Atari v Commodore

[atariksi]

two bold lies there:

 

a8 has no better sound&gfx.

 

 

Yes. Two bold lies in one sentence.

 

Yeah, once they stop using the single default 160*200 mode w/cell based graphics, and start to do Graphics 1 or graphics 2 or mixing graphics/text/scrolling/overscan/etc., then their 1 Mhz CPU is 1 Khz.

[Marius]

straw man argument.

 

I said a8 couldnt make them at same/better quality.

 

Yes you said that.

 

There is a slight difference between what you say, what IS true.

[Wolfram]

straw man argument.

 

I said a8 couldnt make them at same/better quality.

 

Yes you said that.

 

There is a slight difference between what you say, what IS true.

 

I havent said same originally. my bad.

 

anyway the thing is there's dozens and dozens and dozens of very good c64 games, the a8 will be not able to do only on lower qual.

[malducci]

can you please correct me in what I've really stated

 

You've made over generalized statements quite a few times of the C64 being able to do 320x192x16 or 160x192x16, or such. That is considered a BITMAP description and you damn well the c64 works on character(tiles) and associated palettes map, not an unrestricted BITMAP layout. It's *not* the same thing. It's not an Atari ST. If you're going to say the c64 can display 16 colors per frame, then you need acknowledge that the A8 could display its whole palette in a single frame as well.

[Wolfram]

two bold lies there:

 

a8 has no better sound&gfx.

 

 

Yes. Two bold lies in one sentence.

 

Yeah, once they stop using the single default 160*200 mode w/cell based graphics, and start to do Graphics 1 or graphics 2 or mixing graphics/text/scrolling/overscan/etc., then their 1 Mhz CPU is 1 Khz.

 

yeah c64 has better gfx, proof:

 

 

 

sid vs pokey..

 

show me people going to parties to celebrate pokey music, to dance to pure pokey music:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UccfIsAj0uA...feature=related

 

show me orchestras playing pokey music, show me commercial music artists using pokey music in their works...

[Wolfram]

can you please correct me in what I've really stated

 

You've made over generalized statements quite a few times of the C64 being able to do 320x192x16 or 160x192x16, or such. That is considered a BITMAP description and you damn well the c64 works on character(tiles) and associated palettes map, not an unrestricted BITMAP layout. It's *not* the same thing. It's not an Atari ST. If you're going to say the c64 can display 16 colors per frame, then you need acknowledge that the A8 could display its whole palette in a single frame as well.

 

stop using the straw man.

[oky2000]

What really could be possible with vertical scrollers?

 

This demo shows some interesting thing...

It uses gr. 9 and gr. 15 interlace . Which means it uses a huge amount of CPU cycles to have 16 colours on the screen.

It uses big software sprites and the game runs on a playable speed...

 

 

What do people wait for , doing a vertical scroller with gr. 9 in the background and multiplexing the PMg, instead ?

 

I see your scanline migraine inducing jerky slow scroller and raise you

 

Alleykat is full screen (less the usual border expansion to allow for rows of graphics at the top between pixel scrolls) runs super smooth (yes I know youtube can't do 50/60fps videos so tough but any C64 owner will back me up) and incredibly fast all with multicolour. So your dumb comments about reduced screens is a bit lost now. Don't know why I didn't think of this game before....mostly because I don't play vertical scrollers usually.

 

Really emkay that video you posted looks nothing like a 1986 arcade game played on MAME like you inferred could be done on the A8. and you wonder why we don't believe your posts. It looks horrible, is jerky as hell and the colours are an amazing shade of grey it's not much better than VIC20 games really and moan and bitch about the other games I posted as much as you like but Terracresta and Slapfight are both better than any other A8 vertical scroller I have seen so far dude.

[roland p]

Straw man argument, the original question was:

Does anybody have any views on where any titles were launched on both Atari and Commodore - and the Atari version is the better of the two?

 

Steve

 

weird how such a simple question can lead to such discussions...

Edited April 26, 2009 by roland p

[Marius]

sid vs pokey..

 

show me people going to parties to celebrate pokey music, to dance to pure pokey music:

 

That people doing stuff like that, does not mean SID is better. *DEEP SIGH*

 

If 1 million people say something stupid, it STILL is stupid. Do you get that?

 

If millions of people follow a certain leader, does this mean that this leader is good? History has proven the opposit.

 

You are using false arguments, to prove you are right. Please stop doing that. Thanks.

[Irgendwer]

Does it let you run ST software through RS232 port? At least those that are file based programs? File transfers is fine from Atari 8-bit, but my Atari 520ST disk drive is basically dead (only reads track 0).

 

If it wasn't the weird floppy port, I probabaly would have hacked the floppy interface to boot from PC...

 

No, it's just a ST-Version of APE (or similar programs): The serial MFP port of the ST/TT/F030 acts like 1050s and/or printer etc.. Doesn't work for (E)SCC and other

serial chip-sets, since the MFP was hacked directly (could have been made better anyway).

 

CU

Irgendwer

Edited April 26, 2009 by Irgendwer

[frenchman]

So now we're comparing the cheapened cost reduced Atari, the 65XE, that came out 3 years later to the C64.

 

One of my "favorite" quotes...

 

"Flight Simulator needs computer power. Only the XE has it". Hahahahahahaha

 

C64

 

Atari

 

Hahahahahahaha.

 

 

Atari cartridge (thx to AM), instant gamplay:

 

C64 disk version, whilst loading you lost the will to live:

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

Edited April 26, 2009 by frenchman

[Wolfram]

sid vs pokey..

 

show me people going to parties to celebrate pokey music, to dance to pure pokey music:

 

That people doing stuff like that, does not mean SID is better. *DEEP SIGH*

 

If 1 million people say something stupid, it STILL is stupid. Do you get that?

 

If millions of people follow a certain leader, does this mean that this leader is good? History has proven the opposit.

 

You are using false arguments, to prove you are right. Please stop doing that. Thanks.

 

oh so there's a lot of dumb people on the c64 side because they go to dedicated SID parties to celebrate SID music. the orchestras playing SID music are dumb aswell. the people using SID as an instrument on its own (various SID midiboxes!) are dumb aswell. the commercial people using SID music in their works are dumb aswell. the SID fan bands playing SID music live are dumb aswell. People remixing SID music are dumb aswell.

 

and the a8 people are dumb aswell because the pokey is better still they dont do none of these. something they just hold them pack. some misterious force.

 

 

and let me just ask you, do you listen to pokey music for entertainment? I do. not so often these days, but some years earlier lke every day I put in sid music for hours. that period lasted like 10 years in my life.

Edited April 26, 2009 by Wolfram

[oky2000]

You're right. But this fact seem to be a handycap on vertical scrolling games. Well, even when using a Super CPU, always h-scroller games show the "power" of the C64' chipset.

Better than no A8 game showing the "power" of the A8 chipset.

 

I presume emkay is talking about Metal Dust on SCPU and I have already posted a superior game video running on a stock C64 that is impossible to reproduce on the A8, despite his protests there is still a complete lack of video examples from emkay to prove otherwise even from a demo so I wouldn't worry about his trolling too much dude. It's just pro-fanboy trolling as usual from emkay

 

(Metal Dust mostly uses the SCPU for streaming sampled music tracks whilst playing the game, it's not really an impressive game at all compared to Enforcer II which doesn't even need extra ram or a 16/32bit CPU upgrade)

[Wolfram]

 

true 320x200, no interlace. c64 has better gfx. period.

[frenchman]

If millions of people follow a certain leader, does this mean that this leader is good? History has proven the opposit.

 

As I posted previously, there is no other way for him, being German, HE HAS TO BE RIGHT, even if it's the wrong decision.

[frenchman]

but some years earlier lke every day I put in sid music for hours. that period lasted like 10 years in my life.

 

Now we know what went wrong!

[Wolfram]

You're right. But this fact seem to be a handycap on vertical scrolling games. Well, even when using a Super CPU, always h-scroller games show the "power" of the C64' chipset.

 

 

emkay has not much idea of what he is talking of. vertical or horizontal scroller doesnt matters, the cpu load is the same. horizontals were prefered because the screen layout matches better for it: you can see further on whats coming up. makes better gameplay. its as simple as that.

[Wolfram]

 

orchestra playing SID music:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EeArqKNKgg

[oky2000]

sid vs pokey..

 

show me people going to parties to celebrate pokey music, to dance to pure pokey music:

 

That people doing stuff like that, does not mean SID is better. *DEEP SIGH*

 

If 1 million people say something stupid, it STILL is stupid. Do you get that?

 

If millions of people follow a certain leader, does this mean that this leader is good? History has proven the opposit.

 

You are using false arguments, to prove you are right. Please stop doing that. Thanks.

 

oh so there's a lot of dumb people on the c64 side because they go to dedicated SID parties to celebrate SID music. the orchestras playing SID music are dumb aswell. the people using SID as an instrument on its own (various SID midiboxes!) are dumb aswell. the commercial people using SID music in their works are dumb aswell. the SID fan bands playing SID music live are dumb aswell. People remixing SID music are dumb aswell.

 

and the a8 people are dumb aswell because the pokey is better still they dont do none of these. something they just hold them pack. some misterious force.

 

 

and let me just ask you, do you listen to pokey music for entertainment? I do. not so often these days, but some years earlier lke every day I put in sid music for hours. that period lasted like 10 years in my life.

 

I actually agree with you there Marius1976. What wolfram posted has nothing to do with the quality of the sound chip at all.

 

However Martin Galway producing both an almost perfect reproduction of an electric guitar without using samples just stock SID waveforms is 1.

A very very close rendition of the Rambo movie soundtrack in the C64 game again using no samples just the SID waveforms/effects built in is 2.

And the trancey/trippy/electronica type tune in both Miami Vice another so 3.

 

Also after listening to Ghostbusters on both A8 and C64 using real hardware today I noticed that the sampled speech on the C64 is ever so slightly better so the claim that pokey does better samples is not really accepted, at best they are the same (the SID 8580 is another matter!). And the samples on Tempest Extreme are really horrible and scratchy on the A8. That doesn't make the Pokey a bad soundchip though, there are worse ones I can think of.

 

I think wolfram gets too excited sometimes and takes an extra unrelated step in his excitement that's all. The most popular music is not always the best, look at all the Bruce Springstien crap we had to listen to in the 90s haha but there is just far too many facts technically speaking (ADSR,frequency range,variable filtering,and cummulative synchronistation and ring modulation) that do point to the better piece of silicon....the fact that 4 or 5 really talented musicians worked on the SID is just a nice coincidence.

[Wolfram]

I think wolfram gets too excited sometimes and takes an extra unrelated step in his excitement that's all. The most popular music is not always the best, look at all the Bruce Springstien crap we had to listen to in the 90s haha but there is just far too many facts technically speaking (ADSR,frequency range,variable filtering,and cummulative synchronistation and ring modulation) that do point to the better piece of silicon....the fact that 4 or 5 really talented musicians worked on the SID is just a nice coincidence.

 

GOD /o\. its not about music, its about the SID, which was (IS!) CAPABLE of making popular music. pokey is not.

[thorfdbg]

There is a clear winner if you continue analyzing hardware aspects and not mix in some specific software (Atari BASIC) as other software can be written. You forgot about CPU speed, bootable system, timers, i/o speed, display list-based graphics modes/scrolling/mixing text/replication, overscan/narrow, etc. Based on an analysis of a few features, it would be hard to see a clear winner. Now the ability to combine all these features together in various combinations gives a greater flexible/more powerful system for Atari.

 

Oh boy... You don't understand. Both machines were designed for the masses, for consumers. If you want to compare them, you need to compare what both companies delivered to address those users. The average user did not write his or hers own BASIC. The average user run what they got, so yes, the BASIC does matter.

 

The CPU speed is rather irrelevant. I'm not aware of a situation where this really matters, and using *this* as an argument is really pretty weak, excuse me. It's not that much of a big difference, and for the average user, namely the guy that either played games or wrote programs in BASIC, it didn't matter. Actually, Atari BASIC was quite on the slow side.

 

DLI modes are "advanced hackery" - you should understand what the system was *designed for*, and not what you can achive with advanced hackery. In the same sense, C64 "raster interrupts" are advanced hackery, and apparently not quite as well integrated into the overall design as DLIs, due to the lack of a WSYNC register, resp. the HALT line of the Sally CPU. Yes, you can play such games on both machines, but that isn't an indicator for engineering quality. Engineering means finding the right compromises to solve the problem at hand. None of these modes were "engineered" into the system.

 

Replication etc... nothing of that was really used a lot, nor is it overly useful, and taking that as a argument is again rather poor. I said that the Atari graphics playfield system is clearly more advanced, and this should be sufficient, and this implies support for hardware scrolling the C64 does not have. In the same sentence you forget the rather poor player/missle system of GTIA, BTW, and yes, it is really poor compared to the C64 sprites.

 

No, I don't think the Atari *is* the more powerful system. Nor do I think the C64 *is* the more powerful system. Both system designs have good and bad parts.

 

Wolfram said that apparently the capabilities of the Atari didn't create better games. Likely right, but one shouldn't forget that for an average gaming company, the pure hardware characteristics of a machine are irrelevant. How many units you sell is relevant, thus talented people are allocated to the more popular machine. And for the average customer, the average graphics capability is also irrelevant, but what was relevant is a) which machine do my friends have, and b) the price. And Atari apparently got b) too late, by that had trouble with a).

 

Thus, comparing the machines on the basis of the games available is probably a somewhat suitable measure for success, but tells not so much about the engineering but rather on the management of a company. Tramiel's fight by the price was, at that time, apparently a good decision, and created the user and the software basis to make it a successful machine. It didn't make it a *better* machine, which is quite a different quality measure - better as in "better engineering", I mean.

 

So long,

Thomas

[Marius]

oh so there's a lot of dumb people on the c64 side because they go to dedicated SID parties to celebrate SID music. the orchestras playing SID music are dumb aswell. the people using SID as an instrument on its own (various SID midiboxes!) are dumb aswell. the commercial people using SID music in their works are dumb aswell. the SID fan bands playing SID music live are dumb aswell. People remixing SID music are dumb aswell.

 

READ READ READ!

 

You simply do not read.

 

I wrote (and yes I write it again)

 

If 1 million people say something stupid, it STILL is stupid. Do you get that?

 

Your logic is this:

Lot of people adore SID, so SID must be good.

 

I say:

Something 'stupid' is still stupid, even million people say it.

 

I don't say:

SID = STUPID

 

I mean:

That your redenation is false; you can't say: sid is better, because people are doing the things you showed me on the youtube movie.

 

SO as I ask you again:

Please stop using false arguments, as prove.

 

and let me just ask you, do you listen to pokey music for entertainment? I do. not so often these days, but some years earlier lke every day I put in sid music for hours. that period lasted like 10 years in my life.

 

Again a question and argument which will lead to nothing. I'm glad you like the SID. I like it too. But I like pokey more. And yes I listen pokey music for fun yes.

But I prefer listening to "real" music (whatever 'real' means; before we start a neverending braindead discussion about music)

 

I don't understand why you want to be right. Well... special for you: ok commodore 64 is better, SID is better, Germany is better (which they were used to sing for decades too I believe).

 

So you can go to bed now. You won. You just won. WOW! Are you happy now? Did I prevent world war III now?

 

have fun with your c64.

 

This is the last word from my side in this discussion, and I regret every character I used for it. It's a waste of time.

 

Good luck in the rest of your life.

Marius

[Wolfram]

That your redenation is false; you can't say: sid is better, because people are doing the things you showed me on the youtube movie.

 

I think its a very valid point. what most people like is usually a good thing, and what most peope dont prefer is usually a not so good thing.

 

oh, then lets see the features:

 

- 16 bit freq for 3 channels

- 4 waveforms + mixed ones

- Filter lowpass, highpass, bandpass

- ADSR

- 16 bit square waveform width registers

- input of outside signal&can filter it

- paddles

- synch/ringmod, etc

 

hackery:

 

- possible to play 3 channel 8 bit digi or 2 channel sid + 1 channel 8 bit digi with 2-3 mixed digi channel

- or 3 channel sid + 1 4 bit digi channel

 

have fun with your c64.

 

This is the last word from my side in this discussion, and I regret every character I used for it. It's a waste of time.

 

Good luck in the rest of your life.

 

thanks

Edited April 26, 2009 by Wolfram

[oky2000]

With a several year advantage, and the rapid state of change in computing, C64 coming up a TIE in the best, very generous, case, isn't getting it done....

And it doesn't come close to tieing. As you agreed before, marketing is a field by itself nothing to do with inferior/superior technology. The fact is C64 selling more means worse for the people in general since they are saturating the marketing with an inferior product and thus gave people less of a chance to get the best computing had to offer.

Calling the c64 an 'inferior product' while labelling the Atari 'the best computing had to offer' is a pretty steep claim. (Just to be clear, you are talking about the Atari, right?). Perhaps you'll tell me you have proved this many times over in this thread?

 

And while you might argue that "marketing is a field by itself nothing to do with inferior/superior technology", when it comes to marketing technological products, you can bet the various technological strengths of those products are on the table to some degree at least - maybe they'll be distorted by the marketing, maybe many details will go over the consumers' heads, but the consumers are sure to have some interest in what they're getting for the money, and the marketers won't ignore that. In my case, I was all set to get a vic-20 (thanks to some guy at school trying to sell me his one) until I read some guff about the c64's 'arcade-like' sprites.

 

Mind you, I'd agree that the Atari doesn't come in a tie with the c64. It's good to see that we can agree on some things. (Warning: This is a light-hearted joke!)

 

As long as you don't resort to name calling and take back all your name calling, I'll reply to my factual claim: "The fact is C64 selling more means worse for the people in general since they are saturating the marketing with an inferior product and thus gave people less of a chance to get the best computing had to offer."

 

Interesting, trying to sneak in a fake win just by writing your machine is superior in the sentence. lol that's classic seriously. Inferior in what way? This thread is far from over..

 

In 1982...less memory, slower unmodifiable tape loaders, less sophisticate soundchip, less sophisticated sprites.

...

 

Atarian already answered your point regarding engineering quality. It's not a fake win; I also answered you several times but you never replied (or saw the replies). I did say the same earlier in the thread that Atari is overall superior hardware after doing many hardware comparisons (pages 1..114). I don't mind repeating, but you have not shown me that we are having a two-way conversation.

 

If I take a week off and the thread topic grows by 40 pages I don't read every single thing no true.

 

A8s have a less sophisticated soundchip (please don't make fools out of yourselves on this one, just read the technical specs for both chips and accept it once and for all)

 

64k games that take 30 minutes to load from tape is not superior hardware in any way either.

 

The player missile arrangement is an older technology and bigger compromise than sprites again simple plain facts.

 

I am not claiming either machine is 100% superior in every possible aspect but that post AND the fact that not one single piece of code running on a stock A8 that is AS GOOD as my Enforcer II level 2 game video proves as a games machine it is hardly superior by any margin.

 

let me put it this way before the flame wars continue (and for those who missed me saying this 80 pages ago!)

 

The C64 can not run Rescue on Fractalus as fast as an 800XL because we don't have a screen resolution lower than 160x200x4c and we don't have a CPU faster than 1mhz. I already admitted this, that game is a fine showcase for the A8 simple as that, no denial, no fanboy theoretical machine code/assembler listings.

 

But at the same time the A8 will never play an electric guitar sound without resorting to sample playback (which on Ghostbusters is nearly identical and excellent quality on both) OR so accurately recreate the instrumental soundtrack of the movie Rambo as closely as the SID does in the C64 game of the same name.

 

And finally I am very skeptical that the A8 can do anything like enforcer II level 2 demo I posted a youtube video link to 95 pages ago, and ever since doing so this descended into a flame war and very little impressive game videos being linked in response.

 

I own an 800, 800XL, 130XE and 65XE...why would I want them to be rubbish? As I have said many many times I own ALL 8bit machines ever made available in europe, I have them here I have 1000s of games all over the house for them all. So why in gods name would I want the machine to be rubbish?

 

I'm open minded when looking at Atari stuff, and try as best I can to stick to facts BUT I expect the same sort of response in return, and if I don't get it then quite rightly I will assume fanboyism AND ignorance.

 

If you could ALL JUST GET ALONG and actually say "yes that's a great piece of coding on [commodore/atari] it is incredible what can be done with talented programming!" instead of posting non factual rants at each other. Sure it is an Atari forum BUT if I was stupid I would have got a Mac and NOT an ST in 1986, I don't blindly follow any machine at all I stick to the software or technical specifications as much as possible and regardless of price the ST was a whole lot better than the Mac even GEM vs Mac OS so if I was a real Commodore fanboy I would never have got an ST at all and been happy with just a C64 and Amiga and got a Mac instead of an ST for work and left it at that.

 

Peace out people, take a deep breath and look at the whole picture. It's not a war, but you can't expect us to be factual and fair if we don't ALL act the same way.

[Irgendwer]

orchestra playing SID music:

...

 

What are you trying to tell: SID can play a score and an orchestra too? SID invented the score?

 

You still not answered my question: Are you honest?

 

BTW: Your 'people dancing to SID-vid' is somewhat useless, since the they dancing to something

which contains 'SID' but was improved with other 'instruments' too...

 

CU

Irgendwer