Atari v Commodore

[atariksi]

aehm... Numen vector part? after sticky man... http://numen.scene.pl/screens.html

 

 

Drunk Chessboard

 

 

What resolution*colors is the rubiks cube part? That looks like filled polygons.

[MaPa]

aehm... Numen vector part? after sticky man... http://numen.scene.pl/screens.html

 

 

Drunk Chessboard

 

 

What resolution*colors is the rubiks cube part? That looks like filled polygons.

 

http://numen.scene.pl/tech.html

[oky2000]

What's also interesting is that apart from the C128 and the BBC Micro series there is no machine that actually has a Z80 processor AND custom hardware for any kind of graphics. And even those two machines can't actually use their custom hardware AND the Z80 2nd processor together.

 

you're forgetting Amstrad CPC plus, which was a beast. Unfortunately nobody bothered to make use of its capabilities, cause 8 bits were dead by that time.

 

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=26

 

some CPC Plus demos, some of them look really amazing for an 8 bit !

 

 

I had already talk about CPC plus somewhere in that post. They are indeed very impressive 8bits machine looking at the hardware capabilities. Unfortunaly they cames far to late..

 

MSX Turbo R have also Z80 and custum hardware for graphics , they are even more impressive.

 

But they are machine from 90's , not end of 70's /start of 80's.

 

Not only that, the CPC Plus range was just an off shoot of the Amstrad GX-4000 console (which nobody bought and flopped) really AND it was released after the Amiga/ST/Archimedes/PC-Engine. All far superior machines built before then. No offence but things done with 8-bits after the Amiga breathed life is a waste of my time and backwards step in technology. Talk about things like the TI99/4A and I might be interested seeing as it was around the time of the A8 launch machines etc

[Heaven/TQA]

no...TI has "real" sprites...

[youki]

The TI is 16 bits , no 8!

[emkay]

emkay... I know but at that time I have done my best to have at least some transitions in... but you have the transitions integrated by switching portal vs fx...

 

So... Numen does have transition and is not like fx follows fx...

 

On the technical side it is simply FX follow FX...

 

Imagine, "you" jump into the pool. While the screen is getting blue coloured, you see some "PM bubbles" and the screen turns into the water FX....

As long as the bubbles appear, the FX screen uses one "layer" and after the bubbles have gone, the 2nd layer appears.

Then, the camera turns up, and you see the bubbles again... turning into disappearing waterdrops after "you" go out of the water, back into the 3D scene....

 

 

This is what I'd name "Transitions"

[atariksi]

aehm... Numen vector part? after sticky man... http://numen.scene.pl/screens.html

 

 

Drunk Chessboard

 

 

What resolution*colors is the rubiks cube part? That looks like filled polygons.

 

http://numen.scene.pl/tech.html

 

It states 64*59, 10+ for the rubiks cube. But it looks bigger than that on the screen so is it doing like 2*2s of 64*59 in 10+ colors or using a lower resolution graphics mode?

[MaPa]

aehm... Numen vector part? after sticky man... http://numen.scene.pl/screens.html

 

 

Drunk Chessboard

 

 

What resolution*colors is the rubiks cube part? That looks like filled polygons.

 

http://numen.scene.pl/tech.html

 

It states 64*59, 10+ for the rubiks cube. But it looks bigger than that on the screen so is it doing like 2*2s of 64*59 in 10+ colors or using a lower resolution graphics mode?

 

10++ is GTIA mode 10 with Vscrol trick to stretch lines to get square pixels. One gr. mode line is 4 scanlines high so 240 scanlines /4 = 60 -1 to avoid bug, the vertical resolution is 59. Horizontal resolution is normal GTIA mode in narrow screen - 64.

[oky2000]

The TI is 16 bits , no 8!

 

 

So it's kind of the opposite of the PC-Engine which was an 8bit CPU and 16bit computer beating graphics? LOL

 

I was playing some C16 games today, and it's amazing how they are similar to Atari games, plenty of horizontal scanline colour, otherwise the extra 112 colours don't really make a huge difference most of the time. Heck even some of the sound effects were nearly identical to Pokey.

[Crazyace]

The TI is 16 bits , no 8!

 

 

So it's kind of the opposite of the PC-Engine which was an 8bit CPU and 16bit computer beating graphics? LOL

 

I was playing some C16 games today, and it's amazing how they are similar to Atari games, plenty of horizontal scanline colour, otherwise the extra 112 colours don't really make a huge difference most of the time. Heck even some of the sound effects were nearly identical to Pokey.

 

I wonder how much of that is because of the background - c16 games are probally c64 games - with sprites taken away, or generated in software ( which might reduce the main screen to 3 colours + background ) , and horizontal scanline colour changes are easy to use to get 'sunsets'

[oky2000]

The TI is 16 bits , no 8!

 

 

So it's kind of the opposite of the PC-Engine which was an 8bit CPU and 16bit computer beating graphics? LOL

 

I was playing some C16 games today, and it's amazing how they are similar to Atari games, plenty of horizontal scanline colour, otherwise the extra 112 colours don't really make a huge difference most of the time. Heck even some of the sound effects were nearly identical to Pokey.

 

I wonder how much of that is because of the background - c16 games are probally c64 games - with sprites taken away, or generated in software ( which might reduce the main screen to 3 colours + background ) , and horizontal scanline colour changes are easy to use to get 'sunsets'

 

I think it's more to do with the fact that when you are stuck with stock total numbers of colours on a machine having much more than 16 good colour choices really doesn't make a whole load of difference. Like I always said, a huge colour palette is useless unless you can at least use ANY 16 colors per scan line without any tricks on any machine.

[atariksi]

The TI is 16 bits , no 8!

 

 

So it's kind of the opposite of the PC-Engine which was an 8bit CPU and 16bit computer beating graphics? LOL

 

I was playing some C16 games today, and it's amazing how they are similar to Atari games, plenty of horizontal scanline colour, otherwise the extra 112 colours don't really make a huge difference most of the time. Heck even some of the sound effects were nearly identical to Pokey.

 

I wonder how much of that is because of the background - c16 games are probally c64 games - with sprites taken away, or generated in software ( which might reduce the main screen to 3 colours + background ) , and horizontal scanline colour changes are easy to use to get 'sunsets'

 

I think it's more to do with the fact that when you are stuck with stock total numbers of colours on a machine having much more than 16 good colour choices really doesn't make a whole load of difference. Like I always said, a huge colour palette is useless unless you can at least use ANY 16 colors per scan line without any tricks on any machine.

 

Sorry, but you are wrong. Some games are really good with the color choices like Donkey Kong, Joust, etc. Especially games that change colors per level like Gyruss and Boulderdash. I wonder how you are going to prove your statement.

[potatohead]

I think it's more to do with the fact that when you are stuck with stock total numbers of colours on a machine having much more than 16 good colour choices really doesn't make a whole load of difference. Like I always said, a huge colour palette is useless unless you can at least use ANY 16 colors per scan line without any tricks on any machine.

 

Absolutely not true. It's not as easy to put them on the screen where they are wanted, and that maybe limits things like pixel art, but the truth is having lots of colors coupled with lots of resolutions means having lots of different screen display textures. Washed out, high contrast, varying by level, or game function, pointer, user selectable, and other kinds of palettes are all significantly improved with a good color selection.

 

Carry on.

 

[atariksi]

The TI is 16 bits , no 8!

 

 

So it's kind of the opposite of the PC-Engine which was an 8bit CPU and 16bit computer beating graphics? LOL

 

I was playing some C16 games today, and it's amazing how they are similar to Atari games, plenty of horizontal scanline colour, otherwise the extra 112 colours don't really make a huge difference most of the time. Heck even some of the sound effects were nearly identical to Pokey.

 

I wonder how much of that is because of the background - c16 games are probally c64 games - with sprites taken away, or generated in software ( which might reduce the main screen to 3 colours + background ) , and horizontal scanline colour changes are easy to use to get 'sunsets'

 

One drawback of having a bunch of incompatible 8-bit machines from same company is support would generally go to one that is more popular and it creates confusion for the users. Using incompatible joystick ports, removing sprites, degrading sounds, inaccurate processor-based timing (due to CPU frequency changes), etc. shows you can have inferior machines produced later on in time by the same company; thus the lame argument a machine is better because it came a few years afterwards is no argument at all.

 

I noticed how in many early systems the software-based collision detection in many games shows up as quite significant when they can't keep up with 60fps screen updates.

[José Pereira]

Horizontal and vertical games could have very good versions on A8.

I disagree with Oky. With 4 colours you can create good games. You have possibility to increase the number (sprites overlaped, DLIs., rasters).

 

One game that shows this it's Shadow of the Beast. If it will be ended, it will be the the best 8bit version. If you go to Youtube and see the video with all the versions of this game, the best are the ones with different blue colours sky lines (like A8 - with that DLIs.). The C64 it's horrible (I think).

This game have, in my opinion, the best looking colour graphics. Will this ever be ended?

 

And why? Simply because the programmers do all the job with the A8 technical solutions. Now, imagine they do a simple port from C64. Once again we were talking of only 3/4 colours and only 1 multicolour real hardware sprite. Great, great job in Shadow of the Beast. I think it's one, if not the best, to show us all, what could or can be done on A8.

 

 

Some other games, like the ones with static screens, coul be done with better use of A8 capabilities. World Soccer and Kenny Dauglish, for example,

with a simple sprites overlaped with PFs. could create different colours in each of the squares at top and bottom of the screen, And the football player (in World) with other colours, more like reality and with use of PMs. will be like C64 screens. In this kind of game it will not decrease the speed of the game.

Simply like we do now with G2f.

 

And with this, I have a question. Why no one in the past use Gprior0? Do you know of some game that uses this possibility in that time? I don´t remember

of anyone?

Scrooling games, with different sprites, 1 for each line don´t affect the game. But what woul the possible number using interrupt in each line, without affect

much of the speed (in a game as much as possible like Armalyte)?

 

Answers welcome!...

 

 

José Pereira.

[Jetboot Jack]

SoB is VERY early WIP on the A8...

 

There were a number of things yet to be overcome - only 1/3 of the above ground graphics were done into character sets (although I had lifted them all from the Amiga version and crushed them down to the 8bit), no below ground work had been done (what you see is just 10 chars of place holder) and there were NO enemies...

 

Given we were using 2PMG + 2 Missiles for the Beast - we had just the remaining 2 sprites and missiles for foes...

 

Our plan was to use play field graphics extensively, not sprites as such but animated characters with no backgrounds for lots of the enemies, with PMG for the flying ones and stuff like the big hands (20 pixel wide mono PMG, stretched to double width, they were MASSIVE!).

 

I would say we were no more than 20% complete, BUT we had 100% placeholder in memory for all items, so our one load plan would have worked (I hope)...

 

sTeVE

[José Pereira]

Thanks Steve

 

The ideas and some code exist. Who wants to follow?

 

José Pereira.

[José Pereira]

I remember some games (G2f technic in the past).

 

- ACE OF ACES - The loading (with the airplane) - the pilot inside the airplane.

- DRUID - At the top - the status area - Fire, Golem and other objects - Pfs. in Hi.Resol. with Pms.

- GAUNTLET and HARDBALL - at the bottom, the status area - Gr.0 with 2/3 different background colours - I'm not certain, but, diferent colour squares are what? Probably Pms at Quaduple Lenght.

 

José Pereira.

[atariksi]

...

Probably Pms at Quaduple Lenght.

 

José Pereira.

 

You shouldn't dismiss 4X zoom on sprites to be useless: it helps cover the entire screen with an overlay without using CPU cycles or multiplexing engines. And if you use GPRIOR mode 0, you get a better selection of colors as every 4*1 area can take on original PF0, PF1, PF2 or ORed with with a player color or ORed with ORed players in multicolor mode.

 

Now if you multiplex the players horizontally in 4X zoom, then you have each 4*1 having many options for colors in 160*200 mode.

[MaPa]

And with this, I have a question. Why no one in the past use Gprior0? Do you know of some game that uses this possibility in that time? I don´t remember

of anyone?

 

I personally heard first time about this feature one year ago but I'm not good example of ATARI programmer. I did almost nothing in the past, just small BASIC programs and one machine language game like 15 years ago. But thanks to discovering of the GPRIOR 0 feature I got back with Crossover intro! (which uses this feature) hehe And I used that feature in the second intro New Year's Miracle too. Maybe they didn't know about it too or it was too complicated for them to use it.

[oky2000]

The TI is 16 bits , no 8!

 

 

So it's kind of the opposite of the PC-Engine which was an 8bit CPU and 16bit computer beating graphics? LOL

 

I was playing some C16 games today, and it's amazing how they are similar to Atari games, plenty of horizontal scanline colour, otherwise the extra 112 colours don't really make a huge difference most of the time. Heck even some of the sound effects were nearly identical to Pokey.

 

I wonder how much of that is because of the background - c16 games are probally c64 games - with sprites taken away, or generated in software ( which might reduce the main screen to 3 colours + background ) , and horizontal scanline colour changes are easy to use to get 'sunsets'

 

One drawback of having a bunch of incompatible 8-bit machines from same company is support would generally go to one that is more popular and it creates confusion for the users. Using incompatible joystick ports, removing sprites, degrading sounds, inaccurate processor-based timing (due to CPU frequency changes), etc. shows you can have inferior machines produced later on in time by the same company; thus the lame argument a machine is better because it came a few years afterwards is no argument at all.

 

I noticed how in many early systems the software-based collision detection in many games shows up as quite significant when they can't keep up with 60fps screen updates.

 

Well the Plus 4 was never meant to be produced and the Commodore 16 was supposed to sell for $50 retail. At these prices Jack Tramiel was correct to green light the project. After Jack left Commodore didn't have a clue what to do and refused to lower the price of the C64 due to greed so the crusty old Commodore 16 project was dug up again

 

 

The TI is 16 bits , no 8!

 

 

So it's kind of the opposite of the PC-Engine which was an 8bit CPU and 16bit computer beating graphics? LOL

 

I was playing some C16 games today, and it's amazing how they are similar to Atari games, plenty of horizontal scanline colour, otherwise the extra 112 colours don't really make a huge difference most of the time. Heck even some of the sound effects were nearly identical to Pokey.

 

I wonder how much of that is because of the background - c16 games are probally c64 games - with sprites taken away, or generated in software ( which might reduce the main screen to 3 colours + background ) , and horizontal scanline colour changes are easy to use to get 'sunsets'

 

I think it's more to do with the fact that when you are stuck with stock total numbers of colours on a machine having much more than 16 good colour choices really doesn't make a whole load of difference. Like I always said, a huge colour palette is useless unless you can at least use ANY 16 colors per scan line without any tricks on any machine.

 

Sorry, but you are wrong. Some games are really good with the color choices like Donkey Kong, Joust, etc. Especially games that change colors per level like Gyruss and Boulderdash. I wonder how you are going to prove your statement.

 

Erm well IMO Gyruss looks pretty much the same (which you would expect on a game that has 75% pure black background and tiny sprites) and UK Donkey Kong game by Ocean software looks A LOT better (and closer to the arcade in graphics) than any Atarisoft A8 version even with a paltry 16 colours...ie it looks spot on with the Nintendo arcade compared to the Atarisoft conversions which are both pretty crap on both.

 

My point is unlike with something like 320x256 or 320x200 on the Amiga/ST where the total number of hardware standard colours was 32 and 16 and huge palettes these can make a huge difference. But if you have to play with 160x100 or 80x200 or other low resolution screens to use 4 or 5 colours then your average arcade game isn't going to look that different apart from horizontal rasters/DLI type effects. Like I said IF the A8 could easily do 4 colours every 4x8 block in 160x200 then fine it would make a real difference but I see very little games do this and most A8 games are like early C64 games that stick to basic 4 colour setups for most of the screen for the most part. One game where it is nice to have the extra colours over the C64 is Attack of the Mutant Camels as I have said 100 pages ago.

 

As an interesting note, some machines have more total colours on screen than an Amiga but a smaller colour palette (256 colours total...128 colours on screen max for example) and in this situation having less colours but larger palette can make a great difference. Like for example in digitised images or graphics for adventure games where 32/64 colours are fine as a total given you have 4096 to choose from BUT in arcade/action games it is not much help sometimes....but the important thing is playing with 32 colours on screen in hi res is when palette size is important.

 

Does Bruce Lee look any different on the A8 or Zorro or the Goonies or International Karate etc etc? Palette is great only if you can use it in a decent resolution for fast action games @ 60hz.

[dwhyte]

Does Bruce Lee look any different on the A8 or Zorro or the Goonies or International Karate etc etc? Palette is great only if you can use it in a decent resolution for fast action games @ 60hz.

 

I like this point.

[emkay]

Does Bruce Lee look any different on the A8 or Zorro or the Goonies or International Karate etc etc? Palette is great only if you can use it in a decent resolution for fast action games @ 60hz.

 

I like this point.

 

Due to the limited palette on the C64, they made poor little broocie green like an Orc. On the A8 Bruce has the right skin colour.

 

And, well, decent resolution.... For a game it is better to have a resolution where you play on.

 

It plays like puke, if you see a higher resolution (320x200), and it moves constantly in a lower resolution (40x25).

Seeing Space Harrier, working on the screen resolution of 160x100 and the movement has the same resolution, makes it "cool down and relax" feeling

 

Most C64 Games don't run on 60Hz. Many do it partially (on the sprites) , but, as we know, the sprites cannot be reused endlessly, because they pull down the CPU speed. So, many games use the characters for doing movement on the screen, using the char-movement at that low resolution, to save CPU time.

[atariksi]

>>One drawback of having a bunch of incompatible 8-bit machines from same company is support would generally go to one that is more popular and it creates confusion for the users. Using incompatible joystick ports, removing sprites, degrading sounds, inaccurate processor-based timing (due to CPU frequency changes), etc. shows you can have inferior machines produced later on in time by the same company; thus the lame argument a machine is better because it came a few years afterwards is no argument at all.

 

>>I noticed how in many early systems the software-based collision detection in many games shows up as quite significant when they can't keep up with 60fps screen updates.

 

...

 

>>>I think it's more to do with the fact that when you are stuck with stock total numbers of colours on a machine having much more than 16 good colour choices really doesn't make a whole load of difference. Like I always said, a huge colour palette is useless unless you can at least use ANY 16 colors per scan line without any tricks on any machine.

 

>>Sorry, but you are wrong. Some games are really good with the color choices like Donkey Kong, Joust, etc. Especially games that change colors per level like Gyruss and Boulderdash. I wonder how you are going to prove your statement.

 

>Erm well IMO Gyruss looks pretty much the same (which you would expect on a game that has 75% pure black background and tiny sprites) and UK Donkey Kong game by Ocean software looks A LOT better (and closer to the arcade in graphics) than any Atarisoft A8 version even with a paltry 16 colours...ie it looks spot on with the Nintendo arcade compared to the Atarisoft conversions which are both pretty crap on both.

 

Your statement that "huge colour palette is useless unless you can at least use ANY 16 colors per scan line..." is just a speculation. Even having 16 shades out of 256 colors is useful. And Gyruss does change color scheme on Atari and variety is the spice of life. My point is some games don't need that many different colors but just accurate colors where the bigger the palette the better.

 

>My point is unlike with something like 320x256 or 320x200 on the Amiga/ST where the total number of hardware standard colours was 32 and 16 and huge palettes these can make a huge difference. But if you have to play with 160x100 or 80x200 or other low resolution screens to use 4 or 5 colours then your average arcade game isn't going to look that different apart from horizontal rasters/DLI type effects. Like I said IF the A8 could easily do 4 colours every 4x8 block in 160x200 then fine it would make a real difference but I see very little games do this and most A8 games are like early C64 games that stick to basic 4 colour setups for most of the screen for the most part. One game where it is nice to have the extra colours over the C64 is Attack of the Mutant Camels as I have said 100 pages ago.

 

I prefer having linear graphics modes and colors being available where needed rather than put into 4*8 or 8*8 cells. The latter is just extension of text mode.

 

>Does Bruce Lee look any different on the A8 or Zorro or the Goonies or International Karate etc etc? Palette is great only if you can use it in a decent resolution for fast action games @ 60hz.

 

Palette is useful in 60Hz and 30Hz; in fact, shading helps reduce flicker in interlaced modes. I think your attempt to downplay palette is not fooling anyone. Bigger palette is always useful. Bruce lee is a nice game on A8-- I bet it's slower on C64 -- but don't have it for C64 to make a fair comparison.

[atariksi]

Does Bruce Lee look any different on the A8 or Zorro or the Goonies or International Karate etc etc? Palette is great only if you can use it in a decent resolution for fast action games @ 60hz.

 

I like this point.

 

Due to the limited palette on the C64, they made poor little broocie green like an Orc. On the A8 Bruce has the right skin colour.

 

And, well, decent resolution.... For a game it is better to have a resolution where you play on.

 

It plays like puke, if you see a higher resolution (320x200), and it moves constantly in a lower resolution (40x25).

Seeing Space Harrier, working on the screen resolution of 160x100 and the movement has the same resolution, makes it "cool down and relax" feeling

 

Most C64 Games don't run on 60Hz. Many do it partially (on the sprites) , but, as we know, the sprites cannot be reused endlessly, because they pull down the CPU speed. So, many games use the characters for doing movement on the screen, using the char-movement at that low resolution, to save CPU time.

 

It looks like higher resolution w/more colors is more beneficial to faster 8-bit machines like Atari and lower resolutions like GTIA modes would benefit slower 8-bit machines like C64, but opposite is the case. So Atari ends up with superfast GTIA mode graphics.