atariksi Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 ... Yes DLIs can add color in horizontal stripes, but if I want to add detail like for example eye to a character I have to use pair of players... And that means player_covered_width=player_covered_width/2 Like if they weren'r narrow enough... ... I think SpyHunter does use many multicolor sprites (more than 2 colors) and the cars/trucks cross each other horizontally along with the helicopter. DLIs can be used for horizontal splits as well as vertical splits. Multiplexing them is easier on A8 -- it's only one HPOS write per sprite. >Hpos is same on C64, one write per sprite. >Changing Y-position of sprite on C64 in order to reuse it lower, can be done on any line after the first sprite line is displayed. >One lda-sta. >That means on any part of any of 20 raster lines ... >And sprite pointer is also one write per sprite or even better one write per 8 sprites using screen address change. >I wouldn't call it more difficult than moving sprite data across player buffer vertically. The multiplexor that occurs at high frequency (sub-frame speed) doesn't move player data. C64 would have been more optimal with sprites if they put the LSB of the positioning in a separate byte rather than the MSB. There were some examples given earlier where Atari sprites are better. >I'll try to find them... How about the 7-shaded curtains demo that uses overscan as one example. Or using full screen sprites in BASIC w/o any multiplexor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) The multiplexor that occurs at high frequency (sub-frame speed) doesn't move player data. Maybe it's just me being slow this morning, but I don't quite get what you're saying there.. It's the 'high frequency (sub-frame speed)' bit that's confusing.. What exactly do you mean ? C64 would have been more optimal with sprites if they put the LSB of the positioning in a separate byte rather than the MSB. Not true at all, then every man and his dog would have been lazy and just used 2 pixel positioning, which looks pants.. Just look at some Ocean games (as I recall them being mostly guilty of this).. As for being more optimal, the cost of handling the LSB in a sprite multiplexor would have been more expensive than having to handle the MSB.. It would require more code to generate the packed LSB than for a packed MSB, or require messy setting of positions (like swapping around D0 & D8) in the game code which eats cycles.. Having a seperate MSB keeps the code logical, simple and faster at every single stage of the process.. If the code was working with a regular 9bit position in 16bits then the code to extract the LSB, and shift the remaining 8bits into position, is more expensive than just comparing the hi-byte and doing a ROL A to generate the MSB.. Of course you can swap that around and hold the LSB in a seperate byte, but then that makes game-logic code handling positions messier than it should be.. Unless you stored the LSB in D7 to enable you to use the Carry sensibly, but then you've limited yourself to 9 bits of positioning in your game logic when often it's important to have more than that.. So.. They did the right thing I think.. The only thing they could have done would be maybe to give each sprite a seperate hi-byte for the position, but that would have been wasteful, and in 99% of cases not bring any speed advantage to it all.. But hey, either way, it's nice that we got proper full resolution pixel positioning of the sprites, PackedMSBs or not Edited September 8, 2009 by andym00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oky2000 Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Hm.... Ugly C64 games? What about this one? Not just poor grapics, even slow as hell.... Same game could run on the A8 in 16 colours and 4 times faster... That would be a bit of a miracle seeing as the ST version just about runs 5x faster on complex parts of the map Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oky2000 Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 I am begining to think that we should rename this forum (not the thread) the commodore 64/commodore 8bit forum (or even the atari/commodore 8bit forum), since it seems to be dominated by commodore 64 users Perhpas we should have a pettition for the name change and send it to albert well I came here *because I like Atari* so went to an Atari forum. If I wanted to ask questions about the 64 I'd go to lemon. Sorry, UK, no win, personally I think UK programmers suck more. Okay... If Brits suck just eradicate everything British coded or built from around you and see what you're left with. That includes all the embedded ARM CPUs and think of Archer McLean, Bitmap Brothers, Sensible Software, David Braben, Jeff Minter, Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, ........ not to mention the whole nextgen studios doing PS3 & 360... I dunno about Braben and Minter,as far as I'm concerned they both only wrote 1 or 2 truly great games and both were on 8bit hardware. Their work on 16/32/64 bit machines has been average and amateurish at best for me. Now if you take someone like Tony Crowther, now there is a guy who has written something decent on 8bit, 16bit (Captive) 32bit (N20 for PSX) and 64bit (lots of games credited with his contribution on xbox360) There are plenty of crap games from the USA however some of the coinop conversions by the Japanese s/w houses are awesome considering the hardware, especially the x68000 SEGA conversions which were very meticulously done. As for 8bit...the MSX was a bit rubbish so hard to tell how good/bad they were in the 8bit days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) I dunno about Braben and Minter,as far as I'm concerned they both only wrote 1 or 2 truly great games and both were on 8bit hardware. Their work on 16/32/64 bit machines has been average and amateurish at best for me. Now if you take someone like Tony Crowther, now there is a guy who has written something decent on 8bit, 16bit (Captive) 32bit (N20 for PSX) and 64bit (lots of games credited with his contribution on xbox360) There are plenty of crap games from the USA however some of the coinop conversions by the Japanese s/w houses are awesome considering the hardware, especially the x68000 SEGA conversions which were very meticulously done. As for 8bit...the MSX was a bit rubbish so hard to tell how good/bad they were in the 8bit days. Braben & Bell still get a vote simply because they were pretty much the first to say I wonder what happens when we put all this 3D maths stuff onto a 2Mhz 6502 GridRunner, Hellgate, LazerZone are all top stuff, but I couldn't abide the AMC, RMC, Iridis Alpha and what came after.. The graphical style of the games just weren't my cup of tea, too amateurish.. But Crowther is indeed a one-man games industry The MSX stuff I have very high regard for.. In some of those games they just clearly disregarded the hardwares limitations and just gone for it.. Funnily enough, I've just taken delivery of Gofer no Yabou: Episode II on MSX and it's a great example of how they manage to write some great stuff with properly shitty hardware.. I know it's not politically correct but I envision an office of bandana wearing crazy z80 Japanese programmers writing that thing and wringing every ounce of goodness out of the machine.. I know I'm wrong, but it feels like it to me.. I mean the MSX sprite system is pretty much sub-par to what the A8 can do, yet they still wring so much of the machine it's bloody admirable.. Hell, so it can't smooth scroll, it's only here and there that it actually affects things too much.. I really think that the A8 games should take a leaf from that book and just go for it like GnY:eII (and many Japanese originated MSX titles) do.. Anyway fanboy mode off now.. Edited September 8, 2009 by andym00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazarus Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 I dunno about Braben and Minter,as far as I'm concerned they both only wrote 1 or 2 truly great games and both were on 8bit hardware. Their work on 16/32/64 bit machines has been average and amateurish at best for me. Braben also did some nice 16 bit games, Frontier and Virus for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockford Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Hm.... Ugly C64 games? What about this one? Not just poor grapics, even slow as hell.... Same game could run on the A8 in 16 colours and 4 times faster... Well, that "ugly" game had an average mark of 96% in all reviews in magazines of that time... It was made for almost all 8 and 16bit computers of its time... Except A8 ........................ shame.... Enough said. Besides, "woulda, shoulda, coulda" always gets you nowhere. You see, if people had wings they would be able to fly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oky2000 Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 I dunno about Braben and Minter,as far as I'm concerned they both only wrote 1 or 2 truly great games and both were on 8bit hardware. Their work on 16/32/64 bit machines has been average and amateurish at best for me. Braben also did some nice 16 bit games, Frontier and Virus for example. He wrote Zarch AKA Lander, which was actually pretty nice yes I agree if a little simple. Certainly more playable than V2000 anyway, just shame it was only on the Archimedes so hard to tell how efficient the code is compared to the ST/Amiga port called Virus by Firebird, which was done by someone else I think. All people want from Braben is a real sequel to Elite which he has been dangling as a carrot to get you to buy his PC rubbish for the last decade nearly since Frontier (which is horrible). I am tempted to think the more talented of the two who are not on speaking terms is Ian Bell who is also less of a c*nt about copyright...look at the diabolical situation with Elite...which Braben doesn't want you to have for your emulators and Ian Bell goes out of his way to collect every emulator friendly image of Elite you can imagine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oky2000 Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Hm.... Ugly C64 games? What about this one? Not just poor grapics, even slow as hell.... Same game could run on the A8 in 16 colours and 4 times faster... Well, that "ugly" game had an average mark of 96% in all reviews in magazines of that time... It was made for almost all 8 and 16bit computers of its time... Except A8 ........................ shame.... Enough said. Besides, "woulda, shoulda, coulda" always gets you nowhere. You see, if people had wings they would be able to fly. I don't like ANY of the 8bit Freescape games myself personally, A8 community didn't miss much. I'd rather play something faster like Mercenary. Anyway going back to C64 and A8 comparable games here is two Skramble from Anirog on C64 Caverns of Mars 2 on A8 A simple game yes, but there are differences. The graphics are a little better on the C64 but the scrolling is much smoother on the A8 game, in fact I'm not even sure that is a pixel scroll on Skramble, might be a char scroll routine. There is also hardly any SFX or background hum like the arcade or firing of bombs on the A8 version. Ultimately comparing them is pointless because both machines could easily have the bits they are missing added to create a perfect copy of the arcade coinop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockford Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 USA way ahead of the Europeans even after 1985. Sorry, UK, no win, personally I think UK programmers suck more. Funny, at the same time you constantly show us Amaurote as a proof of ATARI power. Let's see who made this game and when..... : TA-DA.... Brits in 1987 You are too funny :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) I mean the MSX sprite system is pretty much sub-par to what the A8 can do, yet they still wring so much of the machine it's bloody admirable.. Hell, so it can't smooth scroll, it's only here and there that it actually affects things too much.. I really think that the A8 games should take a leaf from that book and just go for it like GnY:eII (and many Japanese originated MSX titles) do.. Anyway fanboy mode off now.. The main problem with the Atari 8-bit line is that there never was some real following or support in the UK to spawn creativity. You had some "weirdos" like Archer Maclean or Paul Woakes and that's about it. With no "emulation" or a true market with some competition, no wonder we ended up with lots of crap... -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com Edited September 8, 2009 by www.atarimania.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 The multiplexor that occurs at high frequency (sub-frame speed) doesn't move player data. Maybe it's just me being slow this morning, but I don't quite get what you're saying there.. It's the 'high frequency (sub-frame speed)' bit that's confusing.. What exactly do you mean ? C64 would have been more optimal with sprites if they put the LSB of the positioning in a separate byte rather than the MSB. Not true at all, then every man and his dog would have been lazy and just used 2 pixel positioning, which looks pants.. Just look at some Ocean games (as I recall them being mostly guilty of this).. As for being more optimal, the cost of handling the LSB in a sprite multiplexor would have been more expensive than having to handle the MSB.. It would require more code to generate the packed LSB than for a packed MSB, or require messy setting of positions (like swapping around D0 & D8) in the game code which eats cycles.. Having a seperate MSB keeps the code logical, simple and faster at every single stage of the process.. If the code was working with a regular 9bit position in 16bits then the code to extract the LSB, and shift the remaining 8bits into position, is more expensive than just comparing the hi-byte and doing a ROL A to generate the MSB.. Of course you can swap that around and hold the LSB in a seperate byte, but then that makes game-logic code handling positions messier than it should be.. Unless you stored the LSB in D7 to enable you to use the Carry sensibly, but then you've limited yourself to 9 bits of positioning in your game logic when often it's important to have more than that.. So.. They did the right thing I think.. The only thing they could have done would be maybe to give each sprite a seperate hi-byte for the position, but that would have been wasteful, and in 99% of cases not bring any speed advantage to it all.. But hey, either way, it's nice that we got proper full resolution pixel positioning of the sprites, PackedMSBs or not hehe... my first sprite demo using Beyond Evil Sprites did the Ocean approach... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sack-c0s Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 aparrently zarch on the archimedes was very sub-optimal, using byte stores to do the polygon filling instead of handling the byte cases then fast filling with long words or using multiple stores and it still goes impressively fast. I have to wonder what frontier might've been like if the Archimedes was more of a commercially viable machine and was written on there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazarus Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) Skramble from Anirog on C64 Caverns of Mars 2 on A8 A simple game yes, but there are differences. The graphics are a little better on the C64 but the scrolling is much smoother on the A8 game, in fact I'm not even sure that is a pixel scroll on Skramble, might be a char scroll routine. There is also hardly any SFX or background hum like the arcade or firing of bombs on the A8 version. Skramble on C64 didn't use the C64 smooth scroll register at all. But some people did an updated version where smooth scrolling was added: Skramble with smooth scrolling There's also a 2010 version of Scramble in the making: Scramble 2010 preview Edited September 8, 2009 by Lazarus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Skramble from Anirog on C64 Caverns of Mars 2 on A8 A simple game yes, but there are differences. The graphics are a little better on the C64 but the scrolling is much smoother on the A8 game, in fact I'm not even sure that is a pixel scroll on Skramble, might be a char scroll routine. There is also hardly any SFX or background hum like the arcade or firing of bombs on the A8 version. Skramble on C64 didn't use the C64 smooth scroll register at all. But some people did an updated version where smooth scrolling was added: Skramble with smooth scrolling There's also a 2010 version of Scramble in the making: Scramble 2010 preview eeeeeehhh.... what are these big rasterbars in the borders? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 and do we not have Super Cobra? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) and do we not have Super Cobra? It offers some redemption I guess Edited September 8, 2009 by andym00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frenchman Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) USA way ahead of the Europeans even after 1985. Sorry, UK, no win, personally I think UK programmers suck more. Funny, at the same time you constantly show us Amaurote as a proof of ATARI power. Let's see who made this game and when..... : TA-DA.... Brits in 1987 You are too funny :D Wow, Amaurote was made in 87 and it looks like crap on C64: Those UK programmers REALLY suck, even on C64 in 1987. Those smilies choking you again, I reckon. Why do your supposedly clever answers always backfire, I wonder? BTW, aren't you dead yet? Edited September 8, 2009 by frenchman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frenchman Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) and do we not have Super Cobra? And The Tail of Beta Lyrae, best shooting scroller with best music and Fort Apocalypse and Zeppelin Come on guys, I don't have to tell you every A8 scroller shooter, or what? Edited September 8, 2009 by frenchman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Just tried that Scramble demo, looks promising. Questionable use of colour, although it's obviously in early dev. Rasterbars are obviously just there as CPU meters, top one seems to be ship/shooting stuff, brown seems to be music and I'd guess the bottom one is probably the scrolling. Nice use of sprites in the border for the displays, frees up plenty of space for the action proper. Let's not forget Sea Dragon, IMO it craps all over the rather sad Scramble and Super Cobra officials and clones (not that the originals themselves were exactly great to begin with). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockford Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) USA way ahead of the Europeans even after 1985. Sorry, UK, no win, personally I think UK programmers suck more. Funny, at the same time you constantly show us Amaurote as a proof of ATARI power. Let's see who made this game and when..... : TA-DA.... Brits in 1987 You are too funny :D Wow, Amaurote was made in 87 and it looks like crap on C64: Those UK programmers REALLY suck, even on C64 in 1987. Those smilies choking you again, I reckon. Why do your supposedly clever answers always backfire, I wonder? BTW, aren't you dead yet? WOW, what a striking logic. If this game and UK programmers sucked EVEN on C64 in 1987 (your own words) it means that they sucked on ATARI too. Could it really be, that the last resort of all Atarians, this beautiful, "real iso 3d" pearl (also made by those "incapable Brits" in 1987), turned out to be a crappy game .... horror.... Stop it mate, please, or I'll die laughing Could it really be a crappy game...according to frenchman, absolutely YES Edited September 8, 2009 by Rockford Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockford Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 (edited) 9 - FEUD C-64 C-64 C-64 The C64 version has more colours, better sound/music, graphics, sprites and works 3 times faster. The Atari version is so horribly slow (even though it has smaller play field) that I almost fell asleep playing it. C64 destroys Atari again. ATARI ATARI ATARI Edited September 8, 2009 by Rockford 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 You know... such ones as you effectively refrain me from buying, using or even doing anything for Commy comps. Well, you scene may be "proud" of ya and such. ----- In the same breath i would thank all the other Commodore users who try to do or have done something for Atari already. IMO Atari computers don't bite, do they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockford Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 You know... such ones as you effectively refrain me from buying, using or even doing anything for Commy comps. Well, you scene may be "proud" of ya and such. ----- In the same breath i would thank all the other Commodore users who try to do or have done something for Atari already. IMO Atari computers don't bite, do they? What a shocking statement :!: You left me completely speechless Be sure that I will inform all commodore users (those good as well as those bad) that you are going to do absolutely nothing on C64. The whole C64 scene will be crying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 fine then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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