Atari v Commodore

[atarian63]

It's easy - ST and Amiga came along.

If that was true it would have killed the C64 too.

it pretty much did.

[Jetboot Jack]

It's easy - ST and Amiga came along.

If that was true it would have killed the C64 too.

it pretty much did.

 

I dispute that on a global view - the ST and Amiga WERE huge but not until the late 80's in Europe, and in the USA, pretty much never - it was C64 to PC as the hardware sales prove...

 

The C64 shone in the UK from 1984 to 1989, too late for me to be interested in it as a user, but it was the affordable system - even into the early 90's retailers were moving LOTS of games for it...

 

sTeVE

[Bryan]

Steve is right. The US scene was ahead of the global scene. 8-bit computers started disappearing from the shelves (or at least were no longer prominently on display) when the 16-bits arrived. But at the same time all kinds of import 8-bit magazines started popping up (which was really the only indicator of the foreign market before theinternet). In the US, people really worried about things like obsolescence but I think the 16-bit wave really drove down prices which helped less technological countries.

 

If there had been no foreign market, 8-bit development would have completely stopped by the late 80's.

[TMR]

Factors that led to the demise?

 

Before i start, thanks for this because yes that clarifies a few things and has gone a long way to explaining the shortfall i was having trouble getting my head around. Of course, some of it still surprises me a little and it's not going to stop me questioning bits of it... =-)

 

5. No real incentive to produce for the Atari 8-bit anymore or invest into anything else than tired re-releases, budget or easily portable software in the States. Also, arcade games more or less went out of fade past the mid-eighties in the US (even most titles of this genre were mostly more mature, simulation-based programs on the C64 in the country). A lot of the good stuff was from the "big ones" anyway so what do you do if they aren't around anymore?

 

That's the point where i'd expect at least some Atarians to pick up an assembler and at least try to fill some of the gap, certainly that's what we saw with the C64 around the early 1990's when the full price games companies left it behind. The incentive is a fairly simple one, if people do that there are more new games to play.

 

10. These houses accompanied the computers to success in the UK. This also led to true "emulation", a real scene and a stable, rising market. Creation at its peak because of money and recognition for both Commodore 64 and Spectrum users. Recognition: creating something that will blow up the competition is a TRUE reward and will set new standards, with a force driving you, something the Atari never had in the UK.

 

Now this is the bit that truly puzzles me y'see. Yes, i understand the drive to produce something good and how cool getting the "how'd he do that?!" reaction because it's a variation on that which makes me try to put at least something i've never done previously into each C64 game (my latest one is the first i've written where enemies can aim shots at the player, for example) and is currently stopping me from knocking out a shoot 'em up with a sprite engine akin to Humanoid or Mirax Force for the A8 (i know it'd be fun to do and probably playable, but it feels a bit like cheating).

 

But i don't personally see that as tied to the commercial side of game development generally and, considering the extremely enthusiastic community (is there any way to say this without it sounding like i'm shouting "fanboy" because i'm not, honest!) the A8 has around it now, the question that keeps cropping up in my mind is what were they doing then? i know some people did a game or two and JBJ had some very ambitious plans, but after that... it's almost like there was a general apathy amongst A8 users of the time, but surely that can't be the case?

[Bryan]

it's almost like there was a general apathy amongst A8 users of the time, but surely that can't be the case?

I think the relatively low cost of the 520ST did a lot to kill off the XL/XE market, or prevent it from taking hold in any new markets. Another factor was that there were several low-cost 8-bit machines available in Europe and the UK that we never saw in the US. And then there was the very affordable 64...

[emkay]

Steve is right. The US scene was ahead of the global scene. 8-bit computers started disappearing from the shelves (or at least were no longer prominently on display) when the 16-bits arrived. But at the same time all kinds of import 8-bit magazines started popping up (which was really the only indicator of the foreign market before theinternet). In the US, people really worried about things like obsolescence but I think the 16-bit wave really drove down prices which helped less technological countries.

 

If there had been no foreign market, 8-bit development would have completely stopped by the late 80's.

 

 

Lucky C64. Commodore did all well from the start. Taking care of peoples interest. Low prize , good sound and graphics did well in the "wanted" way. So people started spreading good words over the C64 and added a good bunch of pirated copies. This sold the C64 for a long time, even after Commodore started to do nonsense at the market. As a cheap computer it really outlived until the PC got a reliable computer for home usage (gaming and home office)....

But, well, as I stated several times before: C64's CPU was too slow to keep the games running that equaled average customer's needs (reliable 3D playability), even with low prizing, people jumped finally over to computers with faster CPUs...

[TMR]

It's easy - ST and Amiga came along.

If that was true it would have killed the C64 too.

it pretty much did.

 

Actually they didn't, not really. The C64 was officially discontinued the same year as the original ST if memory serves and it's eventual disappearance was basically caused by Commodore going to the wall - the last C64 bundle was the Terminator 2 pack but there was stock of that around for at least a couple of years.

 

I dispute that on a global view - the ST and Amiga WERE huge but not until the late 80's in Europe, and in the USA, pretty much never - it was C64 to PC as the hardware sales prove...

 

The C64 shone in the UK from 1984 to 1989, too late for me to be interested in it as a user, but it was the affordable system - even into the early 90's retailers were moving LOTS of games for it...

 

The last mass-produced full price game for the UK on the C64 was Lemmings from Psygnosis, released in 1994 - but looking at Gamebase64 shows that there were other European publishers still producing games that year such as CP Verlag or Magna Media for example and the first outings for a couple of smaller, one-person publishing efforts such as Visualize, Electric Boys, Cherry Software and the recently resurrected Psytronik. i suspect that's why i'm seeing something as "missing" from the mid 1980's for the A8, those enthusiastic users stepping up and taking over where the software houses left off.

[Bryan]

Lucky C64. Commodore did all well from the start. Taking care of peoples interest. Low prize , good sound and graphics did well in the "wanted" way. So people started spreading good words over the C64 and added a good bunch of pirated copies. This sold the C64 for a long time, even after Commodore started to do nonsense at the market. As a cheap computer it really outlived until the PC got a reliable computer for home usage (gaming and home office)....

But, well, as I stated several times before: C64's CPU was too slow to keep the games running that equaled average customer's needs (reliable 3D playability), even with low prizing, people jumped finally over to computers with faster CPUs...

I remember that by 1987-88, PC Compatibility became the only thing you heard people talk about in the US. If you owned some 3rd party niche computer instead of a clone, you owned a toy. I owned Ataris all the way up to the Falcon but by that time I felt like the only guy in the world without a PC and a million pirated VGA games. It was amazing how cheap you could build a 486 for by the time I jumped ship.

 

I also remember that by that time the thrift stores were filled with A8 and 64 systems for a few dollars each (and TI, and CoCo, occasionally an Apple II, etc...). They were old, but not yet retro. If you were still using an 8-bit in the US, you were pretty much a sad and lonely basement-dweller.

[oky2000]

Lucky C64. Commodore did all well from the start. Taking care of peoples interest. Low prize , good sound and graphics did well in the "wanted" way. So people started spreading good words over the C64 and added a good bunch of pirated copies. This sold the C64 for a long time, even after Commodore started to do nonsense at the market. As a cheap computer it really outlived until the PC got a reliable computer for home usage (gaming and home office)....

But, well, as I stated several times before: C64's CPU was too slow to keep the games running that equaled average customer's needs (reliable 3D playability), even with low prizing, people jumped finally over to computers with faster CPUs...

I remember that by 1987-88, PC Compatibility became the only thing you heard people talk about in the US. If you owned some 3rd party niche computer instead of a clone, you owned a toy. I owned Ataris all the way up to the Falcon but by that time I felt like the only guy in the world without a PC and a million pirated VGA games. It was amazing how cheap you could build a 486 for by the time I jumped ship.

 

I also remember that by that time the thrift stores were filled with A8 and 64 systems for a few dollars each (and TI, and CoCo, occasionally an Apple II, etc...). They were old, but not yet retro. If you were still using an 8-bit in the US, you were pretty much a sad and lonely basement-dweller.

 

From a European perspective to add to that, during the 80s only an office manager or nerd would buy a DOS machine, in fact it wasn't until the early 90s that it was sold as some sort of alternative for home users as an Amiga or Mac.

 

The PC took off for 4 reasons.

 

1. Piracy...was worse than on the Amiga.

2. Internet access (although it was far from easy to set up)

3. MP3 compression to go with 2 above. and MPEG1 video compression to a lesser extent.

4. FPS games like Wolfenstein/Doom

 

Cheap CD-ROM drives for home computers as standard were the final nail in the coffin (Apple were too expensive/Commodore never bothered to make one when it mattered trying to make the A1200 CD drive CD32 compatible with the AKIKO planar/chunky graphics conversion chip from CD32 and the CD32 was too stripped out to become a computer)

 

Maybe in the USA dirty marketing portraying MORE CAPABLE machines in the 80s as toys (and dumb people swallowing it up) but in the UK we had overpriced Apple (which wasn't that easy to use either..Mac OS is crap IMO) or Windows/DOS kludge. There were no other choices by the early/mid 90s so the Wintel groups won by default because there was no effective competition. The early 90s as Commodore fell is the time when Apple should have stopped messing about and cut their ridiculous overpriced machines to a decent price.

 

PCs were still expensive mind, I think it was late 1992 when I got my first clone 486SX 25mhz PC with 4mb RAM ISA XGA graphics card (nothing special) and 80mb or something hard drive and it was one of the cheapest around. Cost? £1000+ for that lot with a bog standard 1024x768 monitor which you couldn't do anything else with (ie like watch videos or play consoles like on a good old Atari ST/Amiga monitor)....there wasn't even sound on the stupid thing....that cost an extra £100+ or something.

 

Funny thing is now we have come full circle...you don't need a Windows machine for 95% of what people do on computers at home (surf the web/play music/watch videos/talk to people realtime/emails) and for the few 5% who need to use office products at home open Office is just as good on Linux as Microsoft Office for home use.....but it is too late.....walk into a shop and you have two choices...Windows or Mac...what a tragedy!

 

How could any home user in the 80s prefer Windows V1/2/3 over a multitasking elegant solution like Workbench or a machine with garish EGA graphics compared to those lovely Amiga graphics hmmmmmm

 

And if the boss tells you to take work home with you just tell him you don't waste your money on Windows PCs or Macs and they need to find you a laptop to take work home

[ANTIQ]

You're wrong in those files about the overlap, we're not talking about titles existing on both machines but the years in which the company produced games simultaneously for them; you said, essentially that your fictional company stopped producing A8 games and started producing Amiga ones, i said that wasn't something a sane businessman would do and your two lists show an entire year for Activision and two years for EA which back me up.

 

Well, in detail:

 

In 1984 Activision USA produced 12 games for the A8 only.

In 1985 Activision USA produced 4 games for the A8 and 2 conversions to the Amiga.

In 1986 Activision USA produced 0 games for the A8 and 5 games for the Amiga only.

 

In 1983 EA produced 10 games for the A8 only.

In 1984 EA produced 3 games for the A8 only.

In 1985 EA produced 2 games for the A8 only and 3 conversions to the Amiga.

In 1986 EA produced 2 games for the A8 only and 6 games for the Amiga only (like Marble Madness!)

 

Relax!

[ANTIQ]

Have a game of Winter Wally!

[oky2000]

Steve is right. The US scene was ahead of the global scene. 8-bit computers started disappearing from the shelves (or at least were no longer prominently on display) when the 16-bits arrived. But at the same time all kinds of import 8-bit magazines started popping up (which was really the only indicator of the foreign market before theinternet). In the US, people really worried about things like obsolescence but I think the 16-bit wave really drove down prices which helped less technological countries.

 

If there had been no foreign market, 8-bit development would have completely stopped by the late 80's.

 

 

Lucky C64. Commodore did all well from the start. Taking care of peoples interest. Low prize , good sound and graphics did well in the "wanted" way. So people started spreading good words over the C64 and added a good bunch of pirated copies. This sold the C64 for a long time, even after Commodore started to do nonsense at the market. As a cheap computer it really outlived until the PC got a reliable computer for home usage (gaming and home office)....

But, well, as I stated several times before: C64's CPU was too slow to keep the games running that equaled average customer's needs (reliable 3D playability), even with low prizing, people jumped finally over to computers with faster CPUs...

 

Changes in game style/design have always influenced the market. First we wanted better resolution/more colours than the early ZX80/VIC20/VCS type machines and so a new breed of machines started selling. Then we wanted solid filled 3D graphics which only the ST/PC/Amiga could deliver (and this is when many ST/Amiga/PC multiformat magazines in the UK sprung up) so those machines sold well. Then we all wanted textured 3D type games like Doom and only the PC's architecture was suited to that (a very fast CPU doing everything alone = make it do these things for the games like textured pseudo 3D of Doom) and then finally we wanted proper 3D and the era of the super consoles like the Playstation/Saturn/N64 arrived with games like Wipeout having a massive impact on what home gamers wanted.

 

With each of these shifts in game design a new breed of machine took off. The PC as a games machine is almost dead, the Mac never was a games machine this decade forget that so we are now with PC for general use and PS3/360/Wii for gaming for most households. And now we are heading towards the unknown as things really can't change that much short of a direct connection to the human brain for true virtual reality type games you 'experience' the same way as real life. That might never happen so in a way that's your lot (which is why now retro is a big thing no doubt...more colours/resolution than the PS3/360 or some wonky controller ripping off the Wii-mote isn't going to get people like us who have seen it all that excited...which is why sales are a problem for PS3/360 worldwide and Wii is mostly being bought by new console buyers trying it or women who never thought about it in the first place (Nintendo fanboys excluded!)

 

Piracy always helps...remember all those 'chipped' Playstation 1 machines....remember how hard it was to get a Saturn chipped....look which machine won

 

And even better....you can buy a computer, fill it with almost every game for every major machine ever sold + emulator and that's that....more hours of gameplay than the lifespan of a human being allows to complete ha!

[TMR]

You're wrong in those files about the overlap, we're not talking about titles existing on both machines but the years in which the company produced games simultaneously for them; you said, essentially that your fictional company stopped producing A8 games and started producing Amiga ones, i said that wasn't something a sane businessman would do and your two lists show an entire year for Activision and two years for EA which back me up.

 

Well, in detail:

 

In 1984 Activision USA produced 12 games for the A8 only.

In 1985 Activision USA produced 4 games for the A8 and 2 conversions to the Amiga.

In 1986 Activision USA produced 0 games for the A8 and 5 games for the Amiga only.

 

In 1983 EA produced 10 games for the A8 only.

In 1984 EA produced 3 games for the A8 only.

In 1985 EA produced 2 games for the A8 only and 3 conversions to the Amiga.

In 1986 EA produced 2 games for the A8 only and 6 games for the Amiga only (like Marble Madness!)

 

Exactly, there's a simultaneous winding down of one and spinning up of another; i'll say it again, no sane businessman would stop producing games for one platform in favour of another in the way you've previously implied and these figures demonstrate that.

 

Relax!

 

Who said i wasn't relaxed? i'm not the one who has done all this research on AtariMania am i? =-)

 

Have a game of Winter Wally!

 

Most of this week i've been playing Zybex and Humanoid (and quite a bit of Geometry Wars: Galaxies on the Wii)... but i have to concentrate on other platforms for at least the next four days.

Edited September 21, 2009 by TMR

[TMR]

But, well, as I stated several times before: C64's CPU was too slow to keep the games running that equaled average customer's needs (reliable 3D playability), even with low prizing, people jumped finally over to computers with faster CPUs...

 

The only flaw in that logic is that the C64 kept selling as a games machine well after it was considered workable for more serious applications by the average punter and it's a bit hard to sell something for games if there's no demand for the kind of games it does best. It wasn't that the machine couldn't handle 3D either (ported titles like Elite, Mercenary or Rescue On Fractalus were playable if perhaps a little slow (and you're only aware of that speed difference if you play them on both anyway) and later examples like Stunt Car Racer and The Sentinel managed rather well all things considered), just that the average customer around 1993 or thereabouts when the C64 was on a Zimmer frame commercially wasn't massively into 3D games; the same is reflected by the Amiga, ST and console markets.

 

The serious push for 3D probably got under way properly with Doom on the PC and the Playstation and at that point, even Sega were caught off guard by a sudden change in demand; they'd designed the Saturn as a primarily 2D workhorse and had to graft in the 3D at the eleventh hour.

[frenchman]

Space Rogue (Origin 1989) one of the best games on C64, and running quite fast too. Miles better than Elite (Which actually sucks on C64) too:

Edited September 21, 2009 by frenchman

[atarian63]

But, well, as I stated several times before: C64's CPU was too slow to keep the games running that equaled average customer's needs (reliable 3D playability), even with low prizing, people jumped finally over to computers with faster CPUs...

 

The only flaw in that logic is that the C64 kept selling as a games machine well after it was considered workable for more serious applications by the average punter and it's a bit hard to sell something for games if there's no demand for the kind of games it does best. It wasn't that the machine couldn't handle 3D either (ported titles like Elite, Mercenary or Rescue On Fractalus were playable if perhaps a little slow (and you're only aware of that speed difference if you play them on both anyway) and later examples like Stunt Car Racer and The Sentinel managed rather well all things considered), just that the average customer around 1993 or thereabouts when the C64 was on a Zimmer frame commercially wasn't massively into 3D games; the same is reflected by the Amiga, ST and console markets.

 

The serious push for 3D probably got under way properly with Doom on the PC and the Playstation and at that point, even Sega were caught off guard by a sudden change in demand; they'd designed the Saturn as a primarily 2D workhorse and had to graft in the 3D at the eleventh hour.

uhhh here in the u.s. it was dying by 87 and mostly dead by early 88. Nobody saw it as a games machine. That was not it's reputation here.

Edited September 21, 2009 by atarian63

[atarian63]

It's easy - ST and Amiga came along.

If that was true it would have killed the C64 too.

it pretty much did.

 

I dispute that on a global view - the ST and Amiga WERE huge but not until the late 80's in Europe, and in the USA, pretty much never - it was C64 to PC as the hardware sales prove...

 

The C64 shone in the UK from 1984 to 1989, too late for me to be interested in it as a user, but it was the affordable system - even into the early 90's retailers were moving LOTS of games for it...

 

sTeVE

I have to dispute your dispute, I was a US dealer for Both Amiga and ST. After they came out we dropped C64 and many places did as well, must be different or behind in the UK. Cheap turbo Xt's in late 87 early 88 killed of what remained of that market for the 64.

[atarian63]

It's easy - ST and Amiga came along.

If that was true it would have killed the C64 too.

it pretty much did.

 

I dispute that on a global view - the ST and Amiga WERE huge but not until the late 80's in Europe, and in the USA, pretty much never - it was C64 to PC as the hardware sales prove...

 

The C64 shone in the UK from 1984 to 1989, too late for me to be interested in it as a user, but it was the affordable system - even into the early 90's retailers were moving LOTS of games for it...

 

sTeVE

Also ST was huge 85 to 89, amiga not till 89 at least here with the arival of the cheaper A500. That was a games machine or mostly why people bought the A500. Few even bought monitors for them.

[atarian63]

It's easy - ST and Amiga came along.

If that was true it would have killed the C64 too.

it pretty much did.

 

Actually they didn't, not really. The C64 was officially discontinued the same year as the original ST if memory serves and it's eventual disappearance was basically caused by Commodore going to the wall - the last C64 bundle was the Terminator 2 pack but there was stock of that around for at least a couple of years.

 

I dispute that on a global view - the ST and Amiga WERE huge but not until the late 80's in Europe, and in the USA, pretty much never - it was C64 to PC as the hardware sales prove...

 

The C64 shone in the UK from 1984 to 1989, too late for me to be interested in it as a user, but it was the affordable system - even into the early 90's retailers were moving LOTS of games for it...

 

The last mass-produced full price game for the UK on the C64 was Lemmings from Psygnosis, released in 1994 - but looking at Gamebase64 shows that there were other European publishers still producing games that year such as CP Verlag or Magna Media for example and the first outings for a couple of smaller, one-person publishing efforts such as Visualize, Electric Boys, Cherry Software and the recently resurrected Psytronik. i suspect that's why i'm seeing something as "missing" from the mid 1980's for the A8, those enthusiastic users stepping up and taking over where the software houses left off.

must be a uk thing they were dead or pretty much so by 88 here.

[atarian63]

Lucky C64. Commodore did all well from the start. Taking care of peoples interest. Low prize , good sound and graphics did well in the "wanted" way. So people started spreading good words over the C64 and added a good bunch of pirated copies. This sold the C64 for a long time, even after Commodore started to do nonsense at the market. As a cheap computer it really outlived until the PC got a reliable computer for home usage (gaming and home office)....

But, well, as I stated several times before: C64's CPU was too slow to keep the games running that equaled average customer's needs (reliable 3D playability), even with low prizing, people jumped finally over to computers with faster CPUs...

I remember that by 1987-88, PC Compatibility became the only thing you heard people talk about in the US. If you owned some 3rd party niche computer instead of a clone, you owned a toy. I owned Ataris all the way up to the Falcon but by that time I felt like the only guy in the world without a PC and a million pirated VGA games. It was amazing how cheap you could build a 486 for by the time I jumped ship.

 

I also remember that by that time the thrift stores were filled with A8 and 64 systems for a few dollars each (and TI, and CoCo, occasionally an Apple II, etc...). They were old, but not yet retro. If you were still using an 8-bit in the US, you were pretty much a sad and lonely basement-dweller.

Thats about how I remebe it as well. yep 8bit has so has been. I loved it too but had long moved on.

Edited September 21, 2009 by atarian63

[Jetboot Jack]

The PC took off for 4 reasons.

 

1. Piracy...was worse than on the Amiga.

2. Internet access (although it was far from easy to set up)

3. MP3 compression to go with 2 above. and MPEG1 video compression to a lesser extent.

4. FPS games like Wolfenstein/Doom

 

Another generalization I am afraid...

 

The internet was not around in 1988/89 when the PC became the home computer in the US.

MP3 did not appear until 1995 (publicly)

 

Piracy was rampant and did as with the C64 make for an attractive freeware scene.

 

FPS's were important - but wolfenstein did not appear until 1992...

 

The rise of the PC was linked to the simple ubiquity of the platform - many manufacturers and the same machine at home and work for many many people...

 

sTeVE

[atariksi]

 

Hello, the context is "The Pawn" screen shots-- he showed 160*200*4 and C64 using color RAM-based image so I said at least they should use 160*200*5 so at least those extra 40+ cycles being used get utilized (if not DLIs to improve it even better). It doesn't matter whether it's screen RAM or color RAM, there are 40+ extra cycles being used.

 

Ahhh I see what you mean now,underutilisation of the A8 given 40 cycles are already lost in the mode chosen.

 

I don't see why they chose character-based graphics mode on C64 and not on A8 which would have given them at least one extra color and deal with the similar tiled based graphics.

[atariksi]

You misunderstood-- the rules were set for comparing the hardwares. He's posting things that are OPPOSITE of original poster's request nor playing the rules of comparing hardwares. I don't buy your claim it's slight variation. Every forum has a purpose and every topic has a purpose and if you think anyone can post anything he likes or thinks, well you are wrong. I don't buy this vagueness and "anything goes". He fits in better with some fanboy forum "I hate Atari" type of topic and then he can purposely looks for games that fit that need and give his biased subjective analysis. Knowing how the hardware behind the games works is more relevant to the topic not posting things that are opposite of what the original poster wanted.

If you look at it that way, 90% of posts in this topic are of topic, and should be deleted by moderators...

...

Sorry, but you lumped everything in the vague catagory of "off topic". There are degrees of going "off topic". To go 180 degrees off topic (do the opposite) is worse then a few degrees off topic which many threads tend to do.

 

If everyone of us would want to stick to the topic it would be pretty uninteresting topic, and would end few years ago...

No, it wouldn't. And this topic isn't even a year old. Only recently it went 180 degrees off topic.

 

Maybe, Rockford should start new topic "What C64 games are better on C64 than its A8 version ?".

 

Perhaps, in his own forum. And then he can draw his absurd unproven conclusions and no one would care.

[atariksi]

...

Technically you see much better games on the C64 than on the A8, but on the AMIGA the enhancement has some "lightyears ahead" touch.

If only people would have sticked with 3D game techniques for the A8 ....

 

I wouldn't generalize that technically you see better games on C64. All he essentially mentioned is having scrolling in 1/2 color clocks which is not essential to having technically better games. And if you have a buffer that's like 512*512 using LMS and color-clock based scrolling, you never have to do any memory copies whereas on C64 you do memory copies essentially every 4 color clocks.

[atariksi]

All the other titles i listed are still an automatic win for the C64, despite games like Zybex or whatever having been argued in this thread and elsewhere, which proves my point about subjectivity; even at a technical level you'll never get a consensus, even from the programmers. As for if the technically more proficient game is the better to play... seriously, good luck with that one. =-)

 

I don't even SEE any hardware comparison list. All you stated was it has higher resolution which doesn't necessarily mean it's better as pointed out before.

 

Oh sorry, i assumed that since most of 'em have been done to death they were pretty much covered at that level as well. Still, if you want me to (assume i'm talking about the C64 version each time):

 

Action Biker

More colours in use, twice the resolution on the horizontal scrolling (which is a major plus on anything that needs this level of precision) and the soundtrack has far more to it.

...

I don't have either version of the games you listed so I was asking for a hardware comparison of a particular game (from both sides). So you have more colors and twice the scrolling resolution-- those are good as long as it doesn't come at the cost of slowing down or degrading other features of the game.

 

Hello, the context is "The Pawn" screen shots

 

Erm... no it wasn't; i was quoting from your post #8527 with "And also remember processor is also a hardware feature so if you use color ram and Atari uses DLIs avg. of every 8 scanlines, you are using similar processing power" which in turn is a reply to one of mine, post #8484, from before The Pawn had even been mentioned.

 

Okay, there were two points being made about the color RAM. In your case, I wasn't equating the color RAM to a DLI but claiming to make fair comparisons, you allow the DLI to run 40+ cycles every 8 or so scanlines so that cycles are equalled out. In some cases DLI would outdo the color RAM.