atariksi Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 Gauntlet - color I think you will agree.... That looks good. Is that sprites in hi-res using one of the GPRIOR modes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 (edited) Its Antic 4 AFAIK - the enemy characters move in 4 pixel jumps It also fails to use the 5th color in the main play area - so it looks less than it could IMHO - I think 5 different colors rather than 3 shades plus black would have looked more authentic. The C64 was color limited, but a bit closer to the arcade. Edited June 12, 2009 by Jetboot Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 atari gauntlet is antic e... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 oh... the Turrican demo is quite interesting... is it based on the Crownland engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 ...why on earth did they use antic E - since nothing moves smoothly, it would have been faster and more colorful to use char mode!! I guess the same people brought us Tower Toppler in Antic F, mono glory too - so no surprises!! HVE - that Sprite multiplexer demo that looks like Turrican - quite good, a bit flickery, but still a cool approach - the main sprite is grim, but the rest is good! sTeVE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 re: gauntlet it was a suprise by myself when I was doing researches for Beyond Evil.... I don't see any benefit for using antic e... no 5th colour. no quick erasing possible, even scrolling is a paint when adjusting all the lms and so on... suprisingly that it runs in 25/30 fps at least... Maybe they used antic e because of not enough chars available? but it does not have many different chars anyway... well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 (edited) I got excited thinking that maybe Pr0be was looking at the possibility of doing Turrican after seeing this above but after reading the forum via Google translate is was just a technical test. It's a good example to demonstrate possibilities. Edited June 12, 2009 by Tezz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R4ngerM4n Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 Can someone post a mp3 or avi-file of the test please? I just cannot download the xex-file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvas Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 (edited) Can someone post a mp3 or avi-file of the test please? I just cannot download the xex-file. Don't just click on it, since it is named as an mp3 file and the browser tries to play it. Save to disk instead (Opera: right click -> Save linked content as) and rename it to "*.xex" Edited June 12, 2009 by jvas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 ...why on earth did they use antic E - since nothing moves smoothly, it would have been faster and more colorful to use char mode!! I guess the same people brought us Tower Toppler in Antic F, mono glory too - so no surprises!! HVE - that Sprite multiplexer demo that looks like Turrican - quite good, a bit flickery, but still a cool approach - the main sprite is grim, but the rest is good! sTeVE The bottom text "Gauntlet" and other parts look like ANTIC F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 Antic 2 - text?? sTeVE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 12, 2009 Share Posted June 12, 2009 that is antic 2.... unfortunatly not antic f... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 13, 2009 Share Posted June 13, 2009 that is antic 2.... unfortunatly not antic f... Inside information or did you guess that from the picture? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted June 13, 2009 Share Posted June 13, 2009 (edited) Run the game under emulation (I used to use Atari800) and open the monitor from there you can list the DL sTeVE Edited June 13, 2009 by Jetboot Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 13, 2009 Share Posted June 13, 2009 yup.... atari monitor... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 yup.... atari monitor... So they used ANTIC mode 2 instead of F and then redefined the character set to get that fancy "gauntlet" title. It would easier to use Antic F given rest of screen is antic E and is not benefitting from character set redefinition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 simply because they reused c64 gfx for the panel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 simply because they reused c64 gfx for the panel. Aha, so we see the inefficiencies of porting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 no...actually it is efficient... why invent the wheel twice when you can use the panel+font directly? why they have used antic e is more a question... as the c64 one is char based... that is inefficient... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 no...actually it is efficient... why invent the wheel twice when you can use the panel+font directly? why they have used antic e is more a question... as the c64 one is char based... that is inefficient... The "Gauntlet" title is easier to do with Antic F; char redefinition would be more complex and memory hogging than doing a few plots/drawtos. It just happens to be done already so they used it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 er, no - the enemies all move in char mode steps - so doing it in char mode would be easy!!!! It seems they based the A8 version on the spectrum version sTeVE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 er, no - the enemies all move in char mode steps - so doing it in char mode would be easy!!!! It seems they based the A8 version on the spectrum version sTeVE So they reused the character definitions to paint chars in antic E. I thought char mode would be easier with the 5-color modes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 Oh my god, is this thread going to set a new world record for largest thread ever on a bulletin board forum? We are talking about something that went of the market over 20 years ago and we got much better computers now. Not sure everyone here are people still living in their parents basement. (thats where I found my Atari computer after its been sitting there since the late 90's.) I gave my own opinion about both computers 6 months ago and not sure why people want to rave on which computer is better. The problem was not in the hardware, but the management of the companies and the ability to have software written for them. Plus they kept coming up with different computer models that could not run existing software from older computer models. That is what led to the downfall to both companies. First they assumed the video game era was over after the '83 crash until Nintendo. Then the IBM-PC with Microsoft established a new standard. This killed Atari and Commodore and how people can say which is better after both eventually failed. Please do something more interesting with this forum instead of dragging this on and on and on and on...... and on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 Oh my god, is this thread going to set a new world record for largest thread ever on a bulletin board forum? We are talking about something that went of the market over 20 years ago and we got much better computers now. ... Computers got better but the following occurred: (1) they don't write software like Atari games anymore-- they are too complex (to play/program/debug) and bloated, (2) they use analog joysticks that suck and are inexact and nonstandard and complex-- some have 10 buttons, some have 8 buttons, some have 176 buttons (for flight simulator), (3) modern machines went for faster and faster CPUs and more and more inexact timings-- just try to estimate how long a piece of code will take to execute (take into account memory speeds worst/best cases, caching, dynamic frequency shifts, power management modes, alignment of code, etc.), (4) modern machines have too much nonstandard hardware-- so you can't write directly to VGA/Sound registers, etc. (5) It's easier (and generally more accurate) to use older machines to time things to exact cycles without latency. >Not sure everyone here are people still living in their parents basement. (thats where I found my Atari computer after its been sitting there since the late 90's.) I gave my own opinion about both computers 6 months ago and not sure why people want to rave on which computer is better. Because older machines are still useful although overall PCs are better. So what's best of the older 8-bit machines is the central topic here. Try to write to pins on joystick port on modern machines by turning on the machine and after 2 seconds typing POKE 54018/54016,xx. Or try to take over the entire system and know what is exactly happening on a cycle by cycle basis (from software perspective). Simplicity is sometimes more important. >...they assumed the video game era was over after the '83 crash until Nintendo. Then the IBM-PC with Microsoft established a new standard. This killed Atari and Commodore and how people can say which is better after both eventually failed. Please do something more interesting with this forum instead of dragging this on and on and on and on...... and on. This is more interesting than arguing about how many tasks hogged up CPU time and were causing hard drive LED to flash while system was taking several minutes in booting up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oky2000 Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 That slows development, and that is the reason why there were less and less games available during 80s for Atari than for c64... I don't agree. The reason that Atari A8s had less games developed for them was due to volume of sales. The C64 had a massive user base, the Atari did not. More users=more games=more money for the developers. Simple economics. This equation is not exact too because, that one can be true too. More GOOD game = More User = More money for the developers = even More GOOD game A8 have been released in 79 .. Developper didnt manage to really exploit the machine to produce killer game. they were stucked on "out of the box" feature , they didn't go further. The result are average quality games. for the C64, the "out of the box" feature were better and easly exploitable, so with no effort you could manage to make a a relatvly good game. The good game helped to sell the machine , as the machine sold well, more developper comes to the machine, more game were produced , and as if you want sell your game , your game must be better than competitor game , developper invest time in the machine, find new techniques and games becomes better and better. This chain reaction didn't occurs on the A8 , because the "killer" features was not enough accessible/documented at this time. I read an article recently (i think in Retro Gamer magazine) where the creator of Drop Zone said something like "When it discovered the "hidden" feature of the A8 , it changes its world. It discovered that only after having managed to get an Atari Internal document , before that it was doing just 6502 code it wasn't aware about DLI , Antic etc..." He has been lucky enough to discover, that was not the case of lot of other developpers i guess. You are missing a bigger point in the slow A8 development - Atari held back releasing tech specs for the computer. Commodore was much more open day 1 with the C64. Once info leaked about the 800 things started to improve, but that took a few years. I think Fundamentally the issue is not one of 'no decent games from 79 onwards' OR lack of development help (Commodore never told Chris Butler how to do Sega style sprite/2D scaling games to mimic the Sega System 16 games like Space Harrier or Turbo Outrun etc did they?) In the early days of the 'war' the Atari had some good games...from early games like Star Raiders (which is great for the time) and then Rescue on Fractalus and then Mercenary etc. And as stated above it was NOT Commodore who told Rob Hubbard or Martin Galway how to wring the last bit of performance out of the SID or other coders how to get 'impossible' conversions of arcade games such as Salamander(Lifeforce) by Konami onto the C64...it was all pure talent. So was it a lack of talent? Or because the C64 is just the better compromise. By the early-mid 80s most of the useable* tricks the A8 could use had been found...but as late as early 90s we had new tricks in the VIC/SID chipset to exploit like the VSP fullscreen any direction scrolling that works the same way as on a Sega home console or even the Amiga by assigning screen memory to scroll the screen really fast. Hell you could do a good version of Sonic using the Mayhem in Monsterland engine. Anyway, my personal take on it is still the C64 is the better compromise....3 voices of superior flexibility....and again less colours but much superior flexibility for getting them all o screen and ditto with volume/colour depth of sprites Vs P/M graphics on A8. Some machines are just better at some things than others....I am not stupid enough to think you could do a decent Street Fighter II game on the C64 anywhere near as good as say the Sega Master System SG-3000 or the Nintendo NES. As time moved on better compromises where found at the design stage. It's a simple fact of how the C64 palette and sprite system works...live with it. Ditto for some things like Enforcer level II demo or pure believable electric guitar sounds from the SID using STANDARD non sampled waveforms. But what are you looking for? The best games? even if only 5% of C64 games were awesome 1% of 12000 odd titles released for the C64 is a lot! And you will never find a clear winner based on games as they are subjective. And then when you talk about hardware are you talking about 'useful' features of the hardware or just quirks that are impossible to use in a game without severe compromises? Also someone mentioned Freescape games on A8 would be faster than anything else...I highly doubt that...the Spectrum/Amstrad has a much faster CPU for that kind of thing. Sure maybe better selection of 4 colours out 256 on screen...that maybe 1 or 2 people in the world might notice compared to the 27 colours of the Amstrad CPC Elite on the A8 would also not be as fast as the BBC micro version as some dreamers state, yeah 1.8mhz is OK speed but it is not the fastest around...just faster than a C64 (which has better sprites anyway so you waste a lot less CPU time trying to replicate VIC-II features in software compared to other machines). I did however hear an interesting SAP from Hubbard which is not labelled as such but is a Pokey version of Sanxion's loading music which is ok. Better than I thought so there you go...the 250 pages+ ARE worth it really because it forces you to challenge your beliefs and look for new things. This is what people on both sides should take away from this thread...NOT rabid flamewars/fanboy trolling! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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