasterlines which are drawn from top to bottom. If you have a sprite at Y-position 50 and switch the Y-position to 150 at rasterline 100, the sprite will be displayed again on the very same frame.

 

The difference is the players can have the full height of the screen for images.

You can easily multiplex sprites to full height on C64. The C64 sprite logic is very multiplexing friendly. For example there are gfx modes which use a fullscreen sprite layer to enhance color depth.

[_The Doctor__]

if I have to type load "*",8 return

ready

run

press a

insert disk

 

or

 

open 4,4,25:print #4

load "*",8

run

or hold down c= and run/stop for fast load one more time I am going to have to smack my head against the c64 keyboard real soon now!

 

edit *** did you here that thwak thwak thwak

Edited March 31, 2009 by _The Doctor__

[xxl]

For some odd reason, C64 people think it's better to just POKE a register and set a graphics mode rather than have a coprocessor let you set various graphics/text modes on a scanline basis and thus save CPU time and memory. They have less CPU time to begin with and they still prefer not having that option.

?

 

LDA #$40

STA $D01B

 

$D01B SPBGPR Sprite Priority Register

 

so... what now?

[Fröhn]

For some odd reason, C64 people think it's better to just POKE a register and set a graphics mode rather than have a coprocessor let you set various graphics/text modes on a scanline basis and thus save CPU time and memory. They have less CPU time to begin with and they still prefer not having that option.

?

 

LDA #$40

STA $D01B

 

$D01B SPBGPR Sprite Priority Register

 

so... what now?

That:

 

$D01B GTIA mode

[xxl]

For some odd reason, C64 people think it's better to just POKE a register and set a graphics mode rather than have a coprocessor let you set various graphics/text modes on a scanline basis and thus save CPU time and memory. They have less CPU time to begin with and they still prefer not having that option.

?

 

LDA #$40

STA $D01B

 

$D01B SPBGPR Sprite Priority Register

 

so... what now?

That:

 

$D01B GTIA mode

 

have you ever seen gtia mode on atari?

[atariksi]

For some odd reason, C64 people think it's better to just POKE a register and set a graphics mode rather than have a coprocessor let you set various graphics/text modes on a scanline basis and thus save CPU time and memory. They have less CPU time to begin with and they still prefer not having that option.

?

 

LDA #$40

STA $D01B

 

$D01B SPBGPR Sprite Priority Register

 

so... what now?

That:

 

$D01B GTIA mode

 

 

Here's the beginner's guide (Starting Out: 56 graphics modes not including interlace, not including DLIs, not including sprite overlays, not including IRQs):

 

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v3n5/allmodes.html

[atariksi]

...

The hardware in the 64 is 8 registers worth of sprites. To show more than 8 sprites on screen

you HAVE to reuse the sprites by quickly moving them. There will never be more than 8 sprites

on screen physically with the C=64. Its an illusion just like with the player missiles of the A8.

You misunderstood how it works. If you multiplex C64 sprites, there really are more than 8 on a frame. A frame is not display "at once" but build up from rasterlines which are drawn from top to bottom. If you have a sprite at Y-position 50 and switch the Y-position to 150 at rasterline 100, the sprite will be displayed again on the very same frame.

 

The difference is the players can have the full height of the screen for images.

You can easily multiplex sprites to full height on C64. The C64 sprite logic is very multiplexing friendly. For example there are gfx modes which use a fullscreen sprite layer to enhance color depth.

 

Ahm, you forget that overscan eats up CPU cycles to limit your C64 multiplexer as well as bad scanlines as well as raster line interrupt overhead as well as all the cycles required to reuse sprite registers for vertical multiplexing. So if you are enhancing an image with sprite overlays, expect every 20 or so lines to see no enhancements (glitch depending on image). And if you just want to cover the screen with sprites (including overscan on vertical side) you can do it in BASIC w/o any interrupts or CPU cycles or RAM usage and have greater control than C64 on priority:

 

10 FOR T=53256 TO 53265:POKE T,255:NEXT T

20 POKE 53248,48:POKE 53249,80:POKE 53250,112:POKE 53251,144

30 POKE 53252,176:POKE 53253,184:POKE 53254,192:POKE 53255,200

40 POKE 704,32:POKE 705,64:POKE 706,128:POKE 707,16:POKE 623,32+1

 

Priority setting is:

 

POKE 623,32+1-- All Players on top of all playfields

POKE 623,32+2-- Players 0,1 on top of all playfields; players 2,3 below all playfields

POKE 623,32+0-- All Players at same depth as all playfields (ORs players with Playfields)

POKE 623,32+8-- Playfields 0,1 on top of all players; playfields 2,3 below all players

POKE 623,32+4-- All Playfields on top of all Players

[TMR]

So if you are enhancing an image with sprite overlays, expect every 20 or so lines to see no enhancements (glitch depending on image).

 

i wouldn't expect that because there's far too many examples where it simply doesn't happen...

[atariksi]

For some odd reason, C64 people think it's better to just POKE a register and set a graphics mode rather than have a coprocessor let you set various graphics/text modes on a scanline basis and thus save CPU time and memory. They have less CPU time to begin with and they still prefer not having that option.

?

 

LDA #$40

STA $D01B

 

$D01B SPBGPR Sprite Priority Register

 

so... what now?

That:

 

$D01B GTIA mode

 

Here's an exaple of using GTIA mode in BASIC that shows 23 colors/scanline w/o any DLIs, IRQs, nor interlace but using GPRIOR OR effect and a paletted mode (not just 16 shades or 16 luminances):

 

10 PRINT "Atari BASIC program to show 23 colors/scanline in Graphics 10"

20 PRINT " By Krishna Software Inc."

30 GRAPHICS 10

40 POKE 704,16:POKE 705,32:POKE 706,64:POKE 707,128:POKE 623,16+32+128

50 POKE 708,4:POKE 709,8:POKE 710,2:POKE 711,13:POKE 712,255

60 POKE 53248,64:POKE 53249,80:POKE 53250,160:POKE 53251,176

70 POKE 53252,120:POKE 53253,124:POKE 53254,128:POKE 53255,132

80 FOR T=53256 TO 53265:POKE T,255:NEXT T

90 FOR T=0 TO 95:COLOR T/12:PLOT 0,T:DR. 79,T:NEXT T

100 FOR T=0 TO 79:COLOR T:PLOT T,96:DR. T,191:NEXT T

110 GOTO 110

RUN

[TMR]

If SID is so much better than POKEY, why is it that a simple game like pacman

can't it get the sounds dead on? POKEY did. Defender? You have got to be joking.

the POKEY sounds are arcade perfect and far from close on the C64.

 

Because in both of those cases the C64 version was written a year after the machine was released and the Atari version over three years. If two years more experience with a machine hadn't resulted in them getting the sound effects right i'd be worried.

 

With the right software control, POKEY will outflex SID anyday.

 

That's a different comparison, if it's just SID versus POKEY without the CPU getting involved then the SID is more flexible but if you're wanting to bring the CPU in to help the SID can also gain benefits from that extra push.

 

scrolling but Uridium is FASTER AND SMOOTHER than any A8 scrolling game I have seen EVER.

This is the kool-Aid talking and tells me you have not seen much on the A8.

One game dont cut it even if this were the case.

 

The C64 has twice the horizontal resolution for smooth scrolling, games like Io or Slayer move at half a multicolour pixel per frame.

[emkay]

For some odd reason, C64 people think it's better to just POKE a register and set a graphics mode rather than have a coprocessor let you set various graphics/text modes on a scanline basis and thus save CPU time and memory. They have less CPU time to begin with and they still prefer not having that option.

?

 

LDA #$40

STA $D01B

 

Simply switching the screen off and having still not even 1MHz available.... great stuff

DL programming can give additional CPU speed which could be compared with the Sprite Handling of the C64.

[TMR]

DL programming can give additional CPU speed which could be compared with the Sprite Handling of the C64.

 

No, that's just rubbish... if it were true, that preview of a Turrican engine would have somewhere nearer the number of sprites the C64 game slings around but it doesn't.

Edited March 31, 2009 by TMR

[Fröhn]

Ahm, you forget that overscan eats up CPU cycles to limit your C64 multiplexer as well as bad scanlines as well as raster line interrupt overhead as well as all the cycles required to reuse sprite registers for vertical multiplexing.

Opening upper/lower border areas is just 2x LDA STA per frame, and those don't even need to be rasterline accurate. Plenty of tolerance here. That's also what is often done in games to have score/lives/etc display in the upper/lower border areas.

 

The bad lines also don't matter. You have 21 rasterlines tolerance to switch the sprite y-positions, and to switch the gfx contents you just need to have 2 interleaved sets of gfx contents to get you ~10 rasterlines tolerance. The rest is done automatically.

 

The CPU overhead also isn't much. As I said before: Opening upper/lower border is just 2x LDA STA per frame. Switching the 8 Y-positions and 2x screen base register (to switch all 8 gfx data vectors of the sprites at once) also only eats 10x LDA STA every 21 rasterlines. What you get from that is a whole 192*280 gfx layer which can move independent from the background graphics.

 

So if you are enhancing an image with sprite overlays, expect every 20 or so lines to see no enhancements (glitch depending on image).

As TMR said: None of those glitches in the demos and games which do sprite layers.

[_The Doctor__]

If SID is so much better than POKEY, why is it that a simple game like pacman

can't it get the sounds dead on? POKEY did. Defender? You have got to be joking.

the POKEY sounds are arcade perfect and far from close on the C64.

 

Because in both of those cases the C64 version was written a year after the machine was released and the Atari version over three years. If two years more experience with a machine hadn't resulted in them getting the sound effects right i'd be worried.

 

With the right software control, POKEY will outflex SID anyday.

 

That's a different comparison, if it's just SID versus POKEY without the CPU getting involved then the SID is more flexible but if you're wanting to bring the CPU in to help the SID can also gain benefits from that extra push.

 

scrolling but Uridium is FASTER AND SMOOTHER than any A8 scrolling game I have seen EVER.

This is the kool-Aid talking and tells me you have not seen much on the A8.

One game dont cut it even if this were the case.

 

The C64 has twice the horizontal resolution for smooth scrolling, games like Io or Slayer move at half a multicolour pixel per frame.

 

why do you keep using io as an example, I just stated earlier in the thread I loaded it on real hardware, and it was far from speedy or smooth in fact lemon64's fanbase points out all its failings.. it only rates a 7.6 I did it a favor giving it an 81% thinking my hardware might be responsible. Turns out it is exactly that way on all c64'. Slayer is even worse... oh and if you don't agree lemon64 give it a vehement 6.6

Edited March 31, 2009 by _The Doctor__

[Fröhn]

why do you keep using io as an example, I just stated earlier in the thread I loaded it on real hardware, and it was far from speedy or smooth in fact lemon64's fanbase points out all its failings.. it only rates a 7.6 I did it a favor giving it an 81% thinking my hardware might be responsible. Turns out it is exactly that way on all c64'. Slayer is even worse... oh and if you don't agree lemon64 give it a vehement 6.6

Huh? It runs at a silk smooth 50 fps. It's a PAL game ofcourse, you need to run it on a PAL C64. PAL C64/A8 have 50 rasterlines more per frame, so if a game uses those extra clock cycles per frame it might show a lot of bugs or won't run at all.

Edited March 31, 2009 by Fröhn

[atariksi]

So if you are enhancing an image with sprite overlays, expect every 20 or so lines to see no enhancements (glitch depending on image).

 

i wouldn't expect that because there's far too many examples where it simply doesn't happen...

 

Rather than be vague about it, you can calculate it-- if you keep things simple and try to do it in one scanline, you don't have enough cycles to update all 8 sprite positions, shape ptrs, irq latency, etc. so expect a glitch or no enhancement. If you start writing a kernel to do it, then that is way inferior to the Atari side for vertical multiplexing where only HPOS has to be set.

[_The Doctor__]

it can draw things as fast as it wants, it is the way it all gets moved about the leaves something to be desired. I can draw a stationary object at 50 fps, and I can make it jump around the screen at 50 fps, I could go on and on but I do not need to..

die hard c64 fans say these things about 'em the best

 

 

http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=1329

http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=2345

Edited March 31, 2009 by _The Doctor__

[Fröhn]

I don't see your problem. No game on A8 will be smoother than 50 fps either. It's the video frequency and if you update every frame you are as good as you can get on both systems.

[_The Doctor__]

play any good side scroller on an actual arcade machine, on the Atari xl/xe, Amiga, or Falcon and the look as well as feel of the game on the c64 does not match up. The high frame rate would best be traded a little to service and handle the ship I am controlling, It simply does not make the trip across the screen as quickly and as smoothly as it needs to. I suspect that is why they tried to limit the play field as much as they did. Again click the links to lemon64 and you shall see what others have noticed as well and since it is being judged by people who like the machine, it must decidedly be so.

 

is the horse dead yet, do we have glue? shall we beat it some more?

I don't see your problem. No game on A8 will be smoother than 50 fps either. It's the video frequency and if you update every frame you are as good as you can get on both systems.

load "*",8 return

ready

run

press 'a'

insert disk

 

grrrrrrrr.......

 

open 4,4,25:print #4

load "*",8

run

hold down c= and run/stop for fast load one more time I am going to have to smack my head against the c64 keyboard real soon now!

 

edit *** did you here that thwak thwak thwak

---------the keyprints are now on my forehead!

Edited March 31, 2009 by _The Doctor__